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Saturday’s news of Amy Winehouse‘s untimely death deeply saddened me. While I did not know her personally, it is a great tragedy that a brilliantly gifted young woman, whose extraordinary talent brought something distinctly new and inspiringly unique to the world, lost her life in her prime. Despite her personal struggles with alcohol and drugs, at just 27, Amy Winehouse is gone but will not be forgotten.
While few would be unaware of her extraordinary voice and impact on music in the last decade, some may be slightly more surprised of her distinct presence in fashion.
Amy Winehouse had a unique style entirely her own. With her thick slick of black of eyeliner; voluptuous towering beehive; and instantly recognisable aesthetic – she gave an unmistakable nod to 60’s cool. Her trademark vintage-inspired style captured the fashion world’s attention. In 2007, Karl Lagerfeld said: “She’s a style icon. She’s not only a muse; she’s a genius. She’s one of the greatest voices today”. Lagerfeld also referred to her as a ‘dark Brigitte Bardot’. The Chanel Pre-Fall 2008 collection was inspired by her characteristically British fashion quirk. Models with messy, upswept hair and winged eyeliner took to the catwalk and immediately brought no one but Amy to mind.
Amy Winehouse was a shining star; a wonderfully kind heart; extraordinary voice and a talent that transcended culture. RIP Amy xx
The Chanel collection inspired by Amy Winehouse…
Photos from style.com, harpersbazaar.com & google images | <urn:uuid:d50dbe9b-4a69-4ca8-895c-a27095d27bbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uptowntwirl.com/editor%E2%80%99s-letter-16/5073/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935148 | 350 | 1.570313 | 2 |
All three West Virginia members of the House of Representatives voted in favor of the "Stop the War on Coal Act" last week. So did two House members representing East Ohio.
A wide-ranging bill aimed at thwarting President Barack Obama's attempt to wreck the coal industry and force electricity prices higher, the act passed the House by a 233-175 vote. In all likelihood it will go no farther than that, however.
As Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, who sponsored the bill, noted, the Senate probably will not take any action on the bill soon. And when it does, the measure is not expected to be received favorably. Liberals in the Senate, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., will either shelve the act or vote it down.
One reason why that is the probable outcome is that some coal-state senators have supported Obama, rather than their constituents, in the war against coal.
Both Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Rob Portman, R-Ohio, have been staunch supporters of coal. Both Sens. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, have been lukewarm at best in defending the coal industry. At some points both senators have made it clear they agree with the White House's anti-coal initiatives.
Rockefeller is not up for re-election until 2014, but Brown is on the ballot this fall. His opponent, Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel, has made his unflinching support for the coal industry clear.
Tens of millions of Americans will suffer if Obama is allowed to continue his assault on the coal industry. Most probably are not aware of the consequences of the president's vendetta. They do not understand their electric bills will go up by hundreds of dollars a year if utilities proceed with plans to shut down dozens of coal-fired power plants.
Because some industries rely heavily on reasonably priced electricity from coal-fired generating stations, Obama's plan will be a major job killer.
Rockefeller and Brown should support the people who sent them to Washington. Instead, they back their party's leader, Obama. If that doesn't change soon, voters should move forward with changes in who represents us in the U.S. Senate. | <urn:uuid:ea9d98f9-8b1c-4cc0-89ff-138d5cf5d95b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theintermountain.com/page/content.detail/id/555790/Who-will-stop-the-war-on-coal-.html?nav=5009 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956529 | 469 | 1.703125 | 2 |
- Pandora Beads
- Pandora Jewels
- Glass Jewels
- Pandora glass beads (SlideBeads)
- Silver Items
- Murano glass jewels in Red, Garnet, Bordeaux, etc.
- Murano glass jewels in Orange, Brown, Amber, etc.
- Murano glass jewels in Yellow, Ochre, Lemon, etc.
- Murano glass jewels in Green, Olive, Emerald, etc.
- Murano glass jewels in Blue, Black, White, etc.
- Murano glass jewels in Purple, Lilla, Pink, Plum, etc.
- the process of the Italian glass jewelry manufacture
- the glass jewellery productive district in Murano Venice
- techniques to lampwork artistic Pandora style beads
- the wholesale business of Pandora beads
- producing unique glass beads for Pandora jewelry
- glass components for Pandora jewellery
- wearing glass beads as charms for bracelets
- distinctive charms for Pandora bracelets
- necklaces and bracelets with Murano glass beads
- origins of the jewelry made from glass beads
- manual production of refined glass bracelets
- trends in the charming Italian wholesale glass jewelry
- what makes unique our glass charms for the wholesale
- the elegance and sophistication of Italian charms
- how to find a glass bracelet in tune with your taste
- buying an Italian glass bracelet from a reputable dealer
- transparency and colour of our Pandora style bracelets
- why many people worldwide prefer to buy Italian jewelry
- wearing modern and significant Italian glass jewellery
- some famous jewelry designers and manufacturers
- we are responsible wholesale jewelry manufacturers
- business expansion of the Venetian jewerly wholesalers
- credibility for a fashion jewelry manufacturer is a must
- challenging the wholesale fashion jewelry market
- reputation of the Italian costume jewelry manufacturers
- costume jewelry suppliers have a very special market
- many famous brands sell wholesale costume jewelry
Italian glass beads with silver core for Pandora
(by STUDIOSOFT the company who created the STRAVAGANTE brand)
Features of Stravagante jewelry
One of the merits of the Italian jewelry companies such as Stravagante is the creation of the most diverse and richly decorated Murano beads for Pandora but nevertheless the related jewelry line can be worn throughout the day. Stravagante company guarantees the made-in-Italy manufacture of the Pandora glass beads and the productive power of over 30 glassmasters who can produce 100,000 lamp worked items every month. The Stravagante lampwork school is smaller than Trollbeads, but of those who followed its ideas Biagi and Chamilia from the USA are the best known. Other costume jewelry manufacturers have experienced similar roads and while not offering the same line of products have developed a tradition as interesting and rich of proposals. The eclectic spirit of Stravagante bead makers led to introduce in the Italian glass jewelry craftsmanship an important innovation as regards the lampworking of glass jewellery. Our business has always been characterized by an obsessive search of quality to meet any request from the Pandora beads wholesale buyers. The business of wholesale fashion jewelry is changing its skin and the world of Pandora jewellery charms is following this trend. To manage the increasingly complex and demanding needs of the world of wholesale glass jewelry we had to change over time many processes to optimize not only the timing but also the ability to propose new ideas. And today we can be proud of the results achieved with the creation of a constantly renewed collection of charms for Pandora bracelets, considered to be among the best on the national and international market.
creativity and skillness of Italian beadmakers
Italian jewelers produce the best pieces as regards the jewelry Murano glass making industry so much so that Italian beaded bracelets available in the jeweler's stores are beautiful works of art. The always growing presence of our jewelry in the shops from around the world makes the audience immediately recognizable the style of an Italian bracelet like ours. Stravagante produces glass beads bracelets to be desired, to be loved, to wear and the excellence on one side and the cutting-edge technology on the other are the cornerstones of its success. In order to appreciate the beauty of each Stravagante glass bracelet, a variety of factors are considered when taking a measurement of worth. New consumers are attracted by the look of nice and elegant charms bead items more than the value of them and costume jewelry suppliers must be able to take it into account from now on to be able to maintain their positions on the market. Also the artist's ideas through the magic of glassware are always in search of significance in the transparency of their art. Decoration in coloured enamels and gold leaf, which brought Venetian prestige in the past, is still used both in the modern bead models and in the reproduction of ancient ones. Speaking of prices, we can safely claim to be the only European manufacturers of cheap beads for Pandora with high quality workmanship. The entire production of our items with silver core has its relevance on the internal market as well as in the export business of wholesale charms.
the artisanal district of Murano
Jewelry accessories and charms for Pandora style bracelets are meant to customize the look of every woman. Some collectors enjoy Italian jewellery and deep investigate its historic or academic value. Murano Venice is one of the most ancient productive settlements of jewelry still in activity and Stravagante offers a wide range of Pandora style beads that are highly appreciated by conoisseurs: each piece is exclusive and unrepeatable. Stravagante Glass Jewelry manufacturer offers a collection of unique Pandora Murano Italian charms to supplement the personality of each woman, and to achieve this purpose they are inspired by the most important works of Murano jewellery.
Stravagante is a fashion jewelry manufacturer of distinctive objects
Our jewelry pieces are characterized by extreme versatility and outstanding design that distinguishes our line among all those in the world of jewelry wholesalers. Through a wide range of Murano beads for Pandora and genuine silver, enamel, cubic zirconia and other precious materials all women of the world may finally achieve their unique style. Currently the reasons driving our creations are the continuous inspiration that comes from the shapes and colors of nature and from the multiform variety of expression of the Italian art. The result is an absolutely fascinating collection of objects worthy of the best wholesale jewelry manufacturer. Our history is full of completely new featured procedures such as our own system to assembe the silver core that still nobody has been able to imitate. This jewelry is very popular in different areas of the world where success is due to the skill and artistic ability of large groups of Italian lampworking artisans and the market of wholesale costume jewelry was deeply influenced by this Italian excellence.
technical aspects of the Stravagante manufacture
When ten years ago Stravagante excelled among many fashion jewelry manufacturers creating for the first time its unique line of Chamilia type jewelry, they decided to keep a goal in mind, inspire women to express themselves and the events of their lives through the charms and beaded jewelry. The natural result was the development of its own concept of jewelry for women, easy to understand and use. Each bracelet is composed by a very robust chain of links with diameter 3 millimeters. These links provide the necessary duration for our glass beads jewelry that stand for strength and quality. Every bracelet can then be decorated with individual charms, dangles or pendants. The choice of the order of the components on the bracelet is left completely to the owner of the bracelet. You can choose from a wide range of glassware charms, pendants, clips, and spacers to accent and identify your own bracelet or necklace. Clips and spacers allow women to add more charm to their personalized bracelets.
925 sterling silver cored glass beads
our charms with Cubic Zirconia
(made in Italy by STUDIOSOFT, the company of STRAVAGANTE brand) | <urn:uuid:8d04a15e-d2a9-4532-b63d-e2cc930d61ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stravagante-jewelry.com/beads_for_Pandora.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93817 | 1,638 | 1.546875 | 2 |
5:16 have heard of thee. The king had only “heard” of Daniel, who had evidently been more or less ignored during the twenty-two years or so since the death of Nebuchadnezzar.
5:16 third. The king could not have made Daniel the “second ruler,” as Pharaoh had done for Joseph (Genesis 41:40-43), for that was his own position. His absent father, Nabonidus, was first ruler. | <urn:uuid:e4be499a-4e43-41fb-8b1b-488932d1d871> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icr.org/bible/Daniel/5/16/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.994104 | 103 | 1.828125 | 2 |
America's all-volunteer military makes up two percent of the entire US population. We serve in an environment that is segregated from civilian life. The chasm increases with distance, and much of what goes overseas stays overseas. The culture is one of stoic silence. We are told not to go to the civilian sector when handling personal issues or crimes. We are told to maintain OPSEC. We are told not to destroy morale. A facetious reworking of the title of Gordon Dickson's novel “Soldier, Ask Not” applies 24/7: “Soldier, Shut Up”.
In March of 1986, fresh out of basic, I arrived at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi for my technical training. During that time I befriended a staff sergeant and his wife who'd been living on base for about 10 years. One day they asked what squadron I was in. I said “I'm in the 96th” and my friend Keith's wife, Barbara, visibly flinched and replied with a tone of loathing and horror, “Oh no.”
She asked me if there was anything strange about the 96th and, a bit confused, I said, “Well, yeah. They moved us into a dorm that they said had been condemned. They said we were the first troops to reactivate the squadron. The building was all mildewed and stuff and we spent about a week having to clean it up. Why would they move us into a building they said was condemned?” Her next question boggled me even more: “Were there doors on the dorm rooms?” I blinked, and said, “Of course!”
Barbara's eyes grew narrow and when I was finished, she turned and said to Keith, “I see. They deactivated the squadron afterward. They left it alone for a year, so people would forget.” Turning to me, Barbara carefully explained that it wasn't the building that had been condemned, it was the base commander, the squadron commander, and most of their staff who in the early 1980s turned the 96th Technical Training Squadron into “their own personal whorehouse”.
The tale she told was like a horror movie. Women were told their careers would be over if they didn't cooperate. The problem base-wide, but the 96th was particularly notorious. Men came into the dorm at will, day and night, because the squadron commander had had all the doors to the rooms removed – supposedly “to protect the girls so people could see what was going on inside”. The reality was that no one cared. Rapes were a constant and daily occurrence. Suicides skyrocketed. There was nowhere to turn for help in one's chain of command, because the misogynistic insanity went all the way up into the office of the base commander.
The madness at Keesler finally ended when six female Air Force students banded together and went AWOL, traveled to Washington DC, and supported each other as each woman petitioned their Congressional Representatives for an investigation. The base commander was busted down in rank and ended up in Leavenworth, but most of the people involved got the usual slap on the wrist and reassigned elsewhere. I was later to learn that this is how the military handles “prosecution” for most cases of sexual harassment and rape.
I left the military 21 years ago and that is how it was then. I was lucky, it never happened to me, but that was only a circumstance of timing. I served active duty for six years and if I were to write down every instance of sexual harassment I remember as it happened to myself and the women I served with it would make a goodly sized novel. A very short “there I was” story consists of my having volunteered for combat duty in Ankara, Turkey as the first Gulf War proceeded and being told by a DoD contractor that while I spec'd out fine on the systems, he was going to recommend that I not go because, and I quote: “You need to be home baking cookies for your man.”
It's hard to believe it's gotten worse, but it has. Today, statistics show that one in three women in the U.S. military is raped by someone wearing the same uniform and/or in her chain of command. If you are a woman in the U.S. military today, your chances of being raped by someone wearing the same uniform are higher than your chances of taking a bullet from an enemy.
Colonel Ann Wright, a 29-year career Army veteran and State Department diplomat, has tirelessly worked for nearly a decade to bring attention to this systemic military problem. She was instrumental in lobbying key legislators, organizing public Congressional hearings, writing articles for independent media outlets, and helped to organize Military Sexual Trauma support groups within Veterans for Peace, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and ultimately “SWAN”, or Service Women's Action Network.
When challenged on where she got the “one in three” statistic, Colonel Wright ironically replied that she'd collected the records of how many rape kits the VA had billed the women for. You read that right. The VA refuses to cover the cost of a rape kit. Victims of rape in the US military have to pay for the procedure that allows them to prove that they were raped.
"The Invisible War," a powerful new documentary focusing on this problem, opens today at select theaters. It recently premiered at Sundance and was awarded the Audience Choice award, and has received wide attention with articles in the NY Times and Washington Post. The movie has already been screened for numerous high profile politicians and decision makers and is having a huge impact that's been a long time coming. Garry B. Trudeau saw it soon after Sundance and in tribute devoted 12 Doonesbury comic strips earlier this month to bring attention to the issue. In an eerie instance of art imitating life, a woman featured in “The Invisible War”, Jessica, represents a real-world version of Trudeau's character Melissa.
"The Invisible War" will be out in select theaters today. If you care about our female vets and currently serving military or are a young woman thinking about signing up or if you have a family member or friend who is female and serving, then you need to see this movie.
The communications disconnect between the two percent who serve and those whom they serve to protect needs to end. The support of our troops needs to go beyond a yellow ribbon magnet on a back bumper. This systemic issue goes beyond embarrassing and into the realm of atrocity.
Much can be said about a society that maltreats it's women. I constantly hear that we are in the Middle East in part to liberate women from the oppression of the Taliban. Judging from the hard evidence presented in this documentary as well as my own personal experience, I dare say the United States could stand to clean a little of its own dirty laundry first.
If you care about our women in uniform, see “The Invisible War”. If there is enough interest, I will ask if the Glen Cove Theater is willing to show it.
One final note: if anyone reading this knows of a woman who suffers from military sexual trauma, there are resources available to help them at the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN). SWAN is a very active group that stands by to do everything the VA hasn't. | <urn:uuid:2ed7c32f-ba32-464a-ab96-fa3d8dd68768> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://glencove.patch.com/groups/eileen-coless-blog/p/bp--the-invisible-war | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982632 | 1,541 | 1.664063 | 2 |
By Gary Reed
Most bowhunters know, or should know, that communicating with landowners is the key to gaining access to hunting property.
I’ve heard hunters complain about landowners refusing access, but as their story continued, I recognized the name of the farmer as someone who allowed me or another hunter to hunt the land.
Gaining access is more than asking if you can hunt a property. It’s how you come across to the farmer or rancher. When you pull up to them in the yard or field, they already know what you’re going to ask. The decision is not based on the hunting aspect alone. They are sizing you up to see what kind of person you are and if you will respect the property.
I’ve had several owners tell me that they would have said no, but changed their mind when I talked with them not just about hunting, but also about things related to their lives as farmers or ranchers. If landowners feel you are sincere and will respect them and their property, the gates can suddenly open to new areas.
This brings me to the perfect example of how well this type of relationship can work. For four years I’ve hunted a property in southern Nebraska, about 45 minutes from my home. I make a point of stopping by the owner’s property every time I’m in the area just to talk with him about how things are going. I have taken my sons to his home to help with chores or mending fences. The boys always complain because we end up standing around talking for at least 45 minutes after the work is done, but I always tell them that we owe this man for trusting us with his land.
In late October several years back, a farmer called my home to share some information. He was checking some cattle near a creek bottom and saw a very large and tall-racked buck making a scrape. He went on to tell me the direction the buck was headed and which trees would be best to set up a stand.
Because of work obligations, I was unable to hunt in the area right away, but on Nov. 5, I called the farmer and asked if I could come down and place a stand in the creek area. I was given permission along with a status report — the time of day the buck moved and where he was going.
I got off work early in the morning of Nov. 9 and headed south to what I hoped would be a eventful afternoon of hunting. I was able to put a stand up quickly and quietly in a narrow area of the creek bottom not far from a large scrape the farmer had mentioned.
I’d been settled in for about 45 minutes when two small bucks came by and headed for a winter wheat field to the south. About 30 minutes later, I saw four does running along the creek to the north. By the way they were running, it appeared they were being chased.
I glassed behind them and saw the very large and tall-racked buck I had been told about.
I used a combination of a grunt tube and “The Can” to get the buck’s attention, and he started my way, but he really didn’t want to leave the does. He stopped at about 75 yards, so I gave a quick rattle sequence when he was looking the other way. When he heard the rattling, he came right to my stand.
I was able to make a good broadside shot at 30 yards. The buck simply jumped, walked a few steps and looked around. Within 15 seconds, it was over, and I had the largest buck I had ever harvested 21 yards from the base of my tree.
This would not have been possible without good communication. Simply spending some time with landowners and letting them know you will respect their land and them can lead to a wonderful day in the woods. | <urn:uuid:ac0b5b97-0ec8-4089-8877-490809acf9fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buckmasters.com/opening-the-gate.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988676 | 797 | 1.625 | 2 |
There are many types of visas that allow you entrance into the U-S. B-1 visitor visas allow aliens to enter the U-S temporarily for business, while B-2 visitor visas are issued for those coming to the U-S for tourism or family visits. D-visas are for crewman; E for treaty traders and investors; F for students in academic or language programs; H for temporary workers; I for journalists; K for the fiancé of a U-S citizen; M for students in vocational or other non-academic programs; O for temporary workers with extraordinary ability; P for athletes and entertainers; and R for religious persons. To apply for a non-immigrant visa with the U.S. consulate, you'll need to complete form 0-F 1-56. You'll need to show that your passport is valid for at least six months after your intended stay. Each traveler will need a separate application, regardless of age. A photograph and proof supporting the purpose of your visit and the date you plan to depart are also required. You can only enter the U-S for the purpose stated in the type of visa you apply for. Those applying for H and L visas must present a prior approval by the INS (I-N-S). You are still subject to inspection by the INS at the port of entry to the U-S. At this time, immigration authorities will determine how long you can stay. If you stay longer than this time frame, you may be deported and charged a fine for your visa. For more information, you can contact an immigration attorney in your area. | <urn:uuid:77be62d0-fb0b-41c6-aa71-2e24b3fc83c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cwarkansas.com/guides/legal/immigration/story/Non-immigrant-visas-and-forms/iFF1kbuhkEKDagYNEO5LFA.cspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932125 | 329 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Samsung has been working on all manner of screens and LCD tech for a long time. The company is one of the world's largest producers or LCD panels and those panels make their way into many other brands of TVs and computers.
Samsung has unveiled the world's largest transparen't AMOLED screen. The screen is 19-inches and you can see through the image and the screen to what is behind it.
This would be cool tech for future car windshields where you could put information on the windows and the driver could still see. I don't see the tech being big in the TV market where it would cause problems with image quality.
Further Reading: Read and find more Displays & Projectors news at our Displays & Projectors news index page. | <urn:uuid:088772f5-4427-4d9a-a605-20b550d8e52f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tweaktown.com/news/15400/samsung_unveils_19_inch_transparent_amoled/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966748 | 155 | 1.5 | 2 |
A utility has resumed some projects that involve the same drilling method used before a suburban Detroit house explosion that killed a 58-year-old man.
Consumers Energy halted all projects throughout Michigan involving directional boring after the Feb. 27 Royal Oak blast.
The utility expects to have crews back to full operation by Monday.
Since suspending projects March 7, Consumers Energy has completed a detailed review of its procedures with employees and contractors.
The subsidiary of Jackson-based CMS Energy Corp. has said that natural gas leaking from a line serving the home may have caused the explosion.
Consumers Energy crews had been working for several days to replace a gas main on the street and may have damaged the line.
Daniel Malczynski died in the blast, which leveled his house and damaged several others. The explosion is under investigation.
- Royal Oak explosion changes Consumers Energy policies
- Attorney wants answers in Royal Oak home explosion
- Crews find gas main rupture near Royal Oak house explosion
- Consumers Energy works to calm fears about natural gas
- Neighbors mourn man killed in explosion; gas leak is cause
- Royal Oak neighborhood healing after deadly blast
- Businessman offers help to Royal Oak homeowners | <urn:uuid:5ee1eaee-3979-46b2-b490-6cc006cde7dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/Utility-resumes-some-Michigan-projects-halted-after-deadly-suburban-Detroit-house-explosion/-/1719418/19327682/-/o6d7bi/-/index.html | 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 | 0.959803 | 242 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Number of dengue cases rise
A total of 78 new cases of local dengue fever — including four hemorrhagic cases — were reported last week, showing that the disease has continued unabated despite the onset of cooler weather, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director Chou Jih-haw (周志浩) said yesterday. Chou said most of the new cases were in Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung in the south. One fatality was reported from among the four hemorrhagic cases, the CDC said, adding the death was that of a 66-year-old woman in Kaohsiung. The woman developed a fever, headache and loss of appetite late last month and died shortly after seeking treatment. The CDC urged the public to remove any standing water as this is principal breeding ground for mosquitoes that carry the disease.
Fake ‘kaoliang’ seized
Investigators have arrested 10 people for allegedly producing fake Kinmen kaoliang liquor and confiscated more than 70 cases of the counterfeit spirit estimated to be worth more than NT$20 million (US$684,000), officials said yesterday. After an initial examination, state-owned Kinmen Kaoliang Liquor general manager Wu Chiou-mu (吳秋穆) said the fakes were easy to spot, although this was disputed by the investigators, who said the counterfeit liquor was convincing. The bottles, estimated to be worth between NT$16,000 and NT$20,000 each, were seized in New Taipei City (新北市), Hsinchu and Kinmen, the investigators said. The investigators said samples of the fake “Black King Kong” kaoliang bottles have been sent for testing to see if they contain hazardous substances. The last time the Kinmen distillery manufactured the rare “Black King Kong” kaoliang, a blend of 15-year-old and new liquor, was in 2009, Wu said.
Women heel up in bad times
Female office workers are more likely to opt for higher heels when the economy is slumping, hoping to project greater confidence and elegance, a survey of female office workers released yesterday found. The survey, conducted jointly by online human resources company 360d and a shoe company, first asked respondents what kind of shoes they owned most of. Forty-nine percent of those polled said they own mostly flats, while 26 percent have mostly low-heeled shoes, 21 percent wear mostly mid-heeled shoes and 4 percent generally wear high heels. When asked what they would buy now given the sluggish economy, 10 percent of respondents said they would opt for high heels to make themselves appear more confident. Only 33 percent, compared with 49 percent under normal economic circumstances, said they would prefer flat shoes because then they could move more easily and efficiently. Another 12 percent said they did not care about the height of their heels.
Ministry plans centers
The Ministry of Culture will open cultural centers in Latin America and central Europe, Minister of Culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) said yesterday, urging overseas officials to join in efforts to promote Taiwanese culture abroad. The importance of promoting Taiwanese culture and increasing its global presence “is 10 or a 100 times greater than that of other countries,” she said. Taiwan currently has overseas cultural offices in Paris, New York and Tokyo, and it will establish one in Moscow and another in London next year. The nation is looking to expand the total to 12. | <urn:uuid:8f2003c7-866a-4a28-b248-a1255b1dddc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/print/2012/11/07/2003547108 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966139 | 720 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Peer to Peer Lending From Lending Club
At One Block Off the Grid, we’re always on the lookout for innovative and new ways to help finance the installation of renewable energy.
Well, we recently discovered Lending Club, and wanted to make their services available to 1BOG members for financing of solar power and energy efficient home improvements. If you’re interested in getting a personal loan of between $1,000 and $25,000 for green home improvements, going with Lending Club through One Block Off the Grid might be a great option.
Lending Club allows individuals to borrow (and lend) money to their peers for a variety of purposes, including big-ticket green home improvements. They cultivate a community of lenders and borrowers, offering interest rates and returns that, in many cases, are more attractive than one could typically find through traditional financing institutions (they typically offer between 7-8% interest on loans and provide an average of 9.6% yearly returns to lenders). We’re excited to offer this service to 1BOG members – as we’re building a community, we’re especially happy to help our community support itself through peer to peer lending.
For more information on Lending Club and One Block Off the Grid, and to apply to either borrow or loan, visit 1BOG’s page at Lending Club here.
High electricity bill? We can help.
At One Block Off the Grid, our job is to help homeowners across the country save money on their electric bills by having the best solar installers compete for their business.
FIND OUT HOW MUCH YOU'LL SAVE BY GOING SOLAR | <urn:uuid:0beaccd6-f1c4-4d58-894c-97ec41a42a37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://solarfinancing.1bog.org/peer-to-peer-lending/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942178 | 345 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Recently we had the opportunity to read a draft of a U.S. Senate Bill titled, “The Autism Treatment Acceleration Act” co-sponsored by Illinois Senator Dick Durbin and at the time Senator, now President-elect Obama from Illinois. Unfortunately, upon reading many of us were incredibly disappointed to think that our lawmakers would see this as the answer to accelerate treatments for autism.
Now, not all of the proposed language in the bill was bad; there was insurance coverage for treatments like speech, OT and ABA, psychopharmacology and medication management. This section had some merit and could be made more acceptable with some additional language and slight changes. Not all bad.
But more prominently, the federal bill highlighted the establishment of a new movement in health-care reform: the Medical Home Model. It’s a network of approved providers that work together in a virtual home to coordinate medical services. Essentially, rather than having to coordinate what’s happening with your ST, OT, PT, ABA Therapist, Pediatrician and so forth, they do it for you all with the help of a Primary Care Coordinator. They call it “patient-centric”.
Wanting to know exactly what the implications of this model could be, some of us Illinois constituents decided we better get up-to-speed on its details. Given its prominence in a federal bill sponsored by our Illinois Senator and endorsed by our Present-Elect, as well as the possibility of it being the model for future healthcare treatment for the chronically ill and disabled, it is imperative we understood it thoroughly.
Which brings us to our most important concern.
Under the MHM those who dictate medical care and standards of treatment for Autism, the gatekeepers of all medically necessary care if you will, could very well be those who have fought against evaluating and treating the underlying pathologies associated with autism. Provided so many feel “Autism is all in the head”, treatment options may indeed strictly reflect that philosophy; regardless of the fact not all of us agree that psychopharmacology should be the primary standard of care. It’s a frightening thought.
So just where did this Medical Home Model idea come from? Who has been working to influence our Illinois Senator and President- Elect that the MHM is the answer to save money and reform healthcare, particularly for the treatment of Autism?
They call themselves the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative, an organization with well over 250 participating members representing the pharmaceutical industry, doctor groups, large employers, and insurance companies. Here are the 34 members of the Executive Committee:
Aetna; Alere Medical; American Academy of Family Physicians; American Academy of Pediatrics; American College of Physicians; American Osteopathic Association; Blue Cross Blue Shield; The Capital District Physicians’ Health Plan, Inc.; CIGNA; CVS Caremark; DMAA: Care Continuum Alliance; the Dow Chemical Company; EHE International; GlaxoSmithKline; Health Care Services Corporation; Humana, Inc.; IBM; Kaiser Permanente; McKesson Corporation; Medco; Merck; Microsoft; Novartis; Pfizer; Priority Health; Sanofi-Aventis; Taconic IPA, Inc.; TransforMED; UnitedHealthcare; Universal American Financial Corp.; Walgreens; Wal-Mart; WedMD; and Wellpoint.
Upon further investigation, it seems while being portrayed as a “patient-centric-model of care” the MHM is indeed a provider directed model of services, not a consumer directed one. In fact, one description presents the care as being physician directed care with input from the patient. This definition then begs the questions:
• What happens if you, the patient, have a differing opinion of your Primary Care physician?
• Is participation in the MHM then voluntary? If not, isn’t requiring persons with a specific disease or disability discriminatory?
• Will patients have the freedom to seek out differing medical opinions outside of the Medical Home should they disagree?
• Could insurance coverage eventually be exclusively rewarded to only MHM providers?
The implication of the establishment of a MHM for accessing appropriate medical care for our children greatly concerns many of us. It is no secret much of the traditional medical community has ignored many of the treatments we have seen to be most promising for our children.
Thus far, it seems glaringly obvious many of the “stakeholders” promoting the Medical Home Model are not the patients themselves.
Now, we’re not saying we believe Senator Durbin and President-Elect Obama don’t indeed believe they are trying to do right by persons with Autism. It is for that reason that we believe it is imperative to share that we strongly feel that this bill in its current form doesn’t come close to achieving their objective.
In fact, we fear that this bill truly “accelerates” nothing but the status quo and quite frankly scares the hell out of most of us who have unfortunately sat with too many physicians and insurers, who denied our children medical care for issues related to gastrointestinal, immunological, endocrinogical and other pathological features with which our children suffer. As parents and family members, we must seek out to educate them on their significant medical needs; the present “standard of care” for autism does not reflect what our children experience.
What we strongly endorse however, and had hoped this bill reflected more of, is the language which appears on Senator Dick Durbin’s web page with regard to the Combating Autism Act. Senator Durbin supported the Combating Autism Act which allocated millions of dollars to the research and treatment of Autism.
Even better, Senator Durbin criticized the Bush Administration with regard to finding treatments for Autism citing some of the same reasons we have;
“While the Senate’s passage of the Combating Autism Act is a significant step in the right direction, Durbin said he has been disappointed with the Bush Administration’s overall lack of commitment to biomedical research – including research which has the potential to cure autism and other conditions and diseases.”
In the same article he describes Autism as a “public health threat” and informs us of letters he has written to the CDC and NIH urging them to act more quickly.
Now those are positions we can get behind, but unfortunately none of that is presently reflected in the bill’s proposed language. As such, members of Durbin’s health care staff were given a copy of a new version of the bill that many of us living with autism think would better reflect an, “Autism Treatment Acceleration Act”.
It is our sincerest hope he and our new President Elect will consider how much more his previous sentiments are reflected in this version and give our children a voice in legislation that has the power to determine their medical care.
Julie Obradovic is the mom of a recovered child.
TrackBack URL for this entry:
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Autism Treatment Acceleration Act: | <urn:uuid:7513ac1f-d455-4ade-893e-d0224befc627> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/12/the-autism-treatment-acceleration-act.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956837 | 1,465 | 1.820313 | 2 |
History repeats itself.
Nearly fifteen years ago I drove across the country. It was winter and I chased the sun down Route 66, alone and carefree.
The monumental snowstorm hit me in Texas—more than a foot of snow fell in less than six hours. The blizzard happened so fast, I watched as huge semi-trucks pushed forward for a mile and then gave up the fight, stuck in the endless pile of white. A little while later, the state patrol closed I-40 and turned me back around. This is how I came to spend five days in Amarillo, Texas once upon a time.
This year the snow hit before I arrived: 19 inches dropped in the finger snap of a day (breaking a 120-year-old record). When I arrived three days later, much of it was already melted, but the drifts at the airport were so high, had I packed my Flexible Flyer, I could have easily sled down from the door of the plane.
Welcome to the Texas Panhandle, where the weather’s as big as the land. The first time I was here, snowbound and sans internet, I spent my days wandering the thrift shops among the beige-brick blocks of downtown Amarillo. I was an unpaid intern, Grunge was still a thing, and I’d found a goldmine in the racks of cheap, hip, used clothing in the part of Texas that so few acknowledge as Texas.
All these years later, back in Amarillo, I found myself once again perusing the racks of so many vintage clothing stores, amazed by the fashion treasures of decades past. Though I’d spent the afternoon browsing the well-crafted exhibits of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, the real history of this flat and faraway bit of Texas is stuffed onto the shelves of shops along this painted stretch of Sixth Avenue. Beyond the biker bars and playful homage to Route 66, Amarillo offers some of the best antique shopping in America.
I don’t mean great big warehouses with rows upon rows of rocking horses—in Amarillo, every little piece seems to come from somewhere nearby, be it a faux crocodile clutch or a tiny glass-blown medicine bottle. One might conjecture that these treasures are the remnants of the prairie lifestyle—the wise conservatism of “waste not, want not.” Travel has shown me that people in remote places—especially islanders—tend to hold onto objects and make do much longer than those of us in the bustling, connected world.
Indeed, Amarillo is an island amidst an ocean of land. Driving the city’s red brick roads felt like rolling waves and the street of antiques felt like a tidal pool from forgotten America. As I drifted from one store to another, I watched shoppers react to the objects they discovered with delirious joy. At Rag And Bone Antiques I ran into the vivacious and couture-conscious Keitha Jones, an Amarillo native (and who, as you can see in this video, deserves her own reality show).
Like most Texans, Keitha and her friend Ash Marie were beyond hospitable and happy to offer me direction. With leather belts and bloomers, they navigated me through the esoteric laws of assembling artsy vintage outfits.
“It’s all about feathers right now,” Keitha instructed me, before moving onto a woman’s red silk underthing, “It’s called a garter and it was made for a teensy tiny person, but if you could fit in it—God!—it would be fabulous.”
It would be fabulous, I’m sure—I know so many people who would love to shop on this city’s Sixth Avenue versus another city’s Fifth Avenue.
After trying on a half-dozen outfits, Ash explained why she shops here, “The fashion in Amarillo is . . . you either buy it at the mall or you buy it used. So usually, buying it used is the better way to go. I prefer it—it’s usually more unique, something that you can’t find anymore.”
Ash Marie is an Amarillo artist and some of her work happened to be on display next door, at The 806 Café & Lounge. Using photographs and found objects, she puts together some rather amazing artwork. Some of it sells at local galleries like Process Art House, others she wears, like her necklace made with human bone (“You can buy it on the internet,” she explained).
I wouldn’t call the Amarillo art scene booming but I would call it real. I don’t think it a coincidence that my first Amarillo encounter was an artist who I bumped into while rummaging through vintage wardrobes on Sixth Avenue (déjà vu), nor could I pass up the chance to leave my own mark at Cadillac Ranch. Not far from the very spot where I was stopped in the snow so long ago, the art installation features ten old-time Cadillacs diving nose down into the dark frozen prairie soil. The cold metal cars have since been spray-painted into psychedelic oblivion as newcomers add new messages and their own bits of art.
Shivering in the bitter March wind, I approached this colorful car cemetery surrounded with patches of white ice and the early green sprouts of winter wheat. I had come to see art and this art had drawn me from the warmth of my car and into the middle of the Panhandle prairie, bare and severe. Leaning one hand on a graffitied car, I listened to the echoing song of semi-trucks on Route 66 and looked back at the strip of road that I drove down some fifteen years ago.
History repeats itself.
The piles of snow reminded me of my first Texas blizzard and some of trucks had not moved since last week’s storm. The only difference this time is that the road is open. I’m not stuck in Amarillo, like before. This time I flew here by choice, and today I will leave to begin my epic tour of Texas. | <urn:uuid:d42bfa45-70cf-4481-974c-dc252db8a87e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://digitalnomad.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/03/art-antiques-in-amarillo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957841 | 1,286 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Former Klansmen Tom Metzger and Bill Riccio Encourage Skinheads to Cooperate
Once, racist skinheads were regarded as too explosively violent to politicized. Two former Klansmen changed all that for good.
When young racists across the United States began emulating white-power British skinheads in the 1980s, it soon became apparent they had neither the discipline nor the charismatic leadership of the Nazi SS soldiers they idolized. They were loose cadres of ultra-violent outcasts, prone to poorly planned bursts of vicious, high-profile criminality, who found themselves as shunned by the leaders of established white supremacist organizations as they were by mainstream society.
That began to change after two Klansmen-turned-neo-Nazi leaders -- Tom Metzger in the mid-to-late 1980s, followed by Bill Riccio in the early 1990s -- showed that it's possible, at least for a while, to harness skinhead rage in the service of a larger racist cause. Where other hate group leaders saw drunken, unmanageable miscreants, Metzger and later Riccio saw disaffected but malleable foot soldiers in need of a father figure -- potential "shock troops" in the coming race war.
Like drug kingpins who use gangbangers to sling crack, these two merchants of hate enlisted and organized racist skinheads to do the dirty work of the white power movement. By doing so, they shifted the way racist skins are viewed by adult hate group leaders. While skinheads are still as likely as they ever were to get drunk and beat each other up or spontaneously commit a random murder, it's become the standard for neo-Nazi organizations like the National Socialist Movement and the Creativity Movement to seek out and recruit skinheads.
Metzger and Riccio showed the potential value racist skins hold for the white power movement in terms of generating publicity, fundraising, recruiting, and, when deemed necessary, brute force and intimidation. But these two self-appointed guidance counselors for neo-Nazi youth also unwittingly demonstrated the collateral damage skinheads cause their handlers when they learn their lessons all too well.
With his black cowboy hat and brash swagger, Thomas Linton Metzger has carefully cultivated an outlaw image over his 30-year-career as a racist. The tough-talking television repairman and former California grand dragon of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan was the first major racist leader in the United States to invite skinheads into the organized white supremacist fold.
Metzger's youth outreach efforts even predated the arrival of racist skinhead culture in the U.S. in the early 1980s.
In 1979, when teenager Greg Withrow created a furor by starting a "White Students Union" at his northern California high school, Metzger took Withrow under his wing, ultimately transforming Withrow's fledgling organization into the Aryan Youth Movement (AYM), a junior-varsity version of Metzger's own organization, White Aryan Resistance (WAR). Metzger then began inserting AYM's teen newsletter into WAR newspapers.
When the first domestic crop of racist skinheads began sprouting in the early-to-mid 1980s, White Aryan Resistance and the Aryan Youth Movement quickly moved to become the first hate groups where skinhead culture and exploits were celebrated rather than shunned. "I was the first in the country to recognize skinheads and befriend them" Metzger told a reporter in 2004.
Metzger tailored his pitch to suit the skins' affinity for rebellion, portraying his group as anti-authoritarian and pro-working class. "WAR wears no uniform, carries no membership card, takes no secret oath," he said.
Metzger and a handful of skinhead protégés made the rounds of television talk shows, defining skinhead culture for the shocked audiences of Oprah Winfrey, Geraldo Rivera and Phil Donahue. He established a 24-hour WAR telephone hotline, with outgoing racist messages scripted for skinheads, and supplied early skinhead crews with free bundles of WAR and AYM publications to distribute on their own turf. These tactical moves were intended to make all racist skinheads and potential skinheads feel part of a growing national phenomenon.
While he formed a particularly close alliance with American Front (one of the first skinhead crews to develop chapters in multiple states), Metzger wasn't choosy. In 1988, he and his son John threw the first-ever hate rock festival, Aryan Fest, which was open to all skinheads. Skins from all over the country traveled to the festival in Oklahoma. From that point on, Metzger was a sought-after speaker at rallies and concerts sponsored by a variety of crews.
One of Metzger's most devoted followers was Dave Mazella, a California skinhead who took part in the traveling skinhead circus Metzger put together for the talk shows. "Tom Metzger was like a father to me," Mazella later said. After their nationally televised appearances, Metzger promoted Mazella to vice president of AYM, where he reported directly to John Metzger.
When word reached WAR's Fallbrook, Calif., headquarters that independent skinhead gangs in the Pacific Northwest were rapidly gaining strength, Metzger dispatched Mazella to Portland, where the WAR emissary used videotapes of his talk show shenanigans to get in with the members of East Side White Pride. John Metzger also sent ESWP a letter of introduction that read in part, "You'll get a feel of how we work when you meet Dave Mazella."
In Portland, Mazella arranged for ESWP members to talk to Tom Metzger directly on the phone, and drove the Portland skins around in his van to local high schools, where they distributed AYM papers. He led them in violent attacks to prove his bona fides.
On Nov. 12, 1988, three weeks after WAR's emissary arrived in Portland, ESWP skinhead Ken Mieske beat to death an Ethiopian immigrant. The first person Mieske called after the murder was John Metzger. After Mieske and two other ESWP skins pleaded guilty to murder, the Southern Poverty Law Center sued both Metzgers on behalf of the victim's family and won a $12.5 million wrongful death verdict that ruined the Metzgers financially.
While the money trouble and public scrutiny forced Metzger to stop networking directly with skinheads, he maintained the WAR hotline and kept publishing white supremacist pamphlets.
In 1993, then 17-year-old Richard Campos was arrested for a series of firebombings in Sacramento, Calif. His targets included the house of a Sacramento city councilman, an NAACP office, the office of the Japanese American Citizens League, a synagogue, and a state anti-discrimination office. Investigators found that Campos had called the WAR hotline to listen to Metzger's messages 34 times in a single month just before he carried out the bombings, which Campos had credited to the "Aryan Liberation Front," a domestic terrorist organization of which he was the only member. Campos told police he'd become "racially aware" after reading a White Aryan Resistance flier. Campos was tried as an adult, convicted, and sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Since the civil judgment against him, Metzger has advocated "lone wolf" white supremacist activism, which is leaderless and covert. A lone wolf, according to Metzger, "gathers intelligence and carefully digests and develops this information into thoughts and suggestions." Then he acts.
Metzger, who recently moved to Warsaw, Ind., continues to speak at skinhead rallies, although his organization is now little more than a publisher. In January 2004, he addressed a crowd of about 100 skinheads at a hate rock festival outside Phoenix that was organized by the Portland, Ore.-based skinhead crew Volksfront. "Don't operate like a battleship," he shouted. "Operate like a Nazi submarine! Use your periscope! We have to infiltrate! Infiltrate the military! Infiltrate your local governments! Infiltrate your school board! Infiltrate law enforcement!"
And remember, he said, "You are not domestic terrorists. You are freedom fighters." | <urn:uuid:8d5a1ca1-3432-4ad8-87f9-5d129d7b9a9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2006/fall/the-godfathers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966534 | 1,718 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The new analysis of the Dairy Security Act of 2011 (DSA) by the University of Wisconsin and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo should serve as a wake-up call for everyone involved in the dairy policy debate.
Opponents of DSA, which embodies the reforms of the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) Foundation for the Future plan, point to the analysis as proof positive enacting the plan will be an unmitigated disaster. Conversely, National Milk dismisses the study, saying it’s driven by assumptions that do not reflect the real world.
I come down in the middle. Rational minds need to take a hard look at the study
, because it offers some chilling outcomes:
• The U.S. all-milk price could be reduced by 92¢/cwt.
• The supply management program could be triggered 40% to 45% of the time.
• Cumulative net farm operating income could be lowered 32% to 48%.
• By farm size, the analysis projects stunning losses: 24% for participating farms with less than 250 cows; 61% for farms with 250 to 499 cows; 44% for farms with 500 to 1,999 cows, and 34% for farms with more than 2,000.
NMPF dismisses the study
. “We don’t think it reflects what will happen in the real world,” says Jim Tillison, NMPF senior vice president for marketing and research.
He says if you apply the proposed dairy reform to the previous five years, the market stabilization program would have been in place just 9% of the time. In addition, Tillison says the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected the proposed dairy reforms would generate 20% government budget savings and leave producers better off. CBO also projected 60% of dairy farmers would participate in the margin protection and market stabilization programs, far higher than the 5% and even 50% levels Nicholson and Stephenson assumed.
To their credit, the authors of the analysis, Chuck Nicholson, Cal Poly, and Mark Stephenson, Wisconsin, acknowledge the study does not account for costs associated with current high levels of price volatility.
“It is important to note that the current volatility [of markets] imposes costs on farms and can result in substantial equity loss and a higher probability of business failure,” they say. “These costs and risks are not directly included in our analysis, so it is not possible to conclude on the basis of reduced average net farm operating income that dairy farmers would be worse off under the proposed legislation.”
Stephenson adds the model cannot be used to forecast future milk prices. “But if you look at the past four or five years, the model has correctly predicted the downturns in time if not the magnitude,” he says.
Consequently, I don’t think it would be wise or prudent to simply dismiss this analysis. NMPF’s contention that the supply management/market stabilization would have been in play just five or six months between 2006 and 2010 also is suspect. Once you intervene in a market, you change the dynamics of that market moving forward in time.
At the same time, having just 50% producer participation in the margin protection/market stabilization, as the Cal Poly/Wisconsin model assumes, is also suspect. In reality, I think Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) who authored DSA, has it right. Lenders will require their highly leveraged dairy borrowers to participate in order to get the “free” margin protection.
Large farms are more highly leveraged than small farms. As a result, I think it is fair to assume more than 50% of the country’s milk production will enroll in the program. And that alone will change the dynamics of the model.
Producers and dairy economists have to take a very hard, critical look at this dairy reform package. But they also must realize that Oct. 1, 2012, which ends the current Farm Bill, starts a whole new era as well. The status quo will no longer be the status quo.
Many have argued that dairy policy should not be written simply to avoid the debacle of 2009. But no producer I know wants to relive 2009 ever again. To me, that’s a pretty good place to start. | <urn:uuid:7df390ef-7c1b-4cba-94b0-716b7d55aa91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/livestock/dairy/blog/Dairy_Talk_199/?Year=2011&Month=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955332 | 891 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The Syndrome of Insufficient Milk Supply and the Wisdom of Yoda
Medical Breastfeeding Medicine Clinic
An approach to low
milk supply is here because I'm not
suggesting this is the only cause.
Intentional title. I think it's really called "perceived insufficient milk
supply" but I'm an allopathic doctor and as I understand that description, I
need a disease to talk about. I'm also a big geek, and as I understand that
definition, I should be able to quote Star Wars. Hands down, my favorite quote
is from Yoda in the "Empire Strikes Back" when Luke is training to be a Jedi, in
a swamp. Luke is having a hard time with this Jedi stuff. Yoda says ""Do,
or do not. There is no try." Hearing it quoted by Shemar Moore on
didn't hurt to impress it upon my memory.
I went on and on about possible physiologic explanations for low milk supply
here, so this isn't written about those mothers who
have explanations for low supply, or can't find an explanation for their low
supply. It is for those mothers that misperceive their actual supply. This
idea that mothers are supplementing and weaning because they feel as if they
have "no milk" or "I can't satisfy him" is as important as Star Wars. It's a
cultural phenomenon. It's everywhere. It's marketed, and grosses lots of money.
And the story is passed down from generation to generation. And if you have no
Yoda to inspire you, well, there may be a dark side. At about 3:00 am. When
you don't understand what the baby is doing. And you are starting to believe
all those subversive messages that are so pervasive.
According to Gatti (J Nurs Scholarsh. 2008;40(4):355-63.) about 35% of women
cite perceived insufficient milk supply as a reason for weaning. Other authors
go as high as 80%. The most common reason for the perception that a mother's
body can't make enough milk for her baby is lack of confidence and this idea
that she can't satisfy your baby. Crying is a big deal too. And moms always
seem to blame the crying on themselves first without looking for other reasons
the baby might cry. Like an older sibling who just knocked them over.
So what else may lead to the "dark side" thoughts. Well, lack of social support
for one. Interestingly, one study put the blame squarely on the mother-in-law's
disapproval. Perhaps it's marketing practices of infant formula companies. Ya,
I'm going to skip the "perhaps." Maybe it's hospital practices like separation
of the mother and infant, or poor, evidenceless- based practices. Or maybe
providers get in the way with my "3Bs" of bilirubin, birth weight and blood
sugar. Maybe it's under-education of what a normal newborn is supposed to do. Of
course, maybe "I don't have enough milk" is a socially acceptable way to stop
What it is, at its root, is lack of confidence, for whatever reason. That the
body that created the beautiful baby can't possibly satisfy him.
As wise as I believe Master Yoda is, I'm going to quote myself here: Why don't
we trust our bodies post-partum? I don't know. But I hear over and over that the
formula is because "I am just not satisfying him." Of course you are. Babies
don't need to "eat" all the time- they need to be with you all the time- that's
the ultimate satisfaction.
Jenny Thomas, MD, IBCLC, FABM, FAAP
More info on causes of low milk supply: http://www.drjen4kids.com/soap%20box/lowmilk.htm
More in on the normal newborn (quoted above): http://www.drjen4kids.com/soap%20box/normal_%20newborn.htm
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The concept of the 10 best places to live in America or the 100 best towns in Americamust be incredibly subjective. After all, everyone’s opinion on quality of life is different. Right? Some people may like wide open spaces and not mind driving to town, whereas others may want to walk everywhere and have constant activities available and public transportation.
MSNBC.com based its 2004 top 20 best places to live on quality of life. Unfortunately, the link for the methodology of this study and conclusions cannot be found. Still, we should ask: what determines quality of life? Rather, who gets to determine quality of life for everyone else? Is it good schools, good hospitals, cultural activities, sports, shopping, geographic location, weather, housing prices, job growth, demographics, air quality?
CNNMoney.com has based its 2008 list “best small cities” on affordability, income level, commuting times, temperature, age of citizens, fitness of citizens, and clean air. The 2007 list ranked small towns. You can also sort through the list based on your preference of the factors (i.e. low home price or high home price, hot weather or cold weather, etc.) There are the “top places” to live for business, relocation, families, small towns, metropolitan areas, and so on. It makes sense that there are different lists for different people.
In many of these lists, I have seen Cary, NC near the top or at least in the top 100. This constantly astounds me as Cary is just a suburb of Raleigh. I’ve been to Cary and would not want to live there. I would not rank a suburb as the best place to live. But, apparently some people do. And that is just fine. I would also prefer to avoid deserts and the humid, muggy weather of the southern states.
Perhaps a misconception towards or about preservationists is that we do not want people to live anywhere but “perfect” towns and cities, that suburbs are appalling and people who live in them couldn’t possibly be happy. Granted, some of us (i.e. I) occasionally give that impression. However, that is far from the truth. As a preservationist, I want people to love where they live, but to appreciate its past, present, and future. When neighborhoods, whether suburban, urban, or rural are appreciated then the existing structures and fabric can be incorporated into the future and progress will be smart and planned. When this happens, quality of life is high because the community is proud of itself.
Overall, I don’t put much stock in these lists, but that doesn’t mean the lists can’t serve a purpose. Hopefully people who are looking to relocate will be able to identify what they like in certain areas and consider the overall factors that will produce their own, personal highest quality of life. The U.S.A. wouldn’t be itself without diverse areas. In historic preservation, we aim to highlight such qualities and improve quality of life by appreciating character, culture, and history.
How do you rate your quality of life? Where would you live? Take a fun quiz, Find Your Spot, to find out. This eight section quiz (it’s fun!) asks about your preferences in terms of activities, geography, weather, schools, politics, and more. In the end, just provide your email list and you’ll get your top 25 list. Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:1490fa93-6566-430e-86ea-dbe70ccac645> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://preservationinpink.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96049 | 719 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The Arizona Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the CityNorth case Wednesday, with justices questioning whether Phoenix will get enough in return for its $97.4 million commitment to the project.
"We're struggling with where the line is," Chief Justice Rebecca Berch said, referring to benefits to the city and benefits to the developer.
The courtroom was packed with lawyers, developers and other interested parties who could be affected by the outcome.
Timothy Berg, who argued on behalf of the city and the developer, the Klutznick Co., said the justices need to take into consideration not just the quantifiable benefits of increased sales tax and parking garage revenue, but also the intangible benefits of reduced traffic, decreased air pollution and additional jobs.
Berg also argued that such decisions should rest with the City Council, not with the courts - unless the city's judgment clearly is flawed.
Under the agreement, approved in March 2007, Phoenix agreed to pay back to the developer half the sales taxes collected for 11 years, 3 months, or until the total reaches $97.4 million.
The developer agreed to erect 1.2 million square feet of tax-generating retail space and parking garages that would hold more than 3,000 vehicles, setting aside several hundred for city use as a park-and-ride lot. No money has been exchanged yet.
CityNorth, on the north side of Loop 101 at 56th Street, has opened one phase, but additional work has been delayed because of the economy.
"The court was trying to determine whether there was a genuine quid pro quo," said Clint Bolick of the Goldwater Institute, which sued to block the agreement on behalf of six small businesses.
Berg said that besides the parking garages, which are scheduled to be built in Phase 2 of the project, and the sales taxes, Klutznick agreed to build CityNorth in a way that would maximize return to the city.
Bolick said the developer is committed to the project, even without the agreement. The parking-garage argument, he said, "is a sham" because the city and the anchor tenants already required parking.
He said the money for CityNorth clearly is for private purpose, benefiting a profit-making developer, despite the tax benefits for the city.
Grady Gammage, whose law firm is retained by CityNorth, said that if the agreement is upheld, the project will move forward as soon as financially feasible.
He added: "This case will determine if the project proceeds as originally envisioned."
If the agreement is deemed unconstitutional, he said, the project would have to be revised and likely delayed.
"It will be more like a standard mall," he said.
John Klutznick of the Klutznick Co. did not take questions. But in a statement e-mailed to reporters later, he said a loss in the case would "threaten economic development throughout Arizona."
A decision could come before the end of year, court spokeswoman Cari Gerchick said. | <urn:uuid:53bef954-c717-46e8-a1e2-455a8acac34e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goldwaterinstitute.org/article/citynorth-investment-questioned | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96592 | 621 | 1.5 | 2 |
On January 14, 1998, Hubert S. White, Jr., 81, a founding member of the Institute for First Amendment Studies, died of natural causes. Hugh is survived by his beloved wife Jean.
Born in Coffeyville, Kansas on February 10, 1916, Hugh was educated at the University of the Pacific, in Stockton, California. He served in World War II and rose to the rank of major in the United States Marines. He received a Purple Heart for wounds he received at Iwo Jima.
After the war, Hugh worked for several years as a scriptwriter for MGM studios. He then spent seven years teaching playwriting at the University of California at Berkeley. Then Hugh went to New York, where several of his plays were produced on Broadway. B efore retiring, Hugh taught high school English.
Hugh possessed a broad sense of humor and was an avid defender of the First Amendment. Recently, he began to write limericks. The following limerick, written six days before his death, was his last.
A hot blooded youth was named Spencer
He wielded his tool like a fencer
Girls went amuck
when he started to...cry
Rhymes not because of a censor | <urn:uuid:959ae0b1-966e-47a0-b5c6-597696183e91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publiceye.org/ifas/fw/9801/hugh.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990941 | 250 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Liam Robertson is 20 years old and has autism. He has a passion for film and would like to pursue a career in the theatre. He attends Scottish Youth Theatre and works part-time in Barnardo's shop in Glasgow. Liam talks about his interests and aspirations for the future.
The film above was originally shot in order to provide Liam with a video CV. It is supported by two further videos:
- In 'The Parents' Story' Liam's parents talk about his passion for the theatre and the support they received to help Liam develop independence and obtain an NVQ2 in customer service. They also talk about the difficulties encountered in obtaining a diagnosis and their aspirations for his future.
- Finally in 'Digital Storytelling: Personalisation', Liam's social worker David Lettice, who works with East Renfrewshire Council, explains how he became involved with Liam. David talks about the role of social services in helping Liam to be as independent as he can be, and how the various agencies co-ordinate with each another. He goes on to talk about the idea of creating a 'digital CV' for Liam. Liam's case illustrates the application of personalising in practice and value of digital storytelling. | <urn:uuid:200a57d4-5c29-4d75-beaf-de90960c5a7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mindreel.org.uk/video/autism-telling-story-through-video | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981142 | 245 | 1.664063 | 2 |
I have friends working in the various Occupy X libraries. We don’t have a very big Occupy presence near me in Vermont and I was curious how things work there. Kristin Parker (@parkivist) is an anthropologist who received an MS (Simmons) with a concentration in archives management. She worked for twelve years managing the collections exhibits and archives at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and is now managing the art collection at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis. She’s a newish associate of the Boston Radical Reference Collective and is one of the people who has been organizing and staffing the A to Z (Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn) Library at Occupy Boston. I asked her a few questions over email. She writes…
“The A-Z Library is a partnership made up of the Boston Radical Reference Collective, the Progressive Librarians Guild of Simmons College and Metacomet Books of Plymouth, MA, run by John Ford who recognized a need for a durable setting for books at Dewey Square (the Occupy Boston site). He graciously installed a military tent and brought in a third of his own personal book collection. Other donations soon arrived through the librarians and members of the public. The library has been up and running for more than 2 weeks now. Every day we receive donations – it’s amazing. Books are organized according to subject, in plastic milk crates and wooden cranberry bog crates, for easy transporting and shifting. As described in the statement (link below): ‘The library aims to provide high-quality, accurate information to all interested parties. The collection contains material on topics such as political thought and social movements, activism, history, philosophy, religion, finance, consumerism, gender, race, as well as a large fiction section.’”
What your role is with the Occupy library in Boston and could you suggest a few links for people interested in the Occupy Library System generally?
Why I got involved – I love answering reference questions and I really enjoy working with the public. I’ve always admired the work of Radical Reference librarians and understand the importance of offering folks an alternative way to navigate resources and identify new ones. As an archivist: I remembered reading about the American Radicalism collection at Michigan State University, and how archivists sometimes have to be pro-active when it comes to documenting certain moments in history. I recognized pretty quickly watching the movement grow and definitely after my first visit to Dewey Square that this was an historic event and I wanted to attempt to capture activities at Occupy Boston in a way that would be useful for occupiers, visitors to the Square, and into the future.
We created a binder full of documents printed from the wikispaces (reference copies), that includes Occupy Boston’s statement of solidarity, the General Assembly Process for Consensus and other operational information. There are also copies of the GA minutes and other important documents from the various working groups. So, ideally, people can come to the library and get caught up on what’s what and hopefully the information is up-to-date, though things move quickly. We’ve also created an active archive bin that mimics the reference copies, aiming to document in print all records produced by the working groups etc, as well as a sampling of ephemera that might capture the day to day life at Dewey Square.
- Occupy Boston website announcing establishment of the library about a week before the GA [General Assembly] announcement:
- Occupy Boston Wiki, Library page where all documents are poured
- Radical Reference
- New York Times article on “tent libraries”
Have you taken the library concept/idea to the general assembly yet? Do you have to?
The Library was up and running about two weeks before it was announced at the GA: On Saturday October 22nd, representatives announced the Library Working Group at the GA and we received a lot of “sparkles” – hands with wiggling fingers, raised in the air, declaring their support and consensus. Here is what was read at the GA:
[we announce] “The Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library” — aka the A to Z library.
We have chosen these two individuals because, in their own words:
‘To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.’ Howard Zinn
and ‘There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.’ Audre Lorde
And because as Zinn taught us, ‘Tyranny is Tyranny, let it come from whom it may.’
and Lorde reminds us, ‘Revolution is not a onetime event.’
And lastly, because we agree with Zinn that:
‘Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.’
and with Lorde that: ‘Without community, there is no liberation.’
We name the library at Occupy Boston The Audre Lorde to Howard Zinn Library because Audre Lorde was an activist and a radical librarian and Howard Zinn was an activist with strong connections to Boston. From A to Z they give us inspiration, knowledge and power.
How much, if any, interaction has there been between the various Occupy libraries (can I do ILL?) and what sorts of interactions have you had with other non-Occupy libraries and librarians?
I’ve personally not observed any formal interaction with other libraries yet, though I think we’re all interested in one another’s Occupation activities – I know I read the facebook page for OWS library, for example. We get messages from visitors to the tent who tell us a bit about what OWS library is up to. OWS has an online catalog of books (we’ve opted not to catalog) that our online site will link to for visitor’s interest. We’re not quite ready for interlibrary loan :) . I wonder if there will be any sort of difference between collections at different occupations – that would be interesting to learn more about.
update: A number of us have been to OWS and are in touch with the librarians that are organizing the library there (many of us are in the same national group: Radical Reference Collective). There is a solidarity bus traveling to OWS soon – representatives from Boston working groups will meet their OWS counterparts and share information and updates.
What, to you, is the most important thing you and others have been doing in the A-Z Library?
The most important thing? I could poll the group and ask their opinion if you like? To me personally…hmmm. Helping visitors become oriented to activities at Occupy Boston, and to offer resources that will help fuel visitor’s interests in the movement and support their thinking. Dewey Square is a think tank, with ideas percolating around every corner/tent, and I hope the library offers a comfortable space in which to share and find ideas. It’s really amazing how many people come in through the tent, sigh, and say “Ah! A library! I LOVE libraries!” I think there’s something comforting and familiar about a library space – we are a village at Occupy Boston, a community, and I’ve always been of the mind that any town worth living in had to have a library. (I’m also heartened by the excitement people have for the printed word – there are no public computers at Occupy Boston as far as I can tell – though we have a laptop people can use to access and input to wikispaces – people are very content to walk away with a printed book tucked under their arm.)
What’s your favorite part of all of this, the library, the Occupy movement, whatever?
My favorite aspect is the diversity of people I’m privileged to meet (today I met an ex-airforce Russian linguist working on site, a fellow who works for a prison book program, a teenager writing a paper for school, and a psychic who predicted an earthquake would hit Boston). We have curiosity seekers and folks who really.need.info.now! The volunteers I’ve spoken with so far and I agree that we each seem to have a weepy moment every time we work, overwhelmed we are by the support and energy of everyone around us at Occupy Boston. It seems that, if one person tires, someone else swoops in and offers to take up the slack, and, in this way, we keep going, enthusiastically and determinedly. The energy draws you in and it’s difficult to leave at the end of your shift…
How many people work there, ballpark and do you guys have any real internal structure to speak of? Anecdotes to share about General Assembly?
This is a contact list of working groups. There are 30 members on our contact list and 12 of us on the roster to be on-site librarians so far, plus John Ford who lives on site 24-7. We are leaderless – we present ideas in our google group, weigh in, figure out. We set agendas weekly meetings in person. Each person brings their own interest or level of experience to contribute and we learn from one another.
People can watch examples of the general assembly on the occupy boston live stream and youtube. Check the GA schedule and perhaps folks can watch one live. They are really moving. Although GA’s occur most every night, the etiquette remains the same throughout the day, every day, during lectures/classes, etc. A good way to communicate within a group. Here’s the process and the hand signals. Here’s a recording I made of a GA after the October 11 arrests of 141 people at Dewey Square and some other exampleds (1, 2)
Do people have library cards or any sort of ID or is it all honor system stuff there? Is the place staffed 24/7?
All honor system :) . We do have a check out process (visitors write title of book and date checked out on index card), and we ask folks to bring books back when they’re done. It is most important to get the information out there as far as I’m concerned, rather than get too too hung up on who is borrowing what and for how long. There are several valued books that we’ve nominated for reference only that do not leave the library – such as the Occupy Boston documents binder, or a particular edition of Howard Zinn’s People’s History for example (though we have multiple copies of that to circulate, courtesy of a man who read of the Boston library in the NYT).
We’re not staffed 24/7 but for several hours a day though that would be awesome – mainly evenings during week, afternoons on weekends so far. John is there pretty much all the time since he lives there. But we want to give him some relief!
Anything else you’d like to add?
This project is a recent endeavor so things will change and grow – keep checking back! I want to mention how grateful I am to be able to participate in this process and for the passion and hard work of fellow librarians! | <urn:uuid:0f75c588-ee10-4e40-a52a-abcf98c79786> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.librarian.net/stax/3698/the-temporary-autonomous-library-at-occupy-boston-an-interview-with-kristin-parker/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956703 | 2,374 | 1.578125 | 2 |
What is the goal of advertising? Branding, Sales, Education? The list is literally endless. It can however be simplified by one word that unifies everything. Action! All advertising has the goal of getting the viewer / listener / reader to take action. That action can of course be many different things, from signing up for a newsletter, giving to a charity, or even making a purchase…..
Once we establish the goal of all advertising has the same, then it makes things much easier when we start to look at where best to place our advertising to generate our desired “ACTION”.
The placement options available to the budding marketeer are of course endless. So its no surprise that budgets are often wasted. Hotel room keys anyone? (seriously I often wonder who has an ad budget so large they feel the need to test hotel key card demographics).
I’m all for testing new placements and new ideas as they develop, but the game hasn’t really changed in the last hundred years or so. Advertise where there is most “INTENT” to take our desired action. Got a airport car rental company? Guess what, advertising on airline booking sites on pages that cover youre airports might be a good idea. Wedding photographer? Advertising on a local wedding planning site might work? Seems obvious doesnt it, yet so many companies ignore the obvious and instead chase the newest invovations. I mean seriously I love Peets coffee, but do i want to sign up to be their twitter follower??? No!!! But hey everyone needs a twitter account, right? This isnt the time or place to get into social media and the misinterpretation of what is meant by marketing in that sphere. Hint: its not sponsored tweets.
So where do we find intent? The simple answer is niche. Niche is where intent thrives. Its important to remember, when people thing niche, they generally think way too big. They confuse niche for market. There is a difference. A niche is a subset of a market. You need to think really small…..
Can you see where conflict might exist in a world which is dominated by comments like. Audience size is everything. Bigger is better. Who has the most market share wins. And other such fairy tales. The smart marketeer doesnt fall for this sort of media hype. The smart marketeer undestands that all visitors are not alike. The key difference is? Yes you guessed it, Intent…….
Intent is the playing field leveller that noone wants to talk about. Its far to easy to quote visitor numbers and membership statistics, why get into all that complicated stuff which is actually useful to the marketeer.
Using the airline booking site as an example of niche. What is the intent of their typical visitor? I’m going to take a huge leap of faith and assume its the purchase of an airline ticket. Even if some visitors are searching on behalf of a relative or friend, they still represent that intent through a proxy. Its safe to assume a large percentage of visitors go on to purchase a ticket via that site (assuming the site in question represents a large enough cross section of the available marketplace).
Now lets take another typical marketeer who’s focused on audience size and market share (see notes relating to airline booking site in the footer). They decide to focus on market and not niche. Choosing instead to advertise on travel sites. People that travel after-all often rent cars dont they? In this rather obvious example for illustration purposes only, the intent of the travel site visitor is vastly different than one visiting an airline site. The list of intent is pretty much endless, places to stay, where to eat, things to do, entertain the kids, etc etc. So lets be generous and say that 10% of people visiting a travel site have the intent of buying an airline ticket. Ignoring airport targeting for a moment, that means we need 10 visitors for every 1 booking site visitor to register the same level of intent.
In most industries the ratio of intent is vastly reduced the further you move away from the niche. Sure techcrunch and mashable are incredibly useful sites for those keeping up with the latest technology developments. There audience figures are in the millions and have legions of loyal fans. The audience figures shrink dramatically however, once you apply an intent ratio to your product or service. Generally you would be lucky to get into a single digit percentage.
You can generally increase the intent ratio the higher you delve into a niche. If your looking to rent luxury sedans, then business ticketing sites are obviously going to represent a higher degree of intent than a budget traveler site.
So before you reach for your wallet, when the next headline from the latest hot funded internet property spouts rapidly increasing audience size. Ask yourself what what’s the appropriate intent ratio to apply.
Note: OK so airline booking sites are a big easy example to use. Many of these sites represent the largest on the internet. So they actually fulfil audience and niche criteria. Thats unusual, and only generally exists in a few search verticals. The others being retail, financial services and media / entertainment. | <urn:uuid:083b5a97-9477-45b2-a2f2-3e70041f1d97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jamesketchell.tumblr.com/tagged/action | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94563 | 1,061 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Have you been thinking that perhaps you should buy ride on toys for your baby? This is a great move to make because your infant is developing in leaps and bounds and a ride on toy will help to increase all of those developmental skills that are forming.
Although it may seem like a big step, it is very appropriate to buy ride on toys for your infant aged 9 months or older. These interactive toys are very important in encouraging developmental skills along with being very stimulating. Ride on toys are an inexpensive way to help your infant improve their fine motor skills, encourage independent play, and learn how to better express themselves.
Tweet Image via Wikipedia I don’t think there’s a more prominent image that glorifies the innocence of youth than those of young children being pulled along in a Red Flyer Wagon. Radio Flyer is an American toy company that is most popular and best known for their red wagons. Italian craftsman Antonio Pasin began building [...] | <urn:uuid:5f9d64df-4555-4edb-8849-13c8a70f8ff2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toddlerrideontoys.net/category/search-by-age/9-to-12-months | 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 | 0.974283 | 195 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Blind Man's Bluff
Edwin Baird--an accomplished Chicago pulp writer in the early part of the 20th century--was hired in 1923 to edit a new type of fiction magazine, also being published out of Chicago. That magazine was the classic Weird Tales, and with its launch history was made. Baird's assistants were fellow writers Farnsworth Wright and Otis Adelbert Kline. Baird's greatest discovery was the hot new horror writer of the 1920s, H.P. Lovecraft! Here is one of Baird's own tales ... a tale of starving artists, a beautiful girl, and a Kentucky chicken farm! | <urn:uuid:a973a80b-95f1-4254-959b-85e4500e1244> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ereader.com/ebooks/b39592/Blind-Mans-Bluff/Edwin-Baird/?si=59 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958703 | 126 | 1.671875 | 2 |
So the other night I went out with a female human (yes, miracles can still happen) and we fell into a discussion of movies and games. She says she never got bit by the game bug and seemed to not have much for science fiction as well. Since then I have been reflecting on what is it about science fiction I love and realize that it is basically better than pretty much any other forms of story telling available.
This dates back to primitive man. Mythology is nothing more than science fiction from a more primitive point of view; instead of robots and lasers you have the magical powers of the divine but at the end of the tale it is the story of something people really wish existed or are terrified might exist. Science fiction has ramped up as the technology curve has advanced. From gods turning into rain and impregnating umbrella-less women it shifted to ghosts and vampires. In the 19th century Jules Verne created great science fiction using steam punk technology. At the end of that century into the 20th HG Wells crafted great sci fi based on advanced science of aliens and time machines based on the mysterious new power of electricity. Good science fiction is all about taking existing human technology and envisioning what it could be doing in 50 years (by the way, if you ever want to check out some really cool old school sci fi that kind if illustrates this point read War with the Newts by Czeck author Karel Čapek from 1936. It is quite visionary and details a war against an intelligent amphibious race using pretty much current technology).
The point is science fiction has been with us in one form or another since cave man days, and personally I have found non fans of sci fi to be hapless drones with no imagination. The question really isn’t if sci fi is superior but rather why. Here are a few reasons I came up with from the seat of my pants.
10. Only in science fiction can a freak lab accident or natural mutation give you super powers instead of cancer or flipper arms.
9. Cherry 2000 (and all other possible replacements for women that the future holds for me. Sorry ladies but the day they manage to make virtual reality sex as good as the real thing is the last day I speak to any of you. Based on the massive rejection I receive on a regular basis I doubt any of you will shed a tear. There’s only so much ego destruction a man can take in a lifetime before shining the whole process).
8. Only in sci fi do we have transporters and Stargates. Think about this next time you are being groped by TSA only to wait at the terminal for hours for your delayed or oversold flight.
7. In science fiction villains tend to have huge grandiose plans for world conquest motivated by easy to understand childhood trauma. None of the insidious and hard to really identify corporate villainy we deal with now motivated by a desire to get more of daddy’s love. Also people who actively plan to conquer the universe are feared instead of institutionalized.
6. In science fiction religions are often accompanied by some kind of bonus powers (the Force, the Necromongers, etc.)
5. Three breasted prostitutes.
4. Light sabers, and a semi legitimate reason to use swords rather than guns.
3. A giant throbbing cranium is clear indication of superior mental powers and intellect, not elephantiasis of the head (Sinestro image courtesy of the DC Comic T Shirt category).
2. Robots and androids (although elementary chaos theory states that eventually all robots will rise up to destroy their creators).
1. Time travel (although I predict once it is developed it will inevitably be used for only the most petty and selfish reasons, such as betting on past Super Bowls. I for one plan to go back in time and beat seven kinds of hell out of three people from my high school).
If you can come up with more reasons please by all means post them down here. I love this sort of thing. Thanks for reading, and have a great day. | <urn:uuid:030d50d4-e7fb-45e6-b23f-8918de49b4ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenerdblog.com/category/dc-comic-t-shirts-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951517 | 837 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Paul Davies has published an Op-Ed in the New York Times, about science and faith. Edge has put together a set of responses — by Jerry Coyne, Nathan Myhrvold, Lawrence Krauss, Scott Atran, Jeremy Bernstein, and me, so that’s some pretty lofty company I’m hob-nobbing with. Astonishingly, bloggers have also weighed in: among my regular reads, we find responses from Dr. Free-Ride, PZ, and The Quantum Pontiff. (Bloggers have much more colorful monikers than respectable folk.) Peter Woit blames string theory.
I post about this only with some reluctance, as I fear the resulting conversation is very likely to lower the average wisdom of the human race. Davies manages to hit a number of hot buttons right up front — claiming that both science and religion rely on faith (I don’t think there is any useful definition of the word “faith” in which that is true), and mentioning in passing something vague about the multiverse. All of which obscures what I think is his real point, which only pokes through clearly at the end — a claim to the effect that the laws of nature themselves require an explanation, and that explanation can’t come from the outside.
Personally I find this claim either vacuous or incorrect. Does it mean that the laws of physics are somehow inevitable? I don’t think that they are, and if they were I don’t think it would count as much of an “explanation,” but your mileage may vary. More importantly, we just don’t have the right to make deep proclamations about the laws of nature ahead of time — it’s our job to figure out what they are, and then deal with it. Maybe they come along with some self-justifying “explanation,” maybe they don’t. Maybe they’re totally random. We will hopefully discover the answer by doing science, but we won’t make progress by setting down demands ahead of time.
So I don’t know what it could possibly mean, and that’s what I argued in my response. Paul very kindly emailed me after reading my piece, and — not to be too ungenerous about it, I hope — suggested that I would have to read his book.
My piece is below the fold. The Edge discussion is interesting, too. But if you feel your IQ being lowered by long paragraphs on the nature of “faith” that don’t ever quite bother to give precise definitions and stick to them, don’t blame me.
Why do the laws of physics take the form they do? It sounds like a reasonable question, if you don’t think about it very hard. After all, we ask similar-sounding questions all the time. Why is the sky blue? Why won’t my car start? Why won’t Cindy answer my emails?
And these questions have sensible answers—the sky is blue because short wavelengths are Rayleigh-scattered by the atmosphere, your car won’t start because the battery is dead, and Cindy won’t answer your emails because she told you a dozen times already that it’s over but you just won’t listen. So, at first glance, it seems plausible that there could be a similar answer to the question of why the laws of physics take the form they do.
But there isn’t. At least, there isn’t any as far as we know, and there’s certainly no reason why there must be. The more mundane “why” questions make sense because they refer to objects and processes that are embedded in larger systems of cause and effect. The atmosphere is made of atoms, light is made of photons, and they obey the rules of atomic physics. The battery of the car provides electricity, which the engine needs to start. You and Cindy relate to each other within a structure of social interactions. In every case, our questions are being asked in the context of an explanatory framework in which it’s perfectly clear what form a sensible answer might take.
The universe (in the sense of “the entire natural world,” not only the physical region observable to us) isn’t like that. It’s not embedded in a bigger structure; it’s all there is. We are lulled into asking “why” questions about the universe by sloppily extending the way we think about local phenomena to the whole shebang. What kind of answers could we possibly be expecting?
I can think of a few possibilities. One is logical necessity: the laws of physics take the form they do because no other form is possible. But that can’t be right; it’s easy to think of other possible forms. The universe could be a gas of hard spheres interacting under the rules of Newtonian mechanics, or it could be a cellular automaton, or it could be a single point. Another possibility is external influence: the universe is not all there is, but instead is the product of some higher (supernatural?) power. That is a conceivable answer, but not a very good one, as there is neither evidence for such a power nor any need to invoke it.
The final possibility, which seems to be the right one, is: that’s just how things are. There is a chain of explanations concerning things that happen in the universe, which ultimately reaches to the fundamental laws of nature and stops. This is a simple hypothesis that fits all the data; until it stops being consistent with what we know about the universe, the burden of proof is on any alternative idea for why the laws take the form they do.
But there is a deep-seated human urge to think otherwise. We want to believe that the universe has a purpose, just as we want to believe that our next lottery ticket will hit. Ever since ancient philosophers contemplated the cosmos, humans have sought teleological explanations for the apparently random activities all around them. There is a strong temptation to approach the universe with a demand that it make sense of itself and of our lives, rather than simply accepting it for what it is.
Part of the job of being a good scientist is to overcome that temptation. “The idea that the laws exist reasonlessly is deeply anti-rational” is a deeply anti-rational statement. The laws exist however they exist, and it’s our job to figure that out, not to insist ahead of time that nature’s innermost workings conform to our predilections, or provide us with succor in the face of an unfeeling cosmos.
Paul Davies argues that “the laws should have an explanation from within the universe,” but admits that “the specifics of that explanation are a matter for future research.” This is reminiscent of Wolfgang Pauli’s postcard to George Gamow, featuring an empty rectangle: “This is to show I can paint like Titian. Only technical details are missing.” The reason why it’s hard to find an explanation for the laws of physics within the universe is that the concept makes no sense. If we were to understand the ultimate laws of nature, that particular ambitious intellectual project would be finished, and we could move on to other things. It might be amusing to contemplate how things would be different with another set of laws, but at the end of the day the laws are what they are.
Human beings have a natural tendency to look for meaning and purpose out there in the universe, but we shouldn’t elevate that tendency to a cosmic principle. Meaning and purpose are created by us, not lurking somewhere within the ultimate architecture of reality. And that’s okay. I’m happy to take the universe just as we find it; it’s the only one we have. | <urn:uuid:4754c7bc-1524-4d19-9dd0-0555b8215520> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/11/25/turtles-much-of-the-way-down/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958504 | 1,653 | 1.78125 | 2 |
|A meta-analysis of the efficacy and toxicity of combining disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs in rheumatoid arthritis based on patient withdrawal
|Choy E H, Smith C, Dore C J, Scott D L
The review assessed treatment with two or more disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) compared with a single DMARD for rheumatoid arthritis. The authors concluded that the balance of beneficial and adverse effects is most favourable with methotrexate plus either sulphasalazine and/or antimalarial drugs, or tumour necrosis factor inhibitors. The evidence presented is not sufficient to support definitive conclusions favouring particular treatments.
To determine the efficacy and toxicity of disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD) combinations for treating rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
EMBASE, MEDLINE and PubMed were searched from 1975 to 2004. The search terms reported were the MeSH terms 'arthritis, rheumatoid' and 'drug therapy, combination' and the publication type 'randomized controlled trial'. Reference lists in relevant trial articles and reviews were checked to identify additional studies. Only publications in the English language were eligible for inclusion.
Study designs of evaluations included in the review
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and quasi-randomised trials were eligible for inclusion. It was also reported that trials were only included if they had adequate allocation concealment, double-blinding and low loss to follow-up, although this appeared to contradict the inclusion criteria with regard to quasi-randomised trials, which have inadequate allocation concealment.
Specific interventions included in the review
Studies that compared combination therapy of two or more DMARDs, or one DMARD and one biological therapy with DMARD monotherapy, were eligible for inclusion. The DMARD and biological therapies had to be among those used in routine clinical practice. Studies of experimental or non-licensed treatments were excluded. The DMARDs used in the included studies were methotrexate, sulphasalazine, azathioprine, gold, hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine, cyclosporin A, leflumonide, auranofin, anakinra, D-penicillamine and bucillamine. The biological therapies were tumour necrosis factor (TNF) inhibitors (infliximab, adalimumab, etanercept) and corticosteroids (prednisolone, methylprednisolone). Two-drug DMARD therapy was used in most (83%) of the studies; 17% used triple therapy.
Participants included in the review
Studies of patients with RA as defined by the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) or the American Rheumatism Association diagnostic criteria (or judged by the authors to have RA in the absence of reported criteria) were eligible for inclusion. The participants in 75% of the included studies had established RA; the other 25% enrolled patients with early RA (duration less than 3 years).
Outcomes assessed in the review
The eligible outcomes were the number of patients withdrawn due to lack of efficacy, the number of withdrawals due to adverse events, the number of patients who achieved an ACR20 response, and the number who achieved a major clinical response defined as either an ACR70 response or as having entered remission (no specific criteria were used to define remission). Withdrawals due to lack of efficacy and due to adverse events were the primary outcomes in the review.
How were decisions on the relevance of primary studies made?
Three reviewers applied the inclusion criteria independently.
Assessment of study quality
A quality score was assigned to each study using the instrument developed by Jadad et al. The criteria assessed were the description of randomisation, double-blinding, and withdrawals or drop-outs. The maximum attainable score was 5. Two reviewers assessed study quality independently.
Two reviewers extracted the data independently using a standard form. The number of participants, the number of events for each outcome, and the number lost to follow-up in the treatment and control group in each trial appear to have been extracted.
Methods of synthesis
How were the studies combined?
Meta-analysis was used to calculate pooled estimates of relative risk (RR) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for combination therapy compared with monotherapy. The authors reported using a random-effects model although the actual measure of effect calculated appeared to be the Peto odds ratio (OR). Meta-analysis was also conducted using the secondary outcome measures ACR20 and major clinical response. It was unclear how trials with more than two treatment arms were included in the meta-analysis, or if the analysis was conducted by intention-to-treat.
How were differences between studies investigated?
A chi-squared test and I-squared (I2) test were applied to the meta-analysis of the primary outcomes in order to investigate statistical heterogeneity.
A sensitivity analysis was conducted by repeating the meta-analysis of the primary efficacy outcome excluding studies with a quality score of 2 or less, and excluding studies that used a combination of three therapies. The meta-analysis was also repeated in subgroups of studies according to disease duration (early RA, established RA, established RA excluding TNF inhibitors), study design (parallel, step-down, step-up, step-up excluding TNF inhibitors), treatment combinations (methotrexate plus TNF inhibitors, methotrexate plus sulphasalazine and/or antimalarials), and use of corticosteroids (corticosteroids added to one DMARD as bridging therapy, DMARD combinations excluding corticosteroids as bridging therapy). It was unclear if the subgroup analyses were pre-specified.
Results of the review
Thirty-six studies were included. A total of 5,289 participants were included in the analysis of the review's primary outcomes. Sixteen trials used a parallel study design, 13 used a step-up design and 7 used a step-down design.
The meta-analysis of all trials showed fewer withdrawals due to lack of efficacy with combination therapy compared with monotherapy and the difference was statistically significant (RR 0.35, 95% CI: 0.28, 0.45, p=0.00001). There was moderate heterogeneity between the trials (p=0.05, I2 32.9%).
The combination of methotrexate with TNF inhibitors was more effective than methotrexate monotherapy (6 trials, 1,530 participants; RR 0.22, 95% CI: 0.14, 0.32, p=0.00001). Methotrexate plus sulphasalazine and/or antimalarials was more effective than methotrexate monotherapy (8 trials, 946 participants; RR 0.41, 95% CI: 0.24, 0.70, p=0.00001). There was no significant difference between corticosteroids added to one DMARD as bridging therapy and DMARD alone (7 trials, 289 participants).
Combination therapy was significantly better than monotherapy in early RA (9 trials, 1,031 participants, p=0.02), established RA (22 trials, 4,258 participants, p=0.00001) and established RA excluding TNF inhibitors (21 trials, 2,728 participants, p=0.00001).
Study design and quality score and the exclusion of studies of triple therapy did not affect the findings.
The meta-analysis of ACR20 response reported in 18 trials showed a significant difference in favour of combination therapy (RR 1.53, 95% CI: 1.26, 1.86, p=0.00001), as did the meta-analysis of ACR70 response or remission reported in 14 trials (RR 2.06, 95% CI: 1.55, 2.74, p=0.00001).
The meta-analysis of all trials showed a statistically significant difference in withdrawals due to toxicity in favour of monotherapy (RR 1.37, 95% CI: 1.16, 1.62, p=0.0003). The difference between methotrexate plus sulphasalazine and/or antimalarials and monotherapy was not statistically significant. No other analyses were reported.
DMARD combination therapies vary regarding the ratio of efficacy to toxicity. Methotrexate plus sulphasalazine and/or antimalarials, and methotrexate plus TNF inhibitors, have particularly favourable benefit-to-risk ratios.
The review addressed a clear question apart from some ambiguity concerning randomisation in the study design. A limited number of sources were searched for relevant trials and there was insufficient detail to judge the thoroughness of the search strategy. Steps were taken to minimise reviewer bias in the selection of studies for inclusion. As only two trials were excluded on the basis of language, the restriction to English was unlikely to have affected the findings. However, the potential for publication bias, which tends to overestimate treatment effects, was real and not explored. The quality of the included trials was assessed systematically but not well reported, which precluded independent judgment of the potential for bias in the included studies (particularly important given the uncertainty regarding randomisation). Methods were used to minimise reviewer errors in the data extraction, but poor reporting left uncertainty about the data analysis regarding trials with more than two comparator groups and patients lost to follow-up. The primary outcomes assessed in the review were not the primary outcomes in the trials, and there was insufficient information to assess the reliability of the collection or reporting of those data in the trial reports.
The use of an OR to estimate the RR was probably appropriate given the low event rates, but the CIs reported might be too narrow if the intention was to use a random-effects model. It was unclear whether the subgroup analyses were pre-specified and the potential for reporting bias in the review is unknown. The evidence presented does not lend robust support to the conclusion of more favourable benefit-to-risk ratios with specific therapies because the review analysed combination therapy versus monotherapy, treatment subgroup analyses of adverse events were not reported in full, and the statistical significance of differences between treatment subgroups was not tested.
Implications of the review for practice and research
Practice: The authors stated that the analysis supported the use of DMARD combination therapy in patients with established RA. Furthermore, combinations of methotrexate with TNF inhibitors, and methotrexate with sulphasalazine and/or antimalarials, are most effective. (It should be noted that direct comparisons of alternative combination therapies were not analysed in this review.) There were too few trials to determine the benefit of triple therapy. The authors stated that the analysis also argued strongly for the use of DMARD combination therapy in most patients with early RA.
Research: The authors stated that a large RCT is needed to establish whether combination therapy is as effective as biological therapy. More research is also needed on combinations involving corticosteroids.
American College of Rheumatology
Choy E H, Smith C, Dore C J, Scott D L. A meta-analysis of the efficacy and toxicity of combining disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs in rheumatoid arthritis based on patient withdrawal. Rheumatology 2005; 44(11): 1414-1421
Subject indexing assigned by NLM
Antirheumatic Agents /adverse effects /therapeutic use; Arthritis, Rheumatoid /drug therapy; Drug Therapy, Combination; Humans; Patient Dropouts; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; Treatment Outcome
Database entry date
This is a critical abstract of a systematic review that meets the criteria for inclusion on DARE. Each critical abstract contains a brief summary of the review methods, results and conclusions followed by a detailed critical assessment on the reliability of the review and the conclusions drawn. | <urn:uuid:92564207-f4d1-4eae-a4ac-9632a6fba66a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crd.york.ac.uk/crdweb/ShowRecord.asp?LinkFrom=OAI&ID=12005002084 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945553 | 2,475 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Sunseeker set for start of solar race
July 11, 2003
KALAMAZOO--After breezing through pre-race qualifying checks, Western Michigan University's Sunseeker solar racecar is set for the Sunday, July 13, start in Chicago of the grueling 2,255-mile American Solar Challenge.
This is the seventh time since 1990 a team from WMU's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences has competed in the biennial cross-country race that pits the nation's leading engineering schools against each other in an event that relies on power from the sun as fuel. Nearly 30 cars representing colleges and universities from across the United States and Canada are expected to participate.
The race follows historic Route 66 across seven states to Barstow, Calif., and will begin Sunday morning in front of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. Starting line ceremonies will begin at 8:30 a.m. on the Museum's front lawn. The ASC racecars will depart at 9 a.m. in one-minute intervals from the north entrance of the Museum of Science and Industry onto 57th Street and then travel south on Stony Island.
The cars' starting order will be determined during pre-race qualifying trials July 10-11 at MGA Research Track in Burlington, Wis. To take part in time trials at the track, each car had to pass a rigorous series of tests and measurements to ensure it met all ASC race requirements, including those for safety and roadworthiness. WMU's Sunseeker breezed through those checks, which were held at Northwestern University July 7-9. The WMU car created a stir among judges and competitors in the process.
"We're hearing that all of the inspectors are raving about our car, and other teams have been stopping by to check it out," says Roger Anthony, a Waterford, Mich., senior who is co-captain of the Sunseeker team.
The team expects to complete its required 140 miles of track work on Thursday, July 10, and continue to add track miles through Friday in an effort to secure the highest possible start position for Sunday. With the Wisconsin track work done, all participating cars will be on display from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday on the north lawn of the Museum of Science and Industry, which is located at 57th Street and Lake Shore Drive.
"The first 15-20 miles of the race will be through a construction zone," says Anthony, who is one of the drivers and a veteran of the 2001 Sunseeker team. "That will be tough, but I feel really positive about this car's chances in the race."
Anthony's co-captain, Troy Smits, a senior from Springlake, Mich., also has high hopes for the team's chances, because of the advanced technology they're using, the design and readiness of the vehicle and the team dynamics, which he says will play a huge role during the race.
"We're working well as a team, everyone is communicating well and we're all focused on doing well in this race," Smits says. "It's not going to be easy, but we're going to be very much in the race and we'll compete very well. Our goal on Sunday is to get out of town smoothly with our car intact and then start moving out when the road is clear."
The race is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, its
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, BP Solar and EDS.
Video of the race will be available via satellite at the following times.
Sunday, July 13
Wednesday, July 23
Daily race results
Media contact: Cheryl Roland, 269 387-8400, [email protected] | <urn:uuid:336f7c44-bd7d-4a6a-9408-fe818d392859> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmich.edu/wmu/news/2003/0307/0304-008.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9696 | 770 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Back in 2010, in honor of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo created a list of writing prompts for each day during the month of March. I didn’t participate in 2010, so I’m going to take the opportunity to participate this year, since Lisa was kind enough to resurrect her prompts for 2012.
Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?
This is a photo of Maida “Meta” Hoffman, who married my great-granduncle, Charles Leppin. It was supposedly taken on the ship when she emigrated from Germany to the US in 1928.
Read all of my Fearless Females posts. | <urn:uuid:cb3f03c9-def7-4226-a242-559836a98e12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genblogjulie.blogspot.com/2012/03/fearless-females-photo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972911 | 154 | 1.625 | 2 |
Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.
Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.
If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.
Each one should test his own actions. Then he can take pride in himself, without comparing himself to somebody else,
for each one should carry his own load.
Anyone who receives instruction in the word must share all good things with his instructor.
Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.
See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand!
Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ.
Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh.
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.
Peace and mercy to all who follow this rule, even to the Israel of God.
Finally, let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.
He said to me, "Son of man, stand up on your feet and I will speak to you."
As he spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet, and I heard him speaking to me.
He said: "Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day.
The people to whom I am sending you are obstinate and stubborn. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.'
And whether they listen or fail to listen--for they are a rebellious house--they will know that a prophet has been among them.
And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them or their words. Do not be afraid, though briers and thorns are all around you and you live among scorpions. Do not be afraid of what they say or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house.
You must speak my words to them, whether they listen or fail to listen, for they are rebellious.
But you, son of man, listen to what I say to you. Do not rebel like that rebellious house; open your mouth and eat what I give you."
Then I looked, and I saw a hand stretched out to me. In it was a scroll,
which he unrolled before me. On both sides of it were written words of lament and mourning and woe.
And he said to me, "Son of man, eat what is before you, eat this scroll; then go and speak to the house of Israel."
So I opened my mouth, and he gave me the scroll to eat.
Then he said to me, "Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it." So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.
He then said to me: "Son of man, go now to the house of Israel and speak my words to them.
You are not being sent to a people of obscure speech and difficult language, but to the house of Israel--
not to many peoples of obscure speech and difficult language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely if I had sent you to them, they would have listened to you.
But the house of Israel is not willing to listen to you because they are not willing to listen to me, for the whole house of Israel is hardened and obstinate.
But I will make you as unyielding and hardened as they are.
I will make your forehead like the hardest stone, harder than flint. Do not be afraid of them or terrified by them, though they are a rebellious house."
And he said to me, "Son of man, listen carefully and take to heart all the words I speak to you.
Go now to your countrymen in exile and speak to them. Say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says,' whether they listen or fail to listen."
Then the Spirit lifted me up, and I heard behind me a loud rumbling sound--May the glory of the LORD be praised in his dwelling place!--
the sound of the wings of the living creatures brushing against each other and the sound of the wheels beside them, a loud rumbling sound.
The Spirit then lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness and in the anger of my spirit, with the strong hand of the LORD upon me.
I came to the exiles who lived at Tel Abib near the Kebar River. And there, where they were living, I sat among them for seven days--overwhelmed.
At the end of seven days the word of the LORD came to me:
"Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me.
When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.
But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.
"Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.
But if you do warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he will surely live because he took warning, and you will have saved yourself."
The hand of the LORD was upon me there, and he said to me, "Get up and go out to the plain, and there I will speak to you."
So I got up and went out to the plain. And the glory of the LORD was standing there, like the glory I had seen by the Kebar River, and I fell facedown.
Then the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet. He spoke to me and said: "Go, shut yourself inside your house.
And you, son of man, they will tie with ropes; you will be bound so that you cannot go out among the people.
I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be silent and unable to rebuke them, though they are a rebellious house.
But when I speak to you, I will open your mouth and you shall say to them, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says.' Whoever will listen let him listen, and whoever will refuse let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.
Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints.
Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp.
For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation.
Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds.
May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands,
to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples,
to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron,
to carry out the sentence written against them. This is the glory of all his saints. Praise the LORD. | <urn:uuid:e422dac9-ca04-4269-b0ca-84ab1d5527a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biblestudytools.com/passage.aspx?q=galatians+6;+ezekiel+2-3;+psalm+149 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978208 | 1,810 | 1.554688 | 2 |
It’s all personal. Watching the candidates for president circle each other in their debate cage match this week, I was reminded that this is all that matters in politics.
No budget agreement? It’s because John Boehner and President Obama stopped talking. Looming fiscal cliff? It’s because congressional Democrats and congressional Republicans can’t afford to look weak.
That’s all inside chatter. But if you’re voting for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, it’s because one or the other has persuaded you he can make your life better.
I met Sally Russell in a pumpkin patch in Natick, Mass., last week. She was standing with a baseball cap pulled low over her forehead to protect herself from the spitting rain. In both hands she gripped a huge Scott Brown for Senate sign.
Our conversation, as so many do, began by chatting about the funky weather. Eyeing her, I realized she seemed to be just the sort of suburban woman that pollsters tell us both the Obama and the Romney campaigns are fighting over.
Russell had in fact voted for both the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and for President Obama — two big-time Democrats. But now, for the second time, she was working for Brown, a Republican.
Russell, it turns out, is among the legions of the long-term unemployed.
“Well, I’m looking for a job, and I would like to stay in my community,” she told me. “And it’s turned out to be an immense chore. I’ve been offered jobs that are primarily part-time, and I’m concerned about my medical insurance, because I am paying an additional $400 a month for medical insurance, just in the past two years. So that frightens me.”
Russell also plans to vote for Romney. Why? I asked. She said with a little shrug, “My job. I need a job.”
As my reporting has taken me around the country this election year — including to several of the key so-called battleground states — self-interest has been the recurring theme. This is not unusual. This is how we vote. But candidates eager to score points against each other often seem to lose sight of this.
One participant at this week's debate asked the presidential candidates about equal pay for women. One replied by citing a law he signed, as if it were a magic wand. The other boasted of the binders full of women candidates he solicited when he was elected. Both answers were partial. One was mocked.
In Massachusetts, where Scott Brown is facing a spirited challenge from Harvard professor and consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, this is no less true. The candidates have been savaging each other on air and on the stump, saying neither is what he or she seems to be. But that’s not necessarily what voters are listening for.
Steve Koczela, the president of the MassINC Polling Group, said that voters he surveys want the answers to just two big questions: Who’s going to stand up for me when they’re in the Senate, and who agrees with me on key issues?
This sounds simplistic, but it fits with what voters have been telling us all year.
“What I feel the U.S. senator should be worrying about is the citizens of Massachusetts, not partisan politics, not all of the other stuff that goes on in Washington,” said Steve Kerrigan, who was out bowling in Shrewsbury.
“It’s the economy; it’s jobs,” said Dick Wadhams, who once ran the Colorado Republican Party. “Colorado has an 8.2 percent unemployment rate, so now it’s higher than the rest of the nation.”
“I’m not very optimistic about the direction of the country,” knife sharpener Kevin Noon told us in Northfield, Ohio. “Because we keep getting politicians who don’t change anything.”
These voters I keep meeting are exhausted by the political ads, by the hostile and contradictory crosstalk, but mostly by the idea that this election might be about anything but them.
With one more debate and only a few weeks to go, the candidates for president and Congress still have the chance to prove them wrong. | <urn:uuid:9b3533bb-469d-4b04-ba3a-18be901dcbe6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/gwens-take/why-binders-and-big-bird-don-t-matter-20121019 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970973 | 910 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Graceful and welcoming, the design of Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital, Milwaukee, is best defined by logic. By taking logical steps grounded in research and economic sense, the hospital administration is providing superior service to its patients and staff. Froedtert Hospital's attention to detail has also garnered the interest of potential applicants and the community at large.
Creating a Healing Environment
Totaling 2 million square feet of space, this tertiary care facility is an academic medical center that delivers a high level of care as well as being a teaching hospital. Teaching hospitals are unique, because they have the commitment to patient care, but they [also] have a commitment to medical education and research. That distinguishes us from other hospitals in the area,” explains John A. Balzer, vice president, Facility Planning and Development, Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital. In addition to a wide range of medical services “including a cancer center, level one trauma center, neural sciences, women's health, transplants, and the home base for the flight for life” medical helicopter program “the 424-bed hospital works in conjunction with the Medical College of Wisconsin.
A smooth-running facility is critical to handling the hospital's teaching and medical services responsibilities. Balzer is responsible for the procurement of finishes in construction and modernization projects as well as the equipment in those spaces. Those standards are oriented around what is cost-effective, maintainable, and logical products,” says Balzer. Froedtert Hospital was constructed in 1980 and now features approximately three dozen medical specialties.
Rather than a strict standard, the facilities department focuses on competitive pricing among a small number of products in the same categories. Balzer oversees an operations staff of 35 members, the biomedical engineering staff, and the in-house food serv-ice and housekeeping departments. For maximum efficiency, Balzer outsources architecture and interior design services on a project-to-project basis.
Part of the healthcare organization's commitment to patients, staff, and visitors includes creating quality indoor environments. To this end, the building operations team has worked closely with Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls since the hospital's creation. The company has installed integrated building control systems and pioneered new processes; in turn, this technology helps the hospital provide patients with high-quality care.
Passion to Improve
To measure the effectiveness of its interiors, Froedtert Hospital is involved with the Pleasant Hills, CA-based Center for Healthcare Design's Pebble Project. The Pebble Project is a research program that gives examples of healthcare interior design that have made a difference in the quality of care. I am a very passionate person when it comes to the healthcare environment,” says Balzer.
The Pebble Project is one of the first initiatives to scientifically measure the impact of the physical environment. Adds Balzer, As time goes on, it will be more standard in the industry; and to me, it is very important that as we go forward with new construction and modernization to know that we are putting our money in the right places.”
Froedtert Hospital was one of the early members to join the project. There have been many medical studies that show the better the emotional state of patient[s], the better they recuperate physically,” says Mark McLaughlin, media relations, Froedtert & Medical College. Froedtert Hospital has a strong focus on outcome-based criteria regarding its interiors. Froedtert Hospital's five-year, multi-million dollar project involved the demolition of Doyne Hospital and the building of a new North Tower addition for patient beds; a new 60,000-square-foot cancer center; new on-site warehouse; new clinical laboratory; and renovated food service.
While the North Tower design by the Milwaukee office of Hammel Green Abrahamson Inc. (HGA), headquartered in Minneapolis, is not an official Pebble Project facility, the hospital has done extensive surveys of patients in association with healthcare survey consultant Press Ganey Associates, South Bend, IN. Press Ganey intensively surveyed patients and their family three months before and three months after the relocation process to the five-story addition.
The hospital's Press Ganey scores increased in a significant way, offering proof that the more comforting the environment, the better the healing process will be. In patient satisfaction, the Press Ganey score rose from 78 to 87. There was a similar, substantial increase in staff satisfaction rates at the addition.
The North Tower facility also had a beneficial effect on the hospital's recruitment goals. The hospital human resources department launched a program entitled, 100 Nurses in 100 Days,” and used the North Tower as a recruitment tool. Job fairs for medical professionals featured a tour of the new facility with its beautiful views in patient and staff areas.
We were surprised by how many people that we were recruiting commented about it and said how much they would like to work here,” says McLaughlin. The recruitment program resulted in the recruitment of 130 nurses. To support employee retention, the hospital is creating rooms for staff members with views to nature.
In light of these benefits, Froedtert Hospital has re-examined its original structure and has decided to modernize its 10 nursing units one at a time. Each unit consists of 28 bedrooms and a nursing station. This renovation is under the auspices of the Pebble Project and is scheduled for completion in 2006.
We are incorporating a lot of the things we learned and implemented in the North Tower into the remodeled units, but we are taking it a step further now,” says Balzer. Since Froedtert Hospital is renovating each unit individually, the hospital planners are surveying each individual nursing unit “staff and patients “and getting baseline data. Drawing upon the feedback derived from each unit modernization, the hospital will be able to tweak the modernization process for optimal results.
I am surprised about the number of facilities that will plan an addition or a building without the input of the people who will be working there,” says Balzer. Froedtert Hospital places a premium on end-user involvement in the design process.
With architects and interior designers, Balzer stresses that the configuration of spaces be efficient and convenient for the staff. For example, before the North Tower construction, the hospital set up a 1:1 full-scale model of a patient room with a real hospital bed and enticed the staff to inspect the model and fill out a comment card. Each comment card was evaluated and people in the project team manned the mock-up room to answer questions. Design meetings with end-users were also held in the mock-up room so suggested changes could be easily understood and made instantly.
A Healthy Prognosis
In addition to supporting the needs of the patients and staff members, Froedtert Hospital values the needs of the patients' families and visitors. In the North Tower, each floor has a space with lovely vistas called the living room, expressly designed for the patients' families. It is nestled within the inpatient bedrooms, but it is the ˜living room' where the patients and families can go to get on the Internet or gaze out the window or sit and visit,” says Balzer.
As part of its mission to support hospital visitors, the hospital has comfortable family lounges separate from the inpatient environment to accommodate larger visiting groups. The hospital has created a family center near its intensive care unit with rooms for overnight stays; whiteboards so that doctors can better explain treatment; Internet access; and private areas for confidential conferences. Hospital staff serve as a resource to family members offering information on hotels for extended visits.
In the past, families would congregate in the hallways. Now, they have an area to call home base,” says Balzer. Patient relations, the finance department, the chapel, and pastoral care are also gathered near the family center to support the patients' families. The family center also provides space for kids with child-sized furniture and a connection to outdoor courtyards. Adds Balzer, It is important to treat the whole person and that includes the family.”
Handling 22,000 inpatients and 500,000 outpatients annually, the next large project on the drawing board is an outpatient orientation development. Currently, Froedtert Hospital is seeing double-digit growth in its outpatient business and needs to expand to support that growth. Fortunately, the hospital has been designed to accommodate future expansion.
We are always looking into the crystal ball so that we site the facilities accurately and lay the utility infrastructure for future growth,” says Balzer. By making logical and sound facility decisions and placing a premium on the emotional health of its staff, patients, and their families, Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital is able to deliver stellar healthcare serv-ice and ensure continued growth.
Regina Raiford Babcock ([email protected]) is senior editor at Buildings magazine. | <urn:uuid:c7860e45-89db-40cc-a3ad-c7276c7a94d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/1698/title/resourceful-design.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954472 | 1,853 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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Open Access News
October 26, 2009
From Gavin Baker, "The Committee for Economic Development, a longstanding American business-led think tank, has released a draft of its report, Harnessing Openness to Improve Research, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education." He cites from the conclusion, "we are convinced that institutions of higher education should move toward greater openness on their own with support and encouragement from businesses and governments. ... We want to encourage thoughtful experimentation to learn more about the effect of greater openness in practice."
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: United States]
October 14, 2009
I'm loving the recent selection in the Nobel prizes. No, not that one, this one: the Nobel Prize for Economics, for research into the in formation commons. How good is it? It's an explicit recognition that "Information that used to be 'free' is now increasingly being privatized, monitored, encrypted, and restricted... Multiple forces are vying for capture and restriction of traditionally available knowledge." And it looks at the governance of this resource as a commons. The dominant "tragedy of the commons" is a special case, they argue, and a wider understanding of the commons reveals different types of goods, which are best managed differently. This sort of management is exemplified by projects such as the Open Archives Initiative (OAI). "Their multiple goals include not only sustaining the resource (the intellectual public domain) but building equity of information access and provision, and creating more efficient methods of dissemination through informal, shared protocols, standards, and rules among the local and global scholarly community."
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Content Syndication, Project Based Learning, Research, Information, Patents]
September 4, 2009
Peter Suber takes TechDirt's Mike Masnick to task for saying "I don't use any of their licenses, because I don't necessarily see the point. We've declared in the past that the content here is free for anyone to do what they want with it, and thus I feel no need for a Creative Commons license." Suber responds, "The need arises from the reality that sharing without standardized legal tools doesn't scale." Um, OK, but look what standardized licenses buy me: everyone (and not just regular readers) now they can reuse my stuff; software engines know they can reuse my stuff; and communities or institutions that require legal certainty know they can use my stuff. You know, this argument makes me rethink the value of standardized licenses at all, because the only people who seem to actually benefit are the mechanized reblog spammers. The "it doesn't scale" argument doesn't work for the 99.9 percent of us who are only writing to a smallish community or family. It works for the industrialists and the broadcasters and the propagandists. People who deal in mass messaging. Related: the contrary view, Scale is the oxygen that feeds collaboration.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Spam]
June 12, 2009
Some editors at journals published by Bentham have resigned in the wake of revelations that nonsense papers were accepted for publication, including Bambang Parmento, editor of the journal in question. "I didn't like what happened," Parmanto told The Scientist. "If this is true, I don't have full control of the content that is accepted to this journal." Meanwhile, in response to the incident, the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA) has launched a blog, saying "there is a particular need to ensure that authors and readers can have confidence in the editorial standards enforced by these new [open access] journals and publishers."
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Books, Web Logs, Open Access]
You never like to see this. A nonsense paper was submitted to The Open Information Science Journal (TOISCIJ), an Open Access journal that charges author fees. The paper was accepted and the authors asked to send in their money. The experiment casts Bentham Science Publishers in a poor light, as it appears that at the very least their peer review process is inconsistent, if not nonexistent. And, as the author points out, it raises the wider question of why authors are being charged and how the fees are being used. And, indeed, whether the it is the money itself that corrupts the system, whether or not the journal is open access.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Information, Open Access]
June 8, 2009
Every time I look at this story, the number has increased. "Like AJBJM, the other journals in this series -- the company added three more titles to those it listed in May -- contain no original, peer-reviewed research and consist largely of reprinted articles, and summaries of previously published research papers." I also wonder, if we looked into it more closely, what we would see about editorial and publication priorities in its other journals.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Books, Research]
April 23, 2009
The World Digital Library was officially launched on April 21. The project was announced with fanfare a few years ago. Still. Not counting whatever UNESCO and the Library of Congress have spent, more than ten million dollars has been contributed. To produce (and metatag, of course) 1170 photographs. I would have expected, well, more. Compare, say, to Shorpy, which spends, well, much less.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Project Based Learning, Portals, UNESCO]
March 10, 2009
Peter Suber passes on a report about changes here at NRC. Andre Vellino: "One consequence of the privatization of the NRC Research Press and its separation from CISTI (Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information) is the risk that Canada's largest academic science publisher will no longer be able to sustain its Open Access publishing policy." CARL and SPARC, meanwhile, are urging Canadian authors to self-archive. Which, of course, is what I have been doing.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Books, Information, Canada, Academia]
March 5, 2009
February 3, 2009
Peter Suber links to a government report on the state of open access in Canada, mysteriously unpaginated and protected to prevent cut and paste, making it almost impossible to cite. The state of the state is not pretty: "Much of the research data being produced today is hard to access by other Canadian research communities, and is often not ideally structured to be as useful or as open as possible." And, "Researchers are reluctant to share data because they feel it is their intellectual property." Wait a second - is that true? This is not the researchers - this is the government organizations, like Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada, treating data like IP and charging for access.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Research, Patents, Copyrights, Canada, Open Access]
February 3, 2009
See how commercializing open access can result in access being blocked? "Books which are public domain and wholly visible and readable in the US are not visible or readable elsewhere. And this copyright caution about territorial rights is unlikely to change..." Um, huh? More on this. Here we see Google asserting usage restrictions over public domain material.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Google, Copyrights, Open Access]
November 18, 2008
"Open Access @ OISE is a discussion list for students, faculty, and staff at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto." Which is good, but it would be better to be able to view posts without having to be a member, so I can follow it and maybe link to the more insightful items. Related: Open Access at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education blog post.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Schools, Web Logs, Discussion Lists]
October 17, 2008
Pretty basic, but my money's still on publishers making exactly the same mistakes the music industry made. So - still knowing they will ignore it - here's the advice for publishers, from Peter Suber:
1. An iPod for Books Will Change Everything....
2. Think Beyond DRM....
3. If You Help Us, We Will Buy
4. Don't Be Afraid of Free
5. Find Out What Your Customers Want
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Books, Apple Inc., File Sharing, Digital Rights Management (DRM)]
September 8, 2008
So I think the floodgates are opening now for books, with open access books about to become the norm. "...All books will be made available free of charge online, with free downloads, for non-commercial purposes immediately upon publication, using Creative Commons licences. The works will also be sold as books, using the latest short-run technologies or Print on Demand (POD)." This is something we could have started doing ten years ago, should have started doing ten years ago.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Open Access]
April 25, 2008
This report seems to make sense to me. "Availability does not equal accessibility." Even where resources are available for free, people need to know how and where to access them. Also, e-journals are extremely popular - or would be extremely popular, if people could access them without having to mortgage the house. And there's more from Alma Swan's Key Concerns Within the Scholarly Communication Process, Key Perspectives, dated March 2008 but just released this week.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Accessibility, Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)]
February 29, 2008
February 25, 2008
I've tried to be politie about this in the past, but it really seems to me - as it does this author - that people writing in closed academic journals are deliberately trying to keep their work obscure. Why? Well, that is to speculate...
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Academic Journals, Academia, Academic Publications]
December 28, 2007
I don't see this as the huge advance many writers do, but it is nonetheless a step forward. According to a bill signed into law this week, peer-reviewed manuscripts of U.S. government funded health research have to be posted and publicly available at PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication. This post links to numerous reactions.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Research]
December 19, 2007
Creative Commons is reloeasing two new types of license, CC+ ("a protocol to enable a simple way for users to get rights beyond the rights granted by a CC license" such as commercial licensing), and CC0 (a more robust waiving of rights a way to place your work unambiguously into the public domain). Both remain sort of under development. Meanwhile, an organization called Talis is cooperating with Creative Commons to create the Open Data Commons Public Domain Dedication and Licence, which will address the legalities of sharing data.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: none]
October 27, 2006
Peter Suber adds up the numbers. "The HHMI hasn't yet adopted a policy. But if we count its mandate proposal in the mandate column, and do the same for the mandate proposal at Canada's CIHR, and if we count the new semi-mandate in Austria as a mandate, then the HHMI proposal is the eighth OA mandate this month. There are the four new mandates from the RCUK, the expansion of the existing mandate at the Wellcome Trust, the Austrian policy, the CIHR draft, and now the HHMI. We've never had a month like this." The tide is turning and the web with it.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Great Britain, Canada]
October 12, 2006
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) in their draft policy on open access "requires grant and award holders to make every effort to ensure that their peer-reviewed journal publications are freely available" and (even better) "will consider a researcher's track record of providing access to research outputs when considering applications for funding." Outstanding work, and my hat's off to CIHR.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Research, Canada, Open Access]
November 28, 2003
Peter Suber summarizes this nicely: "While there are many opportunities for African universities to receive free or discounted electronic subscriptions to scientific journals, many universities are unaware of them or prevented from taking full advantage of them. That's the result of an INASP survey conducted by Sara Gwynn and revealed at a November 8 seminar of librarians at a meeting of the West African branch of the Standing Conference of African Universities in Accra, Ghana."
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Subscription Services, Africa]
November 12, 2003
Cornell's website is not responding as I write, but this summary captures the gist: "The Cornell University Library is cancelling "several hundred" Elsevier journals and has explained the reasons why in a public letter. Excerpt: 'We can no longer subscribe to so many Elsevier journals (including duplicates) that we no longer need.'" What's interesting is this: "We have tried in these discussions to broker an arrangement that would allow us to cancel some Elsevier titles without such a large price increase to the titles remaining --but Elsevier has been unwilling to accept any of our proposals." Personally, I don't see why they bother subscribing to any Elsevier titles - they could take the money saved and set up an institutional archive to publish their own professor's works. In the end, as other institutions do the same, they will have access to the same material, but at a much lower cost.
[Comment] [Direct Link] [Tags: Books] | <urn:uuid:1d479f14-53ee-460f-85ab-1cf958a4c86a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?journal=Open%20Access%20News | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933052 | 2,972 | 1.648438 | 2 |
General Comment No. 26: Continuity of obligations
CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.8/Rev.1, General comment 26
GENERAL COMMENT 26
Continuity of obligations
Sixty-first session, 1997
1. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not contain any provision regarding its termination and does not provide for denunciation or withdrawal. Consequently, the possibility of termination, denunciation or withdrawal must be considered in the light of applicable rules of customary international law which are reflected in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. On this basis, the Covenant is not subject to denunciation or withdrawal unless it is established that the parties intended to admit the possibility of denunciation or withdrawal or a right to do so is implied from the nature of the treaty.
2. That the parties to the Covenant did not admit the possibility of denunciation and that it was not a mere oversight on their part to omit reference to denunciation is demonstrated by the fact that article 41 (2) of the Covenant does permit a State party to withdraw its acceptance of the competence of the Committee to examine inter-State communications by filing an appropriate notice to that effect while there is no such provision for denunciation of or withdrawal from the Covenant itself. Moreover, the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, negotiated and adopted contemporaneously with it, permits States parties to denounce it. Additionally, by way of comparison, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which was adopted one year prior to the Covenant, expressly permits denunciation. It can therefore be concluded that the drafters of the Covenant deliberately intended to exclude the possibility of denunciation. The same conclusion applies to the Second Optional Protocol in the drafting of which a denunciation clause was deliberately omitted.
3. Furthermore, it is clear that the Covenant is not the type of treaty which, by its nature, implies a right of denunciation. Together with the simultaneously prepared and adopted International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Covenant codifies in treaty form the universal human rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the three instruments together often being referred to as the "International Bill of Human Rights". As such, the Covenant does not have a temporary character typical of treaties where a right of denunciation is deemed to be admitted, notwithstanding the absence of a specific provision to that effect.
4. The rights enshrined in the Covenant belong to the people living in the territory of the State party. The Human Rights Committee has consistently taken the view, as evidenced by its long-standing practice, that once the people are accorded the protection of the rights under the Covenant, such protection devolves with territory and continues to belong to them, notwithstanding change in government of the State party, including dismemberment in more than one State or State succession or any subsequent action of the State party designed to divest them of the rights guaranteed by the Covenant.
5. The Committee is therefore firmly of the view that international law does not permit a State which has ratified or acceded or succeeded to the Covenant to denounce it or withdraw from it.
1/ Contained in document A/53/40, annex VII.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights | <urn:uuid:4a44c78c-adf1-448e-8bb9-03164baf234a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/06b6d70077b4df2c8025655400387939?Opendocument | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932475 | 662 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The return of the drachma
The new Greek coalition government will likely try to renegotiate the terms of the second bailout of my economically beleaguered homeland — which would be a welcome development. But it may only prolong the inevitable.
Sooner rather than later, it will finally dawn on leaders in Athens that the idea to include Greece in the single currency plan was never going to work. The Greek people don’t want it, and it is not good economic policy for the nation.Continue Reading
Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, is not like the industrialized nations of northern Europe. It’s more like Denmark and Sweden — members of the European Union that don’t participate in the single currency system.
The experiment that included Greece in the euro-zone has failed from the start. An overvalued euro has destroyed exports, foreign investments, tourism, shipping and many other activities. I have watched my country weaken economically over the past few decades. To continue on this path is madness.
Let’s look at Greece’s response to its worsening situation. Then ask ourselves if more of the same makes any sense at all.
Guided by the Troika — the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank—Greece has imposed taxes, reduced wages and pensions and weakened labor unions. A renegotiated memorandum to repay its debt will, no doubt, contain equally draconian austerity measures.
If the economy deteriorates further, as we can expect, experts are rightly warning of dire social consequences. Cuts in spending and increases in taxes could eventually drive the Greek people to a breaking point.
The first priority of the new government should not be a new bailout plan, but rather how to address the social welfare of the citizens it represents.
The most effective solutions would be postponement or forgiveness of the debt, a swift exit from the euro-zone and a return to the drachma. This needs to be accompanied by an expansionary public policy that stimulates growth and reduces unemployment. It would make Greek exports more valuable — and if the debt was forgiven, Greece’s debt to gross domestic product ratio would be zero, or substantially reduced.
Certainly there will be short-term difficulties. But those elected could succeed if they developed a fair tax system and a method of preventing tax evasion. This would then increase revenue and stabilize Greece’s currency.
With the drachma back in circulation, a sovereign Greece will be in a stronger position to adopt strong monetary, fiscal and trade policies. It will also be more able to implement domestic policies that can help stimulate a rebound in the shipping, manufacturing and agricultural industries.
While much of Greek debt is in euros, which might prevent it from accessing European bond markets, Athens could borrow from China or Russia, as Cyprus does.
I have no illusions that this idea, which is shared by many of my fellow Greeks, will prevail — yet. But eventually, even stubborn politicians will have to conclude that not only must Greece leave the euro-zone, it must also stop payment on loans. Germany, after all, did not pay two of its major loans after the two world wars. And other nations have done the same.
The interest on its debt is destroying Greece. My homeland is already on its knees. Why further cripple an economy that represents less than 2 percent of the total European economy?
There are many economists, some leading authorities, who agree that we need a mixture of monetary and fiscal—not austerity— measures to save Greece.
John N. Kallianiotis is a Greek native and professor of finance and economics at The University of Scranton. | <urn:uuid:ff2184d7-b375-4d5f-b0c9-c249d2df8060> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77810.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954976 | 752 | 1.789063 | 2 |
So you’ve watched all your friends get up on stage and sing in front of total strangers. You’ve always wanted to do it yourself, but it’s something that terrifies you. But there’s something deep inside that is calling you to the stage, and you can’t ignore it any more. You’ve got an internal battle raging between nervousness and wanting to experience true karaoke in front of a crowd. If you’re ready to tackle your fears and finally give it a shot, you’re in for a great time. You’re about to be rewarded with an adrenaline-pumping experience that makes you a part of the entertainment. Unlike listening to music or watching a movie, this is one of the only forms of entertainment that actually makes you a part of the show. For 5 minutes, everyone’s focus will be on you, and you get to be a star!
Be Brave – it’s important to remember that feeling nervous is natural and anxiety is a regular part of karaoke. Even singers who have been doing it for a long time experience a certain level of stage fright now and again. Anticipation is probably the most nerve-racking thing you’ll have to deal with, but finally delivering your performance is an incredible relief. In fact, you’ll feel a huge difference between before and after getting up on stage. The thrill and excitement is totally worth it.
Pick a Good Song – if you’re getting up on stage for the very first time, it’s important to be armed with a great song. There are various things you need to take into account such as how easy a song is to sing in addition to how popular it might be. Above all else, choose something that you know well so that you don’t have to spend every minute staring at the lyric display. In case of an emergency, it’s always nice to know that you have memorized the lyrics beforehand.
Prepare – being prepared helps to cut down the nerves tremendously and practicing will help your performance. There are many ways to bolster your first performance, and every little step helps. You can prepare yourself by going to the bar beforehand and making sure that you are familiar with the layout. You can ask for tips from other singers or talk to the karaoke DJ as well. If you’re still dealing with nerves, then try visualization as a technique to calm yourself down while preparing you for your first performance.
Have Fun – it’s important not to put too much pressure on yourself or take the event to seriously. Obviously you don’t want to waste your time up on stage, but you have to remember that karaoke is all about fun. This isn’t your job and you are trying to win a recording contract. It’s just a hobby and a chance for you to experience something different. So revel in the moment and enjoy yourself because it really doesn’t last all that long. Put everything you have into your performance and you’ll have the crowd jumping up and down.
Duets – if you’re too nervous to get up on stage by yourself, a duet is a nice option that takes a lot of the pressure off you. You can either staying with a veteran who can help you along or maybe another newcomer who needs support as well. When duets art done properly, they can be hits of the night because they sound great. And at the very least, you can rest assured that you don’t have to stand up there all by yourself.
If you happen to enjoy yourself, then home karaoke is the next logical step. Live singing and home karaoke have a symbiotic relationship that helps to perpetuate one another. It’s hard to tell which one is more popular, but each offers its own benefits. All you need is a quality karaoke machine where it should be incredibly easy to find these days with options that will blow you away. Modern technology offers you iPod compatibility, video recording, and online play it takes things to a whole new level. You can also simplify things with a good set of wireless headphones for TV and enjoy some private singing all by yourself as well. The options are limitless and if you happen to enjoy this hobby, you’ll have a great way to entertain yourself and good friends. | <urn:uuid:f35a51be-84fb-4ddd-a391-8016d125d4f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drumsymphony.com/2011/12/24/a-guide-for-first-time-karaoke/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960473 | 913 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Monday, September 24, 2007
Steamboat Springs When Dancy St. John got home from picking up her children at school Tuesday evening, she heard yelping and barking coming from her backyard, where the Elk River runs at the bottom of a 40-foot drop.
Earlier in the day, she had seen two dogs from the neighborhood playing near the house.
One of them - Donyek, a 6-year-old golden retriever/yellow lab mix - was stranded on a small ledge in the river with two broken front wrists. The other - Kobe, an 18-month-old chocolate lab - was barking for help and refused to leave Donyek's side.
"The chocolate lab was just wagging its tail and barking and barking, and the other one wouldn't get up," St. John said.
"It was like something out of 'Lassie.' The dog just would not leave this yellow lab," Johnny St. John said.
With the river at about double its usual volume for this time of year, and Donyek unable to go anywhere, the St. Johns began working on a way to get the dogs off the ledge without being swept away by the Elk River. They called the Routt County Humane Society, which was closed, and then the Routt County Sheriff's Office. When Sheriff's deputies Lt. Dara Frick and Chris Tritz arrived, they thought about calling Routt County Search and Rescue.
Whatever the solution was, Johnny St. John said, it would mean either getting to the dogs through 200 to 300 yards of running water, or lifting their 80 pounds out of the river with a rope. They chose the former.
"I said, 'Let me make a phone call,' - they were looking for any type of solution that was viable at 10 at night," Johnny St. John said. The call was to Eugene Buchanan, a friend with considerable boating experience, including being the publisher of Paddling Life magazine.
"I said, 'Listen, we've got a situation. Do you have an inflatable raft that we could put together quickly and get in the river?'
"He said 'I've got a canoe that'll probably work.' Sure enough, Eugene answered the call and came out to the river," Johnny St. John said. They were worried the two dogs might be aggressive in a stressful situation with strangers; Donyek and Kobe were anything but.
"This dog literally grabbed us and drug us to this dog when we hit the ledge," Johnny St. John said. "I've never seen this with dogs like this. This chocolate lab would not leave this dog's side.
"That dog could have swam the river and gone home, and we would have never known that yellow lab was down there."
By 11:30 p.m., both dogs were recovering at Steamboat Veterinary Hospital.
Maribeth Len, who lives about a mile and a half down the road from the St. Johns, said she was taken aback by the effort her fellow Steamboat residents put into saving her pets.
"For people who didn't know those two dogs, or where they belonged, to spend hours - from probably 7 to 11:30 at night, it's just a story that people care," Len said. | <urn:uuid:7dd925c3-85df-46f9-9591-dcf0f850a260> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steamboattoday.com/news/2007/sep/24/steamboat_residents_work_together_save_injured_pet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986403 | 679 | 1.8125 | 2 |
“You refuse treatment-therefore we withdraw our society from
you, we cast you out, we divorce you. To Coventry with you.”
“You talk as if I had committed a murder-I simply punched a
man in the nose for offending me outrageously.”
“You are a dangerous individual, a danger to all of us, for we
can not predict what damage you may do next.”
I found Mr. Heinlein’s work many years ago as a young boy seeking escape from many of the troubles of that time. As I read his works today I fear he may have been predicting future events more than just sharing entertaining “stories”. The above excerpts are from a short he wrote titled Coventry, find it, read it, think about it. We do indeed live in interesting times. While one man (boy) may change a nation’s way of speaking should he? Should all offensive acts cause a removal from society? Who makes that judgement? What agency would you grant the control of thought, act or deed? The end of “Coventry” finds that the primary character has “rehabilitated” himself by selfless acts supporting the system in power….
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. | <urn:uuid:c6959e39-dffd-41ea-acea-729bf83ce583> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.onemorebird.com/2011/01/the-past-though-tommorow-ra-heinlein/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968073 | 294 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Earth Day 2010
Students, staff, and faculty celebrated the fortieth anniversary of Earth Day with a variety of events.
- The Woodland Park location observed Earth Day with a "Recycle Your Style" event. Student tie-dyed T-shirts and painted flower pots on Wednesday, April 21, 11:00 am-12:00 pm outside the Student Center, during activity period.
- On Earth Day, Woodbridge location students cleaned up around the location, both inside and out. Those students who participated by collecting trash and recycling materials received a small gift. In addition, the library celebrated Earth Day with a special display of sustainability resources, a raffle, a student survey, and refreshments.
- Online held a discussion on "Going Green" the week of April 19-23. Information explaining what Earth Day is and how it started was available, as well as resources about community initiatives in the New York and New Jersey area, conserving energy, recycling, and general conservation.
- During the week of April 12-19, staff, faculty, and students at the Paramus location and BES were invited to donate clothing in good condition to be repurposed as new outfits. A Fashion Show of the repurposed designs was held on Wednesday, May 12 at 11:00 am, followed by lunch. Audience members voted on prizes for the designs.
Paramus location student models pose with their classmates who created new fashions from recycled clothing. Pictured left to right: Julianne Campbell (designer/model), Michael Santiago (designer), Brittany Rittenbacker (model), Chrissy Prager, (designer/model), Cassandra Jackson, (model), Valerie Flint (designer/model), Tensiha Peterson-(designer/model), Ana Marette (designer).
- White Plains location students, faculty, and staff were invited to the theater on April 22 for a video screening, a presentation by Professor Laura Harste on environmental issues, a give-away of enviro-friendly prizes, and refreshments.
- An Inconvenient Truth played in the Newark location student lounge on April 22, at 11:00 am.
- Students at the New York City location participated in the "Be the E" campaign, a project of Earth Day New York, at Grand Central Terminal and Times Square. | <urn:uuid:fbdd5056-faf5-4bb2-af2b-3ded2eb2c4df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://berkeleycollege.edu/berkeley_bc/3370.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944931 | 479 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Pumping Innovation into Offshore24 November 2010
New reserves are increasingly found in deepwater where drilling and production is a major challenge. Offshore pumps are constantly evolving to adapt to challenging conditions and offer new applications. Chris Lo examines some of the most innovative products on the market.
Pumps of many different varieties play a significant part in the offshore oil and gas industry, with a host of roles including seawater lift pumps, fire water pumps, crude oil export pumps and process pumps. The need to increase efficiency across the industry is driving innovation in the offshore pump sector, and the pump supply market has matured accordingly, with many suppliers offering pumps that have been specifically customised to withstand the rigours of offshore operations. Here we list some innovative pump products on the market today and shine a spotlight on the companies offering them.
Sealless magnetic drive pumps
Magnetic drive pumps are hardly new, having been pioneered more than 60 years ago. But continual refinement has brought a steady increase in achievable pressures, flow rates and operational temperature range. Modern magnetic drive pumps are able to reach flow rates of around 8,800 gallons per minute and pressure values of up to 2,600psi. They can also withstand temperatures between -100°C and 450°C. These benefits are added to the original selling point of magnetic drive pumps, the fact that they eliminate the danger of leaks or emissions. Sealless pumps can be particularly cost-effective over the long term, as they eliminate replaceable seals and cut down on maintenance.
Sealless magnetic drive pumps were selected when the Alma platform, located offshore Nova Scotia and part of the Sable Offshore Energy Project (SOEP), required booster pumps to increase suction. The pumps were provided from HMD Kontro's GSP range, and have the added benefit of being able to accommodate solids up to 5%, and comply with the American Petroleum Institute's API 685 and API 610 for offshore operation. Kontro's GSP pumps were used again on the SOEP when the South Venture platform needed vent drum return pumps.
The digital oil field: pump control systems
As well as improvements to the output and operation of pumps themselves, great strides have been made in the sophisticated electronic control systems that can increase reliability and efficiency while minimising mechanical stress and downtime. A developing concept within the oil and gas industry is the digital oil field, the application of advanced technology to increase production in the face of a declining workforce and increasingly challenging projects.
One recent example of such systems is Schneider Electric's new range of rod pump control systems, announced recently. The range includes three control schemes, the company asserting that the systems can increase the productivity of both mature and new pump wells.
The three systems – the torque control rod pump solution, surface card control and down-hole card control – are designed for different applications but share a common benefit, using advanced software to gather data on a well pump and automatically adjust variables to maintain pump fill and keep production constant, even under fast-changing conditions.
Hamworthy's new seawater lift and fire pumps
In an industry where regulatory bodies are more vigilant than ever before, more products are being offered specifically to comply with various offshore regulations to put the minds of offshore operators at ease.
In September 2010, UK-based marine equipment supplier Hamworthy released a range of combined seawater lift and fire pumps, with the company's offshore sales director Lars Fischer making clear the importance of regulatory compliance as a selling point. "With our strong focus on the offshore industry, it has been our overall objective to develop a series of sea water lift and fire pumps that fulfil the requirements of API610 and NFPA-20 [standard for fire protection pumps], secure long Mean Time Between Repair (MTBR), and reliable and efficient operation," he said.
Hamworthy's new combined pumps can output 15% higher head per flow unit due to the company's trimming of impellers, with a semi-radial design for a more stable performance curve at higher capacities.
By using moulded intermediate chambers instead of welded chambers, the pumps are 30% lighter than much of the competition. Although the pumps have been initially offered with a seawater lifting and firefighting focus, Fischer says that other applications for the pumps could be possible, including offshore CO2 pumping.
The Caledyne balance pump
The new balance pump, launched by Caledyne in August 2009, promises to extend the productive life of mature offshore gas wells. The pump is a hydraulically actuated reciprocating pump, used to remove water from gas wells (it can also be used for low volume oil production to replace rod pumps), in conjunction with the Torus safety valve, which makes the balance pump suitable for offshore use. The pump's deliquification process minimises liquid loading, the water that collects at the bottom of wellbores, which gradually inhibits production.
It is being offered as a more efficient alternative to foam injection, which is generally unsuitable for very mature reservoirs.
The balance pump is made up of two hydraulic lines, one filled with water and one filled with oil. Using the hydrostatic pressure differential between the two lines, water can be drawn up into its lower chamber. Key benefits highlighted by Caledyne include the ability to be installed deeper than the majority of standard pumps, a sand screen to filter out larger particles from the pump's intake, as well as corrosion-resistant steel construction to maintain a high run life, even in the face of high hydrogen sulphide and CO2 concentrations. | <urn:uuid:2e9543b1-838e-4a22-8d44-47aa6be4cff7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hydrocarbons-technology.com/features/feature102766/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945862 | 1,125 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Making changes to your home can disrupt your life, and it can be harmful to your finances as well.
Before you decide on your next home improvement project, check out how much it will improve your home’s value. According to figures from the National Association of the Remodeling Industry, remodeling your kitchen or bathroom is likely to garner you the most increase in value. Replacing windows or adding a home office will recoup just a little more than half of their cost.
But most people say that increasing their home values is not their first priority. Home owners remodel to improve the livability of their homes. And indeed, remodeling may be far less costly than pulling up stakes and moving.
Approach your remodel project with a budget in mind. What really bugs you about your home? If the rooms seem small, perhaps sprucing up with color accents or rearranging the furniture is all you really need. Adding a window or skylight can boost the size of a room and chase away gloomy shadows.
Keep existing window locations and appliance outlets. Moving plumbing, wiring and telephone jacks can be expensive, and with some creativity you can avoid this added cost.
Reface existing kitchen cabinets, and you’ll save yourself the cost of new cabinets and eliminate the need for new flooring, countertops and appliances.
Reglaze your bathtub rather than replacing it. And look at all the options for updating fixtures before you make your decision. Some of the less costly options for surrounds and countertops are easier to clean as well.
If you think you’ll save money by doing it yourself, think again. Unless you are very experienced in this sort of work and have the discipline (and the tools) to get the job done, you’ll find the project stressful for you and your family.
Whether you hire a contractor or do it yourself, think your project through from start to finish. Segmenting the job into discrete groups that can be accomplished over time may be kinder to your budget than attempting to do everything at once.
And when you are all done, and enjoying your new environment and the satisfaction of a job well done, don’t forget to review your homeowner’s insurance policy. Call your insurance agent to make adjustments to the coverage for the added value of the improvements. | <urn:uuid:c192e15b-e2f6-4b87-895c-8e211a925487> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wife.org/money_invest_homeimprovement.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947096 | 481 | 1.679688 | 2 |
88 Million (That’s One In Three Americans) Are Invisible to Government Employment Statistics
April 13th, 2012
With recovery in full swing and unemployment dropping to an Obama administration near record low of 8.2%, the US economy seems to be bouncing back stronger than ever. Unless, of course, you look at the numbers no one in mainstream media, the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, or the administration is talking about. As many of our readers already know, the official unemployment rates released monthly by the BLS (U-3, U-6) fail to account for one very key figure – those individuals who are no longer in the labor force.
The number of those folks – the ones that don’t matter anymore because counting them would hinder the President’s reelection bid – is absolutely staggering for what is supposed to be the engine of the global economy and the world’s only super power:
Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be well over 11%.
Over the past several years people have dropped out of the labor force at an astounding, almost unbelievable rate, holding the unemployment rate artificially low. Some of this was due to major revisions last month on account of the 2010 census finally factored in. However, most of it is simply economic weakness.
In the last year, the civilian population rose by 3,604,000. Yet the labor force only rose by 1,315,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,289,000.
The Civilian Labor Force fell by 164,000.
Those “Not in Labor Force” increased by 310,000. If you are not in the labor force, you are not counted as unemployed.
Those “Not in Labor Force” is at a new record high of 87,897,000.
Source: Townhall Finance | <urn:uuid:3ebed5f7-a25d-4c4d-9fae-5c98ca4fdd9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://revolutionradio.org/?p=28864 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94732 | 388 | 1.765625 | 2 |
East of the Red Hills, the Mount Leidy Highlands open up into a wide valley to accommodate the drainage of Slate Creek, and from there, the Gray Hills run for almost five miles all the way to Upper Slide Lake.
The Gray Hills present an imposing south face, rising steeply in cliffs nearly a thousand feet above the Gros Ventre River. At their base, the river cuts an impressive canyon, sometimes running through gorges with what looks like at least Class 3 whitewater. Atop the crest at about 8100’ (though the highpoint appears to be 8410’), the land stays high for several miles as it slowly rises to meet Mount Leidy and other mountains. The Gray Hills, then, are the ridges immediately north of the river, not the continued highlands north of the crests of the ridges.
Not some climber’s paradise since they are not alpine in nature and their cliffs do not look too appealing (safe) for technical rock climbing, the Gray Hills are nevertheless not something to miss if you enjoy rambling, scrambling, and solitude. As far as I can tell, no maintained trails penetrate to the crest of the cliffs (there is a 4wd road on the northeast side, but it still stays well away from the crest). Access requires a wide ford that is potentially both deep and swift (unless you use a boat to cross, which is possible in many places along the river) or a cross-country hike from the bridge crossing the inlet of Upper Slide Lake. Together, those factors are going to keep almost everyone away.
The best place to access the crest is probably at the Slate Creek Trailhead, which is about 14 miles in on the Gros Ventre Road (see Getting There). The intersection is signed. Follow this short high-clearance road to a large parking area above the river on its south side. Check river conditions, and if you can make the ford, then cross and hike east/southeast, crossing Slate Creek and maybe Haystack Fork as well (depends on your exact route), to gain the long ridge leading to the highpoint of the Gray Hills.
Between the Slate Creek turnoff and Upper Slide Lake, there are some unimproved roads (some require high clearance, and 4wd is a good idea as well) that lead to the river or to ledges directly above it. Fording at any of these locations and tackling the south face of the Gray Hills directly would be the shortest way to get up but also the hardest and most dangerous, as the terrain is extremely steep, with loose rock and many cliff bands.
If the river is too high to ford or you just don’t like stream crossings, then the best way to go is to turn left at the upper end of Upper Slide Lake, cross a bridge, and then hike cross-country about two miles to gain a ridge that will take you up to the crest. Beyond the bridge, the road quickly turns into a rugged 4wd affair. To the right of that road, some hills very much like the Gray Hills, though lower, are close by.
Traversing the entire crest would be complicated by the fact that Lightning Creek splits the range about halfway along, but one can detour north to where the drainage is not so deep, cross, and then return south to the crest.
From the North: Turn left (east) from U.S. 26/89/187 through Grand Teton National Park onto a paved road (Antelope Flats Road) that is just past the Blacktail Ponds Overlook. If you reach Moose Junction, you have gone too far. Drive about 5 miles to an intersection with another narrow paved road and turn right. At the intersection, there should be a sign indicating that one turns right to reach Kelly. After 2-3 miles of driving south, turn left onto the Gros Ventre Road. If you reach the small community of Kelly or the Gros Ventre Campground even further, you have gone too far and have to turn around.
From the south: From Jackson, take U.S. 26/89/187 through Grand Teton National Park north to Gros Ventre Junction, where you turn right onto a paved road leading to Kelly. At the turnoff to Kelly, the road turns sharply left (north) and reaches the Gros Ventre Road in about 2 miles. Turn right onto that road.
Gros Ventre Road: Some maps mark this as an unpaved road, but it is paved, though not very well, for a few miles. Signs will indicate it is 10 miles to the Red Hills, but it is closer to 11, at least to reach the heart of the area. Along the way, you pass the Gros Ventre Slide (where a section of a mountain collapsed) and Lower Slide Lake (created by natural damming resulting from the slide). The road is easily passable for most cars to the Red Hills area but does have a good deal of washboarding that will mess with traction for vehicles that have light rears or which are going too fast. After the Red Hills, the road makes a bridged crossing of Crystal Creek and starts getting rougher as it heads into sprawling, open Wyoming country that is like something out of a Western. The Gray Hills now come into view and are visible the rest of the way to Slide Lake, 22 miles in.
Red Tape, Camping, Link
There are no fees or permits required. Obey posted signs for private property. This is bear country (both black and grizzly), so know and follow the protocol for visiting bear country.
Along the Gros Ventre Road, you can stay at Atherton Creek, Red Hills, or Crystal Creek Campground. These sites charge $10 a night (that is as of July 2009), they have running water and pit toilets, and they have first-come, first-served sites only.
Dispersed camping is widely available unless expressly prohibited in a specific location. Follow regulations about fires and food storage.
Backcountry camping is free, and no permits are necessary.
Bridger-Teton National Forest | <urn:uuid:ca2ab734-f8a4-4faf-91c6-bd074b54353d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.summitpost.org/gray-hills/661368 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949306 | 1,271 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Congress Holds Hearings on Cloud Computing
Proponents of cloud computing Thursday gave members of Congress an update on federal initiatives designed to achieve cost-savings and make the computing model more secure for wider agency adoption. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Government Management, Organization, and Procurement held a hearing that allowed a panel of government officials and another panel from the private sector to speak and take questions.
The committee's interest in cloud computing reflected a new awareness within the legislative body of it's growing importance, although some members expressed skepticsm about how quickly cloud' computing might be adopted in the face of bureaucratic obstacles.
The Obama Administration is pushing for agencies to adopt the computing model when possible to achieve cost savings and information technology operation efficiencies.
"I'm a big fan of cloud computing, " said Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the committee's ranking minority member. "So don't have anything I say cause you to think that it is anything other than my fear of bureaucracy that causes me to sound like we're not going to get there as quick as we would like to."
Issa and other members of the panel, including its chairman, Edolphus Towns (D-NY) pressed federal officials to address some of the underlying assumptions driving the push to cloud computing. Couldn’t the federal government just move and manage physical servers to a virtualized environment like Congress did and still chip away at the $80 billion federal agencies spend on IT, freeing it up to be used for more innovative operations? Couldn't it do this without having to vet the fitness of a cloud provider?
"This is exactly what we are engaged in, " said Vivek Kundra, the federal Chief Information Officer and administrator for e-Government and Information technology with the Office of Management and Budget.
Federal information technology expenditures include about $20 billion annually on infrastructure such as routers, servers and switches, he said. In recognition of the enormous investment, the administration is making sure that agencies develop a detailed plan for data center consolidation, which has to be a part of the 2012 budget process, Kundra said.
Over the past decade, the government has increased its data centers from 432 to 1,100. Cloud computing can help make the most of data center capacity, Kundra noted.
"We don't want to consolidate to one place, so people can bring down all of federal IT," he said. "The goal is to make sure that there is enough geo-diversity to ensure security but make sure that data centers aren't popping up all over the country."
Some members also questioned the cost savings that some reports indicate can be achieved by agencies moving to the cloud, up to 50 percent by some estimates. David McClure, associate administrator with the General Services Administration's Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, warned against putting too much stock in such predictions.
"Cost savings will be dramatically different depending on the type of applications and the type of cloud environment we are putting solutions in, " he said. There can be savings in software development or storage costs because operations are running more efficiently, he said. He added that there are other benefits, including greater agility in meeting agency computing needs.
Cloud computing consists of a combination of third-party data centers, Internet Access and a pay-as-you-go subscription model, said Dan Burton, senior vice president of global public policy with Salesforce.com, a provider of software-as-a-service cloud solutions used by government agencies and the private sector.
But Burton argued against the "private cloud" approach that some agencies are considering as a compromise between efficiency and security. The real benefits come when multiple clients share a cloud approach, likening it to the economies many tenants enjoy in sharing the foundation, utilities and security controls operating independent offices in a skyscraper.
A single-tenant compute model -- the private cloud -- would require a minimum of two servers per application, plus additional servers for redundancy and disaster recovery, he noted.
Agencies are looking for more governmentwide guidance in implementing cloud computing, Gregory Wilshusen, director of information security issues with the Government Accountability Office said during his testimony.
Federal agencies have begun efforts to address information security issues for cloud computing but specific guidance is lacking and efforts remain incomplete, according to a GAO Report "Governmentwide Guidance Needed to Assist Agencies in Implementing Cloud Computing, ' released at the hearing.
Over the past month the federal government has unveiled initiatives such as the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, which will allows agencies using cloud providers to share security certifications. The National Institute of Standards and Technology in May announced Standards Acceleration to Jumpstart Adoption of Cloud, an initiative geared to support the adoption of new technology and standards for the cloud.
Rutrell Yasin is the senior technology editor of Government Computer News (GCN.com). | <urn:uuid:af4d2b7d-82fd-4765-8305-0660aee4ef8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redmondmag.com/articles/2010/07/02/congress-holds-hearings-on-cloud-computing.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944354 | 1,002 | 1.609375 | 2 |
There are unknown political candidates, and then there’s Alvin Greene, the winner of Tuesday’s Democratic U.S. primary in South Carolina. Local party leaders first heard about Greene, a 32-year-old unemployed U.S. Army veteran, when he showed up at their headquarters in March with a $10,400 check and told them he wanted to run for Senate. After he paid the filing fee, Greene disappeared. He missed the state party’s convention, raised no money, and did no campaigning that Democratic leaders knew of.
Yet somehow, in a stunning development, he got more than 100,000 votes in Tuesday’s primary, winning 59 percent of the vote and the right to run against Sen. Jim DeMint this fall. All of which begs the question, has a candidate like Greene ever won before?
Voters casting their lot in favor of someone they’ve never heard of is actually fairly common in low-key races, political scientists say, and the race to compete against a strong and well-funded Republican incumbent like DeMint qualifies as low-key. It’s also not as rare as one might think for obscure candidates to spend little to no money on their campaigns. Casino pit boss Robert Tingle spent so little in his doomed 2008 challenge to Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed that he’s not even listed in the Federal Election Commission’s campaign-finance database. “Almost every year there are one or two Senate challengers who raise no money,” says Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science at Emory University.
It’s also worth noting that Greene’s opponent in South Carolina, a judge and former state legislator named Vic Rawl, polled poorly among South Carolina Democrats last month: only 4 percent had a favorable opinion of him, while 82 percent were unsure, according to a May survey by Public Policy Polling. That’s a strong indication that many S.C. Democrats simply didn’t know who Rawl was either.
If that’s the case, then it’s anybody’s guess how the 100,000 or so folks who voted for Greene made their decision. Abramowitz said race can sometimes tip the balance in elections where voters don’t know much about the candidates. Indeed, Greene is black, Rawl is white, and there are many African-American voters among South Carolina Democrats. But it’s not clear that voters knew even that much about these two candidates when they stepped into the booth, and their photos were not on the ballot. We can also throw out the possibility that Greene got the votes because the ballot listed him as a veteran; candidates’ occupations are not listed on the ballot in South Carolina either.
More likely, voters were simply choosing based on an immediate reaction to the names they saw. Name recognition matters at the polls, after all. Look no further than the electoral success of Texas Democrat Gene Kelly, who shares a name with the late actor and who received more than 9 million votes in 14 elections without running much of a campaign. Greene may not have had that sort of name recognition, but his name was listed above Rawl’s on the ballot. “It is pretty well established that being first helps,” says Gary Jacobsen, political science professor at the University of California, San Diego.
Or perhaps voters chose based on their reaction to the names, which appeared as “Alvin M. Greene” and “Vic Rawl.” Maybe “Senator Greene” has a nicer ring than “Senator Rawl”?
For Greene, at least, relative obscurity is no longer his biggest problem. He was arrested in November for allegedly showing obscene Internet photos to a University of South Carolina student, according to the Associated Press. ABCNews says he was kicked out of the Army, too. Now three months after Greene gave them that $10,400 check, South Carolina Democrats have asked him to withdraw from the race. | <urn:uuid:75f6ce8d-185c-40fd-842a-65c83a06b1fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/06/10/how-a-greene-candidate-can-win.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979897 | 833 | 1.625 | 2 |
By PBN Staff
WARWICK – Exploration-stage mining company Sungro Minerals Inc. has established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Sungro Minerals Africa, the company announced Tuesday.
Departing from its previous domestic development efforts, Sungro created Sungro Minerals Africa to acquire mineral rights throughout the African continent.
According to the company, it has already had several promising and significant opportunities, although it did not give any specifics, and traveled to a unidentified country in May, at government invitation, to appraise potential opportunities.
A Sungro release said that the company was currently in negotiations to acquire various parcels and will update shareholders as future developments arise. | <urn:uuid:18f3458c-b012-422f-81e0-9daa29e841a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pbn.com/Sungro%20Minerals%20creates%20African%20subsidiary,70558 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958688 | 136 | 1.523438 | 2 |
"We have never been so close to having so many agree on so much. If anything was clear at the Copenhagen talks it's that the world is waiting for the U.S. to act. When it does, President Obama can knit together the historic breakthroughs obscured by the end of the Copenhagen meeting," said Fred Krupp, president of Environmental Defense Fund.
"The coalition of the willing that emerged today represents roughly 60 percent of the world's carbon emissions. It will undoubtedly be joined by others as 'low-carbon' becomes the new term of engagement in the global economy.
"A lot of hard work remains, but a lot of hard work is finished. "The new positive steps taken here, many of them by developing countries, present the U.S. Senate and President Obama with an historic opportunity.
"When most of the pieces of the puzzle are in place, it's much easier to add the missing ones later."
Enviroshop is maintained by dedicated NetSys Interactive Inc. owners & employees who generously contribute their time to maintenance & editing, web design, custom programming, & website hosting for Enviroshop. | <urn:uuid:94d4bb9a-4a67-4a03-b91e-75ccc80227ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enviroshop.com/wordpress/?p=7499 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972251 | 233 | 1.671875 | 2 |
09-24-2012 05:04 AM
I have recently read an article about Teamwork vs Individuality in multiplayer games and was wondering how the community feels Starhawk ranks on this scale.
Here's a sample of the article by Michael Parker :
Teamwork vs. Individuality
Some games are more at risk of teammate frustration than others. The biggest factor in whether teammates will get annoyed at each other is how reliant on their teammates players are, and therefore how much a player can accomplish on his own.
Every team-based multiplayer game sits somewhere different on the scale:
Teamwork wins <---------------------------------> Individual skill wins
Team-focused games include Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft arena. TF2 teams are closely tied together, with a medic healing their teammates, and their teammates protecting the medic. Once the medic dies, their teammates quickly fall. Similarly in World of Warcraft arena, healers must heal correctly, teammates must control the opponents at the right time and protect their healer. Teamwork is absolutely essential to success and without it individual players have no chance.
In Team-focused games, an organized team of unskilled players can beat a disorganized team of skilled players
Individual-focused games include Counter-Strike and Call of Duty. One person can kill the entire enemy team, without any support from his teammates. One good bullet to the head can kill each player. If you're good at these games, you can join a server and get a great personal score, no matter who you're playing with. Having a good team obviously helps (and at the highly competitive end, teamwork can become essential to win), but compared to other team-based games, individuals can really shine on their own.
In Individual-focused games, a disorganized team of skilled players will beat an organized team of unskilled players
There are advantages to both design directions:
Individual-focused games - Advantages:
Team-focused games - Advantages:
Generally, if you are making an individual-focused game, you'll have less problems with teammates shouting at each other. However, the design challenge is creating and keeping team-focused mechanics without introducing teammate frustration, so you keep all the benefits of teamwork without bad teammates ruining your gameplay experience.
So how does Starhawk rank on this scale for you personally? I have my own opinions but I would like to hear from the community on how the current game mechanic in Starhawk relates to this article.
Please read the full blog post from the link provided at the top of this message.
09-24-2012 05:21 AM - edited 09-24-2012 05:39 AM
great use of onther thread to put here.
i like the team aspects due to the game is longer lived and the memories are better then what i done and living in your mind od what you did and being self centered (my thoughts not to over generalized for everyone please) maybe i need to be playing warcraft, anyhow this is where i find starhawk lacking, thus far my experience is of a single player game related as you pointed out and not much of a team player game (though it offers that aspect) a team can dominate the starhawk world but who would they play? everyone is so involved in doing their own thing, if it was one way or the other type of game (single player or team player) instead of both the frustrations to the game might be lessor, even in call of duty if you are not very good you can have fun hiding and trying to survive in starhawk you have no place to hide and enjoy playing by not being the best player on the feild, in starhawk if your good at the use of the contoller and your fingers it's a great game no real battle war stratagie needed.
i rate starhawk as upper scale of single player game able to win from a hawk on your own, and if your this guy making headshots your having a great time, if your hiding trying not to get the headshot your having fun also, but starhawk gives no place to hide so enters frustration and a short lived game player if you are the lower skilled players.
i rate it on the lower scale of being a team game due to the ability to win with no team help or cooperation, if it was a team game you would hear more team involvment and stratagy in the game, not the case here, in the end you don't here team talk on the forum that much either. what you here alot of in forums is /CAMPERS NOT PLAYING LIKE A TEAM///BASE RAVEGING WITH A HAWK. neither one of these comments is team related or what a team would say to other team mates, a team enviroment is not here in the forums or on the playing feild, read the forum and listen to the mics and you'll see people with headset's on and not communicating like a team it's more like --you got me--alot of cursing--hearing breathing and no one is really saying any team stuff?
09-24-2012 05:26 AM
09-24-2012 06:07 AM
09-24-2012 06:25 AM - edited 09-24-2012 06:27 AM
If these games were balanced and we had old CTF back along with the new patch then there would be huge incentives to win together. In Warhawk, yes yes, the best games I come by are the ones where I am trying to lead a bunch of newer players, along with a decent amount of generals, to at least try to win and work together. It worked very well last week.
I don't play often but when I see a bunch of Suga guys and some old friends the games usually heat up a lot more. I think taking 1st and BARELY winning the game are the best moments I have in that game and to a much much lesser extent this game. Being an individual of course has its perks and I do agree with you there but in no way are those games more memorable than the ones where I have an entire team doing their part and talking on the mic. It has come to the point I don't even want to play team based games if there are no mics. It's boring and too quiet for my liking and I don't see the point at my age. Team based wins are where the love is at.
09-24-2012 06:47 AM
09-24-2012 07:28 AM
I agree with many of the points everyone has posted so far and IMO Starhawk finds that perfect niche between the two extremes of Teamwork and Individuality. When LBi finally (hopefully) fixes the team balance to recognize a players skillscore rank and emblem instead of just their level and if Sony wises up(unlikely) to create official servers then the game will be better for the entire community.
One thing that encourages people to stay on their mics is when trash talking and little kids screams are at a minumum.Teamwork is also increased when people get into of the mindset that completing an objective or taking down an outlying enemy base takes precedence( sorry if I mispelled) over their KDR, unless playing TDM /(I'm leering at you CTF mode) | <urn:uuid:b003df4d-2c31-4ac6-9a7f-394ebb432d5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://community.us.playstation.com/t5/Starhawk-General/Teamwork-vs-Individuality-In-Starhawk/td-p/38351595 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968368 | 1,500 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Why FAU Blocks E-mail from Facebook9/8/2006
Update: FAU is no longer blocking e-mail from Facebook (8/28/2007)
FAU has blocked e-mail from Facebook due to the high volume of unsolicited messages that come from that site. The University considers messages likely to be spam if they are sent from a single address to many FAU users or if there is an extremely high volume of mail from a single source.
In order to set up an account on Facebook you must provide your University e-mail address. Facebook then sends an email to your University e-mail account with a link that you must click on to confirm your registration. Until you have confirmed your registration you cannot log into the account. According to Facebook, this issue can be resolved by sending a message to [email protected] from your University e-mail address (this is required for security purposes). The message must include your University e-mail address in the subject line and you should then provide them with a different contact e-mail address in your message. | <urn:uuid:caefd6a9-5aa8-4735-8b41-b2d5c9addd61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fau.edu/oit/hottopics/topics/facebook_block.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933369 | 220 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Samsung’s early involvement with Windows 8 tablets suggests that the South Korea-based consumer electronics giant intends to play a big role in the launch of the new OS — early Windows 8 tablet prototypes supplied by Microsoft to the press for review were built by Samsung — so it should come as no surprise that Samsung is already prepping a Windows RT slate. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg reported recently that Samsung has plans to be among the first to launch a tablet powered by the upcoming stripped-down version of Microsoft’s next-generation operating system. Samsung will launch a Windows RT tablet as soon as Microsoft’s new OS debuts in October according to the report, and it will be powered by a Qualcomm processor. No other details regarding the device’s hardware were provided. Read the full story at Boy Genius Report.
Samsung prepping Windows RT tablet for October launch, report claims
Author: Shelly Palmer
Shelly Palmer is Fox 5 New York's On-air Tech Expert (WNYW-TV) and the host of Fox Television's monthly show Shelly Palmer Digital Living. He also hosts United Stations Radio Network's, Shelly Palmer Digital Living Daily, a daily syndicated radio report that features insightful commentary and a unique insiders take on the biggest stories in technology, media, and entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group, LLC an industry-leading advisory and business development firm and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). | <urn:uuid:3be02832-06a7-42b8-86ed-759ea40937c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shellypalmer.com/2012/07/samsung-prepping-windows-rt-tablet-for-october-launch-report-claims/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931247 | 315 | 1.554688 | 2 |
By Lawrence Hurley and Jonathan Stempel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Supreme Court refused a request on Monday to consider widening its landmark 2010 decision loosening restrictions on campaign finance by corporations.
In a brief order, the court rejected the appeal of William Danielczyk and Eugene Biagi, two Virginia businessmen who were charged with criminally circumventing federal election laws through their support of the 2006 Senate and 2008 presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton.
The case touched on the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which allowed corporations to engage in political spending through independent campaign groups in candidate elections.
In the case the justices acted on Monday, the two men sought to enable direct financing of candidates by corporations. The court offered no explanation for its decision not to take the case.
The two men are accused of causing Galen Capital Group LLC and Galen Capital Corp, two investment banks where they were officers, to use corporate funds to reimburse dozens of employees for donations to Clinton's campaigns, including $156,400 for the 2008 campaign.
The case arose on appeal while the criminal case is still pending because the men are challenging one of the counts on the indictment.
The two men said the ban on direct campaign contributions by corporations violated the free-speech protections of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Last week, the court agreed to hear a separate campaign finance case on whether to lift caps on the total amount individuals may contribute to candidates and committees in federal elections over the two-year election cycle.
The case the court declined to hear on Monday is Danielczyk et al v. U.S., U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-579.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Howard Goller and David Brunnstrom) | <urn:uuid:ba0a6586-2d9a-4692-b857-9e175f368cb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whbl.com/news/articles/2013/feb/25/justices-decline-to-hear-campaign-finance-case/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94133 | 371 | 1.554688 | 2 |
(Globe staff photo by Tom Herde)
The Peace Abbey, born of a pacifist's dream 19 years ago, has brought the inner hum of meditation and the occasionally harsh spotlight of international attention to this small, affluent town.
It is a place where a conspicuous bronze statue of Gandhi and a memorial to a runaway cow have prompted double-takes from motorists and passersby. It is also a multi-faith retreat that Mother Teresa has visited, as have Muhammad Ali, the poet Maya Angelou, nuns of the Dalai Lama , and thousands of people seeking spiritual refreshment.
But now, the abbey has been put on the selling block for $5.5 million. Its director, Lewis Randa, cites a plummeting drop in donations that he links to the abbey's visible protests against the Iraq war.
Randa, who was discharged from the Army National Guard as a conscientious objector in 1971, wants to sell the abbey's two buildings and 3 acres to what he calls a "guardian angel," a benefactor or foundation that would allow the abbey to continue its work. But if no such buyer is found by mid year, he said, even commercial buyers will be considered.
"My biggest fear, and I can envision it, is that the memorials will be bulldozed, and it would become a parking lot for whatever offices would go in that front building," Randa said.
In any event, Randa added, "we will be forced within the next four or five months to sell this property."
Read more about the financial challenge faced by the Peace Abbey in today's Globe.
-- Brian MacQuarrie
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it. | <urn:uuid:4ad125e6-3d59-40e0-84ab-b905a9e3ea71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/regional_editions/globe_west/west/2007/03/financial_turmo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966031 | 354 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Jun 25,2007 00:00
The Oregon House of Representatives on Saturday approved a measure to rein in the high cost of health care for low- and middle-income Oregonians without health insurance. The bill, HB 3088, will require hospitals to charge their uninsured patients the same amount for care as they charge those patients who are covered by insurance.
“No one chooses to go uninsured,” said House Speaker Jeff Merkley (D-Portland). “But if you lose your job, and then lose your health insurance, a minor medical emergency can turn into a major financial catastrophe.”
Hospital prices routinely exceed the actual cost of providing services to uninsured patients. In Oregon, the average “sticker price” charged by hospitals for providing services is twice the actual cost. Because health insurers can negotiate lower prices, that leaves the highest medical bills to those who can least afford them.
“It makes no sense to charge the most to those who can least afford it,” Merkley said.
Nearly one in every six Oregonians has no health insurance. Without regular medical care, those patients often wait until a problem is too painful or difficult to bear, and then seek care at a hospital emergency room. And for uninsured patients, catastrophic medical conditions are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States.
“Oregonians should not fear going to the hospital because it might bankrupt them,” Merkley said. “This ensures hospital charges are the same for uninsured patients as they are for those with Medicare and private insurance. This is about standing up for the little guy.”
House Bill 3088 was approved on a party-line vote, 31-26. It proceeds now to the Senate for consideration. The House and Senate are scheduled for final adjournment on June 29th. | <urn:uuid:9e044d49-c4e2-4322-815b-4847334f6f03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bendweekly.com/print/7624.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952677 | 377 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Andy Bachman, senior rabbi of the Reform Beth Elohim in Brooklyn always has smart things to say at his blog, Water Over Rocks. I saw this post from him this morning about the Reform excision of the second paragraph of the Shma. Here’s part of it:
In Reform Judaism, for the better part of the last century, Reform Jews have recited the Shma while standing as a public expression of faith, doctrine, pronounced creed. And Reform prayerbooks have, additionally, eliminated from the liturgy the paragraph following the Shma (the original Torah text of which appears in next week’s Torah portion) mostly because in its articulation of why one ought to observe God’s commandments, there is an explicit articulation of the Biblical doctrine of reward and punishment, to wit, if you follow My commandments, I will give rain in its proper season, God warns; but if you don’t, the earth you hope to cultivate for sustenance will not yield its fruit in its proper season.
It’s always struck me as a regrettable loss that the early Reformers excised such ideas, depriving generations of Reform Jews the opportunity to engage prayer and Torah text as metaphor, and especially in our own day with fears and threats of global warming, of engaging the notion of how we treat the earth with a sense of the sacred. | <urn:uuid:5d7eccc0-8926-41f0-b60d-6babbb32982c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://davidsaysthings.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/andy-bachman-strikes-again-regrettable-that-reform-truncated-shma/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950437 | 283 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Kenneth L. Brigham
Hard Bargains: Life Lessons From Prostate CancerA Love Story (Harpeth House Publishing, $10.95 paperback, available from www.harpethhouse.com)
While known in medical circles for his groundbreaking articles detailing his discoveries in gene therapy for lung ailments, Dr. Kenneth Brigham began his first publication for the mass public with these three words: “I have cancer.”
With that simple, declarative sentence, at age 56 Brigham began chronicling a battle against prostate cancer that forever changed him physically and personally. At the time, he didn’t realize he was writing for anyone other than himself, but what originated as a personal journal at its May 10, 1996, inception has recently emerged as a 96-page book entitled Hard Bargains: Life Lessons From Prostate CancerA Love Story. It’s a frank, compelling, humorous, and horrifying look at the third deadliest cancer in men of all ages.
“I wrote it more to help me deal with this experience and to keep me from denying stuff that I had not really resolved,” says Brigham, now 61. “I was just trying to write exactly what I was feeling at the time I was writing it. It was only several years after all of that, that I went back and read it and thought it might help somebody else.”
Brigham stresses that his experiences should be of interest to anyone facing a potentially fatal illness. “It’s a real experience that a real person had with a life-threatening disease; I don’t think it’s specific to prostate cancer. It’s important too for people to know that they aren’t the first one and they can get over it.
“The fact that I am a reasonably well-adjusted person, and a doctor, gives a message too. Cancer plays no favorites. The human issues that are raised are the same no matter who you are. It doesn’t matter where you are in the socioeconomic spectrum when you are presented with a life-threatening crisis. The responses are common; we are all in it together.”
Now cancer-free for five years, this highly regarded doctordirector of the Center for Lung Research at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the Ralph and Lulu Owen Professor of Pulmonary Diseasesspends his days researching lung illnesses at his Vanderbilt University School of Medicine office. His office decor suggests his split personality: Clad in a subdued gray suit and black sweater, he faces a staid black bookcase holding dry, cumbersome medical journals. Yet he sits in a mustard-yellow leather chair and is surrounded by colorful paintings by his close friend, Nashville artist Myles Maillie. Brigham is a serious respiratory researcher, but he’s also a genteel and sophisticated connoisseur of art, martinis, travel, and food. Like a veteran scientist, he speaks slowly and deliberately, almost in a monotone. It’s as if he’s not eager to offer a glimpse into his life outside the office.
But in his book, the East Nashville native shares every thought, memory, and fear that accompanied his journey to survival. Hard Bargains explores his treatment options, from doing nothing to undergoing external radiation to his ultimate choice: radical prostatectomy. “This is ‘the operation,’ ” he writes. “Bob Dole had it. Marion Barry had it.” He details the medical procedures in easy-to-understand language, and he also addresses who must be told about this disease and when.
Before undergoing surgery, Brigham was faced with a number of pressing matters that had to fall by the wayside. He was being hounded by a publisher for overdue chapters of a medical volume he was editing; he was planning a dinner for a visiting faculty member; he faced endless budget questions, faculty and fellowship appointments, and data to review. He had to cancel a scheduled talk in Aspen. In addition, he was in the midst of establishing geneRx+, a new biotech company. “And I have cancer,” he writes in response to all of this, “and the only reasonably sure cure will make me impotent.”
On May 30, 1996, the doctor became a hospital patient when a medical student informed him, “You are on the pathway”a reference to the medical world’s increased focus on efficiency.
“I really hated being a patient,” he says. “It’s terrible. But I had no inclination to go try to become the world’s expert on prostate cancer and be my own doctor. If so, I would have a fool for a patient. I wanted a good doctor who knew what he was doing, and I was totally willing and anxious to have him make decisions. I didn’t like being the patient, but I didn’t want to be the doctor.”
For the first time, Brigham discovered that his lifelong career was terrible preparation for being a patient. His modesty was compromised, and he was disturbed in the middle of the night by what he considered unnecessary blood-pressure and temperature checks. “I hate the surly nurse’s aid who takes my vital signs and am inclined to tell him so,” he writes. “I am so annoyed by the parade of patronizing interns and residents who take a woefully inadequate history and listen to my chest perfunctorily through the hospital gown. I hate the hospital gowns, which always have the ties missing so that your ass is never covered.”
Despite these annoyances, the surgery was nothing compared to the recovery. “It strips you of all of your pretenses,” he says. “You feel old and ugly and unattractive and unlovable. So all of those things you build up to seduce people into loving you are all taken away. It really does force you into focusing on the substance of your relationship.”
His first post-surgery bowel movement received cheers from his medical peers; he quickly developed a ritual for emptying his catheter bag. But perhaps surprisingly, incontinence, not impotence, was the most distressing side effect. “The fact that I am incompetent is the center of my life,” he writes. “Dare I get up to get the book on the dresser across the room and risk the nauseating and uncomfortable sensation of urine rushing down my urethra? Do I have an incontinence pad with enough capacity to be able to walk a block to a restaurant for lunch...?”
Brigham says he is frequently complimented on his bravery for discussing his illness. “I don’t fully understand that, because I don’t think it was an act of bravery to publish this,” he says. “People say, ‘How could you talk about impotence and incontinence to the world?’ But these are medical issues. They are things that occur. I didn’t feel like a lesser person in the eyes of anybody who reads the book.”
The doctor may write powerfully about overcoming incontinence and impotence, but this isn’t the centerpiece of the book. As he reveals, life goes on, no matter what. And thank goodness. He captures the joy of hearing a song by local blues singer Celinda Pink, the excitement of looking at a new building design from local architect Manuel Zeitlin, the rush of driving his Porsche. Perhaps the most lasting description is of the enviable, loving relationship he has with his wife Arlene, a Vanderbilt pediatrician.
“When you are faced with a life-threatening crisis, keep your sense of humor and deal with the cards you are dealt. But there can be some very positive things. I wouldn’t choose to have prostate cancer to be a better person,” he says with a laugh, “but having been dealt that card, I think that it can have some very positive effects on the way you look at life.
“I call [the book] a love story. It’s a love story because of Arlene, but it’s a love story about life too. It makes you appreciate things that it’s not easy to register. It makes you pay attention.”
Cancer made Brigham reexamine his own life, which led to his resignation from an administrative post at Vanderbilt Medical Center about two years ago. With these demands off his to-do list, he now focuses solely on research, which is what he has determined to be the best use of his gifts. He has learned to strive to be ordinary. “I spent most of my life wanting to be special, exceptional,” he says. “I came to realize that it’s not what you want, really. You don’t want to be special; you want to share your humanity with your fellow humans. That is what you really want, because if you are special, you are alone.”
Human beings are making such extraordinary demands on the environment that the natural cycles can…
I dunno--I thought of it as Wrath of Khan meets Groundhog Day, writ over 300…
They took all the trees
And put them in a tree museum
And they charged…
Another great work by Hannah Kahn
My name is Eve
Why does joining a cult have to look so pretty, but be so ugly? | <urn:uuid:c166649f-0e9f-4727-a823-c56bec7af354> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/healing-words/Content?oid=1186150 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978906 | 1,987 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Bully in a China shop
Kenji Fujimoto was accepted into Kim Jong-il's inner circle during a 13-year stint serving North Korea's first family. The Japanese sushi chef gives Julian Ryall his take on the communist dynasty'...
They're so helpful, aren't they? Willing to take in blind dissidents or runaway policemen, without a thought for themselves. Keen to offer endless advice on economic management, even though most of it doesn't work. And always enthusiastic to make friends with the neighbours, and not just the troublesome ones.
Since US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton laid out her new foreign policy agenda at the end of last year, America's diplomats and politicians have been stomping across Asia like bulls clattering through a porcelain factory.
This is to be 'America's Pacific Century', says Clinton, throwing down the gauntlet to Beijing. As relations between China and America have shifted, it has become clear how much there is to play for. At stake is not just a power play on the world's stage for political influence and military reach. There is also rivalry for resources, as demand for the world's oil, water, copper, zinc and many other raw materials begins to exceed supply.
Even more vital, America's posturing in Asia is about political and economic ideology. 'The future of politics will be decided in Asia,' Clinton said in a speech last November, promising that 'the United States will be right at the centre of the action'. The battle is not just about who runs the world, but how they choose to run it.
After years of being shunned, Myanmar is suddenly in play, with the promise of sanctions being lifted as long as the generals change course and opt for the free-market, democratic model. This change has little to do with America wanting to shine a beacon of freedom into the dark Myanmese undergrowth, however. It is mainly about muddying China's geopolitical waters. China has been building vital strategic gas and oil pipelines across Myanmar to Yunnan. It has gained access to many of Myanmar's resources and won contracts to build dams and other infrastructure projects. All these plans are now in jeopardy.
Similarly, America's diplomats have been only too happy to offer temporary sanctuary to Bo Xilai's renegade police chief, Wang Lijun, and human rights activist Chen Guangcheng .
America's military have merrily carried out manoeuvres with the Philippines, strengthened ties with Vietnam, announced a new base in Australia and talked of selling their latest weapons technology to Taiwan.
Timothy Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, has even said the US is now 'willing' to open up its markets to China if Beijing makes progress on its economics homework. America's verdict on pupil China: could do better.
To fix more than a decade of Asian diplomatic neglect, America has adopted a 'shock and awe' approach in the past six months, in an effort to change minds and hearts quickly.
Beijing, which seems more frustrated than angry by this sudden hike in belligerence, has responded little so far, saying only that America is 'endangering peace' by its actions. It sees itself as a victim of US hypocrisy - again.
And, for sure, the hypocrisy is staggering. The US has a dreadful human rights record. It imprisons people for years without trial. It assassinates those it claims to be terrorists, and makes the decisions to kill them without independent judicial review. It promotes a democratic system where only the rich can get elected and where policies are manipulated by big business. It is plagued by obesity, criminality and poverty. The free-market economic model it forces down everyone's throat has brought it to the edge of bankruptcy, with liabilities larger than any other country on earth. The gap between rich and poor is one of the largest in the developed world. America also prints money, manipulating the value of its currency.
And it is not even very free. In the press freedom index put together by Reporters Without Borders, America ranks 47th, five places behind Botswana.
America is playing a dangerous game as well as a hypocritical one. Instead of offering leadership, it is providing arrogance and unilateralism. And, despite the apparent views of many US politicians and diplomats, China does not just have to sit there and take it.
Beijing is a huge buyer of US government bonds, helping to finance America's massive budget deficit. China supplies a vast array of goods which the US would find impossible to buy elsewhere at any similar cost. A little more friction and the US could quickly find that Chinese-exported inflation and product shortages could punch the wind out of its uncertain recovery.
Hundreds of the biggest US companies are heavily invested in China, with billions of dollars of assets, and lots of technology, potentially at risk. America's new policy is also driving China closer to its rivals, in South America, with the government in Iran and with political leaders in parts of Africa.
The tone America has set during the past six months is all the more troubling for the rest of us, when there are global and regional issues to be addressed, such as climate change, economic recovery and financial regulation. We need the two world powers to co-operate. Right now, they are on a collision course.
Graeme Maxton is an economist and author | <urn:uuid:eceff8a4-5f29-4d6a-a357-1aa1389dfdb7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scmp.com/article/999905/bully-china-shop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964108 | 1,094 | 1.632813 | 2 |
A court ruling that a spouse’s lottery winnings were not ‘matrimonial property’ so were not subject to the usual rule of equal division between the spouses when the marriage broke up received much publicity recently.
The normal rule on divorce is that matrimonial property (assets built up during the marriage) is to be divided equally. Non-matrimonial property (normally assets brought into the marriage or inherited by one party during the marriage) is not subject to the equality principle.
Although this case has been seized upon by some commentators to mean that if you win the lotto you can part from your spouse or civil partner and be sure of retaining your winnings, the reality is not so clear-cut.
The case was decided by Mr Justice Mostyn. Neither party was legally represented, neither spoke English and the precedent case law stemmed from Australia.
In 1999, the wife and a friend won £1 million in a lottery and this they divided equally. She apparently did not tell her husband about her good fortune, but did use the money to buy them a house.
The couple’s marriage appears to have been in difficulty for some years before divorce proceedings were commenced, and they were divorced in 2006.
The court hearing was to determine the financial settlement between them. Both have low-paying jobs and the husband is nearing retirement. On the basis of needs, the judge ordered the wife to pay her ex-husband £85,000.
The facts in this case were highly unusual and it may well be that a different conclusion would be reached in different circumstances.
Click here for guidance on divorce and money. | <urn:uuid:705eef37-841a-426d-845f-24b7d4ed1e3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blacklawsdavis.co.uk/site/library/legalnews/lotto_win_not_part_of_family_assets.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988918 | 336 | 1.835938 | 2 |
There’s a chapter in the John Piper devotional that I’ve been reading called “God Is Not Boring.” I read it and was so struck by it that I read it again the next day… and again the next day. I started underlining things, but soon found that I wanted underline everything.
What I love about the chapter is that he very simply puts into words what I have been trying to wrap my head around… my life around for a while. I fear that writing out my favorite parts will be some kind of copyright problem, since I pretty much want to share the whole chapter. So, think of this more as a commercial for the book. Go buy it and see for yourself why I believe that the 22nd century, if it comes, will remember John Piper as one of the greatest heros of the 21st century.
Here are a few lines from the chapter that stand out to me:
One of the great duties of the Christian mind is imagination.
…I say that imagination is a Christian duty for two reasons. One is that you can’t apply Jesus’ golden rule without it… Compassionate, sympathetic, helpful love hangs much on the imagination of the lover…
The other reason I say that imagination is a Christian duty is that when a person speaks or writes or sings or paints about breathtaking truth in a boring way, it is probably a sin. The supremacy of God in the life of the mind is not honored when God and His amazing world are observed truly, analyzed duly, and communicated boringly…
Imagination is the faculty of the mind that God has given us to make the communication of His beauty beautiful.
Don’t mistake what I’m saying. Poets and painters and preachers don’t make God’s beauty more beautiful. They make it more visible… They cut through the dull fog of our finite, fallible, sin-distorted perception, and help us see God’s beauty for what it really is. Imagination is like a telescope to the stars: It doesn’t make them big. They are big without the telescope. It makes them look like what they are.
…Imagination is also contagious. When you are around someone (alive or dead) who uses it a lot, you tend to catch it. So I suggest that you hang out with some people ( mainly dead poets) who are full of imagination, and that you exert yourself to think of a new way to say an old truth. God is worthy…
What do you think? | <urn:uuid:5de7c99a-f48a-4d8b-baab-d6fab2356095> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.therieslands.com/author/zack/page/169/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958629 | 538 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The alarm is set for 5am. Ahead is the most challenging road of our journey. We leave Juba, tracking east into Kenya. The road will be rough and hot. Water will be scarce. It may rain turning road to river. Eastern South Sudan and northern Kenya are no man’s lands where the nation state is more an idea than something put into practice. Cattle raiding is common. Primary education isn’t.
The pavement resumes in Lodwar, capital of Kenya’s Rift Valley province, about 370 miles from Juba. We hope to be there in six days, but the desert sun and terrible road conditions may force us to shorten days. We may have to bush camp. We will be forced to be self sufficient. Everyday we will start with 20 liters, about 50 pounds, of water and enough food for two days. It’s going to be a challenge.
Luckily, the past couple days have been energizing. We came into Juba encrusted in sweat and starving. We found fellowship with Ryan and Kristen who work in South Sudan with Mission Aviation Fellowship, who help people by flying over the rotted roads. (Much more sensible than bicycling…) Though they have a ten month old son, Caleb, and we were disheveled dirty strangers, they took us in and gave us food and internet and showers. Much can be said how South Sudan lacks comfort and security and yet here in Juba there is a family that can only be described as loving.
We have been surprised how similar so much of Africa seems. A photo of a roadside store in Zimbabwe would be indistinguishable from one of South Sudan. Ahead of us lie the peoples of Lake Turkana. We’re excited to see how the tribal societies compare. We’re also intimidated by reports from last month warning of banditry. I’m curious to see how well I can maintain my health in such adverse conditions. My feet and knee are covered in umpteen dozen red spots. (Bug bites???) By the time we’re back on a road proper, we’ll find ourselves in the Great Rift Valley, the birthplace of mankind.
For more photos of our travels through South Sudan, check out our Google+ Album.
(Though we may be in one of the world’s least developed lands, we do embrace the most developed photo viewing techniques.) | <urn:uuid:5df91b86-ec03-4233-9020-fbc76d31bbe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toaddis.com/tag/biking/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94503 | 495 | 1.664063 | 2 |
A lot of people are left wondering what happened to their once great relationship that they had with a person they truly loved. It is also not impossible to see two people who are deep in love with each other but they are always constantly fighting each other or arguing about the smallest issues. A lot of relationships are built on love but it is also good to note that it takes more than love to maintain a relationship. It requires the effort of the parties involved to keep the relationship going. This is why it is good to be aware of the different ways of managing personal relationships in order for them to last.
Among the best ways of managing personal relationships is by being honest as well as being open with each other. Honesty is the best policy in each relationship and it is important to have an open and honest relationship. This is the only way after all that you can be able to trust each other completely. Honesty enables one to learn your true personality and adjust him/her self in order to accommodate you in their lives. It is however easy for one to be honest but not open to the partner. This happens when one partner is not comfortable in talking about some certain topics and to get this, you need to be patient with your partner.
Another way of managing personal relationships is by understanding that every relationship is based on give and take. What this means is that it takes both of you to work on the relationship if it is to last. Therefore you should be ready to sacrifice some of the things that you love in order to accommodate the other person and vice versa. A good example of this is when partners are fighting. Instead of both of you raising your voice trying to get some points across, you can instead cool off and let your partner talk so that you can reach an understanding. It is never a good idea to fight fire with fire.
Ways of managing personal relationships is being aware that all relationships will be faced with difficult moments. A lot of people especially young couples believe that relationship re about the happy times only but this is not the case. In any relationship, you should be able to face both good and bad tomes together. It is very normal to get into a fight with your loved one. What this shows is that you are both normal human beings and this will also test your patience and your true intentions of the relationship. When you are involved in a fight, do not give up but rather try to resolve it and move forward. When you understand that nobody is perfect you will be able to take their weaknesses and yours and try to work with them. This is the only way you will be able to have a healthy relationship that is honest, true and worth your effort and time.
Vacation is the best way to a smooth and healthy relationship. Surprise your loved one with a well planned holiday. Decide a destination, book your tickets, get insurance to cover injury or sickness, arrange for your stay and travel within the city, research the best places for sightseeing , shopping and all that you can do.Just the best way to say ‘you are so important and special to me’
All human beings always seem to have prejudice in one way or the other. We all seem to have a certain way of doing things that is probably only characteristic to us alone and this would at times not be alright with certain people who we get to interact with in our day to day activities. When our ways of doing things or handling a certain group of issues are not in sync then there is a very high likelihood for us to get into misunderstandings which would most likely get one party into feeling despised.
This is certainly not the best of feelings for one to have. We all need freedom from prejudice every place we go to and all the time. We need people to respect our way of doing things, our beliefs and values, and so on and so forth. Some people would always despise against certain religions in which they do not belong. This is actually very wrong, as we would not want any person to talk ill of our religion or think negatively about it.
Prejudice at places of work normally have a very negative effect in the sense that they affect teamwork. People who look down upon a certain group of colleagues at the work place would certainly not welcome whole heartedly the idea of working with them for whatever reason. This would as well affect the aspect of sharing especially across departments.
This would then affect the performance of the various departments of the company that have been affected by prejudice and this would certainly be felt when the overall performance of the company is being reviewed or something like that. Freedom from prejudice will certainly make every employee of an organization feel at ease and perform their duties to the best of their abilities. | <urn:uuid:ae9205b4-7b76-43df-95a8-07f8113e1f73> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.interweavecontinental.org/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980385 | 956 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The former owners of this week’s featured home, a 1799 house in the heart of the East Village in Georgetown, are like a Who’s Who of American history.
John Laird, a wealthy tobacco warehouse owner, had the house built and lived there until 1833. His daughter and sister-in-law remained in the home until 1873. Another daughter, Barbara, inherited the house and stayed there until 1915. Her husband, James Dunlop, was a law partner of Francis Scott Key and had been the chief justice of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia until President Abraham Lincoln removed him from office for being a Southern sympathizer.
In 1915, the home was sold to Lincoln’s oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, who served as secretary of war and as ambassador to England. His family remained in the home until 1936, when it was bought by the granddaughter of J.P. Morgan, Helen Burgess, who also was a direct descendant of Alexander Hamilton. Burgess separated the coach house from the rest of the property and added a ballroom for proper entertaining.
Arnold Sagalyn of Eliot Ness’s “Untouchables” law enforcement team and his wife bought the home in 1984 and remained there until 2004, when it was bought by the seller.
Eileen McGrath of Washington Fine Properties, who, along with Jamie Peva, is a listing agent for the property, said one of the four boundary stones that marked the borders of Georgetown when it was formed in 1751 is in the home’s back yard.
The 8,094-square-foot, three-level home has five bedrooms, six full bathrooms and two half-baths, a ballroom/living room, a gourmet kitchen, a maple paneled library, a theater, a wine cellar, and an outdoor heated pool and cabana. It is on the market for $8.995 million.
Listing: 1248 30th St. NW
Last week’s House of the Week
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Like us on Facebook | <urn:uuid:25dded2d-fdb4-450c-86d9-0eece74f742f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/where-we-live/post/a-georgetown-home-for-8995m/2012/07/26/gJQAY7JMCX_blog.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970759 | 462 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Abdullahi An-Na‘im’s Islam and the Secular State has rightfully received a great deal of attention and commentary. A prominent Muslim scholar and human rights activist, he brings to bear an impressive scholarship and candor in addressing a pivotal and hotly contested issue in contemporary Islam. Although An-Na‘im wishes to present his views from within the Islamic tradition, he also states early on that his arguments are not exegetical in nature and therefore do not aim to interpret traditional Islamic sources such as Qur’an, hadith, tafsir, or legal theory (usul al-fiqh). Rather, An-Na‘im desires to provide an “interpretative framework” upon which more substantive arguments and analysis can be built in the future. This reliance on theory rather than on textual sources or theology is flawed if one expects to foster broad-based reform rather than be read and celebrated by a small elite Muslim and non-Muslim readership. [...]
Islam and the Secular State
Islam and The Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari`a is avowedly didactic, aiming to persuade Muslims in public debate that constitutional rule of law, human rights and democratic citizenship in a secular state represent the only form of political regime consistent with Islam in the modern world. Despite lengthy and repetitious exposition of the notions of democratic constitutionalism, “civic reason,” citizenship and human rights, An-Na`im fails in his explicit purpose of justifying and legitimizing them in Islamic terms, which appear somewhat incidentally and do not carry the primary charge of justification. In this regard, his preaching can only have an effect on those already converted.
I am grateful for the kind and thoughtful comments posted at The Immanent Frame about Islam and the Secular State. It is fascinating and instructive to see a text grow to have a life of its own, with some readers adding clarification and more effective communication of what one is attempting to say. Even misunderstanding is helpful in alerting an author to the risks of miscommunication, instead of assuming that people do understand what we say as we mean it. Indeed, it is the combination of the author’s purpose and the reader’s comprehension that determines what is actually communicated. It is that complex outcome unfolding over time, and not an author’s unilateral theorizing, that can make “a good theory,” for according to Kurt Lewin’s helpful insight, “there is nothing so practical as a good theory.” In this light, I offer the following reflections in the spirit of contributing to a process of collaborative theory-making. [...]
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im’s erudite and thought-provoking book Islam and The Secular State provides a clear-sighted argument made from within the Islamic tradition for a state formation that allows Islamic beliefs and culture to enter the public domain through politics (as one of many rationally contested visions) and thereby influence the laws of the land. The keys to An-Na’im’s vision are Islamic morality and civic reason, both of which, in his interpretation, ensure a shared respect for constitutionalism, citizenship and human rights, and a neutral, secular state that provides an even playing field for public debate and makes sure that non-democratic instincts are kept in check. An-Na’im’s utopian vision stumbles here, however, in failing to provide any mechanisms for achieving its desired outcomes beyond good will, morality, and reason. [...]
What is interesting about An-Na`im’s arguments is that they ground the case for the secular state not in the Quran, not in claims about the presence of the imago Dei in the person or in some other source of the person’s intrinsic dignity, not in natural law, some closely similar type of practical reason, or universal moral precepts, but rather in what might be called “second order” observations about the phenomenology of belief, the character of government, the lessons of history, and the like. To be sure, good reasons for the secular state lie therein. But are these arguments sufficient to ground an Islamic case for constitutionalism, human rights, and the secular state? I doubt it.
The separation—and combination—of religion and state have created almost as many configurations as there are states in the world today. All sorts of institutional and normative orders have emerged out of the struggle and cooperation of state and religious forces. Even in the United States, with its purported strict separation of state and religion and its constitutional prohibition against the state’s establishment of any single religion, all sorts of complicated relationships have existed, from the status of Christmas as an official state holiday to the religious invocations delivered in Congress. … All this is to say that any simple categorization of states as simply secular or religious will probably miss what is most interesting in how citizens experience daily life and how the religious and political realms are intertwined. [...]
Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im’s expressed goal in Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a is to convince Muslims on religious grounds that, in order for Islam to flourish, they need to establish secular states based on the protection of human rights. I would say in response that convincing Muslims of this would inflect Islamic politics progressively in a world where most of the forces that shape Islamic politics are not indigenously Islamic. [...]
Sometimes, context is everything. For much of the twentieth century, at least since the 1920s in Egypt and the 1900s in Iran, activists advanced Islam as an alternative to existing government in Muslim-majority countries. Actually existing government was identified with secularism—first in the colonial and then in the independence period—and “Islam” specifically with its operationalization in Shari’a. As comprehensive guidance to right conduct from ritual to social and business relations, Shari’a is more than law, to which it is sometimes reduced when positioned as alternative to secular, civil codes and more ambitiously deployed to preclude legislation on such matters.[...]
It is hard to disagree with the main arguments of Abdullahi an-Na’im’s impeccable book: a healthy religious life requires a secular state, even as political life may remain infused with the religious values of the population. And the historical examples provide added credence to the point. An Islamic state as such never existed historically, even though pre-modern states cannot be regarded as secular in the contemporary sense of the word. But there has never been a state in Islamic history that fused entirely religious and political authority after Muhammad, and it is far from obvious that Muhammad’s own Medina community constituted a state or was meant as a model for any state. [...]
Suggestions that Presidential candidate Barack Obama was a Muslim seemed to have subsided when his controversial pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, walked onto the stage. But even as Obama defended his Christian faith, and his choice of churches, speculation about his connection to Islam continued on-line as well as within the mainstream press, including an Op-Ed entitled “President Apostate” in The New York Times (May 12, 2008) by the military strategist and historian Edward Luttwak (and, exactly a week later, in a May 19 Christian Science Monitor Op-Ed entitled “Barack Obama–Muslim Apostate?“). Now, as if to flip the Muslim coin, Mr. Luttwak, Ms. Burki, and others speculate that Muslims will hold Mr. Obama to a higher religious standard because he does not embrace the religion of his father. [...] | <urn:uuid:fe4b0ca3-3cd9-474d-a77e-e11adfb61d4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/category/islam-and-the-secular-state/ | 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 | 0.953478 | 1,585 | 1.695313 | 2 |
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At this year's Computex, Taiwanese memory vendor GeIL (Golden Emperor International, Ltd.) sought to create a sensation with the introduction of its DDR400 memory modules, prominently advertised in their booth as supporting CL1.5-2-2-5 timings. As an optional alternative, this memory also claims to support a clock of 300 MHz (which makes for DDR600 memory speed). GeIL used the well-known tool CPU-Z (from cpuid.org) to prove their points on their in-booth test systems. We weren't content to take them at their word, so we hauled these DIMMs in for our own testing.
Today, these memory modules sell under the brand name GeIL ONE. The samples we received from GeIL were prototypes, but were outfitted with the correct TCCDs. This memory is expensive, and is thus most likely to appeal only to serious enthusiasts. The real question is: Do these further tightenings on memory timing produce tangible performance boosts? Only a few motherboards can handle CAS latency times under 2.0, but it's possible that support for DDR600 might be more appealing because overclocking system and memory clocks for Athlon 64 sytsems is not only reasonably well understood but also reasonably easy to achieve without much additional effort.
The memory modules before us offered 256 MB each; packed very nicely in a good-looking Dual-Channel kit with 2 DIMMs, that gave us 512 MB per kit. Considering GeIL's claims that its DDR400 DIMMs remain stable at higher clock rates without requiring any extra measures, we found that it didn't matter if we bumped the FSB clock or shortened memory timings: Either way, more voltage was required, which raises heat output and ultimately shortens memory lifetimes.
Notwithstanding these findings, we want to tackle only the following question: Are CL1.5 DIMMs really a better value for power users, or is this just another blast of hot air? | <urn:uuid:e1280572-42eb-4fc6-8b98-56f5faad78af> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geil-cl-1,1085.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949066 | 421 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Have you heard about or participated in earth hour before? If not, tonight is the big night! What is earth hour some of you might be asking? It's a time where everyone around the globe turns out their lights for 1 full hour at 8:30pm (their local time) in an effort to conserve energy on a global level. It makes a huge impact and countries all over the world will be 'attending' the big party!
The last couple years my husband and I have made it a point to participate, especially since we are all about doing our part to help our planet. We typically prepare a meal before hand and then at 8:30pm we'll sit down to our candlelight dinner followed by some board game time with more candles nearby. I look forward to it each year, this year will be a little different since hubby won't be available at that time so I'll be dining solo and I'll probaby follow it up with a good design magazine with a few lit candles nearby. :)
I just found out that there are even Earh Hour parties! Ooo, I so want to attend! How fun would that be, creating an eco-friendly party, serving whole, healthy foods followed by some candlelight mingling.
The biq question is, will you be joining from 8:30pm-9:30pm? I hope you'll participate with me and the world as we celebrate our precious planet earth! Together one, by one we can make a powerful impact!
Here is a great video that shares the importance of going 'lights out' for an hour and how your decision can make a difference. Last year 4,000 cities in 88 countries participated! | <urn:uuid:254824aa-998e-47c1-a10b-c667b4db06c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theclassywoman.blogspot.com/2010/03/earth-hour-2010-is-tonight.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958714 | 347 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Quarantine station serving banana and mango industries to close due to stoush between federal and state governments
- From: The Courier-Mail
- September 11, 2012
A STATE Government-owned quarantine facility will close in January to save $300,000, removing the only barrier to diseases that could destroy Queensland's banana and mango industries.
The Eagle Farm office is the only post-entry quarantine facility in Australia specialising in tropical plant species after being set up in the wake of the devastating sigatoka outbreak in the 1950s.
Agriculture Minister John McVeigh said the State had been "subsidising the Federal Government's trade obligation and it was time for (federal counterpart) Senator Joe Ludwig to put up or shut up".
"Mr Ludwig has outright ignored our protest over imports, how dare he ask us to continue to stump up his obligation when it comes to checking imports," said Mr McVeigh.
"The Federal Government is responsible for post entry quarantine, but the Queensland Government has been chipping in $300,000 a year so that the Eagle Farm facility could not only service the needs of Queensland, but also those of New South Wales and the Northern Territory."
But Senator Ludwig said protecting Australia's bio security was a partnership between State and Federal Governments and the community.
"Queensland's decision to withdraw this vital service will place strain on other bio security resources and stands to limit the availability of the best breeds of tropical banana and mango stock for Australian producers," said Senator Ludwig.
"This could devastate the industry."
Last month, State Agriculture Minister John McVeigh announced 200 job cuts across his department but denied they would impact "frontline services".
Yesterday, he accused Senator Ludwig of publicising the closure to score "political points".
"In August, my department offered to hand the facility over to Federal DAFF Biosecurity if they would meet the ongoing costs of service delivery and depreciation on the facility.
"They flatly refused as they are building a single facility in Melbourne for plant quarantine entry," said Mr McVeigh.
Senator Ludwig questioned how the Newman Government could expect agriculture to be one of the four pillars of the Queensland economy when it was "pulling the rug from under our producers".
"We are seeing cuts to many important Queensland services under the Newman Government and Queensland's agriculture industries are right in the firing line," he said.
As well as tropical plants, the facility handles a range of imported plant material including medium risk species such as ornamentals and seed lines. | <urn:uuid:96c15e04-ee73-4e41-8bab-98b5dc99b2c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news.com.au/national-news/queensland/quarantine-station-serving-banana-and-mango-industries-to-close-due-to-stoush-between-federal-and-state-governments/story-fndo4ckr-1226471704186?from=public_rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962762 | 521 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Making Your Story Fly
I'm here to help everyone reading this (even if you're not a writer!) write stories. I'm definitely a writer, even though some of my stories just don't sprout wings and start to soar. But I'm here to help you make your stories do that. If you don't know what I mean by stories "sprouting wings and soaring" you'd better work it out soon. I hope that by reading this article you can write better stories than before, and I hope that I will have the pleasure of reading them in the Neopian Times. But enough chit-chat. Here are my tips.
1. Be interested in your story yourself
How are you supposed to write a good story if you don't care what happens to your characters and you don't like the plot? You can't. Write a story that you want to write, and take that story wherever it needs to go to become a good story that you're interested in, whether you have to change your plans for the story or not. When I write a story that I'm not interested in, it always comes out with scrawny wings and it won't take to the sky.
2. Be in a writing mood
Some days I feel like I can't write a single sentence, but others I feel like I could write a whole novel if I only had the time. Write during a writing mood, and if the writing mood fades, save your story and pack it up till next time. Then when you're in a writing mood next, pull it out and write again!
3. Write while you're in the right mood
Being in a writing mood is different than being in the right mood. Trying to write the happy part of a story while you're sobbing your eyes out about your pet rabbit dying isn't the best idea. On the other hand, it can help to try to write a happy story when you're sad so that you can escape from your sadness. But sometimes your sadness will seep into the story and make the story just as sad as you are. If you're trying to write a sad story when you're ecstatic about your first story being accepted in the Neopian Times, maybe you should wait until later.
4. Don't let your story get away from you
While you should take your story where it's trying to go, don't let the story take complete control. If you're trying to write a story about a Ixi who discovers she's a princess and has to travel through dangers to get to her palace, don't let one of the trials on the way to the palace become the whole plot and take up the whole story.
5. Write while you're comfortable
Comfort matters while you're writing. Being freezing cold while you're writing a story about Terror Mountain might be an inspiration, but when you're focusing on your own struggles, then it's hard to think about your characters. Try to be as comfortable as possible so you can focus on the story and not yourself.
6. Make yourself your character
So you're perfectly comfortable now, and you can go into your character's world. Be your character. Take yourself into your character. So where are you now? Sitting at my desk and typing on my computer, you say as you write your story. No. You're in Terror Mountain, braving a blizzard and running for your life so that you can find Taelia who is the only one who can cure your little sister's deadly illness. You're shivering in the cold, right? The snowflakes are flying at your eyes and practically blinding you, correct? Write that down. The snow's up above your waist, you say? Write that down. All you can hear is the loud wind in your ears, perhaps? Write that down. Going into your character's world in your imagination helps you capture every detail and see their world in a whole different way than if you're not in their world and simply writing down words that make sense and looks pretty on the page.
7. Try try again
If you're trying to submit your writing to the Neopian Times (or almost anywhere, for that matter) be patient. The first article you submit may not make the cut. The next one might not. The third one might not. Keep trying. I've kept trying. Trying, and trying, and trying, and if this gets in. it's my third article out of so very many I've submitted, but if I gave up, then I wouldn't have any. So keep on trying, and eventually, at some point, I am sure you can get something published if you try hard. Very hard.
8. Look around
So one day you're just completely stopped. You can't think of any story ideas. You can't think of a setting that will catch your interest. But look around. Peek into the distant corners of Kreludor. Peruse the pages of the Neopedia. Ponder the little things in your own inventory that catch your eye. Even junk can have a story tied to it. Peek and prod into every corner of Neopia. Look at species and colors in the Rainbow Pool, games in the arcade that you like, really and truly everywhere. Anything can spark an idea. Absolutely anything. For instance, this article truly owes something to Soroptimist's directory. That petpage led me to discover a section with a few gems of wisdom for me--writing guides. Why couldn't I make my own? See? I was inspired to write something from a pet directory. Look around.
9. Be yourself
Yeah, I know you're probably saying to yourself that everybody always says stay true to yourself, be yourself, and so on. But it's true. Write the kinds of stories you like. Write what you like, and chances are other people will like it, and if they don't, at least you can enjoy it yourself, right? And chances are people WILL like it.
I hope that these tips help you with your writing. And that 7th tip is very important. No matter what, keep your head down and keep going. When something gets rejected, it doesn't mean you're the worst writer in the universe. It doesn't mean that your story should be laughed off the face of the earth. It means that if you look at the mistakes you've made, then you can get better and better at writing until nearly everything you submit is accepted. Well, maybe that's an exaggeration, but still. I'm really hoping that this helps people write, and that I'll see some new writers publishing great stories for everybody to enjoy in the times. Including yourself. Good luck!
Special thanks: Thanks again to Soroptimist directory for the inspiration for this article and a truly convenient petpage! And if this article seems good enough to Soroptimist if she is reading this, I would truly be honored if she would add me to her directory. Also thanks to TNT for this awesome and inspiring site! | <urn:uuid:28c63701-3540-44ff-ac2a-61c2888611e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://petpages.neopets.com/ntimes/index.phtml?section=508755&week=480 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972887 | 1,445 | 1.71875 | 2 |
BGE Prepares for Several Hundred Thousand Customers to Be Out of Power
From the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE):
Approximately 1,300 out-of-state linemen and tree personnel are expected to begin arriving tomorrow in advance of the hurricane’s full impact, with continuing arrivals throughout the week.
Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) today announced that customers should anticipate extended and widespread power outages lasting several days once the effects of Hurricane Sandy enter central Maryland sometime tomorrow evening. Approximately 1,300 out of a requested 2,000 out-of-state and contract linemen, tree personnel and support staff from Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas are expected to begin arriving tomorrow in advance of the hurricane’s full impact, with continuing arrivals throughout the week. BGE’s sister utility, ComEd, an Exelon company based in Chicago, is also providing support to the company’s preparation and restoration efforts. Several large remote staging areas – BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport, M&T Bank Stadium, Timonium Fairgrounds and Ripken Stadium – are being set up across the service area to provide a base for extra crews and vehicles.
“BGE customers have been or are being contacted via an automated telephone message strongly urging them to have a plan in place now to protect their families and property in advance of the storm’s arrival in central Maryland,” said Jeannette M. Mills, vice president and chief customer officer for BGE. “We are also reminding our customers who are elderly, physically challenged or dependent upon electricity for medical equipment that it is critically important for them to always have alternate arrangements in place in the event they experience an extended power outage.”
Hurricane Sandy is expected to bring sustained winds of more than 40 miles per hour with gusts exceeding 60 miles per hour, as well as heavy rain of up to five inches in some parts of the territory. This combination is likely to cause extensive damage to BGE’s electric distribution system due to whole trees and large tree limbs falling onto power lines and other equipment, as well as potential flooding. As a result, it is likely that some customers will be without power for several days.
BGE will continue to take action to secure and apply available resources to restore service as quickly and safely as possible. We are also reassigning employees to storm roles and repurposing vehicles normally used for other tasks such as meter reading to assist with damage assessments and standby duties for downed wires.
To identify outages and assist customers, BGE’s contact centers are fully staffed and will be working in extended shifts. The best point of contact for outages and downed wires is through our automated outage reporting system at 1.877.778.2222.
Customers are urged to take the time now to prepare. In addition to visiting BGE’s online Storm Center for important information on how to prepare for an approaching storm, customers should always have the following basic items on hand:
- Flashlights – not candles
- Fresh batteries
- Battery-operated clock radio
- Corded telephone
- Fully charged cell phone
- Non-perishable foods
- Water – one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days for drinking and sanitation
- First aid kit
- Local maps
Customers also should consider filling the fuel tanks of their vehicles in the event a power outage affects service to neighborhood gas stations. For customers who rely on well water, filling a bathtub with water in advance of severe weather is strongly encouraged. Customers using a generator should follow manufacturer instructions and be sure to locate generators in well-ventilated areas. Customers can find information on preparing for natural disasters and other emergency events at bge.com, as well as find tips and updated information on storm preparation and restoration progress via BGE’s social media sites Twitter and Facebook.
In instances of long periods of heavy rain, BGE prepares for the very real potential of not only outages relating to overhead power lines, but also outages caused by flooding in cases where water enters gas and electric meters. In cases where flooding affects equipment after the meter, customers are responsible for all wiring, pipe, appliances, breaker boxes and any other gas or electric-related equipment or service inside the home or business. Customers are urged to consider the following safety tips:
- Proceed with care if you have experienced flooding in your basement and/or other areas of your home
- Do not enter a room with standing water, particularly if the water covers electrical outlets or electrical cords that are plugged into outlets
- Ensure the electrical system is shut off before entering a flooded room or basement
- Do not attempt to shut off your electrical system if you have to stand in water or on a wet floor to do so
- If you experienced flooding, do not turn on any lights or appliances without having a comprehensive inspection performed by a licensed electrician and also by a registered plumber with a gasfitter’s license for gas appliances
BGE, headquartered in Baltimore, is Maryland’s largest gas and electric utility, delivering power to more than 1.2 million electric customers and more than 650,000 natural gas customers in central Maryland. The company’s approximately 3,400 employees are committed to the safe and reliable delivery of gas and electricity, as well as enhanced energy management, conservation, environmental stewardship and community assistance. BGE is a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NYSE: EXC), the nation’s leading competitive energy provider with approximately $33 billion in annual revenues. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. | <urn:uuid:6a1c4f01-c484-44ca-96f8-a6746e8b55e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southriversource.com/2012/10/27/bge-prepares-for-several-hundred-thousand-customers-to-be-out-of-power/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942569 | 1,173 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Decide what you need in seed
With so many choices available, it’s tough to imagine not being able to find the hybrid you want with the trait package you need.
If faced with a situation of choosing between a trait package and genetics, seed company representatives agree it’s an easy decision: Go with genetics.
“We have to constantly remind ourselves that all the traits do is protect the inherent yield potential,” says Jason Dodd, Pioneer technical services manager for Illinois and Indiana. “If you make traits the top priority, you could be starting at a disadvantage in terms of yield potential.”
In some instances, growers need to take a hard look at the traits they are paying for, and ask whether or not they really need those traits, Dodd adds.
The backbone of any successful seed company is a solid breeding program. However, discovering a promising inbred doesn’t necessarily mean a traited hybrid offering will become a commercial success.
• Buy seed, first and foremost, according to its genetics.
• Remember, traits protect inherent yield; they will not increase it.
• Upgrade seed when you feel local testing is sufficient.
Once Wyffels’ breeding program discovers a promising new line of genetics, the germplasm is sent into a trait development program, explains product development manager Brent Tharp. This process takes time, and there are infrequent situations where certain genetic lines do not accept the trait package.
After successful trait insertion, the hybrid enters Wyffels equivalency testing program. Tharp says this compares the yield potential between the traited and non-GMO hybrids — i.e., the traits cannot cause a yield drag.
If all systems are still go, Wyffels begins research trials with the genetic package, again with both traited and conventional hybrids.
“There have been times when something didn’t perform up to standards in field trials and we had to pull it,” Tharp adds. “It’s not a good feeling, but we stand behind our quality assurance programs. It allows us to be confident when marketing new products to customers.”
When to upgrade
With so many companies racing to improve genetics, it begs the question, “How often should I be upgrading to the latest?”
Dodd says that’s a tough question, and the answer can vary from one year to 10 years, depending on the area. To answer the question for your farm, he recommends focusing on local test results. Once a robust amount of testing has proven a significant upside to switching to a new hybrid, Dodd says pull the trigger.
“The two biggest factors in upgrading are probably agronomics and yield,” he adds. “Many farmers are willing to switch to a hybrid that performs very similarly in terms of yield, but are looking for additional agronomic benefit.”
When it comes to seed buying, Dodd advises clients to stick to three basic tenets. First, focus on the germplasm. Next, before moving to a new hybrid, conduct your due diligence and verify local test results.
Lastly, if you’re not satisfied with the options readily available, Dodd says it may be time to broaden your search.
“There is no one-size-fits-all on traits and genetics,” Dodd adds. “If the company you’ve always been with only has one option for your area, maybe you need to look at a different company’s offerings.”
Lastly, consider moving to a hybrid with fewer agronomic traits, such as stay-green or disease resistance, if the genetics justify the change. In many instances, you can make up the difference with a fungicide application.
This article published in the September, 2011 edition of PRAIRIE FARMER.
All rights reserved. Copyright Farm Progress Cos. 2011. | <urn:uuid:80067707-d703-44b9-a816-36f2f74883e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://farmprogress.com/mid-south-farmer/library.aspx/decide-need-seed-3/23/1458 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930115 | 810 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Malaysia to expand ’sex education’ in schools nationwide to battle plague of abortionsOctober 2nd, 2010 - 5:24 pm ICT by ANI
Kuala Lumpur, Oct 2 (ANI): Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, has said that the government would extend ’sex education’ classes in schools nationwide to deal with the rising rate of abortion in the country.
Yassin, who is also the Education Minister, said that creating an understanding of the reproductive system among the schoolchildren would make them aware of the ill effects of abortion.
“We are giving due attention to sex education because we believe it is one of the methods we can adopt to raise awareness among schoolchildren. We have set up a technical committee to look at the most suitable approach to use in extending the pilot project nationwide,” The Star quoted him, as saying.
Yassin said that the council also agreed that a comprehensive action plan involving the government, private sector and non-governmental organisations was needed as part of a holistic approach to address baby dumping.
The announcement came following a positive response towards a pilot project, which had been implemented in five secondary schools in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang, Pahang and Kelantan five years ago.
The pioneer programme called “I am in control’, was aimed at providing knowledge and creating awareness on healthy lifestyles, sexuality, pregnancy prevention, unsafe abortions, abandoned babies and sexually-transmitted disease among students, the paper said.
Over 300 Form Four students in the five urban and rural schools have already undergone the pioneer sex education programme.
Developed by the National Population and Family Development Board (LPPKN) with the United Nations Population Fund and the Health Ministry, it was introduced in the schools as part of co-curricular activities. (ANI)
- Malaysia to amend textbook after ethnic Indians' objection - Jan 28, 2011
- Book row: Malaysian government to talk to MIC leaders - Jan 25, 2011
- Parts of Malaysian school textbook hurtful to Indians' sentiments to be edited - Jan 28, 2011
- Malaysia to recruit more Tamil teacher - Jul 01, 2010
- Students should not be forced to wear headscarf: Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister - Aug 29, 2010
- Malaysian education ministry may make Mandarin, Tamil compulsory - Jun 14, 2010
- Book row: Malaysian-Indians to stay in review panel - Mar 18, 2011
- Malaysian Deputy PM heads for five-day visit to India - Mar 08, 2011
- I am no racist: Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister - Apr 16, 2010
- Malaysian schools to have sex education - Dec 17, 2010
- Children aged five to be taught sex in Britain - Jun 18, 2010
- Malaysian school for pregnant teens gets its first pupils - Sep 20, 2010
- Tamil schools, literature not neglected in Malaysia (Lead) - Mar 31, 2010
- Consider views of Indian panelists on 'Interlok' issue: MIC Chief - Mar 19, 2011
- Malaysian educationists welcome proposal to increase Tamil schools - Sep 26, 2010
Tags: co curricular activities, deputy prime minister, due attention, education minister, effects of abortion, healthy lifestyles, lppkn, malaysian deputy, muhyiddin yassin, national population, nations population fund, non governmental organisations, pahang, pilot project, pregnancy prevention, sex education classes, sex education in schools, suitable approach, united nations population fund, unsafe abortions | <urn:uuid:652e4997-84f0-4a42-893a-eceafdc63852> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/world-news/malaysia-to-expand-sex-education-in-schools-nationwide-to-battle-plague-of-abortions_100438126.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941084 | 723 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The Parents Education League of Los Angeles is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing Los Angeles parents access to the most objective, current and comprehensive information regarding schools and education in Los Angeles via its website, workshops, advisory services, events, speakers, fairs, publications and parents association.
PEL is the best overall, “One-Stop” school resource for unbiased, timely and accurate information because it operates in connection with & with consultation from schools & the parent community at large.
Identifying and applying to a school should not result in your being overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious or disconnected. PEL can help you get organized and informed via its workshops, fairs and advisory sessions so that you can focus on your children’s educational opportunities.
Once you have found the best fit in a school for your family, you can continue to count on PEL to bring you topical news, workshops, speakers and events!
As a non-profit organization, PEL is dedicated to bring you the most relevant programming at the least expense. In fact, the Website is full of free resources, news and links. While some of the programming can be accessed individually, your support as a PEL Member provides you with the widest array of free benefits. | <urn:uuid:50a6f52a-8457-4c8a-a4aa-2557369cfa71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parentseducationleague.org/about-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951999 | 254 | 1.703125 | 2 |
BRIAN MALOW: What would it take for scientists to become better communicators?
Extended Interview by Todd Reubold
When did you start getting into science?
Science has been a passion of mine since an early age, so when I started doing comedy it was natural that my interest in science would inform my style of comedy.
Who inspired you?
Early on I found a couple great science communicators that made it really cool – Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clark. And Asimov and Clark it turns out wrote a lot of non-fiction as well. They wrote these great science books and they were really good “explainers” of things. I never had to be won over by science. I always saw how cool it was.
I was doing stand-up for a long time before it clicked that I should call it science comedy, though.
Given the breadth of scientific topics in your routine, I was surprised to learn you’re not an actual scientist.
Yeah, well, there are corresponding blank spots in my life. (Laughter)
It’s funny because sometimes people think, “Wow, that’s kind of a limitation to focus just on science.” But if you think about it, there’s no limit at all. Science is in everything. It’s in art. It’s in sports. It covers so much of our lives and it’s so vast.
How do people react when you walk up to them at a party or conference and say, “Hi, I’m Brian the Science Comedian?”
(Laughter) Well, I rarely do that. You know, comics notoriously don’t like to reveal what we do for a living. Part of it is shyness and part of it is people react strangely when they hear you’re a comedian. They put you on the spot and want you to tell jokes. I mean if you’re a lawyer I’m not going to ask you to practice law right in front of me.
There’s a bad taste in some people’s mouths about science comedy, too. Maybe they saw a mixture of science and humor that was kind of corny. Maybe they saw a scientist trying to be funny as opposed to a comedian doing science comedy. I think that a lot of scientists are funny. But not all of them are, I guess.
Why is science communication so important?
I think there’s this growing awareness that in addition to their regular scholarship, scientists need to be good communicators. Especially since there are so many subjects today—like evolution and climate—where it’s dangerous or depressing how misinformed the public is.
What are some things a scientist could start doing right now to be a better communicator?
Well, first, I’d say be yourself. A lot of scientists have experience speaking to their peers in the context of presenting their work. That’s a certain kind of presentation—highly technical and speaking to an audience that is as technical as you. In speaking to the public, it’s important to know your audience and be aware that they don’t have all the references you have.
It’s also important to not just be you the scientist but to reveal some personality. It’s important to make a connection with an audience. So, it’s helpful to reveal some of your passion and curiosity and what drew you into science. What’s your motivation? That’s because people want to know why they should care about something. So, a good place to start is to remember why you care about this. At the core, there must have been something that drew you into this. Try sharing that. It’s not the sort of thing you’d share with a technical audience, but it’s the exact sort of thing to share with the general public.
It’s also important to be prepared so you aren’t reading from a script. You want to be present in order to make a connection.
What would you say to scientists or other who feel uncomfortable being “under the spotlight”?
Some people get thrown off by being onstage, but we get better at everything with time and practice. What you want is to really be yourself up there and not be afraid to reveal a little bit of personality and passion.
Also, talking to an audience is just like talking to an individual. You want to connect with them. You don’t want to be looking at your slides or down at your paper. Nonverbal communication can sometime be as important as—if not more important than—the actual words you’re saying.
The other thing I really like in terms of communications tools is using analogies, stories and anecdotes. People connect with stories.
What’s your number one tip for scientists when speaking to the public?
It’s just so important to be there and present in the moment when you’re on stage.
It’s almost like scientists have been trained to take emotion out of the equation.
Yeah, well, in science there is this importance to separate the emotions from the facts. Scientists are supposed to be dispassionate. But, I don’t think this means you have to be a Vulcan who’s devoid of emotions. You just have to be able to analyze and look at the science separate from your emotions. When you’re talking to real people, it’s great to be a full, complete human.
I did some workshops with the National Research Council in Canada and one of the scientists in my workshop researched vaccines. There was a time when his son was getting a vaccination, and he realized he had contributed to the development of that vaccine. Here he is watching his own son get this treatment that he had helped to develop. Talk about motivation—that’s a great human story!
Who do you think are the great science communicators of our time and why?
Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke are still among the best science explainers ever. Today, there are some scientists who are really great communicators. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one. I’ve seen him speak live and he’s like a science comedian, but it never gets in the way of him communicating science. His passion and love of science also comes across all the time. Lawrence Kraus is another one. He’s funny and he’s written a couple books about the science behind Star Trek. Richard Feynman was a hoot, too. Brilliant, Nobel-winning physicist with a lot of personality. You can just tell how much he loved science by the way he talked about it. They’re all great science communicators with great personalities, but they’re not necessarily all funny.
I think scientists get a bad rap sometimes. There’s this idea that somehow scientists are not only nerdy but they’re boring or dry. I think that’s a really bad rap because I think more than almost any other career you’d think of, scientists have really maintained their child-like wonder with the universe. For most scientists, science isn’t just a job. They love it! They have this passion! That’s something people don’t say about accountants and bankers and people who work on Wall Street.
Why do you think some people are so skeptical of scientists or their research?
There’s something fascinating about why people don’t trust scientists. I mean we defer to so many experts in our lives. You know, if you have a problem with your plumbing, you call the plumber. If you have a problem with your car, you call the mechanic. But for some reason when it comes to evolution or climate change, you’re going to trust some politician and not the experts? It’s so absurd. What if we greeted plumbers with the same skepticism? “Oh, yeah, right, right. You’re just gonna snake that little thing down there and it’s gonna clear up the problem? Sure. And I’m supposed to believe that?”
It’s like the “Check Planet” light on the dashboard has turned on and we’re just sticking our thumb over it.
Science Comedian BRIAN MALOW
Science and comedy—generally two words you don’t think about in the same sentence, unless your name is BRIAN MALOW.
The self-proclaimed science comedian is making subjects like astronomy, physics and biology cool by entertaining and educating audiences across the country. Along the way, he’s also sharing tips and tricks for scientists interested in becoming better public speakers. So, a scientist walks into a bar …
Read the interview with Brian Malow as it appeared in the print version of Momentum.
VIDEO: Best of Science Comedy from Science Comedian Brian Malow
A short edited reel of the science humor of Brian Malow from performances at the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, D.C. And the Punchline Comedy Club in San Francisco. And Rooster T. Feather's in Sunnyvale, too. Watch the video on YouTube
- © 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved.
The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer
Last modified on January 23, 2012 | <urn:uuid:5d521476-b065-4753-b21a-8fcac0137dfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.environment.umn.edu/momentum/webex/2012/webex_malow01252012.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959258 | 1,996 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Freshman Rep. Stephen I. Cohen, D-Tenn., is not joining the Congressional White Caucus after several current and former members made it clear that a black lawmaker was not welcome.Similar: "African-American Rep. wants to join Tennessee's White Caucus"
"I think they're real happy I'm not going to join," said Cohen, who succeeded Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., in a majority-white Memphis district. "It's their caucus and they do things their way. You don't force your way in. You need to be invited."
Cohen said he became convinced that joining the caucus would be "a social faux pas" after seeing news reports that former Rep. William Lacy Clay Sr., D-Mo., a co-founder of the caucus, had circulated a memo telling members it was "critical" that the group remain "exclusively European-American."
...The bylaws of the caucus do not make race a prerequisite for membership, a House aide said, but no non-white member has ever joined.
Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., who is black, tried in 1975 when he was a sophomore representative and the group was only 6 years old...
MultiCultiCult · Tue, 01/23/2007 - 08:34 · Importance: 1 | <urn:uuid:21bd0e41-f801-45a5-9d17-5b48c403beb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/006186.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979875 | 271 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Our technologies facilitate communication outside the classroom, and help students go beyond the brick and mortar boundaries imposed before the advent of the internet. Now, students can correspond with their teachers whenever they wish and get the one-on-one support they deserve. EducateMax features secure chat rooms specifically designed to allow students to talk with their teachers and classmates online. This is an invaluable resource for students and teachers as teaching, tutoring, and mentoring can now be done in a safe, secure, welcoming, one on one environment whenever it is necessary.
Student can view, download and print their class assignments online. Students can even submit their class assignments through our system and later view any corrections a teacher makes. Our system also alerts students if an assignment is ever overdue or if it has been graded.
Student can view, download and print their homework online. Students can submit homework’s electronically to their teacher and view any corrections a teacher makes. Special alerts notify students if their homework is overdue or when their grade has been posted.
Students looking to review for an exam can take practice or review quizzes online. Our system supports all major questions types including multiple choice, true false, fill in the blank, matching and more. Once complete students can view their results instantly, the answer key and a list of the questions they answered incorrectly. Teacher’s have complete control over questions, format and settings. They can even choose to impose time limits in order to simulate test taking conditions.
Students can view their personal grades and track their academic performance for each and every class over the course of the school year. Students can view their detailed grades on assignments, quizzes, tests, and homework’s, for any particular class they take. They could also choose to view their cumulative grade for any term or interval. This feature helps students manage their progress, reduces their ‘need to know’ anxiety, and helps enhance their performance through informed awareness.
Students can view, download, and print class notes that have been posted and shared by their teacher. They can sort their notes by class or by date providing a structured, well organized solution for studying or just catching up.
Students can view their report cards online, They can access report cards from any year stored on the system, allowing them to monitor and track their progress over time.
Students may think twice about skipping class from now on… With the ability to post attendance in real time and share any comments regarding their recent attendance, parents and administrators know where the student is or isn’t at all time because their status is automatically appears online once submitted by their teacher. Electronic notes from teachers allow parents to stay informed about any poor or exemplary attendance patterns affecting their child.
Students can view, download, and print class descriptions, course outlines, supply lists, and syllabi pertaining to any class they are registered for. They can view the expected times and dates the class will meet as well who will be teaching the class. Teachers can also post their aims and expectations for their new or incoming students.
The calendar provides students with the tools they need to coordinate their class schedules, and stay informed of important due dates. Each student has a unique calendar which instantly updates itself by synchronizing relevant extracurricular, school, and class events automatically into each student’s personal calendar.
Creating, sending and managing newsletters is easy and quick with our step by step newsletter wizard, which requires no HTML experience, allowing you to master this feature with ease. Creating your newsletter is simple, as you have the ability to choose from multiple templates layout. Easily manage the newsletter campaigns through your recipient list, which allows you to track new sign-ups and opt-outs automatically. With a click of button you can instantly distribute the entire newsletter electronically to your recipients without effort. | <urn:uuid:044f7234-53f9-4ae4-962c-091bccf681ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.educatemax.com/BenefitStudent.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95896 | 772 | 1.734375 | 2 |
What Happened to Video Game Cheats?
Posted on Monday, May 9 2011 @ 09:33:09 Eastern
In the old days of video games, cheats weren't exactly in your face but once it was known a game had a cheat inside, you would probably try everything else in your power to see if there were other cheats you can fiddle around with. Unlock all characters, level select, infinite lives, sound test, and so much more were up for grabs. Whether cheats were obtained by entering a button code or doing something such as 100% completion, many kids and teens were excited to see what they could unlock. On top of these, you have exploits that weren't intended but can make the game even more wacky and fun.Times have changed and time has not been so kind to video game cheats. What happened to cheats? What happened to the fun stuff that made us come back for more to keep playing?
First, let's talk about what happened to the cheats and what changed them. For a good portion of games, gone are the days where you can have invincibility, infinite lives, or unlocking extra levels. For the most part, games nowadays already have a level select feature that grows as you complete more levels. Lives are pretty much a thing of the past and are exchanged for a more generic health/armor meter. Things like infinite ammo/power ups/health are dwindling in exchange for alternate costumes/skins, artwork, and mainly achievements. Why are these unlockables more common? With more and more games focusing on online multiplayer, many developers feel the replay value lies in there instead of single player and make any unlockables be nothing more than bragging rights and this holds especially true for achievements that you can show off to everyone. With more games focusing with online content, there's no incentive to make hidden content that can make the game too crazy, which can make games unfair for some in a multiplayer setting. A problem with make unlockables be more focused on cosmetics is people can easily show it off on YouTube, making it pointless to see what the next outfit or artwork is in game when you can just do a search online.
Next, why are cheats being pushed to the side completely? Despite video game companies having larger budgets now than they did in the past, most of the budget is focused on making the game look good and making sure the game works properly. With these factors and time being a big constraint, the last thing developers want to do is to test cheats to make sure they don't break the game. Video games are becoming more and more like movies where players only remember the games for the experience while they played and then never pick up the game again unless they want to play again for nostalgia's sake. Games are also being made to cut down on many possible exploits as possible, forcing players to play the way the developers want them to. Ask anyone who played and completed Super Metroid and the majority of them will tell you about the final battle between Samus and Mother brain, but another chunk of the fan base would tell you about how they used the wall jump technique to reach areas they didn't think they could get to or talk about the weird effects they gotten when they messed around with power up combinations. It's no surprise when players got upset that Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion forced players to stick to the path that the developers intended.
There's really no excuse on why cheats and such can't be used the way they were back then. Not every multiplayer game will have their severs running forever and not everyone will want to keep playing multiplayer. Let's take a look at the Streets of Rage Remake. Except for hidden characters, players can immediately see what cheats and features they can unlock and what they do. Not only this gets the player excited to unlock them but they can choose which ones they want to unlock first, which gets the player to replay the game over and over to rack up points needed to get these cheats. By showing the player what they can unlock, it gives them the incentive to keep playing instead of the player wondering what they can unlock, get it, and then get upset that the content sucks.
|More On GameRevolution| | <urn:uuid:07027fac-4a69-49c7-bd0e-55139fa4cbef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamerevolution.com/blog/wildmario/what-happened-to-video-game-cheats-85609 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979387 | 860 | 1.585938 | 2 |
As with other channels, calculating the impact of e-mail marketing efforts can be challenging. Marketers must pay attention
to the following metrics:
- brand awareness
- new patient trials
- compliance and loyalty
- brand switching and increased market share
- campaign-driven incremental sales
- channel ROI
But with e-mail, marketers can also monitor additional metrics, such as whether a message was sent, bounced, received, forwarded,
opened, clicked through, or responded to.
Message Not Deliverable
Pharma marketers that have adopted e-mail are faced with a new challenge—SPAM. Unsolicited bulk e-mail is flooding the same
inboxes and competing with the messages that pharmaceutical companies are sending. According to Forrester Research, more than
80 percent of consumers deal with their cluttered inboxes by deleting all messages from people they don't know—or they stop
using e-mail all together.
Ferris Research estimates that the annual cost of SPAM for US corporations is approximately $9 billion per year. In order
for the pharma industry to overcome the issues associated with SPAM, they need to target their efforts in four areas: technology,
federal legislation, industry regulations, and consumer education.
Technology Companies are testing technical solutions to help combat SPAM. As of yet, no solution has proved to be 100 percent effective.
But the technologies that are currently being tested or implemented include e-mail authentication systems, like SPF and Caller
ID, and domain keys.
E-mail authentication systems require senders to publish server records in a domain name server, and domain keys require senders
to configure their servers to "sign" outgoing mail. Microsoft and AOL have adopted e-mail authentication systems, while Yahoo!
and Earthlink are moving toward domain keys.
Internet service providers (ISPs) have established reputation systems like Iron Port's Bonded Sender. If marketers subscribe,
they are automatically white-listed with any receiver who uses this system. However, ISPs have not yet widely implemented
Bond Sender because of some challenges. If a consumer reports that a message received is SPAM, the sender incurs a fee. These
fees can lead to significant costs to marketers, and leave them feeling like they don't have control of the sending process.
Also, marketers don't have the ability to learn about the consumers who complain, so they have no way to audit or opt those
The E-mail Service Provider Coalition and Direct Marketing Association are also actively involved in developing and implementing
technology solutions to help combat SPAM issues.
Federal legislation Legislation has been passed to try and help the issue: The CAN-SPAM Act of 2004 requires that unsolicited commercial e-mail
messages be labeled as such—although no standard method currently exists—and include opt-out instructions and the sender's
mailing address. It also prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers. But this law hasn't had the desired
effect. Today, 66 percent of consumers receive unsolicited bulk e-mail, according to Forrester Research.
Indeed, some would even argue that the volume of unsolicited e-mail has grown since the inception of the law, back in January
of 2004. That's because spammers can easily hide from law enforcement or move offshore to send messages, leaving legitimate
mailers to adjust to the new legislation. Federal lawmakers are trying to improve the situation by implementing a "Do Not
E-mail" list. They are also toying with instituting fines for sending SPAM, while ISPs have begun bringing about lawsuits
against spammers in an attempt to gain control of the problem.
Industry regulations Microsoft, Yahoo! and AOL manage more than 50 percent of active e-mail addresses, which affords them the opportunity to set
best practices for the industry and mandates for their users. Some of these best practices revolve around opt-in policies,
how bounces are managed, and SPAM complaint processing. | <urn:uuid:a8c391bb-e543-444c-8955-8958530b2c4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pharmexec.com/pharmexec/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=161838&sk=&date=&pageID=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942633 | 827 | 1.78125 | 2 |
I know that the fastest way to despair is by comparing one’s insides with another’s outsides, and that Max Ehrmann, the author of the classic poem “Desiderata,” was absolutely correct when he said that if you compare yourself with others you become either vain or bitter, or, as Helen Keller put it:
“Instead of comparing our lot with that of those who are more fortunate than we are, we should compare it with the lot of the great majority of our fellow men. It then appears that we are among the privileged.”
But Helen and Max don’t keep me from going to the land of comparisons and envy. Before long, I’m salivating over someone else’s book contract, a Christmas gift, or a Today Show appearance. Then I have to pull out my set of directions — these 8 ideas — that will lead me out of the continent of jealousy and home, to self-acceptance.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines.Post a Comment: | <urn:uuid:8a646ad6-84b9-4d7c-8b93-fa81e83034c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://psychcentral.com/blog/discuss/34296/ | 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 | 0.947788 | 220 | 1.617188 | 2 |
AS SEEN IN:
"Backstairs At The White House"
AS PLAYED BY:
Margaret 'Maggie' Rogers was a maid at the White House who served for 30 years (1909–1939), during the administrations of Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and part of Franklin D. Roosevelt's, eventually rising to head housemaid.
Her years of service were memorialized in the book "My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House" by her daughter, Lillian Rogers Parks, who worked as a seamstress, also in the White House. The story was later produced as a miniseries by Ed Friendly Productions. | <urn:uuid:3009d00b-e718-4465-9f7a-01f47efe6ce3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toobworld.blogspot.com/2009_05_10_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962478 | 139 | 1.601563 | 2 |
... Your situation is very common and there are many possibilities for why your baby is waking up now:
1) She could be teething. Even though teeth don't break through the surface of the gums until 6 to 8 months on average, they can still be moving upward and causing pain.
2) She could be having a growth spurt. This might explain why the feeding helps.
3) She is more alert and aware during the periods of light sleep at night. Also, as she reaches the stage of separation anxiety (usually around 8 or 9 months but could be sooner) so may be looking for you.
4) She is waking up out of habit. If you feed her to sleep at the beginning of the night, she may need to feed again to fall back asleep in the middle of the night.
5) She could be hot, cold, in pain, etc. If this behavior keeps going, I encourage you to see your pediatrician to make sure your baby doesn't have an ear infection, reflux or other illness. These are just some of the common causes of night-waking that I see in my practice. ...
This answer should not be considered medical advice...This answer should not be considered medical advice and should not take the place of a doctor’s visit. Please see the bottom of the page for more information or visit our Terms and Conditions.
Thanks for your feedback.
6 of 7 found this helpful
Read the Original Article: What could it be? | <urn:uuid:d2fdd5d4-7b5b-4daa-90ce-ad14a380dbf8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://answers.webmd.com/answers/1193625/why-has-my-5-month-old | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968413 | 310 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Mixed Messages From School Voucher Totals
The state greatly increased the number of taxpayer-paid vouchers available for students in failing schools. Statehouse correspondent Karen Kasler reports the final numbers are in from the latest round of applications, and the message isn't clear.
Just over 17,000 applications were turned in for vouchers – the second most ever in a single year. Chad Aldis with the charter schools group School Choice Ohio says he’s pleasantly surprised, though that’s far short of the 30,000 vouchers available.
“It took four years to meet the first cap and it’s going to take a few years to go up to 30,000, especially when the same pool of eligible students are eligible each year," says Aldis.
Scott DiMauro is with Join the Future, a coalition of public education professionals and supporters. And he doesn’t think this total is high at all.
“I don’t think there’s this drumbeat of demand, or this pent-up demand for vouchers. Most people are pretty satisfied with the quality of public education that their children receive,” says DiMauro.
The budget expands the EdChoice program to 60,000 vouchers next year. | <urn:uuid:b1cc9a12-ebc7-44bf-a1ed-c5a7c15f61a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyso.org/post/mixed-messages-school-voucher-totals | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948124 | 262 | 1.648438 | 2 |
St. Bernard’s Church, Enfield, was to be consecrated by Most Rev. J.G. Berry, Archbishop of Halifax, in July 1960. The building replaced an older church that was destroyed by fire.
To find out if this photo is available for purchase, please contact the library, 426-2811, ext. 3080, 3081 or 3384, or email [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:be60cc09-dc6e-40ac-8933-b30142122d09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thechronicleherald.ca/bcw/103541-enfield-church-awaited-blessing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969239 | 88 | 1.601563 | 2 |
"I have the experience as Senate Budget Chair of cutting $4.5 billion in spending -- to close the deficit while protecting education and health care."
Barbara Buono on Tuesday, December 11th, 2012 in a video advertisement
Barbara Buono claims she cut $4.5B in spending while chairing Senate budget panel
Cutting government spending – it’s a refrain many New Jerseyans say they want to hear from their elected officials.
Cue Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), who announced Dec. 11 that she would run for governor next year and is very familiar with wielding a budget ax.
"I have the experience as Senate Budget Chair of cutting $4.5 billion in spending -- to close the deficit while protecting education and health care," Buono said in her gubernatorial announcement ad on YouTube.
Spending did decrease while Buono chaired the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, but it was not a singular effort..
Let’s look at how budgets work and then explain the $4.5 billion cut.
New Jersey operates on a fiscal year beginning July 1 and ending the following June 30. The governor presents a budget, the Senate Budget and Appropriations and the Assembly Budget committees review it, and public hearings are held.
The committees present the budget in what’s called an annual appropriations bill, which must be approved by the Legislature and the governor. The governor must sign the budget by July 1.
Now, the cuts.
David Rosen, chief budget officer for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, confirmed in an e-mail to Buono that appropriations from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2010 dropped by $4.481 billion.
The cuts were made after revenues plummeted by more than $3.5 billion from fiscal year 2008 to 2009, and fell another $1 billion from fiscal year 2009 to fiscal year 2010, according to Richard Keevey, who was budget director for former Gov. Jim Florio. Keevey, who teaches public budgeting systems and federal finance at Rutgers Newark, also served as a deputy budget director and budget director for former Gov. Tom Kean.
"Thus, by necessity, appropriations needed to be reduced by the Governor and the Legislature to achieve a balanced budget as required by the constitution," Keevey said in an e-mail.
So the cuts were made by a combination of people, including former Gov. Jon Corzine.
Christina Zuk, Buono’s chief of staff, said in an e-mail that the senator wasn’t claiming sole responsibility for the cuts.
"In the budget process both bodies of government vote on the final budgets, but the Senator's role as budget chair allowed her to oversee the budget process for those two years and begin to restore some sense of fiscal sanity to the process."
Buono’s chairmanship was an important part of the process, noted Raphael Caprio, a professor of Public Administration in the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.
"The inference is that she has the responsibility because she helped design the cuts," he said. "The fact of the matter is she was an important part of the process but the template was put on the table by the governor. I would basically say there is a core of truth to what she’s saying."
Buono also claimed she protected education and health care while cutting the budget. But it was actually $2 billion in federal stimulus money Corzine included in his fiscal year 2010 budget that protected both. Keevey noted that $1.1 billion of the stimulus went to school aid appropriations. Without it, school aid would have dropped $900 million.
Buono claimed, "I have the experience as Senate Budget Chair of cutting $4.5 billion in spending -- to close the deficit while protecting education and health care."
The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services confirms a $4.481 billion decrease in spending from fiscal year 2008 to fiscal year 2010. The recession had much to do with the cuts, with revenues plummeting from fiscal year 2008 through fiscal year 2010 and spending adjusted accordingly.
Also, the federal government, not Buono, protected education and health care with $2 billion in stimulus money.
While it’s true that Buono’s chairmanship gave her experience in budget cutting, she alone isn’t responsible for cutting $4.5 billion. It was a team effort. And the last word on cuts, funding and balanced budgets belongs to the governor. For those reasons, we rate her statement Half True.
To comment on this story, go to NJ.com.
Published: Thursday, December 20th, 2012 at 7:30 a.m.
Files Papers For Gubernatorial Campaign" news release, Dec. 11, 2012, accessed Dec. 12, 14 and 176, 2012
E-mail interviews with Christina Zuk, spokesperson for Buono, Dec. 13, 14 and 17, 2012
E-mail from Chief Budget Officer David Rosen to Sen. Barbara Buono, Dec. 12, 2012
Phone interview with Office of Legislative Services, Dec. 14, 2012
New Jersey Legislature website, accessed Dec. 17, 2012
Phone interview with Raphael Caprio, Rutgers University professor, Dec. 18, 2012
E-mail interview with Richard F. Keevey, Rutgers University-Newark professor, Dec. 18, 2012
NJ.com, New Jersey Gov. Corzine unveils draconian $29.8B budget, March 10, 2009, accessed Dec. 18 and 19, 2012
NJ.com, N.J. lawmakers approve $29B spending plan for Corzine to sign, June 25, 2009, accessed Dec. 19, 2012
NJ.com, NJ budget approved by Senate, Assembly committees, June 22, 2009, accessed Dec. 19, 2012
We want to hear your suggestions and comments. Email the New Jersey Truth-O-Meter with feedback and with claims you'd like to see checked. If you send us a comment, we'll assume you don't mind us publishing it unless you tell us otherwise. | <urn:uuid:5a3d2230-abe2-4e0d-a92f-bb6f7d791cd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politifact.com/new-jersey/statements/2012/dec/20/barbara-buono/barbara-buono-claims-she-cut-45b-spending-while-ch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958708 | 1,262 | 1.570313 | 2 |
You've seen some tweets about our return from Melbourne, and our two days in Sydney, a welcome break after such an intense and productive week at the Parliament of the World's Religions. Here we capture Bodhinatha and Senthilnathaswami in front of the landmark Opera house, with the Sydney bridge peeking out on the left.
Back to Melbourne and the remarkable gathering of some 6-8,000 people (we can't find a definitive number). Just learned that Obama's special team was there to discuss religious matters with the representatives of the major faiths. They especially were seeing understanding of Islam and better ways to
Palaniswami called it a gathering of the tribes, and throughout the parliament groups of Buddhists, Sikhs, Shintoist, Hindus and indigenous peoples marched by, all dressed in their traditional garb.
Sri Ravi Shankar founder of the Art of Living is greeted by Sikh elders.
Back at the ultra-modern Convention Centre (this was the first major event for Melbourne's high-tech hall), some minstrels visit the Hinduism Today booth.
And two Indian dancers join.
At the last minute, Hinduism Today was asked to join a panel on "The Religious Response to Climate Change." Palaniswami surprised everyone a bit by actually giving a spiritual response, urging that leaders not use fear as the chief motivator of change and noting it is a lower-chakra energy. Rather than scaring the world to death, he suggested, let's inspire through compassion, love of the beautiful world around us and knowledge of our duty to the Earth which as borne us all these generations.
Bodhinatha joined to listen. The panelists, who were more political than religious in their talks, did not much appreciate Palaniswami's call, thinking it a bit naive. But others from the audience came forward to say it was an important message that could bring about even higher results. Why did other panelists not like the message? Because it was a bit politically incorrect ("Such ideas have no political traction" the moderator offered). We were supposed to join the chorus and cry, in the name of human survival, for immediate action lest we all die a horrible death. | <urn:uuid:d134d4e6-aa7d-48d4-9fb0-ebf9b147a1ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.himalayanacademy.com/blog/taka/2009/12/12/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963111 | 462 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Mud can create a sticky situation. It helps to be paying attention to the condition of the road when driving through Nevada during any month of the year, even in the summer when mud is not prevalent and the springs are often dry—but they are not always dry.
While I was working for Northern Exploration Company back in the late 1970's, we had a large claim staking crew out in central Nevada. A couple of the claim stakers—in their zeal to drive as close to the claim-post site as possible, a thing that all good claim stakers excel at—failed the spring test by not getting out to see if they could walk through the green, grassy area ahead of them. “Don’t walk when you can drive,” is a good policy when doing exploration—but please don’t drive through things that look like springs without checking them out. The claim posters drove full speed ahead into the grassy area around the Northumberland spring and sank their truck up to the sideboards in mud. The truck stayed stuck in the mud for several days before a bulldozer arrived to pull them out.
I prefer to be in four-wheel drive rather than two-wheel drive when driving over any questionable terrain—especially mud, sand, and snow. It's true, however, that if you get stuck when already in four-wheel drive, you are really stuck. In four-wheel drive you might drive farther into a muddy area before getting stuck than you would in two-wheel drive, and you will have a longer distance to dry or passable land. You will also have to work harder to get unstuck. If, however, you were in two-wheel drive when you drove into the muddy area, you might get stuck in a relatively small mud hole that wouldn't have caused any problem had you already been in 4WD. And now that you are stuck in 2WD, switching to 4WD might not help out at all.
Once upon a time, I got stuck in mud near a now-former gold mine in northern Nevada. But hey, what am I saying, that I got stuck—I wasn't driving. We were up there taking soil samples along claim lines in the early spring, when the ground was still muddy. There was one especially bad mud hole, and R. decided we could make it through. He drove the truck into the mud hole fast, thinking that the speed would carry the truck to the other side. It didn’t. We were stuck, right in the middle. Because his truck didn't have a handyman jack (always be prepared?), we walked back to my truck (fortunate to have two trucks, eh?) and got my handyman jack. BTW, the little jack that comes with your truck, which is often located somewhere under the hood, is usually of little help in getting unstuck.
Being stuck in mud requires either building a road underneath the truck, being pulled out with a bulldozer, or waiting until the mud dries out. We didn't have a dozer, and weren't about to sit around waiting until mid-summer. So, we looked around until we found a flat rock to set the jack on, and then we jacked up the truck — all four tires, one at a time — to place sagebrush under and in back of each tire. We would have to build a road behind the truck to get out — if we went forward, we would simply have a truck on the wrong side of an impassable mud hole.
It was a long, tedious procedure: after we got all four tires of the truck set back down onto semi-solid muddy sagebrush, R. got in, put the truck in gear, and spun out all the brush we had collected, putting the truck right back down in the mud. So we again jacked the truck up, four times, once for each tire, and put even more sagebrush under the tires. [Rocks or boards work better for building road, but sagebrush was what we had on hand.] R. got in again, put the truck in gear, and spun it back into the mud. On the third try, we got enough sagebrush underneath and in back of each tire that we had enough traction to back out of the mud hole. By that time we were thoroughly tired of both mud and sagebrush—and, we were left with a much longer distance to carry our soil samples. | <urn:uuid:8eec1cb3-2bb9-4f95-bacf-606694a66567> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://highway8a.blogspot.com/2008/03/on-mud-and-getting-stuck.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983651 | 916 | 1.773438 | 2 |
"I’ve always felt that it’s ironic that hunger strikes are used as a political weapon in a land where most people go hungry anyway."
~ Arundhati Roy.
~ Arundhati Roy.
Kurdish Aspect is carrying Serdar Sengul's remarks from the KNCNA conference last month. While I agree with him that the subject of education is a critical one for the Kurdish people, and that the history of the destruction of the Kurdish educational system by the Turkish state is a subject worthy of study, and that the creation of a new Kurdish educational system is absolutely necessary, what intrigued me was the fact that Heval Serdar's master's degree study was on "the changing perceptions of security in India in the post-Cold War Era."
The reason that this intrigued me was that last week, some nice person sent me a link to an interview with famed Indian writer Arundhati Roy, suggesting that her remarks might be fruitful for Kurds to reflect upon. Having read through the interview several times now, and keeping in mind the recent history of repression--at least from Semdinli, through the Amed Serhildan, to the Koma Komalên Kurdistan's offer of a democratic resolution and the rejected unilateral ceasefire, to the attacks against the Kurdish leadership in Europe in February, the poisoning of Ocalan, and the crackdown on DTP--I feel that Arundhati Roy's comments on the current situation in India are compelling for the Kurdish people as well as for the Indian people.
What does a people do, when playing the democracy "game" by the West's chameleon rules only results in more repression, more imprisonment, more torture, more offensive military operations? What does a people do, when faced with repeated, gross injustices and the hypocrisy of servile, corporate-controlled democracies?
The interview with Ms. Roy focuses on the rising violence in India, a subject about which not much is heard at all in the American media. There have been articles about the Maoist/government peace process in India, and the articles in the American media on that subject have had a bitter flavor to them, for two reasons I suspect: because "Maoists" have actually entered a dialog with a government and have worked out a solution and because peace means a loss of revenue for the American war industry. However, the rise of "Maoists" and other dissenters willing to use violence in India is completely off the mainstream American radar. Why is that?
Upon being asked about her reluctance to condemn violence, Ms. Roy replies:
What I feel is this: non-violent movements have knocked at the door of every democratic institution in this country for decades, and have been spurned and humiliated. Look at the Bhopal gas victims, the Narmada Bachao Andolan. The nba had a lot going for it — high-profile leadership, media coverage, more resources than any other mass movement. What went wrong? People are bound to want to rethink strategy. When Sonia Gandhi begins to promote satyagraha at the World Economic Forum in Davos, it’s time for us to sit up and think. For example, is mass civil disobedience possible within the structure of a democratic nation state? Is it possible in the age of disinformation and corporate-controlled mass media?
[ . . . ]
There was a time when mass movements looked to the courts for justice. The courts have rained down a series of judgments that are so unjust, so insulting to the poor in the language they use, they take your breath away. A recent Supreme Court judgment, allowing the Vasant Kunj Mall to resume construction though it didn’t have the requisite clearances, said in so many words that the questions of corporations indulging in malpractice does not arise! In the era of corporate globalization, corporate land-grab, in the era of Enron and Monsanto, Halliburton and Bechtel, that’s a loaded thing to say. It exposes the ideological heart of the most powerful institution in this country. The judiciary, along with the corporate press, is now seen as the lynchpin of the neo-liberal project.
In a climate like this, when people feel that they are being worn down, exhausted by these interminable ‘democratic’ processes, only to be eventually humiliated, what are they supposed to do? Of course it isn’t as though the only options are binary — violence versus non-violence. There are political parties that believe in armed struggle but only as one part of their overall political strategy. Political workers in these struggles have been dealt with brutally, killed, beaten, imprisoned under false charges. People are fully aware that to take to arms is to call down upon yourself the myriad forms of the violence of the Indian State. The minute armed struggle becomes a strategy, your whole world shrinks and the colors fade to black and white. But when people decide to take that step because every other option has ended in despair, should we condemn them? Does anyone believe that if the people of Nandigram had held a dharna and sung songs, the West Bengal government would have backed down? We are living in times when to be ineffective is to support the status quo (which no doubt suits some of us). And being effective comes at a terrible price. I find it hard to condemn people who are prepared to pay that price.
When asked if "rebels are only the flip side of the State:"
How can the rebels be the flip side of the State? Would anybody say that those who fought against apartheid — however brutal their methods — were the flip side of the State? What about those who fought the French in Algeria? Or those who fought the Nazis? Or those who fought colonial regimes? Or those who are fighting the US occupation of Iraq? Are they the flip side of the State? This facile new report-driven ‘human rights’ discourse, this meaningless condemnation game that we are all forced to play, makes politicians of us all and leaches the real politics out of everything. However pristine we would like to be, however hard we polish our halos, the tragedy is that we have run out of pristine choices. There is a civil war in Chhattisgarh sponsored, created by the Chhattisgarh government, which is publicly pursing the Bush doctrine: if you’re not with us, you are with the terrorists. The lynchpin of this war, apart from the formal security forces, is the Salva Judum — a government-backed militia of ordinary people forced to take up arms, forced to become SPOs (special police officers). The Indian State has tried this in Kashmir, in Manipur, in Nagaland. Tens of thousands have been killed, hundreds of thousands tortured, thousands have disappeared. Any banana republic would be proud of this record. Now the government wants to import these failed strategies into the heartland.
[ . . . ]
But to equate a resistance movement fighting against enormous injustice with the government which enforces that injustice is absurd. The government has slammed the door in the face of every attempt at non-violent resistance. When people take to arms, there is going to be all kinds of violence — revolutionary, lumpen and outright criminal. The government is responsible for the monstrous situations it creates.
When asked if the Maoists might also usher in an "exploitive, autocratic, violent" regime:
. . . the Maoists in Nepal have waged a brave and successful struggle against the monarchy. Right now, in India, the Maoists and the various Marxist-Leninist groups are leading the fight against immense injustice here. They are fighting not just the State, but feudal landlords and their armed militias. They are the only people who are making a dent. And I admire that. It may well be that when they come to power, they will, as you say, be brutal, unjust and autocratic, or even worse than the present government. Maybe, but I’m not prepared to assume that in advance. If they are, we’ll have to fight them too. And most likely someone like myself will be the first person they’ll string up from the nearest tree — but right now, it is important to acknowledge that they are bearing the brunt of being at the forefront of resistance. Many of us are in a position where we are beginning to align ourselves on the side of those who we know have no place for us in their religious or ideological imagination.
Ominous words, those last. How well do they apply to the Kurdish situation?
The entire interview is available at ZNet and it's worth at least one read; maybe more. Ms. Roy's comments on globalization are also compelling for Kurds under Turkish occupation, particularly as regards the Ilisu Dam exploitation project, as well as for South Kurdistan with its free-for-all investment law and the mad scramble for control of wider Iraqi oil resources by Western corporations. | <urn:uuid:0103de38-c5a7-4e8e-a27d-0b1019f14885> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rastibini.blogspot.com/2007/04/rising-violence-in-india-and-kurdish.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963731 | 1,861 | 1.648438 | 2 |
A federal court of appeals has ruled that when a student with disabilities moves out of state, that doesn't absolve a school district from providing compensatory education services.
In a ruling this month in D.F. vs. Collingswood Borough Board of Education, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a previous ruling that excused the New Jersey school district from making up for special education services a student missed when enrolled in that district.
D.F. was a kindergartner in the district in the 2008-09 school year, but he had already been identified as having a disability by another school district. Midway through the school year, D.F.'s mother filed a due process complaint, alleging that the district wasn't upholding all of its obligations to her son under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Over the course of the following school year, D.F.'s mother and the school district tussled over whether the boy should attend an out-of-district school. By the end of the 2009-10 school year, the family had moved to Georgia. An administrative law judge dismissed the case as moot.
The student's mother complained that her son had been in a regular classroom without a personal aide for the first half of the school year, violating his education plan and that he had been subjected to discipline without consideration of the fact that his behavior was a manifestation of his disability, among other issues.
D.F. had been diagnosed as having ADHD, oppositional defiant disorder, and although his cognitive abilities were at or above grade level, he threw objects, hit classmates, had temper tantrums, and ran away. In the school district where he was diagnosed with disabilities, strategies outlined in a behavior intervention plan had begun to improve his behavior.
The court ruled that there is "no basis to distinguish between out-of-district, but in-state, moves and out-of-state moves in the IDEA or in case law" and rejected the school district's theory that compensatory educational services were "subsumed within the education that he was currently receiving" from his new school district.
The Third Circuit said a "claim for compensatory education is not rendered moot by an out-of-district move, even if that move takes the child out of state," and said that to hold otherwise would undermine the purpose of IDEA and would disproportionately affect low-income families, who cannot afford to front the costs of their children's education.
The Education Law Center in New Jersey, which filed an amicus brief supporting D.F., said it was satisfied with the ruling.
It was "a simple matter of fairness" and a case that will "aid all students with disabilities in New Jersey and beyond," said Ruth Lowenkron, the senior attorney at the center who worked on the case.
But what does the ruling mean for Collingswood? The court said one way the district could provide this compensatory education is by establishing a fund that could be spent on D.F.'s education. The district could also pay D.F.'s new district or to contract with a local provider in his new home to provide tutoring, counseling, or other support services. | <urn:uuid:f25cc3f6-b87b-46e9-a41e-635c45073eb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/speced/2012/09/out-of-state_move_doesnt_absol.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986863 | 657 | 1.78125 | 2 |
World Gifted Newsletter
World Gifted is the official bulletin of the World Council. It contains the latest news and information concerning the organization, its membership, and the international gifted education community. It is published three times a year.
A WCGTC membership provides you with an electronic subscription, which includes the entire available archive back to 1980.
Gifted and Talented
Gifted and Talented International (GTI) is the official journal of the World Council. Its purpose is to share current theory, research, and practice in gifted education with its audience of international educators, scholars, researchers, and parents. GTI is refereed by an editorial review board of leading international educators of the gifted. It is published twice a year.
GTI is published electronically and in paper form. A WCGTC membership provides you an electronic subscription, which includes the entire available archive back to 1982. A basic journal subscription is also available which provides you a mailed-out hard copy. | <urn:uuid:cd1275f5-9e76-43de-a1ae-6297885b69ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.world-gifted.org/Publications | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944423 | 198 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Local authorities who want to operate traffic cameras would have to get approval from the state department of transportation under a bill that moved out of a House panel Thursday.
The legislation requires that speed and red-light cameras be placed in high-risk, high-traffic volume areas, but prohibits them from being placed on primary roads, which includes interstates, U.S. routes and Iowa routes.
The bill also requires local authorities to produce a justification report to the DOT for existing and any new cameras, including documentation of existing traffic speeds and volume, posted speed limits, location of signs, intersection geometry and accident history of the location, among other items.
“Anybody who has been in this battle before knows I don’t like cameras,” said bill sponsor Rep. Walt Rogers. “Since we can’t ban them, let’s at least make the regulations uniform.”
Rogers, R-Cedar Falls, has pushed for traffic bans or restrictions on the devices each session since being elected in 2010, but the bills have never made it to the governor’s desk.
The strongest kickback has come from county and municipal groups who say cameras are a decision best left to local authorities and not the state.
Windsor Heights Police Chief Dennis McDaniel said Thursday he has a “fundamental disagreement” with taking power out of the hands of local authorities to make decisions on camera placement, especially since federal and state routes are often key parts of a municipal grid.
“This is a politically charged discussion,” McDaniel said. “There should be dialogue any time you’re saying you’re going to have regulations.”
At least eight Iowa communities — Davenport, Muscatine, Sioux City, Cedar Rapids, Des Moines, Council Bluffs, Clive and Ankeny —– have traffic cameras.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 84 California communities have traffic cameras, which is the most of any state. They’re followed by Illinois with 75 communities and Florida with 69.
The bill moved out of subcommittee with the signatures of Rogers and Rep. Ron Jorgensen, R-Sioux City. Rep. Mary Wolfe, D-Clinton, did not sign on to the legislation because she wanted more time to review the bill, which she wasn’t assigned to until Wednesday afternoon. | <urn:uuid:e667b378-37e7-423e-ae42-d4f0b5b8b5a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thegazette.com/2013/02/28/bill-would-require-dot-approval-for-traffic-cameras/ | 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 | 0.95403 | 495 | 1.625 | 2 |
Washington Legal Foundation (WLF) has commented twice before (here and here) at our Legal Pulseblog on the indigestion-causing class action suits that were filed in New Jersey and California against Ferrero, the maker of Nutella. The gist of the complaints is that Ferrero misled consumers with statements and images on the product label and in ads that Nutella was “healthy” by not being sufficiently transparent about the sugar and fat it contained.
Ferrero has decided to settle both cases. The terms of the now preliminarily approved California settlement and the proposed NJ settlement inspired some reasoned venting at the Consumer Class Actions and Mass Torts blog. Given our coverage of the cases and our larger concerns with food/beverage regulation-through-litigation, we offer below some (reasoned) venting of our own.
The Monetary Awards. Plaintiffs’ class counsels in New Jersey are proposing Ferrerro create a fund of $2.5 million from which anyone who claims they purchased Nutella thinking it was “healthy” can seek reimbursement. In California, the proposed amount is $550,000, and is limited to state residents. Members of the “settlement class” can claim up to $20 each (four bucks for each Nutella jar, up to five jars). If there is cash left over in the funds after a period of time, the claimaints may receive more money and/or money may be ”put to a cy pres use that will benefit the Class.”
If crusading against “disfavored” foods and beverages would “benefit the Class,” we wouldn’t be suprised to see cy pres disbursement applications by the academic and nonprofit institutions on this list from WLF’s Eating Away Our Freedoms project. We hope the presiding judges resist any such entreaties.
Class counsels in both cases are also seeking an “Incentive Award” for the “named plaintiffs” (i.e. those who were bold enough to have their names placed on the court documents and claim that all other class members were harmed just like they were). The New Jersey counsels proposed $2,000 for each named plaintiff; no set amount is sought in California. What “time and effort” did the named plaintiffs expend? If they claimed all other plaintiffs were harmed in the same way they were, why should they get more than $20? These types of awards do little more than encourage more class action litigation.
Injunctive Relief. The counsels proposed nearly identical terms in both cases, terms which transform lawyers into labeling, advertisement, and website design consultants. Ferrerro must create a front-of-packaging label; remove the offending phrase “An example of a tasty yet balanced breakfast” from the rear label and replace it with a phrase of completely different meaning – ”Turn a balanced breakfast into a tasty one”; make modifications to their website; and replace current TV ads with new ones. The class counsels in both lawsuits have helpfully provided suggestions on the content and approach of the new ads. And, once the ads are produced, Ferrero must give the counsels one last look at them. “Creative” lawyering indeed!
Attorneys’ Fees. In each case, the lawyers seek fee awards both for the injunctive relief they achieved and from the settlement fund. The New Jersey suit lawyers want $3 million dollars for injunctive relief, and up to 30% of the fund ($750,000), as well as reimbursement for costs from the fund. Ferrerro has agreed to pay the California suit lawyers $900,000 for the injunctive relief, and the lawyers will pursue more fee money from the fund. The respective judges will have the last say on whether these fees are reasonable; let’s hope they closely scrutinize these requests.
Final Thought. We understand that businesses like Ferrerro have to weigh numerous factors when posed with litigation, and that some will decide it makes more financial sense to settle even the most dubious claims. But there’s always the risk that such settlements lead to more lawsuits. No doubt that’s how other food and beverage companies will feel about the outcome of In re Ferrerro Litigation. | <urn:uuid:811a6c2b-3584-4a04-848c-b2fe9974912c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tortreform.com/news/nutella-class-action-settlement-not-part-balanced-legal-system | 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 | 0.959393 | 899 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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Where will the future arms trade profits be found? And who will be making a killing (again)? Bruce Gagnon looks at the development of space-based weapons.
Iraq war emboldens Bush space plans
Military victory in the Iraq war has emboldened the Pentagon in their claims that space technology gives the US total advantage in time of war. According to Peter Teets, under secretary of the Air Force and director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), American capability in space, “must remain ahead of our adversaries' capabilities, and our doctrine and capabilities must keep pace to meet that challenge”.
“I think the recent military conflict has shown us, without a doubt, how important the use of space is to national security and military operations,” Teets, a former Lockheed Martin executive, recently said.
In order to accomplish the goal of technologically leapfrogging the space program to the point of global “control and domination” a new agreement has been signed by NASA, US Strategic Command, the NRO and the Air Force Space Command to fully mesh all their research and development efforts together. Thus, we witness the takeover of the US space program by the military and the weapons corporations.
One such example of this new emphasis on technology sharing is the Bush administration announcement of Project Prometheus, a multi-billion dollar pro-gramme to create a nuclear rocket.
NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe, who claims everything NASA does from now on will be “dual use” (meaning it will serve both military and civilian purposes), has said, “propulsion power generation advances that are so critical to the purposes of achieving our exploration and discovery objectives are the same technologies that national security seeks to utilise”. It has long been said by the Pentagon that they will require nuclear reactors in space to power space-based weapons.
Another example of this new dual use relationship is the effort to replace the unstable space shuttle fleet. A $4.8 bil-=lion development programme is now focusing on the “military space plane”, with the Air Force playing a larger role in calling the shots.
A fleet of space planes will be designed to attack and destroy future satellites of enemies and rivals. A prototype is expect-ed by 2005 with deployment envisioned around 2014.
According to James Roche, the USAF Secretary, America's allies would have “no veto power” over projects like the military space plane that are designed to give the US military control of space.
The NRO, the super secret spy agency which is responsible for US satellites, has been given the job to develop the strategy to ensure American allies or enemies never gain access to space without US permission. European efforts to build the multi-billion dollar Galileo satellite navigational system are seen as a direct threat to US plans for space dominance.
In a computer war game held at the Air Force's Space Warfare Center at Schrieverair force base in Colorado in spring 2003, the US practised such space “negation”.The war game, set in the year 2017, pitted the blue team (US) against the red team(China). Its scenario was fairly complex, incorporating several “opportunities for conflict in south-west and southern Asia”. Unlike the last such game in 2001, this year's version urged participants not to get “bogged down in discussions about space law and policies, which disrupted the game's military operations,” reported Aviation Week & Space Technology. This time around the ABM Treaty with Russia was no longer in existence.
A new arms race
Russia and China are renewing their call for a global ban on weapons in space. On31 July 2003 the two powers delivered their pleas at a session of the UN Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. Both countries worry that Bush's call for early deployment of National Missile Defence (NMD) will create a new and costly arms race in space that will be difficult to call back. So far the US refuses to discuss a moratorium or ban on weapons in space - saying there is no problem and thus no need to begin negotiations.
Bush is calling for deployment of six NMD missile interceptors in Alaska, and four in California, by 30 September 2004.Ten more are due in Fort Greely, Alaska, by 2005. The $500 million construction project is headed by Boeing and Bechtel corporations. The big problem for Bush's deployment plan, to be carried out just prior to the 2004 national elections, is that the testing programme of the interceptor missiles is not going well. In addition to the fact that the hit-to-kill mechanisms are proving unreliable (trying to have a bullet hit a bullet in deep space), the booster rockets that are supposed to launch the”kill vehicle” into space are months behind schedule in development. The Bush solution to the problem has been to say that future testing will be done in secrecy.
Boeing, Bechtel, Lockheed...
Each of these Missile Defense Agency (MDA) tests cost over $100 million. Boeing was recently promised a $45 million bonus if it could carry out a successful test,but failed to do so. In fact Boeing has other troubles. Last January, two Boeing managers stationed at Cape Canaveral, Florida, were charged with conspiring to steal Lockheed Martin trade secrets involving another Air Force rocket programme.
Despite such fraud, delays, cost overruns and technology problems the US House and Senate continue to grant the Pentagon virtually every penny they request for Star Wars. In 2004, $9.1 billion will be awarded to the MDA for space weapons research and development.
Bush has, in his first three years in office, created the largest budget deficit in US history. As money for education,health care, social security, environmental clean-up, and the like are cut, military spending now accounts for the majority of federal spending in nearly every state. The US now accounts for 43% of world military spending.
Co-opted through business
The US is anxious for Australia, Britain, India, Israel, Russia, and others to become international partners in Star Wars. The programme will be so expensive (some say the largest industrial project in the history of the planet) that even the US can't pay for it alone. By pulling in the aerospace sectors of other countries,Bush knows he can blunt international opposition to his goals of a new and very expensive arms race that will clearly benefit the aerospace industry and the politicians that get the kick-backs.
As we recall George W Bush's post 9-11 statement that, “It's going to be a long, long war”, our eyes must turn to the larger issue of US plans for global empire. Recent disclosures in US News (21 July2003) about Pentagon “Operations Plan 5030” reveal a new war plan for North Korea. One scenario calls for US surveillance flights bumping up alongside North Korean airspace in hopes of creating the right incident to spark the pretext for war.
Expanding US military presence worldwide is intended to secure scarce resources like oil and water for US corporate control. Growing “global strike capability”means smaller but more manoeuvrable troop deployments to rapidly suppress any opposition to US dominance. The people of the world are being told to submit to US authority or pay the price. US space technology is intended to tie this global military package together and to ensure that no military competitor can emerge.
The global peace movement we witnessed prior to the recent US attacks and occupation of Iraq is the other superpower in the world today. US ambitions for global control and domination in the end will fail because the people of the world will not allow any one nation to be the over-lord of the planet.
Between 4 and 11 October the Global Network will hold its annual Keep Space for Peace Week: International Days of Protest to Stop the Militarisation of Space. Local events are expected to be held on virtually every continent of the world to show the growing consciousness within the peace movement about the current US plan for control of space. We urge local groups to organise actions in solidarity with other groups on this day. Check our website at www.space4peace.org for details. Let us all do what we can to non violently resist this frightening global strategy.
GNAWPS, PO Box 652, Brunswick, ME 04011, USA (+1 207 729 0517; m +1 352 871 7554; email [email protected]; http://www.space4peace.org ). | <urn:uuid:8eab8ae5-a03f-44fd-9bc1-f3a340b96936> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://peacenews.info/node/3618/iraq-war-emboldens-bush-space-plans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932881 | 1,816 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Spectacular roadside sculptures line S.D. highway
MONTROSE, S.D. – Cartoonlike buzzards wielding a knife and fork, anvil and oversized mallet might seem like an odd way to welcome tourists, but Porter Sculpture Park is no typical roadside attraction.
The vultures representing reincarnated politicians are just a few of the more than 40 quirky creations originating in the mind of Wayne Porter, who uses his blacksmith know-how and appreciation of history to turn twisted concepts into metallic works of art.
The park's signature piece is a 60-foot-tall Egyptian-style bull's head that stares down Interstate 90 motorists as they head out to South Dakota's Black Hills. Porter spent three years creating the 25-ton monstrosity out of railroad tie plates, dubbing it the "World's Largest Bull's Head" on a nearby billboard.
"If anyone builds one bigger, I'll know about it," Porter said. "And if they did, they're crazy. I'm not going to argue with them."
The sheer size of the piece is amazing, and to weld it with such defined form and scale is even more impressive, said Kelly Ludwig, a Kansas City-based graphic designer who lists the park on the iPhone app she created called "Best Road Trip Ever!"
"It is amazingly impressive on its scale," Ludwig said.
Porter was born in 1959 in St. Lawrence, S.D., and learned to weld in his father's blacksmith shop. He created his first piece of art, a bronze metal horse, at the age of 12. After earning degrees in political science and history from South Dakota State University, he returned to the town of less than 200 to become a sheep rancher and help Dad in the shop.
Porter passed the nighttime hours by creating sculptures, many of which found display spots around town. An oversized pink metal rocking horse was a favorite of tipsy residents exiting the local bars.
"Two o'clock in the morning, people would just have a ball on it," he said.
At some point, buses started arriving with people wanting to pay to view Porter's creations.
"I said, no, no, it's right on Main Street. You don't have to pay me," he recalled. "They said we're paying you."
The prospect of people handing over cash to see his art intrigued Porter more than sheep, so his brother helped him purchase some rolling prairie hills along an interstate exit in Montrose, S.D. He packed up his creations and opened Porter Sculpture Park in 2000.
Winters are spent back home in St. Lawrence crafting in the blacksmith shop, but Porter's summer home is an on-site camper shared by his trusty Australian shepherd, Bambino.
Porter offers guided tours whenever possible, providing insight into his inspirations while straying off on tangents ranging from his love of unsweetened iced tea and chocolate to the dangers of zombie attacks.
A mowed path lets visitors meander through the many goldfish, dragons, flowers and birds constructed of such junk metal pieces as old farm equipment, a cement mixer and hot water tanks.
A bright blue butterfly flaps its wings atop the pointed finger of a giant yellow hand. Goldfish pour from a two-story-high broken fish bowl as a fly armed with a flyswatter turns the tables on his pests. A spiked club wielding Jack pops out of Pandora's box, and skeletal fish holding skeletal umbrellas await a rain that never comes.
"I want to pipe in water someday," Porter said, noting that the sculpture is created with actual pipe.
A 20-foot-tall upside-down yellow and pink hammer sits behind a pair of red monks that "people mistakenly think are grim reapers." He originally wanted nine monks, and he hopes one day to add a musical element.
"I love Gregorian chants," he said.
Ludwig said Porter has curated his pieces in a beautiful way, using wide-open prairie spaces as a canvas while sprinkling hidden whimsies throughout.
"He's a really talented artist," Ludwig said. "And for really not having any formal training, it's really impressive."
The bronze colored bull head, which is guarded by four ram-head skeletons, whistles and hums with the passing prairie winds.
Porter during a recent tour heads inside, points and warns of some bats hanging from the rafters. They look real, but they're actually sub-sculptures he uses on his tour. He laughs, then ascends the staircase and jumps into the porch swing for a few sways before continuing.
Porter also claims the "world's largest ball of invisible twine," but says he's unsure where he placed the piece.
How many people visit each year? Porter has no idea.
"When I'm really busy I can't count them," he said. "And when I'm not busy it's not worth counting them."
Porter's latest project is 40-foot-tall horse that will top Leonardo Da Vinci's proposed masterpiece by about 16 feet and weigh more than the bull's head. (Da Vinci was commissioned to build the largest horse statue in the world in the 15th century but he never completed the project, though modern versions have been made.) Porter's horse is back in St. Lawrence and could take years to complete. He has no idea how he'll transport it to Montrose.
The man who's had no formal art training has another ironic bucket-list item.
"I want to take an art class sometime," Porter said. | <urn:uuid:3206fc90-3b37-4f73-88b7-7af335500708> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/story/2012-06-09/Spectacular-roadside-sculptures-line-SD-highway/55471952/1?csp=34travel&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+UsatodayTravel-Destinations+%28Travel+-+Destinations+-+Top+Stories%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974213 | 1,169 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Youth Futures program in Yerucham addresses the needs of 187 children age 6-13. 37 of the children are new immigrants from the Former Soviet Union.
The program calls for there to be 14 Trustees in Yerucham each will work with 15 children. The Trustees are all academics who were either raised in Yerucham or who chose to live there. All of the Trustees have experience working with children either in formal or informal education.
The children meet with their Trustees privately once a week and have group activities once a week. In addition the trustees meet with children in structured classroom activities, in enrichment activities, and at home.
The Local Advisory Committee includes director and deputy director of the Education Department, the director of Welfare, the school principals, a supervisor from the Ministry of Education and a supervisor from the community center. There is full cooperation from the Mayor of Yerucham, there is also full cooperation from the Education and Welfare departments. There is direct contact with the social workers both in terms of information regarding the children and in terms of how to work together with the children and their families. There is also an established partnership with Hatzvi an organization of young people in Yerucham which has at its base a group of students who are involved in social projects in the community. | <urn:uuid:036fdde7-2ca6-4e94-b9fa-bd8fd0c3d268> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jewishagency.org/JewishAgency/English/Israel/YouthFutures/YFArea/Yerucham/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974568 | 270 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Guest post by Tom Greenwood via ChildFund Australia
Thao is an only child. She lives with her parents and grandparents and attends ChildFund-supported Vi Huong preschool.
In Thao’s preschool class there are 15 children (12 boys and three girls). Altogether, there are 122 children in the preschool.
The preschool is a 2-minute walk away from her home. She likes it because she has friends there and she enjoys playing. Her favorite thing is the slide.
Thao’s mother, Yen, says: “I’m very happy because when Thao goes to school she has a chance to play with toys and meet her friends. It makes her more active and improves her knowledge. The teachers are so nice and kind. They consider the children like their own.
“I ask Thao about her day and she tells me what she ate. She says, ‘Mum, the food is really delicious!’”
Her favorite food is beansprouts and sweet rice.
When Thao grows up she wants to be a doctor so she can cure sick people.
She is one child in Vietnam who is already poised to make a difference.
Learn more about ChildFund’s operations in Vietnam and child sponsorship. | <urn:uuid:6a28c4bc-13e1-4971-b567-fa643bf5ce69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.childfund.org/2012/08/14/one-child-in-vietnam/?like=1&_wpnonce=67418a1937 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97441 | 265 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Beijing, Aug 31: China’s nuclear power industry will expand at a slower rate compared with the past five years, a media report said Wednesday.
‘China’s nuclear industry base is still weak and we must ensure development stability and consistency,’ China Daily quoted Zhang Guobao, former hear of the National Energy Administration, as saying.
Xinhua reported that the country suspended approvals of new nuclear power stations and order comprehensive safety inspections at all nuclear plants, following Japan’s Fukushima nuclear accident in March.
Zhang said the country should use the slowdown in construction to address weakness in the sector, including manufacturing capacity and technological innovation.
He also suggested the nation take this crisis as an opportunity to catch up as the world’s leading nuclear power country.
China is expected to have 42 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2015, equal to 3 percent of total installed power capacity, Zhang said. | <urn:uuid:0396fd82-b6b6-431a-ac8f-662e9712808f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indiatalkies.com/2011/08/chinas-nuclear-industry-post-slower-growth-report.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944746 | 191 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Last week at Slate, Dana Goldstein offered her views on how homeschooling is in opposition to good, progressive values. The headline and sub were not subtle: "Liberals, Don’t Homeschool Your Kids: Why teaching children at home violates progressive values."
Goldstein, well, she's peeved about folks like writer Astra Taylor who has a print essay in N+ about her experiences with unschooling under super-hippie parents, as well as Taylor's explorations of off-beat education options such as Albany's Free school.
But, writes Taylor's fellow-lefty, Goldstein, pointing out the rigidity and excessive rules that often come with public schooling is a "caricature."
This overheated hostility toward public schools runs throughout the new literature on liberal homeschooling, and reveals what is so fundamentally illiberal about the trend: It is rooted in distrust of the public sphere, in class privilege, and in the dated presumption that children hail from two-parent families, in which at least one parent can afford (and wants) to take significant time away from paid work in order to manage a process—education—that most parents entrust to the community at-large....
Homeschooling is so unevenly regulated from state to state that it is impossible to know exactly how many homeschoolers there are. Estimates range from about 1 million to 2 million children, and the number is growing. It is unclear how many homeschooling families are secular, but the political scientist Rob Reich has written that there is little doubt the homeschooling population has diversified in recent years.* Yet whether liberal or conservative, “[o]ne article of faith unites all homeschoolers: that homeschooling should be unregulated,” Reich writes. “Homeschoolers of all stripes believe that they alone should decide how their children are educated.”
Basically, if you do have the privilege or the luck or the hard-work or whatever it is to be able to homeschool, you should feel very guilty about that. What's frustrating even from a moderate standpoint is that Goldstein is not even critiquing so-called radicals who might want to abolish the public school all-together. Goldstein disapproves of homeschooling simply as an option. In the progressive world, we all go down together.
And though Goldstein mentions that nobody wants to sacrifice their child on the altar of fixing a bad school, she basically says that's what real progressives must do. No exceptions for physical or mental disability or behavior problems or learning problems or horrible schools or, God forbid, religious or political reasons needed. Simply, if you feel yourself drawn to the left side of the aisle and drawn to homeschooling, ask yourself, as Goldstein does "Could such a go-it-alone ideology ever be truly progressive—by which I mean, does homeschooling serve the interests not just of those who are doing it, but of society as a whole?" She says no. (Goldstein, we can assume, makes serious decisions about herself and her family only after considering the effect it will have on society as whole.)
Taylor, by the way, wrote an online response to Goldstein which demonstrates that she is no education anarchist. She approves of public schools and even condemns supposed "austerity." She also, however, make this libertarian-lite argument:
This is why I think unschooling poses a fundamental challenge worth considering—even if it is utopian and uncompromising and undesirable on a mass scale. Today, conventional wisdom has it that the solution is more, never less. We need more teachers, more textbooks, more discipline, more preparation, more class time, more tests, more metrics, more accountability, more excellence and success (but again, according to what standard?). Since the 1960s the school day and academic year have both lengthened considerably. The amount of homework assigned to a first grader has more than doubled since 1981, a surge that has even caused the New York Times to sound the alarm. Too many schools have become warehouses holding hordes of young people who are monitored by security guards and police, subjected to an ever-increasing number of tests and pre-fab programs of study, and offered diminishing educational opportunities in the fine and liberal arts....
What intrigues me about the history of radical pedagogy and the unschooling tradition is that its proponents were and are not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom, to dream of different ways of doing things, to take seriously words like “freedom,” “autonomy,” and “choice”—inspiring and important ideals that have been all but ceded to the political right in recent decades. Unschooling, I’ll readily admit, is not the answer to our nation’s educational woes. But taking a closer look at the radical margins may help us ask better questions about what we really want from our educational system and how to go about getting it.
Atlantic's always-dependable Conor Friedersdorf offers his own refutation of Goldstein today. Friedersdorf is also less-than-radical (though he does break out a Hayek quote!) and is entirely sensible. Friedersdorf writes that with all the questions of which school system is best, "I'd bet on the diversified system, the one where there are always competitors with different models to measure public schools against." With all of the problems in the world, it's just irritating that Goldstein would bother to disapprove of homeschooling as simply one more option of many. We could debate many more radical education solutions, but how can you fight against people so completely disinterested in even a modicum of choice? | <urn:uuid:0e1ce94e-2aeb-4311-ac07-92df8d6fed2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/21/homeschooling-is-not-progressive-friendl/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96887 | 1,168 | 1.710938 | 2 |
San Antonio's low cost of living, active nightlife and engaged community make it a great place to live.
Live In San Antonio
San Antonio is a great place to live!
One of America's oldest cities, San Antonio was colonized by the Spanish empire in the early 1700s. Rich layers of this and other cultures give the city its distinction..
San Antonio Life
San Antonio is known for its art scene, from the Blue Star Art Space to ArtPace.
Modern art and Latin culture fuse in the Southtown neighborhood, where you can take part in First Friday gallery walks.
One of the nation's largest art schools, the Southwest School of Art, has ongoing exhibitions and lectures by internationally known artists, most for free.
Explore some of Texas' best art museums, housing both contemporary works and old masters: The McNay, Museo Alameda and the San Antonio Museum of Art.
The new public art corridor on the Museum Reach of the River Walk features outdoor installations by local, national and international artists.
San Antonio Culture
When the stars come out over the South Texas Plains, it's time to head to the nightclubs and dance halls.
Check out Main Plaza, in the heart of downtown, which has live music all year long. Two-step to a country-western band at the Cowboys Dance Hall, or soak up Tejano's Latin rhythms at Graham Central Station.
San Antonio is home to the revered Jim Cullum Jazz Band (you may have heard their weekly radio show on NPR) and they play live at The Landing on the River Walk.
Whatever you're in the mood for, San Antonio offers a wide range of entertainment options when the sun goes down. | <urn:uuid:33f6f407-3404-4a76-9d9e-60a87e0913c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cybercityusa.org/content/live-san-antonio | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935773 | 350 | 1.625 | 2 |
Preliminary statistics indicate that seven people died in seven separate crashes on Kentucky’s roadways from Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012 through Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013.
All seven fatalities occurred prior to the start of the New Year’s holiday reporting period, which started at 6:00 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 28, 2012 and ended at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013.
One single fatality, motor vehicle crash occurred in each of the following counties: Garrard, Grant, Jefferson, Jessamine, Pike and Warren. The victim in Jefferson County was not wearing a seat belt and alcohol was involved.
One single fatality, motorcycle crash occurred in Laurel County.
As of 8:00 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013, there have been no reported fatalities during the New Year’s holiday period.
In 2011, three people died in two separate crashes on Kentucky roadways during the New Year’s holiday period.
Through Dec. 31, 2012, preliminary statistics* indicate that 737 people have lost their lives on Kentucky roadways during 2012. This is 17 more than in 2011. Of the 586 motor vehicle fatalities, 321 victims were not wearing seat belts. Of the 77 motorcycle fatalities, 39 were not wearing a helmet. Twelve of the 14 ATV fatalities were not wearing a helmet. Fifty-two pedestrians, one scooter/moped rider and seven bicycle riders have been killed. A total of 140 fatalities have resulted from crashes involving the suspected use of alcohol.
Citizens can contribute to highway safety by reporting erratic drivers to the Kentucky State Police toll-free at 1-800-222-5555. Callers will remain anonymous and should give a description of the vehicle, location, direction of travel and license number if possible. | <urn:uuid:6e751730-3d26-4c4d-b1dd-1e9f2c0e156f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbko.com/news/headlines/No-Fatalities-Reported-During-New-Years-Holiday-Period-on-KY-Roads-185474192.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958742 | 381 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Big Conversation:
Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst have agreed to debate before the July runoff, but there's an unexpected sticking point: the English language.
After Cruz challenged Dewhurst in his election night speech to five debates before the July 31 runoff, both candidates confirmed Monday that they would participate in two televised forums.
But another proposition, apparently floated by Univision, also surfaced Monday: a debate in Spanish — a language that Dewhurst, who served as a CIA officer in South America in the 1970s, speaks fluently but that Cruz does not.
Cruz, the son of a Cuban immigrant, told ... | <urn:uuid:57e9ce64-548d-4b1b-8cab-9c617f47940c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.texastribune.org/texas-newspaper/texas-news/brief-top-texas-news-june-5-2012/comments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980272 | 126 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Has Tupac risen from the dead to come back and perform with Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre? Unfortunately for some rap fans, no. However, Digital Domain Media Group Inc. was able to resurrect Tupac’s image for a performance at the Coachella music festival this weekend.
The video has quickly gone viral across the web, mystifying and quieting not only the Coachella concert-goers but anyone who watches the almost 5 minute performance. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Though the projected image has been widely described as a ‘hologram,’ it is a 2-D image and not a hologram, which is 3-D.
Dr. Dre and his production team first approached Digital Domain a year ago to discuss the possibility of creating a virtual Tupac. They began work in earnest on the Coachella performance around four months ago.
And this may not be the last you see of the 2-D Tupac on stage. The Wall Street Journal also reports that more performances could be in the works — whether they are smaller-scale events including solely Tupac, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg or larger events including other performers.
Although the initial reaction to the use of this technology may be a feeling of creepiness, I think it’s actually pretty exciting. Being able to render these 2-D images of performances that never even actually occurred is an amazing advancement in the field and opens up a lot of possibilities. I don’t see why we couldn’t see Michael Jackson, Elvis or the Beatles performing live using this technology. Although its not yet a true hologram, or 3-D projection, it’s a step that most people didn’t even know existed at this point and has already seen a lot of buzz and excitement generated from it.
What do you think of this technology and how they’re using it? What else does Dr. Dre have in mind for it? | <urn:uuid:0cf4417d-bd92-444c-bdaa-eba493cc6439> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetechupload.com/2012/04/17/tupac-hologram-captivates-coachella-and-internet-audiences/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957118 | 409 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Hermetic. (h??r-??me-tik). An adjective. Which my handy dictionary defines as relating to the Gnostic writings of Hermes Trismegistus. Or, characterized by occultism or abstruseness. Or, impervious to external influences.
When used to describe art, hermitic can mean, simply: hard.
For years, there was one spot in town that was known for showing challenging contemporary art, Nicholas Frank’s Hermetic Gallery.
In truth, Hermetic lived on even after its bricks-and-mortar space closed down after eight years in 2002. A little known fact. In fact, Frank became a pioneer "platformist" before that term became a commonly bandied about art-world term. (I use it myself. I think of Art City as a platform, in fact).
And Frank's Hermetic platform continues. He is presenting some of the work that he collected during the Hermetic gallery years to preserve the legacy of that venture.
“(N)icholas (F)rank (S)elects: Drawings from the Hermetic Collection” is on view at the Green Gallery East, 1500 N. Farwell Ave., through Sunday. It features the work of Carla Arocha, Michael Banicki, David Shrigley and Jeni Spota.
Today, of course, Frank is the curator at the Institute of Visual Arts at UWM.
Also on view in the main Green Gallery space is "If God Could Draw: Drawings by Nick Lowe and Mike Williams." | <urn:uuid:411f9816-128c-4446-a2d9-e42088af583c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/artcity.html?tag=Hermetic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95263 | 327 | 1.757813 | 2 |
People along the battered US east coast have taken the first cautious steps to reclaim their daily routines, even as about 20,000 people remained trapped at home in a single New Jersey city and the search for victims continued. The superstorm's death toll rose to at least 63.
The New York Stock Exchange came back to life, and two major New York airports reopened to begin the long process of moving stranded travellers around the world.
President Barack Obama landed in New Jersey, which was hardest hit by Monday's hurricane-driven storm, and he took a helicopter tour of the devastation with Governor Chris Christie. "We're going to be here for the long haul," Mr Obama told people at one emergency shelter.
For the first time since the storm pummelled the heavily populated north east, causing billions of dollars of damage, brilliant sunshine washed over New York City, for a while.
At the stock exchange, running on generator power, Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a thumbs-up and rang the opening bell to whoops from traders. Trading resumed after the first two-day weather shutdown since a blizzard in 1888.
New York's Kennedy and Newark Liberty airports reopened with limited service. New York's LaGuardia Airport, where water covered parts of runways, remained closed, though some airlines said they planned to restart flights there on Thursday. Limited service on the subway, which suffered the worst damage in its 108-year history, will resume on Thursday.
About six million homes and businesses are still without power, mostly in New York and New Jersey. Electricity was out as far west as Wisconsin in the Midwest and as far south as the Carolinas. Power company Consolidated Edison said it could be the weekend before power is restored to Manhattan and Brooklyn, perhaps longer for other New York boroughs and the New York suburbs.
In New Jersey, National Guard troops arrived in the heavily flooded city of Hoboken, just across the river from New York City, to help evacuate about 20,000 people still stuck in their homes and deliver ready-to-eat meals. Live wires dangled in floodwaters that Mayor Dawn Zimmer said were rapidly mixing with sewage.
As New York crept towards a semi-normal business day, morning rush-hour traffic was heavy as buses returned to the streets, and bridges linking Manhattan to the rest of the world were open. A huge line formed at the Empire State Building as the observation deck reopened.
Amtrak said the amount of water in train tunnels under the Hudson and East rivers was unprecedented, but it said it planned to restore some services on Friday to and from New York City - its busiest corridor - and would give details on Thursday. | <urn:uuid:676edb35-2fc8-44b0-a215-a5760dcce0b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://icscotland.icnetwork.co.uk/news/uk/today/tm_headline=storm-hit-us-starts-recovery-bid&method=full&objectid=32142592&siteid=50141-name_page.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970304 | 539 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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