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Zonta Club of Marquette Area, is one of over 1,200 clubs of Zonta International, a worldwide service organization. Founded in 1919 in Buffalo, New York, Zonta takes its name from the Lakota Sioux Indian word meaning "honest and trustworthy." Zontians volunteer their time, talents and energy to local and international service projects that are designed to advance the status of women.
Zonta gives you the chance to be a part of something much larger than yourself...
Zonta allows you to give of yourself to others, to actively participate in the selection of service projects to help your community, and to improve the legal, political, economic, educational, health and professional status of women worldwide.
Please Join Us.......
Business Meeting: 1st Monday of the month. All members attend.
At this meeting, all business of the club is handled including the monthly secretary's report, treasurer's report, and committee reports.
Program Meeting: 3rd Monday of the month. All members attend.
At program meetings, our club is treated to a speaker and program while enjoying lunch. The Program Committee looks for speakers and issues that directly impact our club's mission of advancing the status of women; we also enjoy programs of a wide variety of issues that impact our community.
Board Meeting: 4th Monday of the month. Officers and Board Members Only.
This meeting is attended only by officers and board members and consists of leadership discussions, decisions, and recommendations to the General Membership. Lunch is not provided at this meeting and attendees bring their own meal.
Celebrating 40 Years of Service to Women
The Zonta Code
To pledge myself to uphold and practice the ideals of Zonta.
To honor my work and consider it an opportunity for service.
To increase the measurement of that service by consistent self-improvement of the legal, political
economic and professional status of women.
To work for the advancement of understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world of
fellowship of executives in business and the professions united in the Zonta ideals of service
To keep ever before me the best of all creeds.
"Whatsoever ye would that men should do undo you, do even so unto them" | <urn:uuid:dc6face4-dabc-481b-a43e-f23691d47f5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zonta15.org/marquette.html | 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 | 0.944118 | 463 | 1.601563 | 2 |
citalopram - oral, Celexa (cont.)
USES: Citalopram is used to treat depression. It may improve your energy level and feelings of well-being. Citalopram is known as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). This medication works by helping to restore the balance of a certain natural substance (serotonin) in the brain.OTHER This section contains uses of this drug that are not listed in the approved professional labeling for the drug but that may be prescribed by your health care professional. Use this drug for a condition that is listed in this section only if it has been so prescribed by your health care professional.This medication may also be used to treat other mental conditions (such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder).
HOW TO USE: Read the Medication Guide and, if available, the Patient Information Leaflet provided by your pharmacist before you start taking citalopram and each time you get a refill. If you have any questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist.Take this medication with or without food as directed by your doctor, usually once daily in the morning or evening. The dosage is based on your medical condition, response to treatment, age, laboratory tests, and other medications you may be taking. Be sure to tell your doctor and pharmacist about all the products you use (including prescription drugs, nonprescription drugs, and herbal products). The maximum dosage for citalopram is 40 milligrams per day.If you are using the liquid form of this medication, carefully measure the dose using a special measuring device/spoon. Do not use a household spoon because you may not get the correct dose.To reduce your risk of side effects, your doctor may direct you to start taking this drug at a low dose and gradually increase your dose. Follow your doctor's instructions carefully. Do not increase your dose or use this drug more often or for longer than prescribed. Your condition will not improve any faster, and your risk of side effects will increase. Take this medication regularly to get the most benefit from it. To help you remember, take it at the same time each day.It is important to continue taking this medication even if you feel well. Do not stop taking this medication without consulting your doctor. Some conditions may become worse when this drug is suddenly stopped. Also, you may experience symptoms such as mood swings, headache, tiredness, sleep changes, and brief feelings similar to electric shock. To prevent these symptoms while you are stopping treatment with this drug, your doctor may reduce your dose gradually. Consult your doctor or pharmacist for more details. Report any new or worsening symptoms immediately.It may take 1 to 4 weeks to feel a benefit from this drug and up to several weeks before you get the full benefit.Tell your doctor if your condition does not improve or if it worsens.
Back to Medications Index
Get the latest health and medical information delivered direct to your inbox FREE! | <urn:uuid:94d73f2e-263d-4525-abfb-31d0b1c15737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medicinenet.com/citalopram-oral/page2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931 | 605 | 1.828125 | 2 |
President Obama speaks about job training at Lorain County Community College… (Michael Francis McElroy…)
ELYRIA, Ohio -- President Obama invoked his working-class roots and the career success he enjoyed later as he pitched his vision of economic fairness in the key electoral battleground of state of Ohio.
Obama, speaking Wednesday at Lorain County Community College in the Cleveland-area town of Elyria, touted his support for investment in job training programs that connect community colleges with unemployed workers, programs he warned the Republicans would "gut" under their budget blueprint.
As his campaign hammers former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney over his lack of financial disclosure and portrays him as out of touch with the worries of lower- and middle-class Americans, Obama himself told the crowd that "I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth."
"But somebody gave us a chance, just like these folks up here are looking for a chance."
"When you take classes at a community college like this one, and you learn the skills that you need to get a job right away way. That does not just benefit you; it benefits the company that ends up hiring and profiting from your skills. It makes the entire region stronger economically. It makes this country stronger economically," he continued.
Obama's trip to Ohio -- the 20th of his presidency, according to CBS News -- was ostensibly official, and not a campaign event. But he again used the congressional Republicans as a proxy to frame the general election case against Romney.
He noted that earlier in the week Senate Republicans blocked his proposed "Buffett rule" to require millionaires to pay at least 30% of their income in taxes. And Republicans would extend Bush-era tax rates at the expense of work-training programs like the ones he promoted, Obama said.
"They want to give me more of a tax break," Obama said, including himself among the wealthiest Americans. "Now, I just paid taxes. It's not like I love paying taxes. But I can afford it. I don't need another tax break."
"What's the better way to make our economy stronger? Give more tax breaks to every millionaire and billionaire in the country, or make investments in education and research and healthcare and job training?" he asked.
After the event, Obama was to travel to Michigan for a pair of campaign fundraisers in the Detroit area.
Hennessey reported from Elyria and Memoli from the Washington bureau.
Original source: Obama: 'I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth' | <urn:uuid:0a640c4c-112d-4757-8680-b82cb2b92934> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/18/news/la-pn-obama-ohio-job-training-20120418 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980603 | 521 | 1.554688 | 2 |
You have to marvel at how left-wing ideologues game the system.
Take the recent example of a Cherry Hill high school student who “challenged” Michele Bachmann, the Minnesota Republican, Tea Party leader and possible presidential candidate, to a “debate” on the Constitution.
Over the past few weeks, several liberal media outlets have taken what may have started out as student idealism, but powered by a leftist agenda, and used it to wage a disingenuous campaign against conservatives.
As luck would have it, the “challenge” by Ann Myers got some Internet publicity. That prompted abusive language by some of those who posted comments, a practice that is (unfortunately) typical for many Internet blogs.
As a result, Myers was able to claim she had been “threatened” by … you guessed it, Neanderthal right-wingers (sorry for the redundancy). The Associated Press picked up the story, and the story went nationwide.
The AP stories, posted on nj.com and elsewhere, carefully said the teenager “claimed” she was threatened. That caution kept the “threats” part of the story intact while absolving the AP from any responsibility to verify how serious any threats might actually have been. The AP story quoted a Cherry Hill police lieutenant saying that hostile comments on Internet blogs are usually just nonsense.
Meanwhile, the South Jersey teenager hit pay dirt, winning her 15 minutes of Andy Warhol fame as liberal opinion outlets grabbed the story and put their spin on it. MSNBC, the left-wing cable news outlet, put her on for an interview on Friday night. “Politicians are supposed to know the standards of history, basic civics, and the Constitution,” Myers gamely informed the rest of us.
Before an audience of … well, I guess some people still watch MSNBC … the 16-year-old, encouraged by host Lawrence O’Donnell, was able to drive home her main points, both shared by the network:
One, conservatives, even big names, are so ignorant about the Constitution and other political matters that they are afraid to debate lowly high school students, when those teenagers have liberalism on their side.
For liberals, the Cherry Hill teenager’s story resembled the popular TV show, “Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?” Not if you’re a conservative, obviously.
And Two, conservatives, as evidenced by comments on blogs, are would-be rapists, freaks, and criminals. How else to explain the disparaging remarks on web sites?
That our hero, an outspoken child, speaking truth to power, has been portrayed as the victim in this dustup didn’t hurt, either. Those bottom-feeding conservatives, beating up on a poor, helpless, teenager!
And then, on Sunday, like a big, fat cherry placed atop a dish of ice cream, our plucky high school student’s story got a spot on the Huffington Post. (But for some reason her first name became “Amy.”) Left-wingers may not believe in heaven, but for most of them, landing at the Huffington Post comes pretty close.
Fifteen minutes of fame (and who knows, fortune?) is pretty heady stuff for a teenager. I’m sure it will also look great on her college applications.
So what common sense can we apply to this tale of the tendentious teenager?
Challenging a possible presidential candidate to a debate on the Constitution is certainly an ambitious reach for publicity on the part of the student. Ambition, when properly expressed, is generally a good thing.
Unfortunately, I suspect most of the student’s views on the Constitution are the result of indoctrination by left-leaning teachers. Rep. Bachmann expresses an “originalist” view of the Constitution, the view that the text should be understood to mean what the Founders intended. That view is not popular among left-wingers, including many high school social studies teachers. Such liberals claim that the Constitution should be a “living document” – i.e. that the Constitution should be interpreted to mean whatever (liberal) judges want it to mean.
We don’t know where Myers is a student. Nor do we know whether Myers thought up the Bachmann gambit by herself. But the teenager’s challenge has the flavor of a common project that many public school teachers often assign to students.
Under the guise of practicing “civic participation,” students are encouraged to write to elected officials, urging them to “go green” or to support some other liberal hobbyhorse. Such projects seem to be a favorite way for “liberal” teachers to indoctrinate their young charges in liberal causes from an early age.
If you don’t suspect that public school teachers practice liberal indoctrination, ask yourself if they ever assign students to write letters to public officials asking them to fight against abortion. “Go green,” a liberal cause, is an approved topic for student advocacy; anti-abortion, a conservative cause, is not.
In whatever way the idea of a debate originated, it is obvious that no possible presidential candidate would take seriously a teenager’s “challenge” to debate. (Indeed, Bachmann, a tax attorney, has declined to debate, according to a South Jersey newspaper.) I know several high school students who would love to debate health care with President Obama, but I don’t expect that he would pick up their offer.
Such a “debate,” with Rep. Bachmann or President Obama, would only turn into a media circus. The Cherry Hill student’s “challenge,” even without an actual debate, has certainly become just that. A “debate” would only serve to diminish the stature of the Congresswoman to that of a teenager, which I suspect is the student’s intention. Even a Bachmann “win” would only embarrass the student before the nation, and seem ungracious.
Finally, there is the matter of the comments posted on web sites following the student’s announcement of her challenge. Yes, some of the comments are pretty nasty. But because they are posted anonymously, we really don’t know who posted those comments. High school rivals jealous of the attention the student is getting? Just plain nasty people? Or are they merely bored Internet readers seeking to get a rise out of their audience?
To try to use those hostile comments as “evidence” of right-wing malevolence against a “courageous” liberal high school student is stretching things. (On a personal note, if you want to read some really nasty comments from readers of a blog, check out any posts I have written against gay marriage, atheism or Darwinian evolution. I suspect blogging requires a thick skin.)
Pretending that this Cherry Hill teenager is somehow a persecuted champion for the American way because she has “stood up” against a conservative politician and her evil minions is simply nonsense. | <urn:uuid:c553940c-e133-46ba-aeae-9f5ce112fb8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.nj.com/njv_george_berkin/2011/05/high_school_student_and_games.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960284 | 1,482 | 1.6875 | 2 |
How am I supposed to watch Game of Thrones now???
Hit the "How to Avoid Strikes" tab and apply it to however you'd go about doing that.
I pull all of my music off pages using my cache folder, so I'm not worried about that yet.
But for movies...that sucks.
From what I have researched, this effects users of P2P the most (like bittorrent). If people download files over services like Dropbox, Mega, Rapidshare, etc. you will not get a strike. This is because anti-p2p organizations can not monitor traffic over http or https YET. Bills like CISPA would make that easier.
Depending on the service provider, the ISP’s range of actions may include:
Before each Alert is sent, a rigorous process ensures the content identified is definitely protected by copyright and that the notice is forwarded to the right Subscriber.
- A temporary reduction in Internet speed;
- A temporary downgrade in Internet service tier or
- Redirection to a landing page for a set period of time, until a subscriber contacts the ISP or until the subscriber completes an online copyright education program.
While it may seem like the system may have the right idea morally, there are a few negative impacts:1.
What happens with people who share internet? Apartments? My buddy shares his internet with his apartment on a non-business tier. Is he subject to these penalties for other people's actions?2.
What about certain businesses that do not need the non-business tiers? There doesn't appear to be any application to grant IP Address exemptions for certain businesses. Small businesses will either suffer or be forced to invest more $ into a higher tier package which is exempt from this copyright system (Business and beyond).3.
Anti-p2p organizations are likely going to issue strikes on file names which may circumstantially contain copywritten material, when the archive (.zip, .rar, etc.) is password protected and could very well contain non-copywritten material.4.
How do anti-p2p organizations know that I'm not simply downloading a digital backup of a cassette that I went out and physically purchased?
The digital age has definitely negatively impacted the media industry, but they need to get with it and figure out alternatives instead of trying to restrict something they won't be able to.
In my opinion, this is a prelude toward
a) getting more people to support CISPA
b) an example as to "why CISPA should pass" -- this program will likely combat 1/10 pirates (be a failure)
Edited by -Wade-, February 25, 2013 - 03:16 PM. | <urn:uuid:6579a68d-ec6b-400b-8cab-339c552afe67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lakernation.com/forums/index.php?/topic/61715-six-strikes-copyright-alert-system-launches/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946772 | 554 | 1.625 | 2 |
Alongside Bridget Riley, Victor Vasarely (*1906 Pécs, HU † 1997 Paris, FR) is one of the leading exponents of the op art movement. Mechter is a small work that uses an overlapping structure to create visual spaces and images in images. Vasarely worked both as an artist and graphic designer. His oeuvre testifies to an enduring fascination with the phenomenon of visual perception, which he frequently toyed with through his serial arrangements and grids. Vasarely was on a quest for a visual language with a meaning beyond the confines of art. Forms emerge from the flat surface to create depth. This trompe l’oeil effect makes the pictures vibrate. These works, rich in contrast of colour and shape, invite immediate contemplation again and again, offering an unconditional visual experience. Vasarely's structures and patterns transcend the boundaries of art and, having found their way into everyday culture, remain highly recognisable to this very day. | <urn:uuid:b9c46496-373c-4681-81d9-2f3abaeedfc7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epo.org/about-us/office/social-responsibility/art/workplace/artists/vasarely.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940521 | 202 | 1.757813 | 2 |
approximately 1 percent of the population self-identifies as asexual – that is, feeling no sexual attraction to others.
According to the website of the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), there are many degrees and definitions of asexuality. Some feel they are “born this way,” while others experience intermittent periods of asexuality for various reasons.
Matthew Broderick, as the computer genius high schooler in WAR GAMES, has a great line regarding the latter. His pompous science teacher asks the class, “Who first suggested reproduction without sex?” Broderick smirks, “Your wife?” Bazinga!
Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure Sheldon (Jim Parsons) on THE BIG BANG THEORY is asexual, though he’ll hafta get naked with Amy Farrah Fowler (Dr. Mayim Bialik) sometime if the show is gonna continue. I really hope both things happen.
AVEN founder David Jay says asexuality is part of the sexual spectrum – a portion that’s been overlooked in our sex-obsessed culture.
I have to agree with Mr. Jay, here, as I am dying to know who Kim Kardashian is having sex with. Sadly, this obsession is cutting into my TV sitcom watching.
Do you know anyone who has decided he or she is asexual?
Photo by: Kopper | <urn:uuid:4856d9d6-2194-447d-8502-2d6c8949e71b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodmenproject.com/good-feed-blog/asexuality-not-penises-on-the-rise/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941873 | 300 | 1.710938 | 2 |
One of the things Android does a lot better than iOS is provide more direct control over power management. As is typical of Apple, you don’t get much visibility into what’s sucking the life out of your iPhone/iPad/iPod’s battery. And what controls you do have are buried deep in iOS’ settings.
For example, if you want to turn off the Bluetooth radio, you’ll have to go three menu levels deep: Settings > General > Bluetooth.
If you want to do the same thing on an Android device, you can put a widget on one of your home screens that gives you instant access a Bluetooth on/off switch. That same widget can also turn on and off location services, Wi-Fi, syncing and control brightness. For example, this is the power widget from a Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone
In addition, Android gives you a lot more information about the apps and features that are draining a battery. You can see a list of active components and which is drawing the most power. You can drill deeper into each for more information.
On iOS, you get very little information. And by “little”, I mean almost none. Go to Settings > General > Usage and scroll to the bottom of that screen.
Clearly, for the data-curious – and those who want to be aggressive about managing power usage – this is an inadequate amount of information. To be fair, it’s been my experience that iPhones generally have better battery longevity than Android devices, even when power-intensive features such as screen size and processor are matched. But still, I think most iOS users would like for power management to be more useful than this.
Fortunately, there are some apps that can provide better visibility into iOS battery usage. I have been playing with one that’s got real promise, and looks great, too. Battery Life Pro, which had cost 99 cents in the past, is now available for free in the iTunes App Store. It’s an iPhone/iPod Touch app but will run on the iPad as well.
Battery Life Pro has a nice, graphical presentation of your battery’s current charge, recharge time and how long it would take for specific actions to drain the battery.
You can change the kind of graph that displays the power if you prefer a different view for your data.
While Battery Life Pro won’t give you direct access to switches for turning off battery-sucking features, it does offer a handy checklist of actions that can help. They include instructions on where to find these switches in Settings.
But my favorite feature shows details about memory usage and running processes in iOS. While you can’t kill these processes, they do give you some much-needed insight into what’s happening on your device.
This app does a pretty good job, given Apple’s tough restrictions on access hardware. Considering that it’s free at the moment, the price is certainly right, and you’ll get a lot more information about your device’s state than Apple will give you.
Now, if only iOS users can get access to radio switches and brightness levels from the home screen. Maybe in iOS 6 . . . but I’m not going to hold my breath. | <urn:uuid:def17750-60a2-4417-a859-351bb0709ec1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/techblog/2012/04/02/what%E2%80%99s-up-with-your-iphone%E2%80%99s-battery-battery-life-pro-will-let-you-know/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934703 | 682 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Robot! Fetch me a beer!
Yes, robots can actually carry out that order. Now, they can even anticipate where to pour your beverage of choice.
Armed with a Kinect 3D camera and a database of 3D videos, PR2 can analyze what it sees by breaking down activities into several steps. Then it anticipates what might happen next with objects it picks out in the scene. It can choose the most likely next step for activities like eating, drinking, cleaning, and putting things away. … Read more | <urn:uuid:0b791688-bbd8-4fed-b946-ade4e5707cb4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8300-11386_3-76-8.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939694 | 108 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Explore Swedish Lapland
Built on a narrow isthmus of land between Russfjärden lake and the extensive Ströms Vattudal network of waterways that stretches to the northwest, STRÖMSUND is a shy and retiring sort of place. It consists of no more than a couple of parallel streets sporting the odd shop or two, and is of interest mainly as a centre for canoeing on the surrounding rivers and lakes. The tourist office can rent out canoes (around 200kr/day) and also provide information – walking routes, details of places to stay and maps – on the road known as the Wilderness Way, which starts here.
Stone age rock paintings
Strömsund’s other claim to fame is its proximity to the impressive Stone Age rock paintings (hällmålningar in Swedish) at Fångsjön, around 10km southeast along Route 345. The paintings, created by hunter-gatherers around 2500BC, were a plea to their gods for plentiful game. | <urn:uuid:ca5a36fd-3971-48d9-a720-dd33ee430c3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roughguides.com/destinations/europe/sweden/swedish-lapland/str%C3%B6msund-routes-north/str%C3%B6msund-around/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949048 | 216 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Lift a Shovel in New Orleans
Kara Steinman's stay in New Orleans was supposed to be short, a blip in her yearlong commitment to AmeriCorps. But it took her less than a month to decide she couldn't leave. Maybe the realization came when she was rebuilding houses with Habitat for Humanity and a group of musician homeowners pulled out their instruments and began to play. "I started bawling," Steinman says. "I was just overwhelmed."
Instead of moving on to Denver with AmeriCorps, she decided to take a permanent job at Habitat. "That happens to a lot of people," she says. "At least half of the crew leaders ... ended up staying indefinitely.... It was the most fulfilling work I'd ever done in my entire life."
She's hardly alone. Major Speights of Texas, a retired pastor, helped for a week and sums up the experience with the same comment. The rewards, he says, came partly from the people he met. In addition to the single mother whose home he was building, Speights met a retired engineer from Seattle, a group of female golf coaches, and a bridal party gathered at the request of the couple-to-be. "It was hot, and we sweated," Speights recalls. "But we still had a great time."
Habitat plans to build 250 homes in New Orleans next year and, spokesman Aleis Tusa says, "We can always use volunteers." All ages and ability levels are welcome, and only a single day's commitment is required.
Days start at 7:15 a.m., include a one-hour lunch break, and end at 2:30 p.m. Volunteers can find their own accommodations or stay at Camp Hope, which provides a bed and three meals for $20 a day.
Music built in. Not all lunch hours include spontaneous musical performances, but evenings often do. "You're so close to musicians, they can tell you firsthand where they're going to be playing that night," Steinman says.
The Musicians' Village project is the brainchild of Harry Connick Jr. and Branford and Ellis Marsalis, who decided to build homes for musicians and others on land that used to be occupied by a school.
Mike Flores, executive vice president of the Baptist Crossroads Foundation, which intends to build 300 homes over the next five years, advises volunteers to plan long term. "If you can't do it this summer, if you can't do it this spring, how about next spring? How about next summer?" he says. "We're going to be in it for the long haul."
This story appears in the December 25, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report. | <urn:uuid:add30a3b-e9f0-4ad8-905a-1b9b4260a605> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://health.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/061217/25neworleans.community_print.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982987 | 569 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|Leaders of EU's member states will be meeting in Brussels to discuss the crisis in Libya in the coming days [EPA]
Libyan envoys are in talks with European Union officials in Brussels, the Belgian capital, while the Libyan deputy defence minister has arrived in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, reports say.
The delegation in Brussels is also expected to meet NATO officials in the coming days.
The European Union's 27 foreign ministers will be meeting in Brussels on Thursday in advance of a crisis summit on Libya.
Separately, defence ministers from the 28-member NATO alliance will also gather in Brussels to weigh options on Libya following calls for a no-fly zone to be enforced over the north African country.
"Certainly Colonel Gaddafi would want to try and stop that if at all possible and that's why we're seeing perhaps these diplomatic efforts," Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from Brussels, said.
"We're hearing suggestions that Libyans may have been invited to Brussels for these talks by the White House. That still yet to be confirmed."
Earlier on Wednesday, at least three private jets belonging to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi took off from a military airstrip outside the capital, Tripoli.
One of the planes carried a delegation of Libyan officials who met senior officials in Malta before continuing to Portugal.
A Libyan envoy met Portugal's foreign minister on Wednesday to explain Tripoli's view of the conflict in the country, the Portuguese foreign ministry said.
Portugal will chair the United Nations Security Council's committee on sanctions for Libya starting this week.
"Foreign Minister Luis Amado had an informal meeting in a Lisbon hotel with a Libyan emissary, on the request of the
latter, in order to receive information on the situation in Libya," a foreign ministry statement said.
The ministry did not name the envoy and did not provide further details of the meeting.
There were reports that Abdelrahman al-Zawi, the Libyan deputy defence minister on his way to Cairo, was carrying a message from Gaddafi and was to meet Amr Moussa, head of the Arab League.
The state-owned Al-Ahram newspaper said al-Zawi was to meet the military council which is ruling Egypt.
Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Cairo, said the private jet landed on a military airstrip around 1pm local time, carrying al-Zawi and another official.
"As soon as the plane landed, those on board ... were immediately whisked away by private cars," he said.
He said Essam Sharaf, the Egyptian prime minister, cut a cabinet meeting short to go to a meeting with the Egyptian military council.
The Arab League is due to meet on Saturday to discuss the possibility of imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Libyan delegates have been barred from attending the League's meetings addressing the situation in the country. | <urn:uuid:3e305d2c-8392-4ed0-aad1-8e16bff833f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2011/03/20113911921436551.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965306 | 591 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, today signed four new agreements to increase trade and investment between Canada and Jordan.
“Following the visit by King Abdullah II to Canada in July 2007, our countries have made significant progress in strengthening trade and investment,” said Minister Day. “Our efforts have led to the signature of four agreements that will help open doors for Canadian and Jordanian business.”
In Amman, Minister Day signed the legal texts of a free trade agreement (FTA), related agreements on labour cooperation and the environment, and a foreign investment promotion and protection agreement (FIPA) at a ceremony with his counterpart, Jordan’s Minister of Industry and Trade, Amer Hadidi.
Upon implementation, this FTA will eliminate tariffs on the majority of Canadian exports to Jordan, directly benefiting Canadian exporters. Key Canadian sectors that will benefit from this immediate duty-free access include forestry, manufacturing, and agriculture and agri-food. These are sectors in which Canadian companies are global leaders. Jordan fully reopened its market to Canadian beef and cattle in February 2009, and this FTA will give Canadian beef producers competitive advantages in a market the Canadian Beef Export Federation estimates to be worth $1 million.
The parallel labour and environment agreements will help to ensure progress on labour rights and environmental protection. The labour cooperation agreement commits both countries to respect the core labour standards set out by the International Labour Organization, such as the elimination of child labour, forced labour and workplace discrimination, as well as respect for freedom of association and the right to bargain collectively. The agreement on the environment commits both countries to pursuing high levels of environmental protection, to enforcing their domestic environmental laws effectively, and to ensuring trade and investment are not encouraged at the expense of these laws.
Canada and Canadian companies benefit from international rules that create a predictable investment environment abroad and provide effective dispute settlement measures for breaches of these rules. These protections are provided by the FIPA and enable companies to invest with confidence.
“The FIPA signed today will encourage two-way investment by providing investors with the clarity and certainty they need when investing in foreign markets,” said Minister Day.
Promising sectors for Canadian investment in Jordan include resource extraction, nuclear energy, telecommunications, transportation and infrastructure, with the latter arising from Jordan’s growing importance as a regional commercial, shipping and transportation hub.
Following formal signature, the treaties will be tabled in the House of Commons for a period of 21 sitting days for members of Parliament to review and debate them. After the 21-day period, the Canadian government will table legislation to implement the agreements, as necessary.
Two-way merchandise trade between Canada and Jordan totalled $92.2 million in 2008. The FTA with Jordan will improve market access for both agricultural and industrial goods, and help to ensure a level playing field for Canadian exporters vis-à-vis competitors that currently benefit from preferential access to Jordan’s markets.
While in Jordan, Minister Day also met with King Abdullah II and Khalid Toukan, Chair of the Jordan Atomic Energy Commission, to advocate on behalf of Canada’s nuclear industry. Jordan relies on energy imports to meet most of its requirements and has embarked on a civilian nuclear energy program to achieve its energy goals. Canada’s CANDU technology is safe, reliable, and uniquely suited for Jordan’s power needs and water desalination projects. Canada and Jordan signed a bilateral, treaty-level nuclear cooperation agreement on February 17, 2009, which came into force earlier this month.
Minister Day also visited Arab Wings, an airline company that recently received a new Bombardier Challenger 605 aircraft and that is considering increasing its fleet of Bombardier aircraft.
More details about Minister Day’s visit to Jordan can be found at Minister Day travels to Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
- 30 –
A backgrounder follows.
For further information and high-resolution photographs, media representatives may contact:
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway
Trade Media Relations Office
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
Canada-Jordan Free Trade, Labour Cooperation, Environment and Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreements
Canada-Jordan Free Trade Agreement
In August 2008, the Government of Canada concluded negotiations on a free trade agreement (FTA) with Jordan, as well as on parallel agreements on labour cooperation and the environment. The FTA will provide commercial benefits for both Canadian and Jordanian business.
Better market access through elimination of tariffs on goods
Upon implementation of the free trade agreement, the immediate elimination of tariffs on the vast majority of current Canadian exports to Jordan will directly benefit Canadian exporters.
Jordan will eliminate all non-agricultural tariffs and the vast majority of agricultural tariffs. Jordan's average tariff is currently 11 percent. Upon entry into force of the FTA, Jordan will immediately eliminate tariffs in the 10 to 30 percent range on many key Canadian exports, including pulse crops, frozen french fries, animal feed, various prepared foods, and certain forest products and machinery. These are sectors in which Canadian companies are global leaders.
The FTA will also contribute to Jordan’s economic development by creating new market opportunities for the export of Jordanian goods to Canada. Imports from Jordan totalled $15 million in 2008, and were led by apparel, fertilizer and agricultural products. Canada will eliminate all tariffs on Jordanian goods immediately upon entry into force of the FTA, with the exception of over-quota tariffs on dairy, poultry and eggs, which are excluded from tariff reductions.
Labour Cooperation Agreement
Canada and Jordan will commit to ensuring that their laws respect the International Labour Organization (ILO) 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which covers the right to freedom of association and to collective bargaining, the abolition of child labour, the elimination of compulsory labour and the elimination of workplace discrimination.
Canada and Jordan will also commit to providing protections for occupational health and safety, acceptable minimum employment standards and compensation for occupational injuries and illnesses. Migrant workers will have the same legal protections as nationals in respect of working conditions.
The labour cooperation agreement will also include effective enforcement mechanisms. Although the agreement will focus on labour cooperation, it will provide that, as a last resort, failure to respect ILO principles and enforce domestic laws could result in an independent review panel assessing a monetary penalty. Any such assessments would accrue to a special cooperation fund and be used to strengthen labour rights and address the violation.
Agreement on the Environment
The agreement on the environment commits Canada and Jordan to pursuing high levels of environmental protection and to striving to develop and improve their environmental laws and policies. The agreement will also oblige the two countries to enforce their domestic environmental laws effectively, and ensure trade and investment are not encouraged at the expense of these laws.
Canada and Jordan also commit to ensuring that environmental assessment processes are in place, and to providing remedies for violations of environmental laws. The two countries also agree to encourage enterprises to adopt best practices of corporate social responsibility and to promote public awareness and engagement. The focus of the agreement is on consultation and cooperation to address any matter arising under the agreement, with access to an Independent Review Panel as a last resort.
Canada-Jordan Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement
The Canada-Jordan Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (FIPA) stems from a mutual interest in promoting bilateral investment between the two countries. Once entered into force, the FIPA will provide investors with greater predictability, certainty and protection for their investments.
A FIPA is an international treaty providing binding obligations on governments regarding their treatment of foreign investors and investments. By establishing clear rules and an effective enforcement mechanism, a FIPA provides a stable legal framework to promote and protect foreign investment. It sets out a range of obligations that governments guarantee, such as non-discriminatory treatment, protection against expropriation without prompt and adequate compensation, the free transfer of funds, transparency and dispute settlement. | <urn:uuid:ee9912dd-6835-41b6-b325-a8462fd7c4ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.international.gc.ca/media_commerce/comm/news-communiques/2009/387338.aspx?lang=eng&view=d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938356 | 1,636 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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(Updates with NATO decision to end campaign in fourth paragraph.)
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations Security Council voted to end its authorization of NATO’s military operation in Libya that resulted in the demise of Muammar Qaddafi and his regime.
The 15-member body, which approved “all necessary measures” on March 17 to protect civilians from Qaddafi’s crackdown on protests, unanimously voted today to terminate on Oct. 31 the mandate for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to bomb the North African country and enforce a no-fly zone.
The decision was made in New York as Mustafa Abdel Jalil, head of Libya’s ruling council, expressed his wish for NATO operations to continue for at least two more months. Russia, which has repeatedly criticized the U.S. and Europe for overstepping the UN mandate and seeking a change of regime, called for operations to be “terminated immediately.”
NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance will “confirm and formalize” its decision to end its campaign in Libya on the last day of the month following the UN vote, dismissing the possibility of an extension.
“In Libya, we have fully complied with the historic mandate of the United Nations to protect civilians against the threat of attacks,” Rasmussen told reporters in Berlin today after meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “Libyans can safely take their future into their own hands.”
Libya’s National Transitional Council may still need outside help to secure Libya’s borders and to collect arms stockpiles, amid evidence of looters taking weapons, including Russian-made portable anti-aircraft missiles sought by terrorists.
Rasmussen said he doesn’t foresee a “major NATO role” in post-conflict Libya, though he said the alliance could offer assistance in “defense and security sector reforms.”
The UN resolution expresses “concern at the proliferation of arms in Libya and its potential impact on regional peace and security” and says the council will address the issue further.
NATO began its air campaign a month after a revolt against Qaddafi’s government began. Libya was the third country in the region this year in which uprisings have led to a change of leadership; the others are Tunisia and Egypt.
Since the Arab Spring got under way, Libya has been the only instance in which the UN sanctioned outside military intervention.
The Oct. 20 death of Qaddafi marked the start of a new political chapter for the holder of Africa’s biggest crude oil reserves. The new leaders are seeking to rebuild a war-torn economy and construct institutions from scratch in a country that Qaddafi governed for four decades without a constitution.
The International Monetary Fund estimates Libya’s economy will contract more than 50 percent in 2011 because the months of fighting between Qaddafi loyalists and the one-time rebels who now run the country have paralyzed its oil industry.
Libya was producing about 1.6 million barrels of oil a day before the conflict broke out in mid-February. Output slumped to a “trickle,” said the International Energy Agency.
The circumstances surrounding Qaddafi’s death have led to calls for a fuller investigation. The NTC’s version of events is that Qaddafi died in a “crossfire.”
Ibrahim Dabbashi, who became the voice of the NTC at the UN after defecting from the Qaddafi regime in February, told the Security Council yesterday that when Qaddafi was arrested he “was bleeding from his abdomen and head” and died before getting to the hospital in Misrata.
--With assistance from Patrick Donahue in Berlin. Editors: Steven Komarow, Ann Hughey.
To contact the reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in United Nations at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:10733df7-3696-46c8-956b-76f0cdbe4035> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-10-27/un-votes-to-end-nato-mission-in-libya-with-qaddafi-buried.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95177 | 860 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The next chapter in the continuing saga of Doninger v. Niehoff, et al. was decided and issued by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on April 25, 2011. You may recall reading about this case in 2008, when the Second Circuit upheld the decision of District Court Judge Mark Kravtiz denying the plaintiff student's motion for a preliminary injunction. At that point, the student, Avery Doninger, was attempting to force the defendant school district to allow her to run for class office, even though she was being disciplined for her off-campus blog speech as conduct unbecoming a potential class officer.
Following that decision, the defendant school officials moved for, and were granted, summary judgment on a variety of claims brought by the plaintiff student including a claim that they violated her First Amendment rights. The case was certified to the Second Circuit on an interlocutory appeal to allow the plaintiff to appeal the dismissal of claims against the defendant school officials on grounds of qualified immunity. The finding of the Second Circuit? Essentially, First Amendment law is so confusing that even we judges have trouble sorting it out, and school officials should not be held personally liable under these circumstances when, arguably, a reasonable jury could find that they got it wrong.
To refresh your memory, Avery Doninger was class secretary at the time of the original incident, in which she was upset by the potential postponement or relocation of a battle of the bands event at her high school, and so she allegedly did a few things in protest: (1) in concert with others, she accessed a home e-mail account from school and caused an e-mail letter to be sent out to numerous parents and students about the alleged injustice of the actions of school officials, (2) she posted, at home, on her personal livejournal blog (using inappropriate language for school-related communications), a protest statement and a call to action for others to contact school officials, and (3) after she was banned from running for class office and others started a write-in campaign for her, she contemplated and was prohibited from wearing a Team Avery T-shirt during the assembly for candidates to make speeches.
Qualified immunity essentially protects school officials from liability for civil damages when their conduct "does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known". Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Qualified immunity, it is noted, protects "all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law". Walczyk v. Rio, 496 F.3d 139, 154 (2d Cir. 2007). So, the primary question on this appeal was whether Avery Doninger's First Amendment rights were so clearly established that no reasonable jury could conclude anything other than school officials violated those rights. The Second Circuit says that these questions are sometimes so nuanced and difficult, meeting this standard is exceedingly difficult: "The law governing restrictions on student speech can be difficult and confusing, even for lawyers, law professors, and judges. The relevant Supreme Court cases can be hard to reconcile, and courts often struggle to determine which standard applies in any particular case." (Slip Op. at 29-30). Furthermore, "[the] line between the potential for 'substantial disruption of or material interference with school activities'...and the potential for less significant interference is similar to the 'hazy border' that the Supreme Court has recognized to exist between acceptable and unacceptable uses of force." Id. at 32. Therefore, the school officials here were entitled to the benefit of the doubt and would not be subjected to a jury trial that could result in a possible award of damages for violation of the student's First Amendment rights. While noting that a reasonable jury could find that the school principal was mistaken in her assessment of the risk of substantial disruption inherent in the student's expression, the court concluded that such a mistake would be a reasonable mistake, given the state of the law under the First Amendment.
While this means that school officials here are spared being individual defendants in a jury trial, this does not necessarily represent the last word on this case. There may still be claims pending in lower courts that will be subject to trial, and as of Tuesday, it was reported by major media outlets that the plaintiff was considering filing a petition for rehearing en banc before the entire Second Circuit Court of Appeals, or a petition for certiorari to the United States Supreme Court. Stay tuned. | <urn:uuid:37ac5cf3-ee7c-42b1-83de-9606abd632b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.connecticuteducationlawblog.com/2011/04/articles/student-matters/second-circuit-first-amendment-law-protecting-student-speech-is-confusing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974817 | 909 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Wednesday 12 October 2005 6:46 PM GMT
Violence continues despite the AU military presence
The United Nations mission in Sudan has declared much of the war-torn western region of Darfur unsafe for humanitarian operations.
According to a UN spokeswoman in Khartoum on Wednesday, the recent upsurge in violence that left three African Union (AU) soldiers dead and the brief abduction of nearly 40 other AU personnel by rebel forces are major causes for concern.
"Almost two-thirds of the area of operation of the humanitarian community in South Darfur is considered hazardous for the safety of humanitarian personnel and has been declared no-go areas," Radhia Achouri said.
She added that tensions in and around Geneina, the capital of West Darfur state, had led to a deterioration in security conditions, prompting the United Nations to issue a travel warning for aid workers.
The United Nations mission "has declared all roads leading out of the town to be restricted in view of armed clashes north, west and south of the town, in addition to increased banditry along all roads", Achouri said.
She added that only North Darfur state appeared to be relatively safe.
Humanitarian access to North Darfur, she said, "has been less affected and most areas of operation are accessible".
The United Nations said it continued to receive reports from the Darfur region on incidents of banditry, looting and robbery that sometimes involve firearms and result in casualties.
The UN mission said there have been reports of attacks by nomadic tribesmen on villages in Darfur that the AU was investigating.
"Thousands of civilians are fleeing to IDP [internally displaced persons] camps throughout the region" due to the violence, Achouri noted.
An estimated 180,000 to 300,000 people have died in Darfur since a civil conflict between rebels and government-backed nomadic militias erupted in February 2003, with 2.6 million civilians left homeless. | <urn:uuid:16e87516-ad2e-4094-bc39-9177eaf1e40d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.darfurdaily.blogspot.com/2005/10/un-darfur-too-unsafe-for-relief-work.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96066 | 399 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. Under this definition, current regulatory efforts like the Dodd-Frank Act and Basel III are insane.
They are going down the same path as prior failed efforts. Yet, regulators believe this time will be different. As Kenneth Rogoff recently noted, underfunded regulators adapting more complicated rules to meet increased market complexity are engaged in an arms race they cannot win.
A return to simple measures, such as a leverage ratio, is unlikely to fare any better. They are subject to Goodhart's Law, which states any measure adopted as a target for control purposes loses its relevancy. Essentially, individuals change their behavior to meet or game the target. The existing abuse of risk weighted assets illustrates this fact. For example, the ratio of RWA to total assets at many large institutions has fallen below 60%. We can expect similar efforts to game leverage ratios if they become the new standard. Thus, the problem is not with the complexity of regulation, but with its focus. We do not need simpler regulations. Rather, we need smarter regulations that recognize the role of incentives and market discipline.
The current focus is on banks as institutions. This has largely ignored the human element. Banks, however, are not inert institutions. They are a collection of individuals who manage bank activities. These individuals are sometimes overwhelmed by fear and greed. Thus, the focus should be how to make bankers behave more prudently – not just to make banks safer.
This means recognizing the role of incentives on individuals. People do what you pay them to do, not what you tell them to do. Existing regulations have produced undesirable unintended consequences. Unintended consequences are common whenever regulators attempt to influence a complex system like markets. Regulators change the dynamics and incentives among various stakeholders in ways not fully appreciated.
Current regulators have misaligned incentives to encourage excessive risk-taking as bankers are paid for good luck, but do not suffer for bad luck. The lethal combination of limited liability and government "Too Big to Fail" guarantees privatizes gains and socializes losses. Bankers collect their bonuses during bull markets, but do not return them during down markets.
Furthermore, government guarantees reduce private sector monitoring of banker behavior. Regulators are left with the unenviable task of playing catch-up due to the opaque nature of risk. As we saw during the crisis, they never see risk beforehand – only after the fact. Thus, risk builds as bankers cannot resist the temptation to gamble for riches with someone else's money, namely, the taxpayers. This represents a classic moral hazard problem with predictable consequences.
The current regulatory approach is stagnating. It has reached a dead end. Private sector responses are crowded out. Furthermore, compliance, not risk management, has become the norm. Capital is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for bank safety. The key is aligned incentives to encourage bankers to manage their capital property by prudently managing the risks they are taking. You cannot assume bankers will act prudently despite incentives to do otherwise.
Achieving this goal involves three steps. First, reintroduce an element of personal liability for highly paid senior bank executives. An example would be to have them liable for all compensation received over the five years prior to the failure of their institution. Next, the implicit government guarantee of senior creditors' claims at large banks must be phased out. This would increase private sector monitoring of bankers. | <urn:uuid:9f581acf-bfcf-4fa3-b0f3-9e8889c9880d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanbanker.com/bankthink/to-get-results-regulators-should-target-bankers-wallets-1054435-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962703 | 698 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Key Green Jobs Supporter Appointed U.S. Secretary of Labor
The ‘green’ business sector and the environment just had a huge win! U.S. President-elect Obama recently announced Hilda Solis as the newly appointed Secretary of the Labor Department.
The current California congresswoman is a member of the House environment and commerce committee as well as the House select committee on energy independence and global warming. One of Solis’s biggest achievements has been the Green Jobs Act of 2007.
As we have mentioned before, The Green Jobs Act was approved in 2007, however it has yet to be funded. An economic stimulus and recovery package is still being proposed in the U.S. Congress and if Green Jobs Act is funded, thousands of good green jobs could be created in the New Year. Hilda Solis bring us one step closer towards this achievement.
In the video below from earlier this year, Rep. Solis speaks about her commitment to solving global warming through a clean energy economy for all: | <urn:uuid:29c20e3d-eb0c-4b65-b3d8-be363496a304> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://liveearth.org/sv/liveearthblog/key-green-jobs-supporter-appointed-us-secretary-of-labor | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969698 | 209 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Running can be good for you but apparently, is bad for animals. People who like to run through the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge were stunned by a new sign. According to the Statesman Journal, the signs at a trailhead there say: No Dogs, Horseback Riding and No Jogging. Hiking is apparently fine. Wildlife officials warn that running people can stress out the animals, and might even interfere with their breeding.
It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | <urn:uuid:5d4df3f8-24a1-45f2-ae30-907d46e81bd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kunc.org/term/north-dakota | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960637 | 104 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist claiming the government is making us gay via juice boxes, brings us news via his PrisonPlanet.com website that federal government is “Funding Study in Which Boys as Young as 16 Create ‘Web-Based Sex Diaries’ About Homosexual Experiences.” This sounds like a fun one!
The study is called “The Importance of Early Sexual Experiences Among Men Who Have Sex with Men,” and it’ll be conducted by Dr. Matthew R. Golden at the University of Washington in Seattle. It’s been approved by the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), a division of the National Institutes of Health, with a $252,000 multi-year grant. And it sounds like it’s going to be some pretty interesting research!
Men who have sex with men (MSM) experience rates of HIV and bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STI) that are many times those experienced by heterosexuals in the U.S. Despite the widely acknowledged importance of sexual behavior in defining HIV/STI transmission dynamics, little is known about how MSM form patterns of sexual behavior, what factors predict these patterns, and how those behavioral patterns change over a person’s life. We propose to conduct a cohort study of 100 MSM who are: 1) age 16-20 with 1-3 lifetime male sex partners, or 2) age 16-30 within 3 years of their same-sex sexual debut.
[...] The study’s first aim is to define the feasibility of enrolling a diverse sample of MSM near the time of same-sex sexual debut, following the cohort for 1 year, collecting frequent sexual behavioral data, and serially testing these men for HIV/STI. Success will be defined based on the number of men who enroll and complete the study, and the proportion who complete all questionnaires and HIV/STI testing.
The study’s second aim is to assess the feasibility of using web-based sex diaries to collect sexual behavior data and to identify the appropriate diary schedule. MSM will be randomly assigned diary schedules and we will compare the frequency of reported behaviors across diary schedules and against the retrospective questionnaire data.
Finally, for the third aim we will conduct three analyses. First, we will asses the association between early sexual development and the context of initiation of contact with the gay community. Second, we will investigate the association between the context of same-sex sexual debut and risk behavior observed throughout the one year of follow-up. Third, investigators will conduct exploratory analyses to define patterns of sexual behaviors such as condom use, HIV status disclosure, and sexual role and repertoire.
Basically, the researchers want to know how same-sex sexual behavior begins and develops over time, and whether (or rather, how) that behavior contributes to STDs/STIs. Sounds reasonable to me.
But because we’re talking about MALE TEENAGERS HAVING SEX WITH OTHER MEN, it’s time to freak out about it. Which is just what the right-wing CSN News is doing:
CNSNews.com asked both Golden and NIAID the following question: “The Census Bureau says the median household income in the United States is $52,000. How would you explain to the average American mom and dad–who make $52,000 per year–that taxing them to pay for this grant was justified?
To which the National Institutes of Health responded appropriately:
This information will help scientists design more effective HIV and STI prevention programs for men who have sex with men in the United States, especially for those at highest risk for infection. With the lifetime cost of HIV/AIDS treatment in the United States estimated to range from $470,600 to $665,500 per person in 2004 dollars (which is $550,000 to $779,000 per person in 2010 dollars), it is more cost-effective to prevent HIV infection than to treat it.”
So when “the average American mom and dad” reading CNSNews.com finds out their son is a sexually active human being, research like this will be in place to help prevent them from contracting HIV. And so crap like this doesn’t happen.
Honestly if I were running things, I’d recommend lowering the study’s 16-year-old floor, ’cause gay teens be havin’ The Sex earlier and earlier these days. | <urn:uuid:ff3966bb-add7-4fae-9163-dce1b79b0c6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.queerty.com/the-scary-taxpayer-funded-hiv-study-where-16-year-old-gays-record-their-sexual-conquests-20101001/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937856 | 925 | 1.742188 | 2 |
When someone compliments you, is your first thought, "What do they want?"
If you feel surprise and maybe a touch of suspicion when the people close to you let you know they like you or they admire what you do, it could be time to take stock of your assumptions.
Okay, sometimes people have nothing good to say to each other, because that's exactly how they feel. But most often people have simply acquired the habit of not saying anything about the things they like.
Maybe you grew up with the notion that praise is unnecessary, or gushy and probably insincere. You might feel awkward about giving or receiving compliments. Whatever your reasons, if you don't say much about the good things in your relationships you need to be conscious of the possible consequences.
It's a short step from leaving the good things unsaid, to feeling that the good things are unimportant. From there taking each other for granted and resenting it is easy.
When it seems to you that the obvious reason for your partner to say something nice to you is to butter you up you're starting to feed a sad relationship story about manipulating each other and not valuing each other.
If what you want is more along the lines of a warm, supportive relationship story, a useful step is to start talking up the good stuff. The aim is to let your partner know that you like them, not to keep it a secret.
Saying things is a really simple way of giving them some weight. It's not about inventing pretty compliments. It's about noticing what you enjoy in your partner, and, commenting on it. Let them know what you like about them.
You don't have to be poetic. The qualities or actions you notice don't have to work for a big screen drama. You don't have to say it with candlelight, or roses or expensive gifts.
Keep it simple. Keep it true and keep it coming. If it's going to help build up your relationship, then your partner has to be able to believe you mean what you say. If you're genuine and persistent sooner or later they'll get the idea that you like them, and that your liking is based on knowing them pretty well.
Most people like being liked. Generally, you feel warm and comfortable and relaxed with people who let you know they like you. It often becomes quite easy to tell someone who likes you what it is you like about them. So you'll probably find that if you start deliberately talking up the good stuff, in the long run your partner will respond in kind, and you'll both feel good.
Talking up the good stuff will help keep you aware of what you enjoy in each other. That does give you a great early warning system, but most importantly, focusing on the good stuff makes it so much more enjoyable right now. | <urn:uuid:3e868724-a136-4f67-a202-ab3881002fe4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.relationshipsaotearoa.org.nz/relationships/making_your_relationship_work/talking_up_the_good_stuff | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980484 | 579 | 1.703125 | 2 |
When the earthquake in Haiti struck I discovered that old friends there had been able to help. They had already set up, years before, a sustainabilty programme away from Port-au-Prince, out in the country, and Mousson in addition was a qualified doctor. They immediately set to work offering shelter and care.Their website offered a way to help through Paypal donations, and many friends, as well as the Order, sent contributions. I wrote about their work in a post ‘A Forbidden Question about Haiti’ back in January.
Four months on, here is part of Mousson’s report about the situation there. For more, or to make a contribution, click on the link:
We are working on various long-term perspectives for the economical activities, but at present are primarily focusing on the immediate task of implementing the relief activities. We are all learning how best to help and serve. People have gone through tremendous trauma and the effects are just surfacing. We are following every lead that may reinforce our capacity to help, whether for feeding and lodging programs, or the education and health care support. Recovery plans are slowly being made at the national and regional level which is affecting our ability to develop long range plans at the community level.
Our relief program has enabled ORE to offer training and temporary jobs from its two major core programs: nursery work in the fruit tree program, and quality control and conditioning work in the improved staple crops seed program. We are now concentrating in keeping the people in our direct care settled and progressing towards earning a living. We are also taking steps in helping improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable ones in Port-au-Prince by providing them with tents and cots. At the same time we are actively involved in trying to develop partnerships with different interested parties in education, to subsidize tuitions of more displaced children, so as to integrate them in schools as many are threatened with expulsion from schools that have not yet received the announced financial support by the Ministry of Education.
Haiti is less prominent on the news but the humanitarian crisis is still very present. For the victims it will remain a life and death struggle to survive under appalling conditions until their means to earn a living is restored. It is tragic, so many families have lost their sole property (for which they had no insurance), others, now bankrupt, had been repaying loans they had taken out loans to build a house. There are so many heartbreaking scenarios and there have been yet no hint of how they might get help to start over. The people’s real trauma is not knowing what to plan, what is the priority: whether to try to put kids back in school, getting a tent, buying food, cleaning up the rubbles, building a temporary shelter, moving out of Port-au-Prince, out of Haiti? And all the time, for so many not a sign of relief in sight, no hope that real help, real solutions will reach them. This is why your support has been such a blessing and has had such an impact on so many people’s lives. The task is tremendous, but every effort, every gesture we make is particular blessing…
And on a very personal level, I would have felt beaten when faced with the scale of all that needs to be done, were it not for your continuous care, your gentle concern and your desire to give support at whatever level. This gives me the strength to go on. But above all, it is a blessing to see the smiles and relief on the face of everyone we help: I want to become their messenger and express to you their gratitude. I am the lucky one, being at the receiving end of their love. The children’s smiles say it so much better than my words! Thank you and God bless.
For more see http://www.oreworld.info | <urn:uuid:851496d6-e830-4de5-8c56-ace4a3d5b4f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://philipcarrgomm.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/news-from-haiti/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97723 | 787 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Thank you, Brother Bowden, for that beautiful number. That’s a difficult one to follow.
The prophets have taught us that before the world was, there was a council in heaven. President Brigham Young instructed the Saints:
“The Council … said, ‘Let there be an earth, and let there be a firmament above and beneath it,’ and it was so. They said, ‘Let there be heat and cold,’ and it was so. They said, ‘Let there be spring and summer, autumn and winter,’ and it was so.
“‘Who will redeem the earth, who will go forth and make the sacrifice for the earth and all things it contains?’ The Eldest Son said: ‘Here am I’: and then he added, ‘Send me.’ But the second one, which was ‘Lucifer, [a] Son of the Morning,’ said, ‘Lord, here am I, send me, I will redeem every son and daughter of Adam and Eve that lives on the earth, or that ever goes on the earth.’ ‘But,’ says the Father, ‘that will not answer at all. I give [unto] each and every individual his agency; all must use that in order to gain exaltation in my kingdom; inasmuch as they have the power of choice they must exercise that power. They are my children; the attributes which you see in me are in my children and they must use their agency. If you undertake to save all, you must save them in unrighteousness and corruption.’” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1941, pp. 53–54.)
As these spirits have come forth from the council in heaven to take their “turn on earth,” they are still desiring their free agency, and in fact, they are willing to sacrifice for that freedom. We are witnessing today remarkable events occurring throughout the world: evidence of the strength of man’s desire for freedom. The history of man’s mortal experience would indicate that the desire to be free has spiritual roots.
There is an innate, overwhelming, compelling desire to be free. This desire seems to be more precious than life itself.
Another desire we carry from the preexistence is to know who we are and where we came from and what our opportunities are in this great eternal plan. Answers to these questions can really only be found in the gospel of our Lord and Savior.
As we hear the cries for help from those who are just now trying to deal with their newly found freedom, trying to use it and understand it, we can turn to the scriptures and read how the Lord prepared another nation for their freedom.
The scriptures record that Israel had lived in the land of Egypt for 430 years. For a time they had prospered under the leadership of Joseph. The account reads:
“And Joseph died, and all his brethren, and all that generation.
“And the children of Israel were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty; and the land was filled with them.
“Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph.
“And he said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we:
“Come on, let us deal wisely with them; lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land.” (Ex. 1:6–10.)
Then the narrative continues to tell how the Israelites were placed in bondage and became slaves to the Egyptians. Moses was raised up, trained, and charged with the responsibility of freeing them from bondage and leading them to their own promised land. His task was difficult, for Israel had lived about two centuries in slavery; they had been taught many of the idolatrous practices prominent in the land in that day. It would have been impossible for Moses to lead his people without the direction of the Lord.
As a way of rebuilding their faith and reminding them who was their true God, Moses was instructed to establish certain principles and practices with them to help them to return to the true doctrine. First, the Lord directed them to construct a tabernacle, which would be moved about with them from place to place as they journeyed towards their promised land. This was to be a house of worship, where their sacred observances could be held. It was to be used by those who were willing to abide by the Lord’s law.
When the children of Israel were disobedient, the privilege of enjoying the blessings of having the tabernacle in their midst was removed from them. We read:
“And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp.” (Ex. 33:7.)
When the children of Israel again found favor in the sight of the Lord, the tabernacle was moved with them from place to place as they went about their quest for the promised land. It led them by day and was their security by night.
Later, when they reached their homeland, King Solomon built a magnificent temple on Mount Zion in Jerusalem where they could continue to enjoy an official house of worship. Israel worshiped in Solomon’s Temple for 350 years. But they failed to be faithful, and dissension caused conflict in the tribes. This so weakened Israel that when Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, made war on them, he was able to defeat them and looted the temple and destroyed it. Israel lost not only their place of worship but for many, their homes, for Nebuchadnezzar carried them off to Babylonia as his captives.
In addition to the tabernacle as a place of worship, the Lord gave to them His written law contained on tablets of stone. These commandments were written by the finger of the Lord. They were kept for guidance and direction. The Ten Commandments were the basis of Hebrew law. Four of them have to do with our attitude toward God; the remaining six with our attitude toward our fellowman. Reverence for God was a basis for the Ten Commandments. Here was a foundation on which to build a society of law and order.
The Lord had another way of reminding Israel of the blessings He had given them. He had them establish religious customs, that became a part of their everyday life to signify the ways through which they could express their faith in God. Israel refused to abandon these practices even after being taken into captivity. They conceived that God’s domination was not limited by national or political boundaries, and they would not give up their faith even though they struggled in a strange land. Deprived of their temple, they still had their law and their religious customs to worship their God.
Now, most of us will not be called to help nations organize newly found freedoms, but all of us can be involved by making certain the light of freedom burns brightly within our own souls. We can be certain that, by our actions, we are examples of how freedom should be enjoyed.
Following the pattern that the Lord established for ancient Israel, He has commanded us to build houses of worship for the purpose of having a place where the gospel can be taught. After understanding is achieved, we can enter into covenants with Him to be obedient to His will and, in turn, receive His promised blessings as a result of our faithfulness. We have temples—they now dot the maps of nations—here the worthy can enter, worship, be taught, and make covenants to serve God and abide by His law.
From the very beginning of man’s existence on earth, he has been taught that he must be obedient to law.
“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
“And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:20–21.)
Prophets through the ages have taught us to be obedient to the laws of the Lord, and these laws are the foundation of our existence here and will bring order out of chaos.
President Wilford Woodruff once taught us:
“The God of heaven, who created this earth and placed his children upon it, gave unto them a law whereby they might be exalted and saved in a kingdom of glory. For there is a law given unto all kingdoms, and all things are governed by law throughout the whole universe. Whatever law anyone keeps, he is preserved by that law, and he receives whatever reward that law guarantees unto him. It is the will of God that all his children should obey the highest law, that they may receive the highest glory that is ordained for all immortal beings. But God has given all his children an agency, to choose what law they will keep.” (The Discourses of Wilford Woodruff, sel. G. Homer Durham, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1946, p. 10.)
The Lord has not been so explicit in providing us religious customs along the order of feasts and festivals to remind us of the blessings we receive from Him today. However, the practice of having traditions to keep us close to the great heritage which is ours to enjoy should be something every family should try to keep alive.
Daily we should kneel in family prayer and study the scriptures together. Weekly we should observe the Sabbath day by attending our meetings, especially sacrament meeting, and behave appropriate to the activities that are proper for the Lord’s day. We should also gather our families together in weekly family home evenings. Perhaps it would also be appropriate to have a date with our wives each week, to remind us of the great blessing they are in our lives. Monthly we should fast and pay our tithes and offerings to the Lord. Semiannually, we should make listening to the messages delivered at general conferences a family tradition. We should organize, annually, family reunions to keep alive our great gospel heritage.
Other traditions which should continually be part of our lives are receiving father’s blessings, patriarchal blessings, missionary preparation, temple preparation, and regular temple attendance where possible, and being together as family units on those occasions when sacred ordinances are performed in behalf of a family member.
If we will build righteous traditions in our families, the light of the gospel can grow ever brighter in the lives of our children from generation to generation. We can look forward to that glorious day when we will all be united together as eternal family units to reap the everlasting joy promised by our Eternal Father for His righteous children.
Our family activities and traditions can be a beacon to the rest of the world as an example of how we should live to merit His choice blessings and live in peace and harmony until the day that He returns to rule and reign over us.
This is the Lord’s work in which we are engaged. God lives! Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, is my solemn witness to you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Official Web site of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
© 2013 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All Rights Reserved | <urn:uuid:fd53d954-13e3-4097-be3b-2dc2aed343d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lds.org/general-conference/print/1990/04/family-traditions?lang=eng&clang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979359 | 2,432 | 1.570313 | 2 |
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To help governments boost competition and drive down excessive prices in international mobile roaming markets, the OECD has released a series of recommendations to protect consumers.
More people in developed countries are overweight or obese than ever before, dooming them to years of ill-health and early death. New OECD data show however that in some countries obesity rates are slowing, and that’s good news for people’s health and government budgets.
The Secretary-General says the package will provide the necessary confidence and breathing space for Greece to work on its recovery and for Europe to address its sovereign debt crisis.
This year’s report, which launches on the eve of the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Mexico City, identifies and assesses progress countries have made on key reforms that can help their economies rebound from the global economic crisis, boost long-term growth and create jobs.
Provisional estimates show that quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the OECD area decelerated sharply to 0.1% in the fourth quarter of 2011, against 0.6% in the third quarter.
Russia today took a major step toward upholding international anti-bribery standards by depositing its instrument of accession to the OECD Convention at a ceremony at the OECD in Paris.
Germany recovered rapidly from the 2008-09 recession, with GDP topping pre-crisis rates during 2011 and unemployment falling significantly. Public finances are sound, but further reforms are needed to transform its growth model to thrive as a knowledge-based economy.
The OECD area unemployment rate, unchanged at 8.2% December 2011, continued to show the stability seen throughout 2011.
Composite leading indicators (CLIs) point to a positive change in momentum for the OECD as a whole, driven primarily by the United States and Japan, but similar signs are beginning to emerge in a number of other developed economies.
OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría said Spain’s comprehensive reform programme is a major step forward in strengthening the country’s banking system and its public finances, as well as creating a more dynamic labour market. | <urn:uuid:f7fcb433-f290-43d9-a43a-98e1f2da02c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/publicationsdocuments/32/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935335 | 446 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Power can corrupt the strongest of men but will it corrupt Peter a lawyer who defiles all odds to write the wrong of his nation’spast
It is a trilling drama of a young African lawyer who defiles all odds to write the wrong of his nation’s past. There are many questions left unanswered as to why so much political unrest in Africa. Why do most leaders refuse to give up their sit when they lose an election? Why do presidents maltreat their own people at the expense of their nation’s wealth? There is only one answer: POWER.
Power can corrupt the strongest of men but will it corrupt Peter Kelonge? Peter is driven to oppose the corrupt dictator President Massa and liberate Catanga from his tyrannical rule. Set in the heart of Africa, the country of Catanga has become impoverished and suffered much bloodshed under Massa’s greed and violent oppression. Will Peter Kelonge manage to overthrow Massa and will he manage to lead the people of Catanga with honor and justice or will he succumb to the sin of power? | <urn:uuid:a2e01b34-201f-4792-8d4a-5c4074bfb03a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://authonomy.com/books/40099/the-sin-of-power/?pg=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969452 | 219 | 1.648438 | 2 |
President Viktor Yanukovich has ushered in deep administrative reform by starting with Ukraine’s ministries. Four of them have been closed completely, with eight ministers sacked.
Yanukovich announced the unprecedented cuts late on Thursday, and says it is only the beginning of massive nationwide bureaucratic reform. The changes are aimed at slashing government spending and fighting corruption.
Ukraine’s been hit hard by the global economic crisis, with its budget deficit at over five per cent of its GDP this year. The former Soviet state’s also riddled with corruption, which Yanukovich has vowed to tackle.
The president says the next round of reforms will target lower government officials, with their number to be eventually slashed by at least a third. Yanukovich added that cutting government spending should benefit the whole population.
The formerly NATO-friendly country took another direction when Yanukovich was elected president this year, and announced his country has no plans to join the alliance. Kiev’s current political agenda is closer cooperation with Russia and the European Union.
By posting your comment, you agree to abide by our Posting rules | <urn:uuid:98185d16-4715-4110-ba6d-0ffce06a4ddc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rt.com/politics/crisis-massive-reform-yanukovich/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976775 | 222 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Super PACs emerged after the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United held that the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions. While these new committees do not have the authority to coordinate directly with campaigns, they are allowed to raise unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups. Obama adamantly opposed the Supreme Court’s decision, asserting that eliminating limits on donations would even further stimulate special interests’ already deep presence in government.
But despite such opposition, the Obama campaign emboldened major fundraisers in a Monday night conference call to support the super PAC called Priorities USA. Interestingly, Priorities USA has failed to compete with its Republican counterparts; many of these GOP-backed groups have played a prominent role in the Republican primaries, raising millions of dollars for negative ad campaigns in early primary states such as Iowa, Florida, and South Carolina.
Several Democratic congressmen told Politico that in light of recent events, the timing of the campaign’s disclosure appeared rushed:
It was made in a 10 p.m. call to Obama’s top bundlers, known as the National Finance Committee. Several party fundraisers raised the possibility that the campaign wanted to offset bad publicity generated by a Monday New York Times story, which reported that the campaign had returned $200,000 to the family of a wealthy Mexican fugitive seeking a pardon for drug and other criminal convictions [see here].
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina addressed supporters in a Monday email asserting that the campaign "can’t allow for two sets of rules" in which the Republican presidential candidate benefits from "unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm." He added, "We decided to do this because we can't afford for the work you're doing in your communities, and the grassroots donations you give to support it, to be destroyed by hundreds of millions of dollars in negative ads."
The Obama campaign’s decision to promote Priorities USA arrived soon after new fundraising reports showed that American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS — two Republican super PACs associated with GOP strategist Karl Rove — raised a hefty $51 million last year while Democratic groups collared only $19 million.
Both Republicans and Democrats chided the President’s decision, asserting that it’s hypocritical for Obama to rail against special-interest fundraising while at the same time embracing the very same practices. "This is a brazenly cynical move by Barack Obama and his political handlers, who just a year ago had the chutzpah to call outside groups a threat to democracy," charged American Crossroads spokesman Jonathan Collegio.
Ex-Senator Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin liberal who co-authored campaign finance legislation with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to regulate political campaigns, also censured the move:
This is dancing with the devil. I know a lot of Democrats in D.C. don’t agree, and I understand the desire to do everything possible to win. But this decision will push Democrats to become corporate-lite, and will send us head-on into a battle we know we will lose, because Republicans like Mitt Romney and his friends have and will spend more money.
Feingold added that by promoting Priorities USA, Obama is urging an action he previously railed against. "The president is wrong to embrace the corrupt corporate politics of Citizens United through the use of super-PACs — organizations that raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations and the richest individuals, sometimes in total secrecy," the former Senator alleged. "It’s not just bad policy; it’s also dumb strategy."
Campaign officials defended the move on Tuesday during a conference call with reporters, explaining that the decision to support Priorities USA was made after observing the prominent impact super PAC spending has had on the Republican primaries. "With the influx of Republican spending on super PACs [and] the recent reports that Republican super PACs are committed to raising half a billion to defeat the president," a campaign official asserted, "we made the decision to not allow the Republicans to be the [sole] beneficiary of unlimited spending."
But considering Obama’s so-called opposition to "special-interest politicking," endorsing Priorities USA could ignite future controversies for him, as well as conflicting with some of the policies implemented by his campaign and the Democratic National Committee. For instance, campaign officials have no control over how the super PAC raises its money, and the group has the authority to accept donations from registered lobbyists. So in effect, the President and his campaign’s decision to reach out to Priorities USA could very well result in his actually promoting the use of lobbyist donations to his campaign. Considering his numerous campaign pledges to put an end to special-interest campaigning, one might suggest this decision is yet another broken promise — a promise Obama made during a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on November 10, 2007:
I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president. | <urn:uuid:7ccd4c4e-0fa5-4647-80e3-a37c3bc18a5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9185-obama-campaign-supports-priorities-usa-super-pac | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96147 | 1,069 | 1.65625 | 2 |
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Ted Cruz: Wobbling, But Still Worthwhile for Immigration Patriots
When Barack Obama took office in January of 2009, there was not a single Hispanic Republican in the US Senate. The consolation prize for professional panderers, after Mitt Romney’s dismal showing among Hispanics in 2012, is that there will be two Hispanic Republican Senators when Barack Obama takes his second oath of office in 2013: Marco Rubio who was elected in Florida in 2010, and Ted Cruz, who was elected in Texas in 2012.
In many respects, Rubio and Cruz are both very similar. Both are white Cubans. Looking at pictures of them, you would not be sure they were Hispanic—especially in Cruz’s case: his mother is of Irish and Italian ancestry, and he has a non-Hispanic wife. Both assert that their parents fled Castro’s Cuba, but only Cruz appears to be telling the truth. Both of them won Tea Party-backed primaries against Establishment GOP candidates, so there will be the usual fantasy coming from Conservatism Inc. about how this proves Hispanics support conservatives (as opposed to proving that whites like to vote for conservative Hispanics). Both are attorneys, though Cruz, a magna cum laude graduate of law school, law review editor at Harvard and a Supreme Court clerk, has a much more impressive resume.
These similarities and differences aside, the important question is whether Cruz will follow Rubio’s lead in promoting a GOP amnesty. During the campaign, Cruz ran on a tough-on-immigration platform, speaking out forcefully against Obama’s Administrative Amnesty, and he gave a perfect immigration patriot response to Numbers USA’s questions—including those about birthright citizenship and reducing legal immigration.
Immediately after his victory Cruz was asked about the GOP’s dismal performance with Hispanics. He spouted a lot of the usual platitudes about Hispanics being “fundamentally conservative” how politicians on both sides have been “demagoguing” the issue that Republicans need a positive “tone” on immigration. When asked about Rubio’s DREAM Act he did respond: "I don't think the answer to our immigration problems is amnesty.” But he also spoke about generically changing the tone on immigration and supporting “legal immigration.” [Ted Cruz sounds off on Hispanic vote after historic Senate win, CBS, November 7, 2012]
On November 29, Cruz gave a much-noticed speech at the America’s Principles Project’s Red White and Blue Gala. . One of this group’s main projects is the “The Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles” whose dual mission is “to garner greater Latino support for conservative causes and candidates, and at the same time, to encourage the conservative movement to support Latino conservative groups, leaders, and candidates, as well as policies that are welcoming of Latino immigrants.” These “policies that are welcoming of Latino immigrants” include “the state level for conservative-led reforms such as the 2011 guest worker program passed in Utah,” which was actually a state-level amnesty. The project is led by Alfonso Aguilar who has been one of the leading “conservative Hispanic” amnesty advocates.
However, I’m not one for guilt by association, so after that digression, I will focus on Cruz’s remarks.
Cruz told the crowd that he is “something that is not supposed to exist: a Hispanic Republican.” Actually, no-one is surprised by half-Cuban half Irish/Italian Republicans. What is much rarer: lower class Mexicans and other Mesoamericans, who make up the vast majority of the Hispanic immigrant population, becoming Republicans.
Cruz asked: “Do you want to know why Barack Obama won 71 percent of the Hispanic vote?” and answered “The tone of immigration contributed, but I think far more important was ’47 percent.’”
To his credit, Cruz said the way to win Hispanics is not, “as the media would suggest,” to support amnesty. The Daily Caller summarized his position:
Cruz encouraged Republicans to maintain their strong stance on border security and stopping illegal immigration, but said they must be very welcoming of legal immigration.
Additionally Cruz reportedly said it is important that the Republican Party shows that they like Hispanics, because nobody “is going to vote for you if they believe you don’t like them.”
[Cruz: I’m ‘something that is not supposed to exist: a Hispanic Republican, by Caroline May, November 29, 2012]
What should we make of all these comments? In both cases, Cruz spoke about the GOP changing its “tone” on immigration, but he failed to say who exactly in the GOP is promoting a harsh tone on immigration.
Similarly, Cruz does not elaborate on what he means by being more welcoming for legal immigration. Does that mean he is already abandoning his pledge to Numbers USA to reduce legal immigration by 75%?
As I have stated before, every single Republican who gives lip-service to cracking down on illegal immigration qualifies their support by emphasizing how much they love Hispanics and legal immigration. Even during the Republican primaries, when Mitt Romney made those supposedly nasty comments about illegal immigration, he in fact simultaneously called for increasing legal immigration and the most controversial thing he said was “self-deport”—which Cruz supposedly supports.
Cruz is probably right that Hispanics are turned off by the 47% comment—but he doesn’t acknowledge that the reason is that they are overwhelmingly part of the 47%.
Does this mean Cruz is going to be immigration patriots’ adversary in Congress? My view: Absolutely not.
Of course, I wish the top priority for immigration patriots in the next congress could be passing an immigration moratorium and ending birthright citizenship. But with Harry Reid running the Senate, GOP House Leader John Boehner supporting amnesty, and Barack Obama in the White House, the top priority is defensive: stopping amnesty.
(Which is not to say that immigration patriots in Congress shouldn’t go on the offensive on these issues to force them into the 2014 and 2016 elections.)
Still, while most Congressional Republicans are flip-flopping on amnesty, Cruz seems to be standing firm.
Assuming Cruz stays firm, you can expect him to become the go-to guy for conservatives seeking to oppose Rubio’s campaign for amnesty.
Needless to say, it is unfortunate that many Republicans and conservatives seem to feel they need token Hispanics to validate their opposition to illegal immigration. In the long run, this attitude must change.
But for now, having a leading conservative Hispanic speaking out against amnesty will be invaluable.
"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway. | <urn:uuid:9aba728c-9f0e-4c66-b1c3-caff5f39f663> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vdare.com/articles/ted-cruz-wobbling-but-still-worthwhile-for-immigration-patriots | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968596 | 1,436 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The Region is defined as the Illinois counties of Adams, Brown, Cass, Greene, Hancock, McDonough, Morgan, Pike, Schuyler, and Scott. Formal Funding grant requests from organizations that lie outside of these counties must also fit into the guidelines of the Region.
The Foundation has identified both Primary and Secondary Focus Areas for the Region.
The Primary Focus Areas are:
- Catholic School Education
- Nonprofit Capacity Building
- Community Centers
The Secondary Focus Areas are:
- PreK – Grade 12 Academics
- Youth development
- Unmet Needs of At-Risk families
The Foundation has taken a Pro-Active approach to funding in their Primary Focus Areas, meaning we will seek out funding opportunities. Our approach within the Secondary Focus Areas will be re-active, meaning we will respond to applications in these areas. Qualified organizations that are working to address needs in the TFF Primary and/or Secondary Focus Areas are invited to submit Formal Funding grant applications to the Foundation. | <urn:uuid:1a5ab851-e52f-442e-a6d3-42676c0d4d80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tracyfoundation.org/region/region.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937943 | 208 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Pittsford steps up security at elementary schools in response to Sandy Hook tragedy
Posted at: 01/04/2013 5:26 PM
| Updated at: 01/04/2013 7:24 PM
By: Berkeley Brean | WHEC.com
A local school district is stepping up its security following the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, that left 20 children and 6 staff members dead.
Prior to the shooting in Newtown, you could have walked into an unlocked front door of any elementary school in Pittsford and go straight to the reception desk. But that doesn't happen anymore.
Mike Pero is the assistant superintendent for Pittsford Schools. He showed News10NBC exactly what they've done to make the elementary schools more secure.
Mike Pero, Pittsford Assistant Superintendent, said, “These doors would have been unlocked. These are the main entrance doors.”
Now they are locked and now every visitor, whether they're a parent or the assistant superintendent, rings the front door bell. A camera in the unit captures the face before the door unlocks. Whoever comes in still has to go to the front desk and has to turn over their photo ID to the receptionist. It's scanned and then a visitor pass is printed out with the visitor's picture on it.
Pero said, “Then the actual badge would have to be visible while in the building.”
Gretchen Wesley went through the security to get into the school to pick up her son.
Wesley said, “It's not a problem at all. It's really quick. It's really easy. Jean buzzes you in right away. It doesn't make it more inconvenient to get in and out of school.
The fact is this new security at Pittsford elementary schools is similar to the security that existed at Sandy Hook Elementary. It didn't stop the killing there. So is this as much as psychological as it is physical?
Pero said, “It's a first step. So we chose to go this route because we needed kids in particular feeling comfortable coming to school. The outreach from our parents and the way the district responded I think ultimately shows that we're in this together and we want the same thing: we want safety for our kids.”
The decision to do this happened very quickly. The administration in Pittsford had a meeting the day after Sandy Hook and decided then that they would increase the security in the elementary schools. They equipped all five elementary schools for about $20,000. | <urn:uuid:c6567c7a-987e-4521-8ef1-2b60d19a592e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whec.com/news/stories/S2885650.shtml?cat=566 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970399 | 526 | 1.78125 | 2 |
This month's Buffalo Chamber Luncheon had everything a good action flick should have...fighting, yelling, hitting, kicking and plenty of, well...action.
Empower Wyoming gave a demonstration of their personal safety and self-defense classes, which are designed specifically for women and kids to learn how to set boundaries and defend themselves when necessary.
Francene Russell, who worked with the Los Angeles-based IMPACT personal safety course, asked some of her former colleagues to come to Wyoming and train her staff in the technique. While here, they will also be teaching some local women as well.
During the hour-long demonstration, Rob Latimer, Personal Safety Instructor with IMPACT in L.A., gave the women a target for their hits, kicks, punches, knees to the groin and verbal attacks, giving the luncheon crowd a small taste of what the class is all about.
Russell said she sees this class as just the beginning for the program here in Buffalo and in Wyoming.
The class will continue through this weekend, culminating in a graduation ceremony this Sunday in the Buffalo High School Wrestling Room beginning at 1pm. The public is invited to attend. | <urn:uuid:090c3811-6852-4591-9547-bc8f209a5b5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sheridanmedia.com/news/buffalo-chamber-luncheon-features-empowerment18309 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959262 | 236 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Today france opened secret files covering 50 years of U.F.O. sightings. The 1,600 sightings are well organized and can all be found at www.cnes-geipan.fr
Minutes after the site posted, the server crashed due to heavy traffic from worldwide U.F.O. buffs and scientists.
“It is a world first,” said Jacques Patenet, the aeronautical engineer who heads the office for the study of “non-identified aerospatial phenomena.”
Known as OVNIs in French, UFOs have always generated intense interest along with countless conspiracy theories about secretive government cover-ups of findings deemed too sensitive or alarming for public consumption.
“Cases such as the lady who reported seeing an object that looked like a flying roll of toilet paper” are clearly not worth investigating, said Patenet.
But many others involving multiple sightings — in at least one case involving thousands of people across France — and evidence such as burn marks and radar trackings showing flight patterns or accelerations that defy the laws of physics are taken very seriously. | <urn:uuid:71d6ed03-b5bb-425f-a862-4bc3907dceff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://petitebrigitte.com/2007/03/22/ufo-unidentified-frenchie-oddities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94592 | 232 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Decision-Science: Measuring & Valuing Training Investments
Posted: 08/25/2011 12:00:00 AM EDT | 0
What if there were a powerful argument, substantiated by years of research, that senior-level training executives could use to persuade other senior managers to invest more in training? Human Resources iQ speaks with Dr. Laurie Bassi. Dr. Bassi has been researching the correlation between training and development expenditures to shareholder value and has created internationally recognized standards for measuring and valuing firms' investments in education and training. She is an expert on the “decision-science” of human capital management—the processes and practices within an organization that align the management and development of employees with its business results.
HRIQ: What is the relationship between public companies' stock prices and how much they invest in training-and-development programs?
In a nutshell, holding all else constant we find that statistically firms’ investments in training and development are the single most powerful predictors of stock prices that we can find in a large data set of firms.
Backing up a bit, it’s very, very difficult to find anything that predicts future stock prices—if any of you have ever tried to choose your own stock portfolio, you know how hard it is to get this right. Economic theory states that there are no variables to predict future stock prices. They follow what economist call a “random walk.” So it is quite unexpected to find anything that predicts stock prices.
It’s a surprising finding—to some, not to us—that training and development investments could be such a powerful predictor, and controlling for other variables, it was the most powerful predictor we could find.
Then why haven’t learning expenditures caught on as a major metric for analysts and investors?
Very succinctly: the absence of comparable data for the purpose of analysis.
It’s really hard work to get this data. My business partner, Dan McMurrer, and I have been working at it for over 15 years now. First of all, you have to have a standard definition of what constitutes a training and development expense so that you can do an apples-to-apples comparison across firms. Then you have to get firms to provide you with the data. Because there are no required accounting and reporting practices around this, there is no source of comparable, publicly-available information that Wall Street analysts and others could use to examine the importance of this relationship.
How can a company measure what role training-and-development investments play and if they are effective?
Of course, there is the standard Kirkpatrick Level 1-5 analysis. There are software providers that are now supporting the automation of training evaluation. That’s all well and good—making it simple and cost effective to do the standard type of evaluation is definitely a move in the right direction. Having said that, I feel that we, as a profession, have to move beyond that— to what I think are more authentic methods of evaluation. For example: merging records from your Leaning Management System (LMS) with data from your employee surveys with data on key performance indicators (KPIs). Where I see the world moving in what we think of as human capital analytics, is really taking disparate pieces of information so that you’ve got a database that can produce actual business intelligence about how these investments in learning and development relate to employee engagement, employee turnover, and sales productivity. That’s the next evolution that will take us beyond traditional Kirkpatrick Level 1-5 analysis.
According to your research, what are the characteristics of programs and training investments that present the highest ROI across the board?
On the one hand, there is no universal answer—which is distressing. There’s probably no amount of data that is going to universally answer this question—different firms, different stages of maturity, different industries and different business demands have different training and development requirements.
Having said that, analysis of these databases indicates that, not surprisingly, voluntary education training has more impact than mandatory, which is often compliance-oriented in nature. You need to go beyond just the baseline and actually have discretionary employee training investments. Interestingly, we found that basic skills had a high payoff, as have investments in technology training.
From a researcher’s point of view, we’re unable to say that there’s a single best thing or a one-size-fits all. The realistic answer is you have to move beyond the simple base requirements of compliance mandatory training to really see much of an impact.
The data presented in your research is clearly compelling for the return on training investments. What else can the HR partners in an organization do to create a business case for training programs and make use of human capital metrics?
Obviously, we are big advocates of metrics and analysis. We encourage people to use our findings. I can say that some of these most recent findings are published in our upcoming book Good Company in chapter five. In addition to our findings and analysis that [firms themselves] are doing, there is storytelling. As much as I love metrics, we also understand that there’s incredible power in storytelling. The most effective training professionals and HR profesionals are those who are leaning how to blend compelling quantitative analysis with the ancient art of storytelling.
In the end, it is story-telling that moves people, speaks to their hearts, and that they remember. Analytics is my gift and trained skill set, but I’m always learning to tell stories that I combine with the analysis we present. It’s that combination that really sticks and makes a difference. And it will help get you the budget you need!
Interview conducted by Alexandra Guadagno, Editor for Human Resources iQ
HR-- The Corporate Lifeguards
The Cover Letter-- What MUST Be Said!
Evolving Compensation Plans to Drive Organizational Performance
3 Steps Forward: Learning and Development Programs as a Strategic Business Partner
Counter Offers -- Just Say "NO!"
Diversity & Affirmative Action in the Workplace: 6 Tips to Stay Compliant
Decision-Science: Measuring & Valuing Training Investments
Communication Is Key!
Cost-Effective Training for Small to Medium-Sized Businesses
Do Humans Still Matter?
* = required. | <urn:uuid:078b1aa6-cc40-4143-8287-2510b3723498> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.humanresourcesiq.com/management-development/articles/decision-science-measuring-valuing-training-inves/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94843 | 1,308 | 1.507813 | 2 |
To scale who’s to say that ‘Earth’ is not the biggest zoo ever created. I’m sure the concept seems ridiculous, but I’m sure if you went into the jungle and tried to explain a zoo to bobo the chimp he wouldn’t get it either. Let’s look at this objectively. We have a large number of sightings, videos, and pictures of objects in our skies. Among the first questions to be asked is “why don’t they just land?” Well I could ask you “why don’t you climb into the tiger cage?” The concept is exactly the same! It’s all about purpose of visit. We go to the zoo (I am not fond of caging animals for entertainment) to look at the animals, NOT to interact with them. Would not the same rules apply if this were indeed the intergalactic zoo? Surely one of the rules would be look but don’t touch.
The pattern of the ‘sightings’ even mirrors human behavior. Typically UFOs are sighted over several cities with a very discernable path, does this not sound like a site seeing tour? I would think if you made the trip to the zoo you would want to see more than one ‘animal’ right? It stands perfectly to reason that a few stops would be made so that tourists can gawk and take pictures. Scale is the issue here. I’m not a fool, so I am well aware of the type of feedback ideas like this receive. However if you can remove the filter that says we are on top of the evolutionary scale, it doesn’t seem so outlandish.
Usually I’m on my soap box about how many things are wrong on this planet but today Ill forego that in hopes that you will give this idea some thought. We need to free our minds. The world has become infinitely finite and quite frankly that is no way to live. We can’t live like we have all the answers when we don’t. The time for asking questions is now. No longer shall we just recycle information that we are unsure of, it is time to start asking some difficult questions. WE must leave the safety of the familiar and seek sanctuary in new knowledge obtained. | <urn:uuid:b8370d0b-1001-4bbe-a335-60cf10f5c08d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minglecity.com/profiles/blogs/one-big-a-zoo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966577 | 481 | 1.8125 | 2 |
In today’s Detroit News Tigers beat writer Tom Gage writes about RISP. RISP of course is runners in scoring position and Gage goes on to explain part of the Tigers woes by looking at their performance in RISP situations. Along the way he creates a new metric and applies some faulty logic.
Gage notes that the Tigers are the only team in the AL Central with a RISP batting average lower than their overall batting average. Gage then goes on to compare the Tigers to the division leading Twins:
The Tigers are hitting .264 as a team but .251 with RISP. That’s a difference, math majors, of minus 13. The division-leading Twins? After Sunday’s game, they were at plus 46. Their overall batting average was .265, but with RISP, they were hitting .311.
But here’s the kicker, the Tigers have outscored the Twins this year despite the disparity. The Twins have a better record because they are allowing a run a game less than the Tigers, not because they have a better RISP batting average differential.
Next Gage goes on to talk about a new stat loosely termed combined average. It is described thusly
When you combine the two numbers just like combining slugging average and on-base percentage gives you a better perspective about production, you get a total average that provides a more complete view of a team’s offense.
The Tigers’ total average is .515. The Twins’ total average is .576.
That’s also why the Tigers’ apparent offensive edge over the Indians is misleading. The Indians are hitting .243 as a team, 21 points lower than the Tigers. But they’re also hitting .287 with RISP for a total batting average of .530.
First of all I’m not sure why this would provide a more complete view of production, but I’ll be back to that in a minute. Once again the Tigers are compared to a team that has been their inferior in terms of scoring runs. The Indians score 4.47 RPG where the Tigers score 4.74.
But as for the assertion that it provides a more complete view of production, it just ain’t true. Probably the most complete view of production is runs scored, but of course we want to better understand the whys and hows of run scoring. So as we look for answers it is probably worth looking at how any new stat actually relates to run scoring.
Using AL data for this year (which is what Gage is using) I looked at how combined average related to runs. Combined average had a correlation of .43. (Correlation values run from -1 to 1. A value of 0 shows that two items aren’t really related. A value closer to 1 or -1 shows they are highly related.) Now .43 isn’t bad, but we can do better.
Plain old batting average has a correlation of .60. On base percentage and slugging percentage are .79 and .77 respectively. And OPS rocks out a .83.
Looking at RISP stats to see if they are more highly correlated with run production than overall stats we see that RISP batting average checks in at a meager .21 and RISP OPS .39. You know what RISP stat does correlate with runs scored? At-bats with runners in scoring position has a .66 correlation. So one could say the number of the number of RISP opportunities has more to do with run production than the actual performance in those at-bats.
The problem with Gage’s stat is that you’re adding things that are kind of alike, but they don’t get weighted by opportunity. Plus, the RISP performance is factored into the overall already. The other problem of course is that a quarter of the way into the season, numbers are still pretty volatile, especially when looking at splits like RISP where there are only 300-400 at-bats.
There is some value in looking at RISP performance, like if you wanted to see if there was a disparity between a run model like runs created and actual runs scored. But otherwise it’s more of a novelty. (As an aside, using the short form of Runs Created=TB*OBP the Tigers are only 3 runs short of their estimate.)
The Tigers offense, while amassing decent totals, has been a problem due to its inconsistency. In the 22 losses their OBP and their slugging percentage are less than .300. But number like that speak to bigger problems than just their inability to hit with runners in scoring position. | <urn:uuid:24feb673-356b-46aa-b920-dd6430725208> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.detroittigersweblog.com/2008/05/it-doesnt-add-up/?wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961807 | 964 | 1.554688 | 2 |
NCAA Middle Class
The 2010 BCS bowls feature mostly middle of the pack programs.
By: Braden Gall | 12/10/10, 4:23 PM EST
There won’t be any extended tax cuts given to this middle class. Not with how they performed on the field this season.
As scholarship limitations continue to tighten rosters and the distribution of wealth in the college football world increases, parity is slowly working its way into college football. And I, for one, think it is a pleasure to look at this year’s BCS bowl games and see the rise of college football’s middle class.
Other than Ohio State and Oklahoma, eight of the 10 BCS bowl teams are true definers of the middle of the pack in college football. In fact, no teams in the nation have appeared in more BCS bowl games than Ohio State (9) and Oklahoma (8). They also claim a combined 12 Heisman Trophies and 30 national championships. The Bucks and Sooners are true definers of college football’s upper class.
The other eight are a totally different story.
TCU, Stanford, Oregon, Virginia Tech, Wisconsin, UConn, Arkansas and Auburn have a combined zero BCS national titles with one total title game appearance since the BCS started (Virginia Tech, 1999).
TCU is trying for its first BCS bowl win in school history in only its second BCS berth. Historically, they claim the 1935 Williamson System National Champion and the 1938 AP, Williamson System, Helms Athletic Foundation and National Championship Foundation national titles. The will become an AQ team soon enough, but they are still technically a mid-major program.
Wisconsin claims the 1942 Helms Athletic Foundation national title. This will be its third BCS bowl bid (all Roses), and the Badgers have never finished higher than fourth in BCS standings. And really, their program really didn’t even start until the last 20 years when Barry Alvarez began his historic rebuilding of a Big Ten doormat.
Stanford claims the 1926 Helms Athletic Foundation, National Championship Foundation, Sagarin Ratings and the Dickinson System national title and the Billingsly Report, Helms Athletic Foundation and Poling System title in 1940.
This will be Arkansas' first BCS bowl berth in school history. The Hogs claim the 1964 Helms Athletic Foundation, Football Writer’s Association of America, College Football Researches Association, National Championship Foundation, Billingsley Report, Poling System and Sagarin Ratings national title. They also claim the 1977 Rothman national title.
UConn, which also makes its first BCS appearance, Oregon and Virginia Tech have no official national championships, and Auburn claims two, 1913 (Billingsly Report) and 1957 (AP).
What do all these HAF, FWAA, BR, PS, NCF, CFRA, WS, obscure acronym championships mean? That, in all honesty, the eight other BCS bowl teams have a total of two legit national titles (TCU’s 1938 AP and Auburn’s 1957 AP) in their entire existence.
The eight other BCS teams claim a total of six Heisman Trophies (Wisconsin 2, Auburn 2, Stanford 1, TCU 1) with no winner ever playing at Oregon, Arkansas, Virginia Tech or UConn. Of course, that should change with Auburn’s Cameron Newton (or even Stanford’s Andrew Luck or Oregon’s LaMichael James).
In terms of total BCS bowl berths, there has been slightly more success as this middle class continues to grow. Teams like Boise State, Kansas, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Wake Forest, Iowa, Illinois, Hawaii, Utah, West Virginia have all competed on the BCS stage of late. Wisconsin enters its third BCS bid with of 2-0 record. Virginia Tech will be playing in its fifth BCS game with a 1-3 record. Oregon is also playing in its third BCS tilt with a 1-1 mark. This is only Auburn’s second appearance after they won the 2005 Sugar Bowl and finished unbeaten. Stanford lost to Wisconsin in the 2000 Rose Bowl (1999 season) in its only BCS showing.
If you need any more confirmation that this was the year of the middle class, just look at perceived talent level. The combined team recruiting rankings for the ten BCS teams over the last four years averages out to 32nd in the nation. Arkansas (28.3), Virginia Tech (30.8), Stanford (31.3), Wisconsin (35.3), UConn (67) and TCU (76) are outside of the top 25 virtually ever season (with a few exceptions). Oregon has recently begun to establish itself as a new recruiting power, and its 17.8 average class ranking seems to be getting better every year. The same can be said about Auburn and its recent rise up the recruiting charts (we will leave the Scam Newton comments out of this equation). Ohio State and Oklahoma are the only two BCS teams this year that recruit nationally rated players and finish in the top ten nearly every year.
I, personally, think it is wonderful for college football to see more of the middle class excelling at an elite level, winning conference titles and playing in marquee bowl games. Other programs who have yet to appear in a BCS bowl games seem to be getting closer: Middle-classers like Michigan State (who got jobbed in their placement this year), Missouri, Oklahoma State, Clemson, Boston College, South Carolina and South Florida.
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Enter the Athlon Sports Fantasy Racing game. Just head over to athlon.myfantasyracing.com and register for your chance to win a chance to watch a 2014 race from the grandstands. You'll also have a chance to win other amazing prizes such as an autographed Kyle Busch helmet. | <urn:uuid:76ff1489-61c9-4b34-8c22-1dae086bf5c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.athlonsports.com/blogs/braden-gall/ncaa-middle-class | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940506 | 1,224 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Writing a business plan will assist you in improving the probability of succeeding in business and avoiding key errors. Even if you are the only person who reads your plan you still should have a written blueprint for what your business does, who you serve, why you are different from your competitors, and how you will carry about with your daily business procedures. The following are three reasons your business needs a business plan.
1. To Examine your Business Concept
If you are thinking about starting a business – Your business plan template will assist you in examining whether your business idea is viable and worth the time, money, and resources you must devote to make it a success. Ask yourself:
Having a solid plan provides you with a flow chart of all aspects of your business from marketing to accounting, covering all your business systems. It will define your target market and your marketing plan. A complete business plan will also document your goals and outline your plans to attain them.
How do you get started with writing your strategic business plan? Here are some things for you include:
1. Business description or mission statement. How would you best describe what your business will provide to it’s prospects and customers? If you are having trouble with this, begin writing a letter to someone, maybe your mom or a friend, about your business. What would you tell them you do? Once written, if it is longer than a paragraph, narrow it down. You want to be able to in 30 seconds confidently tell someone exactly what your business is. | <urn:uuid:1c938a1c-e0d6-4b82-87fe-6002ebff1fc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nxnwphl.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958115 | 307 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Speech component of the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College reflects Speech at its best. We've created a forum for dynamic conversations to push our thinking about Speech and other forms of communication. You'll find this spirit of curiosity and enthusiasm reflected in how we talk about, think about, write about, and do Speech. You'll also see our commitment to Speech through our thoughtfully designed courses that help students to become more confident, more effective, more informed communicators.
The Benjamin F. Barge Prize for Oratory was established by Benjamin F. Barge (1832-1902) in 1901 and continued until 2004. After a six-year hiatus, the Institute for Writing & Rhetoric re-launched the Benjamin F. Barge Prize for Oratory in Spring 2010. The award is presented to a member of the senior class who is determined by a panel of three judges to "write and pronounce in public an English oration in the best manner." Judges are instructed to consider content and delivery equally when determining the winner of the contest. One senior student is named the winner and receives a medal and a cash award.
These prizes were established in 1905 by Waldemer Otis and Dr. James A. Spaulding, both members of the Class of 1866, and continued until 2004. There are two prizes, one to a junior and one to a sophomore, to be awarded "for excellence in original orations." Winners receive a medal and a cash award. The Institute re-launched the Class of 1866 Prizes for Oratory by awarding them in the May 19, 2011 speech contest.
For information about this year's upcoming speech contests or about past speech contests, click HERE.
Last Updated: 11/16/12 | <urn:uuid:146a0c05-04ca-4d46-970d-89d04997cdb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/speech/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969267 | 359 | 1.828125 | 2 |
My peers, that is, liberal arts educated, urban aesthetes, have been preoccupied since graduation with their path in this world. It’s not a novel notion for a human being to be concerned with where he’s going, since there are no longer any natural rhythms or movements for our species, no migration patterns, no perennial hunting grounds. We can fly around the world in a leather recliner: the sky’s the limit for us. Yet, this freedom of opportunity in a way is self-inhibiting. The vast array of options is arresting. Only the single-minded can wade through those options on the first try.
A lot of my peers, while in angst over their path, have found themselves in situations born of the necessity of paying bills and loans. Ask them if these first jobs are fulfilling. The answer would be bleak. Ask them then if they believe they can move on from that job to something better suited to them. The response would be better. Quite a few, though, would tell you that their current occupation is getting them nowhere because it is wholly unrelated to what they plan to do or even what they find interesting in life. Those who studied in college what they found interesting thus see themselves with inapplicable degrees.
There is certainly value to how we educate ourselves, which poems we explicate, hearts we dissect, websites we build. The absurdity of a liberal arts degree, however, arises with the expectation that it entitles the bearer to an easier life. Odd that so many of us got the impression that having written fifty pages on Themes of Love and Beauty in Cave Paintings or The Impact of Geography on the Concept of Erosion would somehow set us up for a higher quality of life than the average American. These schools supposedly have career services offices. Instead of hiring a new Dean of Plurality or Sustainability Coordinator, colleges could use some of their endowment to lure students into visiting those offices before senior year.
The idea of thinking about life outside of the campus bubble, though, is anathema to many undergraduates. Better to borrow some Ritalin and focus on what really matters: these four special years of self-invented activities and impractical core curricula, where there are few adults and no children. No one would ever dispute that it’s a fun time. The argument lies in whether or not it’s worthwhile.
“College for everyone” is the refrain of many policymakers. Perhaps a sound idea, but anecdotal evidence, at least from this cohort, shows that college doesn’t serve anyone well unless they think how they’re going to apply it to their lives after they turn twenty-two. That may be unfair to the many graduates who do think about their futures or who honestly believe that their obscure degree will lead to a job when every other person with that obscure degree will be vying for those same jobs. Many of us were indeed planning, we might have just gotten a little carried away with the idea that adult life could be as intellectually stimulating and sensually pleasing as our post-adolescent existence. Most people fall victim to runaway imaginations, but when you have a whole group of people with highly developed imaginations, the delusions can be startling.
Of course, most of my peers by this point have accepted the unpleasant reality of living in an economy crawling out of a recession, in a society that cannot agree on values, in a country that is no longer exceptional, in a world that is on the brink of mutual destruction while preparing for the Summer Olympics. We get it now. Acknowledgment of our reality, however, does not put us any closer to finding our paths.
We aren’t any closer because there may still be one piece of the adult puzzle that we are not identifying. Passions are not paths. Many of my friends found their passions in college. That’s why they treasure the experience. Of course, everyone wants to make a living out of what they love. No one wants to be disgruntled, but maybe we are setting ourselves up for just that by desiring to pursue interests that aren’t jobs. We spent so much money and time cultivating those interests. They would seem to be going to waste in a cubicle, but aren’t they going to waste in a coffee shop too?
Finding a path is not a linear activity, as much as we conceive of it as being a straight line. The first step after college might set us on a trajectory nowhere near the one we want to be on. Where we go from there is significant. It not only determines where we are headed as individuals, but it signals the direction of society. We can find a spiritually fulfilling path or a practical one, rarely both at once. The choice now is which one will we step towards next. | <urn:uuid:e1ff9024-1cb6-4c10-a7c0-6576f9652378> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/maurapennington/2012/02/14/a-liberal-arts-degree-doesnt-correlate-with-an-easier-life/?commentId=comment_blogAndPostId/blog/comment/1842-123-261 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971554 | 997 | 1.75 | 2 |
March 6, 2012
This Forbes article — via TaxProf — makes it look like gay couples are getting ripped off by the federal government. They can't be married for federal tax purposes, but they are treated as a single unit in being limited to deducting interest on only $1.1 million in mortgage debt. But if you read all the way to the end of the article, you'll see that the Tax Court was treating them the same as all other taxpayers who live together and jointly own property. That would include unmarried heterosexual couples, 2 friends living together without a sexual relationship, 2 sisters, a parent and child, etc. etc. | <urn:uuid:9179cac7-c08c-4379-a83f-2ba2ea996e4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.althouse.blogspot.com/2012/03/in-loss-for-gay-couples-celebrity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975092 | 130 | 1.632813 | 2 |
For most of us commoners, visiting a castle is the closest we'll ever get to living like a king or queen (and maybe that's a good thing -- it's hard enough to keep an ordinary house clean, much less a palace with hundreds of rooms!). If you're looking to tour a royal residence on your next trip, check out our list of the world's top 10 coolest castles. Some have great historical significance, like the citadel in Syria that played a crucial role in the Crusades, while others made our list for their amazing architecture or over-the-top opulence. Start the slideshow
to see our picks for the world's best castles.
Did we forget your favorite? Share your must-visit castles on our message boards | <urn:uuid:c8d568cd-f867-4b1e-aab7-d6146ca9812e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.independenttraveler.com/travel-tips/none/slideshow-the-worlds-coolest-castles | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934763 | 153 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The frail economy remains the No. 1 issue more than three years after the deep recession officially ended. Nine in 10 call it important for them and half of voters say it is "extremely important," outpacing all other issues tested by at least 10 percentage points.
Registered voters split about evenly between the two candidates on whom they trust more to handle the economy, with 48 percent favoring Romney and 44 percent Obama. They are also about evenly divided on who would do more to create jobs, 47 percent for Romney to 43 percent for Obama. Among independent voters, Romney has a big lead over the president on handling the economy — 46 percent to 27 percent.
The election is all about the economy for Mattise Fraser, a 52-year-old Democrat from Charlotte, where Democrats gather in early September. "We're in a crisis situation now," said Fraser, who said she plans to vote for Obama. She says she's a homemaker — but not by choice. "The economy is crazy. There's no jobs."
Obama's approval rating held steady in the poll at about an even split, with 49 percent saying they approve of the way he's handling his job and another 49 percent saying they disapprove.
The president continues to be seen as more empathetic, and also held a commanding lead among voters as the candidate who better "understands the problems of people like you," 51 percent to 36 percent for Romney.
"For Romney to even say that he has four cars when I don't have one, and I'm struggling, and every time I turn around, something else is costing me more, I just don't feel he has any concept whatsoever," said Suzanne Ayer, a 69-year-old independent from West Deptford, N.J.
Some 50 percent see Obama as a stronger leader than Romney; 41 percent say Romney is stronger. And 35 percent overall say things in the nation are heading in the "right direction," up from 31 percent in June.
The poll involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,006 adults nationwide, including 885 registered voters. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.9, while it's 4.1 points for registered voters.
AP Deputy Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:8bf96474-c1d9-4229-bc82-459eb5af4cc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2012/08/22/ap-gfk-poll-shows-white-house-race-still-tight?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966402 | 500 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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KRWG.ORG-The Region's Home Page
Fri March 15, 2013
New Pope Praises Benedict, Asks Cardinals To Evangelize
Originally published on Fri March 15, 2013 10:43 am
Pope Francis, in his first audience with the cardinals since becoming head of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, praised his predecessor, Benedict XVI, and urged the evangelization of the church's message.
Francis said of Benedict, who served as pontiff for eight years before his historic resignation last month, that he "lit a flame in the depths of our hearts that will continue to burn because it is fueled by his prayers."
On his first full day as pope Thursday, the former archbishop of Buenos Aires called on the cardinals "to find new ways to bring evangelization to the ends of the Earth" and cautioned against giving into pessimism — "that bitterness that the devil offers us every day."
The 76-year-old pontiff, formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, encouraged the prelates — many in their 60s and 70s — to pass their wisdom to younger members of the church. "Like good wine, [it] gets better with the years. Let's give the young the wisdom of life."
Meanwhile, the Rev. Francisco Jalics, a Jesuit priest who was abducted along with fellow priest Orlando Yorio by Argentina's military during the country's so-called "dirty war," says he and Yorio reconciled with Bergoglio, who was accused at the time of having not done enough to prevent the kidnapping.
According to The Associated Press:
Bergoglio has said he told the priests to give up their slum work for their own safety, and they refused. Yorio, who is now dead, later accused Bergoglio of effectively delivering them to the death squads by declining to publicly endorse their work.
'It was only years later that we had the opportunity to talk with Father Bergoglio ... to discuss the events,' Jalics said Friday in his first known comments about the kidnapping, which occurred when the new pope was the leader of Argentina's Jesuits.
Update at 11:20 a.m. ET: Vatican Lashes Out At "Anti-Clerical Left-Wing":
The Vatican on Friday released a statement saying the accusations against Pope Francis related to the period when Argentina was ruled by a junta are part of a "defamatory" campaign by the "anti-clerical left wing."
Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said Argentine courts had never accused Bergoglio of any crime and that instead, there was plenty of evidence that he protected people from the country's death squads during the military's "dirty war" to eliminate leftist opposition, according to the AP.
Lombardi said the accusations were made long ago "by anti-clerical left-wing elements to attack the church and must be decisively rejected." | <urn:uuid:2f85ac9f-622b-4874-b2bd-bf2d6307b4c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.krwg.org/post/new-pope-praises-benedict-asks-cardinals-evangelize | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982307 | 610 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Get learned. - Al Bello
Today, I am going for a dual thread. First, I am going to do a quick look at the few stats I examine when I am looking at a player. I will used the stats freely available at FanGraphs. They can be all added to an easy to read personal dash board at FanGraphs. Also, feel free in the comments to ask any stat/sabermetric questions (try to limit the Wins and RBI jokes).
Stats for Hitters (for a definition of each stat go to this link)
Age - Reference to know if a player's skills should be increasing or decreasing. Peak age for speed is around 22-years-old and hitting is at age 27.
Games and plate appearances - Context needs to be added to the other stats. A player hitting a .350 AVG in 60 PA is less impressive than a hitter hitting at that level in 600 PA.
HR and HR/FB - Chicks dig the long ball. They help to determine the player's power.
SB and CS - Does the player attempt stolen bases (thinks he is fast) and his success rate (is he fast and smart).
K% and BB% - Determines the player's plate discipline.
wOBA - Gives the total value of a hitter's production adjusted to the league average OBA. Each different event (walk, out, home run, etc) is given its own weighting depending on the number of runs it generates on average.
AVG/OBP/SLG/ISO - By using these four stats, the type of hitter can be found in more detail than by just using wOBA. A .200/.350/.450 would be more walk and power prone than one who hit .300/.400/.400 even though they would have similar wOBA.
BABIP - Helps to show how many of his batted balls are dropping into play. Is his BABIP, which takes a long time to stabilize, the same as in the past (talent) or is it high or low compared to his norm (luck)?
wRC+ - A contextual stat where a value of 100 puts the player's hitting at league average. A value of 120 would mean they are 20% better than the league average. A value of 80 would mean they are 20% worse than the league average.
UZR - The number of fielding runs, above or below the league average, for a player prevents or gives up. Not a panacea for measuring defense. I usually half the value (positive or negative) to give me an idea of the player's defensive value.
WAR - Total value of a player including position, hitting, fielding and base running adjusted to Wins over a replacement player.
Age - Gives a reference for a pitcher. All stats will on average decline as a pitcher ages except BB% which bottoms out around age 28.
Games, Games started, IP - Gives a background context for the rest of the stats. A pitcher's fastball speed may have decreased, but by looking at these three, it may have been because he moved from the bullpen to the starting rotation and now needs to pace himself over the course of a game.
K/9, K%, BB/9, BB% - I useall four right now, but just one of the K and BB values could be used. I learned what was a good or bad value with the X/9 values in the past. The % values are a better representation of a player's talent though.
SwgStr% - Early indicator a pitchers ability to miss bats. I quick rule of thumb I use is SwgStr% + 9% = K%.
HR/9 - Is the pitcher prone to home runs? It should always be under 1.0.
GB% - Helps to show if the pitcher can keep the ball on the ground. 50% is good.
ERA/FIP/xFIP/SIERA - These 4 help to explain how a pitcher is preventing runs from being scored. ERA is the earned runs allowed. FIP used BB, K and HR to estimate a player's ERA. xFIP uses the same BB and K values, but uses the league average number of home runs per fly ball to estimate the number of home runs. SIERA used several more factors (GB%, velocity) and attempts to give a still more accurate estimation of ERA. Look for differences to see if a pitchers runs allowed will change.
BABIP and LOB% - They show how many balls in play get through the defense and with the hits, how many runners get home. A .290 BABIP is around league average now along with a 70% LOB%. These two, along with HR/9, help to explain the differences in ERA/FIP/xFIP/SIERA. A FIP higher than the other 3 could be sign the pitcher has allowed a higher percentage of home runs (wind was blowing out one day). The key is to see if a difference exists and why.
FBv and Zone% (pfx) - I use these two to look to see if a pitcher is throwing the same from year to year. Velocity is pretty simple, if they can keep it, they will remain the same pitcher. Zone% looks to see if a pitcher throws pitches in the strike zone. If the value drops below 47%, the pitcher may be struggling with pitches and be injured.
RA9-Wins and WAR - RA9 Wins is the number of wins the player produces due to their ability to prevent runs. WAR is FIP based and gives a player value based on their ability to control factors under their control, K, BB and HRs
By using the above stats, a good picture of a player's talent/results can be created. Thoughts on the list.
Also, remember to ask any other stat related questions. I won't bite. | <urn:uuid:9070fec9-68c9-452f-a0a9-591214c9b1a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.royalsreview.com/2013/2/5/3954692/jeffs-preferred-stats-and-sabermetric-questions-answered-thread | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957814 | 1,226 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Magazine journalists need to be able to uncover a great story and report it accurately, but they also need the ability to communicate with people.
They need to empathise and connect with people from all walks of life who have a story to tell. This is a very special skill.
Reporters who specialise in magazines must also be aware of how their stories will affect the business of the magazine. They need to ask: Will it please the readership demographic of the magazine? Will it attract advertisers to the magazine website?
Some journalists begin their careers in magazines starting as an editorial assistant and working their way up to writer or features writer. This takes many years and a lot of time performing administrative duties which have no connection to journalism.
Formal training in magazine journalism, such as that provided by the NCTJ, is the best way to go straight into magazines as a journalist.
NCTJ accredited magazine courses are run at various colleges, universities and private companies - see the accredited courses section of this website for further details.
NCTJ magazine courses cover media law, ethics, government, shorthand to 80wpm, news and feature writing, production and design, sub-editing and an overall background to the magazine industry.
There is also a period of work experience on a magazine. NCTJ preliminary examinations will be undertaken, together with the assessment of a portfolio of work produced on the course.
Many journalists who sat NCTJ newspaper journalism courses successfully move from newspapers into the magazine world. NCTJ accredited newspaper journalism courses are listed in the accredited courses section of this website.
To apply for an NCTJ accredited magazine course contact the course provider directly and then the institution will advise you on how to apply.
Suitable applicants are required to take a written test, and if successful, will be invited to attend a selection interview at the college of their choice.
The Journalism Diversity Fund has been set up by those in the industry who want to support the training of journalists from ethnically and socially diverse backgrounds.
It is aimed at people without the financial means to attend NCTJ training courses. Applicants will need to demonstrate a genuine commitment to journalism and the potential to be successful.
Please visit the website: www.journalismdiversityfund.com for details of the selection criteria and the application process. | <urn:uuid:c126190f-13e0-4045-a4b7-90a18578cb96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nctj.com/careers/magazine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960841 | 470 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Crater School of Business Innovation and Science
Crater is the worst example of this type, with 4 principles 4 deans and teachers teaching a new curriculum each trimester. There are no checks and balances with alot of high dollar greed and students falling through the huge cracks every day. This school is very ugly,
Submitted by a Parent on May 8, 2012
Click on this flag and we will review this school review and remove it from the site if it violates our Terms of Service. Thanks for helping us keep Education.com high quality. | <urn:uuid:088f76c6-bde0-4c97-83a5-f8350be688d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.com/schoolfinder/us/oregon/central-pt/crater-school-of-business-innovation-and-science/?page=reviews | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941923 | 111 | 1.820313 | 2 |
WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner on Friday wouldn’t rule out higher income-tax rates as part of an agreement to avert the coming “fiscal cliff,” but he also said no such movement was possible unless President Barack Obama showed more interest in compromising.
The Ohio Republican was asked at a news conference whether he could accept higher rates, perhaps 37 percent, and "protect small business at the same time."
"There are a lot of things that are possible to put the revenue that the president seeks on the table,” he said.
Boehner reiterated later that he still opposes higher tax rates, but his initial comments are significant, because they suggest that higher rates might be part of a deal. The comments also reflect the murky nature of such negotiations, and how sending signals can be oblique, but significant.
Bush-era tax cuts expire at the end of the year, and $109 billion in automatic spending cuts will take effect Jan. 2 unless lawmakers act.
Obama campaigned on a pledge to raise taxes on the wealthy but to keep Bush-era rates intact for individuals who make less than $200,000 a year and families earning less than $250,000.
He’s said over and over since the election that other rates must go up. Currently, the top rates are 33 and 35 percent; they’re slated to rise to 36 and 39.6 percent next year. Obama has suggested that he could accept a number in between, and Capitol talk has centered on 37 percent.
Boehner was hardly optimistic Friday. “None of it is going to be possible if the president insists on his position, insists on ‘my way or the highway,’ ” he said.
Republicans in the House of Representatives offered a deficit-reduction package Monday but haven’t gotten a White House counteroffer. It included $800 billion in new revenue, with no specifics.
Some veteran Republican lawmakers suggested that they could accept higher rates, notably Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, who’s considered close to Boehner, and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who’s regarded as one of the Senate’s most outspoken conservatives.
Obama and Boehner spoke earlier this week, and Boehner called the conversation “pleasant, but just more of the same.”
So, Boehner said Friday, “There’s no progress to report,” adding, "The White House has wasted another week.”
At the White House, officials declined to comment, while the administration continued its public push for middle-class tax breaks.
Vice President Joe Biden had lunch at the Metro 29 Diner in Arlington, Va., with a half-dozen handpicked Americans whose income taxes would rise if a deal isn’t reached by the end of the month.
Biden said it would take "15 minutes" for a bill to get done if Boehner agreed to let taxes on the wealthy go up. He said while the administration preferred having the rates go up to Clinton-era levels it was willing to negotiate with Republicans.
Attendees include a naturalized citizen from Colombia whose wife recently lost her job, a small-business owner whose children have developmental disabilities and a college senior.
Anne Marie Munos of Falls Church, Va., who cares for three seniors, was selected for the lunch after she responded on the White House website.
“I can’t see how we can afford to pay more taxes,’’ she wrote. "We certainly won’t be able to boost the economy because our buying power will suffer even more than it already has.”
Obama is trying to pressure Congress through a public relations blitz while leaving top aides to work out a compromise. Since beginning the #My2K campaign a week ago, more than 100,000 stories have been shared on WhiteHouse.gov and 250,000 tweeted with the hashtag #My2k. | <urn:uuid:1818bf0d-8679-4988-84b7-1123cd63d8af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kansas.com/2012/12/07/2595871/speaker-boehner-hints-he-could.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971228 | 815 | 1.523438 | 2 |
On similar lines, another former Indian hockey player Jagbir Singh said: “It is a welcome move by the government of India that we have refused to play any such series with Pakistan, because when we talk about sports and sportsmanship, and the atmosphere in any case is no friendly. We may call this a promotional series for hockey in India and Asia, but, I see no reason, why we should play Pakistan in such an atmosphere.”
But Tariq Anwar, Union Minister of state for Agriculture feels that foreign policies and diplomacies should not hinder sporting ties.
If we forget politics and look at hockey alone, Indian fans will miss quality action, as India-Pakistan rivalry in hockey is said to be one of the biggest in the world. Apart from this, the Indians would also miss out on these matches, which could have helped them prepare for the World Cup qualifiers taking place in the next 2-3 months.
Hockey players are supporting the decision of the government with arms wide open. One such player is Arjun Halappa. “See if you are thinking country wise, I think it is a correct decision. I know sport is important, but Indian citizens are more important. Country comes first. The government has taken a good decision,” Hallapa said.
Pertinent to mention, the Indian government did not allow the Indian snooker team to travel to Pakistan last month as well.
The most popular citizen journalists' reports on merinews chosen automatically on the basis of views and comments
View more jobs | <urn:uuid:d522c869-1fa8-4adb-8a98-6ec044674a39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.merinews.com/article/former-hockey-players-support-govt-decision-to-call-off-hockey-series-with-pakistan/15882945.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961781 | 318 | 1.742188 | 2 |
How to Use a Shooting Board?
I have never built or used a shooting board, but plan to in the near future. I have seen numerous articles in several woodworking magazines and also on the Internet on how to build the board. The instructions for building the board are clear and well presented, but they all seem to stop short on explaining how to use the board. The first question that comes to mind is, when planing the workpiece, what prevents the shooting board itself from being planed? Also, is it necessary for the projection of the blade to be exactly the same each time you use the board ? If the authors of the articles for building the shooting boards would elaborate on these and other questions, it would be helpful for amateur woodworkers. Thanks.- Richard Faunce
Tim Inman: I think your questions will all be answered if you'll just make up a “quickie” shooting board and give it a try. In fact, I'd require it if you were one of my students. Before you spend time and materials making the “perfect” shooting board, try some things to see what you like and want in your final effort. You'll be surprised how easy they are to use, how simple they really are - and you'll wonder how you ever got along without one. I have a couple of them hanging on my shop wall. I often use the one that is ugly just because it works better than the one that is pretty.
To answer your specific questions, you will plane a little bit of the shooting board clamp, but only a few thousandths - the thickness of the curl. If you'll look at the sole of the plane, the cutting iron sticks out from a little “window” which surrounds it. The metal on the edge of the window makes a “stop” so the plane can't keep digging into the shooting board. The depth of the cutter setting on the plane need not be exactly the same each time. It will be pretty close, though, because you'll usually plane off about the same amount each time. Veneer is pretty easy to “overpower” by hand, so super precision isn't too important with the shooting board.
A veneer shooting board is actually such a simple tool most authors probably don't recognize what a mystery it might be to someone who has never used or seen one. Thus, they fail to fill in the details that are so obvious to them. Again, my best advice: don't overthink this. Just make up a rude-crude shooter, and give it a try. Then you'll know what you want. The clamping part is the most important detail to me - and it never gets mentioned. Now go out and make one!
This article originally appeared in the Woodworker's Journal eZine.
Click here for information on this free, twice monthly online publication.
Copyright; 2010 Woodworker's Journal
All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher. | <urn:uuid:a98c0a81-fa54-432e-8d52-dbbf2eff646b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.woodworking.com/ww/Article/How_to_Use_a_Shooting_Board_7237.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968457 | 644 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The Japanese automaker offers a 2.0-liter four-cylinder diesel engine in Europe. It will be another few years before the distinctive powertrain becomes available in North America.
The powertrain is a horizontally opposed diesel engine with Subaru’s symmetrical all-wheel-drive system, squeezed into vehicles with restricted space. Compared with the 2.0-liter gasoline-fired four in Subaru’s stable—but not available in the U.S.—the diesel has a decreased bore and an increased stroke, and the turbo has been mounted under the engine directly to the catalytic converters. Everything is beefed up to withstand the higher pressures of direct-injection diesel power.
A five-speed manual transmission was designed specifically for use with the diesel in Europe but is not likely to be offered in North America. Rather, the U.S. must wait for an automatic transmissionView Photo Gallery | <urn:uuid:5446debd-91e0-4f83-9795-640fd2c8c68e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2009-subaru-forester-impreza-diesel-auto-shows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938767 | 186 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The need for techniques varies among women. Like the bell curve, some women - on one end - will not need any techniques. Most will benefit from a few, whether in pregnancy and/or during labor. And a few women in every group will not receive the benefits of techniques until they visit with one or even more professionals for specific body work techniques. This article lists the professionals who offer body work to pregnant (and sometimes, laboring) women and then gives a brief description of their service.
Professional Help and Alternative Therapies
Professional help comes from Doctors, Midwives and Alternative Practitioners who each have skills to offer a mother seeking a safer fetal position for birth.
Physicians can monitor fetal position with ultrasound. When a baby is discovered to be breech (buttocks or feet first), or transverse (sideways), the physician may offer a “version,” or manually flipping the baby by turning the baby with their hands. Posterior babies are not manipulated in this manner because it is not likely to succeed. It doesn’t seem that it would easy on the posterior baby either.
A manual version is safer to do after the baby’s lungs are matured, because the force of manipulating the baby can sometimes, fairly rarely, pull the placenta from its warm nest in the uterine lining. An emergency cesarean would be done to try and save the baby. To help with the success of the version, a doctor keeps close watch on the baby may want to use Tributaline, a drug to relax the uterine wall. This drug can make moms edgy and jittery for a short time. The idea, though, is to make the uterine wall less resistant to turning the baby. It is a drug also used to stop premature labor contractions.
Midwives must have a chance to develop their skills to feel a baby's position with their hands. It takes time and experience. In clinic settings where appointments are short, midwives may not have the time (or the training) to tell a breech from a head down baby in a mother who has a tight broad ligament or firm abs. But with experience, midwives can pick up the subtle details of fetal positioning. They are more likely to have palpation skills than physicians because the faster the pace of a clinic day, the less time providers have for feeling the baby. Nevertheless, sometimes its hard to tell exactly how a baby is lying in the womb.
Even when a midwife knows that baby is in a posterior, breech or transverse position, her opinion of when to do something about it can vary. Some midwives feel that we should just trust nature and wait and see what happens. This attitude will result in about a 3-4% breech occurrence at the time of birth, and a high rate of posterior presentation.
Some midwives will work with mothers to use good maternal positioning in pregnancy. They will refer women to alternative practitioners who can help achieve a better fetal position if the baby doesn’t seem to be able to do so by 34-36 weeks. A few midwives work with mothers to help the baby get head down by 30-32 weeks. Midwife Anne Frye is the author of Holistic Midwifery as well as many other midwifery textbooks. She promotes the use of a gentle method of version at 30 weeks gestation.
This midwife gently feels for the positions of twins.
A word on manual versions
The doctor or midwife tries to move the breech or transverse baby head down by pushing through the mother’s abdomen against the baby's body. Version carries a risk and so should never be done by an inexperienced person, no matter their title. (Sometimes a student, new caregiver, or bold body worker might be tempted to over step their experience to try to do, what seems to them, a good deed.) Monitoring the heart beat is so important because a slowing heart beat will be the first sign that the baby shouldn’t go further in that direction. Manual has risk of tearing the placenta from the womb, tightening a wrapped cord and turning the head and body without bringing the arm along, so that the arm is left in an awkward angle. Most often the version goes fine, but it is not a comfortable experience. Penny Simkin recommends a doula or another supportive person be with the mother going through the version. The trained doula often has experience with eye-to-eye contact and a type of verbal coaching that is very helpful through potentially difficult procedures such as a version.
Physical therapy can help mothers cope with many pregnancy discomforts. Some women find that a physical therapist may be covered on their insurance, whereas a Chiropractor may not be.
Prenatal Massage Therapists
Prenatal Massage can be relaxing and beneficial for hormonal function, relief of pregnancy discomforts and to get better sleep because of this. But “Prenatal Massage” is not specific for improving fetal position.
Chiropractic spinal and pelvic adjustments can reduce or resolve pregnancy discomforts such as back pain, hip pain, sciatica, and heartburn. Chiropractic helps with optimal fetal positioning by helping the pelvis to be symmetrical. This in turn helps the uterus to be more symmetrical. Adjustments can help the baby to fit the brim better to engage in time to help stimulate cervical ripening. Adjustments also make the pelvis more flexible so that pelvic joints move more easily in labor.
Dr. Jeanne Ohm sends her description of Chiropractic techniques for optimal fetal positioning and easier birthing:
A chiropractic adjustment called the Webster technique is a specific sacral adjustment to help facilitate the mother's pelvic alignment and nerve system function. This in turn balances pelvic muscles and ligaments, reduces torsion to the uterus and offers a greater potential for optimal fetal positioning. Originally used for breech presentations and then posterior presentations, current research is revealing the benefits of receiving the Webster technique throughout pregnancy for the prevention of dystocia. The International Chiropractic Pediatric Association offers chiropractors advanced classes on care in pregnancy, including the Webster technique. Providers certified in this technique are listed on the ICPA website here: www.icpa4kids.org"thank you for your work--I send chiropractors to your site every weekend! it is such an awesome resource!
Jeanne Ohm, DC
ICPA Executive Coordinator"
See Dr. Jeanne Ohm speaking about natural birth and fetal rotation on You Tube. Click here for the video interview with Dr. Ohm.
Watch two You Tube videos on Chiropractic Care in pregnancy to help a breech baby spontaneously flip head down. Scroll down when you get to the new page.
A chiropractor can do the same, or similar, chiropractic techniques to help reposition a posterior, breech or transverse baby. Variations will reflect the Chiropractor’s findings with individual women that they have helped in their experience.
Dr. Carol Phillips, DC, recommends addressing the skeletal system through adjustments, but equally addressing the fascia (with myofascial release) and the cranial rhythm (with gentle Craniosacral therapy). She teaches everyone who works with pregnant and birthing women techniques that have been effective in her experience (and now in mine). Her Dynamic Body Balancing classes give the necessary information for broad application by any bodyworker. Beginners are welcome. Chiropractors who attend will get additional instructions for when to apply particular adjustments, but the class can be taken by anyone dedicated to serving pregnant women in this way.
Ask the Chiropractor about adjustments of the
- sacrum both vertically (SI joints) and horizontally (for a buckled sacrum)
- the symphysis pubis
- and neck.
Neck adjustments do improve pelvic alignment, especially if accompanied by myofascial release. Not all Chiropractors are trained in Myofascial Release, see more on Myofascial Release by scrolling down.
Here is a short sample from Dr. Phillips' book, Hands of Love, on the womb, ligaments and muscles and how Chiropractic may help.
Dr. Carol Phillips' Hands of Love
Dr. Carol Phillip's doing a standingsacral release
Chiropractor Elena Pekurovsky, 763-593-4000
Dr. Elena is seen here with Wendy, describing what to do now that her breech baby has successfully turned head down after just a few chiropractic adjustments, including the Webster Maneuver.
Craniosacral therapy is gentle. Craniosacral can be a dramatically effective technique. Craniosacral therapy helps pregnant women as well as newborns. Newborn techniques are a little different than adult techniques, such as how the temperal bone is worked with, and so special training is recommended before a Craniosacral therapist works on newborns. Carol Phillips, DC, (above) Level 3 class is excellent for learning to work on pregnant women and newborns.
Read an article by Kara Maia Spencer in Midwifery Today called
Dr. Mary Grom, DC, of Groveland Chiropractic in St. Paul with newborn. Visit Mary Grom and Marcia Roeder at Groveland Chiropractic Clinic. 2052 St. Clair Avenue. St. Paul, MN 55105. phone/fax 651-698-2516.
Dynamic Body Balancing
Check out the Dynamic Body Balancing techniques of Chiropractor Carol Phillips, DC.
She takes Chiropractic knowledge, Myofascial Release and Craniosacral Therapy with an energy approach. This is a fascinating, and a little long, YouTube video to learn about her work with pregnancy. She is addressing a potential publisher. Listen to her talk about her daughter, Angel's difficult infancy and childhood symptoms. Today Angel is one of our Twin Cities favorite Craniosacral and Dynamic Body Balancing practitioners! And maybe we should nominate Carol for the Noble Prize, eh?
Herbs can be for seasoning, nutrition or for healing. Nutritive herbs are like special food, a food for a specific purpose. Red Raspberry Leaf, for instance, helps tone the pelvic floor and uterus. It is high in calcium and reduces leg cramps and nausea while be safely (and widely) used in pregnancy. Make sure the Red Raspberry Leaf Tea you buy is not simply flavored black tea, but the real leaf of the Red Raspberry plant.
A few drops of Mitchella can be used nightly in late pregnancy if uterine contractions seem to keep you awake without bringing labor on. A dropperful of Motherwort tincture can calm the mind to help a tired woman fall asleep, but should not be used three weeks straight or longer.
Be careful that you don’t make the mistake some people make: If a little is a good thing, a lot must be better. I rarely recommend Blue Cohosh to start labor, for instance, because I’ve noticed that it is hard for mothers to dose themselves effectively by following a “recipe.” There are other ways that are more manageable and successful without requiring the necessary experience to get a labor going and yet not cause contractions that can last too long or give a mother whomper contractions after the birth. There’s my opinion.
There are a handful of homeopathic remedies that actually help babies get into improved fetal positions. Pulsitilla (Wind flower, see photo right) is known to help a breech flip head down, and I find it helps many posterior babies, too. Over-the-counter doses should only be taken for three days at a time before stopping the remedy. A typical suggestion is to take five pellets under the tongue, once at night for three nights. Take a homeopathic remedy when the mouth is clean of food or toothpaste flavors. Stop taking Pulstilla for three days and then take it once a night again for three days. Then stop for a couple weeks, but continue trying maternal positions and getting body work. It is working if after taking a dose you notice the baby moving more freely. If the baby doesn’t flip after moving more freely, a more “deep” dose is indicated. If no reaction occurs consult a homeopath. Either way, read books on pregnancy and Homeopathy, or other sources.
If you have only days to “flip” a baby or are in labor with a posterior baby who is having trouble rotating, you may need a “deeper dose.” You need a professional Homeopath to get a 200C or 1M. A Homeopath can make sure you get the right dose. Pulsitilla is also associated with mucous production, including the lungs. When a deeper dose is taken, there can be some associated congestion. One mom had an asthma attack and her baby flipped head down. Other moms have had no congestion. Consult a homeopath, please.
Acupuncture uses extremely thin needles. Sometimes you feel them and many times you don't. Acupuncture is well studied and quite effective for helping a breech to flip. Traditional Chinese Acupuncture is also used for "all" pregnant women in the 6th and 7th month for the "Bright Baby" treatment. Needles may be placed in the ears, hands, feet, or limbs. There are inexpensive Community Acupuncture Clinics in many cities.
Moxibustion uses a tightly rolled stick of mugwort herb much like a stick of incense. The coal at the end of the moxibustion stick is held over an acupuncture point to heat the point. Repeated 2-3 times a day for 2 1/2 minutes per side of the body has given success to some mothers in flipping breech babies.
Kara Yorkhall, acupuncturist, carefully treats a mom with the heat of a moxibustion stick.
Unlike pregnancy massage, Maya Massage is not for relaxation specifically but for treatment. Regular sessions are part of Yucatan midwifery. It is tricky to find a practitioner out side of the Mexican Yucatan. Highly recommended for fetal positioning if you can find a practitioner. Call around in the body work community. Great also for menstrual and perimenopausal symptoms, and for retroverted uteri.
Myo means muscle and fascia is the leathery coating covering the muscles and bones of our body. The fascia is a leathery, strong membrane that covers all our bones and organs. This technique helps relax parts of our body that we can not relax with deep breathing or rest. The uterine ligaments have an amount of muscle tissue in them, this allow the ligaments to grow with the uterus. Craniosacral therapy utilizes myofascial release and some Chiropractors know this as well. Very useful.
A Chiropractor can adjust our joints, but if the fascia is constricted, bunched up, it will pull the bones back out of place. (Pregnancy hormones tend to allow more movement making adjustments have a shorter “shelf life,” so to speak.)
Right: Deb McLaughlin of Northern Lights Wellness
Brian in Southern California contacted me. He's an Osteopath and told me, "a D.O. who practices manipulation would fill many of your categories: doctor, chiropractor, craniosacral therapist, and myofascial release practitioner.
I would encourage you to visit my site http://www.lovelessdo.com as well as the AAO and Cranial Academy pages for further information.
From Caroline Stone:
“The osteopathic interpretation of optimal fetal positioning would concur with [Jean Sutton], but would also consider that biomechanical factors in and around the mother’s spine, pelvis, and hips, tighter with mechanical tensions acting on and around the uterus, would also influence the position of the fetus in late pregnancy and leading up to birth. Releasing tensions in the pelvis, hips, back and tissues surrounding the uterus is thought to relieve physical stress around the uterus, making its mechanical environment as accommodating as possible, thereby allowing the fetus to align itself in the most optimal position.
Ms. Stone adds, "…It should be stressed that the osteopathic approach is not to perform “external cephalic version’….”
This article was published in Visceral and Obstetric Osteopathy Caroline Stone, Page 296, Copyright Elsevier (2006). Permission was given to include this quote on Spinning Babies Website and not elsewhere.
All of us can move with more balance and relaxation. The British Medical Journal did a study on The Alexander Technique. It does not discuss pregnancy, but does show how the Alexander Technique has been proven to reduce chronic back pain in six lessons without drugs or contraptions. Use before you are pregnant, and consult an instructor in how to use this in pregnancy. Watch a very nice video from the BMJ on the Alexander Technique.
You can see that the listing here allows women and their babies to move into position, so to speak, to help themselves in a gentle, non invasive manner. I’m not always against interventions and sometimes invasive interventions become necessary. But when we help ourselves become symmetrical and to relax involuntary muscles, then the baby and body can do what they are well designed to do, and often the invention is no longer needed. | <urn:uuid:76829904-a15d-4822-a30f-685632a05f1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spinningbabies.com/techniques/bodywork-and-professional-help | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930887 | 3,629 | 1.765625 | 2 |
For a much larger and more stunning display, click here (I highly recommend it). I originally discovered this image by accident on Wikimedia.org, which is apparently a great resource for all sorts of photos – it’s amazing where a minor typo will take you!
This gorgeous image – which is the first planet that I’ve ever seen in UV – was taken by the Hubble Telescope, which has it’s own very own NASA-sponsored website. It’s a pretty great site, and it includes an amazing gallery of photos that are available for download as wallpaper.
Take the time to explore it and marvel at the wonders of space – and our amazing ability to get a glimpse of it like never before. | <urn:uuid:0ff2a427-763d-4ae0-9713-3bb695a95d14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://romneymanassa.wordpress.com/tag/saturn/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953537 | 149 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Few of us have ever experienced such a sustained 100-degree heat wave, at least not in these parts.
For many to surive it after nine days without the modern day comforts of electricity is even more remarkable, as is the calm and stoical way that folks just flat out adapted. And that’s all but completely without incident and with plenty of jockeying around to stay with neighbors, camps or anywhere else they could get some basic comfort.
To top all however, are the linemen, women and all those laboring one way or another in the midst of the heat, bugs, snakes and all the nastiest to restore said electrical comforts to the rest of us. And, they did it all on a mega-shift basis during the peak of the family vacation season too. To them we owe a heap of gratitude and as they say, this one’s for you!
For those of us old enough to remember the “pre” air-conditioning, computer, cell phone and color TV days of our youths; it really isn’t that big of a deal. You beat the heat about the way the folks did during the current heat wave. You chill out, head for the shade, basements, river or “woods” as we called it as kids. Mostly I remembered it as fun as long as you didn’t have to go to school.
Dreaded baths were a once a week occurrence on Saturday night. My grandfather was always working the fruit trees and gardens and couldn’t believe his son, my dad, would allow us such quality time in the woods, away from the agricultural chores that consumed his youth. My other grandfather called our automobile a machine and the ice cream truck like, flapper-handled, wooden refrigerator an “icebox.”
So by their standards at the time, the sweltering days would merely be just other days of the week. They both made their own wine by the way and lots of it. For thousands of years prior to our grandparents, the hot spells were handled just about the way a deer would. So looking at this under the heat-light of just a generation or two back; we really don’t have it so bad.
And of course the wild critters must make do just about the way they always have. They chill out and hit the streams and the shade of the forest. They become more calm and sedentary during the heat of the day. Deer fawns, for instance, relish in the cool waters of streams and rivers just about the way rural kids do. Urban kids can get a splash at a local pool or as authorized or not from a nearby fire hydrant.
I do however worry a lot about our cold-water trout fishery at these times, though even warm-water species can suffer due to the water’s inability to carry as much oxygen as its temperature increases. Recall that an uncooled soda goes flat way before a refrigerated one for that very effect. That in mind, I couldn’t resist checking on a favorite trout hole in the high country.
Though it was nigh a record high 90 degrees and unheard of at 3,000 feet; a golden trout eased out of its rock ledge lair just about dark. It darted ever so slowly back and forth and then sipped at the surface taking in some unfortunate bug for an evening snack. The fish was OK, just chilling out from the heat of the day. | <urn:uuid:af942c90-e34e-4c9d-b82f-8f1024b8bc18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.loganbanner.com/pages/full_story/push?article-The+summer+heat+is+on+in+West+Virginia%20&id=19617338 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975719 | 723 | 1.515625 | 2 |
LONDON (AP) -- Paul Gascoigne is recovering in a hospital in the United States after reacting badly to a detox program in his battle to beat alcoholism, according to people close to the former England midfielder.
Gascoigne, who starred in the 1990 World Cup, flew to Arizona this week to receive treatment for alcohol addiction after a relapse. His life isn't believed to be at risk.
"Paul has experienced severe complications with his detoxification," Gascoigne's long-time therapist, Dr. John McKeown, said in a statement released by Britain's Press Association. "This is not unusual for someone who has been drinking as heavily as he has."
McKeown said Gascoigne was transferred to an intensive care unit at a hospital in Phoenix so he could be monitored and be "completely satisfied that there are no other complications to his health." | <urn:uuid:f4e9bc0d-8b75-44bb-9399-dd3defea8c87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.holmescountyshopper.com/ap%20sports/2013/02/10/gascoigne-in-hospital-no-fears-for-his-life | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985475 | 177 | 1.601563 | 2 |
. A guitarist with an extraordinarily lyrical and refined fingerpicking style, he also sang with a warmth unique in the field of blues, and the gospel influence in his music gave it a depth and reflective quality unusual in the field. Coupled with the sheer gratitude and amazement that he felt over having found a mass audience so late in life, and playing concerts in front of thousands of people -- for fees that seemed astronomical to a man who had always made music a sideline to his life as a farm laborer -- these qualities make
's recordings into a very special listening experience.
grew up in the Mississippi hill country town of Avalon, population under 100, north of Greenwood, near Grenada. He began playing guitar in 1903, and within a few years was performing at parties, doing ragtime repertory rather than blues. As a farm hand, he lived in relative isolation, and it was only in 1916, when he went to work briefly for the railroad, that he got to broaden his horizons and his repertory beyond Avalon. In the early '20s, he teamed up with white fiddle player Willie Narmour, playing square dances. Hurt
was spotted by a scout for Okeh Records who passed through Avalon in 1927, who was supposed to record Narmour, and was signed to record after a quick audition. Of the eight sides that Hurt
recorded in Memphis in February of 1928, only two were ever released, but he was still asked to record in New York late in 1928. Hurt
's dexterity as a guitarist, coupled with his plain-spoken nature, were his apparent undoing, at least as a popular blues artist, at the time. His playing was too soft and articulate, and his voice too plain to be taken up in a mass setting, such as a dance; rather, his music was best heard in small, intimate gatherings. In that sense, he was one of the earliest blues musicians to rely completely on the medium of recorded music as a vehicle for mass success; where the records of Furry Lewis
or Blind Blake
were mere distillations of music that they (presumably) did much better on-stage, in John Hurt
's case the records were good representations of what he did best. Additionally, Hurt
never regarded himself as a blues singer, preferring to let his relatively weak voice speak for itself with none of the gimmicks that he might've used, especially in the studio, to compensate. And he had no real signature tune with which he could be identified, in the way that Furry Lewis
had "Kassie Jones" or "John Henry."
Not that Hurt
didn't have some great numbers in his song bag: "Frankie," "Louis Collins," "Avalon Blues," "Candy Man Blues," "Big Leg Blues," and "Stack O' Lee Blues," were all brilliant and unusual as blues, in their own way, and highly influential on subsequent generations of musicians. They didn't sell in large numbers at the time, however, and as Hurt
never set much store on a musical career, he was content to make his living as a hired hand in Avalon, living on a farm and playing for friends whenever the occasion arose. Mississippi John Hurt
might've lived and died in obscurity, if it hadn't been for the folk music revival of the late '50s and early '60s. A new generation of listeners and scholars suddenly expressed a deep interest in the music of America's hinterlands, not only in listening to it but finding and preserving it. A scholar named Tom Hoskins
discovered that Mississippi John Hurt
, who hadn't been heard from musically in over 35 years, was alive and living in Avalon, MS, and sought him out, following the trail laid down in Hurt
's song "Avalon Blues." Their meeting was a fateful one; Hurt
was in his 70s, and weary from a lifetime of backbreaking labor for pitifully small amounts of money, but his musical ability was intact, and he bore no ill-will against anyone who wanted to hear his music.
A series of concerts were arranged, including an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival, where he was greeted as a living legend. This opened up a new world to Hurt
, who was grateful to find thousands, or even tens of thousands of people too young to have even been born when he made his only records up to that time, eager to listen to anything he had to sing or say. A tour of American universities followed as did a series of recordings: first in a relatively informal, non-commercial setting intended to capture him in his most comfortable and natural surroundings, and later under the auspices of Vanguard Records, with folk singer Patrick Sky
It was 1965, and Mississippi John Hurt
had found a mass audience for his songs 35 years late. He took the opportunity, playing concerts and making new records of old songs as well as material he'd never before laid down; whether he eventually put down more than a portion of his true repertory will probably never be clear, but Hurt
did leave a major legacy of his and other peoples' songs, in a style that barely skipped a beat from his late-'20s Okeh sides.
As with many people to whom success comes late in life, certain aspects of the success were hard for him to absorb in stride; the money was more than he'd ever hoped to see, even if it wasn't much by the standards of a major pop star; 1,000 dollar concert fees were something he'd never even pondered having to deal with. What he did most easily was sing and play; Vanguard got out a new album, Today!
, in 1966, from his first sessions for the label. Additionally, the tape of a concert that Hurt
played at Oberlin College in April of 1965 was released under the title The Best of Mississippi John Hurt; the 21-song live album was just that, even if it wasn't made up of previously released work (more typical of a "best-of" album), a perfect record of a beautiful performance in which the man did old and new songs in the peak of his form. Hurt
got in one more full album, The Immortal Mississippi John Hurt
, released posthumously, but even better was the record assembled from his final sessions, Last Sessions
, also issued after his death; these songs broke new lyrical ground, and showed Hurt
's voice and guitar to be as strong as ever, just months before his death. Mississippi John Hurt
left behind a legacy unique in the annals of the blues, and not just in terms of music. A humble, hard-working man who never sought fame or fortune from his music, and who conducted his life in an honest and honorable manner, he also avoided the troubles that afflicted the lives of many of his more tragic fellow musicians. He was a pure musician, playing for himself and the smallest possible number of listeners, developing his guitar technique and singing style to please nobody but himself; and he suddenly found himself with a huge following, precisely because of his unique style. Unlike contemporaries such as Skip James
, he felt no bitterness over his late-in-life mass success, and as a result continued to please and win over new listeners with his recordings until virtually the last weeks of his life. Nothing he ever recorded was less than inspired, and most of it was superb. | <urn:uuid:89a5f908-3685-49a9-9d4f-d3aa1cfba055> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kx96online.com/Music/Artist.aspx?id=379 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991466 | 1,519 | 1.835938 | 2 |
September 08, 2008 07:28 PM by Lisa Stauber
America’s Toughest Jobs is making the remaining 11 contestants hunt for gold this week, and they’ll be facing the harsh Alaskan wilderness, bears, and raging rivers. The Crow Creek mine has hundreds of millions of dollars of gold hiding in the water. “If you’re willing to do back breaking work, you may be lucky enough to find on of these,” host Josh Temple says, dangling a gold nugget.
“You can dig all day, but if you don’t know what you’re doing, you won’t find squat,” he says. The contestants will be judged on teamwork, skill, attitude, and how hard they work, and will have two guides to help them, Sean and Nate.
Learning to Find Gold
“Safety is an issue,” Sean says. “Falling in the creek is not an option.” Eric, a 53 year old sculptor, is excited by the challenge. They’ll be panning the old fashioned way, with shovels and gold pans. “It’s cold!” Ben says. “Hypothermia is not a joke.”
Next, the guides make them move a large rock. Nate’s excited, thinking the dirt looks like prime gold dirt. They’ll average 3 grams of gold for every ton of rock processed. Sandy’s found the first piece, and they’ve got gold fever now!
The contestants are armed with tweezers and squeeze bottles to suck up the tiniest flakes. Rie, a model, hasn’t found any gold yet and neither has Phil. The guides think Phil and Ben are not doing it correctly, and have a tiny chance of finding anything good.
Phil breaks the safety rule, and tumbles into the creek. “I just didn’t have my footing,” he says, but manages to pull himself out.
It’s time to camp, and the guides help them put their tent up. Rick, Sandy and Micaela have all found gold, and now the challenge is to stay warm and dry through the night so they are fit to work tomorrow.
It’s a lesson in teamwork, and the contestants are failing. No one seems to be able to cooperate and the tents are not going up quickly. “Leadership has to actually lead somewhere,” Nate says. “I haven’t seen any end product.” Bryce starts calling names, and Rie vows revenge. They are wet, cold and tired and the Alaska night is only 3 hours long.
It rained, and the water is a foot higher and much more dangerous. Rick and Micaela are cooking up the grub, while Rie, Sandy, anBen go fetch wood. Everyone else just stands around watching, and Rie watches Bryce having a coffee break. “Bryce is lazy,” she says.
Nate is judging everybody on everything, including teamwork. The coffee drinkers might pay the price later, when the bottom four are picked to compete against each other.
Teams of two or three will use a vacuum to suck the sand into a tray with running water and a piece of carpet. The gold is heavy and should get trapped in the rug. Teams are picked, and Steven is the last one chosen. He’ll be helping out the girls, working with Rie and Sandy.
The water is barely above freezing, and someone’s got to go into the creek with the hose to suck up the sand. They are looking for clay and mud and need to work the big rocks out of the way. Steven takes a break to have a snack while the girls keep at it. “It’s very relaxing for the mind,” Steven says, while Sandy can’t believe what she’s hearing. “Steven is only a follower,” she says, “without much to offer.”
Michaela has taken over Phil’s team. “She works harder than most of the guys combined,” Sean says. “She’s kicking their butt!” Michaela has impressed with her hard work again. Phil and Bryce decide to try something different, moving a rock somewhere else. Over an hour later, and the rock hasn’t budged. “It a little bit of a waste of time,” Nate observes.
Eric’s team is working hard, and they get lucky with the first gold strike. Ben’s found his second wind today, and he’s excited about their gold find. Phil is regretting his pick of Bryce. He was hoping to use Bryce’s muscles, but Bryce is lazy and not very helpful. “You just try to conserve strength by being efficient,” Bryce says about his standing around.
At the end of the day, the teams have to pan out their sluice and pick out the gold. Phil and Bryce can’t dredge and can’t pan either. Sean tries to teach them, again. “They would’ve been saloon workers,” he says, disgusted. The find was 1.75 oz., and it’s worth about $1700. The first year’s salary of a gold miner is $15,000 and that will be added to the pot. Sandy is voted the best worker.
The Worst are Chosen
The bottom four are Bryce, Phil, Steven, and Ben. They’ll have to go up against each other and go back to work the claim. In 15 hours, whoever has the least gold will go home. First, though, Josh Temple gives them a satellite phone to call home. Steven gets to talk to his mom, who survived breast cancer and is now battling stomach cancer. “She’s such a strong woman,” he says, “it gives me strength.”
The men are on their own, and can work as long as they want, all night even. It’s still freezing and wet, but they are a lot more motivated. All four have chosen to work in the dark. It’s time to weigh their find, and Steven comes in with a whopping 4.7 grams. Ben’s got 3.4 grams, and Bryce has 3.5 grams. Phil’s up, and weighs in at 2.4 grams. He’s going home this week, after acing last week’s trucking challenge. He’s got a new future, though, quitting his sales job and taking an offer from last week’s trucking company to drive 18 wheelers in Alaska!
Reality TV Magazine is your source for America’s Toughest Jobs news and information. What do you think of this week’s challenge? Tell us on our message boards! For more on America’s Toughest Jobs, check out SirLinksALot: America’s Toughest Jobs.
Photos courtesy NBC. | <urn:uuid:27a92a16-1e31-46cc-b71e-5a5d5e5bfb5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://realitytvmagazine.sheknows.com/2008/09/08/americas-toughest-jobs-pan-for-gold/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958581 | 1,510 | 1.609375 | 2 |
New hymnals, a.k.a. “Worship Books,” are forthcoming from numerous church bodies, including two Lutheran groups (among them my own ELCA). Having studied none of these books, I write with vincible ignorance about the details. Having studied church history, however, I write with invincible knowledge of how all of them will be greeted in some sectors of each church group. Those old enough to have savaged the books being replaced will now mourn their loss, just as they will—if they live long enough—grieve over the shelving of the ones they are now trashing.
Singing the Gospel: Lutheran Hymns and the Success of the Reformation
In what one official called the “penultimate” step toward full communion with the United Methodist Church, delegates at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s biennial assembly overwhelmingly approved an interim agreement to permit the sharing of the rite of communion.
Hymns are “important in the history of ideas, the formation of culture, and the inner life of individual readers,” J. R. Watson reminds us in this time when the disciplines of hymn writing and singing are undervalued by many Christian worshipers.
I’ve seen a lot of religious improvements come and go. I remember the “last day” emphasis in teen camp sermons. I was around for the concept of “sancta-nasium,” when the church sanctuary was combined with a teen-centered gymnasium. | <urn:uuid:b16dc516-1912-45a4-a7f5-f68a88890494> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christiancentury.org/category/keywords/hymns?page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9608 | 318 | 1.75 | 2 |
Timing is important in working with the media. Success involves releasing information in a timely and efficient manner. Getting information to them involves remembering basics that will not only help how well you are received, but also keep you organized and determine how the media responds.
Timing. Timing is of the utmost importance in getting information to the media. But timing is also a double-edged sword in working with them – contact them too soon and they may forget your announcement (especially if you don’t follow up) or something else may take priority. But there’s also the dilemma of waiting until the last minute. You can’t expect them to show up for a press conference if you contact them an hour before the event; most media outlets plan their schedule a day in advance and often sooner.
Delivery. Most editors and producers prefer to receive information through e-mail. There are exceptions and there is still a need for contacting them by phone and occasionally sending information via fax, both of which are discussed below.
Sending information by e-mail is advantageous to the media for several reasons. The first is that is allows recipients to view information at a time that is best for them. Second, e-mail versus fax goes directly to one individual’s computer as opposed to a paper fax that is often misplaced (and anyone who has worked in an office has experienced this). The third advantage of e-mail is that it allows recipients the opportunity to forward the information to reporters, along with the ability to copy and paste information rather than typing it new (not only is this convenient for reporters it also assures information is transferred correctly assuming it is accurate on your end).
When sending an e-mail be sure and include information in the subject line that grabs the recipient’s attention, not merely something generic such as the words “press release.” Just as the headline of the press release should feature prose that will grab the reader’s attention and want them to read more, the subject line is no different.
Follow-up. Once your email has been sent it is crucial to follow-up with a telephone call and make sure the information has been received. It’s never safe to assume anything – your recipient may be out sick or on vacation, left their position without bothering to tell you, or there may be e-mail problems.
For those reasons, and a host of other possible obstacles, following up with a telephone call is a must. Editors and producers are busy people and don’t have time for the whole spill over the phone, thus the rationale for contacting them with an e-mail. All you want to do now is confirm the information, ask if they need more details, and let them know you hope they can send someone if you are announcing a press conference or other event.
Just as timing is critical in when you send your information, the follow up phone call should also be well planned. It is pointless to make the call immediately after you have hit the send button on your computer because it make take time for the information to go through on the other end, along with the consideration that the recipient may have not had time to read their email. That realization means you should always allow some time to pass after the e-mail has been sent, ranging from thirty minutes to a few hours.
When you do call producers and editors, make sure you are not doing so right before a newscast or deadline. You can’t contact the media at their busiest times (which is a public relations practitioner’s job to know) and expect them to give you their full attention. I once carried a resume into the newsroom of a television station without thinking that they were going on the air in five minutes. It goes without saying I never heard from the producer and the same holds true of trying to discuss your information with the media during their crunch times.
Make sure when you do follow up that all requests from producers and editors are honored when possible. If they ask you to send the information again or to someone else, do so immediately. You may also be asked for additional information or access to someone with your organization, simple enough requests that should be given the highest priority.
Faxing information is never wrong, but presents the previously mentioned problem of being misplaced. Sending information by fax provides another way of notifying the media, but should never replace the follow up call. Often, producers and editors are looking for hard copy to use in planning schedules for reporters. | <urn:uuid:4e9633e6-12cd-4a53-b924-0a306c1ca822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://content.moneyinstructor.com/1681/workingmedia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966271 | 922 | 1.710938 | 2 |
By Andrew Gans
18 Jun 2008
Next year marks the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth. Anderson and Goldsmith wrote the scores to the musicals Shine, Quality Street and Ladykiller, and the Carbonell Award-winning Chaplin.
According to the authors, Abe concerns the life of Lincoln from his youth as a flatboat pilot on the Mississippi up to the moment he and his family leave Springfield for Washington after the 1860 election, which made him the 16th president of the United States. The play explores his early love for Ann Rutledge, his troubled marriage to the difficult and mentally fragile Mary Todd, and his attempt to be a good father to his sons.
Audiences can expect a full orchestra and a large cast for the traditional book musical.
Although the book and lyrics were originally written by Goldsmith in the 1970s, the project lay dormant until Muddy River Opera Company's artistic director, Avril-Marie Bernzen, requested its completion for the upcoming 2009 season.
Earlier this year, Goldsmith's longtime collaborator Anderson began work on the now nearly completed score, "which uses bold, melodic and traditional musical theatre styles that embrace the story's period and Americana roots," composer Anderson said.
The Muddy River Opera Company was founded in 1989 and presents two to four productions a year — works from the opera repertoire as well as musicals. Abe will be the company's first world premiere.
Director, cast and creative team have not been announced.
For information about Muddy River Opera Company (Quincy is on the Mississippi River, hence the troupe's name), call (217) 222-2856. For information about Abe and other works of Anderson and Goldsmith, contact Musical Makers, LLC, at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:d4bb22a8-2daa-43c4-ad14-344ee6a2e0e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.playbill.com/news/article/118774-Celebrating-Lincolns-Bicentennial-Musical-Abe-Will-Premiere-in-Illinois-in-2009 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960494 | 369 | 1.765625 | 2 |
But one of the most important points the article made was on the impact the change of ONE little word had on women's access to VBACs.
In their 1999 Guidelines on VBAC, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG, the trade union for OBs) changed one key word, suggesting that OBs and anesthesiologists had to be "immediately available" instead of "readily available" during a VBAC labor.
That one-word change completely obliterated VBAC as a choice from basically half the hospitals in the country.
A Change in Guidelines
ACOG used to require that OBs and anesthesiologists be "readily available" (meaning they had to be within a few minutes' drive from the hospital). When they re-wrote the guidelines in 1999, the wording became "immediately available."
This ONE-WORD change in the guidelines was the death knell for VBACs in many communities. It means that OBs and anesthesiologists have to be IN the hospital the whole time a VBAC mother is in labor....."just in case."
Most doctors won't do this, both because they don't like to "labor-sit" and because it crimps their ability to see other patients. And smaller, more rural hospitals simply don' t have the personnel to provide 24/7 coverage like that.
Was this change in guideline based on good solid evidence? No. As ICAN's recent press release about VBAC bans notes:
The ACOG guidelines stipulate that a full surgical team be “immediately available” during a VBAC labor, though the stipulation is a “Level C” recommendation, which means it is based on the organization’s opinion rather than medical evidence.Dr. Marsden Wagner, neonatologist and perinatal epidemiologist, criticized the change in guidelines in this way:
This recommendation, "VBAC should be in institutions equipped to respond to emergencies with physicians immediately available," has no data to support it--no studies showing improvements in maternal mortality or perinatal mortality related to the characteristics of institutions or availability of physicians.A Different Standard for VBACs
"Immediately available" sounds good on paper, but it puts a level of demand on VBACs that no other birth has.
For every other birth, it's fine to have doctors on call but not right there---but VBACs got a different standard when the guidelines were changed. "Immediately available" coverage is now a requirement only for VBAC births.
Why the requirement for 24/7 coverage in VBACs? Because there were some infamous cases of uterine rupture in the 1990s. Doctors practiced unsafely, widely inducing VBACs but not monitoring them closely, and some babies died or were harmed. Some parents sued (and rightly so). As a result, doctors became gun-shy about VBACs.
The problem was really not the VBAC itself, but how the doctors were mismanaging the VBAC, and sometimes also the lack of timely response to emergencies. As a result, ACOG suggested that all of their members be immediately available ON-SITE during a VBAC labor, ostensibly protect the mother and baby from harm, but also to protect themselves in lawsuits from the charge of lack of timely intervention.
ACOG guidelines are only guidelines, not laws, but because they are considered "standard of care" in the community, few hospitals dare to defy them. If a hospital lets doctors be merely "on call" during a VBAC labor and something bad happens, they risk a huge malpractice award to the parents because they permitted the doctors practice outside the "standard of care" from their parent organization.
Thus, the "immediately available" requirement was interpreted as requiring 24/7 surgical and anesthesia coverage; without it, hospitals felt they were vulnerable to lawsuits. Since only the very largest hospitals are able to do 24/7 coverage, VBAC was effectively wiped out for half the country, all from the change of one little word.
The 24/7 Dilemma
It's everyone's ideal to have someone standing by at all times in hospitals, ready to intervene in case of an emergency (and not just in maternity units; car accidents can happen at any time of the day or night too).....but it's simply not practical or workable to have 24/7 coverage in most institutions. On-call coverage is good enough for everything else. Why isn't it good enough for VBACs?
VBACs should not be held to a stricter standard just because they are VBACs. All births have potential risks; VBACs do have the risk of uterine rupture, but while this is serious, so are some of the other very rare complications that can happen during non-VBAC births. To say that it's not safe to do a VBAC without 24/7 coverage means that it's not safe to do ANY births at that hospital.
Remember, there's no proof that 24/7 coverage improves outcomes. Before instituting such restrictive guidelines that potentially impacts the health of women so deeply, it is important to have research showing that such coverage makes a difference, that any improvements from such coverage would balance the women that would be harmed from being forced into thousands of repeat surgeries in the smaller hospitals.
The American Academy of Family Practice Physicians took on this "immediately available" requirement in their 2005 Trial of Labor After Cesarean (TOLAC) guidelines. It is uncommon for major doctor organizations to come out and contradict each other like this; the fact that the AAFP did so is a major reprimand to ACOG. Yet in the four years since the AAFP statement came out, ACOG still has refused to modify its guidelines.
The AAFP stated in its TOLAC guidelines [emphasis mine]:
What this change in guidelines is really about is protecting ACOG members in lawsuits, not improving outcomes in VBACs.
TOLAC should not be restricted only to facilities with available surgical teams present throughout labor since there is no evidence that these additional resources result in improved outcomes....
Current risk management policies across the United States restricting a TOL after a previous cesarean section appear to be based on malpractice concerns rather than on available statistical and scientific evidence...We could find no evidence to support a different level of care for TOLAC patients.
VBAC Is Only For Rich Urban Women
One side effect of the "immediately available" rule is that VBAC has become available only to a select few--those who have excellent insurance coverage and who live in a large urban area near a major regional hospital that can afford 24/7 coverage. (Note: Even there it's not always allowed.)
If you live in a rural area, forget it. If you are on Medicaid, forget it. If you don't have a lot of money, forget it. Chances are, you are not "allowed" to have a VBAC. You are not "allowed" control over your own body or say in your own choices.
Doctors in rural areas excuse this blatant discrimination by telling women they can just go to an urban hospital if they really want a VBAC....but the reality is that this is simply not feasible for most families. Most people in rural areas or small cities simply can't afford to drop everything and move to The Big City for several weeks around a birth, nor do most women want to drive several hours to The Big City while in labor.....especially in uncertain weather seasons like wintertime.
So basically, women from smaller towns and rural areas are, in effect, being forced into repeat cesareans by the "immediately available" rule.
Some smaller hospitals "permit" occasional VBACs....if the mothers pay an additional fee for having an anesthesiologist come baby-sit on site while they labor. In effect, they are making it so that only rich women have the choice for VBAC.
Even in large urban areas, access to VBAC is not guaranteed. A number of hospitals in big cities have stopped doing VBACs because some malpractice insurance companies charge more for doctors doing VBACs.
Other hospitals stopped doing VBACs because they are looking at their profit margins, which increase as cesarean rates go up. More cesareans create more billable services, require less staffing (no hands-on labor support), make it easier to schedule personnel, and fills their hospital beds predictably. Hospitals make more money from banning VBACs and increasing cesarean rates.
The sad fact is that it's not about what's best for moms and babies; it's about what's best for their bottom line.
Even if you live in a large urban area and have a local hospital that does accept VBACs, you are still not home-free. If you are on Medicaid, you don't get a lot of choice in your birth attendant. You have to take whomever accepts Medicaid, and many of those doctors don't "do" VBAC. So even if you have everything else going for you, if your Medicaid-approved doctor doesn't do VBACs (and many do not because they can't afford to sit in the hospital 24/7 with you), you're out of luck.
So now there are distressing and deeply troubling patterns of discrimination starting to emerge. All because ACOG decided to change "readily" to "immediately" in their 1999 guidelines.
Speak Up About It
The point is that ACOG needs to change their guidelines. A lack of 24/7 surgical and anesthesia staffing should not be a requirement to "permit" VBAC. Bottom line, VBAC should not be held to a different standard than all other births.
Doctors and hospitals and elected officials MUST start pressuring ACOG to restore the "readily available" wording to their guidelines. We consumers have been pressuring ACOG for years to change the wording but they could care less about the chilling impact their guidelines have had on women and childbirth choices all over the country. It's all about protecting their members from lawsuits instead.
It's been TEN YEARS since that wording was instituted and they still haven't changed it back. They don't care what we think. They don't care about our needs. They only care about their own narrow self-interest.
Still, we consumers must keep up the pressure and intensify it on doctors, hospitals, and elected officials, for the wording will only change when the big guns start pushing ACOG back.
Outraged yet? Want to take action? Link to the Time article on your blog, or email the story to someone (from the TIME website preferably).
Or read more about the Time author's own bumpy journey to VBAC and give it some link love too. Even at a hospital that "allowed" VBAC and in a practice that was supposedly "VBAC-friendly," she was given the ole "bait and switch" routine and strongly pressured to schedule a repeat cesarean about 2/3 of the way through the pregnancy. (Remember, the outright bans are only the tip of the iceberg.)
Or click on this link for ways to start making your views known to your elected officials; ICAN's made it easy for you. You can do a lot of it by email.
Make some noise before VBACs disappear from the country altogether. | <urn:uuid:f4b1c5f1-8d28-413f-b394-740e0219243a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wellroundedmama.blogspot.com/2009/02/importance-of-one-little-word.html | 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 | 0.965481 | 2,402 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Who Carries the Brief for Black America?
William Small, Jr. December 23, 2012
An Open Letter to African American Thinkers and Leaders
As an African American currently residing in one of the poorest counties in South Carolina, I have become increasingly troubled by the absence of our voice in an increasing number of conversations involving public policies which directly impact the health and future development of African American political, social and economic interests. Since the historic election of President Obama we seem to have drifted in the direction of focusing on the interests and success of the proverbial few rather than press for the development of an agenda designed to improve the opportunity structure for the masses of our people. We seem to act as if the vast majority of African Americans have become immune to the lingering effects of historic racial discrimination and the political marginalization which inevitably follows. The leadership of the Congressional Black Caucus is credited with publicly saying that in the first term of President Obama he was given something akin to a pass on a range of issues effecting Black people. Our traditional civil rights organizations have lost their will to wage a sustained campaign against injustice and now seem to have settled on appearances at "must show events" and campaigns to solicit funds for the implementation of a non- specific agenda for a kind of change that we can believe in.
At a time when women rightfully celebrate the presence of 21 female members of the United State Senate, Blacks who earned the right to vote approximately one half century earlier can only list six African Americans who ever had the honor of knowing such distinction. At a time when too many public schools are continuing to fail and our prison industrial complex is still being profitably maintained on the backs of our youth and communities of color, the African American voice somehow manages to become even more muted. As an untold number of African Americans slipped into poverty and the clutches of economic jeopardy during the recent fiscal crisis and home mortgage debacle, we are miraculously able to cling to the delusion that we are making responsible progress as a people. With more African American elected officials, agency heads, executives and college graduates swelling our ranks than at any previous time in history, we seem to have lost all reasonable understanding of how the democratic process is designed to work. Our focus seems to now be on individual success, ours and the success of others for whom we hold some special favor. We display very little, if any, regard for policy positions and public stances which reflect African American collective interests. We have no political agenda and seem to evidence very little regard for the development of one. I suggest that from the "collective perspective" our political IQ scores are now being reported at an all-time low. Our public political behavior seems to give more credence to the old adage that "good can often prove to be the enemy of better" than our conduct gives credence to any collective commitment that we have to the least among us. How can we, perhaps as the most privileged in the ranks of African Americans, legitimately fail to identify a sense of urgency to address in some direct fashion the immediate needs of the majority of our people who look to us and place their hope and confidence in our leadership? Dr. King was quoted as saying that "it is always the right time to do the right thing." If we believe that statement, then we must recognize that the right time is now.
The recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, which should in no way be minimized, has spawned a frenzy of activity and thought regarding the production of remedies and counter-measures to eliminate the increasing number of incidents of violent and irrational behavior in American society. There is for the moment at least, a quest for clarity and understanding regarding these tragic demonstrations of incivility. This event has also produced a heightened sense of fear and insecurity in "mainstream America." The under story behind the patent hideousness of the Newtown experience is the stark reminder of the extent and degree to which we are all vulnerable. The Newtown tragedy has said to America that even in a model community that is not very ethnically diverse, where the economic profiles are quite excellent as are the schools and the latest security systems are in place and public employees are extremely competent and dedicated… even such a near perfect community is incapable of protecting itself from itself.
Without engaging in an assessment of comparative misery or suffering, while we mourn the death of the twenty seven persons who tragically and in some cases heroically lost their lives, we must not become insensitive to the routine loss and systematic destruction of life occurring in Black and poor communities across this great land. We must always be mindful of the thousands of Black and poor students attending our public schools who are unfairly pigeon-holed and labeled for failure, marginalization and prison on an annual basis. We must remember as well the innocent lives and injuries that are occasioned by the now nearly normalized "drive by shooting." Neither can we fail to recognize the difference in the public attitude and public response to these kinds of tragic events nor can we fail to understand and address the reasons for those differences. In part and sadly because of the tragedy in Newtown, African American leadership is presented with an opportunity and an obligation to take a leadership role in framing the public discourse on this subject.
What all of us who dare to embrace this task must resist is the risk of under-analyzing the problem and thusly adopting overly simplistic remedies as solutions to conditions that are complex, ingrained and possibly even politically difficult to discuss. Herein one finds a unique opportunity for the African American voice to inform the national discussion on the special factors existing in African American and poor communities. Factors which guarantee the maintenance of a culture of violence and community underdevelopment. The culture of violence in Newtown may be created out of the violence in video games, Hollywood movies, television programming, unauthorized access to legally purchased guns and school yard bullying. Those however, are not the factors which insure the existence of the culture of violence in African American and poor communities in this country. Gun control legislation alone is a very incomplete solution. Any serious attempt to address the culture of violence in Black and poor communities will require a more comprehensive analysis of the problem. We must identify the major factors such as: the intergenerational effects of failing public schools, a failed and poorly executed war on drugs, unemployment and underemployment (particularly among Black youth), continued racism in America, low wages and in too many cases police complicity in the maintenance of oppressive environments and underground economies. There is no attempt here to have African Americans disclaim responsibility for African American communities. It must, however, be understood that communities, independent of their persuasion, cannot survive as prosperous entities when they are constantly subjected to the negative impacts of government policies, benign neglect and at times direct governmental assaults.
If President Obama truly wants to be the President for all of the people, then he must examine the Newtown tragedy in a context that exposes the larger culture of violence as a force that destroys families and dreams long before they die. This is a culture of violence which systematically drains the resources and stifles the development of poor communities without regard to their ethnic stripe or political persuasion. If President Obama can cry for the twenty seven, he must at least save a tear or two for the multitudes who for like reasons and with equal innocence fall unheralded and go un-recorded by time. The time is now. The right time is always now. The question that remains unanswered, however; is who will carry the brief to the table for Black America?
Dr. William Small, Jr., is a retired educator and conflict resolution specialist. He currently resides in Hampton County, South Carolina, and serves as the Vice Chairman of the Area Commission for the Technical College of the Lowcountry. The views expressed in this article are his alone and should not be credited to any other professional organization, entity or individual. | <urn:uuid:90205458-2464-4300-8931-b9e4db489ca5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newpol.org/content/who-carries-brief-black-america | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964388 | 1,573 | 1.75 | 2 |
IBM Cranks Up Compute Centers' PowerBy Jeffrey Burt | Posted 06-23-2006
The Armonk, N.Y., company will add more computing power to the Blue Gene supercomputing systems in the centers, as well as more BladeCenter blade systems powered by Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processors, said David Gelardi, vice president of deep computing at IBM.
IBM also will add systems running on its own Power5+ processors. Up to this point in the 3-year-old Computing Capacity on Demand project, IBM has offered only a small amount of computing resources on the Power platform.
Gelardi said requests by some software partners, such as MSC Software, as well as the growing interest in running AIX and some Linux workloads on Power persuaded him to add more Power5+ systems into the mix.
The addition of more BladeCenter LS20 blade servers running on Opteron is part of a growing trend at the centers toward blade servers for x86 workloads, he said. The density and networking improvements of blades over traditional rack servers offer benefits for both IBM and end users, he said.
Big Blue introduced the first blade server to the centers a year ago, and already they account for 40 percent of the non-Blue Gene servers, Gelardi said. He expects that percentage to grow.
"As I'm replacing technology, I'm moving in the blade direction," he said.
The centers house massive computer systems that customers can tap into when they need additional computing capacity. Gelardi said IBM officials initially expected that demand was going to come primarily from businesses seeking extra power over a short amount of time to complete workloads.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: IBM Cranks Up Compute Centers' Power | <urn:uuid:a9b5f49e-43b9-49e5-9878-5164f1c5bda7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cioinsight.com/print/c/a/Past-News/IBM-Cranks-Up-Compute-Centers-Power | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944849 | 366 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Fundamental Colorado Estate Planning
There are many legal strategies involved in estate planning, including wills, revocable living trusts, irrevocable trusts, durable powers of attorney, and health care documents. New clients often say that they do not have an estate plan. Most people are surprised to learn that they actually do have a plan. In the absence of legal planning otherwise, their estate will be distributed after death according to Colorado's laws of intestacy. Of course, this may not be the plan they would have chosen. A properly drafted estate plan will replace the terms of the State’s estate plan with your own.
More About Estate Planning Services:
Your Last Will and TestamentYour last will and testament is just one part of a comprehensive estate plan. If a person dies without a Will they are said to have died "intestate" and state laws will determine how and to whom the person's assets will be distributed. Some things you should know about wills:
- A will has no legal authority until after death. So, a will does not help manage a person's affairs when they are incapacitated, whether by illness or injury.
- A will does not help an estate avoid probate. A will is the legal document submitted to the probate court, so it is basically an "admission ticket" to probate.
- A will is the only legal document through which parents can name the guardians (or back-up parents) for minor children should those children become orphaned. All parents of minor children should have a legal will naming guardians for those children.
Trusts: Revocable Living Trusts, Irrevocable Trusts, Testamentary Trusts, Special Needs Trusts, etc.Trusts come in many "flavors," they can be simple or complex, and serve a variety of legal, personal, investment or tax planning purposes. At the most basic level, a trust is a legal entity with at least three parties involved: the trust-maker, the trustee (trust manager), and the trust beneficiary. Oftentimes, all three parties are represented as one person or a married couple. In the case of a revocable living trust, for example, a person may create a trust (the trust-maker) and name themselves the current trustees (trust managers) who manage the trust assets for their own benefit (trust beneficiary).
Depending on the situation, there may be many advantages to establishing a trust, including avoiding probate court. In most cases, assets owned in a revocable living trust will pass to the trust beneficiaries (or heirs) immediately upon the death of the trust-maker(s) with no probate required. Certain trusts also may result in tax advantages both for the trust-maker and the beneficiary. Or they may be used to protect property from creditors, or simply to provide for someone else to manage and invest property for the trust-maker(s) and the named beneficiaries. If well drafted, another advantage of trusts is their continuing effectiveness even if the trust-maker dies or becomes incapacitated.
Powers of AttorneyA power of attorney is a legal document giving another person (the attorney-in-fact) the legal right to do certain things (powers) for another. What those powers are depends on the terms of the document. A power of attorney may be very broad or very limited and specific. All powers of attorney terminate upon the death of the maker and may terminate when the maker (principal) becomes incapacitated (unable to make or communicate their own decisions). When the intent is to designate a back-up decision-maker in the event of incapacity, then a durable power of attorney should be used. Durable Powers of Attorney should be frequently updated as banks and other financial institutions may hesitate to honor a document that is more than a few years old.
Colorado Advance Directives for Health CareIt is important for individuals to have written instructions for their medical treatment and financial affairs should they become incapacitated. Most hospitals and nursing homes now ask patients, upon admission, whether they have Advance Medical Directives, such as a Medical Durable Power of Attorney, a Living Will, a Proxy Decision Maker, a Do Not Resuscitate order (DNR), and/or a Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation Directive (CPR). It is important to have these documents in place before you need them. Without them, a probate court proceeding, such as a guardianship and/or conservatorship may be required.
Learn more about Colorado Health Care Directives from the Colorado Bar Association. You can even download a full-color brochure. | <urn:uuid:30ad5e58-0b48-4580-837b-70b27033a6e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbushlegal.com/Page/fundamental_estate_planning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943345 | 944 | 1.65625 | 2 |
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of poultry I heard a great deal about Texas, and the money that was to be made in sending cattle up the trail, so I decided to move to Texas. I met a man by the name of Couch who was making up a party to go on an excursion train to Dallas, Texas, and made arrangements to meet him in Saint Louis and join the excursion party there. My brother accompanied me to Saint Louis, and a short while after our arrival we passed a man on the street and he said, "Hello, Younger." I told him he was mistaken, that my name was not Younger. He asked me if I was not from Marshall, Missouri, and I told him that I was not. We went to a cheap boarding house and made arrangements to stay all night. We went to the Southern Hotel that night to see if Couch had arrived. While we were there a man came in and asked me if I was from Marshall County, and I replied, "No ; I have been asked that question twice today." He then called me aside and asked me .several questions, and just then motioned a policeman to come near. They asked me if I was armed and I told them that it was none of their business, but as they insisted on searching me I told them to proceed, but be sure they had the proper authority for their action. They found a small six-shooter, a draft for $1,000, and about $100 in cash on me, and the policeman said he would have to take me down to the police station. When we arrived there I learned that they thought that they had Cole Younger, one of the Jesse James desperadoes. I told them to telegraph the First National Bank of Mattoon, Illinois, and they could get all the information they needed to establish my identity. But they locked me up in a cell and kept me there over night. Next day they released me, and returned my pistol and money to me.
I reached Dallas in the Spring of 1875, and went to Fort Worth, which was then a small place. My brother and I purchased a pair of Mexican ponies, a new wagon and camping outfit and started for San "Antonio. Near | <urn:uuid:66f9610e-0fcf-408d-879b-a09b06f4b297> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lib.utexas.edu/books/texasclassics/traildrivers/txu-oclc-12198638-c-0046.html | 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 | 0.990774 | 480 | 1.734375 | 2 |
As you’ve aged, you may have noticed that your teeth have become yellowed or discolored. Perhaps you’ve been smoking for a long time, or you drink a lot of coffee.
Whatever the driving force may be for your teeth becoming discolored, you may be one of the millions of Americans who are actively searching for ways to get back those pearly whites.
As you pursue your research, one of the decisions you need to make (obviously) is how, exactly, you plan on going about getting your teeth.
And the first question you should ask yourself is, should I do it myself at home or should I seek professional help from a dentist?
Because I understand how difficult of a decision this can be, I decided to compile a short list of some points to consider, and the pros and cons of doing it yourself vs. seeing a dentist.
Over the counter products usually contain a lower strength bleaching agent. Professionally applied tooth whitening gels offer levels of the bleaching agent ranging up 4 times higher than at home products. This means, that essentially, it should take less time to whiten your teeth.
Store bought whitening products come with one size fits all a tray. This means that the fit will not be perfect. Poorly fitted trays can aggravate gums by enabling more bleach to find its way onto gums. However, your dentist will apply the bleaching agent directly to the teeth.
The dentist can use protective measures on your gums. Bleaching gel can harm your gums, so either the dentist will apply the gel directly to your teeth or cover up the oral tissue.
Whitening treatments in your dentist’s office are going to be expensive. Over-the-counter products range from $2-3 up to $40. However, you get what you pay for,
Dentist treatments offer extra benefits compared with over-the-counter products. Your dentist will do an an oral exam. This can be helpful in deciding why your teeth are discolored. Your dentist will be able to better match the kind of stain with the best procedure. Your dentist will custom fit trays to your mouth for maximum fit and maximum benefit from the bleach.
Also the dentist will take a starting shade and a final shade and usually document it with pictures so you can see the change you have made with treatment. With over-the-counter bleaching products, you are on your own. As with any aspect of life, including bleaching, you give up something to get something.
Bleaching can cause some sensitivity due the opening of enamel rods and dentinal tubules which can lead to sensitivity. Dr. Frazier has found that using MI Paste after each bleaching session significantly decreases post bleaching sensitivity while you increase the brightness and whiteness of your teeth.
Make sure to ask your dentist about MI Paste in conjunction with your bleaching treatment.
You’ll be glad you did!
In the end, going to your dentist for bleaching provides the most effective method to whiten your teeth. Most often, the whitening gel is placed in a custom fitted tray that fits only your teeth which is not only more effective, but also protects the rest of your mouth. Results can be seen in within a few weeks.
This type of whitening is the most expensive technique, so if you don’t have the money to go to the dentist, then maybe over-the-counter is your best option. Just make sure you follow the instructions to the letter and seek help if you notice any sensitivity or other problems. | <urn:uuid:4db1fb40-52fe-446b-93de-f90257a41ac3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bippermedia.com/2012/08/01/whitening-at-home-vs-whitening-with-a-dentist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939419 | 742 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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Magic Tree House Research Guides #13: Pilgrimsby Mary Pope Osborne
Synopses & Reviews
Magic Tree House Research Guides are now Magic Tree House Fact Trackers! Track the facts with Jack and Annie!
When Jack and Annie got back from their adventure in Magic Tree House #27: Thanksgiving on Thursday, they had lots of questions. What was it like to sail on the Mayflower? Why did the Pilgrims choose Plymouth? How did they survive in their new home? What did they really eat at the first Thanksgiving? Find out the answers to these questions and more as Jack and Annie track the facts. Filled with up-to-date information, photos, illustrations, and fun tidbits from Jack and Annie, the Magic Tree House Fact Trackers are the perfect way for kids to find out more about the topics they discovered in their favorite Magic Tree House adventures.
What was it like to be a passenger on the "Mayflower?" How many people survived the first harsh winter in the New World? How did Pilgrim children spend their days? These questions are answered in this fun guide. Illustrations.
What was it like to be a passenger on the Mayflower? How many people survived the first harsh winter in the New World? How did Pilgrim children spend their days? Find out the answers to these questions and more in this Magic Tree House Research Guide: Pilgrims. Includes fun facts from Jack and Annie, fantastic photos and illustrations, and a guide to doing further research.
About the Author
Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce are sisters who grew up on army posts all over the world. Mary is the author of over 50 acclaimed books for children. Natalie has worked as a childrens librarian and as a teacher of English and E.S.L. This is their fourth book together. The authors live in Goshen, CT, and West Stockbridge, MA, respectively.
Sal Murdocca has been illustrating and writing books for children for many years. He has illustrated every book in the Magic Tree House fiction series and the Magic Tree House Research Guide nonfiction companions. Sal and his wife Nancy are avid runners and have toured Europe on bicycles. He lives in Rockland County, NY.
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Children's » Chapter Books | <urn:uuid:758f99e9-246a-4434-a14f-5ef2ab7dee8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780375832192 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949199 | 563 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The next few "Morning Messages" are for Women. I know, I know. That is rather sexist of me, but recently I have been seeing some rather disturbing posts on Facebook regarding the role (or even value of) women in general, but more specifically in the Church—even in the Ministry.
These posts have bothered me, and I feel compelled to defend the importance and significance of woman in the Church. I want to begin with what YHWH said about women.
" God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27).
"he created them male and female; he blessed them and called them Adam (humankind, man) on the day they were created" (Genesis 5:2).
"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Genesis 1:28).
“The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. ”
To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:14-19)
When Eve ate the forbidden fruit and enticed Adam to sin with her, one of the consequences for women was the loss of equality with men, as men were to rule over women, instead of men and women ruling together. She would now be "ruled by her husband." However, when Jesus came as sinless Man and died as the Messiah on the cross for us, everything was restored positionally. The restoration of man (men and women) began at that very moment.
I realize that we have not seen the complete manifestation of this restoration; however, the day is coming when it will be. Let me say that another way. Everyone who receives Jesus as Savior, receive restoration as Sons of God, but not all of us walk in that restoration—yet, anyway. Through Jesus, the curse on women has been lifted. Women no longer have to receive pain in childbirth nor are they inferior to man with him ruling over them. Women are now restored to their original place and plan that YHWH intended for all His "sons." Although we do not see all things restored at this time, "legally" in the spiritual realm, they have already been restored.
(I send out messages like each morning. If you are interested, let me know. However, you can also find these messages at: Thought For The Day) | <urn:uuid:7f01d695-e237-4842-9db0-63711c9b9d40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.simplechurch.com/profiles/blog/show?id=2303672%3ABlogPost%3A249381&commentId=2303672%3AComment%3A249395&xg_source=activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979943 | 776 | 1.539063 | 2 |
He said this was further strengthened with the amendment to Article 121(1) of the State Constitution in 1988 which made the Syariah Court a stronger entity.
Inadvertently, he said the amendment also enhanced the State's power where Religious Enforcement Agency is concerned.
"It has made the Syariah Court on par with the Civil Court in terms of power where it could stand on its own and its decisions could not be revoked or changed by other courts," he said when opening the National Convention on Enforcement and Prosecution of Syariah Laws at Kompleks Tabung Haji, here, Monday.
Also present were Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Musa Hassan, Sabah Commissioner of Police Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim, Deputy Commissioner of Police Datuk Ab Razak Ab Ghani and Deputy State Secretary Datuk Maznah Ghani.
Nevertheless, Musa, who is also State Finance Minister, said the issue now "is how to implement the Syariah laws to make it more effective in running society."
He said despite the Government having approved and enforced the Syariah laws for Syariah-related criminal offences, "the Government does not intend to make the (Syariah) laws as a mechanism to educate and punish Muslims who had broken the laws."
Punishment, education and evangelising, he said, works in tandem so that those involved become law-abiding citizens.
In enforcing the laws, he said enforcement agency must be firm and at the same time full of integrity.
"What's important is that the enforcement is not being looked down by society." He said the enforcement should be seen as "friends" by society so as to ensure they have more organised and peaceful lives.
Musa said Islamic laws had been practised in Sabah even before it had achieved independence. | <urn:uuid:ae74443d-2b0e-49d3-9852-09e771b673f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.malaysia-today.net/home/58-video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970813 | 374 | 1.75 | 2 |
Today marks the opening of the 11th General Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation, held this time in Stuttgart. Today is also the 66th anniversary of the failed Stauffenberg assassination attempt on the life of Adolf Hitler.
There will be much more on the LWF assembly and it social witness in the coming days. The assembly’s theme is, “Give us today our daily bread,” and the meeting promises to focus on hunger issues. I’ll be paying special attention to the engagement of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who was involved in the Stauffenberg plot, with the ecumenical movement in the 1930s and what we can learn about it today.
Follow along here on the PowerBlog. But for a basic primer on recent LWF pronouncements, in the context of the broader ecumenical witness, be sure to check out my new book, Ecumenical Babel: Confusing Economic Ideology and the Church’s Social Witness. Read an ENI piece on the opening of the assembly after the break.
German minister tells global Lutheran assembly to oppose injustice
By Anli Serfontein
Stuttgart, Germany, 20 July (ENI)–Whilst German Lutherans have traditionally been closely aligned to their country’s political system, they have also raised critical voices for justice and peace, Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has told a global Lutheran gathering.
“It has been observed that the Lutheran heritage in Germany has tended to encourage individuals to be obedient subjects rather than active citizens,” said Schäuble on 20 July at the opening worship of the Lutheran World Federation’s 11th assembly in Stuttgart, in southern Germany.
The German finance minister spoke on the 66th anniversary of a failed attempt to overthrow Nazi rule in Germany by assassinating dictator Adolf Hitler in 1944. German Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was linked to the plotters. The Nazis executed him three weeks before the end of the Second World War in Europe.
“Germans had to learn through a painful history that good government is the responsibility of all citizens. Protestant Germans in their majority took a long time to understand that this was also what their Christian faith demanded of them,” Schäuble told a 1200-strong ecumenical congregation that included not only Lutherans but also Anglicans, Orthodox, Reformed and Romans Catholics.
Hundreds of Lutherans from around the world are in Stuttgart for the LWF assembly, where Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, is due to address the gathering on 22 July.
The Geneva-based Lutheran grouping is made up of 140 member churches in 79 countries, representing more than 70 million Protestants. It is expecting an estimated 1000 people, including 418 delegates from member churches, will participate in the Stuttgart assembly.
Taking place normally once every six years, the assembly is the LWF’s highest decision-making body, and will continue until 27 July. The last assembly was in Winnipeg, Canada in 2003.
The opening service in Stuttgart was led by the president of the LWF, Mark Hanson, who is the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He is to step down from his LWF post after the assembly.
Referring to the theme of the meeting, “Give us today our daily bread”, Hanson said, “Shall we assess our capacity as the LWF to respond to the migration of people for hope and salvation, and say, ‘Send the crowd away?’” The congregation responded with cries of, “No! No!” | <urn:uuid:89494c53-9232-4b80-9366-094a4d54fca9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.acton.org/archives/17562-lwf-general-assembly-underway.html | 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 | 0.957065 | 772 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Church attendance hits new low
September 30, 2009
A vast majority of Norwegians are members of the state church, but new figures confirm that hardly any actually go to church on Sundays. Only 2 percent regularly attend services, putting Norway at the bottom of the church attendance rankings in Europe.
Newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad obtained fresh statistics from a comprehensive European survey called European Social Survey (ESS). They indicate that Norwegians are among the least religious in Europe and the most seldom church-goers.
Only 10 percent of Norwegians responding to the survey attend church once a month or more often. Of the 31 countries in Europe that took part in the ESS survey, only Estonia ranked lower, with 8.8 percent of its population attending church once or more a month.
In Poland, by contrast, 71.5 percent of the population goes to church at least once a month.
Norway’s state church, the country’s largest, attracts only 100,000 persons every Sunday. That amounts to just 2 percent of the population and 2.6 percent of total church members.
Fully 80.7 percent of the Norwegian population are members, but mostly because many parents still baptize their newborns and baptismal certificates function like birth certificates in Norway. That means most persons born in Norway almost automatically become church members until they actively cancel their membership later in life.”These numbers show that we seem to have a bit of a church service crisis,” said Vidar Kristensen of the state church’s information service. “Church services don’t appeal to many people.”
Kristensen insisted, however, that the poor church attendance on Sundays doesn’t necessarily mean Norwegians are entirely uninterested in their church, which is Evangelical Lutheran. “Many take part in other activities during the week,” he said.
Norway’s Catholic services are packed every week, which one local priest attributed to the Catholics’ sense of duty. Muslims also fill local mosques for Friday prayers, while the state church sees a need to take active steps to lure more folks to Sunday services.”The church can’t rest when so few members go to services,” said Paul Erik Wirgenes of the Norwegian Church Council. He says the low attendance figures are the church’s biggest challenge.
He won’t set any specific targets for attendance, but told Stavanger Aftenblad that “it’s a central goal to get more people to go to church.”
Church officials are trying to reform services, modernize their language and make the services more relevant to daily life. They also think more people should lead or take part in services than just the local pastor and organist. They’re also considering moving services from the traditional 11am.
“That was mostly aimed at making church services convenient for farmers, who came after caring for animals in the morning and before making afternoon rounds,” said Wigernes, noting that more people might be attracted to evening services or at a time that doesn’t come right in the middle of a day off work.
“The most important is that folks come, and that services still be held on Sunday,” he said. | <urn:uuid:e2485b3b-aa8d-4094-b086-108fe63e66a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsinenglish.no/2009/09/30/church-attendance-hits-new-low/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965746 | 692 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The Arizona debate exposed both the paucity and cynical self-interest of Republican candidates’ Middle East policy
Remember that promise by Michele Bachmann to shut down the US embassy in Iran? Only to be informed that there was no embassy in Tehran to shut down. As the field for the Republican presidential nomination has been winnowed out, I assumed we would see more attention to facts, particularly when addressing the sensitive and volatile developments in the Middle East. I was wrong.
The Republican presidential debates are not just watched by Americans, but people all over the world. Iranians and Arabs will not recognize descriptions of their countries. In their opening statements, both Gingrich and Santorum felt an impulsive need to frame Arabs in a negative light, in need of Republican benevolence. Within seconds of stating his name, Santorum declared that “the Middle East is in flames.” Is it really? And then came “I am Newt Gingrich and I’ve developed a program for American energy so no future president will ever bow to a Saudi king again.”
After such conciliatory and productive opening statements, when asked by CNN’s John King later in the debate about the videos (of killings) coming out of Syria and whether there should be US intervention or not, Santorum used the opportunity to return to Bachmann’s theme of Iran-bashing.
“Syria is a puppet state of Iran. They are a threat not just to Israel, but they have been a complete destabilizing force within Lebanon, which is another problem for Israel and Hezbollah. They are a country that we can do no worse than the leadership in Syria today, which is not the case, and some of the other countries that we readily got ourselves involved in.
“So it’s sort of remarkable to me we would have – here again, it’s – I think it’s the timidness [sic] of this president in dealing with the Iranian threat, because Syria and Iran is an axis. And the president … while he couldn’t reach out deliberately to Iran but did reach out immediately to Syria and established an embassy there. And the only reason he removed that embassy was because it was threatened of being … of being overtaken, not because he was objecting to what was going on in Syria.
“This president has … has obviously a very big problem in standing up to the Iranians in any form. If this would have been any other country, given what was going on and the mass murders that we’re seeing there, this president would have quickly and – joined the international community, which is calling for his ouster and the stop of this, but he’s not. He’s not. Because he’s afraid to stand up to Iran.
“He opposed the sanctions in Iran against the … against the central banks, until his own party finally said, ‘You’re killing us. Please support these sanctions.’
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president who isn’t going to stop them. He isn’t going to stop them from getting a nuclear weapon. We need a new president or we are going to have a cataclysmic situation with a … a power that is the most prolific proliferator of terror in the world that will be able to do so with impunity because they will have a nuclear weapon to protect … protect them for whatever they do. It has to be stopped, and this president is not in a position to do that.”
EH: So, no sympathy for the plight of Syrians in Homs, or empathy for Arabs living under dictatorship. Instead, Santorum approaches the conflict with an Israel-centric bias, which wishes to weaken Iran by regime change in Syria. Santorum continued to accuse Obama of being afraid to confront Iran’s nuclear threat, while failing to offer any credible options as to how the US and its allies can stop Iran’s alleged weapons development program. Bombing Iran merely delays the bomb; it does not stop it.
When Gingrich was asked the same question on Syria, he too pressed the Iran button.
“Well, the first thing I’d do, across the board for the entire region, is create a very dramatic American energy policy of opening up federal lands and opening up offshore drilling, replacing the EPA.
“We … the Iranians have been practising closing the Strait of Hormuz, which has one out of every five barrels of oil in the world going through it. We have enough energy in the United States that we would be the largest producer of oil in the world by the end of this decade. We would be capable of saying to the Middle East, ‘We frankly don’t care what you do. The Chinese have a big problem because you ain’t going to have any oil.’
“But we would not have to be directly engaged. That’s a very different question.
“But, first of all, you’ve got to set the stage, I think, here to not be afraid of what might happen in the region.
“Second, we clearly should have our allies – this is an old-fashioned word – we have have our allies covertly helping destroy the Assad regime. There are plenty of Arab-speaking groups that would be quite happy. There are lots of weapons available in the Middle East.
“And I agree with … with Senator Santorum’s point. This is an administration which, as long as you’re America’s enemy, you’re safe.
“You know, the only people you’ve got to worry about is if you’re an American ally.”
EH: Having huffed and puffed on Iran, Gingrich had nothing different to say on the question of Syria other than what the Obama administration is already doing – despite his express contempt for it. Like them, he does not want military intervention nor arming the opposition with US weapons, preferring local countries to take a lead in Syria.
And what of Romney?
“I agree with both these gentlemen. It’s very interesting that you’re seeing, on the Republican platform, a very strong commitment to say we’re going to say no to Iran. It’s unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
“And … and Rick is absolutely right. Syria is their key ally. It’s their only ally in the Arab world. It is also their route to the sea. Syria provides a … a shadow over Lebanon. Syria is providing the armament of Hezbollah in Lebanon that, of course, threatens Israel, our friend and ally.
“We have very bad news that’s come from the Middle East over the past several months, a lot of it in part because of the feckless leadership of our president.
“But one little piece of good news, and that is the key ally of Iran, Syria, is … has a leader that’s in real trouble. And we ought to grab a hold of that like it’s the best thing we’ve ever seen.
“There’s things that are … we’re having a hard time getting our hands around, like, what’s happening in Egypt. But in Syria, with Assad in trouble, we need to communicate to the Allawites, his friends, his ethnic group, to say, look, you have a future if you’ll abandon that guy Assad.
“We need to work with … with Saudi Arabia and with Turkey to say, you guys provide the kind of weaponry that’s needed to help the rebels inside Syria. This is a critical time for us.
“If we can turn Syria and Lebanon away from Iran, we finally have the capacity to get Iran to pull back. And we could, at that point, with crippling sanctions and a very clear statement that military action is an action that will be taken if they pursue nuclear weaponry, that could change the course of world history.”
EH: The former governor of Massachusetts reinforced Santorum’s and Gingrich’s focus on Iran, but even seems convinced that a policy of crippling Syria and Lebanon, combined with sanctions on Iran, will be so successful as to alter “the course of world history”.
I am staggered by this kind of talk from the panel, and the applause that these men receive. They conveniently forget that the one Arab country to whose internal affairs Iran has direct access, where it helps appoint or may topple the government, is Iraq – an oil-producing nation, which the decisions of the last Republican president, George W Bush, helped deliver to the bosoms of Iran’s rulers. Perhaps only Ron Paul’s constant refrain of isolationism comes near acknowledging past Republican foreign policy failures.
“You know, I … I’ve tried the moral argument. I’ve tried the constitutional argument on these issues. And they don’t … they don’t go so well. But there … there’s an economic argument, as well.
“As a matter of fact, al-Qaida has had a plan to bog us down in the Middle East and bankrupt this country. That’s exactly what they’re doing. We’ve spent $4tn of debt in the last 10 years being bogged down in the Middle East.
“The neoconservatives who now want us to be in Syria, want us to go to Iran, have another war, and we don’t have the money. We’re already … today, gasoline hit $6 a gallon in Florida. And we don’t have the money.
“So, I don’t believe I’m going to get the conversion on the moral and the constitutional arguments in the near future. But I’ll tell you what, I’m going to win this argument for economic reasons. Just remember, when the Soviets left, they left not because we had to fight them. They left because they bankrupted this country – and we better wake up, because that is what we’re doing here. We’re destroying our currency and we have a financial crisis on our hands.”
EH: But the Republicans’ failure to understand the modern Middle East is deeper. They are deeply out of touch with events on the ground, and their failure to grasp Arab sentiments could not be more visible.
To date, not a single Republican candidate has spoken warmly of Arabs and congratulated them for seeking freedom and democracy, nor dedicated US support for and solidarity with the Arab uprisings. Instead, they continue to view the Arab world through outmoded lenses. The stirrings in Arab streets are about dignity, freedom, jobs, healthcare, housing and transparent government. But the Republican contenders continue to view the Middle East through four prisms: Israel’s security, Iranian nuclear ambitions, oil supplies to America, and countering terrorism. This mismatch between understanding reality in the region and the misplaced priorities among Republican contenders leads to the gap in knowledge and flawed analysis only too apparent in this debate.
As the GOP race narrows towards the nomination, the Middle East will be looking more closely at the statements of Republican presidential hopefuls. It is still not too late to learn about the Middle East for what it is, rather than what Republicans think it is. Obsessing with bombing Iran is not a solution: being less of an embarrassment and a liability to Iran’s opposition could be more helpful. That way, when the mullahs may fall, Iranian democrats will want to be allies of the west. | <urn:uuid:88247828-9cbf-463f-a990-c3f9df156e62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pennystockpaycheck.com/news/?tag=lebanon | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957505 | 2,436 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Nothing about illegal immigration quite adds up.
Conservative corporate employers still support the idea of imported, cheap, non-union labor -- in a strange alliance with liberal activists who want the larger blocs of Latino voters that eventually follow massive influxes from Latin America.
The remedies for illegal immigration under discussion are just as incoherent. If the government now plans to offer some foreign nationals a pathway to citizenship, does it also suddenly have the will to determine who among illegal immigrants does not qualify for citizenship?
Millions of illegal immigrants have resided in the United States for some time. They have not been convicted of crimes. And they have been hard-working and self-supporting. But if the majority deserves a chance to obtain legal residence and begin the process of citizenship, what about others who would not qualify under those same considerations?
There is also talk of reforming legal immigration as well. From now on we would select most immigrants for citizenship not by their place of origin, or by the fact of their prior illegal residence in the United States, but on the basis of needed skill sets and education, and their willingness to wait in line legally.
Yet are loud proponents of "comprehensive immigration reform" really willing to embrace the reforms they boast about? It might spell the end of privileging millions from Latin America to enter the United States without requisite concern about legality, education, English fluency or particular skill sets.
Massive illegal immigration is not ethnically blind or based on education. For decades it has favored more proximate Latin American arrivals who can easily cross the U.S.-Mexican border over those from distant Asia, Africa or Europe who simply cannot.
The politics of immigration are just as weird. Democrats, buoyed by the two election victories of Barack Obama, now welcome large pools of new Latino citizens to vote in bloc fashion for Democratic candidates. But if the border were actually closed and immigration returned to a legal, systematic process, then in time Latinos -- in the pattern of Greek-, Italian- and Armenian-Americans -- would follow most other ethnic minorities and decouple their ethnic allegiances from politics.
Republicans seem more confused. After needlessly bombastic talk in the 2012 presidential primaries, they have gone to the other extreme of emphasizing amnesties instead of enforcement -- largely in efforts to pander to growing numbers of Latino voters.
Here, too, paradoxes abound. Various polls suggest that immigration was not the primary reason why Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.
When the Pew Research Center recently surveyed Latinos and asked whether they preferred high taxes and big government or low taxes and small government, they preferred high taxes and big government by a 75-19 margin. And they usually see liberal Democrats as far better stewards of redistributionist government, and Republicans more as heartless advocates of a capricious free market.
Stranger still, Asian-Americans, for whom illegal immigration is not really an issue, voted for Democrats by about the same margins as did Latinos -- and perhaps for similar perceptions of minority-friendly big government.
Moreover, the largest concentrations of Latino voters are in Southwestern blue states like California, New Mexico and Nevada, where Republicans usually lose anyway, and for a variety of reasons other than immigration. Ironically, the best long-term strategy for Republicans would be to close the border and allow the forces of upward mobility, assimilation and the natural social conservatism of Latinos to work.
Everyone talks grandly of passing bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform as if the present system had not sprung up to serve the needs of all sorts of special interests that certainly have not gone away.
We forget that too many employers still want the cheap labor of foreign nationals.
The Mexican government still promotes illegal immigration as a political safety valve and a valuable source of cash remittances.
Too many ethnic activists, whose support derives from large numbers of under-assimilated Latinos, don't want to deport anyone and do not welcome legal immigration redefined by ethnically blind, skill-based criteria.
Democratic politicos don't want closed borders, only to see the melting pot someday turn their loyal supporters into independent voters. And panicky Republicans simply have no idea what they want -- other than to cater to as many constituencies as they can.
The present system of immigration is far too often illegal and immoral. But it is also weirdly rational in the way that it serves so well so many lobbies -- and so poorly the shared public interest at large.
(Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His new book, "The Savior Generals," will appear this spring from Bloomsbury Press. You can reach him by e-mailing [email protected].) | <urn:uuid:f514948a-31ba-462c-8f1b-0086e780eebc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/sns-201302060930--tms--vdhansonctnvh-a20130207-20130207,0,7342677.column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962082 | 964 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Fast Company: Why was the decision made to reboot the entire comic line?
Jim Lee: A year ago right after New York Comic Con we had a gathering of all our top creators and we talked about what defines the DC Universe, what makes it special, how do we keep it relevant and interesting. Out of that discussion we started talking about some key characters, specifically Superman, ways to revitalize that character, and we identified some key elements of the DC universe that could use some updating. And out of that came this crazy idea of what if we did it across the entire line, and more importantly, what if we renumbered everything to really signal to readers and lapsed readers that we are doing something very significant. The desire was to get people talking about comics, specifically our books, get them excited about our characters, and really set the table for future decades of storytelling.
Dan DiDio: And I think also the other thing that was important was we were trying to expand our reach. One of the things we did is we went same day digital with all of our product because we felt that we were trying to reach a new audience, new styles of readers, so this allowed us to really try to get as broad an audience as possible. We have a very strong direct market, we have material in bookstores across the country, but the thing for us too is that we wanted to reach out in the digital form and see if we can attract new people that way too.
Was there one thing or one moment that made you say we need to reinvent ourselves?
DiDio: I've been using the expression "death by a thousand cuts." There are a lot of things that we could have been doing better across the line: We could have been writing better, we could have been drawing better, we could have been editing better, we could have been marketing better. By doing the relaunch it allowed us to examine every aspect of our business and look at it from a point of view of if we were building a business today, how would we build it? How would we create characters? What types of stories would we tell? How would the world feel? And we changed the interior look of our books and we changed the exterior of our books. And by introducing the same day digital aspect, it forced us to rethink our production process. We were faced with a lot of delays. And we were losing loyal fans who were coming week in and week out because the books weren't there. And we had to make a new commitment to deliver our product on time. People said to me, "How'd you let things get so out of control?" It's like one day waking up and you're 30 pounds overweight. You're not exactly sure how you got 30 pounds overweight, but you know you didn't eat 30 pounds of food the night before. It just happened. We're trying to fix that: We identified where our weaknesses were and we attacked them on every level. And the response that we got to the first months of books shows that what we are doing were the right moves to make.
Lee: It wasn't any specific moment, but I think that you're reading the comic books and you get to a point where you go, "Wow, I didn't get much of a charge out of this." That's a problem. Sometimes the stories would be so involved in their back history, that you would read it and go, "I kind of enjoyed it, but I'm not sure exactly what happened." And the focus wasn't on the main characters, it was more on continuity changes or other elements that were almost superfluous. And so I think that part of our desire was to kind of to get back in and readdress the art of storytelling. What makes for a great comic book? What can we do in comics that we can't do in other mediums?
DiDio: I actually do have a moment where I thought that we would want to do it. The design of Superman that's here is something similar that Jim had actually worked out for a game. And he pulled it out one day and showed it to me and I saw this fresh-looking take on Superman. At that point we were trying to figure out different ways to spin the character, make the character work, and I saw something brand new--something that felt very respectful of what he was before, but felt fresh. And I thought to myself, "Wow, if you can make Superman feel fresh and new then we have a chance to do this across the line."
Was there sort of a unified creative directive going through the whole process?
Lee: The main mission statement was, "Be bold. No fear." And at the end of the day, no one is going to die from our poor decisions, right? [laughs] I think this should be a fun business. You are telling imaginary stories using brightly colorful characters. It's epic good vs. evil. You should be having fun with this stuff. You shouldn't feel trapped by history and tradition. That's not what created these characters. That's not what the well of energy and inspiration that created the DC Universe and I think that was something that we always had in the back of our minds. A reader has to be compelled by the content, by the cover, by the characters, to buy something.
DiDio: We wanted it to feel like it was brand new. There were some goals: We didn't want to retell origins. If you're taking past continuity then it had to have a purpose, have a reason for the story, not something just to stick in there because it happened before. We didn't want to take any character for granted; we wanted to make sure that they were used properly and took the time to develop them, and make sure we took the time for everyone to understand who they were so that we weren't working off old muscles on how people anticipated characters to act and behave. We had to explain it in the storytelling so it was justified to a new reader.
How did you decide which books would come back and with what creative teams?
Lee: We were making index cards with all of the creators' names and all the characters; we just had this big board where we put up all of these cards and it was sort of "mix and match." A lot of time was spent in that room. There are no windows in that room, by the way, and it fits, like comfortably, two people, and we put six editors in there, we're all sitting there shoulder to shoulder.
DiDio: There was a moment there where we had all lot of very familiar names on the schedule and it didn't feel fresh. Every team that was assembled should create a question of what this book could be about. If you just kept on assembling the same people with the same books, you already have a pre-proven package, and we really wanted to mix it up. We wanted to take some risks and we wanted to make people think about a book rather than already have a judgment based upon something that existed before. Unless of course it was a team that we knew was a slam dunk or had success on a character in the past. So it was a real interesting mix; it was a constant discussion. So it was constantly evolving, and actually in some ways still evolving.
Any unforeseen issues that came out of this whole thing?
DiDio: Every day [laughs]. As a matter of fact, we'll leave this room and have some unforeseen issues as soon as we get out of here.
Lee: That's just publishing. Its 52 books; at minimum you're looking at a couple hundred people involved in the creative process. If you know the game telephone, you know how messages get changed as they pass though different hands. That's part of it. It's a huge logistical undertaking, right? Taking all of these people and pointing them, hopefully, in one direction. There might be certain days where it is just a whirlwind of chaos.
DiDio: It's a fun chaos too. Because ultimately you see the final product when it comes out. And we're probably the harshest critics, so we look at everything with a very critical eye and we're always trying to strive to be better, and we get frustrated if certain pieces aren't there. In my case I get really excited when I see something that I really enjoy that I wasn't expecting. But that's what really gets me going because it shows that these things are really starting to come on and take a life of their own.
Lee: There were things that happened in terms of costumes or where people were drawing incorrectly. You're introducing new designs to all of these different people, and people were working off prior conceptions of what these characters were. When I was drawing Superman I would draw him in his mid-30s and I had to force myself go younger and younger. I kept thinking draw Superboy and I'll get closer to where he is supposed to be, somewhere between Superboy and the prior Superman. And those are kind of mental changes you have to make as a creator, and I imagine that was pretty true across the whole line of writers and artists. It's amazing how entrenched some of these ideas are in our collective consciousness.
DiDio: It was an interesting experience and it was extraordinarily exhausting for everybody, but everybody understood that we were doing something special. One of the things that was good with the level of success of the first issues was we could actually turn back to everybody and see that it was actually worth it and let's stick to it. The response was an incredible motivator for a group that was extremely exhausted after this marathon just to get to the first issue.
On the flipside, have there been any surprise benefits? Happy accidents?
Lee: On a continual basis [laughs]. Creating and producing creative work, to me those are all happy accidents. There is the intent of the writer and the interpretation by the artist. What the writer intended and what the artist interprets is not a 1-to-1 translation. It's a crossing of ideas that generates the stories that you see in print. So to me it always feels like a happy accident. I think there are certainly some books that have broken out of the pack, books that have excited us in a way that we didn't necessarily think they would. The reaction of the fans to books like Animal Man or Swamp Thing has been tremendous. Even Wonder Woman who is an iconic character, the reception to the new origin that Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang came up with has been a real--it's not a surprise because we knew we had great people on it, but the fact that they loved it so much was really cool.
How much consideration was given to how it's going to affect movies, games, or merchandise?
Lee: This was a publishing initiative and we wanted to do what was best for the characters in the publishing sense. Usually when you go out to video games or movies they are going to pick and choose what to be inspired by, and they are going to do what is best for the game or the movie. So you don't want to second-guess yourself and try to deliver something that they would use 100%. You want to do what's best for the characters. To the extent that people love it and want to use the designs or some of the story lines, great. But at the end of the day, we were really focused on what's going to keep the DC Universe vibrant and exciting in the world of publishing.
DiDio: I feel very strongly about that too--in a time where we see video games and movies really taking the basic conceits of comics and expanding them and visualizing them in such exciting ways, we shouldn't be quiet. We shouldn't be letting them lead us. We've got to lead them. We're the source of inspiration. So we're got to continue to inspire, and the only way we can do that is to be bigger better and bolder than what they are putting into movies and games. Those are a lot of the things that went into the building of this whole plan.
Have the sales numbers been a vindication for the relaunch strategy?
DiDio: Vindication is the wrong word--maybe celebration? If you want me to be honest, we never doubted it because we never looked back and we were always moving forward. So we always felt that we had to do something and we had expected some growth on this. This has exceeded everything that we thought, which gives us a better spot to be working from. But it is no means to say, "That's it, we're done." It's more about looking towards the future to make sure that those people that sampled all these books are still interested in what we are creating a year from now, or two years from now.
Are there some things that people aren't picking up on out of this whole process?
DiDio: This has probably been the most reviewed project that anybody has ever seen. When you look at somebody reviewing--not just one person, but groups, and blog sites--all of these people reviewing every single book that you put out in a single month, it's pretty exposing. But you know what, we were ready for that challenge. We're self-aware enough to know that when you put 52 books out there are some things that aren't going to work, there are some things that need to be replaced, and there are some things that just aren't going to click with the audience. But I think what this allows us to do is to be more aggressive and take more risks in the second wave books.
Lee: We can all produce one or two hit books, pair some top creators on a popular character; it's a lot harder to do it across the entire line. There's an unprecedented level of excitement by the fans. You go on YouTube and there are people holding the comic book and talking about why they love that comic, and they're doing it for every single book that's coming out. So you see that you achieved this holy grail of people getting excited about the entire line. I think it speaks well of the future of comics; it speaks well of the future of the DC Universe. Like Dan says, this is just the start of the beginning and we have some really cool stuff lined up to follow up with and some other key publishing initiatives that we will be unveiling.
Note: This interview has been edited for content, clarity, and length.
- Can Comics Make The Leap To Digital In A Single Bound?
- The Green Lantern Guru
- Grant Morrison Reinvents Superman; Can He Rescue DC Comics? | <urn:uuid:143fe006-bf41-4e7c-a26c-a9878ff70cf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcompany.com/1809039/why-jim-lee-and-dan-didio-decided-reboot-dc-comics-video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987336 | 3,016 | 1.617188 | 2 |
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|Feasibility Study of a Canadian Bridge League|
In April of 2001, the CBF President received a petition signed by over 1800 bridge players from eastern Ontario and Quebec, asking the CBF to formally look into the possibility of setting up a separate Canadian Bridge Organization. Given that this petition had been signed by over 11% of the CBF membership, the CBF Board of Directors at its meetings in May of 2002 voted to set up a committee that would prepare a Feasibility Study on a Canadian Bridge League. The final report of this committee was presented to the CBF Board of Directors at their May 2002 meeting.
All documents are PDF files. You will need Acrobat Reader to read them. The Reader is a free application - if you don't have it click here for download: Adobe Acrobat. If you want to read the files offline, simply choose "Save link (or file) to Disc".
Appendix One: The following is a list of ACBL-related issues identified by Unit officials, tournament organizers, club managers and players across Canada.
Appendix Two: ACBL fees, 1995, 1999 to 2002 (US Dollars)
Appendix Three: Bridge in Other Countries
Appendix Four: Bridge Clubs in Canada: A Brief look at the situation and some proposals...
Appendis 5: Les clubs de bridge au Canada, un bref état de la situation et quelques propositions
Appendix Six: Budget for Bridge Canada
Appendix Seven: Capital and One-time Expenses
Appendix Eight: IDEAS FOR SOLUTIONS | <urn:uuid:9c178063-a296-46d7-ab0d-c2d2afe843c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbf.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=114:feasibility-study-of-a-canadian-bridge-league&catid=89:cbf-library&Itemid=142 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933658 | 337 | 1.59375 | 2 |
ROME, 2 FEB. 2010 (ZENIT)
Answered by Legionary of Christ
Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy at the Regina
Q: There was a bomb blast last year in our cathedral at
Kathmandu. In it, three people died and several were injured. In
all probability, one died on the spot (inside the church). We
did clean up the place after the police had done their job, and
we had Mass celebrated the following day. Now, there was doubt
in the minds of some of our old Catholics. At least one of them
told me that after a murder takes place in the church, it is
desecrated (because of the murder); therefore, before
celebrating Mass and other sacraments in the building, the
church needs to be re-dedicated. The person told me that that
was "the rule before." I personally had not come across a
situation like this before, and I did not know whether any rule
existed either. Could you please explain whether there are some
rules or regulations with regard to this?
P.P., Kathmandu, Nepal
A: This topic is dealt with in the Code of Canon Law and in the
Ceremonial of Bishops. Canons 1211-1112 touch upon the violation
of sacred places.
"Can. 1211 Sacred places are violated by gravely injurious
actions done in them with scandal to the faithful, actions
which, in the judgment of the local ordinary, are so grave and
contrary to the holiness of the place that it is not permitted
to carry on worship in them until the damage is repaired by a
penitential rite according to the norm of the liturgical books.
"Can. 1212 Sacred places lose their dedication or blessing if
they have been destroyed in large part, or have been turned over
permanently to profane use by decree of the competent ordinary
or in fact."
To this must be added the norms of the Ceremonial of Bishops,
Nos. 1070-1092, which describes the public prayers to be made
after the desecration of a church.
First, it specifies further the nature of the crimes that can
desecrate a church as those that "do grave dishonor to sacred
mysteries, especially to the eucharistic species, and are
committed to show contempt for the Church, or are crimes that
are serious offenses against the dignity of the person and
It continues: "A church, therefore, is desecrated by actions
that are gravely injurious in themselves and a cause of scandal
to the faithful."
The situation in Kathmandu clearly fulfills all the conditions
for a desecration.
Reparation for the desecration is to be carried out with a
penitential rite celebrated as soon as possible. Until that
time, no sacred rite may be celebrated in the church. Preaching
to prepare for the penitential rite may be carried out. The
people are encouraged to avail themselves of the sacrament of
reconciliation, which should be celebrated in another church. To
symbolize penance, the Ceremonial recommends: "The altar of the
church should be stripped bare and all customary signs of joy
and gladness should be put away, for example, lights flowers,
and other such articles."
It is fitting that the bishop presides at the rite of
reparation, which may be either a celebration of the Eucharist
or a Liturgy of the Word as circumstances suggest. It may be
celebrated on any day except the Easter triduum, Sundays and
solemnities, but may be celebrated on the vigil of a Sunday. The
Mass of reparation is the preferred mode.
The most suitable Mass formula may be chosen; for example: the
votive Mass of the holy Eucharist (in cases of profanation of
the Blessed Sacrament) or for promoting harmony in the case of
There are several forms of carrying out the rite. One is a
procession of the people from a nearby church or another
suitable place during which prayer and the litany of the saints
is sung, including the patron of the desecrated church and other
prayers found in the Roman ritual. If a procession is not
possible, then the people gather in the church and the bishop
and other ministers enter from the sacristy.
On entering the church, the bishop along with concelebrants and
other ministers goes to the chair without reverencing the altar.
He then blesses water, and after a moment of silent prayer
sprinkles the altar. He may also sprinkle the people and the
walls. Returning to the chair, and with hands joined, he invites
those present to pray. After a brief silent prayer, the bishop
recites the opening prayer with hands outstretched.
The readings usually come from the Mass for the forgiveness of
sins, unless other more suitable readings are chosen.
Appropriate general intercessions are prayed only if the litany
of the saints has not been used. After this, the deacon and
other ministers place the altar cloth and the other usual
elements upon the altar and may place flowers around it. The
procession of the gifts follows the bishop receiving them at the
When everything is ready, the bishop goes to the altar and
kisses it and the Mass continues in the usual manner.
In the case of desecration of the Eucharist, the concluding
rites of Mass are replaced by exposition, adoration and
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
If there is only a celebration of the Word, then everything is
done as above, until after the homily. A prayer of intercession
asking for God's mercy is carried out. The altar is then dressed
and decorated by the ministers or the faithful. The bishop then
approaches the altar, and kisses and incenses it. He
subsequently introduces the Our Father, followed by a suitable
closing prayer and the blessing.
When the Ceremonial of Bishops was published, the official rite
of reparation was not yet promulgated. However, the elements
provided in the Ceremonial and described above suffice for the
preparation of an adequate celebration. | <urn:uuid:885bda20-21c2-4187-a405-305739f213ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur302.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94824 | 1,350 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Israel’s ambassador to the U.S. said that if Syria were to transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah or other militant groups, it would be a “game changer.”
Ambassador Michael Oren, appearing on Fox News Sunday, said he could not confirm reports that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces had prepared sarin gas for use. But he said Israel was worried that Syria could transfer the weapons to Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party that receives support from Syria and Iran.
“We are watching the situation very carefully,” Mr. Oren said. “Syria has a very varied, deep chemical weapons program. It is geographically dispersed as well. Were those weapons to pass in to the wrong hands, Hezbollah’s hands, for example, that would be a game changer for us.”…
Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital’s comings and goings in a series of newsy, and sometimes even gossipy, items. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is the collective product of the Journal’s Washington bureau. Write to us at [email protected].
Content engaging our readers now, with additional prominence accorded if the story is rapidly gaining attention. Our WSJ algorithm comprises 30% page views, 20% Facebook, 20% Twitter, 20% email shares and 10% comments. | <urn:uuid:71281679-73e0-4e22-8439-5b3c516a1e32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/tag/michael-oren/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955594 | 344 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Cinnamon, Destiny and Vixxin get ready…
Vertical Dance, a British pole-dancing company, is petitioning the International Olympic Committee to get their sport recognized as a test event for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
According to the petition, which has so far garnered about 6,000 signatures, “Over 50 countries worldwide take part in [pole dancing] lessons, workshops, conventions, expose, competitions and teacher training.”
The petition also argues that “[Pole dancing] is an international sport that both men, women and those that are on a low income can take part in, unlike sports such as horse riding, sailing and snow based sports.”
It goes on to compare the athleticism pole dancing requires to that of gymnastics and figure skating, and points out that BMX racing has been made a test sport, so why not pole dancing?
Does this sound like a ridiculous publicity stunt? Or could there actually be a place in the Olympics for pole dancing? For a frame of reference, check out this video from a pole dancing competition. | <urn:uuid:f178ad84-39b9-40a9-b756-ffab83b1f891> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://103gbfrocks.com/cinnamon-destiny-and-vixxin-get-ready/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941637 | 224 | 1.773438 | 2 |
SECU members have once again shown their strong support of youth financial education through a third SECU Foundation grant – this one totaling $250,000 to help fund the production of a fifth season of Biz Kid$ programming. Biz Kid$ is a credit union-backed, award winning public television series for middle school students, using 30 minute episodes to teach youth the concepts of saving, budgeting and entrepreneurship.
The SECU Foundation began its initial support for the series in 2009, and SECU started training personnel on this curriculum to incorporate Biz Kid$ into its financial education offerings for North Carolina middle schools. Since 2009, SECU has provided 245 presentations reaching 6,078 North Carolina youth. SECU also works with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction to train teachers on the program. Biz Kid$ television episodes and corresponding learning activities are shared with middle school students primarily in Social Studies and Career & Technical Education classes.
Jim Barber, SECU Foundation Chair comments, “As an organization that focuses heavily on financial education, SECU has seen great success in delivering financial concepts to North Carolina middle school students with Biz Kid$ and its accompanying curriculum. This success made it an easy decision to continue Foundation support of Biz Kid$ production. We look forward to another great season of this educational programming.” | <urn:uuid:9bc6b2e7-ebd0-40f3-98d9-0d797accff2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncleague.org/Making-Headlines/Credit-Union-Press-Releases/December-2011/SECU-Members-Support-Biz-Kid$-Financial-Program-wi.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953058 | 270 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Firuzeh Shokooh Valle
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Puerto Rico's pioneering 1989 law against domestic violence is clouded by the U.S. territory's leadership in intimate-partner killings found in a recent survey. Critics say government budget cutbacks are making matters worse.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (WOMENSENEWS)--Despite its groundbreaking 1989 law against domestic violence, Puerto Rico suffers one of the world's worst rates of intimate-partner violence.
Advocates blame the situation on inadequate funding for women's rights policies and weak political support for implementing the law. They direct particular criticism at the Office of the Women's Advocate, formed in 2001 to establish public policies with a gender perspective.
Nahomi Galindo, a board member of Puerto Rico para Tod@s, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, charges the Office of the Women's Advocate with complacency.
Verónica Rivera Torres, vice president of the Women's Commission of the Bar Association of Puerto Rico in San Juan, said that the Women's Advocate should fight for the funds that were cut under a major tightening budget in 2009.
The nongovernmental organizations "are the only hope right now, the shelters, the ones that offer financial services," Rivera Torres said. "But they are also in crisis because the Office of the Women's Advocate has had to cut its budget and therefore cannot distribute funds to these organizations."
Yvonne Feliciano, the head of the Office of the Women's Advocate, was not available for comment. A deputy, Jacqueline Padilla Muñoz, who has worked in that agency for eight years, said massive budget cuts in March 2009 reduced the staff to 34; in September 2009 is was 56. The annual budget is now $6,769,000, down from $8,041,000 in 2009.
But an international survey that compared women's lives on the island, a U.S. territory, to other nations indicates that more services, not cuts, are needed. It concluded that a Puerto Rican woman is more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than women in 35 of the countries surveyed in 2006. The report was published this year by the Reina Sofía Center, an international research center on violence located in Valencia, Spain.
The survey found an improving trend, with the prevalence of women killed by an intimate partner in Puerto Rico down by over 12 percent between 2000 and 2006.
The trend may be going in the opposite direction this year, however. In August 2010 the annual death toll was already 15, close to the total of 17 in 2009. Six women were murdered in the month of June alone.
Activists think too little is being done to reduce the number of femicides.
The Movimiento Amplio de Mujeres de Puerto Rico-MAMPR (General Organization of Women of Puerto Rico), a rights coalition, has denounced the government for not doing more to confront this issue.
On International Women's Day this year, March 8, coalition members visited the offices of female legislators and heads of agencies. They gave them gift boxes containing women's clothes that symbolized the absence of gender perspective in legislation and public policies.
One of the "honored" public officials was Feliciano, the head of the Office of the Women's Advocate.
"In this historic moment, the absence of women is even more evident at the Office of the Women's Advocate," the group said in a statement. "Silence and inaction of the Women's Advocate and the office's lack of firmness regarding women's issues creates a sense of terrible emptiness, lack of political will and makes the absence of women evident."
The group has organized artistic performances and demonstrations to raise awareness. In one case they protested in scanty costumes in front of the Office of the Women's Advocate as part of the performance "Deprived Muses" to denounce the government's neglect of women's and gender issues. The group recently convened a male performance, "Men Sweeping Sexism," in front of the Capitol, in which men carried brooms that symbolically swept sexism away.
The Caribbean island is in the midst of a severe economic, social and political crisis marked by rising unemployment, public sector cutbacks, declining property values, bank closures, rising murder rates and massive strikes and social unrest.
Amárilis Pagán, executive director of the Caguas-based Proyecto Matria, an advocacy group for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, says those problems--along with inaction on the part of pro-statehood Republican Luis Fortuño's government--have worsened the situation.
"The climate is so tense that it foments violence at all levels of our society, but especially domestic violence," said Pagán. "This is not a priority for the government either, contrary to previous years when we had specific campaigns that condemned domestic violence and made it clear that perpetrators would be punished. But right now, not even the Office of the Women's Advocate has had a prominent or proactive role. There is a general sense of impunity."
She also criticized the government's support for fundamentalist views through groups such as "Promise Keepers," an international Christian organization that describes itself as "dedicated to introducing men to Jesus Christ as their savior and lord, and then helping them to grow as Christians."
The U.S. National Organization for Women has described the group as focused on the control of women and imposing conservative social values.
In 1989, Puerto Rico approved one of the first and most progressive laws against domestic violence in Latin America and the Caribbean. It provides civil protective orders for victims and criminalizes physical and emotional violence perpetrated by partners or ex-partners legally married or not. It also eliminates the right of a married man to non-consensual sexual intercourse with his wife or partner.
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Firuzeh Shokooh Valle is a journalist from Puerto Rico.
Reina Sofia Center: | <urn:uuid:8ea822cc-6461-446c-adf3-0f53493ff5b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://womensenews.org/print/8264 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958375 | 1,282 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Office Phone: 541-737-6422
Oregon State University offers a full range of precollege programs designed to open the pathways to higher education though academic opportunities. We offer programming for every level of student and for educators. Please contact each program directly or for general questions, e-mail or use the web form.
The Office of Precollege Programs is housed under the division of Student Affairs in Enrollment Management, as seen in our organizational chart, with generous support from the College of Engineering.
Precollege Programs Staff
Director: Dr. Skip Rochefort, Chemical Engineering Department
Skip Rochefort is currently an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering and the Director of OSU and COE Precollege Programs at Oregon State University. His research interest for the last 30 years has been in all areas of Polymer Engineering and Science, and for the last 15 years, Engineering Education. His passion is K-12 outreach for the recruitment and retention of women and minorities into engineering, with the current focus on introducing engineering science at the middle school and high school levels. He has been active in the Saturday Academy ASE program (19 student interns), and as founder and director of the Summer Experience in Science and Engineering for Youth program, which has served over 450 high school students since summer 1997.
Assistant Director: Dr. Kyle Cole
Kyle Cole received his Ph.D. from Yale University and his Bachelor’s degree in biology from UC Santa Cruz. He has worked in youth outreach for five years and previously taught courses in organic chemistry, evolutionary biology, the origin of life and nanotechnology at Stanford University and Santa Clara University. Prior to coming to OSU, Kyle worked as the Associate Director of an NSF-funded research center at Stanford and lead a research group at the biotech company Affymetrix.
Office Coordinator: Joan Stempniak
Joan Stempniak comes to Precollege Programs with extensive non-profit management experience and as a seasoned support professional in the field of college access and public school reform. Joan obtained her BA in Psychology in 2007 from the University of Alaska, Anchorage with an emphasis on business and volunteer management. In addition to her duties at OSU Joan enjoys connecting with youth as a volunteer in the art room at the Boys and Girls Club of Corvallis. | <urn:uuid:b6d7cf73-d273-4b1c-b3e3-9e1e927471fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oregonstate.edu/precollege/contact-us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954103 | 467 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Excel Bug Will Be Ignored on Patch Tuesday
Microsoft Corp. last week said that three Windows security updates, including one rated "critical," will be released tomorrow.
The company acknowledged, however, that it will not deliver a fix for an Excel flaw that attackers are now exploiting.
Microsoft didn't disclose details of the patches, other than to say which versions of Windows will be affected.
"It's pretty nebulous," said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security Inc. "They could be any number of things."
The critical update will affect all still-supported editions of the operating system, including Windows 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista and Server 2008. Unpatched "critical" bugs allow PCs to be hijacked by hackers without any action by users. The other updates, labeled "important," fix so-called spoofing bugs, which typically are used to trick users into divulging confidential information. | <urn:uuid:1e4b1195-207c-426c-bc5c-28de115f07cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.itworld.com/print/63885 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931213 | 193 | 1.523438 | 2 |
We hear today on the blog from MCF member Indian Land Tenure Foundation. The foundation shares its story of a recent victory in protecting a site sacred to the Oceti Sakowin — a great example of how philanthropy can successfully help to fight for a community in need.
Last week in Rapid City, South Dakota, full ownership and control of the sacred site Pe’ Sla, located in the Black Hills, was officially returned to the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation). We at Indian Land Tenure Foundation would like to offer our sincere and heartfelt congratulations to the Oceti Sakowin on its return of the control of this sacred site to all the people of the Nation and its relatives today and for all future generations.
It was first announced in August that the land containing Pe’ Sla was going to be auctioned to the highest bidder. The area known as Pe’ Sla by the Lakota is one of five holy sites for the Nation and the only one not on public land. This area is particularly important in that it is the site of the Lakota origin story and star knowledge.
A collaborative effort raised the $9 million purchase price for the 1,942 acre parcel of land. While recognizing that the ownership of this land and the remainder of the Black Hills is still disputed by non-Indians, gaining control of this site was an opportunity too good to pass up and too important not to fight for.
It has truly been an honor for Indian Land Tenure Foundation and Indian Land Capital Company to be a part of this remarkable effort and to work with the Lakota and Dakota nations and other partners over the past few months. Indian Land Capital Company, ILTF’s affiliate lender, was able to provide $900,000 in rapid financing in order to help the tribes secure the initial purchase agreement.
In the end, all of the tribes of the Oceti Sakowin will have contributed time, effort and scarce funds to make this transaction possible. It is anticipated that each tribe will also participate in the oversight and management of the land to ensure its spiritual and cultural values.
As Indian people, we are faced every day with the loss of our sacred lands and the way in which this has impacted our communities, families and cultures. History being what it is, we recognize that our struggle to recover these lands will be difficult and long but we do not accept that these losses are permanent. The return of Pe’ Sla has renewed our spirit. To see so many people willing to support the rights of American Indians and the return of Indian land makes us hopeful that there is a growing number of people that understand the magnitude of what we have lost. | <urn:uuid:77f885d7-758b-4ea1-beea-6594ca11db6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mcf.org/2012/12/13/member-post-pe-sla-returns-to-oceti-sakowin/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964689 | 558 | 1.703125 | 2 |
When I left Mormonism after thirty years, it didn’t take me long to realize that every single thing I knew in life was a lie.
Everything from food and clothing to the English language has to be re-evaluated by the person leaving the Church. Because they have lived in a state of fear of losing salvation and sometimes jobs, families and homes which can produce paranoia, sometimes there is a great amount of confusion in their minds. Threats, whether real or implied, have been the main meal of doctrine they’ve been fed. In this religion the meaning of words and information from the “outside” has been twisted by leaders of the Church in order to control the members. Being taught you will lose salvation by not belonging to their church is a threat and a scary process to have to endure.
The length of time and level of activity spent in the Church typically determines how long it’ll take to work through the exodus of Mormonism. | <urn:uuid:a12c38a6-0e08-4875-87e2-25e1f1c86fa5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifeafterministry.com/tag/bible-study/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973291 | 197 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Dáil Éireann - Volume 486 - 03 February, 1998
Written Answers. - Swimming Pool Projects.
Mr. Rabbitte Mr. Rabbitte
191. Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government if his attention has been drawn to the recent speech made by the chairperson of the Irish Sports Council that an investment of up to £60 million will be needed in the coming years to replace the country's swimming pools; the steps, if any, he intends to take to address this need. [21429/97]
Minister for the Environment and Local Government (Mr. Dempsey) Noel Dempsey
Minister for the Environment and Local Government (Mr. Dempsey): A sum of £4 million has been provided in my Department's Estimates for 1998 for the building of new pools and the refurbishment of existing pools. I expect this provision will be fully expended on projects under construction or likely to commence construction later in the year. Grant-aid commitments after 1998 in respect of these projects amount to £3.7 million.
In addition, there are 15 new pool and nine refurbishment proposals, at various stages of planning in my Department at present. They have a total estimated cost in excess of £44 million. Projects will be advanced as funds become available.
Dáil Éireann 486 Written Answers. Swimming Pool Projects. | <urn:uuid:b4c3e96b-c976-46e8-80ae-62c89b8dedaf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0486/D.0486.199802030115.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939349 | 281 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Perot running mate Stockdale dies at 81
Naval officer received Medal of Honor for valor as POW
A portrait of Vice Adm. James Stockdale taken when he was president of the Naval War College.
YOUR E-MAIL ALERTS
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Retired Vice Adm. James Stockdale, a former prisoner of war and Ross Perot's running mate for president in 1992, died Tuesday at 81, the Navy announced.
Stockdale received the Medal of Honor for resisting his North Vietnamese captors.
Stockdale, who had battled Alzheimer's disease for several years, died at his home in Coronado, California, a statement from the Navy Department said.
A political unknown, Stockdale became the butt of jokes after he opened the 1992 vice presidential debate by asking, "Who am I? Why am I here?"
"The questions were relevant in terms of the evening's purpose, which was to introduce myself and let the American people know where I was coming from," he wrote in 1995. "But I also chose them for their broader relevance to my life: I am a philosopher."
Stockdale said his study of the Roman Stoic philosopher Epictetus helped him endure more than seven years as a prisoner of war after his A-4 Skyhawk was shot down over North Vietnam.
He was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military medal for valor, in 1976 for his efforts to organize fellow American prisoners to resist their guards.
Stockdale "deliberately inflicted a near-mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate," the Medal of Honor citation reads.
"He was subsequently discovered and revived by the North Vietnamese, who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment of excessive harassment and torture toward all of the prisoners of war."
Stockdale was born December 23, 1923, in Abingdon, Illinois, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1947. He is survived by his wife, Sybil, and four sons.
Adm. Vern Clark, chief of naval operations, called Stockdale "a giant among heroes and a patriarch of ethical leadership."
"Admiral Stockdale challenged the human limits of moral courage, physical endurance and intellectual bravery, emerging victorious as a legendary beacon for all to follow," Clark said in a news release.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with Sybil, his devoted partner in love and life, and the rest of the Stockdale family."
Stockdale will be honored on July 16 at a memorial service on board the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan in Coronado. He will be buried with full honors at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, on July 23.
|© 2007 Cable News Network.
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Read our privacy guidelines. Contact us. Site Map. | <urn:uuid:641b82cd-0f4e-41c3-ba5e-aa409a528173> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/05/stockdale.obit/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984018 | 624 | 1.664063 | 2 |
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A school district in California's Central Valley is putting teens' health at risk by failing to provide students with information about condoms and contraception, two parents and a coalition of groups said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday over the district's sex education program.
The lawsuit is the first of its kind in California since the passage of a 2003 law requiring that sexual health education in public schools be comprehensive and medically accurate, the American Civil Liberties Union said.
"The sex ed in Clovis high schools violates state law and gives inaccurate, biased information to students," said Phyllida Burlingame, Reproductive Justice Policy Director at the ACLU of Northern California.
"Schools should teach teens about building healthy relationships, the benefits of delaying sexual activity, and accurate information about condoms and birth control. That's what state law requires and that's what meets the needs of teens," she said.
Instead, according to the lawsuit, the school district teaches students that all people, even adults, should avoid sexual activity until they are married.
"Our kids need complete, accurate information to help them protect themselves against STDs and unintended pregnancy. That's information they'll need at whatever point in their life they become sexually active," said Aubree Smith, a plaintiff in the suit and mother of a 17-year-old daughter at Clovis High School.
The lawsuit against the Clovis Unified School District was filed in Fresno County Superior Court by the California District of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Gay-Straight Alliance Network. The ACLU is representing the groups and the two parents.
In a statement, district spokeswoman Kelly Avants said the school district was reviewing the suit.
"It appears from an initial review that the concern raised in this lawsuit stems from a question of differing interpretations of the depth and breadth of a school district's obligation to cover detailed sexual content in its family life-sex education materials," the statement said.
"The District notes that some of the information contained in the suit does not accurately describe existing procedures and practices in Clovis Unified related to parent notification," the statement said.
The school district operates more than 40 schools, with more than 39,000 students from Clovis and surrounding Fresno County communities enrolled for the 2012-2013 school year, according to its website. | <urn:uuid:fdd6a5ab-5436-4f1c-bde9-102f79ec3f6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/calif-school-district-sued-over-sex-ed-program-050817788.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968385 | 474 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Elisabeth Morin-Chartier (France)
MEPs speak out on dementia
Elisabeth Morin-Chartier (France) talks to AE about her priorities for the European elections (May 2009)
In the run up to the elections, Alzheimer Europe asked Members of the European Parliament the following questions:
1. As the mandate of this European Parliament draws to a close, we would be very interested in hearing which you consider to be the key accomplishments of this Parliament which had a direct impact on people with Alzheimer’s disease and their carers?
2. After the European Parliament elections in June, which are the main policy initiatives that will be important for people with dementia and their carers?
3. If you are re-elected, do you have any personal priorities that would be of particular interest to people with dementia and their carers?
Elisabeth Morin-Chartier: The European Alzheimer's Alliance, of which I have been a member as a Member of the European Parliament, has been very instrumental in the European Parliament in raising awareness about the urgency for Europe and the Member States to make Alzheimer's disease a public health priority. The success of the Alliance’s work in the European Parliament was epitomised by the signing of the EP Written Declaration on Alzheimer's disease by some 60% of the Members of the European Parliament, from all EU Member States and EP political groups.
Not only has the Alliance increased awareness, it has also motivated the Members of the European Parliament to take the issue to national level. I am particularly proud that French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, launched in 2008 a broad and comprehensive Alzheimer Plan. His decision to organise a conference dedicated to Alzheimer's disease during the EU French Presidency has produced recommendations that were later on taken on board at two Council meetings.
Since then, I was equally happy to hear Androulla Vassiliou, Health Commissioner, announce that the European Commission will be launching an Alzheimer initiative in 2009.
It is quite remarkable that within a fairly short period of time, the three major EU institutions have converged towards the common goal of addressing Alzheimer's disease comprehensively. This is a concrete example of what Europe can do to improve the quality of life of the people with Alzheimer's disease and their carers.
I welcome the French EU Presidency initiative to invite the Member States to form, on a voluntary basis, a European network that will pool resources in the field of Alzheimer's disease, thereby avoiding duplication and waste of resources. To date, some 10 EU countries have responded positively to this invitation and it would be comforting to see the remaining countries join the network. This initiative certainly needs to be further promoted to yield results that will benefit the research community, people with dementia and carers.
The discussions and decisions made within the context of the current economic crisis must never forget the people with dementia and their carers. The ageing of the population associated with age-related diseases and the foreseen reduction of the labour force will lead to an increase in the need for caring professions, respite care and tailor-made social services. The opinion I made on behalf of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on a European recovery plan in particular calls on the Member States to invest in the social economy which can contribute towards growth since it has a considerable potential for creating high-quality jobs and strengthening social and territorial cohesion. It is important that all future EU policies take these parameters into account.
I also look forward to the recommendations that will be brought forward by the Czech Presidency conference on the care and social protection of seniors.
The new European Parliament will need to be vigilant and ensure that the recommendations of the Council and the Parliament are followed by concrete measures. I will of course follow with great interest the European Commission initiative on Alzheimer's disease and offer my support.
The European Alzheimer's Alliance must survive during the next term and pursue its excellent work. Considering the challenges of an ageing population and the foreseen increase in the number of people with dementia, it would be legitimate for the Alliance to be granted formal recognition by the European Parliament and thereby optimise its outreach. I hereby would like to congratulate Alzheimer Europe for its passionate work and recent achievements. I am happy to have been part of this adventure and pledge to continue in the future.
Last Updated: mercredi 14 octobre 2009 | <urn:uuid:61d2efb3-dca1-424e-8ce5-c3fa82a38cab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alzheimer-europe.org/FR%C4%81%20%C2%AC/Policy-in-Practice2/European-Alzheimer-s-Alliance/MEPs-speak-out-on-dementia/Elisabeth-Morin-Chartier-France | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958255 | 890 | 1.679688 | 2 |
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani officials say heavy monsoon rains that triggered flooding in the country's north have caused at least 26 deaths.
An official at the State Disaster Management Authority, Khawaja Zia, said torrential rains that started Wednesday have killed 17 people and damaged about 500 homes in the Pakistan-held Kashmir region.
Another official, Adnan Khan, says nine people died Wednesday in northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Six of the deaths occurred in Mansehra district, and three in Nowshera district.
Both officials spoke to The Associated Press on Thursday.
Pakistan suffered the worst flooding in its 65-year history in 2010. Floodwaters inundated one-fifth of the country, an area larger than England, and killed over 1,700 people. Over 20 million people were affected. | <urn:uuid:2a579600-c18c-478d-a950-92c5c58d503b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.krem.com/news/world/167150635.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961634 | 175 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Why you will NOT become a programmer/software developer within a month
Every once in a while I’m faced with the question how long it will take until you become a reasonably good programmer. Even from my circle of friends and acquaintances I was already asked if they cannot help me out with a project. Here a brief try of an explanation why this is NOT incidentally possible.
My answer to this question, how long it will take to become a reasonably good programmer, is usually:
It depends. But I would roughly estimate 5 years.
With this statement the asker is usually not very content:
Come on, it can’t be that hard!
Due to the fact that I’m mainly into web development with Java, I’m going to address a few frameworks and technologies, that you are going to need on a daily basis with a brief explanation why you are needing them. For almost every item in this list there are alternatives out there but my goal was not to assemble a comprehensive list, rather I want to point out that programming is *more* than knowing a programming language.
1. The operating system. Everybody who uses a computer is using (knowingly or unknowingly) an operating system. In my case I’m using Windows as well as Linux. In general my web applications will run on a Linux system as a productive system. That means: I must know for both systems how to work with and administer them. That includes e.g. the use of the console (yes, even under Windows you are from to time to time faced with the console) or setting environment variables. Both are things where user John Doe is already overcharged. Also small differences between those systems like case-sensitivity can cause confusion in the beginning.
2. The concepts of a programming language. I’m using an object-oriented language which means that you have to understand the general concepts behind OOP. What are classes, inheritance, polymorphism? The abstract concepts behind those words are quite easy to grasp. Using them in practice in the right situation can be so cumbersome that some programmers are (sadly) never able to do in there whole life.
3. The programming language. In my case Java. The syntax of Java is not very complicated. Until you gain an oversight over the provided functionality it may take a few months. And if you never programmed with Java you need to pick up some basics first. What is source-code, what is a compiler, what are packages, classes, exceptions, data types, methods? How do I compile my source? How do I execute my generated *.class-files? How can I bundle several classes in a JAR? What the heck are JAR-files anyway? How do I include third-party-libraries?
4. The IDE. After you’ve learned the basics and you compiled and ran your first programs from the console, you definitely want to use a more sophisticated tool. You will need an IDE. It’s completely irrelevant if you are choosing IntelliJ, Eclipse or Netbeans. Personally I’m using Netbeans since over six years and I’m still discovering sometimes Features that are new to me. An IDE IS a very powerful tool, build for professional developers. Until you learned how to use this tool properly a lot of time will pass.
As an alternative an editor with syntax-highlighting could be already a progress. But the integration with all the developer-tools that you need on a daily basis is really something very charming.
5. The build tool. At the latest when you start working with other people on a project you want to use a build tool which can create your project independently from your IDE / your computer. In the Java world the most common tools for this are Ant and Maven. Maven comes along with a dependency-management which is indispensable (even if you wish sometimes) and for Ant you could use the Ivy project for this. And an own repository-manager like Nexus is in some situations also mandatory.
6. XML. Not every project will use XML. But for most configurations you are not getting around XML (e.g. using Maven or Ant and most other third-party-libraries).
7. A debugger. No program is bug-free from the beginning. And sometimes starring at the code is not sufficient. You will need to learn what a debugger is and how it works. Where and when do you have to set breakpoints, how to display variable values, how to step through a program and/or when/how to skip methods. Conditional breakpoints are also a nice thing. And even if you don’t need all of that from the beginning, it’s nice to know that you have the right tool for it, when you encountering a problem where one of those points comes in handy.
8. The database. Almost every program saves some data in some kind of form. Sometimes a normal text file is sufficient, sometimes a XML-document would be the more appropriate solution. But if the amount of data increases you won’t get around a database. Quite often you choose a RDBMS. But maybe for your case a database from the NoSQL-movement is more appropriate. And other times (e.g. for testing) you only need an in-memory-database. MySQL was for my scenarios usually sufficient.
Ah, and by the way: if you are using a database you should also have a bit knowledge about database design.
9. SQL. SQL is the language that you use for database. If you want to select / alter data in your database you need at least a basic knowledge of SQL.
10. An ORM. An object-relational-mapper handles most interaction with your database and reduces the amount of ‘direct’ work with the database. You will still need a basic knowledge of SQL and ORMs will bring there own pitfalls. Hibernate has become the de-facto standard in the Java-world. In Hibernate you can use for your database queries HQL, a language similar to SQL. But nowadays you should consider using JPA which uses JPQL, where Hibernate is an implementation of JPA. Confused? Good, else I would be out of work ;-)
11. The server. For an web-application you will need a server. For my applications I just needed up till now only a servlet container like Tomcat or Jetty. A complete application server like Glassfish, JBoss or Geronimo was not needed by me, yet. Also the integration of a servlet container with a webserver like Apache HTTPD was not needed yet (or was usually done by someone else).
12. The web-framework. You don’t want to reinvent the wheel every time that’s why you are using a framework which provides establish solutions to known repeating problems. I tried and used several frameworks for several projects (Struts 1, Struts 2, Spring MVC, GWT, Stripes, Wicket) and favor at the moment Wicket. If you prefer a component-oriented framework (like Wicket, GWT or JSF) or a page-oriented framework (like Stripes, Struts, Spring MVC) is a question of taste.
But for all of the mentioned frameworks you will need a basic understanding of the technology that drives the web. What is HTTP, what’s a POST-request, what’s a GET-request, what are parameters, what is a port and how is a session working? What is a server roundtrip? And why is AJAX a nice gimmick for the end-user but for developers sometimes just hell?
13. Securing a web-application. Most websites are having a secured area where a login is needed. You don’t want to implement this on your own. Choose rather something like Spring Security.
14. Logging. As soon as a customer reports an error you will be glad when you were protocoling when, what, how something happened in you code. So you are gonna need a logging framework like Log4J.
15. Dependency Injection. To couple all those technologies in a loose way you want to use a dependency framework like the de-facto standard Spring. Latest if you need to mock objects during testing you are gonna love Spring.
16. Unit testing. You don’t want to test your complete application manually after every change just to see if your changes broke something. Rather you will write unit-test which will test your code programmatically. If you are using TestNG or JUnit is a matter of taste. I prefer TestNG even though JUnit is more widely spread.
17. A version control system (=VCS). Due to the fact that you usually never really finish a software project, instead you just stop working on it, it might happen that you will end up with several versions. And as soon as more than one developer is working on the project you want to have the possibility to track changes in the source code. That’s what version control systems are for. Here you also have the agony of choice: CVS, Subversion, GIT, Mercurial, etc. If you should choose Subversion as your first version control system you can’t do much wrong, especially because it’s integrated in most IDEs.
18. Continuous Integration (=CI). Unit-tests are taking time and need to be executed on a regular basis and sometimes you just don’t trust the changes your co-workers committed. Here a CI-server, like Hudson can be very handy. The CI-Server checks your project out of the VCS in a regular interval, compiles and test it and do whatever else you tell him to do. What else can be done we will see in our next item.
19. Static code analyzers. Some potential bugs can be found by tools, so called static code analyzers. Those tools can be integrated in your CI-process. Findbugs, PMD, CPD, Checkstyle or JavaNCSS are just a few which I use on a regular basis. But keep in mind that you need some experience to interpret the results, especially to identify false positives.
20. Bugtracking. Sometimes you can’t keep up with bug fixing so that you should set up and use a bugtracker. I’m using Redmine because it offers also an integrated wiki, forum and a SVN-integration. Other famous bugtrackers are Mantis, Bugzilla and JIRA. Oh yeah, of course you have to have the right infrastructure to use those tools. Redmine uses Ruby, Mantis uses PHP and Bugzilla need Perl. Your choice :-)
Another criteria you should keep in mind before choosing, is, if you need an integration in your IDE.
21. Profiling. If your code is not fast enough and everything in your program takes an eternity to finish, you will use a profiler to spot the bottlenecks. To interpret the results and/or resolve issues that you found, you will need to some extent knowledge about the technical internals.
22. Memory Management. In Java you don’t have to handle memory management on your own anymore. Nevertheless you should know that there is something called garbage collector and you should also know more or less how it works. When you are developing web applications you will run sooner or later into an OutOfMemoryException which is caused by a small application, even though you have X gigabyte RAM. To understand the root of this error and how you can solve it, you need to know what is going on under the hood.
23. Algorithms. There are more ways of killing a dog than by hanging. A lot of problems can be solved in a several different ways. With different advantages and disadvantages. Just have a look at the variety of search algorithms. Sometimes you will have a working solution but need to rewrite that part because of changing parameters which makes your first solution not optimal anymore. Changing working code is also called refactoring.
24. Refactoring. Nowadays with modern IDEs refactoring is almost like shooting fish in a barrel. The goal is to make the code more maintainable or in general “better”. You just need to know what “better” is. For the most common problems there are common solutions which are called design patterns.
25. Design Patterns. Those are solutions for common problems. To make use of them you need to know respectively realize that you are encountering a certain problem.
26. Programming Style. Even though formatting your source code has no influence on the flow of your program (at least not in Java), a good programming style is vital for maintainable code. Your style will get (hopefully) better the more experience you gain.
27. Documentation. Creating a good documentation is *much* harder then it seems at the first glance. It will take some years until you will have a feeling for what is important enough to be documented and what not and how to structure a good documentation.
28. The English language. You won’t get around the English language as a programmer. If you just need to read an English text you can maybe conceal your ignorance. But if you need to write in English – and you will as a programmer – you should make sure that your writings don’t get too adventurous.
29. Other matters. A few buzzwords which pops into my mind when I think about what else you might need: Lucene for searching, Hibernate Search to integrate Lucene with Hibernate, SSH to work on a remote machine, Firebug for finding bugs while developing websites, Google Page Speed to optimize speed, Java Mail for sending mails (this implies again that you need to know what’s working under the hood (e.g. what is a SMTP-server?)). Quartz for cron jobs, regular expressions, webservices (if SOAP or REST doesn’t matter), a general understanding of computer security (nobody wants that his application is e.g. vulnerable for SQL-injections). Multithreading needs to be mentioned nowadays and also deadlocks and heisenbugs. Oh, and I almost forgot about all the different licences that you will encounter if you want to make use of third-party libraries.
30. Last but not least: an unlimited frustration tolerance, an eye for details and the patience of a saint. Everybody who stared for a whole week at only three single lines which caused a deadlock and couldn’t come up with a solution knows exactly what I’m talking about.
Do you need all this stuff? It depends! If you just want to create a little guestbook then definitely not. But I just presented a set of tools here. If you want to beautify your house and you want to hang up a picture in it, it’s sufficient to know how a hammer works. But if you want to build your house from scratch you will need a lot more tools. And a lot of them in different designs.
Software development is a bit like driving a car. It’s quite simple to get your driver’s licence. But no new driver will dare to start his first 500 miles trip in a rainy winter night all alone. It’s possible. But I guess no one would do it or would even have the confidence to do so. Programming beginners are a bit different. They read the first half of “Learning XYZ in 21 days” and think they are capable to start the next Microsoft.
I also met students that took for one semester a programming course and they really believed that they would know everything now.
This list is neither complete nor is it exaggerated. Who believes that I’ve exaggerated should give it a try to build a piece of software over a few months. All mentioned tools are free of charge except for Windows and JIRA.
And to all readers who made it till here and know a bit about programming: feedback is welcome!
Noch keine verwandten Artikel | <urn:uuid:e3f56c23-2967-47a9-a00f-e42c2180f769> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://adelio.org/why-you-will-not-become-a-programmersoftware-developer-within-a-month/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935855 | 3,363 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The communications business is, first and foremost, about getting the message to the recipient. It doesn’t matter how compelling your nonprofit story is if you’re caught in a spam filter. Your chance to recruit a volunteer or ask for a donation won’t ever see the light of day.
Most e-mail recipients are using some kind of spam-filtering technology, which is either provided directly by their e-mail host or via some kind of plug-in for their local computers. The overall amount of spam being sent has declined just slightly in the third quarter of 2012, to an average of approximately 87 billion such messages—every day. Of course nonprofits don’t want their messages caught in that mess, but most of us don’t do a great job of testing our content—especially subject lines—to be sure we’re not just asking to be locked in a filter and never seen again.
Enthusiasm is, most often, a good thing, but it can hinder the ability of a machine to know if you are friend or foe. One of the first things a spam filter will look for is the use of an exclamation point, and a nonprofit is often so excited about its mission that it will use those marks in subject lines without thinking twice. Perhaps your organization is trying to reach clients to inform them they are eligible for services? The word “congratulations” will almost always send a message to the trash heap. Any nonprofit dealing with health care will certainly be at risk just by mentioning any common language of their industry, as pharmacy-themed spam is still the most popular type out there. So what is the well intended nonprofit to do?
First, a little education: be aware that, regardless of the jargon you use in your nonprofit, certain words are risky and can increase the chance of hitting a filter. Ask everyone in your organization to review some of the top spam trigger words, find likely candidates that may put you at risk, and agree to alternatives for use in e-mail. The word “affordable” is a spam trigger, so if you work in the field of affordable housing, you may want to find ways around that word in e-mail messages. Does your nonprofit provide free transportation services? Be careful about using the word “free” in any e-mail; perhaps you might offer “services without charge” instead.
Next, test any bulk messages going out. There are subject-line testing services that will help you avoid problems such as punctuation that triggers spam blockers; for instance, you should never use a dollar sign in any e-mail subject. You may not want to test every individual message going out, but at least for the big, important send-outs, it may be worth the extra step.
Lastly, consider the possibility that your whole domain could have been “blacklisted” as a spam site. If so, all of the e-mail from that domain is being trashed regardless of your careful choice of words and punctuation. Check to see if you are blacklisted, and if you’re on the list, contact that list administrator to see about getting your domain cleared. (Pro tip: remember to send mail from your own domain. E-mail coming from @yahoo or @hotmail is even more likely to be identified as spam).
No method will ever be perfect, but an ounce of prevention—which may entail avoiding some of our own nonprofit buzzwords—can be worth a pound of cure. | <urn:uuid:ed9a86b2-3f34-4030-b368-320c9b94849f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/management/21604-are-your-e-mails-getting-lost-in-a-spam-folder-how-to-find-out-and-what-you-can-do.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948301 | 725 | 1.757813 | 2 |
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EU leaders finally reached a seven-year budget accord Friday after marathon talks driven by sharp differences over the bloc's priorities for the rest of the decade.
"Deal done!" summit chair and EU President Herman Van Rompuy said on Twitter after more than 24 hours of tough talks between the bloc's 27 heads of state and government.
"Worth waiting for," he added, without giving details of the deal.
Pushed by British Prime Minister David Cameron, who said the EU could not decide an increase at a time of austerity, leaders were looking at a cut in spending of around three percent compared with the previous budget, according to a draft.
France, along with Italy, fought to protect spending it saw as essential to boost growth and jobs at a time of record unemployment.
A draft worked out overnight set 2014-20 actual spending or "payments" at 908.4 billion euros ($1.2 trillion), with an absolute ceiling of 960 billion euros for spending "commitments" to the budget.
That is just one percent of the bloc's gross domestic product.
It would represent a 3.0 percent cut from the 2007-13 budget and is less than the 973 billion euros Cameron and allies such as the Netherlands rejected at a budget summit in November that collapsed without a deal.
In the EU budget process, commitments refer to the maximum amount that can be allocated to programmes while actual spending or "payments" is usually lower as projects are delayed or dropped.
Originally, the European Commission had wanted a 5.0 percent increase in commitments to 1.04 trillion euros ($1.4 trillion) -- just over one percent of the EU's total gross domestic product.
The final leaders' agreement, however, is only part of the battle as there is another important hurdle to clear -- the European Parliament must approve and lawmakers are not in a mood for austerity.
Parliament head Martin Schulz said bluntly on Thursday that he and the assembly might not accept a budget which would compromise EU programmes and undercut its future.
However the accord spared key budget areas -- Common Agricultural Policy farm support payments and Cohesion Funds, a crucial source of money for new EU members seeking to catch up with their peers -- from any further reduction from the November figures.
France, a major CAP beneficiary, will likely claim credit for that just as Cameron may claim the bloc's first absolute spending cut for London.
Cameron, who last month risked isolating himself with a decision to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU, insisted at the opening Thursday that the figures had to be cut.
"When we were last here in November, the numbers that were put forward were much too high. They need to come down -- and if they don't come down, there won't be a deal," Cameron said.
Hollande, meanwhile, said cuts in support for farmers and investment for growth would be his red lines but he may be able to argue that globally, he has managed to protect key areas of concern to Paris. | <urn:uuid:e81cd9b4-e4b7-412f-96ec-a9145b1a47f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130208/eu-agrees-multi-year-budget | 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 | 0.966012 | 624 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The DeVlieg Foundation is a private foundation, tax-exempt charity, began by the founder of DeVlieg Machine Company of Royal Oak, Michigan, Charles B. DeVlieg. The company was formed in 1943 with the invention of the machine tool industry’s first bed-type milling machine, and later the first jigless boring and milling machine, the DeVlieg JIGMIL. DeVlieg Machine Company became an international leader of precision machine tools with a reputation of manufacturing excellence. Many key employees contributed to its success, including his son, Charles R. “Bud” DeVlieg, who joined his father after high school and in later years directed the company. Both of these men with limited education believed strongly in encouraging young people and established the DeVlieg Foundation in 1961.
Janet DeVlieg Pope, granddaughter and daughter of the two DeVliegs the foundation is named for, serves as the president of the Charles DeVlieg Foundation. She lives in Clarkston, Washington, and owns a 1,300 acre ranch on Idaho’s Joseph Plains overlooking the lower Salmon River.
"We are glad to extend our reach beyond Michigan," she said. "The family has always supported the areas they live in, and we wanted to continue to do that. Idaho provides wonderful engineering and natural resource educations. My grandfather only had an eighth grade education. But he had opportunity and aptitude. Now education is essential."
The prestigious appointment of the DeVlieg Presidential Professor of Ecohydraulics to Peter Goodwin has truly opened many doors for the University, the College and Dr. Goodwin the last seven years, and this year once again is no exception. The DeVlieg Foundation supports the Center for Ecohydraulics Research, including two DeVlieg Assistantships in Ecohydraulics and DeVlieg Enrichment Travel Grants. Support from the DeVlieg Foundation significantly enhances the global research activity of the Center for Ecohydraulics Research, raising investigations to a higher level by yielding a fundamental understanding of the linkages between physical processes and ecological response in rivers, estuaries and wetlands.
The Charles DeVlieg Foundation provides annual scholarships to College of Engineering students. The continued support and inspiration that the DeVlieg Foundation has shown over the years for mechanical engineering scholarships, Ph.D. assistantships and enrichment travel grants in Ecohydraulics and recently their new support of the high school summer program, JEMS, is greatly appreciated by all in the College of Engineering. | <urn:uuid:a8ce508b-6cac-425f-a817-1e1f9e5a4758> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uidaho.edu/inspire/ways/academics/engineering/about/our-donors/devlieg-foundation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946043 | 522 | 1.601563 | 2 |
US Mideast envoy George Mitchell said Wednesday that he intends to
pursue "substantive" negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians,
"In the days ahead our discussions with both sides will be substantive,
two way conversations with an eye towards making real progress in the
next few months on the key questions of an eventual framework
agreement," Mitchell was quoted as saying. RELATED:Abbas,
Mitchell meet amid US efforts to renew peace talksNetanyahu:
Both Israel and the Palestinians need peace
The US envoy was speaking in Cairo following talks with Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak.
He said that US aims to "pursue a framework agreement that would
establish the fundamental compromises on all permanent status issues...
(to) pave the way for a final peace treaty."
Earlier on Wednesday, PA spokesman Nabil Abu Rudaina was quoted as
saying that Mitchell had proposed a set of "unofficial" ideas to the
Palestinians in efforts to move the peace process forward.
report in the London-based al-Hayat
newspaper Wednesday morning said that Mitchell had made no US
guarantees during his meeting Tuesday night in Ramallah with Abbas.
officials said Mitchell suggested that Egypt and Jordan be included in
the discussion on borders, and that a "just" solution would be sought
for refugees, water distribution and claims on Jerusalem.
report noted however that Mitchell's offers did not cover an Israeli
withdrawal to the 1967 borders or from east Jerusalem.
Wednesday, a Palestinian delegation was expected to meet with an
Egyptian delegation in Cairo, ahead of talks on the peace process
scheduled to be held by the Arab League.
Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit said the two delegations would request that
the US present details of its vision for an Israeli-Palestinian
Mitchell arrived back in the region on Monday to discuss the core issues
separately with each side in the hope that gaps could be narrowed and
direct negotiations restarted. | <urn:uuid:8cc862e3-dfa0-44b5-905d-fa03c1c4bbcd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=199534 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955574 | 419 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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Answer to Colchester congestion crisis - stop cars!
A Cycling campaigner has put forward radical proposals to reduce congestion in Colchester - including closing a key junction to cars during peak times.
About 34,000 vehicles travel under North Station bridge each day creating a bottleneck of traffic at peak times.
And concerns have been raised the situation will get worse when 1,600 homes are built off Nayland Road in Mile End in forthcoming years.
Questions are being asked about how to deal with the extra influx of traffic.
And Will Bramhill, chairman of the Colchester Cycling Campaign, said the answer is to deter it. | <urn:uuid:44202949-1988-4d2f-a857-1efbd93b4cdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/9980169.Answer_to_Colchester_congestion_crisis___stop_cars_/ | 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 | 0.942187 | 153 | 1.53125 | 2 |
“Well,” Curtis said, her tone curt for the first time in more than an hour of talking, “We are the church, we are the church. We are the church as much as the bishops are, as much as our lay colleagues are, as much as people who raise their children in the tradition are. That’s the church. We are all the church.”
But what exactly does it mean to be Catholic?
It’s come down to that core question in this angry year for the nation’s Catholics, with political debates about health care and the size of government jumbled up with religious ones about whether people can be good, faithful Catholics and totally ignore their bishop when he tells them to vote or pray or believe a certain way. The two sides represent seemingly incompatible visions of Catholicism, the country’s largest denomination, with one camp prizing openness and collaboration and the other championing unity of belief.
Standing in for those visions Tuesday in a Vatican meeting room were two prominent American nuns and two prominent American bishops charged with “reforming” the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which represents about 80 percent of the country’s 56,000 nuns.
Media across the globe have been riveted by the meeting, as are sisters who in recent weeks have been streaming to a new site, sisternews.net, launched this spring amid a crush of news about them. After the meeting, the Vatican issued a statement that the conference “remains under the supreme direction of the Holy See” and that the goal is to channel the women toward “promoting a vision of ecclesial communion founded on faith in Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Church as faithfully taught through the ages under the guidance of the Magisterium.”
The conference said the women wouldn’t comment in detail until August, when their full membership has its annual meeting. Some close to the conference in recent months have said one option for the nuns is to form an unofficial organization that’s not directly under the Vatican.
The Vatican’s doctrine-enforcing arm released a report in April laying out the need to review, guide, and, “where necessary,” approve the work of the LCWR, which has hosted speakers who advocate against official church teachings on subjects including women’s ordination and the possibility of nondenominationalism, or “moving beyond the church.” The report also called the conference “notably silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.
The conference’s 1,500 members represent orders including Curtis’s — the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, which has 3,600 members. Conference leaders pushed back hard June 1, saying the report caused “scandal,” and asking for a meeting in Rome. | <urn:uuid:74684b99-38ff-4ca3-9b7d-aae2a453e051> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-md-catholic-nun-represents-views-of-many-in-differences-with-vatican/2012/06/11/gJQAIQS2VV_story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971296 | 591 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Earlier this year, Sacramento lawmakers passed one of the most craven pieces of legislation the state capital has ever produced. Last week, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill repealing the erstwhile SB60, which would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses. The journey that led state politicians to kill the bill they once embraced has a moral behind it.
Of course, the heavily Democratic Legislature killed the bill because it was highly unpopular (and bound to be overturned in an initiative that would have qualified for the March ballot). The Democrats had completely misread public sentiment on the measure.
Perhaps the Dems bought into their own public-relations spin, which argued that support for Proposition 187 -- the 1994 measure that pledged to deny state benefits to illegal immigrants -- was bad politics, even though 59 percent of voters backed it. Certainly they bought into the far-left argument that there is no difference between legal and illegal immigrants, and that enforcing immigration laws is anti-Latino.
Political consultants warned Democrats that a driver's license bill for illegal immigrants was a "turkey" with the voters in 2002, said Garry South, former political guru to former Gov. Gray Davis, "but they didn't care."
Meanwhile, some Davis aides were so out of touch that they believed Davis' signing of SB60 would deliver them a monolithic Latino vote in the recall election. How bitter it must have been for SB60 supporters to learn that a Los Angeles Times poll found that 38 percent of Latino voters strongly opposed giving a driver's license to an illegal immigrant.
"The intention of the bill was to place valid state identity documents in the hands of illegal immigrants," state Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, noted, "and the only purpose of that is to undermine U.S. immigration laws."
Oddly, state voters have shown more respect for immigration laws than state lawmakers.
The worst of it was: Not only did Sacramento politicians pass a bill that offended California voters on principle -- by giving the imprimatur of state documentation to people deliberately breaking federal law -- but they also passed, and Davis signed, the worst possible version of it.
At the time, the bill's author, Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, touted the measure as an effort to "restore highway safety." But his bill did nothing to increase the petty penalties meted out to those who drive without a license or insurance. It ditched proposals to prevent fraud and keep escaped convicts from obtaining a document that would give them legitimacy. It was bald in its contempt for the legitimate objections to granting licenses to illegal immigrants with serious criminal records.
Sen. Cedillo has told the press that he will work with the governor to produce a compromise measure early next year. Team Arnold countered that "there is no agreement." And there should be no agreement.
When pro-illegal immigrant politicians had their chance, their arrogance knew no bounds. They showed no respect for federal law or state voters. Bill supporters only changed their tune when they realized the bill could hurt their precious derrieres.
Said Davis adviser South, "The galling thing to me is that the Democrats in the Legislature tried to ram this thing down the governor's throat in 2002 and (again) at the end of the recall election. And in both cases, (Davis) faced drastic effects, both by vetoing it in 2002 and signing it in 2003."
South is outraged that Cedillo and company only retreated when their careers were at stake and a Republican governor was installed.
Governor, these guys don't deserve a compromise bill. On this issue, they cannot be trusted.
Whoa: US Hasn't Detained Five Benghazi Terrorists Due to Trial-Related Evidentiary Concerns | Guy Benson
Baucus & Hatch Grill IRS Commissioners Who Don't Know Anything: "That's A Lie By Omission" | Greg Hengler | <urn:uuid:c449a4dd-41b3-4fdd-bf7a-5e829f6648e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/debrajsaunders/2003/12/08/reckless_behind_the_wheel/page/full/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971116 | 799 | 1.570313 | 2 |
By PBN Staff
WASHINGTON – Unemployment rates were lower in December in 290 of the nation’s 372 metropolitan areas, including the Providence-Fall River-Warwick metro area, according to non-seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent in the Providence-Fall River-Warwick metro, not seasonally adjusted, during December. Year over year, the metro area’s unemployment rate fell 0.9 percentage points from the 10.4 percent reported in December 2011.
The Providence-Fall River-Warwick metro area, although it saw a bigger percentage point decrease, fared slightly worse than the state of Rhode Island, which posted a 9.4 percent unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, during the month.
(The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Rhode Island, as previously released by the R.I. Department of Labor and Training, was 10.2 percent in December.)
The New Bedford metro area’s jobless rate was rose 0.4 percentage points year over year to 10.3 percent in December, not seasonally adjusted.
Massachusetts as a whole saw its unemployment rate hold steady at 6.6 percent in December, not seasonally adjusted.
The national unemployment rate dropped from 8.3 percent in December 2011 to 7.6 percent in December 2012, not seasonally adjusted.
During the month, 283 metropolitan areas reported over-the-year increases in nonfarm payroll employment, including the Providence-Fall River-Warwick and New Bedford metro areas; 83 metro areas reported decreases and six exhibited no change.
The Providence metro area saw nonfarm payroll employment increase 0.6 percent from December 2011 to December 2012 with the addition of roughly 3,200 jobs.
The New Bedford metro area outpaced Providence as its nonfarm payroll employment increased 3.7 percent year over year in December. | <urn:uuid:a0c63b9d-d7a7-4c8d-935d-e54b63882d22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pbn.com/Unemployment-rate-drops-in-Providence-metro-in-December,85979?category_id=100&list_type=most_commented&sub_type=stories,packages | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943489 | 391 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The big pile of manure sitting at the farm was provided by Carole Bear and her cows; thanks Carole! Brian Lauer of Lauer Excavating hauled it for us and Gary Rippee loaded it into Brian's dump truck. What a great community we have!
The manu… more »
The East Valley Farms and Schools Partnership have created an exciting opportunity to help the community members and students of the East Valley School District understand the complexities of farming and gardening while building unity among community members. We feel the scope of our community garden is limited only by our imagination and determination. Not only will classrooms have this opportunity, but all community members. Families are the backbone of our schools and when families are supported in investing time with each other then families can be more successful. Grandparents, neighbors and students alike can come together and grow together through gardening. | <urn:uuid:9a34ac27-89a6-4bf6-a0ce-dd121105532f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.evsd.org/blogs/farm.php/2011/04/19/ | 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 | 0.951323 | 174 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Truckers Get Aggressive with Cargo Security
The transportation industry has never been without challenges. It is an industry that is extraordinarily complex and vital to the economy. For the last three years, warnings of terrorist attacks via biological, chemical, and strategic weapons have been a fact of life, with the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a frightening reminder that no industry is impenetrable.
The intelligence industry has made us eerily aware of terrorist plots to use trucks as weapons of mass destruction. As an industry, motor freight carriers need to take all security measures to prevent possible attacks with the use of its trucks.
The efforts to maintain homeland security are of utmost importance. They may delay delivery time, increase costs, and create challenges within our industry, but homeland security is essential and cannot be overlooked.
As an industry, truckers can no longer afford to be reactive. The key to ensuring the safety of drivers, cargo, and the people they share the road with is to take a unified stance and create a proactive plan of action.
Develop a Plan
The trucking industry is a potential target for terrorist attacks, and I'd like to encourage shippers to help increase awareness by asking their motor carriers to implement a security plan.
The plan should include provisions aimed at improving communication with drivers, upgrading training programs, and developing materials to reinforce the company's key messages.
The following are some security tactics that can help your carrier proactively combat terrorism:
- Issue a terminal access agreement signed by outside carriers prior to entering your trucker's facility. This agreement serves as a pre-qualification to ensure outside carriers meet all policies and procedures. The outside party should also be held fully responsible and liable for all activities while on your carrier's facilities.
- Lock and secure terminals during non-business hours.
- Double-check tractors, trailers, and container doors to ensure they are securely locked before the terminal closes for the night.
- Maintain two-way communication with drivers to ensure tracing capability.
- Train drivers to report any suspicious activities to the local police and disclose information only to individuals with proper clearance.
- Drivers should cable-seal tank cars when they are not being unloaded and document all information.
- Give drivers formal training on important safety procedures.
In addition, while on the job, drivers should vary their routes; park in areas where other truckers are present; avoid unsecured, dark, deserted areas; use reputable truck stops; avoid unnecessary stops; never pick up hitchhikers; and be constantly aware of their surroundings.
Get Management InvolvedOnce your carrier has developed a safety and security plan, its procedures must become an integral part of company operations. For that to happen, buy-in at all levels is crucial or the process may break down, putting lives at stake.
In order to ensure company buy-in, a carrier must obtain commitment from the highest levels of management to support the security measures and articulate the policies to the staff. Managers need to hold regular meetings with drivers to ensure they are communicating and implementing all changes. All drivers' training manuals should also include new security guidelines and procedures.
The final element of any security plan upgrade isn't final at all. Carriers must continually reconsider and reevaluate the plan, making sure drivers and staff across the board have the training and information they need to keep the company, the industry, and our country safe. | <urn:uuid:edb58dbe-7342-4364-a441-c108f263975f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inboundlogistics.com/cms/article/truckers-get-aggressive-with-cargo-security/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947358 | 699 | 1.703125 | 2 |
By Kirsten Massebeau
On September 25, 2012 Russian Orca confirmed via Facebook that orca captures have taken place in Russia.
“Following rumours, we confirmed today that at least two orcas were captured in August in the Western Okhotsk Sea near Reineke Island by Sochi Dolphinarium. One of them is either dead or released. Another orca was transported to Vladivostok. That’s all we know for now, trying to find out more. Tell us what you think and we’ll get the message to Sochi Dolphinarium” (source)
“Regarding the Russian orca capture by Sochi Dolphinarium, we have heard that the plan for the orca being held in Vladivostok is to sell him/her outside of Russia but no idea where…” (source)
“We have had no indications yet of where the orca is headed. We should share info if anyone hears anything” (source)
“The orcas were captured in the SW Sea of Okhotsk, a long way from our main study area off eastern Kamchatka/Commander Islands. We have only a very few orca photo-IDs obtained from our studies in that area. So yes, it’s possible but not likely. In any case, for now we don’t have a photo of the capture or of the individual being kept in Vladivostok. If we do get a photo, we will compare it right away”.(source)
Orca today are known to be unsuitable for captivity. Orca families stay together for a lifetime. Orca are known to be the most social beings on the planet and their lives are spent swimming great distances in the ocean. Is it right that these highly intelligent beings that have proved to be so dangerous in captivity, continue to be captured?
The book written by David Kirby, “Death at Sea World” explains just why orca should not be in captivity and how really dangerous it is. Please share the book, and encourage friends not to spend their dollars supporting an industry where highly intelligent beings are taken from their families and suffer for our entertainment.
Awareness and education are key to change!
Watch A Fall From Freedom here!
Join Champions for Cetaceans on Facebook for cetacean issues and news. | <urn:uuid:f8bd2781-03c2-4ebd-ad28-e28e618bdc00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://championsforcetaceans.com/2012/09/26/champions-for-cetaceans-daily-scoop-capture-of-russian-orcas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95875 | 488 | 1.5 | 2 |
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