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We don't have time to issue tickets for defying smoke ban, staff say
Officers responsible for issuing fixed-penalty tickets for illicit smoking from Tuesday next week have been told to give priority to their original duties, raising fears they will not have time to enforce the smoking ban.
The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department Staff Rights Union said a new guideline had recently been issued to frontline staff saying they should perform their original duties first. 'Smoking control is not our priority,' union chairwoman Li Mei-siu said.
The Leisure and Cultural Services Department said smoking enforcement 'will not overtake the current core duties and work priorities' of its staff. The department would continue to review whether it had enough manpower.
The two departments and the Housing Department are responsible for handing out tickets to those who smoke in premises and venues under their management, such as libraries, wet markets, beaches and housing estates.
Ms Li said her co-workers might not even have enough time to finish their duties in venue management, with only 200 staff responsible for managing 150 wet markets and cooked food centres.
'Without giving us more manpower and resources, how can we perform the extra duties?' she said.
Law enforcement would only be effective when the officers worked in teams, she said. 'If there is only one staff member issuing tickets, offenders may escape or use violence. There would be no one to help,' she said.
Under the new guideline, staff would be even less motivated to catch illegal smokers. 'Citizens will think we are shirking, but in fact we simply have no time,' she said.
The department should modify its guideline and, more importantly, assign a team of staff specifically for issuing penalty tickets, she said.
A department spokesman said more than 20 training sessions had already been provided for the 700 staff who would soon have the power to issue penalty tickets. He did not comment further.
Leisure Service Staff General Union chairman Gary Cheung Siu-wing said his colleagues had no time to perform the extra duty. The workload had been 'very heavy' for the 1,600 staff of the leisure services branch, who, in addition to managing more than 1,000 swimming pools and beaches and more than a million trees, would also be responsible for issuing penalty tickets.
'We cannot even finish our proper work,' he said. 'It is like asking firemen to catch thieves on their way to a burning building. Issuing tickets might also threaten our personal safety.' He urged his colleagues to concentrate on getting their original duties done first.
A Department of Health spokesman said it 'sincerely hoped' staff of these departments would enforce the smoking ban according to the law. A total of 17 training sessions had been offered by the Tobacco Control Office since March this year to staff of the three departments.
By July 31, the Tobacco Control Office had issued 3,718 summonses this year. Some 31 per cent involved games centres, 16 per cent shopping malls and retail outlets, and 14 per cent restaurants. | <urn:uuid:6b7c4e54-0e24-45c7-bf80-5dbf45fbf332> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scmp.com/article/690609/we-dont-have-time-issue-tickets-defying-smoke-ban-staff-say | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977112 | 616 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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When you go to college there is one thing that you may find that you are always in need of, and that is cash. Whether it’s for books, school supplies, clothes, or just a bit of cash to have some fun in that rare free time cash is necessary to get through college. The problem is that most college students don’t have a lot of liquid funds, which is where credit cards come in. While you shouldn’t go wild and get every credit card that you come across just because they are available to you, a student credit card or two could come in really handy while you are in college.
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Cimarron imported Uberti made 1847 Walker Dragoon black powder percussion revolver. In 1846 Texas Ranger and Dragoon officer Captain Samuel Walker teamed up with a little known and nearly bankrupt gun maker by the name of Samuel Colt to develop what was to become the most sought after of the Hartford model Colt percussion revolvers. The combined knowledge and experience of Walker and Colt resulted in the first six-shot revolver, a key to an even more awesome U.S. Army light cavalry sidearm. It was considered as the most powerful handgun available, until the introduction of the .357 Magnum. Saved from bankruptcy, Colt went on to a long and illustrious career, but sadly Captain Walker died in October of 1847 at the Battle of Juamantha, Mexico. However, the Walker legacy lives on in this exact and faithful reproduction created for your cowboy action shooting experience.
Specs: Charcoal Blued finish, color case hardened frame, brass trigger guard and back strap, .44 Caliber, Barrel Length 9", Weight 4.48 lbs, Stock one piece walnut grips. | <urn:uuid:9ffa1911-435b-443e-87e1-1da717ea61a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buffaloarms.com/Firearms_Buffalo_Arms_Company_it-158767.aspx?PAGE=Main%20Page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95202 | 221 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Results 1 to 14 of 14
Thread: Crosscourt clear/lift
08-16-2006, 05:06 PM #1
One of the tips I've heard many people say is that "when you are in trouble, do a crosscourt lift/clear to buy yourself some time."
So I was thinking about this... according to physics, an object falls with the same acceleration regardless of which direction its going in. In other words, as long as the object starts at the same place and reaches the same height, it will take the same amount of time to fall, whether its going straight up or going up at an angle.
So.... doesn't this mean that a lift/clear down the line will take the same amount of time to fall as a crosscourt one? Additionally, a down-the-line lift will probably drop at a steeper angle than a crosscourt one, forcing your opponent to stand farther back. Finally, a crosscourt shot will go over the head of the opponent, making it a bit more risky. So... doesn't all of this mean that its better to lift down the line than crosscourt?
08-16-2006, 05:50 PM #2
the cross court lift is done for a numerous number of reasons.
i'm guessing you are using this in a doubles context?
i always figured this was done to 1, move your attacking opponent horizontally. 2, open your partner to attack, since people almost always smash straight since its the fastest shot. this is done because your partner is probably ready and on the defensive while you're scrambling and in trouble.
lifting and clearing cross courts in defensive situations, and when you're flicked upon serves in doubles will also prevent problems in returning a smash.
your partner (who is now open to attack) will only focus on the tram line, the straight drop or smash, right? so its easy for him, and he's already in position.
you on the other hand, now cross-court from attack, will worry about every other shot, whether it be your partner's forehand shot or not. you are cross-court and have lots of time to recover and get into position. plus all cross-court drops and smashes take a lot longer to come over anyway.
you just recieved a smash down the line, so lifting it back up the line is almost suicide since he can 1, drop it back, and you'd be in trouble. or 2, smash it back and you, being in a bad position from lifting in the first place, will probably not be able to take that smash.
and besides, if you keep lifting it back up, will eventually run out of gas, and will begin lifting it shallower and shallower each time. eventually your attacker can run foward and kill it.
when you clear the flick serve cross-court, you will also possibly create confusion on part of the opponents.
the server (who is now backing up because he flicked it), will have to back up far to retrieve your clear... or his partner, might have to go cycle around his partner to get the shot. both of them are now pretty much out of position and will always be left with a few shots... 1, a poor smash you might be able to drive back, 2, a drop, or 3, a clear, giving you the opportunity to begin attacking...
i think i was all over the place while explaining that. so if i missed anything, i hope someone will correct or add to my blurb.
i will also wanna say everything i said up there relies on your trust and faith in your partner's defense.
and it applies primarily to mens doubles. or atleast evenly skilled partners in doubles!!!!!
you probably don't wanna try that kind of shot in mixed doubles unless you're really in trouble because at our play level (not pro, or anywhere near pro), girls usually are of less skill and speed than the guy. not always, but usually, since theres simply a ton more guys that play than girls do.
but the girl will beat you up afterwards for opening her up to attack like that haha.
in mixed doubles, you'll wanna be attacking cross-court to the girl, and lifting straight.
and it should be up to the girl to realize that when you're lifting, she should be moving cross-court away from the attacker anyway.
Last edited by chickenpoodle; 08-16-2006 at 06:02 PM.
08-16-2006, 06:41 PM #3
Wow, thanks for the great reply! That cleared it up a bit. So it's more about buying you time to recover by handing most of the defensive role off to your partner. Thanks!
08-16-2006, 07:37 PM #4
A crosscourt lift has more distance to travel than a down the line lift, so it will give you more time to get back into position. If you imagine a right triangle, the crosscourt shot will be down the diagonal, which is the longest side...
08-16-2006, 08:00 PM #5
Right, it travels a longer distance, but as long as it reaches the same height as a down-the-line lift, I think it should spend the same amount of time in the air. It just travels farther because it has a greater horizontal velocity.
Thats what I was trying to say in the first half of my first post.
08-17-2006, 07:09 PM #6
Okay, here's my understanding of basic physics : supposing we have basic ballistic flight here (parabolic flight path), then the flight path is determined by two variables initial velocity and initial angle.
Now, if you're lifting to get out of trouble, it probably means the bird is below the level of the net, and you're probably in a poor position. As a result, initial angle is constrained by the position of the bird relative to the net.
That leaves initial velocity as the variable which you still have control over. Velocity has a scaling effect on the parabolic flight path. So suppose you wanted the bird to land at the very corner of the court, you would need a bigger parabola to fit the flight path of the cross court lift as compared to the straight lift. Now, a bigger parabola would have a higher maximum hieght - but flight time is a function of maximum height so.... how do can you conclude that they both have the same flight time?
08-17-2006, 07:48 PM #7
You're right in that if the initial angles are the same, then the crosscourt lift would have a longer flight time. However, the net only constrains how flat the angle can be. If the player wishes, he can angle the shot a little bit away from the net (so its a steeper shot) and hit it with more force such that the birdie reaches the same height as the crosscourt lift, but travels down the line.
08-17-2006, 08:39 PM #8
Okay, then given the same flight time, the opponent will have to move a longer distance within the same amount of time -> which is more tiring.
08-17-2006, 09:47 PM #9
to simplify things further, even if the time of flight is exactly the same, isn't it harder for someone to move diagonally than just reversing ?
08-24-2006, 05:52 AM #10
the distance to cover while moving diagonally is greater than moving backwards, but i can probably say that most people here will agree that moving diagonally backwards in either left or right directions will be more comfortable than moving straight backwards.
i'm not sure why, but to me, its something about the aspect of balance i guess.
i just feel more balanced moving diagonal than straight backwards...
08-29-2006, 02:09 AM #11
I think cross-court clears buy you time because the opponent has to move further to retrieve it in the same amount of time.
Suppose you did straight clear (not diagonal), the opponent will have time to move (more) into position and hit the birdie overhead. However, with a cross-court clear, the opponent may not be in as good a position and may have to take the birdie at a lower height, which means more time for you.
...just randomly guessing...
08-30-2006, 09:15 PM #12
i guess the discussion is talking about doubles so far, but my question is, why not just lift it high? its not going to be tiring for ur opponent bc its doubles, so you can just lift the birdie as high as you can.. if your talking about singles tho.. which would make more sense in buying time and wearing ur opponent is:
what really matters is where your opponent is, not where u lift. if ur opponent is still near the net, i would prefer a straight lift, because i can make it drop faster and give them less time to respond. if the drop is on the right side, then i especially would not lift xcourt bc then the opponent can just swivel their body to hit it with their forehand (if they are, of course, right-handed). if you opponent has already returned to the middle, then it doesnt really matter which way you lift, unless they have poor footwork to one corner or the other..
09-01-2006, 05:57 PM #13
Actually, I've always heard that the lift to the middle is the shot to hit when in trouble. It's a higher percentage defensive shot than a lift to the corner. This is especially important in the return of the spinning net shot.
09-01-2006, 06:34 PM #14Originally Posted by tonyw85
my thoughts - good physics - altho it just means that in order to make your clear long enough to move your opponent you actually have to hit the shuttle higher (if you give it the same velocity as the straight clear)
the cross court clear is always going to be the best way to move your opponent - but executing the shot is pretty hard because of the greater angle and velocity required to get them to the back of the court. a cross court clear is no good if ends up mid court (hehe i know this from experience :s ) i think a high long clear is the best option if your really stuck - so long as you get it to the back and get the shuttle dropping as vertically as possible then it should reduce your opponents attacking power.
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Imagine being found guilty of copyright infringement for using a file sharing service like Kazaa and having a federal jury set damages that you must pay at $220,000.
That’s exactly what happened to Jammie Thomas, a Minnesota woman who is getting a second chance in court to fight the judgment after the judge threw out the earlier decision because he said he made a mistake when instructing the jury.
Thomas now has two Harvard-trained lawyers who are taking on her case for free, according to the article.
The 30,000 lawsuits filed by the recording industry since 2003 have prompted copyright lawyers to start taking cases pro bono to fight what some call “extortion,” said Harvard law Prof. Charles Nesson.
The new lawyers are arguing the record industry does not own the copyrights, the artists do. Details of their argument are in the article. It’s an interesting piece about a case with national implications. | <urn:uuid:65c3a115-f434-4244-92f3-f975645a4d6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://journajunkie.net/2009/06/15/media-law-case-of-the-week-14/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962642 | 195 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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Anything other than solar and wind is summarily dismissed and will not be considered regardless of the science. Liberals are anti-science. If they were serious about being energy independent with clean, safe fuel they would not reject nuclear.
Yes a lot of poison mixed in that fracking water to come back and get in your drinking water. I love science Armybrat and how do you figure nuclear waste is safe for ______ sake?
"how do you figure nuclear waste is safe for ______ sake?"
Show me a single death from nuclear waste if you think you can.
Why would the Strib print such an ignorant editorial? There is absolutely no mention of the environmental problems created by fracking, such as the pollution of drinking water with toxic chemicals. Fracking is far from problem-free. Maybe just a mention or two of that would be warranted, you think?
Word is... California has an oil/gas shale several times bigger than N Dakota; the one in Colorado is 10 x bigger, while they have discovered another shale in Texas that's reported to dwarf the N dakota "bakken"... We have so much oil/gas locked up in shale's, it would take a millenium to use it all. Even Israel has a small shale that is reported to contain over 400 Billion bbl's of oil...
There are alternative sources of energy. They cost more but will be available through the market place. I have yet to hear about an alternative to water. We keep saying we cannot pass our debt to future generations but it seems that we are willing to pass contaminated water to future generations.
P.S. if we were to use a thorium nuclear fuel cycle, we would have enough "clean & safe" nuclear fuel (in USA alone) to last over 1 million years (yes, 1 million years) and yes, there would have virtually no waste left over... But for environmental reasons (code word for anti-progress, anti-human life) the gov't spends no time on research (they would rather give their money to faux companies (corp. cronies) like A-123, etc...
If we don't have clean water, we won't need oil or gas.
I am curious what the anti-fracking crowd would like us to do. I think we can all agree that oil is not a long term solution. It is dirty, expensive and it's availability and price stability is reliant on the stability of the most unstable nations in the world. We have an abundance of coal, but until it can be burned as cleanly and cheaply as Gas it is not a good fuel source. Wind is good, but the turbines are expensive and inefficient, and wind farms have to be located where the wind is, and that is NOT near large cities. Solar Panels work great in the Southwest, but in the rest of the country they are nothing more than a novelty because there simply is not the necessary sunlight (or open ground to locate countless acres of panels close enough to a city to make a difference) to make them a wide-spread solution for a urban areas. Putting a solar panel on the roof of your house might cut down your bill, but it will not help factories, office builidings, warehouses, farms, and other entities who require more energy than they could possibly produce with solar. My point is, while the long term solution is a combination of advanced solar technology for homes, next generation wind turbines where available, clean(er) coal, nuclear (assuming the govt. ever permits it) and NATURAL GAS everywhere else. We can't switch overnight, and we can't switch to a product that is not at least close to being cost-competitive. The environmentalists love to claim they are speaking on behalf of science, yet they have absolutely zero understanding of society, economics, and human behavior.
All energy sources have their problems and limits. How about a full court press on conservation as we move to renewables?
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Pope Benedict XVI yesterday admitted to “stormy waters” during his pontificate as he held his last audience in St Peter’s Square before tens of thousands of pilgrims on the eve of his historic resignation.
Benedict toured the Vatican plaza in his famous “popemobile,” stopping to kiss children and waving to the crowd of more than 100,000 gathered under a bright, cloudless sky.
Some in the throng held up huge banners with messages such as “Benedict, we’ll miss you” and “The pope is the heart of this city,” or waved the Vatican’s yellow and white flag at the pontiff’s last public event.
The pope drew an analogy between his reign and a miracle recounted in the Bible when Jesus Christ calmed the waters as he was sailing with his disciples, including St Peter, a fisherman by trade who is regarded by Christians as the first pope.
“The Lord gave us days of sun and of light breeze, days in which the fishing was good. There were also moments when there were stormy waters and headwinds, but I always knew that God was in that boat and I always knew that the boat of the church is not mine, is not ours, but is his and he will not let it sink,” the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics told the cheering crowd.
Benedict also said his decision to resign — which makes him the first pope to do so since the Middle Ages — had not been an easy one, but had been taken for the good of the church.
“I took this step in full awareness of its gravity and novelty, but with profound serenity of spirit,” he said. “I will continue to accompany the church with prayer and reflection.”
Pilgrims flocked to bid a final farewell to the frail 85-year-old, who earlier this month abruptly cut short his pontificate, an eight-year reign dogged by scandal and Vatican infighting, by declaring he was too weak to keep up with the modern world.
“I have come in gratitude for everything he has done these past eight years,” said Father Giulio, a 67-year-old priest. “Resigning is a powerful message for every Christian. He resigned without bitterness, but instead in sweetness and serenity.”
The Vicar General of Rome, Cardinal Agostino Vallini, said residents of the Italian capital were turning out in great numbers because they felt a special bond with the aging pope.
“It is something our heart and our faith demands,” Vallini told Vatican Radio ahead of the event. “Rome likes the pope a lot and feels a special affection for him, so it could not miss his last public act.”
Rome has been gripped by speculation over what prompted Benedict to resign and who the leading candidates might be to replace him, as cardinals from around the world fly in ahead of a conclave to elect the next pope.
Rumors and counter-rumors in the Italian media suggest cut-throat behind-the-scenes lobbying, prompting the Vatican to condemn what it has called “unacceptable pressure” to influence the papal election.
The Vatican has said Benedict will receive the title of “Roman pontiff emeritus” and can still be addressed as “Your Holiness” and wear the white papal cassock after he officially steps down today. It said Benedict would be taken by helicopter to the papal summer residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome where he will begin a life out of the public eye. | <urn:uuid:fbb99864-1044-4d99-b6dc-3875ce85ba84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/print/2013/02/28/2003555889 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982152 | 771 | 1.65625 | 2 |
View Full Version : GLSL over indirect GLX?
04-19-2007, 03:23 PM
Er. Not sure this post belongs here - but there isn't a "GLX" forum, and it's not really a GLSL-in-itself question: I can't see any opcode definitions in the glxproto.h I have for GLSL shader functionality. And it doesn't look like they're in the currently published gl.spec file either.
So I guess the answer is "no, that doesn't work, at least not yet". Sooo... is there an updated GLX coming, presumably defining protocol for the shiny new toys now that they've settled in?
Jon Leech (oddhack)
04-19-2007, 06:19 PM
There's no GLX protocol defined for significant parts of OpenGL 2.1, including shader and vertex buffer object functionality, at present. Realistically the only people who are developing GLX implementations at this point are NVIDIA and Mesa/X.org (AFAIK AMD's drivers use the X.org GLX, and I'd expect Apple's implementation on OS X does as well though I'm less sure).
Neither NVIDIA nor Mesa have proposed protocol yet - someone from IBM was prototyping VBO GLX support in Mesa but I haven't had any updates on that in a long time. All I can suggest is that you either lobby NVIDIA to support it, or join Mesa and develop the protocol yourself. I can help out a bit with details of allocating GLX opcodes and such, but don't have time to do this myself.
04-20-2007, 04:30 AM
Thanks for the response! I've now asked about it on the mesa3d-dev mailing list.
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It has been a big news week for women’s magazines and their liberal use of digital image editing tools like Photoshop. A few days ago model Coco Rocha complained to the Internet masses on Tumblr about her digitally removed bodysuit on cover photo on Elle magazine. Meanwhile, an 8th grader from Waterville Maine also used the Internet to vent her displeasure with magazine’s heavy-handed Photoshop.
14-year-old Julia Bluhm started an online petition asking Seventeen magazine to produce one photo spread per month without the aid of Photoshop. With the help of her social media, she collected around 6,000 signatures in ten days, and then — with the help of a press release from a San Francisco PR firm that led to broader coverage on blogs such as Jezebel— the number swelled to 13,000, then 16,000, then 20,000. On Tuesday she printed out the petition with cover 26,000 signatures and took it directly to the magazines offices in Manhattan.
Bluhm’s protest outside the Hearst building didn’t go unnoticed by the magazine; she was allowed to hand deliver her petition to Seventeen editor Ann Shoket. However it appears Seventeen has no plans to take Bluhm's suggestions, a spokesperson for the magazine made the following statement (devoid of any promise to use less photo manipulation):
“We're proud of Julia for being so passionate about an issue — it's exactly the kind of attitude we encourage in our readers — so we invited her to our office to meet with editor in chief Ann Shoket this morning. They had a great discussion, and we believe that Julia left understanding that Seventeen celebrates girls for being their authentic selves, and that's how we present them.”
But the magazine has invited Bluhm to work with editors on a future issue.
Vouge magazine made a slightly more concrete promise to their readers this week. Vogue editors, and publisher Conde Nast have made a “promise” to work with only healthy models including "not knowingly working with models under the age of 16 or who appear to have an eating disorder." To this end they say Casting directors will check models’ IDs and encourage "healthy backstage working conditions", including food options.
It sounds good, but it’s a commitment that’s a little hard to prove—perhaps an industry-wide law about disclosing the use of Photoshop and weight of models (like the recent law in Israel) is what it would take to make a real change in the U.S. What do you think? | <urn:uuid:654d3a30-e005-4e51-8a04-008d3f0b2227> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.popphoto.com/news/2012/05/14-year-old-delivers-anti-photoshop-petition-to-seventeen-magazine?quicktabs_1=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95575 | 539 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Every photo on the wall of the Yankee Stadium SAP Suite Level inspires a story from Tony Morante. Many of those tales feature a personal touch, suggesting Morante's deep connection to the team and its ballpark, first as an usher and eventually as director of stadium tours.
As Morante leads a tour of the new Yankee Stadium, he offers up anecdotes galore about memorable events that took place at the building's predecessor. The photos -- now preserved and framed -- are the "cream of the crop," Morante said, out of more than 60,000 archived shots from the New York Daily News, and they suggest the franchise's rich history, of which Morante is unabashedly proud.
In one photo, Babe Ruth sits with Johnny Sylvester years after the two were connected by a famous story. Sylvester was 11 years old in 1926, when he was kicked in the head by a horse and in bad shape. The Cardinals and Yankees, who played each other in that year's World Series, both sent the ailing boy a signed ball.
"Babe Ruth went one step above that and he promised Johnny Sylvester he was going to hit a home run," Morante said. "He actually hit three."
That was before Morante's time, but many of the photos bring thoughts about his own experiences. A shot of Elston Howard, the Yankees' first African-American player in 1955, prompted Morante to call the catcher "one of the greatest guys I got to know on the team through the years" and a "great catcher" -- so good that the Yankees eventually moved Hall of Famer Yogi Berra to the outfield.
A sequence of three side-by-side photos displaying the delivery of left-hander Ron Guidry or "Gator" takes Morante back to the season tickets he held back in 1978, located near the dugout. Guidry went 25-3 that year, and on June 17, he was going for his 11th straight win when he struck out 18 Angels.
It sticks in Morante's mind, partly because it was the day Yankees fans began a "two strike" chant. Every time Guidry got that far in the count, the crowd would chant to urge him on.
Guidry also is one of the numerous Yankees legends immortalized at Monument Park, another stop on the tour and a feature Morante calls, "the most exclusive part of not only Yankee Stadium but any sports arena."
This special area contains plaques honoring Yankees greats, as well as monuments for its most distinguished stars, who received, "the ultimate expression of appreciation."
The tour ends with Morante standing in the seats down the right-field line, his back to the field that holds so much history, despite its young age. He brings up a passage from the preface of Donald Honig's book, "The New York Yankees: An Illustrated History."
"Year by year and player by player, the Yankees have risen to heights of supremacy unmatched by any other team in our national pastime," Morante recites, "and they had the good dramatic sense to perform their rituals in the world's most majestic stadium and the most conspicuous city, right here in the Bronx, New York."
Andrew Simon is a contributor to MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | <urn:uuid:dffa175f-9a84-4242-9bdc-c2b09a653499> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120917&content_id=38557598&vkey=news_nyy&c_id=nyy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973524 | 693 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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The second half of the Basic Doctrine Course at Portland Bible College, this section addresses many of the most essential truths including: who is Jesus; what was the purpose of His death, burial and resurrection; why was the Virgin birth necessary; what is Jesus doing today; how is the atonement ap ... More
The first half of the Basic Doctrine Course at Portland Bible College addresses many of the most essential truths including: the sources of doctrine; who can know God; how was the Bible written; how do we know God exists; what is the purpose of man; who are the angels; and what power does Satan and ... More
The Epistle to the Romans is considered by many scholars to be the apex of Pauline literature. In this Epistle, the Apostle Paul presents one of the clearest looks at the entire process of redemption found anywhere in New Testament writing. Because of the comprehensive nature of this book and its tr ... More
Old Testament History has the reputation among PBC students as one of the best courses offered at the college. Under the instruction of Ken Malmin, the historical journey of the nation Israel and the key characters of that era, literally com to life. Section One features the stories found in the boo ... More | <urn:uuid:00365f34-d708-4583-9dc2-f01dcc094b80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://coggno.com/portal/list?add=tag_facet&value=Religion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943337 | 290 | 1.742188 | 2 |
In among the supermarket flyers that fell out of today's issue of the local newspaper was this intriguing single glossy page:
Note the subtle change from a promise of FREE TREATMENT for your Arthritic Pain at the top of the page, to "you may be entitled to a FREE TREATMENT", boldface mine, in smaller print further down.
Note also the invaluable diagram to remind any forgetful elderly readers of the parts of their body which they might care to concentrate on, in hopes of feeling some pain there:
The reverse of the flyer:
(I've put the plain text of the flyer at the end of this post, to help searchers find it.)
These people may be 100% kosher, and their promise of some undisclosed kind of pain relief that may or may not be free may be given in entirely good faith.
I am a horrible, cynical person, though, so I have my doubts.
Pain relief is the gold-standard undisputed champion of things that placebos, and woo-woo alt-med nonsense that is in truth actually just a placebo, can treat.
This is a good thing. If you believe your pain is reduced, then your pain is reduced. Hurrah!
It's not like believing a small electrical gadget is curing your cancer when it isn't. Tumours are objective things, but pain is subjective. If you think it's gone, it's gone.
This doesn't, however, mean that anyone offering quote "free" unquote asterisk double-asterisk dagger double-dagger section-sign pain treatment to arthritis sufferers should be left alone to sell whatever it is they're selling.
For one thing, someone making this sort of offer may not be selling a true placebo. The classic example in alt-med arthritis treatment is Traditional Chinese Medicine arthritis pills, often called "black pearl" pills, which have on many occasions been found to simply contain plenty of normal non-Traditional-Chinese-Anything painkillers and anti-inflammatories.
On the plus side, this makes those pills work really well. But unknowingly taking large doses of steroidal anti-inflammatories, benzodiazepines and plain old paracetamol (a compound whose sole shortcoming as a painkiller is a rather narrow therapeutic index, the difference between an effective dose and a toxic one...) is a good way to end up unexpectedly hospitalised, or dead. Especially if you're as old as the average buyer of arthritis medication.
(The sellers of such medicines usually refer to the presence of real medicines in their woo-woo pills as "contamination". It is a wonder which passeth all understanding that "contamination" of alternative medicines always seems to involve substances that do what the alternative medicine is supposed to do. Never speed in the sleeping pills, never codeine in the erectile-dysfunction pills. A mystery, indeed.)
And then there are the alt-med treatments which are actually actively harmful. Poisonous, but otherwise placebo, anti-pain medicine may actually work better against pain than a sugar-pill placebo; if it's got obvious unpleasant side effects, then it must be powerful stuff!
(See also, sellers of worthless medicines who put warnings on them that say, for instance, that they should not be taken by pregnant women. And sham surgery, the most powerful placebo there is!)
Elderly people are ideal customers for a lot of scam artists. The perfect customer is someone who's losing their marbles but unaware of it - the dottier you become, the less qualified you are to detect your dottiness, and the more likely you are to conclude that you've made a solid deal when someone more compos mentis than you can see you're being thoroughly ripped off.
If Grandad's sliding into senility but hasn't (yet) had control of his finances taken away, he will be disproportionately likely to hurl large portions of said finances at door-to-door fake home repairers, worthless investments, phone scammers pretending they're from Microsoft, and of course the world's extraordinarily large supply of cashier's-cheque overpayers and Nigerian princes.
(Just this moment I myself received a very attractive e-mail offer from "MR.ALEX GOODWILL", who appears to be quite a prolific philanthropist.)
And, of course, there are also many older people who are just desperate for something, anything, to stop everything from hurting all the time. They may be as suspicious of a "Free treatment! Honest!" flyer like this as I am, and just as sure that whatever it is, it probably won't actually be free, but they're willing to try it anyway, in pursuit of even a slim chance of making their life a little more worth living.
Personally, the second I saw this flyer I was ready to bet money I had borrowed from Jimmy the Toecutter that this offer, whatever it was, was some sort of alt-med woo-woo BS.
But again, who knows, it might be totally legit. So I did a little digging.
When I searched for chunks of text from the flyer all I found was this Word document on a server belonging to the New Zealand Advertising Standards Authority. It's a complaint about a very similar-sounding flyer, including the helpful body diagram. But that flyer actually named the provider of the alleged treatment - "Niagara Healthcare".
(Niagara's response is a pretty great piece of weaseling, and a successful one, too; the complaint was not upheld!)
Perhaps my flyer had nothing to do with Niagara, though. So I searched for "Digitalpop", the name of the company on the postage-paid response thing, and "niagara". And hey presto, DigitalPop are listed as the ad agency for Niagara here in Australia.
I don't know if that'd stand up in court, but it's good enough for me. And even if this flyer by some quirk of fate doesn't have anything to do with Niagara, I think they're still a mob worth writing about.
Niagara are, you see, in the motorized-massage-gizmo business. Here's their Australian site. They sell handheld massagers, chairs with motorized rubby things in the upholstery, and other such things, including adjustable chairs and beds that help the infirm to get up, and so on.
They don't actually list any prices, though. Not on their Australian site, not on their UK one, and not on this US site either. That last site does have this Sale page proudly offering a ten-inch-thick queen-sized memory-foam mattress for a mere $US699, down from $US1499. I'm sure it is far, far better in many very convincing ways than the superficially strangely similar memory-foam mattresses you can get for three to four hundred dollars on eBay. Doubtless those are all cheap crap that will fall apart in no time.
(I bought the cheapest memory-foam pillows I could find on eBay, more than ten years ago now. They are still in perfect working order.)
Apart from that, the Niagara sites are... priceless. If you want the price of a chair, for instance, then on the Aussie site you have to fill in this quote-request form.
That is seldom a good sign.
It would appear that you can pay 1600 New Zealand dollars (more than $US1300, as I write this) just for a handheld Niagara massager, and I don't know what the chairs cost but there's a used one on eBay Australia right now with bids starting at seven and a half thousand dollars. There's a "Niagara Platinum 6 Electric Massage Therapy Bed" on offer, too; a snip at $AU5000 Or Best Offer!
(There's also a Niagara chair on eBay.com.au for less than $200, but it's only heated, not a massager.)
Niagara's Australian "key benefits" page quotes four alleged studies supporting the usefulness of their "Cycloid Vibration Therapy". I was surprised to discover that the second and the third studies on the list actually seem to exist and be published and everything. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of replication of their results, and neither study is of pain relief, and although the Niagara page calls them "recent studies", they're actually 28 and 31 years old, respectively. But they're still well ahead of the usual "studies" that are supposed to support unconventional therapies. For whatever that's worth.
I could find no evidence of the existence of the last-mentioned study at all, though. And the closest I could find for the first one was this study, which seems to have been done by the same guy quoted on the Niagara page and to be studying much the same thing quoted on the Niagara page, but which is singing the praises of "LPG Endermologie" rather than "Niagara Therapy".
"Endermologie" buzzes your flesh around to make you look slightly younger, and actually does work, for suitably small values of "work". (I'm sure all the ladies on the Endermologie Web site are actually in late middle age and displaying the miraculous results of the therapy, because it'd be a serious insult to their customers' intelligence if they depicted their products being used by heavily Photoshopped and distinctly underweight 20-year-olds.)
For some reason, the little list of studies on the Australian Niagara site doesn't include this 2002 study, which is the only abstract I could find in the whole of MEDLINE that actually refers to "cycloid vibration therapy", which is what Niagara call their great discovery.
That study's abstract says it found that cycloidal vibration along with compression bandaging helped the healing of venous leg ulceration. Except that doesn't seem to really be what it found at all, because there was no control group, just 21 patients getting their bandaged injuries buzzed. A better study would have some patients bandaged without massage, some patients bandaged and vibrated the expensive Niagara way, and some patients bandaged and vibrated with the finest, cheapest electric massager the nearest sex shop had to offer.
What, I wondered innocently, have other people had to say about Niagara?
Well, Consumer NZ is unimpressed with them, straightforwardly calling their products "overpriced".
Ricability, a UK consumer-research charity, gives Niagara special attention in this PDF, titled "Sharp selling practices in the selling of assistive products to older people".
The UK Office of Fair Trading made them change unfair contracts.
And, interestingly, the UK Advertising Standards Authority did not uphold a complaint (in this PDF) about a "free trial" of Niagara products not lasting long enough.
In Niagara's successful response to the complaint, they said that their free trial lasted "approximately 45 minutes". It seems clear to me that this "free trial" is the "free treatment" that my flyer is offering, if you send in the form. A
salesman "medically trained consultant" comes to your house and sets up a buzzy thing, you get to use it for a little while, then he tries to sell you a handheld massager that costs as much as 25 Hitachi Magic Wands, or a chair or bed that costs as much as a good used car.
(Niagara's response also says that they've sent 500 million mailings about their products in the previous 20 years. I don't have much to say about that, I'm just boggling a bit. No wonder their scientific evidence is thin on the ground, even though they proudly say they've been in business since 1949. They've been far too busy printing advertising material to ever clearly demonstrate their very expensive massage doodads do anything that far cheaper, but suspiciously similar, ones do not.)
Maybe the Niagara gadgets all work great, and are more than worth their hefty, semi-secret price tags. Maybe this flyer doesn't even have anything to do with Niagara, despite the many points of similarity. Maybe we are all actually brains in jars. Who knows?
What this looks like to me, though, is an offer of "free treatment" from a company whose products are actually so astonishingly expensive that they'll only tell you what the things cost if you consent to talk to a trained salesperson. They market these expensive products to elderly people, who may be more amenable to tricky sales techniques, or unaware of cheaper alternatives. And Niagara's products may be more effective at relieving arthritis pain than far cheaper massage devices, but they present no evidence that this is the case, despite a proud claim of having been in business for more than sixty years.
One of my personal rules of thumb is, "nothing worth buying is sold door-to-door".
I now add another one: "If a product is a secret, you probably shouldn't buy it".
And now, a transcript of the flyer, to make it easier for searchers to find this page.
Are You Living With...
Is Pain impacting your daily lifestyle...
Complete this application today to receive your
DON'T put up with it any longer!
Have you been diagnosed with?
Where is most of your pain?
Thank you very much for your co-operation.
By completing and returning this form you may
be entitled to a FREE TREATMENT.
SEND NOW FOR
The other side:
Happiness is nothing more than good health, Mobility and Quality of Life
PO Box 1173
SPRINGWOOD QLD 4127
Digitalpop PTY LTD
Reply Paid 85427
SPRINGWOOD QLD 4127
We respect your privacy
Your privacy is important to us. We are committed to ensuring that any personal and health information you provide us is handled properly and with all due care. In addition, we comply with the National privacy principles and the Privacy Act 1988. Collecting health information is necessary to ensure we provide you with an excellent service. We will only use or disclose your health information to the extent you have consented to such use or disclosure.
Digital Pop ABN 87 136 922 551
Important If symptoms persist, sees your doctor or health care professional. Use only as directed.
TUCK IN AND POST
Simply fold along the dotted vertical line marked First Fold, make the second fold, then tuck the third fold into the back of the second fold and post. | <urn:uuid:a880c29c-64aa-46cd-9041-24e516653711> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/category/scams/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960066 | 3,012 | 1.554688 | 2 |
All Pets Veterinary Clinic
WHAT YOUR PET WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS
We have been great pets this year (aside for an occassional scratch at the couch
or stolen trash item) and we would like a few things. Couldn't you please help us out?
Here's what we want:
1. To be spayed or neutered.
Santa, every day over 30,000 dogs and cats are euthanized in the United States.
If my owners get us spayed or neutered they will not only help to cut down on the pet
over population problem but will help us decrease our chance of getting certain types of
cancer when we are older.
2. A dental cleaning.
Our breath is gross! Sometimes we can't even stand to be with ourselves. We see the
looks our owner gives us when we go in to give them a big kiss. If they would lift
up our lips and look they would probably see some tartar and gingivits. Getting
our teeth cleaned would help cut down on our chances of other problems later in life.
3. A rabies shot.
I think this little tag dangling around my neck is a tad bit outdated. Actually, I
don't think the cat has ever had a rabies shot. Do you know what they do to animals
that bite someone and don't have a rabies shot? They end up quarantined or worse,
euthanized for testing! PLEASE, help us get our rabies shots current again Santa.
A day at the spa sounds great! My coat is a little dirty and the cat is getting matted.
My toe nails are getting a bit long and the cat's nails are really sharp. (I found this
out the hard way--she smacked me across the nose when I tried to steal her food.) My
ears are a little stinky as well. Oh, (this is kind of embarassing), but lately my butt
has been a bit uncomfortable--I think I need those glands emptied out. Please get us
an appointment with Jane and Julie.
5. Light food or less active food.
We have put on a few extra holiday pounds Santa. It is getting a little harder for us
to run around and play because we are a bit heavy. Some tasty, lower calorie food
will help us lose a little of that "fluff" we have obtained.
6. Heartworm preventative.
The mosquitos just about carried us away this year and I think we have missed a few
doses of our monthly hearworm pills. I hope we don't have heartworms. Please get us
tested and get us some more pills, or the new Proheart shot.
7. Flea control.
Every now and then we get fleas from the neighbor's dog or from just being outside.
We hate the way they make our skin feel. If I happen to catch one running around on
me and eat it I get tapeworms. Please, get us some of that stuff that goes on our back.
It is kind of cold going on but it really works. (Oh, and none of that generic junk
from WalMart. We get a little light headed and dizzy from the generics and we still
end up with fleas.)
8. A microchip.
Last year the cat followed me outside and ran off. Luckily she came home before
she ended up at the pound like I did that one time. If we had microchips implanted
and we did get away and end up at the pound, they could scan us and figure out who we
belonged to. A microchip is permanent and won't get lost like my collar does occasionally.
9. Pre-screening bloodwork for older pets.
As we get a bit older I notice that I am a bit more thirsty and have to go outside
more often. I certainly hope my kidneys aren't going. If you got us a blood test
every year the vet could pick up on problems I am having before my owner noticed
something was wrong. That would mean I would get better treatment earlier.
10. A friend.
We are very happy here but thought it would be pretty neat to have another dog or
cat around. When I got out and ended up at the shelter they had all these great dogs and
cats that needed homes. Santa, if you brought one of them home I think the three
of us could manage to take over the entire bed! I would prefer a dog so we could
gang up and torture the cat but I guess another cat would do.
Well Santa, it is a big list, but see what you can do. We promise we will be model pets.
We will leave you some cookies if we can swipe some from the kids. Unfortunately, you
will have to have them without milk because we cannot figure out how to get the fridge
open. Oh, and you can find a ton of other things we would LOVE to have by clicking the
green box below!
Spot and Fluffy
The information provided is for educational purposes only and is not
intended to take the place of your regular veterinarian. Please do not hesitate
to contact your regular veterinarian if you have questions regarding your pet.
Karen Blakeley, DVM, MPH
14 December 2002 | <urn:uuid:648788e6-aafe-4e42-a6b4-5f2bbae7f5b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allpetsmacomb.com/christmaslist.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961078 | 1,117 | 1.53125 | 2 |
All Hail the King!
by Paul Hein
by Paul Hein
Being a Prince is not all beer and skittles — or even champagne and polo. It can be downright dangerous, as Prince Virgillio can attest. He and his sons have been convicted of fraud.
Prior to his ascendancy to royalty, Prince Virgillio was just plain Virgillio Rigoli. He lived in northern Victoria, in Australia, and was sick and tired of paying taxes to the Commonwealth of Australia, probably because that country's Department of Agriculture had bulldozed his fruit crop, claiming it was infested with some sort of insect. In other words, it had used his own (tax) money to destroy his own crop, for its own reasons. So he erected a fence around his property — comprising some 24 hectares — and built a moat. The enclosed territory was declared independent on July 4, 1994, and given the name Principality of Ponderosa. A passport was required of anyone entering or leaving. Virgillio's two sons, Philip, and Little Joe, also elevated to royal status, joined their father. "I do not recognize nor will I ever recognize the government of Australia," wrote His Royal Highness, Little Joseph Rigoli.
Australian authorities took a dim view of all this. "The accused had decided that they were not going to pay taxation to the Commonwealth of Australia and had gone to the trouble of setting up an independent municipality — to distance themselves from the laws of Australia," declared crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert. Unthinkable! And, indeed, to most people the best that could be said of Prince Virgillio is that he is a kook. Who could take seriously his claim that his land was, well, his, and a sovereign state to boot? Obviously, his claim couldn't be taken seriously. Why not? For one thing, he hadn't killed, threatened, or expelled anybody.
Captain Cook arrived in Australia in 1770. He claimed the land for his King, George III. Nobody seemed to think it peculiar that an island, heretofore unknown, should, by the declaration of the sailor who happened across it, become the property of an Englishman thousands of miles away. The actual arrival of the English began in 1788, with a shipment of prisoners. Prior to the American revolution, England had sent its prisoners to America, but now Australia merited that honor.
Of course, there were already people living there — for about 50,000 years, in fact. Whatever they may have thought about having their homeland suddenly declared the property of a foreigner, and themselves subject to his whims and fancies, made no difference. I have seen the word "genocide" used to describe the relationship of Crown to aborigine, and as recently as the 20th century, the children of aborigines were taken from their parents and put into institutions to acclimate them into white society. Is there a certain resemblance to the actions of Prince Virgillio? In some respects. Those very officials who now decry his actions, and have convicted him of a crime, did virtually the same thing in 1788: declared themselves master of "their" land, and everyone living there subject to them. But with one difference: they were armed and dangerous, and supported by the military might of a powerful nation. Poor Prince Virgillio had just himself and his two sons. No army, no backers in high places, no legislature to write laws, and no courts to solemnly declare those laws to be proper and binding. Obviously, the establishment of a nation involves not merely a noble principle: "We Want To Be Free!" — but principle supported by a power: financial, legal, and military.
Today the idea of founding a new, free, country still appeals. Some recommend finding a suitable island to establish this new land. Others advocate a migration of like-minded freedom-loving individuals to a small town, where they can, by quite normal and accepted means, gain control and form a nucleus of a new, free, society. Let such as these ponder the fate of Prince Virgillio. You can give your piece of land a name that pleases you: The Sovereign Nation of (insert name). You can even design and wear a royal raiment, with crown and scepter. You can pass laws ad infinitum regarding the conduct of people in your kingdom. No one will care, although you will be regarded as demented, and deserving of treatment for your disordered behavior. But should that behavior progress to the point of challenging the authority of those who actually rule, you will quickly learn who wields the power. If you deny the de facto rulers the tribute they demand, you may find yourself regarding life through bars.
The biggest bully is boss. If you challenge his "right" to determine your life via his "laws," be prepared for a fight, which you almost certainly will lose. If, incredibly, you should triumph, you face a greater danger: that you will, in turn, become the bully who orders others to do, or not do, what you decree.
It may be possible to be free, but not by simply declaring yourself so, and almost certainly not by fighting. The trick is to find the tyrant's Achilles' heel, and attack it.
July 26, 2005
Copyright © 2005 LewRockwell.com | <urn:uuid:514907df-9d57-451b-8ab8-44e4b63690e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lewrockwell.com/hein/hein108.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980044 | 1,110 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Council on Postsecondary Education
Kentucky colleges and universities join forces to accelerate improvements in student learning outcomes and increase student success
Association of American Colleges and Universities and Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education Announce Kentucky as Seventh Partner State in Liberal Education and America’s Promise: Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College
The Association of American Colleges and Universities and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education announced today that Kentucky is the seventh official state partner in its continuing national initiative, Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP): Excellence for Everyone as a Nation Goes to College. Using LEAP resources and the outcomes frameworks developed in the initiative, Kentucky colleges and universities already have been working to clarify what common learning outcomes all Kentucky two-year and four-year college students should be able to demonstrate to ensure they are receiving quality undergraduate degrees.
“The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education sought to become a LEAP partner state because the goals of LEAP are so congruent with our new 2011-15 strategic agenda for Kentucky postsecondary and adult education, Stronger by Degrees,” said Robert L. King, president of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education. “The assessment strategies and development of high-impact educational practices we will be developing and testing as a part of our involvement with the LEAP initiative will be critical to meeting our goal of increasing high-quality degree production and completion rates at all levels.”
In addition to becoming a LEAP partner state, Kentucky is also one of eight states involved in AAC&U’s new Quality Collaboratives initiative, funded with support from the Lumina Foundation. Through that initiative, Kentucky will work together with other participating states to learn from one another and develop consensus frameworks of learning outcomes—articulated in the recently released Degree Qualifications Profile—that chart levels of competence which every college student should achieve and integrate in five areas: broad and specialized knowledge, intellectual skills, applied learning, and civic learning.
Using this framework, Kentucky and the other states will test a family of approaches that assess learning demonstrated in samples of students' actual work. This family of assessment approaches will help campuses develop educational practices that:
- Ensure that students achieve essential outcomes at appropriately high levels;
- Document students’ attainment of outcomes; and
- Facilitate students’ transfer of courses and competencies from two-year institutions to four-year institutions on their way to completing college degrees.
“Colleges and universities across the state of Kentucky already are working to ensure that graduates achieve the kinds of learning that will best position them for success in today’s turbulent global environment,” said AAC&U President Carol Geary Schneider. “AAC&U is pleased to partner with these institutions to accelerate their learning improvement efforts and shine a national spotlight on the high-impact educational practices Kentucky colleges and universities already are developing.”
For information about LEAP Kentucky, see http://www.aacu.org/leap/kentucky.cfm.__________________________________________________________________________________
Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) is an initiative that champions the value of a liberal education—for individual students and for a nation dependent on economic creativity and democratic vitality. The initiative focuses campus practice on fostering essential learning outcomes for all students, whatever their chosen field of study. LEAP seeks to engage the public with core questions about what really matters in college, to give students a compass to guide their learning, and to make a set of essential learning outcomes the preferred framework for educational excellence, assessment of learning, and new alignments between school and college.
AAC&U is the leading national association concerned with the quality, vitality, and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Its members are committed to extending the advantages of a liberal education to all students, regardless of academic specialization or intended career. Founded in 1915, AAC&U now comprises more than 1,250 member institutions—including accredited public and private colleges and universities of every type and size.
AAC&U functions as a catalyst and facilitator, forging links among presidents, administrators, and faculty members who are engaged in institutional and curricular planning. Its mission is to reinforce the collective commitment to liberal education at both the national and local levels and to help individual institutions keep the quality of student learning at the core of their work as they evolve to meet new economic and social challenges.
Information about AAC&U membership, programs, and publications can be found at http://www.aacu.org.
About the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education
The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education is Kentucky’s statewide postsecondary and adult education coordinating agency charged with guiding the reform efforts envisioned by state policy leaders in the Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997 and the Adult Education Act of 2000.
The Council on Postsecondary Education believes in the transformative power of postsecondary education. Stronger by Degrees, the new strategic agenda for Kentucky’s postsecondary and adult education system, is powering a stronger Kentucky economy and improving the lives of Kentuckians. To learn more about the Council’s work and the strategic agenda, visit http://cpe.ky.gov. | <urn:uuid:42d651c7-e2eb-42fd-9556-513f70bed4a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cpe.ky.gov/news/mediaroom/releases/nr_120511.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934187 | 1,066 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Among the cool things I found in my childhood closet was this bald eagle craft.
I have a vague recollection of making it at school, possibly in 3rd grade. I am a proud alumna of Joe Michell Elementary, home of the Eagles. I love that our teachers taught us about our school mascot.
When Trevor saw my eagle, he wanted to make one. (Of course.) Supplies: 14 popsicle sticks, white glue, brown and cream paints, scissors, white cardstock, a yellow pen (or yellow cardstock), and a googly eye.
The first step was to arrange eleven popsicle sticks to form the wings. Trevor wanted me to break one stick for him so that the eagle's wingspan would be narrower. In retrospect, I should have broken two sticks so that he could have hidden the break under the body of the eagle.
Once the sticks were laid out, we put glue along the edges to glue them together. (We did this on waxed paper.) Trevor glued the other three sticks together to form the eagle's body. We added a strip of cardstock to the wings to add stability and help join the broken popsicle stick.
Trevor painted the wings and tail feathers dark brown. Then he added a bit of cream paint to the dark brown and used it for the eagle's body.
While the paint was drying, Trevor cut out a white head and yellow beak and feet. He added a googly eye and glued the whole thing together. Trevor absolutely loves his eagle!
And now, a Mythbusters update! Every day someone asks me if I know when our Mythbusters episode is going to air, so I thought it would be easier to write about it here than continue to tell you all one by one. (Read here if you missed the original post about my upcoming appearance on Mythbusters.) Brief clips from our episode are showing in a fall preview on both their website and the Discovery Channel, which is pretty cool. The new episodes are going to start airing in October. Exact dates have not been published yet, but as soon as I know I will spread the word. I'm really excited! | <urn:uuid:a9133505-6320-4c4f-9202-bba9ab79f1df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cindyderosier.com/2012/08/popsicle-stick-bald-eagle-and.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969296 | 442 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Air New Zealand offers the following information to help make travelling with children an even more enjoyable experience.
Children under the age of 2, not occupying a seat and accompanied by an adult, may travel on an infant fare. A child travelling on an infant fare must be held by the accompanying adult. For safety reasons an adult can hold only one infant, and children under the age of 15 may not hold infants.
If you are the only adult travelling with more than one infant you will need to reserve a seat for the additional infant and pay a child's fare (available for children up to and including 11 years of age). The additional infant must be restrained in an approved infant car seat, which you must provide.
The age of a child that can be restrained in a car seat is up to 4 years, provided the child does not exceed the weight limit for the restraint system of the car seat.
The car seat must have its own inbuilt restraint system and be of a type approved for use in motor vehicles. Please refer to the chart below. It must also be in good, safe working condition and should not exceed the given dimensions.
An alternative to using a car seat inflight is the CARES child restraint system. CARES has been approved for use on Air New Zealand flights by the New Zealand CAA (Civil Aviation Authority).
Please note: the Business Premier lie-flat seats and Premium Economy SpaceSeats™ are sideways facing therefore the seatbelt has an airbag in it. This means infant car seats and the CARES restraint system are not able to be used in the Premium Economy SpaceSeat™ on the B777-300 aircraft and Business Premier lie-flat seats on all B747 and B777 aircraft as it would impede the deployment of the airbag in the event of an emergency. Infants under the age of 2 years are still able to be seated on their parent/guardian's lap and will be provided with a specially designed infant's seat belt which will not inhibit the safety features of the airbag seat belt.
|Infant seat type||Maximum width||Maximum height|
|Aft (rear) facing||43 cm (17 inches)||48 cm (19 inches)|
|Forward facing||43 cm (17 inches)||65 cm (25.5 inches)|
Depending on the age and size of your child, the type of child seat may be aft (rear) or forward facing. A child seat may only be used in an aft (rear) facing position if it doesn't interfere when the seat in front reclines.
These dimensions apply to B747, B777, B767, B737 and A320 aircraft.
The child restraint should display one of the following manufacturing standards marks:
Please note, for your child's safety, child booster seats cannot be used on board.
Graphics courtesy of Transportation Safety Training Center, Virginia Commonwealth University.
Please note: Flights operated by Virgin Australia including Air New Zealand 7000 flights have different standards for infant car seats. Please contact Virgin Australia for more details. | <urn:uuid:42316bfe-bd64-405a-822c-6a3980638e2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.airnewzealand.co.nz/infants-car-seats | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934664 | 627 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Nigeria: Shantytown dwellers face eviction
|Publisher||Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)|
|Publication Date||23 November 2011|
|Cite as||Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), Nigeria: Shantytown dwellers face eviction, 23 November 2011, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/4ece49d42.html [accessed 23 May 2013]|
|Disclaimer||This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.|
Over 200,000 people living in shantytowns on the waterfront in Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State, southern Nigeria, could be forcibly evicted if local authorities carry out their threat to demolish the settlements, say human rights group Amnesty International and local activists.
"I will demolish [the] waterfronts. All of them," Rivers State Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi told reporters on 27 October. Residents are considered "temporary occupants" and government is only legally required to give seven days' notice to vacate, he said, adding demolitions are needed to reduce crime in the area and make way for new developments.
In a report in October 2011 Amnesty said if people are forcibly evicted without adequate consultation, sufficient notice, compensation or alternative accommodation, many will be left homeless and risk losing their livelihoods.
Despite Amaechi's statements, Rivers State's Commissioner for Urban Development, Tammy Danagogo, said notice will be given and consultations will take place before people are asked to move.
Residents are unconvinced. "There is no proper information - we don't have any idea of when they will demolish," said Fubara Samuel, a waterfront resident and housing rights activist.
Njemanze, a waterfront community of 17,000 near Abonnema Wharf, was demolished in August 2009, but only some residents received few days' notice. "Njemanze showed they can [demolish] without warning. You know it will happen, but you don't know when, and it's the same for people at Abonnema Wharf. How do you prepare for that if you don't know where to go?" said Aster Van Kregten, a researcher at Amnesty International.
Danagogo told IRIN that low-cost housing will be made available to those who need it. But Amnesty International reported that when Njemanze was demolished no alternative accommodation was offered and many children were left homeless, some of whom still live under a flyover.
In many cases, families broke up as parents returned to villages while the youths stayed in Port Harcourt, Kregten said. "Young girls who used to live with their families in Njemanze are now earning a living in prostitution."
Activists also doubt promises that the area will be developed - after two years the land where Njemanze used to be is still vacant. "People used to live there, now it is a rubbish dump," Samuel said.
"Nobody is against development, but we need to know what they will use [the land] for," said Marcos Irinmaka, waterfront resident and president of Concerned Citizens, a local NGO formed to fight forced evictions.
Planning for eviction
Danagogo said the Abonnema Wharf settlement will be demolished in early 2012. On 11 November, a Nigerian NGO, Social and Economic Rights Action Centre, obtained an interim injunction against the Rivers State government, halting the proposed demolition. Five days later, Danagogo told IRIN he was "not aware" of any injunction.
Regardless of whether the demolition of Abonnema Wharf goes ahead, waterfront communities live with the uncertainty of not knowing when their turn will come. "Old men and women say they live in fear. They ask me, 'How can we sleep?'" said Samuel.
Mistrust of the government has been exacerbated by security forces shooting at people protesting demolition of the Bundu waterfront on 12 October 2009. Amnesty International reported that 12 people were shot and at least two were killed, but so far no official investigation has taken place. Further demolitions were then halted, but if they go ahead, "people will protest again - it is certain," Samuel said.
Remuneration not the solution
Home owners will be compensated for their houses, Danagogo said, but Samuel said tenants will be left struggling as the waterfronts offer the cheapest housing in Port Harcourt. Kregten noted that some home owners in Njemanze had been paid compensation, but others are yet to receive anything.
Even with the promise of compensation, many owners are still reluctant to leave, partly because they are Ijaws - indigenous people who traditionally rely on the water for their livelihoods, such as fishing, ferrying and collecting mangrove timber. "We all say we are not selling - our houses are not for sale," said Gift Jim-George, who built her house herself on reclaimed land in Abonnema Wharf.
"Moving houses, even if the government provides alternative accommodation, will not solve the problem, because in a new place we will find it hard to sustain our lives - we are not farmers. Residents of this waterfront will still come back, because our livelihoods depend on it," said Jim Tom-George of the Abonnema Wharf Home Owners Association.
"We are like fish in a river," said waterfront resident David Mark. "[But] they want to send us to the forest where we cannot survive." | <urn:uuid:08335507-d142-4fd4-9af6-f9aa3facb678> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/rwmain?page=topic&tocid=4565c22535&toid=459bb2cb21&publisher=IRIN&type=&coi=&docid=4ece49d42&skip=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959903 | 1,183 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Her first major gilding demonstration was at the
“Artisans & Kings - Selected Treasures from the
Louvre” exhibition at the Denver Art Museum.
As part of the
Denver Art Museum’s continued focus on
innovative educational programming, the Artisans
& Kings exhibition featured working ceramic
artists, gilders, weavers and marqueters in
individual, scheduled demonstrations for
two-week periods during the exhibit.
Visitors were invited to watch Laurence as she
demonstrated her skills in gilding, using 17th
and 18th century gilding techniques.
She explained the process of the
traditional water gilding techniques, and
answered questions related to the craft.
provided these gilding demonstrations several times
everyday to groups up to 100 or more, including
a delegation from Stanford university, local art
teachers, art lovers and the general public.
of the benefits of these gilding demonstrations was that
the visitors then understood better the art they
saw as they toured the rest of the museum.
This was a new
activity for the Denver Art Museum and was
deemed very successful. Here is what the head of
the program had to say:
“… We wanted to
thank you for being a part of the demonstration
space during the Artisans and Kings: Selected
Treasures from the Louvre exhibition. As a
demonstrator, you facilitated a truly unique and
wonderful experience that thoroughly engaged our
visitors. We’ve heard nothing but great things
about you and your demonstration. Your
contribution greatly enhanced this exhibition”.
Head of Adult & College Programs, Denver Art | <urn:uuid:c37a8642-3cdb-4d53-aac9-f1f5b6bd0a59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mastergilders.com/Instructional-Demonstration.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935775 | 360 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Transformation Café Series
Gonzaga professors are coming to select neighborhood hot spots to spark curiosity and engage in a dialog on their favorite subjects. Envisioned as a sort of modern-day French salon, these free events are open to all and offer an opportunity to learn something new and exchange ideas while enjoying a sweet treat.
To RSVP for the events below, contact Angela Ruff at [email protected] or 509-313-3572.
What We Value, What We Eat
Saturday, February 23, 2013 at 10 a.m., Roast House Coffee Warehouse
Featuring Dr. Ellen Maccarone, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Food choices and engaging around issues of food are expressions of deeply held values, bringing to the table an inordinately large variety of academic disciplines and professional fields. Come to discover how contemporary food studies makes use of the Jesuit model for education to improve personal health and promote food advocacy, justice, and security throughout the world.
Walking the Talk of Leadership
Friday, March 1, 2013 at 6 p.m., E.J. Roberts Mansion
Featuring Dr. JoAnn Barbour, Associate Professor of Doctoral Leadership
In 1985, Italian novelist and essayist Italo Calvino was about to leave Italy for Harvard to deliver a series of Lectures when he died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage. His lecture notes were published posthumously as Six Memos for the Next Millennium, a compact little book filled with philosophy and wisdom about literature and writing. We will discuss the memos from a leader’s perspective, that is, how one embodies leadership or walks his or her talk through with lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, multiplicity, and consistency.
Humans as Cultural Animals: Implications for Psychological Diversity Between East and West
Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 10 a.m., Forza Coffee on the South Hill
Featuring Dr. Vinai Norasakkunkit, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Western notions of the self as independent and autonomous lead to assumptions about motivation, emotions, and thinking patterns that challenge globalization efforts, especially when engaging with traditionally collectivistic and conformist societies like Japan. Discover how emotional well-being and distress manifest differently across cultures, and how external pressures from globalization can impact individuals in these societies in negative and positive ways.
Does Student Testing Improve Education in America?
Saturday, March 23, 2013 at 10 a.m., Indaba Coffee
Featuring Dr. Elaine Radmer, Lecturer of Educational Leadership & Administration
In this hands-on, interactive session, we will discuss the intended and real impacts of education reform since the late 1950s. Bring your perspectives and experiences to consider questions such as...Why do schools give tests like the WASL, MSP, or HSPE? Who is being held accountable? Are the tests helping or hurting?
Shakespeare (and others) in the Material World
Sunday, April 21, 2013 at 4 p.m., The Shop in the Perry District
Featuring Dr. Heather Easterling, Associate Professor of English
Come join a discussion on ways that scholarly interest in the plays of Shakespeare (and his peers) has become focused on their embeddedness in their Renaissance culture and society. Far from being ‘for all time,’ these plays are distinctly ‘of’ their time: what does it mean to read this drama in terms of aspects of early modern society not always seen as important to its literature, such as the significance of changing city space in London or the impact of Renaissance anxieties about English as a language? And does such an approach change what these plays are staging? Join us for such a look at a well-known literature through a new and influential lens.
International and Intercultural Communication
Saturday, April 27 at 11am at the Little Garden Café
Featuring Dr. Claudia Bucciferro, Visiting Assistant Professor of Communication Arts
Worldwide travel has increased, transnational corporations reach the farthest regions of the Earth, and communication technologies provide instant access to distant places. How does this influence the way we communicate? Or the way we see ourselves, our nation, and the people we consider to be "others"? Discover International and Intercultural Communication, a discipline that provides pathways to improve human understanding in our diverse and global world. | <urn:uuid:f36389d3-df04-46c3-aded-4642022ba4f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gonzaga.edu/beinspired/125/m/events/transformation-cafes.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936231 | 891 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Ally asks: I have heard that honey will make your hair shiny and add moisture. And that it is a good alternative to ‘cones in conditioners. Does it really moisturize?
Honey is a humectant, which means that it holds on to water molecules. This is a desirable property in a moisturizer, especially for skin. But unlike skin, hair is not alive and it doesn’t need as much moisture. What it does need is something to smooth the cuticle so the hair feels soft and looks shiny.
Unfortunately honey is not a good lubricant, so it doesn’t make hair slippery and smooth. In fact, it’s the opposite of slippery– it’s sticky because it’s basically a sugary solution. (Rub some between your fingers and you’ll see!) So it will not smooth your cuticles or help a comb pass through your hair without damaging it. So any moisture-grabbing benefits that honey might give your hair are off set by it’s stickiness.
The Beauty Brains bottom line:
There are plenty of honey based hair care products on the market but we’ve never seen any that use honey at effective levels for moisturization. Silicones are better for that purpose, even though people think ‘cones are bad for hair.
What do YOU think? Is honey an effective natural shine agent or just more marketing hype? | <urn:uuid:a7e10452-d594-4f43-90c0-2824db3b3407> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thebeautybrains.com/2008/04/09/how-honey-helps-hair/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941721 | 299 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Average cost of gasoline in San Diego County on Friday
Record cost of gasoline in San Diego County, on June 19, 2008
The price for a gallon of regular gasoline climbed 6 cents overnight in San Diego County, with the average reaching $3.99 on Friday, according to the Southern California Auto Club.
The increase is largely attributed to a Monday fire that shut down the Chevron refinery in Richmond, the largest supplier of gasoline to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Chevron won’t speculate on when the crude unit that was the site of the fire will be back up and running. Federal and state investigators are still waiting to gain access to the site of the fire to collect evidence. Once the inspectors finish their work, the company can begin repairs.
The refinery, the third-largest in California, processed 242,901 barrels of crude oil per day.
In San Diego, the price for a gallon of gas has risen 13 cents since Monday.
On the spot market, where excess gas is sold to stations last-minute, the price for a gallon shot up 30 cents Tuesday, said Denton Cinquegrana of the Oil Price Information Service. It has since trickled down about 6 cents.
Gas stations will gradually pass off that increase to their consumers. San Diegans are starting to see that with the 6-cent jump overnight.
The price of gas had already been rising due to higher demand from the summer driving season as well as an increase in the price of crude oil. However, a barrel of crude costs $92, down from $94 earlier this week, said Jeff Spring, a spokesman for the Auto Club.
The loss of the Richmond refinery is especially significant in California because the state can’t easily import gasoline.
California has some of the highest gasoline emissions standards in the country, and there’s no efficient way to bring in fuel from the East Coast or Gulf of Mexico refineries even if they do make a satisfactory blend. That means, assuming lower inventory, that other refineries in California will have to make up the difference in supply, which could remain tight.
Spring said gas would likely continue to rise over the next week, but how long it continues to climb depends on how long the Richmond refinery stays down.
Last week, a gallon of gas in San Diego County cost $3.84 on average, according to the Auto Club. A year ago it was $3.77. San Diego’s record is $4.63 on June 19, 2008.
The nationwide average for a gallon of regular gasoline has climbed to $3.67, a rise of 34 cents since July 1. In the past few weeks, pipelines serving Wisconsin and Illinois ruptured, and refineries were shut down unexpectedly because of equipment problems in Illinois and Indiana.
Prices could go higher if Middle East tensions rise, more refinery problems emerge or hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico force oil drillers or refiners to shut down. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week said this could be a more active hurricane season than previously thought.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. [email protected] (619) 293-1891 Twitter: @jonhornUTSD | <urn:uuid:ff2d3ba0-9cbc-417d-8dbf-db74100bccb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/aug/11/tp-gas-jumps-6-cents-overnight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947197 | 665 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Obama-Ryan History One of Sharp Words on Vision for U.S.
Obama has spent months critiquing the fiscal plan proposed by the Wisconsin congressman who Republican Mitt Romney yesterday named as his presidential running mate as “radical” and a “prescription for decline.”
The Ryan plan “makes the Contract with America look like the New Deal,” Obama said in an April 3 speech in Washington, referring to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s Republican program in Congress the 1990s.
“Disguised as a deficit-reduction plan, it’s really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country,” Obama said of Ryan’s proposal. “It’s nothing but thinly veiled social Darwinism.”
The rhetorical heat had been building for more than two years, and Ryan hasn’t been shy about returning fire.
One of the early confrontations between the two men occurred Feb. 25, 2010, at a White House summit on the health- care legislation. Ryan, sitting across from Obama, said the president’s plan was full of “gimmicks and smoke and mirrors” and “does not control costs” or reduce deficits.
Ryan went on to deliver a point-by-point dissection of the budgetary impact of the health-care overhaul, which Obama signed into law about a month later, and its effect on Medicare and Social Security. He concluded by saying the public didn’t want it.
“We all talk to our constituents,” Ryan said. “And if you think they want a government takeover of health care, I would respectfully submit you’re not listening to them.”
While Obama glared, he kept his response confined to one aspect of Ryan’s critique and didn’t directly engage him. That cool posture has changed as Ryan’s profile rose during the budget debate that has consumed much of the give-and-take between the White House and congressional Republicans.
In April 2011, a week after Ryan, as House Budget Committee chairman, released his fiscal plan and said Obama’s budget would “accelerate this country’s descent into a debt crisis,” the president delivered a speech at George Washington University in Washington.
With Ryan sitting in the crowd, Obama lit into the congressman’s proposal to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over a decade and revamp Social Security and Medicare.
While lauding those as “worthy” goals, Obama said the Republican’s vision “is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.”
“There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” Obama said, foreshadowing what has become the central message of his re-election campaign.
He characterized Ryan’s plan for Medicare, the government insurance program for those 65 and older as, “tough luck; you’re on your own.”
Ryan wants to replace the current system with one giving seniors a fixed amount of money to buy private coverage. The theory is that competition among health insurers for their business will bring down spiraling costs. After first proposing a phase-out of traditional Medicare, he has since said he would offer seniors a choice between the two plans.
In his own news conference afterward, Ryan called Obama’s speech “a political broadside from our ‘campaigner in chief.’”
Pressing His Case
“Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor, or people who are powerless and don’t have lobbyists or don’t have clout,” Obama said.
Ryan, 42, has ratcheted up his rhetoric against the president, as well.
Last October, he accused Obama of “sowing social unrest and class resentment” and “pitting one group against another” in promoting a $447 billion jobs agenda, which would be financed with a new surtax on millionaires.
“Instead of appealing to the hope and optimism that were the hallmarks of his first campaign, he has launched his second campaign by preying on the emotions of fear, envy and resentment,” Ryan said in a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
He accused Obama of misrepresenting the differences between the parties, quoting the president’s remarks a week earlier that Republicans support “dirtier air, dirtier water, fewer people on health care.”
“He’s going from town to town, impugning the motives of Republicans, setting up straw men and scapegoats and engaging in intellectually lazy arguments as he tries to build support for punitive tax hikes on job creators,” Ryan said.
Obama retorted in his April 3 speech in Washington with a line he’s also used at campaign events.
The Ryan plan reduces federal deficits by “gutting the very things we need to grow an economy that’s built to last,” Obama said. “That is not class warfare. That is not class envy. That is math.”
He also directly linked Romney to Ryan, jabbing at the speaking style of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee at the same time.
“He even called it ‘marvelous,’ which is a word you don’t often hear when it comes to describing a budget,” Obama said of Romney’s endorsement of the Ryan budget plan. ‘It’s a word you don’t often hear generally.”
The extended, long-distance debate between the congressman and the president raises a key question for Romney, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication in Philadelphia. “The interesting question is, does this make the debate about the future as envisioned by Ryan instead of the future envisioned by Romney?”
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at [email protected]
Bloomberg moderates all comments. Comments that are abusive or off-topic will not be posted to the site. Excessively long comments may be moderated as well. Bloomberg cannot facilitate requests to remove comments or explain individual moderation decisions. | <urn:uuid:9d93f78f-c3db-4844-b211-a4bed4029db1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://origin-www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-11/obama-ryan-history-one-of-sharp-words-on-vision-for-u-s-.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961543 | 1,342 | 1.804688 | 2 |
August 25, 2012
Talk about the shoe being on the other foot. Syria claims it can destroy Israel’s nukes – which Israel has not officially acknowledged – with a handful of missiles.
“Syria is capable of destroying Israel’s nuclear facilities with 20 missiles, Syria’s ambassador to Jordan, Bahjat Suleiman, told a visiting delegation on Wednesday, pro-Assad news sources reported,” according to the Times of Israel.
“Syria has acquired surface-to-surface missiles from Russia and North Korea which cover most of the territory of Israel. In September 2007, the Israeli Air Force reportedly destroyed a nuclear reactor Syria was developing with the assistance of North Korea, although Israel never officially claimed responsibility for the strike.”
It appears, however, that the Syrian reactor was not in fact a reactor, or was at best an uncompleted reactor. Nuclear and building materials used in reactors were not discovered on the site following the Israeli attack. Moreover, most of the information on the reactor and the alleged involvement of North Korea was provided by the CIA and Mossad and thus highly suspect. The Mossad’s motto is said to be: “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”
The Iranians need to follow Syria’s example and directly target Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Syria and Iran also need to start talking about Israel’s so-called “Samson Option,” the strategy of nuking Israel’s neighbors if they respond to provocation with a conventional military attack.
Israel has also used the program to blackmail the world into sending billions of dollars to prop it up. “If left to its own Israel will have no choice but to fall back on a riskier defense which will endanger itself and the world at large,” Amos Rubin, an economic adviser to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, has said. “To enable Israel to abstain from dependence on nuclear arms calls for $2 to 3 billion per year in U.S. aid.”
The U.S. has sent billions to Israel and it still has a nuclear arsenal, larger than Pakistan and India combined.
- Syrian: ’20 Missiles Can Take Out Israel’s Nuclear Sites’ (raptureimminent.wordpress.com)
- Attacking Iran now perilously premature, former head of Israel’s atomic agency warns (timesofisrael.com)
- Syria can destroy Israeli nuclear facilities ‘with 20 missiles,’ boasts ambassador to Jordan (timesofisrael.com)
- Syrian Envoy: Syria Capable of Destroying Israeli Nuclear Sites With 20 Missiles (theuglytruth.wordpress.com)
- Syrian Envoy: Syria Capable of Destroying Israeli Nuclear Sites With 20 Missiles (news.antiwar.com)
- 12 Questions and Answers about Israel and Iran in 2012 (amirmizroch.com) | <urn:uuid:69d842fb-f5ec-47c3-a74f-0b90f72d1795> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jeenyuscorner.com/2012/08/25/syria-targets-israels-unacknowledged-nukes-the-jeenyus-corner/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933035 | 617 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The above images were sent to me by an anonymous reader who lives in Baldwin Park. His querry was a simple one. He wrote: “Why can’t a tree look like a tree in Baldwin Park? Trees are beautiful — give shade and improve the air we breathe — but not in Baldwin Park. Why, oh why?”
Now, I know some cities purposefully sculpt parkway trees. They think it looks neat or unique, I’m not sure. Glendora comes to mind. They are fans of the lolipop trees on Glendora Avenue between Foothill and Bennet. Many say they look great when adorned with Christmas lights. There’s also the trees of St. Alban’s in San Marino. But this display in Baldwin Park lacks imagination.
Some say the trees are strangling. Or have been barbered to the extreme.
Funny how trees can be so important to residents.
One is near the redevelopment zone. There is no redevelopment plan that will add trees, as far as I know. | <urn:uuid:53612e56-2949-465b-95e4-357a12b0114e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidesocal.com/scauzillo/2008/01/25/the-above-image-was/ | 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 | 0.959827 | 219 | 1.742188 | 2 |
I love birds and I love definitives, so last Christmas was a good one for me, because one of the presents I got was a set of Fiji bird stamps. And not just any bird stamps, but the Fiji bird definitives! The ones that make modern definitive collecting just as interesting as focusing on more classic issues. Why?
Well, it all started inconspicuously enough in 1995 when, in two parts, a set of 16 definitives was issued depicting various birds. Nothing new there, nothing to write home about, and for more than a decade it seemed that the wrongly inscribed 81c value was to remain the pinnacle of philatelic delight.
|The Kandavu Fantail described as Kadavu Fantail.|
Not so! From 2006, a number of rate changes and a recurring shortage of low values meant that Fiji embarked on an ambitious programme of overprints, which was considered cheaper than reprinting low value stamps. This practice is still going on at this very day and has thrown up loads of varieties, flaws and other delights along the way.
Generally, all overprints consist of a new value with the old value obliterated by crosses. But that's where the generality of it all ends. The first overprints had two small crosses to obliterate the old value.
Later overprints, however, used two large crosses, and to make things worse: the space between the new value and the crosses may differ, and is usually either 4mm or 5mm. It does not sound like a lot, I agree, but when looking at the two, it is a noticeable difference.
Even later, the overprints reverted to small crosses, but now three were used.
This still seems to be the norm, judging from the latest overprint, the 40c on 31c value, which was issued late 2012.
Of course, as with any definitives, it is always better to try and get items in cylinder blocks.
Or even better: try and find stamps with flaws, such as this 20c on 23c with a slanting overprint.
Best of all - at least, from what I've been able to scramble together at this short notice - is this cylinder block with an overprint that is both shifted and slanted. Oh what joy!
There are so many different overprints and varieties out there, some of course much less common than others, that you could do worse than spend all your time hunting down all the different items of this one set. I promise you, you won't get bored soon!
See yous later | <urn:uuid:3619da6f-5d43-4f75-9a68-7efd1588bbfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.stampmagazine.co.uk/2013_01_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977037 | 529 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Athletes plan for success. After all, why wouldnand#8217;t we? Success is what weand#8217;re striving for. Itand#8217;s what pushes us to get out there every day, to train just a little bit harder. Success is what we plan to achieve when the big race comes. But, unfortunately, that isnand#8217;t always the case. And while we never really plan for and#8220;failure,and#8221; it is important that we are at least prepared to handle it.
Itand#8217;s important to know how to handle failure because and#8212; if aiming high enough and#8212; every athlete will fall short of his or her goals at some point. Sometimes itand#8217;s due to less-than-ideal preparation. Other times, our bodies just donand#8217;t perform on the right day. And other times, our failures result from things we canand#8217;t control.
That was the case for me this past Sunday, when I failed to meet my goals at the Boulder Peak Triathlon in Boulder, Colo. My preparation for the race was spot-on. Iand#8217;d put in hard work for months leading in, and then allowed myself to taper so my body felt rested and totally ready. I was psyched to have the great race Iand#8217;d been planning for.
Come race day, I got off to a great start with my best swim so far this season, and was feeling fast and efficient on the bike. I was envisioning a stellar performance that would exceed even my own expectations. But at mile 4, those thoughts were quickly overturned when I got a flat rear tire.
Looking down at the airless tube under my rim felt like seeing my dreams deflate. I thought, and#8220;This canand#8217;t be happening. Not here. Not now.and#8221; But sure enough, it was and#8230; at one my biggest races of the year. So I did the only thing I could in that moment, and pulled over to try to remedy the situation. I remained shockingly calm as I worked to change the tube out (which is not something I am skilled at doing quickly), watching as rider after rider flew by me, my heart sinking a bit more each time.
I stayed focused on my task, and doing what I needed to finish the race. Unfortunately, there were some complications with the change, and I was only able to get the new tube partially full of air (got it filled to 40 PSI, instead of the usual 110). I briefly thought about whether it made more sense to turn around, but I was determined to finish if there was even the slightest possibility. After all, Iand#8217;d come all this way to race.
So, I rode the remaining 20-plus miles with my rear tire less than half-full, praying it would not go flat again. I rode as hard as I could, determined to make up at least some of the time lost in the eight minutes I spent on the side of the road. Luckily, I made it through the bike (way off my expected pace) and onto the run, where I turned in one of my strongest performances yet, fueled by a mix of frustration and determination to at least realize what I could have done.
The day was bitterly disappointing to say the least. But somehow I found myself totally OK with it all. In a strange way, I was even glad Iand#8217;d had the experience I did. I guess with all the ups and downs Iand#8217;ve faced over the years as an athlete, I now understand that the disappointments, failures and even the circumstances beyond our control are all just another part of
racing that we have to accept and even value.
Yes, itand#8217;s frustrating to know you fell short of your potential, to feel like you were held back from what could have been. But in the end all we can really do is do the best we can in the situation, with what we can control, and most importantly, take what we can from our experiences and move on.
Disappointment is never easy, but itand#8217;s a vital and valuable part of evolving as an athlete. Ultimately, the only true failure is not recognizing that value, and not learning from our setbacks. So face your disappointments head on. Find the source, determine what you did well in spite of your situation, and what you can do differently next time. Find the value in your experiences and#8212; both good and bad and#8212; and take it all with you as you move forward: the lessons, the frustrations, the disappointment and the excitement of what lies ahead when you do have the perfect day.
The setbacks will only make the reward that much sweeter when itand#8217;s attained. At least thatand#8217;s what I keep telling myself, as I push on.
and#8212; Truckee's Kara LaPoint is an elite amateur triathlete competing for LUNA bar, and working up to the pro ranks. She has earned numerous overall amateur podium finishes and age-group wins across distances from Olympic to Ironman, and finished the 2011 season ranked as an All-American nationally among her age group (25-29). During the winter, LaPoint is a top local Nordic ski racer and coach. Read more about her racing and training at www.karalapoint.wordpress.com. She may be reached at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:3c9157d7-5688-410d-8cb5-53056658fdee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/ARTICLE/20120713/SPORTS/120719948 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973017 | 1,192 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Crime sucks. Especially when it happens to you (unless it's funny). In the past three months, someone very close to me (literally and home proximity) has had their car broken into twice, parked in what is supposed to be a secure parking garage.
This system, the behavior of people within (or operating outside of) the legal economy is much more complex, however than silly bandaid measures like speed bumps, and speed limits, and pulling police away from more important tasks to sit in a car and watch for someone going 60 in a 45.
This is the economy, which is the construct of how we interact with each other, represented by the form of our city. when our city is so divergent, as to force people of all incomes to HAVE to own a car, which can be up to or greater than 40% of their netcome, just to participate in civilized society perhaps the instinct of some is to withdrawal from that particular brand of civilization.
The other negative effect parking places on a city is perception. Neither parking lots nor garages feel like safe places to be. No matter how much flood lighting is applied, whether they are safe or not is immaterial. They are perceived as unsafe, which means the reality becomes that they are unsafe. They create dead zones with few watchful public "eyes" protecting the public realm.
Lesson: Learn to walk a few blocks. You could probably use the exercise.Drawback: We already have too much parking in Dallas, so building new garages doesn't really alleviate that problem, unless we do so in order to consolidate surface parking.
Lesson: Price parking so as to discourage driving.Drawback: Business is allergic to any kind of change and this does little to leverage the surplus of surface lots. Unless of course, we think the over-supply of surface parking means low rates for on-street parking, where the City would then create more on-street spaces (to generate more revenue). All of which would then drive prices too low for the private surface lots to stay in business, which they might then sell.Drawback 2 to Drawback 1: Some wishful thinking there.
Lesson: Surface parking lot owners don't give a shit about the city.Drawback: Good luck fighting those political battles. Which brings me to option 3b:
Lesson: Surface parking lot owners don't give a shit about the city.Drawback: Could be some short-term budget gaps due to lowering taxes on current businesses/residents. | <urn:uuid:b0a5a664-0d9f-45dd-8e88-cec3c69ba35e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carfreeinbigd.com/2010_01_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973532 | 515 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Join us in healing from rape, sexual abuse and sexual assault.
Silence offers a free message board with over 20,000 members and a
chat room, where survivors and victims of rape, sexual abuse, and sexual assault can connect with one another in real
We don't discriminate according to
gender, race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and or sexual orientation.
We welcome all survivors of sexual violence with open arms.
- We are here. You are not alone.
- We are here to support you during difficult times.
- We are here to provide you with useful information and resources.
After Silence is closely moderated by a group of strong and dedicated survivors of different types of sexual violence and abuse, including stranger rape, date rape, childhood sexual abuse, incest, stalking, and domestic violence. You may learn more about them here.
We have over 30 different discussion forums, ranging from topics created to discuss
specific areas of recovery, such as depression, anxiety, self-injury,
and eating disorders, as well as forums open to general discussions, and lighter topics. We value the privacy of our members and most of our forums are private, which means that only registered members have
access to them. We also provide protected forums for male survivors and for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender survivors. | <urn:uuid:724e646f-5b81-4515-8543-989cdbc9a70b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aftersilence.org/join.php | 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 | 0.953958 | 272 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The North West of England is made up of five counties, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire and Lancashire. Overall, the North West accounts for just less than 12 per cent of the UK population, over 10 per cent of UK GDP and over 11 per cent of employment.
Lancashire is one of the main, thriving business centres in the North West of England. With an economy of £20 billion it is one of the biggest sub regions in the UK and is attracting a diverse range of businesses and international companies, all of who recruit fort their accounting departments.
Lancashire boasts three international airports and has the West Coast main line travelling through the heart of the county. With an excellent transport network and easy access to main highways, this explains why businesses are relocating to the area. Even in the current economic climate accounting positions are continuing to be advertised as there is a growing need for office based recruitment.
Historically Lancashire was at the centre of the manufacturing industry but more recently it has become the base for some of the UK's most successful businesses and BAe Systems and Rolls Royce all call this area home. The UK's aerospace industry is also based here and offers fantastic employment opportunities. Multi-nationals such as Alstrom Traction and Akzo Nobel demonstrate that this part of the UK is continuing to thrive in the engineering and chemical fields, and there are many other business opportunities in the finance sector overall. | <urn:uuid:4e2d7998-8d4f-487a-ba93-11d3e52920f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.danieladams.co.uk/accounting-jobs-lancashire.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961414 | 299 | 1.765625 | 2 |
How will sequester affect congressional staff?
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla) introduced a bill to overturn an Executive Order granting a federal pay raise.
To a story about a bill that would kill a federal pay raise, a reader asked: I wonder if all of the congressional office staff are continuously awarded "merit" pay raises since they aren't getting [cost-of-living allowances]. Someone review how much their office staff pay is compared to the average American. Are they going to sequester 8 percent of their office budgets?
Matthew Weigelt responds: First, congressional staff members do not receive merit pay raises. In addition, they are going through sequestration too. Their office budgets may be hit by as much as 10 percent.
Do congressional staff members make more than private-sector workers based in Washington? It all depends on your job on the Hill. The Sunlight Foundation has some good data on 2009 salary numbers. A congressional chief of staff in the House of Representatives makes roughly $136,920 while a company chief executive makes $189,790. A legislative director earns $85,912 while a general manager at a company earns $128,300. Who makes more varies from there down to the lowest rung of the House member's office staff.
You can read the Sunlight Foundation's full report here.
Commenting on the same article, another reader suggested some civil disobedience: I think every civil servant across the country should call in sick on the exact same day and then Congress will see what a true government shutdown is all about. It would spur contractors not being able to go to work, federal buildings being closed, no border security, no food inspectors, no air transportation, etc. Then maybe they will put a little more stock in what we really contribute to this country.
Matthew Weigelt responds: That's an interesting take, although I can't advocate every fed calling in sick. Some advice though, if you do it: Make sure your sick day proves your job cannot be done without you there.
Posted by Matthew Weigelt on Feb 21, 2013 at 8:22 AM | <urn:uuid:4432355b-c7bd-4002-9098-8684c4754e5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fcw.com/blogs/conversation/2013/02/federal-pay-raise.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956122 | 436 | 1.609375 | 2 |
News Corporation firm NDS accused of ITV Digital hack
A News Corporation subsidiary company used a computer hacker to sabotage Sky TV's biggest rival, BBC Panorama has reported.
NDS is accused of leaking information from On Digital which could be used to create counterfeit smart cards, giving people free access to paid for TV.
The Carlton and Granada owned company folded in 2002 following rebranding which saw it renamed ITV Digital.
An NDS statement denied the claims, calling them "simply not true".
ITV Digital was first launched as On Digital and was set up as a rival to News Corporation's Sky TV in 1998.
But the widespread availability of secret codes to reproduce the cards needed to access the service meant ITV Digital's services could be accessed for free by pirates.
NDS response to BBC Panorama:
NDS is a global leader in the fight against pay-TV piracy, having repeatedly and successfully assisted law enforcement in that important effort.
Like most companies in the conditional access industry - and many law enforcement agencies - NDS uses industry contacts to track and catch both hackers and pirates. This is neither illegal nor unethical. And, to ensure that all activity remains completely within legal bounds, NDS staff and their contacts operate under a clear code of conduct for operating undercover.
These allegations were the subject of a long-running court case in the United States. This concluded with NDS being totally vindicated and its accuser having to pay almost $19m in costs.
The latest claims have been made by Lee Gibling - who set up a website in the late 90s known as The House of Ill-Compute, or Thoic.
Mr Gibling told the BBC he was paid to publish stolen information. His contact at NDS was Ray Adams, who at the time was head of UK security for the firm - which manufactures smartcards for all News Corporations' pay-TV companies across the world.
However, the company has denied Mr Gibling's claims and said Thoic was only used to gather intelligence on hackers.
"It is simply not true that NDS used the Thoic website to sabotage the commercial interests of ONDigital/ITV digital or indeed any rival," the NDS statement said.
"As part of the fight against pay-TV piracy, all companies in the conditional access industry - and many law enforcement agencies - come to posses codes that could enable hackers to access services for free.
"It is wrong to claim NDS has ever been in possession of any codes for the purpose of promoting hacking or piracy."'Killer blow'
ITV Digital's former chief technical officer, Simon Dore, told the programme that piracy was "the killer blow for the business, there is no question".
"The business had its issues aside from the piracy... but those issues I believe would have been solvable by careful and good management. The real killer, the hole beneath the water line, was the piracy. We couldn't recover from that."
The Panorama programme will be watched by an Ofcom team that is already considering whether BSkyB is a "fit and proper" owner of a broadcasting licence.
News Corp is BSkyB largest shareholder, with a 39 per cent stake, and James Murdoch - who was on the NDS board - is BSkyB's chairman.
Ofcom says it will consider "all relevant evidence", but it won't comment on specific allegations.
NDS has long denied promoting hacking or piracy. And though piracy was undoubtedly a problem for ITV Digital, few would agree that it was "the killer blow" in the fierce pay-TV battle with BSkyB.
Poor reception, delays with set-top boxes and a weaker channel line-up were more important.
It later paid too much for a package of Football League matches that few wanted to watch, which led to its closure.
Mr Gibling told Panorama that codes on the Thoic site originated from NDS.
"They delivered the actual software to be able to do this, with prior instructions that it should go to the widest possible community," he said.
Two former senior policemen ran the NDS UK security unit. Mr Adams had been head of criminal intelligence at the Metropolitan Police and Len Withall, who had been a chief inspector in the Surrey force.
Both men were secretly filmed by Panorama.
Mr Adams claimed he "would have arrested" Mr Gibling if he had known ITV Digital's code had been published on Thoic and denied having the codes himself.
But internal NDS documents, obtained by Panorama, show a hacked code was passed to Mr Withall and Mr Adams from a technology expert inside the company.'Their baby'
Mr Gibling said NDS paid for Thoic's servers and was across all of its hacking and TV piracy.
"Everything that was in the closed area of Thoic was totally accessed by any of the NDS representatives," he said.
He added that although Thoic was in his name, in reality the website belonged to NDS.
"It was NDS. It was their baby and it started to become more their baby as they fashioned it to their own design."
Once ITV Digital's codes were published on Thoic, Mr Gibling said his site was then used to defeat the electronic countermeasures that the company used to try to stop the piracy.
He added that new codes, created by ITV Digital, were sent out to other piracy websites.
"We wanted people to be able to update these cards themselves, we didn't want them buying a single card and then finding they couldn't get channels. We wanted them to stay and keep with On Digital, flogging it until it broke."
NDS's UK security unit was 50% funded by Sky. But the satellite broadcaster, chaired by James Murdoch, told the programme it had no involvement in how the unit was run and was not aware of Thoic.
Mr Murdoch was a non-executive director of NDS at the time although there is no evidence that he knew about the events reported by Panorama.'Fit and proper'
Panorama: Find out more
- Vivian White presents Panorama: Murdoch's TV Pirates
- BBC One, Monday, 26 March at 20:30 BST
Ofcom, the television regulator, is currently examining whether Mr Murdoch and News Corporation are "fit and proper" persons to be in control of BSkyB, the company that runs Sky TV. News Corporation currently owns 39% of BSkyB.
Tom Watson MP, a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee that has been examining the phone-hacking scandal, has called for Ofcom to examine these new allegations in their assessment.
"Clearly allegations of TV hacking are far more serious than phone hacking," he said. "It seems inconceivable that they (Ofcom) would not want to look at these new allegations. Ofcom are now applying the fit and proper person test to Rupert and James Murdoch. It also seems inconceivable to me that if these allegations are true that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch will pass that test."
NDS declined to be interviewed for the programme.
Panorama: Murdoch's TV Pirates, BBC One, Monday, 26 March at 20:30 BST and then available in the UK on the BBC iPlayer. | <urn:uuid:5d5adf6d-90f3-43f3-84a5-9ff2e705c8bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17494723 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979521 | 1,513 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Here’s a product description for you: an accurate, non-invasive continuous glucose monitor that talks to your iPhone, and will call someone if the CGM alarms and you don’t respond. Sounds like something you might have heard about in our annual DiabetesMine Design Contest, isn’t it? Well, guess again! It’s a product actually under production by the folks at C8 MediSensors, a San Jose-based company. If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of them, C8 MediSensors has been in “stealth mode” since 2003, working on a device that monitors blood sugar using a sensor that never punctures the skin.
Sounds too good to be true, we know. But after a conversation with Doug Raymond, Vice President of Marketing and Sales, we’re truly optimistic.
The device, called the HG1-c (which we admit is NOT a very catchy name), is a small unit weighing 5 ounces that fits in the palm of your hand. It’s worn on a belt around the waist. Rather than puncturing the skin, the sensor sits close against the skin, and small drop of gel helps to seal any air gaps.
The technology behind the HG1-c is complicated, but in a nutshell: a special camera, called a raman spectrometer, inside the sensor uses light to identify and analyze glucose molecules under the skin, via interstitial fluid. Each glucose molecule has a special “signature” the sensor identifies, and from there, analyzes and extrapolates a glucose value, which is transmitted via Bluetooth to a handheld device, like an iPhone or Android, or to a computer.
Here’s an overview video that C8 MediSensors shared at the recent EASD conference in Portugal:
Before we get into the nitty-gritty details of why this device is so cool, we have to make clear that it is not approved for use yet, not even in Europe. It’s still an “investigational” device, and hopefully will receive the European CE Mark later this fall. Once that happens, C8 MediSensors plans to apply with the FDA. So, needless to say, this is merely a glimpse into the future… but a pretty freakin’ cool future.
The HG1-c is similar to other current CGMs in that it reads interstitial fluid, so it has the same lag-time, but it is different in several crucial ways. Here’s what we like about it:
- It doesn’t need calibration or warm-up. Because the sensor is reading glucose molecules, it’s pre-calibrated in the laboratory. All glucose molecules are the same, no matter whose body you’re talking about, so it doesn’t need warm-up time to adjust to your particular body, “much like you wouldn’t calibrate a digital thermometer that you bought from the store,” according to Doug.
As for accuracy, clinical data so far shows that the HG1-c is on par with DexCom and Medtronic, and maybe even a little better… “We run in the middle of fingerstick accuracy,” Doug says.
- It doesn’t need to be changed. With traditional CGMs, the sensors need to be replaced every few days. But this sensor, which resides outside the body, can be reused over and over again. “The body continually coats an internal sensor with enzymes and that changes its performance,” Doug says, which is also why internal sensors need constant re-calibration. “The chemical reaction in those sensors gets muted and eventually becomes ineffective.”
- It’s an all-in-one device. In traditional CGMs, the sensor transmits data to a device for analysis, which then displays the glucose reading. With the HG1-c, all of the monitoring and calculations are inside the sensor. Then readings are transmitted to a display device, like a smartphone or a computer. Patients will need their own display device, because C8 MediSensors doesn’t provide one. This sounds strange at first — no way to actually know what the sensor is doing? — but Doug says it’s intentional:
“We feel that a lot of people have five or six devices that they have to carry around. By sending the info to an app that runs on an iPhone, it simplifies their life. They have both a phone and their glucose readings.”
“One of the things we felt very strongly about is that this has to be painless, continuous, discreet and non-intrusive. For instance, in an environment when the customer is in a business meeting, they can monitor their phone. No one knows what they’re doing.”
Fewer devices to deal with? Yes, please!
This also means that you can walk away from your phone — or in the unfortunate event that it dies — and you don’t lose your glucose readings. The sensor holds up to 120 days readings, and will upload as soon as it reconnects to whatever display device you’re using. Your phone will also act as the alarm system, allowing you to customize the type of alarm and the volume, which is perfect for those of us who can snooze through an earthquake.
- It talks to parents (or spouses, doctors, 911…). “If you don’t react to a low level alarm, a text message or a pre-recorded call will be sent,” Doug explains. “That’s the beauty of having the phone as the display device. We think this is pretty exciting.” Plus, the GPS in your phone can actually tell the paramedics where to find you.
For parents, we think this will be a life-saver. Bluetooth technology can send data up to 600 feet away, so parents can keep the display device in their room at night. Or they can set the house phone to ring if the child is low and doesn’t respond. A friend or family member can also be notified by phone if an alarm receives no response, which can be a life-saver for college students or children on sleep-overs.
But as with any new device, there are potential pitfalls:
- It has a very short battery life. These things eat batteries for breakfast. If you had the sensor monitoring every 3 minutes, the battery would be dead in 10 hours. Monitoring every 10 minutes? 20 hours’ battery life. Every 15 minutes? 30 hours. A DexCom or Medtronic CGM monitors blood sugar every 5 minutes, and has an average battery life of several days. C8 MediSensors sends customers two batteries, but what if you left one at home to charge and then were out and about longer than expected? Not good.
- It is awkwardly worn. This more conjecture than actual experience. But a fanny pack belt worn under the shirt? A little weird and uncomfortable in my book. It’s four inches wide, and Doug swears it is comfortable, saying that he’s worn it with no trouble at all. Still… in terms of “non-intrusive” I’m not sure this fits the bill…
Doug adds that they’re still fine-tuning the belt, hoping to make it smaller by the time it launches, and that there may be an option to wear it on the thigh as well.
- No data analysis software. At the time of launch, C8 MediSensors doesn’t plan on having any additional tools to analyze trends. “We’re going produce and supply an application with the device that will allow users to display 120 days of glucose measurements on their phone,” Doug says. But additional tools for analyzing trends will have to be developed by a third-party — maybe even a resourceful patient, Doug suggests!
- It’s an expensive up-front investment. It comes with a $4,000 price-tag. But according to Doug, it’s still a great value because there are no ongoing supplies to purchase. Remember, the sensor is reusable! And since most insurance carriers now cover CGM systems, it could easily be covered. If you don’t have insurance, or if this doesn’t get coverage right away, you might want to start saving now… The only consumable used is the bottle of gel for the camera, which costs about $8 and lasts for a year.
We are very excited about this new-and-improved version of the CGM, because we love the vision and believe that this company may finally crack the code on non-invasive monitoring that works.
Doug speculates that because the HG1-c doesn’t puncture the skin, it might get through the FDA faster. But with its reliance on wireless technology for usability, there could still be hesitancy from the FDA. Doug says the fact that the sensor doesn’t rely on a phone for data calculations could be a boon, but with the FDA, there really is no telling… cross your pocked fingers, our PWD Friends. | <urn:uuid:85947391-0d26-4d73-9fe2-69b9f0e65372> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diabetesmine.com/2011/10/new-non-invasive-continuous-glucose-monitor-will-talk-to-your-smartphone.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945135 | 1,949 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The New Beverly Hills Diet
The New Beverly Hills eating plan claims that if you know when to eat different types of food, you will lose weight. Find out what some nutrition experts think about the New Beverly Hills Diet.
The first Beverly Hills diet, published in 1981, is considered one of the first fad diets. Its successor, the New Beverly Hills diet, is less extreme and claims to be more balanced. The diet is based on the theory of "conscious food combining," meaning that when you combine foods in the wrong way it causes you to gain weight.
The New Beverly Hills Diet: How It Works
According to the New Beverly Hills diet, when you combine protein foods with carbohydrate foods, your body has trouble digesting them, and the poorly digested foods turn into body fat. Fruits, which are digested more quickly than any other food, must be eaten alone. Fats can be eaten with carbohydrates or proteins, but proteins and carbohydrates must be eaten at different times.
The eating plan begins with a 35-day induction period during which you may go whole days eating only fruit. If your meal plan includes a carbohydrate, you will be done with fruit for that day. You can then eat carbohydrates as much as you want, but once you have protein, all your remaining meals for that day must be 80 percent protein.
"While the principle of food combining for weight loss has been around for a while, there is no science to support it. If you lose weight on the New Beverly Hills diet, it is because you are taking in less calories, not because of how you are combining your foods," says dietitian Yvette Quantz, RD, a sports and lifestyle nutritionist at Food Therapy LLC in Lafayette, La.
The New Beverly Hills Diet: Sample Menu
The New Beverly Hills diet eating plan is based around fruit. Certain types of fruit are said to have special properties for your diet. For example, watermelon flushes your system, papaya softens your fat, and pineapple burns fat.
Here is a typical meal plan:
Breakfast. Start your day with one type of fruit such as dried apricots or pineapple, and you can eat as much as you want.
Lunch. For lunch you switch to other carbohydrates. You can have an avocado sandwich and plenty of lettuce, tomato, and sprouts.
Dinner. In the evening you might have rice with a variety of vegetables.
The New Beverly Hills Diet: Pros
"The pros for the New Beverly Hills diet are that you will be eating plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables and the diet is presented in a positive, motivational tone," says Quantz.
Some other positive aspects include:
Recipes. You get a 35-day meal plan of recipes that are simple to prepare.
No calorie counting. The New Beverly Hills Diet does not count calories, so you can eat as much as you want within the rules.
Low-calorie and low-fat. The New Beverly Hills Diet is very low in fats and calories, so you will probably lose weight.
The New Beverly Hills Diet: Cons
On the negative side, this diet says you will lose up to 15 pounds during the induction period. That type of weight loss is not a good idea, says dietitian Karen Gibson, RD, of the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. "Anyone who wants to lose weight needs to adjust their personal expectations to what is really achievable safely. That is no more than two pounds per week.”
Both dietitians also say that the Beverly Hills diet is:
Short on exercise. "There is no emphasis on exercise, which could set up dieters for long-term failure,” warns Quantz. This is because weight loss comes from burning up more calories than you take in.
Long on rules. "There are lots of rules to follow that may make staying with this meal plan unrealistic," says Quantz.
Low on nutrition. The Beverly Hills diet is very low in calories and may not provide enough protein to avoid loss of muscle mass.
The New Beverly Hills Diet: Short- and Long-Term Effects
Even though the New Beverly Hills diet is more balanced than the original version, and you may lose some weight over the short term, most experts agree that this meal plan is just not nutritious enough for any long-term benefits. The diet does not provide you with any long-term guidelines either, and the theory of food combining has not been scientifically proven to result in weight loss.
"The problem with The New Beverly Hills diet, and other fad diets, is that they just don't work,” says Gibson. “These diets require you to eat in a way that is too different from your normal eating pattern. Some base their diet on unproven claims that certain chemical reactions are needed for weight loss. Others use names which appeal to your emotions and have nothing scientific to back up their claims. Some are designed to be followed for only a short period of time. Then what do you do?"
Quantz and Gibson agree that a long-term diet solution requires educating yourself about nutrition and exercise and taking responsibility for creating your own healthy meal plans. | <urn:uuid:dd19be97-7c12-4cdb-915b-be0dcefeaae6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/new-beverly-hills-diet.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956129 | 1,064 | 1.75 | 2 |
Randomized Phase III Trial of Radiation +/- Amifostine in Patients with Advanced Stage Lung Cancer
Jacqui Tan, MD
OncoLink Assistant Editor
Last Modified: November 1, 1999
Presenter: Antonadou D
Affiliation: Hellenic Group Clinical-Radiation Oncology, Greece
Pneumonitis and esophagitis are two of the most problematic adverse effects associated with thoracic irradiation. Severe symptoms can cause patient distress and may necessitate treatment delays or possibly premature termination. This, in turn, could theoretically affect clinical outcome. Amifostine is a radioprotective drug which might reduce these toxicities.
- This phase III multicenter trial randomized 146 patients with stages II-IV lung cancer to receive 55-60 Gy thoracic irradiation with or without daily pre-treatment amifostine (340 mg/m2 IV).
- Endpoints included acute and chronic pneumonitis, acute esophagitis, and loco-regional response. RTOG scoring criteria were used to score the toxicities.
- The authors report that patients randomized to receive amifostine had a statistically significant improvement in the incidence of clinical and radiographic pneumonitis (19% vs. 52% at 3 months after radiation).
- Patients on the amifostine arm also had a lower incidence of acute esophagitis (5% vs. 30% at week 6 of treatment).
- No difference in clinical response was seen between the two arms (75% vs. 76%).
- One concern raised at the presentation was whether the rate of pneumonitis in the control arm was unusually high. This might have been due to the authors reporting grade 2 or higher toxicity, as opposed to grade 3 in many other studies.
- Another issue was that patients did not generally receive concurrent chemotherapy, a practice which is becoming more prevalent.
- Amifostine may still prove to be an important aid in the delivery of thoracic radiation.
- The RTOG is currently conducting a similar phase III trial using radiation therapy and chemotherapy, and these results are eagerly anticipated.
ASTRO coverage is sponsored, in part, by Varian Medical Systems, Inc. | <urn:uuid:b42f64cf-5cbb-4aa2-9f1b-73c384300940> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oncolink.org/conferences/article.cfm?c=175&id=139 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938736 | 459 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Plan to site three wind turbines near Undy
1:20pm Saturday 8th September 2012 in News
A RENEWABLE energy company is displaying its plans for three wind turbines on land between Newport and Caldicot.
The first project, called Longlands Lane, proposes one turbine located to the north west of Redwick.
The second project, Great House Farm, proposes two turbines to the south east of Undy.
Each site will use turbines, which are a maximum of 100m in height to the tip of the blade and will be capable of generating at least 1.5 megawatts of electricity that will be fed into the local electricity network.
It is suggested that this is enough energy to power almost 800 homes every year.
The energy company, RES, is consulting with local communities prior to submitting planning applications. RES Project Manager, Phil Grant said: "We are looking forward to discussing our proposals for what we consider to be two very good sites and learning the views of local residents and other interested parties.
"Small-scale schemes like Longlands Lane and Great House Farm are important because they would generate local electricity for use on the local network.
"They will also make a valuable contribution to meeting Wales' ambitions to increase renewable energy generation and decrease dependence on expensive fossil fuel imports."
The exhibitions will take place over three consecutive days, from 1pm to 7pm, at the following venues:September 12 - Undy Church & Community Hall, Church Road. September 13 - Rogiet Community Room Rogiet School, Station Road.September 14 - Redwick Village Hall, Church Row.
Members of the RES project team will be on hand to discuss the proposals and answer questions. Visitors will also have the opportunity to register their views regarding the projects and to make suggestions about the form of community benefit that the projects could offer.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PLANS? LEAVE A COMMENT BELOW: | <urn:uuid:4afcb579-4b4c-498e-894b-d9f1a88c902d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freepressseries.co.uk/news/9918666.Plan_to_site_three_wind_turbines_near_Undy/?ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947025 | 394 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Closing time for Castro's Cuba
Posted by Chris Leadbeater, Travel Writer, TravelMail
This week's surprise announcement that Fidel Castro is to step down as Cuban leader (well, it's as surprising as an announcement that effectively reads '81-year-old man in poor health plans to retire' can ever be) is being described as the end of a political era and the final curtain call for the 20th century. It may also be the end of an era in travel.
Cuba has become a hugely popular destination over the last decade, thanks, in many ways, to the dusty brand of nostalgia that is a by-product of the country's isolation.
Few of the US government officials who set up the economic and commercial blockade of their near neighbour in 1962 could have conceived that, in tourism terms at least, Cuba would eventually benefit from Uncle Sam's cold-shoulder policies – that the curious spectacle of a state frozen in time, partly ushered in by America's hard-line reaction to having a Communist nation on its doorstep, would end up being its enemy's unique selling point. The world was meant to fear Fidel Castro's far-left-wing revolution of 1959. Instead, by the turn of the millennium, it was flocking to Havana to drive in its run-down Chevrolets and Cadillacs, drink in its dilapidated bars and revel in the stopped-clocks atmosphere of a place where the Fifties never ended.
Castro's disappearance from the stage, it has been suggested, will bring an end to all this. It has become a widely-touted theory that if you want to see Cuba in its current 'romantic' condition, you need to do so as soon possible, before the old boy dies/retires/is finally ousted by an angry populace. Wait until he's gone, and all the expats who have been holed up in Miami for the last half-century return - so the theory continues - and you won't be able to see this 'classic' Cuba for the dust from all the branches of Starbucks and McDonalds being hastily erected upon the Malecon.
As someone who visited Cuba in 2001 and fell completely in love with it (I've been highly privileged to visit all manner of fine destinations as part of my job, but the bargain holiday to Cuba that I bought seven years ago remains, I think, my favourite ever foreign trip), it's difficult to know what to make of this conundrum, now that it may be coming to pass. Cuba, as it is now, is a wonderful port of call for the wide-eyed tourist, a truly unique place on an increasingly homogenous globe. There's no chance of visiting Havana, then coming home complaining that all its shops are the same as in your local out-of-town mall.
Castro is a big part of this. With the beard, the revolutionary chic (at least if you look at photos of him in his Fifties pomp, all olive-green uniform and bristling defiance), the tales of his outwitting clumsy American assassination attempts involving exploding cigars, he's a living, breathing (well, presumably – the Cuban authorities aren't being too forthcoming about his health problems) chunk of 20th century history.
But then, what does any of this matter when you're an average Cuban living below the poverty line? Granted, Castro's regime has brought about big advancements in the Cuban health and education systems, but it has also helped to maintain the country in a state of deep deprivation. And what good to the man on the street in Havana is a cool reputation with thrill-seeking foreigners when he can't vote in free elections, express political opinions other than those loyal to the status quo or travel abroad? Admittedly, I didn't see a great deal of discontent when I was in Cuba, but then, I was too busy enjoying myself to look for it – and had I gone searching, I was never likely to find it. Dictatorships have a habit of hiding those who don’t agree with the party line.
In short, Cuba can't continue to sit cooling its heels 50 years behind the rest of the planet, however great the tourism experience. And if Castro's retirement marks the start of its emergence from the cryogenic warehouse, then that can only be a good thing.
My suspicion is that things won't change that quickly anyway. For starters, Castro's younger brother Raul (he’s a sprightly 76) looks likely to take over, and besides, my two weeks in the country were enough for me to observe that Cubans have a strong concept on their own identity and culture that will surely negate any moves to turn their beautiful island into a gaudy offshoot of the superpower 100 miles to the north.
That said, a week in Castro-era Cuba is more than just a holiday. It's an exercise in time travel. So, to return to the standard advice, if you want to see it before the new, possibly improved and surely just-as-charismatic Cuba arrives, better do so soon... | <urn:uuid:ecc24d7f-eb95-4177-a51a-3abb6356e2fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://travelblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/02/closing-time-fo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974568 | 1,048 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Gallery: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Holiday Celebration in Pasadena
PASADENA - Community leaders preached messages of hope, change and faith in the future Monday at a city event at Jackie Robinson Park to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.
Many who spoke at the community event pointed to Monday's inauguration of President Barack Obama, as an example of "how far we've come" and how anyone can be as great as Obama or King as long as they "dream big."
"For years we didn't watch the inauguration, but all of a sudden it was more meaningful because it looks like America," said Pasadena attorney Joe Hopkins. "This day looks like America, wherever you look this day looks and sounds like America."
Despite this progress, Monday's speakers stressed that King's work is not yet finished.
Monday's recognition of King's life was one way to remind us what we are striving for, said Rev. Pat O'Reilly of the Ecumenical Council of Pasadena.
"When I think about this weekend, I realize that this is a special time that brings me back to where I need to be," O'Reilly said. "It's a time that inspires me but also helps me recommit and that's because we remember, we remember the life, the works, the passion and dreams of Martin Luther King Jr."
The event also included Folklorico dancers from Madison Elementary School and musical acts from All Saints Episcopal Church and Samuel Walker. Winners of the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day essay and art contests also shared their work during the ceremony.
Before the main ceremony, students attended a viewing of the Martin Luther King, Jr. documentary "Legacy of a Dream" with a discussion led by PUSD faculty.
Keynote speaker, former state assemblyman Anthony Portantino said the fate of America's future rests in "young people," like his two daughters, and tasked the parents in the audience to teach their children not to buy into stereotypes and prejudgments.
"Every child starts out as good as anyone," Portantino said. "We have to recognize the world's social condition and make sure we don't perpetuate that social condition."
In the end, he said looking out at the children and teenagers in the crowd, it is up to the next generation to create a future without prejudice.
"Dr. King gave our parents the hope, and the path to follow. If he were here today he'd ask the simple question, who's next?" Portantino said. "We honor him today by learning about his legacy and celebrating his life. We honor him tomorrow by answering the call to be that next great leader." | <urn:uuid:d7bf4afb-1d4c-4bab-b4b5-7b8f1e5508bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/breakingnews/ci_22420423/pasadena-honors-martin-luther-king-jr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972028 | 547 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Welcome to Kilner Education
Hi, my name is Michael Kilner. I am 38, and I have been a teacher for over 10 years.
I offer private tuition in a variety of subjects.
See the Subjects Taught page for a list of academic subjects offered. I also teach chess, and offer a range of Environmental Education services.
Lessons in any subject are usually 1 hour long, but longer sessions can be arranged if required.
Primarily, I am a science teacher, but as you will see from this site, there are a number of other topics that I am able to teach. I work mainly within Torfaen, Newport, Blaenau Gwent, Monmouthshire and Caerphilly, but I am prepared to travel further afield if required. Sessions are flexible, at times to suit you, and I will come to you for the lesson - leave the travelling to me.
I have experience in teaching to all age groups from pre-school to adults. I am flexible, and able to adjust they way in which a subject is taught in order to meet the needs of my students. Whether you are learning for exams and university places, or just for fun, it is important that what I do works for you.
I am an enthusiastic teacher with a genuine love of my subjects. I believe that education is about more than just learning facts. It should be practical, and apply to the real world. Basic skills such as dealing with numbers are essential for both children and adults.
Learning should also be enjoyable. Enthusiasm for a topic makes it easier to learn. I aim to stimulate an interest in a subject, rather than concentrating on rote learning in order to pass exams.
On the following pages I give details of the types of lessons and services that I offer. If what you are looking for is not there, please use the Contact Form to the right of the page to ask for more information. Similarly, if you want to ask about lessons in a topic that is not listed, please get in touch. I will listen, and give you an honest and straightforward answer about whether or not I can provide what you want.
For more information about me, please read my blog, 'Harvestman at Large'. | <urn:uuid:3d9d1fd2-2ed9-4669-8382-cc8c2467581d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.webster.uk.net/EducationAndLearning/KilnerEducation/Home.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956747 | 462 | 1.59375 | 2 |
As mentioned the other day, Seagate have recently announced that they plan to have 3.5" desktop hard drives on the market with massive capacities of up to 2.5TB by sometime 2009. In addition to that, HKEPC also make light of Seagate's plans to release notebook hard drives of a whopping 500GBs by this time too.
Seagate Technology (NYSE: STX) today announced the results of a magnetic recording demonstration, setting a world record of 421 Gbits per square inch (421 Gbit/in2). The demonstration used perpendicular recording heads and media created with currently available production equipment that validates Seagate's ability to scale the technology for the foreseeable future without major technology changes or capital additions. Dr. Mark Kryder of Seagate unveiled the findings during his keynote presentation at the IDEMA DISKCON show in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the hard drive.
Further Reading: Read and find more Storage news at our Storage news index page. | <urn:uuid:cd2143ed-cd5d-43ad-b83c-2817b8ff0a15> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tweaktown.com/news/6353/seagate_planning_500gb_2_5_hdds/index.html | 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 | 0.938502 | 200 | 1.710938 | 2 |
2012 Milliman Medical Index
Healthcare costs for American families in 2012 exceed $20,000 for the first time
The annual Milliman Medical Index (MMI) measures the total cost of healthcare for a typical family of four covered by a preferred provider organization (PPO) plan. The 2012 MMI cost is $20,728, an increase of $1,335, or 6.9% over 2011. The rate of increase is not as high as in the past, but the total dollar increase was still a record. This is the first year the average cost of healthcare for the typical American family of four has surpassed $20,000.
Our family of four is insured by an employer-sponsored PPO plan, which includes certain out-of-pocket costs such as copays and deductibles. The plan’s premiums are paid jointly by the employer and by the employee via payroll deductions. Healthcare benefits are a substantial portion of the employee’s compensation.
Our family of four may be surprised to learn that their annual healthcare costs are nearing $21,000, because their own out-of-pocket costs, at an average of $3,470, are the portion of the cost of care most visible to them. Some employees may also be acutely aware of the $5,114 in payroll deductions. This brings the employee’s total share to $8,584.
While the annual rate of increase fell below 7% for the first time in the 12 years tracked by the MMI, the total dollar amount of the increase overshadows any relief that consumers might derive from the slowing percentage increase.
As of the release date of this report, the nation is awaiting a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the future of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). To date, PPACA has had only a limited effect on total healthcare costs for the MMI’s illustrative family of four. With the MMI release in between the Supreme Court deliberations and its decision, we are left with more uncertainty about the future of healthcare costs than usual. As we examine the different components of the MMI, we offer considerations for the future both with and without reform.
- Between 2011 and 2012, the MMI increased $1,335, just surpassing the record $1,319 increase set between 2010 and 2011.
- But there is a silver lining: The 2012 increase in the MMI cost moderated to 6.9%, marking the second year in a row the percentage increase has reached a new low since the inception of the MMI.
- This year the 6.7% increase in the employer’s portion of costs was slightly less than the overall trend of 6.9%. The 7.2% growth in the employee’s share of costs was slightly more than the overall trend of 6.9%. This latter number includes an 8.2% cost increase in payroll deductions and a 5.8% increase in out-of-pocket costs.
- Of the cities profiled by the MMI, the most expensive was Miami, at $24,965, and the least expensive was Phoenix, at $18,365. Phoenix is one of three of the 14 cities studied by the MMI whose cost for our family of four remains below $20,000. | <urn:uuid:46bf6680-4fc4-4011-9397-5f562ec3f9aa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://insight.milliman.com/article.php?cntid=8078 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964373 | 682 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Sent to Prison
by Marjorie East, UK Territory with the Republic of Ireland
Who says that retirement can't be exciting? After I had spent years teaching, the school had to cut back staff so I took early retirement. I was teaching my last term when a student greatly influenced my choice of retirement activities. My student's grandmother had died. I desperately wanted to help him grieve. Through this experience I was introduced to the bereavement counselling organisation, Cruse, and took a bereavement training course with them.
Majorie proudly displays her medal for service presented at Windsor Castle
After several years as a bereavement counsellor, an advertisement in the paper caught my attention a training course for adult literacy. I immediately applied and went to the course. At the end of the training, the course organiser spoke to the group detailing the places we could use our training. She said, 'Some people even go to the prison.' There were surprised gasps around the room, but I expressed my interest in starting there.
The prison wasn't new to me; I had previously visited with a corps group. Soon, my prison ministry began. I started by assisting, and then eventually taught the adult literacy class. There was a change in teachers and I took a break from teaching in the prison.
Hardly any time went by and the corps's visiting minister asked me to assist him. We visited the prisoners and patients in a nearby hospital. Sadly, he had a stroke and died soon after, but I felt I needed to continue this ministry God had given me.
One day, the Salvation Army officer in charge of prison ministries asked me to become a Salvation Army Chaplaincy member. I agreed and have been privileged to work with colleagues from numerous denominations and religions, including Muslim and Sikh.
My weekly duties keep me busy. An evening group I assist, called 'Befrienders', gives me a chance to use my bereavement counselling skills. The death of a family member can make a prisoner extremely upset. Not being able to be with the rest of the family really shakes them up. Often, a prisoner will not speak to anyone for months about a death that has taken place. I am glad to be able to encourage the prisoners in their grief.
God led me into bereavement counselling and prison work and I am blessed to have gained friendship, experience and guidance from the staff I work with and from the prisoners. I am greatly honoured to have become a member of the Order of the British Empire for Meritorious Service and to have been issued a medal by Her Majesty the Queen. I still cannot believe this has happened to me! | <urn:uuid:6da6af83-6c9e-4101-8edb-1a4bf02abde3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.salvationarmy.org/ihq/www_sa.nsf/stc-vw-issue/27241B04D655D1A8802575B4004182E2?opendocument&id=0B5CCBACE1974FD38025751B004CE7EA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986269 | 539 | 1.554688 | 2 |
While President Obama has been at pains in recent days to declare the Iraq War over and done with, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been loudly defending the enterprise, and addressing the broader threat posed by radical Islam, in language that must be causing the most penitent, deferential, and morally ambiguous leader in America’s history to wince.
Blair’s memoir, A Journey, was published this month, thrusting him back into the media spotlight and rekindling hostility towards him from opponents of the war. In Dublin, anti-war campaigners, their ranks swollen by pro-IRA thugs, laid siege to a store where Blair was signing copies of his book, hurling eggs and, in the latest tiresome homage to the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush, assorted pieces of footwear (they missed). The sight of self-proclaimed peace protestors standing shoulder-to-shoulder with supporters of terrorists would have seemed odd to anyone not familiar with the left’s high degree of moral flexibility when it comes to choosing their allies.
Following the protests, Blair cancelled a book signing in London and a private event at an art gallery, saying he didn’t want the public to be “inconvenienced” by protestors. Predictably, anti-war groups claimed victory. “It shows he is running scared,” gloated Lindsey German of the Stop the War Coalition. “The people who say we should not protest are denying us the right to persist in asking questions about the war and denying the rights of Iraqis who are still suffering because of Blair’s policies.”
The irony is that while the anti-war crowd prefers to shout down its opponents rather than engage in debate, Blair is more than happy to answer what are necessarily difficult questions about the war. He’s faced plenty in recent days — albeit from more civilized inquistors than the Stop the War Coalition — and he’s been eloquent and impassioned in defense of his decision to support the invasion.
In Britain, much of the interest in Blair’s book has focused on domestic politics. For observers outside the UK, and particularly in the U.S., interest is centered on Iraq, and by extension on Blair’s relationship with President Bush. Blair has always been able to defend the decision to go to war, and fit that war into the bigger global picture, with an eloquence that Bush could seldom muster. In both the book itself, and interviews given to coincide with its release (including this one with the Guardian), Blair is unwavering on the need to counter the threats that were posed by Saddam and are still posed by radical Islam. He’s equally resolute in his defense of President Bush. In A Journey he writes: “One of the most ludicrous caricatures of George is that he was a dumb idiot who stumbled into the presidency.” He also says Bush had “genuine integrity, and as much political courage as any leader I ever met.”
His arguments will be familiar to many: If al-Qaeda could have killed 300,000 instead of 3,000 on 9/11, they would have done so; after 9/11 the calculus for dealing with rogue states changed; Saddam had made and used WMDs in the past and wanted to produce them again; the war was legal because Saddam was in breach of UN resolutions; al-Qaeda and Iran were responsible for much of the bloodshed that followed the invasion, and could not be allowed to fill the power vacuum in Iraq. Blair also raised the spectre of Saddam, left in power and enriched by rising oil prices, competing with Iran for nuclear supremacy, a scenario envisioned recently by David Frum and Daniel Henninger among others.
Blair’s most impressive performance came in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr. If you’re outside the UK you won’t be able to watch it at the BBC’s website, but at the time of writing at least one recording was available on YouTube. The parts dealing with Iraq and the War on Terror are here and here. | <urn:uuid:1f01c07c-4deb-48aa-b451-db6741412d8a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pjmedia.com/blog/tony-blair%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%98no-apology%E2%80%99-tour/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975308 | 854 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Critics are slamming a government decision to spend $500,000 on job fairs as part of its B.C. Jobs Plan in the run-up to the spring provincial election.
The Liberal government quietly posted on Christmas Eve its intent to extend a contract with PACE Group communications for a series of job fairs between Jan. 14 and March 31.
The $500,000 contract extension means additional career expos in B.C. communities, which the government said will bring together local employers and people seeking work.
The government has already hosted 24 job fairs in the last four month, at a cost of $1.182 million.
The expense “is a reasonable price to pay if the outcome is getting more British Columbians working,” the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training said in a statement Thursday.
But it also lets the government spend taxpayer dollars to promote its B.C. Jobs Plan — a document Premier Christy Clark has said is central to her re-election campaign — just two months before the May 14 provincial election.
“When I look at the time frame, it’s clearly to expand the pre-election advertising that [the Liberals] have been doing for the jobs plan, and moving that closer to election day,” said NDP critic John Horgan, MLA for Juan de Fuca.
“Another half a million dollars to promote the B.C. Liberals, not to provide good government.”
The expenditure comes at a time when the government is trying to slash hundreds of millions in expenditures to balance the budget in February — though the contract money comes from the current fiscal year, ending March 31.
“We think these jobs fairs have been a ridiculous waste of money,” said Jordan Bateman, B.C. director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“It’s electioneering, pure and simple. What they are doing here is the government is trying to create a narrative where they are creating an economy where jobs are number one.
“Really, they are just trying to buy our votes with our own money.”
The government estimates that more than 31,000 people and 280 companies attended its job fairs between September and November.
Many people expressed a desire to see the fairs become a recurring event, the ministry said in its statement.
The contract extension will only happen if there is sufficient money in the budget, the government said in its notice of intent.
Horgan said he thinks the government will dip into its contingency fund, normally reserved for emergencies, to pay for the project.
“Clearly, this is a government [whose] priorities are in the wrong place,” he said.
The new job fairs are not related to the government’s $3-million rock-and-roll-themed JobFest tour, in which young people were lured to career expos with live bands during the summer.
Critics also slammed that program as an expensive marketing and advertising campaign designed to promote the Jobs Plan.
© Copyright 2013 | <urn:uuid:bc867aa7-6152-4ffb-a9e8-55a06f93062a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/critics-say-liberals-spending-500-000-for-job-fairs-is-a-waste-of-money-1.35830 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965286 | 632 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The medical examiner said a contributing factor in Lee's death was "cachexia of unknown origin," or malnutrition. The manner of death is listed as "natural causes."
"Shocking does not begin to describe the criminal allegations in this case where the victims were tied up and confined like zoo animals and treated like property akin to slaves," Memeger said.
The four adults held captive -- Edwin Sanabria, Herbert Knowles, Tamara Breeden and Derwin McLemire -- were locked in a pitch-black, 13-by-7 foot room that housed the boiler used to heat the building, police said.
A penetrating stench of urine and feces still hung in the chamber days after the discovery. McLemire had been chained to the boiler, police said.
"I used the bucket to go to the bathroom. Others used the same bucket," Sanabria testified last January at hearing where a judge ordered the case to go to trial. When asked where he took a bath, he said they "used the same bucket we used to urinate in."
The investigation took several bizarre twists as authorities tried to piece together the evidence in the case, which has spread to at least two other states after detectives discovered that one of the accused had traveled across state lines with the people found in the boiler room.
"Today's Indictment represents just one more step towards closure and healing, not only for the victims of this heinous hate crime, but for the community as a whole," FBI Special Agent-in-Charge John Brosnan said in a statement.
If convicted of all federal charges, each of the defendants faces a statutory maximum sentence of life in prison. Weston potentially faces the death penalty and mandatory restitution of approximately $212,000.
Due to the federal charges, the state plans to withdraw its charges against Weston, Thomas, Wright and McIntosh, according to the district attorney's office in Philadelphia. They were scheduled to go on trial Jan. 28.
Weston's attorney was not immediately available for comment. | <urn:uuid:940b7879-0fed-486d-9b2c-e620a15177fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcra.com/news/national/Hate-crimes-alleged-in-holding-of-captives/-/11797450/18252958/-/item/1/-/bs5de8/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973765 | 414 | 1.617188 | 2 |
La forza del destino (2005 production) - Further information
Francesco Maria Piave
World Première of the first version on 10th November 1862, Bolschoi-Theatre, St.
World Première of the second version on 27th February 1869, Teatro alla Scala, Milano
After a trio of unparalleled popular works, Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata, Giuseppe Verdi’s fame was at its peak and he could pick and choose where and for whom he would compose. After his conflicts with theatre managers, librettists and censors during the mounting of Les Vêpres Siciliennes in Paris and his Un ballo in maschera in Rome, the invitation to write an opera for the imperial opera house in St Petersburg in 1860 was more than welcome. The choice of theme was left to the composer and he decided to adapt the popular Spanish cloak-and-dagger drama Don Alvaro o La fuerza del sino, which had been written by the Duke of Rivas in 1835. The plot links the protagonists through a series of highly improbable coincidences and Verdi and his librettist Francesco Maria Piave created in La forza del destino a piece which looks forward to his later works.
Don Alvaro plans to elope with Leonora because her father, the Marquis of
Calatrava, does not consider him to be a suitable son-in-law. When the Marquis foils their plan to escape and Alvaro is about to surrender, his pistol goes off accidentally and fatally wounds the Marquis. Calatrava curses his daughter as he dies. From now on Leonora is not only dogged by ill fortune but also by her brother, Don Carlo, who seeks revenge for what he considers as the murder of his father. While Leonora manages to find shelter in a convent, Don Alvaro enlists in a Spanish regiment fighting the Habsburgs in Italy. On the battlefield he meets Don Carlo, who follows him back to Leonora’s convent in Spain, where all three are brought together by fate and where, in an almost Hollywood style denouement, first Don Carlo, then Leonora and her beloved Don Alvaro all die. Verdi himself supervised the rehearsals for the premiere of Forza in the Imperial Theatre, St Petersburg in 1862. The work was not met with success and the composer, always his own severest critic, revised it for the first Milan production in 1869 and composed the famous and rousing overture for this version.
La forza del destino is the most melodic of Verdi operas. In addition to the great arias and duets for the three protagonists with their deeply moving cantilenas, Verdi composed, whatever the improbability of the situation, broadly structured and exciting ensembles. In these he was less influenced by the conventions of French "Grand Opéra", which seeks continual momentum towards an effective climax. It was much more important to Verdi to present the audience with a broad panorama at such moments and to underline this with colourful characters as Preziosilla, the gypsy, and the buffo monk, Melitone.
Our new production of La forza del destino, conducted by Fabio Luisi, will be directed by David Alden and designed by Gideon Davey. The festival première will take place in the Nationaltheater on 28th June 2005 with the part of Leonora sung by Violeta Urmana, Don Alvaro by Sergej Larin and Don Carlo by Mark Delavan.
Sir Peter Jonas | <urn:uuid:e7d231c1-a463-4af9-a79d-7ef34064cee4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bayerische.staatsoper.de/891-ZG9tPWRvbTEmaWQ9NjI1Jmw9ZW4mdGVybWluPQ-~spielplan~oper~veranstaltungen~weiter_infos.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954898 | 769 | 1.5 | 2 |
Community alerts and road closures
Total Fire Ban - Southern Region of Tasmania
Wednesday, 6 February 2013 - 7:51am
Due to the predicted high temperatures and winds for today 6 February, a Total Fire Ban has been declared for the Southern Region (the municipalities of Brighton, Central Highlands, Clarence, Derwent Valley, Glamorgan/Spring Bay, Glenorchy, Hobart, Huon Valley, Kingborough, Sorell, Southern Midlands and Tasman) from 5 February 2013 until midnight 6 February 2013.
The TFS is asking people to remain vigilant tomorrow as parts of the state will reach temperatures into the low thirties coupled with high winds.
Chief Officer Mike Brown said “Very high fire danger ratings are expected in some areas and fires which start under these conditions can become difficult to control. Given the warmer conditions we have had so far this year, fuels are very dry and there is an abundant supply”.
Members of the public need to make sure any fires lit on their properties over the last week are completely extinguished. This means making sure fires that have been extinguished are cool to touch. Special care must be taken when using machinery that emits sparks, such as mowers, slashers, grinders and other cutting tool, as this type of activity has the potential to start fires”.
While the ban is in place please avoid non-essential water use. Turning off sprinkler systems and using hoses sparingly will help ensure that water is available for firefighting and protecting properties should it be required.
People should monitor the local ABC radio station or visit TFS website (www.fire.tas.gov.au) to keep up to date with conditions. Mr Brown said everyone living in and around the bush needs to review their Bushfire Survival Plan now and be prepared to implement that plan if required. Details on how to prepare a Bushfire Survival Plan, preparing your property for bushfires, or other fire safety tips can be found on the TFS website.
Mr Brown said: “There are significant penalties that can be imposed on anyone not adhering to the Total Fire Ban restrictions”.
All fires should be reported by dialling '000'. | <urn:uuid:b41fa892-5c15-42d2-a28d-0cb5f9fb20e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.police.tas.gov.au/community-alerts/88/total-fire-ban-southern-region-of-tasmania/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946359 | 451 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Despite a potentially uphill battle in the Texas Senate, a bill to allow carrying concealed weapons in university buildings made it through a Senate panel.
The House passed House Bill 972 from Allen Fletcher, R-Tomball, which would allow concealed carry unless the university opts out every year after talking with students, faculty and staff. The bill then went to the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, where it passed 4-2.
The bill still would not allow guns in places such as hospitals or sporting events.
“This law makes sense from the common man’s position,” said William Beihl, a license holder at the committee meeting.
Beihl said he doesn’t even risk taking his gun with him on visits to his daughter at college.
One student who asked for campus carry said he would carry “religiously” if the bill passed.
Lance Littlejohn, a professor of mathematics at Baylor University, said he represented a group of 200 staff, faculty and students who didn’t want concealed carry. He said he left his post in a Utah university partly because of fear after campus carry there became legal.
He said he feared giving a student a bad grade would “literally let me have it with both barrels.”
“I don’t want to add fuel to the fire,” Littlejohn said.
“Everything you’re saying here was expressed 15 years ago” Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said about when concealed carry as a whole was debated. “And we have less crime in Texas.”
Read the rest of the article: http://www.timesrecordnews.com/news/2013/may/15/senate-panel-oks-gun-bill/ | <urn:uuid:490a38ab-8ae8-4ddb-a7ac-48a37c94e8b8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weapon-blog.com/category/legislative/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971183 | 371 | 1.703125 | 2 |
USPS to simplify international shipping options
The U.S. Postal Service proposed simplifying its international shipping options to try to make it easier for customers to use the products.
The proposed changes, published Dec. 20 in the Federal Register, would better align USPS international products with the agency's well-known domestic products: Express Mail, Priority Mail and First Class Mail. The postal service would merge eight current options into four alternatives by combining products with overlapping service standards and prices.
"We wanted to demystify the international shipping experience," said Jim Cochrane, USPS manager of package services. "We had a lot of choices in the international arena as well as some overlaps and redundancies in our products, so we decided that if we follow our domestic strategies ... our international products would be better for our customers and an easier-to-understand experience."
The Federal Register notice gives mailers 30 days to comment on the proposed changes.
The notice also said the USPS would rename the international products to mirror comparable domestic product names. For example, the USPS has an international product called Global Express Guaranteed for documents and Global Express Guaranteed for non-documents. These products would be combined into one product, Global Express Guaranteed. An international product called Global Express Mail would be changed to Express Mail International. And Global Priority Mail, Airmail Parcel Post and Economy Parcel Post would be renamed Priority Mail International.
Enhancements to the postal service's international products would include increasing customer convenience through the use of domestic packaging supplies, offering the popular flat-rate envelope option in Express Mail International and adding the flat-rate box option to Priority Mail International. The USPS also would offer more specific delivery time and tracking information to major destinations.
The USPS also proposes to raise international product prices an average of 13 percent, necessitated by cost increases that occurred during a price freeze from January 2001 through January 2006. This freeze was followed by a 5.9 percent increase on Jan. 7.
"Our costs have been increasing, and alternative carriers have been making yearly increases to their prices [since 2001]," the notice said. "This has resulted in international prices lagging behind both the Consumer Price Index and the prices offered by alternative carriers on comparable products. Even with the proposed changes, our comparable services will still be priced lower than those of other international carriers."
The international price changes would become effective when the USPS changes its domestic prices, likely in May 2007.
The filing also mentioned that customers who buy postage using Click-N-Ship at www.usps.com or through an authorized online provider would receive discounts of 10 percent on Global Express Guaranteed shipments, 8 percent on Express Mail International shipments and 5 percent on Priority Mail International shipments. While the USPS offers online discounts on some international products now, it is being expanded in this proposal.
"In general, highlights of the filing included simplifying the products, offering international shippers more convenience and the online discounts," Mr. Cochrane said. | <urn:uuid:e91ef304-15d7-40f0-9ea4-7af8bdebbc0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dmnews.com/usps-to-simplify-international-shipping-options/article/93918/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947939 | 610 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The main mission of the Nanobot Special Interest Group is a research and development of potentially effective therapeutically active nanobots and to increase the flow of such early stage drug candidates into Nanobot SIG member's drug development pipeline in. Through the Nanobot SIG and the interactions among Nanobot SIG's participants, the Nanobot SIG drug discovery and development pipeline can be enabled from target identification through proof-of-concept (POC) to overall clinical trials. Because membership in the Nanobot SIG is fully open, to each the SIG's member is allowed to use all benefits of the SIG consortium agreement, at the most in intellectual property rights and in an access into confidential SIG's documents, methodics, technologies, strategic plans. In practical this means sharing of the technological know-how and intellectual property among all in-Nanobot-SIG interested parties, but only to the extent that corresponds to the input of each party to the consortium. It is at the discretion of each Nanobot SIG's member, how will share any intellectual property acquired during membership. In this respect, the consortium offers unprecedented Freedom-to-Operate.
The Consortium Board's Chairman Dr. Cihelnik said to question about new membership: "For all the founding members of the consortium that increase the level of cooperation is great promise, but also a commitment. As a representative of the company Azacycles (http://www.azacycles.com/
"The new member must be beneficial for the consortium. This is the only rule. The consortium is obtaining from partly shared intellectual property and therefore the technology is able to provide is a crucial factor when deciding on a new member."
The primary nanobot technology is also opened for the members?
"No, of course it is not. Only Therapharm http://www.therapharm.cz company is the Nanobot SIG founding member with ability to consult questions of our technology. Another founding members as well as general member are using the technology as black-box. It means that they are able to modify skeleton by our methodics through Nanobot SIG, but they are not able to do any changes in nanobot skeletons."
You have mentioned skeleton modifications. What about this intellectual property?
"This is more complicated. Basically, there are two levels in the membership and only the founding members are holders of conjugation methodics. The idea, the basic concept of the Nanobot SIS is that the consortium will afford to third party, next general member, the complete kit from the nanobotic particles of the best parameters for third party application and from technology for modification of nanobot skeleton. In the most cases we are avaiting requests for modification by some specifically binding peptides. This is the role of our another founding members to make the best conjugation technologies generally applicable and also apllicable for their own peptides. Third party as geenral member take this macroconjugate and modify it inside by its own biologically active compound. Because third party will have not to do any time consuming research, we expect shortening whole time from start of the design into clinical trials. Such approach is, by our opinion, unique." | <urn:uuid:1941ab61-9b55-4ff3-95df-af9f1cd374b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prlog.org/11772328-officially-announced-the-start-up-of-the-nanobot-special-interest-group-nanobot-sig.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938137 | 659 | 1.789063 | 2 |
On my older system i ran the 32 bit version of Ubuntu with 4 GB of ram and noticed it rarely come near 1 gig of usage.I have my new system running with the 64 bit version.The new system is a quad ...
My ubuntu 64-bit 11.10 installed box has 6GB RAM but Ubuntu only uses 4.1GB. I have read various things about the 4GB limit etc, but all those talk about using less than 4GB. What could be causing ...
Possible Duplicate: How does one exit the X server? I would like to shutdown the graphical interface and every related graphical application on my Ubuntu 11.10 (with 4 GiB memory and 4 GiB ...
Everyone says that gnome-shell uses much less memory than unity shell. But I find it is true only for a short period time. Under Ubuntu 11.10, gnome-shell 3.2, the cron "gnome-shell" uses about ... | <urn:uuid:a18c324c-3108-4308-88c4-909a4df15555> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://askubuntu.com/questions/tagged/memory-usage+11.10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94039 | 199 | 1.671875 | 2 |
- Jul 12, 2009 3:10 PM EST
- [num] Comments
AVG's Roger Thompson thinks he knows what was the reason behind last week's DDOS attacks in South Korea and the US: It's an attention-raising campaign. The theory is that it was caused by "...someone who is worried about the botnet problem, and who wanted to make lawmakers think about it, and do something about it."
Why were the attacks not what they appeared superficially to be, either an actual attack by North Korea or some other hackers? Many have already written that there's little direct evidence to implicate North Korea and it is quite possible that the attacks were performed by relatively unsophisticated non-state actors. But those non-state actors don't conduct attacks such as these, at least not anymore: they didn't take credit in any way and, in the end, they destroyed a valuable asset, the actual botnet.
I'm reminded by this of the anthrax attacks in the wake of 9-11. We don't really know, but a prevailing theory is that it was a person in the government biological warfare establishment trying to raise awareness of the threat and using the crisis atmosphere to his advantage. The obvious difference is that in the anthrax case several people died and many more were infected. On top of that, the US mailing system was seriously impeded for some time. These DDOS attacks generated a lot of news stories, but little if any actual damage, The main damage they caused was to the bots themselves which committed e-hara-kiri in the end.
Thompson's theory seems quite plausible to me, but far from proven. It could still be some hackers doing it for jollies, or some state or quasi-state actor running an experiment, We don't know, and may never know, what the real story is. What do you think it is? | <urn:uuid:5a924775-bc7c-451e-9390-e92ffdab938a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://securitywatch.pcmag.com/top-threat/284516-the-ddos-was-a-public-service | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985948 | 390 | 1.71875 | 2 |
So lately I’ve been thinking about making some clay tutorials to sell.
I get so many questions for alot of my secret techniques that I thought I might just make a few tuts to sell and show people how I make some of my more intricate pieces.
Some tutorials I was thinking about making are like:
Nontoxic alternative to resin pendants – I made this discovery in the easiest products and its really amazing. Also an amazing product that makes resin pendant in 5 minutes and its pretty much nontoxic as well.
For deco – A glue tutorial especially how to glue silicone to metal and to cabochons both resin and clay – yes it is possible and yes the glue is cheap and available pretty much worldwide in most countries. I’ve tested it for about half a year and it holds up and I also got confirmation from the company that it wont have a chemical reaction with silicone or clay down the line so its perfect.
maybe even just a decoden starter tutorial with some of my secret products that I’ve never shared and none of the secret products I use have been mentioned at all in any deco blogs
A realistic texturing tutorial
and maybe a tutorial on transparent glazes and mediums
and a tutorial on waterproofing clay and cabochons or just waterproof materials that can be used for deco. Hmm this one I could probably just turn a tut into making durable waterproof jewelry I think that would be better.
these are probably the most common requests I get. To be honest I have spent hundreds of dollars on different craft products that I’ve tested. Selling these tuts might be a good way for me to recoop some of that money.
The only thing that worries me if I sell my secrets I’ll have alot more competition or people might just give away my info. So I dont know what Im going to do yet.
I dont know how many people would be interested but its a thought Im having. | <urn:uuid:7dc9276c-fce1-4657-bfcb-ca1f07ad8990> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kawaiifrenzy.com/Blog/2010/12/selling-tutorials/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951277 | 406 | 1.546875 | 2 |
I moved from Wateen Broadband [Wireless] Internet Connection to PTCL Broadband. I am extremely happy by this move: as PTCL is providing an excellent internet service these days. I am glad to have bought PTCL DSL.
Anyway, I have personally experienced a small problem [with PTCL] which is not a very big issue.
I also have seen different people complaining about the same thing. This problem is the slowing down of the internet speed or sometimes, the internet completely stops to work.
The solution for this problem is not permanent and is not official solution. But this simple trick does the required work.
Simply turn off your PTCL Internet/DSL/Broadband device and then turn it on after few seconds [wait for like: 20 or so seconds].
Do this whenever you find the internet speed slowing down or if the internet completely stops to work.
Is there any logic to this solution: which can prove that this trick will always work?
Actually, there is no guarantee that this solution will work. For me, it has worked around 98% of the time. Occasionally, the internet [for me] stopped to work because of a problem at PTCL end. That does not happen very often. Your PTCL phone line can also cause the internet to stop working.
I saw some people saying that: internet service providers [like Wateen, PTCL etc], use a method of sharing one internet connection [at ISP end] among 4-5 people. I do not know the details: all I saw was some information about ISP sharing one connection among different users, which makes the internet speed slow if maximum numbers of users are using one internet connection at ISP end.
So may be restarting the device put our line to another connection where fewer people are using the internet? This is just a thought that came in my mind and I am not sure if even 1% of what I just said is true [or not]. | <urn:uuid:a08d5290-4117-4304-93d2-6ab7a9a0ab35> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.letsearnmoneyonline.com/ptcl-slow-stop-work/ | 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 | 0.958099 | 411 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Visual Baseball: Introducing the Score TrackerPosted by Kevin Dame
Hi there. Here's my latest attempt to take something we're all very used to seeing - scores - and communicate them in a different way. The concept is pretty simple: Red means your team won. Blue means your team lost. The size of the circles indicate how many runs were scored. And the amount of color you see represents how many runs your team won or lost by. Let's take the Score Tracker for a spin:
Here's a simple introduction to the concept and how these visuals work.
And here's the Red Sox season at a glance. They've had nail biters in 8 consecutive games, including Monday night's slugfest against the Blue Jays.
Use the "Click for More" link below to see a few other Score Tracker examples.
Here's a comparison between the AL East contenders. Check out how many times the Rays have blown out their opponents. They've been dominant.
And finally, a closer look at the Red Sox wins and losses. When they've won, their margin for victory has been slim.
I'd love your feedback on the Score Tracker. Is it useful?
"The commonality between science and art is in trying to see profoundly - to develop strategies of seeing and showing." - Edward Tufte.
Feel free to send comments, questions, and suggestions to Kevin via email. | <urn:uuid:947a5c88-971f-471a-a8a9-8bbc38654f64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/blog_article/visual-baseball-introducing-the-score-tracker/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959637 | 293 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Competition law affects all players in all fields. Manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retailers all have to adhere to the restrictions that result from competition law. Breaches of the law can have serious consequences, both in the form of penalties and negative publicity.
The code of conduct regulations impose restrictions on both what competitors can agree between themselves and what can be agreed between players at different levels in the distribution chain. For players with marketing power there are also regulations governing the misuse of dominant positions. Competition law also contains so-called structure rules - rules that give the Competition Commission the right to step in in the event of buy-outs and mergers.
Grette can assist with the process of acquiring approval from the Competition Commission in association with such transactions.
Grette has developed a specific tool for compliance measures so that the individual seller and others know the boundaries and grey areas so everyone knows what they must not do and when they need to seek professional assistance. Grette also assists with reporting business mergers. | <urn:uuid:fc8deb76-d034-4483-af8e-acb04d61604f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grette.no/en/Competence/Competition-law/?category=competition-law | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967631 | 205 | 1.773438 | 2 |
NEWS & PRESS RELEASES
Student summer missions teams returning, preparing
Two groups of BBC students and faculty members recently returned from the Dominican Republic and South Africa with new experience and altered perspectives on the culture and needs of other countries.
At the same time, other groups are continuing to serve in other locations or are preparing to leave.
Teams serving around the world this summer experience hands-on learning and global Christian leadership opportunities, adding to their education as they serve others.
Great impact in the Dominican Republic
Eight members of the BBC women's softball team traveled to the Dominican Republic with Associate Professor and Coach Dr. Bill Higley, his wife, Susan, and three BBC other students. The team partnered with Score International, an organization using sports ministries to reach people around the world.
Team members served in several orphanages and villages, taking time to share testimonies, teach students, organize crafts, and play games with children. They also worked with Lily House, which ministers to young women involved in or vulnerable to prostitution.
"The biggest thing for us as a team was to have our eyes opened to the needs that people have and to realize we can make a difference," Dr. Higley said.
"Even though it's a small difference, God uses that to truly impact lives. The challenge for us is to not walk away and say we had a great experience and then forget about it, but to think about how we can have an influence even afterward."
The team also played softball with Dominican teams, including a game at the Highland Complex in Boca Chica, which serves as a training academy for the San Francisco Giants.
"The whole week was really challenging, being in a different county and seeing the poverty there," said Veronica Tipton, a senior Women's Ministries major from White Hall, NY. "I learned that even through small things God uses us. Even in the moments that we don't want to do something, or when we feel that our task is pointless, he can use it for His glory."
"It was really cool to see the girls completely give everything to each place, to see all of them get emotionally involved in each place, give everything and not hold back. It made me realize we were doing things right."
See pictures from the Dominican Republic trip here.
Helping in South Africa
John Jackson, an Associate Professor and Director of Short-Term Ministries, travelled with eight BBC students and students from Faith Baptist Bible College in Iowa.
The group spent 20 days serving in different areas of South Africa, including time with Central Baptist Church in Pretoria, Bethesda Outreach orphanage in Hamanskraal, and First Baptist Church in Kokstad.
The team's work included construction, painting, and manual labor. The group also spent time working with children and teens, teaching Bible lessons, and preaching and running a three-day leadership camp for about 30 teens.
"Going to South Africa was an incredible opportunity for me to see people who know what true joy is because they live simple lives, love freely, and are genuine with others," said Marissa Langenthal, an Elementary Education major from Pleasant Valley, NY. "What a challenge for us here in America who have so much and find it so hard to be joyful!"
See pictures from the South Africa trip here.
More cross-cultural opportunities ahead
Many other students are serving and ministering around the world. The opportunities include two members of the Defenders men's soccer team who will be serving with Tim and Barbara-Lee Glessner in Puebla, Mexico in June. They will be helping with a medical clinic and sports ministry.
Download a prayer card for all summer missions here.
Three students will be traveling to China to teach English as a Second Language in July. And in August, five students will be serving with David and Felicia Lee in Bucharest, Romania, assisting with children's camp ministry.
Many other students will be serving in the U.S. this summer, working at camps, churches, and with other organizations across the country.
Learn more about the undergraduate missions program at BBC&S here .
Baptist Bible College & Seminary offers an outstanding Christian education through on-campus, online, and other distance learning options. Students go beyond the ordinary, learning to learn and serve with excellence as they gain critical leadership and life skills.
To learn more, go to www.bbc.edu or call 570.586.2400.
Posted on: 6/10/2011 10:11:03 AM | <urn:uuid:1c59921a-c04e-4f7f-9c22-fbde1b45ea96> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.edu/news.asp?ID=2202 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966888 | 934 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Fish sticks are a traditional way to introduce young children to seafood. They also will keep your toddler busy in her high chair so you can have a few minutes of mealtime peace.This recipe tastes much better than the frozen kind — and since the fish is baked instead of deep-fried, it's healthier too.
- Heat oven to 450. Spread oil on a rimmed baking sheet. Toss crumbs, grated cheese, and seasonings together in a shallow dish until blended. Put flour into another shallow dish and beaten eggs into a third shallow bowl.
- Coat each piece of fish evenly with flour. Then dip each floured piece into beaten eggs. Last of all, turn each piece around in crumb mixture until evenly coated.
- Place each coated piece of fish onto the oiled sheet, then turn pieces over so both sides are oiled. Bake until golden brown, about 10 to 14 minutes. Serve immediately with lemon wedges, tartar sauce, ranch dressing, or (gasp!) ketchup, as your family prefers.
What is the Family Approved program?
In Their Opinion:
- Kid Friendly
- Good for Grownups
- Kids Can Help
- Go-To Meal
We all liked the fishsticks. They were so much healthier than store bought ones and they were fun to make and fun to eat. I think they were a great success.
I may try using corn meal next time instead of regular flour...or perhaps I could mix corn meal into the breadcrumb mixture. It might give it a different flavor. I needed to dd an extra egg and increase the amount of the breadcrumbs because we started running low towards the end, and I also didn't need to cook it quite as long as the recipe suggested either. The fishsticks also tend to stick a lot on the baking sheet - maybe more little more oil or cooking spray?
This was a great recipe to make with kids. I put the plates with the egg, the flour and the breadcrumb on the counter and after I cut up the strips of fish the kids got busy. They dipped and breaded and put everything on the baking sheets. It made a royal mess on the counter and the floor but it was totally worth it. The kids felt so important and kept talking about what a good job they were doing. It's nice to find a recipe for a real meal (not just dessert) that is kid friendly to make. | <urn:uuid:92008023-e5d8-4710-83c4-ad675df07325> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://family.go.com/food/pkg-family-approved-recipes/recipe-652808-fish-sticks-t/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975768 | 502 | 1.664063 | 2 |
- ISHN GLOBAL
- EHS RESEARCH
“As an audiologist,” writes Patricia Greene in the Washington Post, “I was alarmed to read about the sound level at “Bandolero” A check at the spirited Mexican restaurant in Georgetown averaged 105 decibels, the din associated with a power mower.
Former nuclear weapons workers in Tennessee, Texas and Massachusetts are being notified about three new classes of employees being added to the Special Exposure Cohort of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA).
A recent study found that smoke-free legislation leads to a sharp decrease in hospitalizations and deaths from heart and respiratory diseases.
A new study published by the IRSST found that students who held a job or jobs during their studies faced a range of health risks and that job characteristics, working hours and career paths had an impact on various health indicators.
Exercise and healthy eating reduce body fat and preserve muscle in adults better than diet alone, according to a study funded and conducted by National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), part of the National Institutes of Health.
A newly released report from the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) highlights key workplace amenity strategies that can lead to increased employee wellbeing and productivity.
This standard establishes the elements and activities for pre-project and pre-task safety and health planning in construction.
With access to over one million professionals and more than 60 industry-specific publications,Clear Seas Research offers relevant insights from those who know your industry best. Let us customize a market research solution that exceeds your marketing goals. | <urn:uuid:ddf65cc5-4187-45cd-b3bf-84af2080e668> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ishn.com/articles/topic/2236-health?page=15 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93981 | 340 | 1.515625 | 2 |
updateNOTE: This does not work with plastic covers! The sugar will leave scratch marks on it. (if you are careful only vary few)
This instructable is to show you how easy it is to remove some unwanted logo's from cell phones and other plastic / metal products. The logo has to be of the type glued onto the surface rather then etched in (which generally is the case 90% of the time) as we will scratch them off. There are many ways which you can go about this from fingernails, to pin, but there is one trick, which i have tested and will show you...
The key is to scratch of the logo without leaving and marks on the surface of the phone (in my case PDA). Sugar works perfectly. The idea of using sugar is admittedly not my own. I first came across it on the following forum. Yet, I was not sure whether it actually works, and how to go about it. So I just decided to do it: and the results are good. Apparently the sugars -crystals are strong enough to remove the logo (sticker) but too soft to scratch the casing leaving it thus unscathed.
Whatever the reasons: it works!
Note: I edited the pictures so that important parts stand out.
Step 1: The Utensils:
- Your logo infested cell-phone, pager, whatever
- Several cubes of sugar: I hardly used one, but according to other sources they need up to twelve, so a few extra can’t hurt [you can eat the leftovers ;)] )
- TAPE!! It is important as you don’t want sugar getting into your phone
- a newspaper: you might want to limit any mess by using a newspaper as protection for your desk/workstation.
- a pin to remove any sugar in niche
- cloth to wipe off the sugar | <urn:uuid:b4255e09-6b08-4792-9d01-d6b4fba171a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.instructables.com/id/EFHU5V6TKYERIE2SMP/CN6FDX5FRXWGQGL | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964534 | 388 | 1.625 | 2 |
Monthly Archives August 2008
Now internet facility is available everywhere so gain some knowledge about yoga from there. Do a little bit of research both through the net and paying visits to the yoga classes around your residence. Choose the yoga that suits you. The next step is to find a class whose yoga trainer can give you proper and useful guidance in this matter. A good trainer can only teach and guide you proper methods of yoga. When you join any class be sure what to bring to the class and about the sitting arrangement.
While attending the yoga class or practicing yoga make sure you stay away from
- Big meal just prior to the class,
- Drinking water when the class is going on or when the yoga proceedings are going on,
- Wearing socks or shoes when the class is on.
Wearing uncomfortable garments.Read More
Selecting the location of your house, its interior design, the spacing between the furniture, positioning the mirror, keeping the money trees, placing aquariums or the use of crystals and fountains, all this and more are included into the ancient Chinese art and science of Feng shui.
Feng shui is a 3000 years old Chinese practice which is embraced by many people even today because of its positive effects and good results. It is a proper blend of knowledge and science which teaches us the right way to balance the energy of any place for a good fortune and a fit health. Etymologically, the words “feng” means wind while “shui” means water according to the Chinese language which symbolizes a healthy body and a good fortune.
The ancient Chinese people believed that the land on which we ...Read More | <urn:uuid:457349ea-29ac-4989-a209-f231ba41562c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thespiritualhealth.com/2008/08/ | 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 | 0.937569 | 343 | 1.625 | 2 |
CONAD, NORAD, Santa, and Scrooges
NORAD has been tracking Santa since before it was NORAD. Though I’m told I saw it earlier than that, I remember watching grainy black and white stock film on our black and white TV in the early 60s. Some of them were clearly CONAD footage with an altered sound track and a new (better quality) bit of film spliced in that showed an entry sign that said NORAD instead of CONAD (details I didn’t notice till years later.)
The clips would start during the afternoon movie, showing Santa travelling over someplace in eastern Europe. Earnest young techs at their consoles, stern officers overseeing operations, a tracking map that covered a whole wall- And on that map, a tiny sleigh with eight miniature reindeer.
We were military kids in a military town. “Duck and Cover” was not a piece of period kitsch played in short bits for laughs; it was as real as the test of the air raid siren each Monday at noon. (The running joke was that if the Russians were smart they’d attack Monday at noon because everyone would ignore the siren.) It was a Navy town, so none of our dads were in NORAD, but they were on the line too, or had been. We were in a late phase of a 70 year ideological struggle, our phase being called the “Cold War.” But we had held our breath for seven days in May of 1962, and knew that cold could turn to hot.
As it got closer to dark, the intensity grew. Finally, fighters scrambled and intercepted the approaching aircraft over the Atlantic to verify what it was. Stock footage of F-104 Starfighters with brave pilots (we knew pilots were brave- After all, we lived in the shadow of Fightertown, USA, where the movie “Top Gun” would later be set) were inter-cut with animations of Santa, sleigh, and reindeer. We were so excited we could hardly eat! Santa was approaching the East Coast! He’d be in California in no time!
These are treasured memories of my childhood. Santa was coming, and NORAD was keeping us safe. If we now know that what NORAD would really have told us is that we were going to die in something between 17 and 33 minutes, that’s the fault of offensive technology growing faster than defensive. (That there is still no real continental missile defense in place 50 years later is the fault of assorted politicians who seek to appease our enemies, but that’s a rant for another time.) We probably saw more of this because we were a military town, but it was available for everyone.
The animations on the NORAD Santa Tracker are much nicer these days. The grainy black and white films have been replaced by very nice digital images. There are more points where Santa is spotted, and the tracking starts much earlier in the day. It’s a bit of fun for kids, and most of the work, including the phone banks, is handled by volunteers. A bunch of them are working under a mountain a long ways from home, and they give their free time to make Christmas memories for kids in record numbers.
I’ve seen a few Facebook and several Twitter posts that sound a great deal like Scrooge. “Christmas! A fine excuse for NORAD to pick the taxpayer’s pocket every 25th of December!” from the childless who have apparently lost their inner child, and a few rueful remarks from parents who are suffering through the throes of their kid clicking Refresh every couple of minutes to see where Santa is RIGHT NOW! But the rueful parents will smile at the memory, as will their kids in later years.
As for the Scrooges: Get over yourselves.
Cross Posted from Beregond’s Bar. | <urn:uuid:bf8b5fb2-cb8c-45e9-9c17-5dcf46ad6537> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.redstate.com/beregond/2010/12/24/conad-norad-santa-and-scrooges/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983187 | 816 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This morning at 11.00am, I will think of my Hadden family sailing through the Heads into Port Phillip Bay, 160 years ago today. I have previously posted about their journey on the Marco Polo, a clipper ship that altered the course taken by immigrant ships on their journey to Australia and in doing so, earned the title of Fastest Ship in the World.
Landing at Hobsons Bay, the Haddens made their own way to Melbourne and for the next 14 years I have no idea where they were. In that time they “acquired” two daughters, Margaret and Ellen. John’s birth in 1864 is the first clue to the Haddens being at Mokanger Station near Cavendish where Charles worked.
The children of Charles Hadden and Agnes Dobson were:
WILLIAM: Born 1847 Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland; Marriage Mary Mortimer 1870, Cavendish; Died 1938, Hamilton.
JAMES: Born 1850 Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland; Died 1935, Cavendish.
MARGARET: Born circa 1854; Married James Cameron 1883; Died 1927, Swan Hill.
ELLEN: Born circa 1861; Died 1948, Cavendish.
JOHN: Born 1864, Cavendish; Died 1931, Cavendish.
AGNES: Born 1872, Cavendish; Died 1949, Hamilton.
I have searched records from Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales for the births of Margaret and Ellen with no success. Yet on the their death records, they are the daughters of Charles Hadden and Agnes Dobson. Also, the Probate Application at the time of the death of Agnes, listed among her children are Margaret Cameron of Swan Hill and Ellen Hadden of Cavendish. To find where they were born would help me find where they were for those 14 years. They may well have been at Mokanger Station all that time.
The Hadden children were not really the marrying kind. Of the six children, only two, my great great grandfather William and his sister Margaret, married. William must have wanted to make up the numbers with he and wife Mary Mortimer having 10 children. Margaret and her husband James had five children. From the 15 grandchildren of Charles and Agnes, I have found 47 great-grandchildren so far.
At 11.00am I will thank Charles and Agnes Hadden for deciding to leave Scotland to take the journey of a lifetime to come to Australia. If they hadn’t, where would I be today? | <urn:uuid:e14439fa-35fb-426d-975d-e0e98e963d59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mywdfamilies.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/160-years-ago-today/?like=1&_wpnonce=274c59a080 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960967 | 534 | 1.84375 | 2 |
By Jacob Gershman
The water is receding and the winds have eased, but for Consolidated Edison Inc. , the primary utility company serving New York City, the aftermath could be more traumatic than the storm.
About 800,000 Con Ed customers in the city and Westchester County are without power Tuesday, including more than 200,000 in the dark after record-breaking floods caused an explosion at substation on Manhattan’s east side. That explosion turned out the lights out for almost everyone south of Midtown.
John Miksad, Con Ed’s senior vice president of electric operations, sat down with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday to talk about Sandy and the tough days ahead for the utility. What follows is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of the conversation.
WSJ: What is the single most challenging logistical task facing Con Ed?
The biggest single issue is the equipment explosion…and the resulting problem that affected our 13th Street substation. We are in there now. We’re pumping water out of there. And that is a common theme in a lot of this.
All of that is going to start with getting water out of our system. It’s not only in the way of our access — it’s also submerged some of our equipment.
We’ve got — whatever it is — two, four, six, eight feet of water that’s sitting there with our equipment under it…We have folks pumping water and then trying to get in. I think they may even have rowboats in there.
WSJ Do we have a better sense of what caused the substation explosion?
We do not. We could not get access last night because of the water….I think it’s probably most likely flying debris.
WSJ: Why did the explosion knock out so many neighborhoods?
It’s a combination of that failure, which resulted in a short-circuit, and — again conjecture — the belief is that the control wiring, the wiring that protects that equipment, was saturated and mis-operated, resulting in a larger outage.
It’s like the circuit breaker panel in your house being under water.
WSJ: Is it really going to take a week to restore power to those customers?
It certainly could be up to a week. I’m hoping to bring it in sooner. But we’re talking about days.
WSJ: What about people who lost power because of downed lines and trees?
The overhead storm. We’re talking like 350,000 customers. The largest storm we ever had was Irene last year at 200,000. So we’re in uncharted territory.
We could be talking — depending on the amount of help we get — up to two weeks. That will be in phases.
WSJ: Two weeks?
Well, it took us a week with Irene with 200,000 customers. We’re at 350, so you can do the math.
WSJ: A lot of meteorologists, including one who tracks weather for The Wall Street Journal, were blaring sirens about this storm. In what sense was Con Ed was not prepared for the ferocity of the surge?
We’ve never had a 14-foot surge in New York City — I don’t know how you predict that. We were tracking probably 10 different storm models — I never heard an inch more than 12.
WSJ: What would ConEd have done differently if you knew the that the water levels were going to be 14 feet.
I’m pretty sure I would not have taken out the [E. 13th St substation] in advance — 220,000 customers. We always…look for lessons learned. I don’t know, if we could we have got the fire department with pumps, the National Guard with pumps? You’re talking about a lot of water. I don’t know if there was any way to keep up with the water.
It’s basically the sea is up into the substation. The same thing happened during Katrina, the same thing happened in a bunch of different places. I mean, the force of nature is just tremendous.
WSJ: Any lessons learned so far to prepare for next time?
I think it’s too soon to tell…We certainly have to look at the water, 14-foot tides, certainly we need to look at a plan going forward as to what we can possibly do differently. Maybe we can move equipment up to higher levels [like control wiring], but that’s going to take some time.
WSJ: What kind of help are you looking for from city, state and federal emergency agencies?
Pumping. We have a list. We’re looking for access to bridges and tunnels by showing ID. I think we have that already. We’re looking for overhead line construction workers. That’s huge. We’ll take them from anywhere.
WSJ: How much sleep did you get last night?
I got a broken three-and-a-half hours on a cot in my office. | <urn:uuid:37d69cca-e8b4-4a46-a72f-a4769905ceaa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/10/30/qa-con-ed-exec-discusses-dark-days-ahead/ | 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 | 0.963445 | 1,079 | 1.546875 | 2 |
SINGAPORE: Parliament is set to debate the government’s White Paper on Population, which has drawn up roadmaps for Singapore to manage a projected population of 6.9 million by 2030.
Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean will ask the House, which will sit at 1.30pm on Monday, to endorse two papers.
One is "Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore", which is the population policy roadmap to address Singapore’s demographic challenge.
The other is "A High Quality Living Environment for all Singaporeans", which is the land use plan to support Singapore’s future population.
The sitting will start with Ms Lee Li Lian of the Workers’ Party taking her oath as Member of Parliament for Punggol East, after she won the by—election on 26 January.
Members of Parliament (MPs) have tabled 66 questions for oral reply on issues ranging from the illegal strike by SMRT bus drivers from China and medical examinations to road safety and Certificate of Entitlement (COE) premiums.
At least 10 questions will be tabled on the illegal strike in November 2012.
Mr Arthur Fong wants to know how the avenues to address grievances of foreign workers working in Singapore can be better managed and whether the Manpower Ministry will consider allowing foreign workers to be unionised.
Dr Chia Shi—Lu has questions on medical examinations for foreign workers.
He wants to know how such examinations are audited, as well as the processes to ensure that the system is relevant and robust, given the volume of such examinations.
Dr Lam Pin Min is asking for an update on the Health Ministry’s investigation of two clinics which allegedly provided medical examinations to foreign workers, as well as the measures to ensure that medical screenings for foreign workers are conducted properly and professionally.
There will also be questions on COEs.
Mr David Ong wants to know what measures are in place to check rising premiums, especially for small cars, as well as what can be done to ease the transport component of business costs for small and medium enterprises due to rising COE premiums.
Ms Mary Liew wants to know how many households own two or more cars, and whether the government is considering alternatives for more equitable ownership.
Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar will ask the Transport Ministry if it will consider creating a different COE category for first—time car buyers or for the first car bought by each household or business, so that they can pay substantially lower COE premiums.
Dr Lam Pin Min also has questions for the Transport Ministry.
These are on the number of traffic accidents along the PIE towards Tuas between the BKE and the slip road exit to Dunearn Road over the last three years, as well as the measures to make the road safer.
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Former Palme d'Or winner Roman Polanski returns to the Croisette with 'Venus in Fur', a new adaptation of a play about the infamous sadomaso... More Former Palme d'Or winner Roman Polanski returns to the Croisette with 'Venus in Fur', a new adaptation of a play about the infamous sadomasochistic novel by Sacher-Masoch. Duration: 01:06
Date 3 hrs ago, Duration 1:06, Views 3 | <urn:uuid:363081ca-aa0f-45eb-b910-7c683116c0b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.xin.msn.com/en/singapore/parliament-set-to-debate-government%E2%80%99s-white-paper-on-population | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950577 | 693 | 1.609375 | 2 |
When Your Heart Tells You Things Your Mind Does Not Know03249_000_002
The most important responsibility that you, the youth of the Church, have is to see that you are converted. That is number one. In this sense, all of us should be converts to the Church. We should all be converted to the truthfulness of the gospel. Then we can share this truth with others.
One day while the Master and his disciples were on their way to Caesarea Philippi, they stopped for a rest. And the Master asked them, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets.”
And then Jesus asked the disciples to bear their testimonies: “But whom say ye that I am?”
I suppose they all bore testimony, but we have only Peter’s recorded. “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Then the Master replied, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 16:13–17.)
Peter had received a revelation. He knew that Jesus was the Christ, the Savior of the world, the divine Son of God. Now, it could only have been a year or so after this incident when the Master turned to Peter with a rebuke. We do not know what it was that caused him to rebuke Simon Peter, but he said:
“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.” (Luke 22:31–32. Italics added.)
Can you imagine the Lord saying this to his chief apostle, to the very man who had previously received a revelation as to the divine mission of the Lord? The Lord said to Peter that Satan just about had him, and that he had better go out and get converted. Well we might ask, “What does it mean to become converted?” especially after we learn the Lord had suggested that Peter was becoming unconverted. In effect, the Lord is saying that the testimony you have today will not be your testimony of tomorrow. Your testimony is either going to grow and grow until it becomes as the brightness of the sun, or it is going to diminish to nothing, depending on what you do about it. Peter, somehow, was losing his testimony.
The greatest responsibility that a member of Christ’s church has ever had is to become truly converted—and it is just as important to stay converted. But again I ask you, what is conversion? Some clues are given by the Lord. In answering a question as to why he spoke in parables, he quoted a scripture from Isaiah:
“Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed.” (Isa. 6:10.)
As you can see, one is converted when he sees with his eyes what he ought to see; when he hears with his ears what he ought to hear; and when he understands with his heart what he ought to understand—then he is converted. And what he ought to see, hear, and understand is truth—eternal truth—and then practice it. That is conversion. But when he fails to see, and fails to hear, and fails to understand truth and apply it in his life for some reason, then that man has lost his faith. He has lost his testimony because of something he has done. Remember, the Lord then told Peter to go out and regain what he had lost.
A few years ago a prominent university professor joined the Church. When I asked him to speak before a group of New York businessmen and to explain why he had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he said to these men, “I’ll tell you why I joined this church. I came to a time in my life when my heart told me things that my mind did not know. Then it was that I knew the Spirit of the Lord was teaching me, and I knew the gospel was true.” When we understand more than we know with our minds, when we understand with our hearts, then we know that the Spirit of the Lord is working upon us.
Recently I had a visit from a young Catholic priest. He came with a stake missionary from Colorado. I asked him why he had come, and he replied, “I came to see you.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well,” he said, “I have been searching for certain concepts that I have not been able to find. But I think I am finding them now in the Mormon community.”
That led to a half-hour conversation. I told him, “Father, when your heart begins to tell you things that your mind does not, then you are getting the Spirit of the Lord.”
He smiled and said, “I think that’s happening to me already.”
“Then don’t wait too long,” I said to him.
A few weeks later I received a telephone call from him. He said, “Next Saturday I am going to be baptized a member of the Church, because my heart has told me things my mind did not know.”
He was converted. He saw what he should have seen. He heard what he should have heard. He understood what he should have understood, and he was doing something about it. He had a testimony.
Speaking to persons with a testimony, the Lord has said: “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do.” (3 Ne. 18:24–25.)
It is the Savior who provides direction for all who need it. The apostle John said of him, “That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:9, 4, 5.)
That is the light that you have. Every one of us has been born with that light, the light of Christ, which lightens all of us that come into the world, and it never ceases to strive with us, to warn us, to guide us, as long as we are keeping the commandments of God. Thus, when we have a testimony, we are expected to use it for the benefit of others, as Peter was instructed: “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”
All of us have so many, many opportunities to strengthen others. It may be our own brothers and sisters. It may be our own friends. It may be a neighbor or a new acquaintance. It may even be our own parents. Now that’s a great concept, isn’t it—parents and youth strengthening one another. Let me show you what I mean.
The president of the Cardston Temple told me this incident. He said, “A group of young people came to go through the temple for the first time to do baptisms for the dead. After they had gone through two or three baptismal sessions and were about ready to go back home, I suggested that they could come down to my office and I would attempt to answer any questions they might have. I talked to them about their own baptisms. I said, ‘After your own baptism, you were told to receive the Holy Ghost, which means that the Holy Ghost will guide and bless you if you are worthy. If anyone should oppose you, or bring harm to you, you can overcome that opposition by the influence of the Holy Ghost.’
“I looked around and saw a pleasant young girl sobbing. She said, ‘When I was baptized, my mother cursed me. Every time I would go out she was vile and called me wicked names. When I told her I was going to the temple, she profaned and said I was no daughter of hers. I have been fasting ever since I left home that here in the temple I would be given a guide and the power to overcome the opposition of my mother. I was going away disappointed. But now, at the last moment, you have given me the key.’ A smile lit up on her face as she said, ‘I am going to bring Mother within the influence of the power of the Holy Ghost which I have a right to enjoy.’”
Then the president said, “Weeks went by, and a letter came from this girl. The letter said, ‘When I returned home and entered the house, mother greeted me similarly to the way she had when I left, by profaning. On other occasions I had fought back, but this time I walked over and put my arm around her shoulder and said, “Mother, I am not going to quarrel with you today. I want you to come over on the couch and sit down beside me. I want to tell you something.” This surprised Mother. As we sat down, we touched cheeks so that in actuality the Spirit would emanate from me to her, and I bore my testimony. I told her what a wonderful experience I had had in the temple. And to my amazement, Mother burst into tears and begged my forgiveness.’
“The girl closed her letter by saying, ‘We are now preparing Mother to be baptized a member of the Church.’”
“When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” said the Savior. That is my message to you, because it is the Savior’s message. Our number one responsibility is to see that we are converted, and then to convert others.
I would pray that you could feel the love flowing from my soul to yours, and know of my deep compassion toward each of you as you face the problems of today. The time is here when each of you must stand on your own feet. Be converted, because no one can endure on borrowed light. You will have to be guided by the light within yourself. If you do not have it, you will not stand.
May the Lord bless you and clothe you with the armor of righteousness, that you might be able to stand steadfast through whatever trials may be yours in the days that lie ahead. | <urn:uuid:90567c75-0687-475b-bca6-21453018532c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lds.org/new-era/1971/02/when-your-heart-tells-you-things-your-mind-does-not-know?lang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98616 | 2,263 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The NFRIA-WSERC Conservation Center voted to re-brand itself beginning with a new name, Western Slope Conservation Center. The new name became official at the organization's annual meeting on Feb. 10 at Memorial Hall in Hotchkiss.
The organization will continue to be found online at www.theconservationcenter.org.
The Western Slope Conservation Center has been involved in local issues for 35 years. It began as the Western Slope Energy Research Center and changed to Western Slope Environmental Resource Council and then following its merger became NFRIA-WSERC Conservation Center.
"Our new name better positions our organization to serve our entire community — Delta County and the North Fork Valley," said Sarah Sauter, executive director. "The new name honors our rich history while embracing new roles that we have taken to protect all the resources in our community—healthy rivers, lands and healthy lives."
Randy Udall spoke at the annual meeting about natural gas issues.
Prior to Udall's presentation The Conservation Centerpresented its Conservation Hero award to Pete Kolbenschlag, and Award of Appreciation to the departing Alex Johnson, and the Conservation Achievement Award to Tom Vessels of Vessels Gas, and Mike Ludlow of Oxbow Mining for the new methane gas capturing facility at Elk Creek Mine.
Following the business meeting was the organization's traditional chili supper with all the fixings.blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:b67bef88-608f-4129-8c26-745c5d2e2624> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deltacountyindependent.com/index.php/news/north-fork-times/4621-nfria-wserc-is-now-western-slope-conservation-center | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932659 | 293 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Brasov, in the province of Transylvania, is one of the most visited cities in Romania. With its medieval setting amidst wild hill country, Brasov has plenty to do and see, whether you are there for a two week vacation or just a weekend. Brasov hotels range from the expensive, four star Aro Palace, to more economical accommodation. Among the less expensive hotels in Brasov are the Hotel Postavarul and the Hotel Coroana. For information on discount hotels, Brasov cheap hotels and other budget accommodation, check EasyToBook.com.
Dating back to the 15th century, Brasov is rich in history. In the heart od medieval Brasov is the walled city of Piata Sfatului, and within the fortress is Casa Sfatului, a council house built in 1410. It is topped by the Trumpeter’s Tower, and now houses the Brasov Historical Museum. Also of interest is the famous Black Church, said to be the largest Gothic Church between Vienna and Istanbul. Visitors will also want to see the Hirscher House, the Art Museum and the Weavers’ Bastion Museum. You can take a cable car to Mount Tampa, where Vlad Tepes (Dracula) impaled 40 Brasov merchants on sharp stakes. | <urn:uuid:01af8afc-d6f4-4dc8-97fe-dcbd8deab2b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.easytobook.com/en/romania/brasov/brasov-hotels/?amu=280822597¤cy=PLN | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932411 | 272 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Letter from Leonard G. Loomis dated month day, year. In this letter, he describes the movements of his regiment, building a bridge across the Red River, military leadership, and finances.
Military Service Note
Loomis, Leonard G. Enlisted in Company E, 42nd Ohio Infantry. Wounded in the Battle of Thompson's Hill during the Siege of Vicksburg, May 16, 1863. Served in the Provost Guard. Mustered out on November 25, 1864. | <urn:uuid:b11e94f7-7dc2-4913-86ab-06c2d9b82768> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cdm16317.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p129401coll15/id/4207/rec/19 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950887 | 103 | 1.757813 | 2 |
(This is an embellishment on a post I did on gearslutz.com)
Like many engineers, I put a High Pass filter on my vocals when I’m mixing. Usually from 100hz to 150hz. (A little higher with female vocals.)
I do this because for the most part there really isn’t much down there that is useful or going to be heard in the mix (before I get any haters, let me say that if I were mixing a vocal and acoustic guitar only or a solo vocal than maybe I might approach this differently. I am mostly talking about dense mixes and production).
I do the filtering pre-compression so that any low frequencies won’t pump the compressor. This filtering will really clear up the mix a lot. For that matter I do a lot of high pass filtering on other sounds too, because low end is weird in that a tiny tiny amount of it can really screw up a mix. Even stuff you can’t hear will mess with a mix.
But here is something else I do that I think is a little unusual: I often put a low pass filter on vocals as well, most of the time using a McDSP plugin called Filterbank (F2 configuration).
I usually do this on backing vocals or on ‘adlib’ tracks in hip hop. Usually I’m taking out everything above 10khz and even as low down as 6.5khz.
I’ve found that sometimes the vocals just get so harsh and I’m putting de-essers on all the vocals, so might as well take a short cut. It’s also because so many times when I’m mixing for clients it sounds like all the vocals were recorded using the same mic with the same settings. It’s kinda hard to to get a good blend sometimes when all the vocal stacks sound the same.
I read an article about how Michael Jackson recorded his vocals. He would do his leads on a condenser mic and back-ups or stacks on a dynamic (in the article they said a Sure SM7). I think the point is to switch up the source; it gives a bigger sound. So when I’m mixing I’m trying to achieve the same thing with the tracks that are sent to me.
Here’s something else I noticed while mixing. I would often get a nice natural sounding vocal and then in one part of the song want to get that 'telephone' filtered effect. I would always be surprised that after doing that that the natural sounding vocal just sounded boring. It made me start filtering the lows out of my vocals more and being a little more extreme in my approach. I also sometimes go halfway into that telephone type sound for my leads, even boosting the mid-range on my vocals. Remember, all sound systems sound different and you can never really be sure how your mix is gonna sound. But you can be sure that all sound systems do have mid-range and your vocals will be heard there if you treat mid-range as your friend.
I hope this helps.
I Said I'm Charming, I'm Dashing, I'm Rental Car Bashing -
2 weeks ago | <urn:uuid:99820c96-4b72-4ca3-b6e8-a0827f940c81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://billyhumeworkshops.blogspot.com/2009/09/filtering-vocals-high-pass-and-low-pass.html?showComment=1276035095350 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973592 | 668 | 1.648438 | 2 |
A Look Back at October '87
The extreme swings continue in the stock market, with the past two days marking the worst two-day drop in percentage terms for the S&P 500 index since 1987.
In fact, the steep decline in stocks in recent weeks has been similar to the events of October '87. Although the current decline has played out over a few weeks instead of a single day, the extent of the losses has been similar, as has the volatility that continued after the panic selloff.
On Monday, October 19, 1987, the stock market plummetted more than 20% in a single trading session. Besides the dramatic events of what became known as "Black Monday", it is also interesting to note the extreme volatility that persisted in the market in the weeks after the event, with stocks experiencing numerous advances and declines of between 5% and 10% (sound familiar?)
Looking at the two-year period from 1987-89, the impact of Black Monday was still readily apparent despite healthy, double-digit gains posted by the stock market in 1988.
Over the five-year period ending in 1992, however, the effects of Black Monday were decidedly more muted. Despite the "crash" of the market in October '87, stocks still enjoyed a nearly 100% gain over the period.
Finally, looking at the long-term period from 1987-2006, we see that the worst single-day decline in the market's history was barely a tiny blip at the beginning of the period. By the end of 2006, the stock market had gained 700% since the beginning of 1987!
This particular chart ends in 2006 and doesn't reflect the steep decline in the market that began in October 2007. It is interesting to note, however, that even starting with the October '87 decline and ending with the October '08 decline, the market had still grown five-fold during that period of time!
It is not over-simplifying, therefore, to say that extreme market environments such as the one we are currently experiencing become mere speed bumps on the stock market's long upward climb over time -- as long as you are in a well-constructed, prudently diversified portfolio and don't allow short-term noise to scare you out of the market. | <urn:uuid:dd16a800-ed09-4908-821d-07625b616125> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capdir.com/investmentinsight/november2008.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984168 | 463 | 1.585938 | 2 |
- Taxes on some wealthy French top 100 pct of income: paper
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US tests rare legal path in financial crisis cases
* Task force probing packaging and sale of mortgages
* Looking to use FIRREA statute with lower burden of proof
* Comes as Justice Dept has struggled with criminal charges
* FIRREA largely uncharted legal territory
By Aruna Viswanatha
WASHINGTON, April 12 (Reuters) - An Obama administration task force established to investigate misconduct that fueled the financial crisis is turning to a little-used statute that may make such cases easier to bring, according to people familiar with the matter.
The federal statute, FIRREA, was passed in the wake of the savings-and-loan scandals in the 1980s. It requires a lower burden of proof than criminal charges, has a longer statute of limitations than other financial laws and potentially could bring big fines.
But it has appeared in only a few dozen cases since it was enacted in 1989.
The task force, which is in the Justice Department, used FIRREA earlier this year when it issued more than a dozen civil subpoenas to top financial institutions, including Citigroup , the people familiar with the matter said.
The subpoenas ask for documents related to mortgage-backed securities offerings between 2006 and 2008.
President Barack Obama announced the task force during his State of the Union address in January and hailed it as a way to hold accountable those who broke the law and contributed to the housing crisis.
The Securities and Exchange Commission has brought a handful of high-profile cases related to the 2007-2009 financial crisis, including against former Countrywide Financial Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo and Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs. But the Justice Department has struggled to bring criminal charges.
The frustration, in part, has been because such charges involve securing evidence that shows beyond a reasonable doubt a defendant intended to break the law.
For example, a federal jury in 2009 acquitted two former Bear Stearns hedge fund managers accused of continuing to push souring investments as sound.
Jurors said prosecutors did not prove the case, which relied on e-mail evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt. Since then, the Justice Department has brought few major prosecutions tied to the subprime crisis.
But people familiar with the thinking of the task force say the group believes FIRREA - the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act - may prove a critical tool.
FIRREA allows the government to bring civil charges if prosecutors believe defendants violated certain criminal laws but have only enough information to meet a threshold that proves a claim based on the "preponderance of the evidence."
Adam Lurie, a lawyer at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft who worked in the Justice Department's criminal division until last month, said that although criminal cases based on problematic e-mails without a cooperating witness could be difficult to prove, the same evidence could meet a "preponderance" standard.
That means a jury must only find that something is more likely than not. It is "a much easier case to make," he said.
The law also gives the department broad investigative tools, including the ability not only to subpoena documents, but also to take testimony from individuals, an ability prosecutors are not normally afforded in civil cases.
TASK FORCE MEMBERS
The task force includes the Justice Department, the SEC, the FBI and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, among others. It is charged with investigating the pooling and sale of home loans that contributed to the financial crisis.
While the group faced some skepticism, considering the crisis began nearly five years ago, there are signs it is serious about bringing cases.
The co-chairs meet formally every week and talk almost every day to coordinate on "a range of investigations," a Justice Department official said, on condition of anonymity.
About 50 staff members are working on the effort, and the task force has identified separate office space in Washington and will move some personnel there, the official said.
The Justice Department last month posted a one-year position of full-time coordinator for the working group who could help manage discovery and coordinate investigations, according to the job posting.
The DOJ has also requested a $55 million increase for the fiscal year beginning in October to increase efforts to combat financial and mortgage fraud.
"Significant efforts continue to move forward and if they uncover evidence of fraud or other illegal conduct, we will pursue such conduct aggressively," DOJ spokeswoman Adora Andy said.
FIRREA was initially designed to go after individuals who defrauded federally insured financial institutions. But it is a broad statute that allows prosecutors also to bring civil charges against mail and wire fraud.
The law allows for civil penalties of up to $1 million for each violation and up to $5 million for continuing violations, with a 10-year statute of limitations.
"As time goes on this may become one of the only vehicles left to prosecute some of these residential mortgage-backed securities cases," said Eli Kay-Oliphant, a securities and white-collar defense lawyer at the law firm Latham & Watkins.
The statute has quietly been used in the past year by federal prosecutors in New York City in a number of recent cases.
In March 2010, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan announced the creation of a new civil fraud unit and filed its first lawsuit under FIRREA in December of that year, against a mortgage fraud scheme.
In February, Bharara's office entered a settlement with Citigroup over allegations that its CitiMortgage unit defrauded the government into insuring thousands of risky home loans.
A whistleblower originally filed the claims under the False Claims Act, but the government added FIRREA allegations when it resolved the case.
The $25 billion mortgage servicing settlement approved last week, which resolved federal and state allegations that five top U.S. banks engaged in misconduct when servicing home loans and processing foreclosures, also included violations of FIRREA.
TESTING THE WATERS
It is unclear how successful the growing use of FIRREA will be. Lurie, the former Justice official, said it's "largely uncharted territory," and defense lawyers have already started pushing back on the government's use of the law.
In November, Manhattan federal prosecutors sued Allied Home Mortgage seeking penalties under FIRREA for hundreds of false statements allegedly submitted by Allied to HUD.
In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed last month, Allied said the government had sued the company under provisions of the law that apply only to individuals.
Regardless, prosecutors around the country are turning to the law. Lawyers who received the subpoenas from the federal task force said they have also seen FIRREA subpoenas from other U.S. attorneys' offices, including in Colorado, Philadelphia and Boston.
"If the Department now intends to step up its use of the statute, companies could face a new paradigm in anti-fraud enforcement," Lurie said.
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Thanks to the Internet, anyone can find out which nursing homes get good ratings from regulators -- and which ones have gotten into trouble for health violations, been heavily fined or lost federal payments.
There are at least two websites useful for looking up nursing home inspections.
In Ohio, nursing home inspections are done by the state health department on behalf of the federal government. The federal government's Medicare site includes a website at medicare.gov/nhcompare/ for making comparisons of nursing homes.
A search for "Sandusky OH" provides a list for 10 nursing homes rated for quality. The site rates Great Lakes Transitional Care, 1912 Hayes Ave., as "much above average" in its overall rating for quality, with several other local homes rated "above average."
ProPublica.org, a Pulitzer Prize-winning nonprofit news site, has a website for obtaining nursing home information at http://projects.propublica.org/nursing-homes/. It has a particular focus on helping visitors weed out bad nursing homes.
The online reports are helpful for nursing homes that get good ratings from regulators, said Brittany Dorsey, director of marketing for Parkvue Health Care Center in Perkins Township.
"When people come in, they have looked us up online first, at least our website, if they're not familiar with the Medicare site," Dorsey said.
Parkvue, which has 99 health care beds and and 87 residential living and assisted living beds, consistently gets good ratings from regulators.
If it's clear potential customers are looking at more than one nursing home in the Sandusky area, Parkvue officials will suggest looking up ratings on the Medicare site for comparing nursing homes,
Dorsey said, so they can get unbiased opinions from state surveyors.
ProPublica's online tool for looking at nursing home reports has some good news for north-central Ohio families who must face placing a loved one in a nursing home.
It shows that Ohio is a relatively good state for nursing home care. For example, Ohio nursing homes paid average fines of $8,128 per home during the last three years, compared to a national average of $11,300 and fines of $90,400 in Washington, the state with the largest fines.
Nursing homes in the Sandusky area fare well, compared to homes in other parts of Ohio.
Out of Ohio's 956 nursing homes, inspectors found 67 with serious deficiencies in about the last three years. Only one of the 67 -- Elmwood Nursing Home in Green Springs -- is in the Sandusky area.
None of the 47 homes that had Medicaid or Medicare payment suspensions over the last three years are in the Sandusky area.
The survey reports for the Elmwood family of homes in Green Springs has good news as well as bad. Elmwood Health Care Center at the Springs, 401 North Broadway, has enjoyed good inspection reports.
When the center received a deficiency-free rating in early 2012, it put out a press release announcing the results.
Jean Smith, administrator at the home, noted it also had zero deficiencies in 2010.
"Our staff and leadership teams are the best," she said. "They do such a wonderful job caring for our residents and patients."
But inspectors found more deficiencies at nearby Elmwood Nursing Home, 430 North Broadway St.
State surveyors from the health department found only four deficiencies at Elmwood Nursing Home in 2012. But in 2011, they found 19 deficiencies and levied a $7,800 fine. The nursing home was also fined $10,368 in 2009.
Some of the deficiencies cited in 2011 included failure to investigate the cause of injuries; failure to prevent bed sores; failure to keep the area free of accident hazards; failure to give each resident enough fluids to prevent dehydration; and failure to have a program to prevent infections from spreading.
Kathy Hunt, owner and CEO of Elmwood Centers, and Amanda Picciuoto, current administrator of the home, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
Tessie Pollock, a spokeswoman for the state health department, said nursing homes often have changes in management and personnel, so it's not uncommon for ratings to vary from year to year.
"Our goal is to ensure compliance," she said.
When a nursing home receives a bad rating, the health department follows up.
"It is standard practice for a facility to submit a Plan of Correction to ODH and then for our surveyors to revisit and make sure the plan was put in place," Pollock said. "That usually occurs much sooner than a year."
State inspectors apparently felt that Elmwood Nursing Home was working with them. It was not flagged as a "special focus facility" -- a home with a history of serious quality issues -- nor did the federal government suspend payments to the nursing home, a step that's sometimes taken in serious cases.
ProPublica's website shows that a Toledo nursing home, Liberty West Nursing Center, has had three suspensions of federal payments in the last three years. | <urn:uuid:46075e3d-6a99-452b-af94-3c6572b28801> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sanduskyregister.com/article/3032191 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962751 | 1,033 | 1.578125 | 2 |
by Rolaant L. McKenzie
What is the gospel? Knowing the answer to this question is vital if one is to receive salvation and have a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ, for belief in the wrong gospel will not save, but condemn (Galatians 1:6-9). 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 provides a good summary of what the gospel is:
The gospel is the good news of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ that provides full and free deliverance from the power and penalty of sin according to the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone. Why is this such wonderful news?
You and everyone else have been born with a fatal condition. This condition is called sin. Why is this condition so serious? Because God is sinless and hates sin, for sin is rebellion against His perfect and righteous standard. And your sinful actions makes you an enemy of God (Romans 3:23; James 4:4). God made man imperishable, in His own image (Genesis 1:27). He made man so that he may have continual fellowship with Him. But when sin came, the intimate fellowship between man and God changed.
According to Genesis 3, humanity became separated from God when Adam and Eve disobeyed Him and ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the tree from which God had forbidden them to eat. Humanity became separated from God because all people are descended from Adam. As a result, the sinful nature Adam acquired through his disobedience was passed down to all people, including you. Because of this inherited sin nature everyone sins. It comes naturally. It is part of the fabric of being human. Adam's sin placed you apart from God and under His condemnation (Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:22). The effect of sin on you is that it extends to every part of your personality -- your thinking, your emotions, and your will. This does not mean that you are as evil as you can be, but it does mean that sin has extended to your entire being. The lost person is dead in his sins. All are sinners and cannot do anything to save themselves. Without the sovereign, regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, such a person is blind and deaf to the message of the gospel (Romans 8:7-8; 1 Corinthians 2:14), and is totally unable and unwilling to accept salvation through Jesus Christ alone.
Many continually try to end the separation between themselves and God by their own efforts. They live "a good life", or are religious, or adhere to a particular ethical philosophy. But these attempts at reaching God are futile, and fall infinitely short. They are all tainted with sin. Sin is a cancer that infects all. And you either get the cancer, or the cancer will get you!
But there is hope! There is an antidote to sin and its deadly effects. As John 3:16 states, God loved fallen humanity so much that He sent His only Son to redeem sinners like you. Also, God demonstrated His own love toward sinners in that while they were yet in the depths of sin and rebellion against Him, Christ died for them (Romans 5:8). Jesus bridged the gap by His atoning death on the cross and ended the separation. Jesus was special because He was born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit. He was not born of Adam's seed as all other human beings are, and so therefore did not inherit a sinful nature. He did not have the tendency to sin as we all do. The Bible teaches that the payment for sin is death (Romans 6:23). It also teaches that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22).
In the Old Testament, God forbade sacrifice of spotted, deformed, and sickly animals (Deuteronomy 15:21; Malachi 1:7-14). He did this because a spotted, sickly, or deformed animal could not be a perfect sacrifice to pay for sin. Only a clean, healthy lamb without spot or blemish could be sacrificed. The lambs offered as the payment for sin in the Old Testament pointed forward to the time when Jesus Christ, the perfect, unblemished Lamb of God, would take the place of sinners and take upon Himself the just punishment for all their sins. As in New Testament times, people living in the Old Testament period were saved by faith (Habakkuk 2:4). They looked forward to a perfect Savior who would cleanse from sin and establish righteousness. Not merely outwardly, but most importantly, inwardly. God is more interested in what is inside us rather than in externals. He is more concerned with our motives than outward appearances (1 Samuel 16:7). God is more interested in a humble and repentant heart than in sacrifices or offerings (Psalm 51:16-17).
The good news that Jesus Christ commissioned His apostles to preach was His death on the cross for sinners and His resurrection from the dead (an historical event that provided immutable proof of His deity and the truth of His teachings, especially those regarding Himself being the only way to salvation). This good news, or gospel, is called "the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16). The apostles taught that salvation is by the grace of God alone through faith in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:8-10; Titus 3:4-7; Romans 4:3-5, 10:5-13). They were uncompromising in this message, and condemned all attempts by others to add anything to it. The Apostle Paul taught that belief in any other gospel that was a "different gospel" brought the condemnation of God rather than salvation (Galatians 1:6-9).
A "different gospel" is a gospel that on the surface may appear to be genuine and lead to salvation, but in the end it leads to eternal condemnation. This "different gospel" is a counterfeit gospel. It is a perversion of the gospel of the grace of God. It denies the complete ability of God's grace alone to save, to preserve, and to perfect the believer, and adds human works or merit. It is a "gospel" that seems right, feels right, and appears to offer the way to eternal life, but in the end it leads to death (Proverbs 14:12, 16:25).
There are some religious groups that teach that Jesus' death on the cross was not enough to pay for all of our sins. They say that one has to perform certain good works, certain rituals like water baptism, belong to a particular church, observe certain religious days, or make other human additions in order to be saved. Or they teach that Jesus' sacrifice covers only previous sins, but good works must be performed to cover present and future sins so that salvation may be received. This, however, is contrary to what the Bible teaches. Jesus, before He died said, "It is finished" (John 19:30). The Greek text uses the word tetelestai, which means paid in full. This means that our sins were paid for completely, rather than just a down payment being made, making it necessary for us to make regular payments to prevent the gift of salvation from being "repossessed" by God.
Jesus did all the works necessary to secure salvation for sinners without their help. He didn't pay for some sins and then require sinners to pay the remaining balance with certain rituals or with good works. He paid for all sins -- past, present, and future.
Atonement for sin was done once and for all on the cross. It was not a down payment. The full price was paid at that time. God is not a loan company and His grace is not a loan. His grace is a gift. Jesus did not do an incomplete work that requires sinners to finish it. He is a perfect Savior who actually saved sinners, not a potential Savior who actually saved no one (Hebrews 9:12), but needed human help for His grace to perhaps become effective.
Ephesians 2:8-10 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them."
Romans 4:25 says that Jesus "was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification." And Hebrews 9:26 says that "now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
Jesus Christ died an excruciatingly terrible death on the cross. He was the perfect, unblemished Lamb of God, who paid the price sin in order to end the separation between humanity and God. He suffered the punishment and separation from God that was the due reward for your sins. He did this because of His unfathomable love for sinners.
When you understand that you are a sinner worthy of death (Romans 3:23, 6:23) and that you cannot earn God's love in any way, you are beginning to see your need for a Savior. When you confess your sins to God and accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord, He forgives you eagerly, instantly, and completely. God does not keep a record of your sins; He removes them far from you; God remembers your sins no more; your sins are blotted out like a thick cloud; and your sins are thrown down into the depths of the sea, never to be remembered against you anymore (Psalm 103:12, 130:3-4; Ezekiel 33:16; Isaiah 44:22; Micah 7:19). Scripture teaches that the blood of Jesus cleanses from all sin (1 John 1:7). Not just some sin or most sin, but all sin. He was buried and He rose from the grave three days later (1 Corinthians 15:1-11). When you truly believe this in your heart and place full trust in Him your entire life becomes transformed (2 Corinthians 5:17). You will begin to bear good fruit, and you will have the promise of God that He who began this good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). He will never abandon or cast you away from Him (John 6:37; Hebrews 13:5). According to His sovereign grace He will see to it that you make it home to heaven (1 Corinthians 1:8; Jude 24).
The entire Trinity is involved in the safekeeping of Christians. The Father has given believers to the Son (John 6:37-44, 17:9), the Son has asked that they be kept (John 17:11, 20), and the Holy Spirit dwells within every believer forever (John 14:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19).
Romans 10:9-10 says: "That if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."
Ephesians 1:13-14 says: "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation -- having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory."
Galatians 5:22-25 says: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit."
When you believe the gospel you will become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). Christ will live in you (2 Corinthians 13:5) and you will have a totally new outlook on life. Before, with your sinful nature, you sinned without much concern. But with Jesus in your life, you will now desire to love and serve Him, and others (Galatians 5:13). The Holy Spirit transforms sinners like yourself into the kind of people God wants you to be, and fulfills the very purpose for which Jesus died: to redeem sinners and change them so that they will truly love God and serve others as He commanded in John 13:34-35.
When you as a believer in Christ Jesus live your life focusing on the goodness and glory of God, you will become changed into His likeness (2 Corinthians 3:18) and naturally seek to do what is pleasing to Him.
When you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, He becomes your peace (Ephesians 2:14) and you have true fellowship with God. There are times when you will sin after being saved. You will struggle with sin till your dying day or until Jesus comes again. What gives you hope is that salvation is assured to those who trust completely in Jesus' finished work of redemption (His life, death, and resurrection). So you should never feel that salvation is lost due to sins committed out of weakness. You should repent, confess your sin, accept the Lord's promise of forgiveness, and let Him help you back to your feet. But you should never allow the devil to trick you into thinking that salvation is lost. You can rest in the promises of God's word that salvation is assured to those who believe in Christ Jesus (1 John 5:11-13), and that God who begins this good work in the believer will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6). However, sin does break your fellowship with God, though not your union with Him. Sin also brings down God's chastisement on you to discipline you and turn you around, as a loving parent would do for his own child (Hebrews 12:6-7). 1 John 1:9 grants the assurance that in confessing your sin to God fellowship is restored. God's grace is powerful and sufficient to save. It is not an ineffective grace that necessitates human additions (i.e. works, performance, etc.) to perhaps make it effective.
To summarize, the gospel of Christ reveals that:
The Bible says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31). But what does it mean to "believe on the Lord Jesus"? It means knowing yourself to be a sinner, and that Christ died for sinners. It means abandoning all self-righteousness and self-confidence in your own works, supposed merits, faith, repentance, and personal obedience, casting yourself completely upon Him for mercy and peace. It means exchanging your natural hatred and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ through the renewing of your heart by the Holy Spirit.
You may wonder how you, a person lost and dead in sin, can repent of your sins and place your trust in Christ if I have no natural ability to do these things. Look to Jesus, speak to Jesus, cry out to Jesus, just as you are. Confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on His mercy. Ask Him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and saving faith. Ask Him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write His law within you, that you may never stray from Him. Turn to Jesus and trust Him as best you can, and pray for grace to turn and trust more thoroughly. Look to Christ to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to Him. Watch, pray, and read and hear God's Word (the Bible); worship and commune with God's people in a local church, and so continue till you know in yourself beyond doubt that you are indeed a person changed, a repentant believer, and the new heart which you desired has been placed within you by God.
Jesus holds out His hands to you in invitation. You do not need to go to eternal punishment in hell for your sins. No matter where you have been or what you have done, come to Him and He will welcome you with open arms. Please do not harden your heart in refusal; do not say tomorrow you will come to Him. Tomorrow may never come (Proverbs 27:1; 2 Corinthians 6:2; Hebrews 3:15-19).
Sinner, there is grace from the throne of God through the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for sinners like you so that you may not be condemned for the wicked things you have done. No matter what they are or how terrible or numerous they have been, His grace is greater than your sin and is able to save you. The Bible declares that anyone who trusts in Jesus will never be put to shame (Romans 10:11). It also says that there is now no condemnation for those who place their faith in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).
Isaiah 55:6-7 says, "Seek the LORD while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the LORD, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon."
If you have not accepted Jesus as your personal Savior and Lord, please accept His free gift of salvation right now. Do not postpone acceptance for what you think is a more convenient time, but honestly confess your sin and give yourself up here and now to Christ, who alone can save you.
"'As I live!' declares the Lord GOD, 'I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die?'" (Ezekiel 33:11)
The choice is yours today, right here, right now. Please choose life. | <urn:uuid:1bd4ba8d-8a19-4d41-a916-9e7311a33938> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gospeloutreach.net/gospel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964615 | 3,779 | 1.773438 | 2 |
There may be more shoes to drop from WikiLeaks if it releases another 15,000 documents on the Afghanistan war that the whistleblower website is reviewing. It is already seeing some backlash after releasing 75,000-plus documents on the Internet.
The Times of London reported Wednesday that the leaked documents expose informers helping U.S. forces and have put hundreds of Afghan lives at risk.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange responded in an interview from London with NBC’s “Today” show. “We are checking to see whether this is in fact credible. It is probably unlikely. We have taken care to in fact hold back 15,000 for review that should it have this type of material in it. If there are those names in there and they are at risk, this would be because of a misclassification by the U.S. military.”
The group has designed a computer system especially for reviewing the remaining documents, Assange said. “They have not been published and will not be published until they are significantly reviewed.”
The fallout over the documents is far from over.
The Washington Post interviewed retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, a former Pakistani spy chief who dismissed unconfirmed accusations from the leaked documents of helping Taliban fighters. He in turn charged that the document release was the beginning of a White House plot. | <urn:uuid:3cff8254-438f-4c9c-b3d9-5131545cfb18> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/talesfromthetrail/tag/hamid-gul/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96115 | 275 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Anyone who maintains a server with or uses the popular development framework Ruby on Rails
should be aware of a severe security flaw in the suite. Warning of an immediate required upgrade
, RoR has announced today on their site that the 1.1.5 release will fix the flaw. They are quite insistent on getting it across that this is something that must be taken care of:
This is a MANDATORY upgrade for anyone not running on a very recent edge (which isn’t affected by this). If you have a public Rails site, you MUST upgrade to Rails 1.1.5. The security issue is severe and you do not want to be caught unpatched.
Whether a panic upgrade or a silent approach would have been best isn't really the issue now, but making sure that you are patched is. Non-developers can pretty much ignore this, though if you maintain a site on a server that uses RoR you may want to make sure your host provider knows. If you are using a very old version of RoR, 1.0 or earlier, you are unaffected
by this flaw. The particular details of how to replicate or identify the flaw aren't being made available by them. | <urn:uuid:41b6868e-0b54-4ce2-b7e4-13c79bc1ad52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techspot.com/news/22514-ruby-on-rails-severe-security-flaw-discovered-and-patched.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969017 | 249 | 1.609375 | 2 |
A - Thanks for your question. First off, I will tell you that your question is all too common. Many people go to Mass with the expectation that they are supposed to "get" a lot out of it. But, what you get out of Mass is dependent on what kind of changes you are willing to make in your efforts before, during and after Mass, because what you put into Mass determines what you get out of it.
Let me give you eight pointers that have helped me in the past:
1 - Properly prepare for Mass.
- Read and study the readings before you go to Mass, and then listen to them intently while The Word is proclaimed. You can find the Sunday readings here.
- Study the Church's teachings. The more you know about Christ and His Church, the more there is to love. - You can't love what you don't know.
- Go to Confession regularly. This will help prepare you spiritually.
- Pray daily. Without prayer you have no spiritual power!
- Dress appropriately. You are going to meet the King of Kings. Don't dress the same as you would for a lunch date, a party, or class. Make it special.
- Get there early and sit up front. Less distractions and more time for prayer before Mass.
- Once inside, don't talk or people-watch...pray.
- Don't expect to be entertained. It isn't as much about what God is doing for you, but what you are doing to worship God.
- Look for God in every part of the Mass.
- Don't let outside distractions disturb your internal peace.
- Find one nugget in the preaching to take home with you.
- Sing, even if your voice is bad.
- Respond and pray with gusto. Give it all to God and don't worry about others.
- Remember that during Mass isn't socializing time.
- Offer your pain, sufferings, joys and prayers to God.
- Are you open to letting God change you? If not, then you won’t be changed.
- Listen to the Word proclaimed and let it challenge you.
- Find something in the Homily and apply it for the week.
- Don’t just recite the Creed - proclaim it like you mean it and understand what you are proclaiming.
- If every Catholic tithed...think what we could accomplish in spreading the Gospel.
- Yes, it is our duty to support the Church. But, it does more for our own faith than it does for the Church.
- Most people "tip" not "tithe" - so be a tither, not a tipper.
- You are taking the Body, blood, soul, and divinity of GOD into you
- You are joining in heaven on earth
- You are becoming one with The Body of Christ
- Be reverent
- Realize that He is in everyone else that received Him as well.
- You are now empowered to evangelize (share the Good News of Christ) - which is what the Church exists for.
"If we really understood the Mass, we would die of joy." -
Vianney Saint Jean | <urn:uuid:57bdc93e-44a9-4e3b-8928-7340947cf239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marysaggies.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-get-more-out-of-mass.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961201 | 670 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Competitive Enterprise Institute | 1899 L ST NW Floor 12, Washington, DC 20036 | Phone: 202-331-1010 | Fax: 202-331-0640
For more than five years, the Transportation Security Administration has been deploying full-body imaging scanners in our nation's airports. About 700 scanners have been deployed in nearly 190 airports nationwide. While the agency keeps installing these devices - which most people agree intrude on our privacy - there are real doubts whether these are actually making anybody safer. Yet because TSA failed to solicit public comments about the scanners - in violation of federal law - the agency is flying blind.
In 2010, the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued the Department of Homeland Security, TSA's parent department, to compel TSA to solicit public and expert input. In July 2011, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered TSA to "promptly" begin a rulemaking to allow for legally required public comments.
A year later, TSA, has not even begun the process. The law empowers courts to compel agency action when it is "unreasonably delayed." TSA says it does not have the resources to begin this public comment process. But it has a discretionary budget larger than that of the entire federal judiciary and a staff larger than those of the Departments of State, Labor, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development combined. This supposed lack of capacity has not prevented TSA from opening new proceedings on far less important matters, adding many more body scanners at airports nationwide, and launching the new PreCheck program for frequent fliers during the last year.
On July 17, EPIC petitioned the court to enforce its mandate. Two days later, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed an amicus brief supporting EPIC's petition, along with the National Association of Airline Passengers, Electronic Frontier Foundation and six other organizations.
This rulemaking is the only way to determine whether TSA's air travel security regime is worth its huge costs and adverse effects on the public's well-being. Several independent analyses have found that TSA's use of these machines would be economically wasteful even if they worked as well as TSA claims, but may actually make us less safe.
Ohio State University professor John Mueller has done a thorough analysis of U.S. air travel security. He found that even assuming the scanners are capable of detecting body-borne explosives, the likelihood of a terrorist carrying out such an attack is so low that the massive annual cost of deploying and using these machines outweighs any security benefit and could be much better allocated elsewhere.
But TSA's security procedures are not merely ineffective: They may be endangering the public's health and driving consumers to far more hazardous forms of transportation. Medical experts have raised genuine concerns about repeatedly exposing frequent flyers to potentially harmful radiation.
In addition, three Cornell University economists found that the agency's onerous screening rituals have led many people to abandon short-haul flights - New York to Washington, for instance - and take to the road instead.
Yet the agency has still not allowed the public to comment on its most invasive - and unpopular - security measure to date.
This is unacceptable, especially as TSA continues deploying body scanners. According to Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., co-author of the law creating TSA, a classified Government Accountability Office study found that the explosive detection rates are unacceptably low. "If we could reveal the failure rate, the American public would be outraged," Mica said at a March 2011 hearing.
Experience with "puffer" explosive detection machines shows how TSA's exuberance in adopting unproven screening technologies without consulting the public and independent experts can waste time and money, and be unnecessarily intrusive. After spending $36 million purchasing the devices, TSA found them to be ineffective and removed them. They now sit unused in a Texas warehouse. That was a bargain compared to the $500 million TSA expects to spend on body scanners. The longer TSA delays in complying with the public comment requirement, the more likely they will continue to set bad security policy.
The court should promptly find in EPIC's favor and require TSA to open a rulemaking on these full-body imaging machines within 60 days. If the court fails to act, TSA will be able to continue to evade judicial review, leaving the public with no meaningful recourse. | <urn:uuid:d8155b0a-aaa5-4755-a281-c166376abd89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cei.org/print/128326 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944288 | 876 | 1.53125 | 2 |
What will happen when State and federal governments are forced to deal honestly with our sovereign debt crisis
The problem is that saying that sounds good on paper, but the practical implementation of a policy of truly limiting government is quite another matter entirely. We look to our mother country and we see the end result of 50 years of straight socialism being that Britain can no longer afford it anymore. The cuts that the Cameron Government are determined to bring about are very modest by both British and European standards when one considers the sheer amount of state involvement in business and private affairs in that country. Yet the public reaction in some quarters has brought about riots, disorder, and general fearmongering. Everyone thinks that spending cuts should be made-except to their piece of the pie.
Labels: Congress, Conservatism, Federal politics, Local politics, Political correctness, Tennessee politics | <urn:uuid:abefc9c5-b983-4f37-9df4-4f3aa51f9655> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oatneyworld.blogspot.com/2010/11/crisis.html | 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 | 0.955667 | 170 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Do you think that new people are no longer subscribing to your RSS feed though you are regularly feeding the blog beast with fresh content that’s unique and useful ?
David Bradley has a simple but effective solution – educate non-geeky users about RSS and what can they do when they see that orange RSS XML icon on a website.
Dave added a “What is RSS” link near the XML subscribe button and immediately noticed a jump in his subscriber base. His rationale:
I still get blank stares from friends and relatives when I mention blogs, rss, rdf, newsfeeds, and such, and even one or two web designer colleagues are yet to embrace the technology. Adding that “What is RSS?” post might just make all the difference between their never finding out and actually subscribing to your feed with Bloglines, Google Reader, or Firefox Active Bookmarks.
Most people still hit sites almost randomly while searching for their keywords in a search engine. So, make it easy for them to stick around. Add a “What is RSS?” post and bring them into the fold. Link | <urn:uuid:2a683b15-e4d8-4570-8a4d-539ac352bd26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/one-simple-trick-to-increase-your-rss-subscriber-count/773/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951105 | 231 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Winter, a disaster for some but an opportunity for others? So here we are, not even the New Year yet but the weather has brought us down. In countries with a tradition of very low temperatures there is the concept of 'cabin fever'. This affects people who stay inside from the fall of the first snow until spring and, as a result of their self imposed imprisonment, they go a bit mad. Oh dear I hear you say! Remembering that 'stay inside' is the advice of the 'authorities', of all stripes, who don't wish you to experience their ineptitude first hand. In an age of air travel a larger than ever number of UK residents have had experience of winter in countries where a lot of snow is to be expected. I have watched snow blowers at a small rural airport in Canada clear a runway in a blizzard so a mid-sized Boeing jet could take off. It was -20C and just minutes after take off the runway was again covered. The journey to and from the airport was done in a small Toyota with snow tyres and was both safe and done at a reasonable speed. By contrast we have all seen the pictures of life in the UK, even gritting lorries have gone into ditches; from the top to the bottom of the great pyramid of public servants it seems hard to find anyone able to do it right. Years ago it was deemed reasonable to suggest we have in the UK "the wrong kind of snow". Increasingly it looks as if we have, as a nation, the wrong sort of attitude and the wrong sort of public servant too. | <urn:uuid:45c7854e-2fc2-474c-a610-25af024cb176> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tee2i.org/topics/winters | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980893 | 326 | 1.695313 | 2 |
- "A dreadfully stereotyped Indian character, X, speaking without a contraction in sight, appears as healer and resident Gandhian in Story Y."
- "...the dialogue is written in an annoying and slightly off-kilter Indian lilt, reminiscent of the Simpsons' Apu."
- "...stereotypically nerdy Indian kid as sidekick."
It turns out, with considerable care. In Nice and Mean, middle schoolers Marina Glass and Sachi Parikh are paired up to work on a video project and run headlong into trouble almost at once. They seem to be locked into a kind of symbiotic conflict, which seems impossible to get around. Their worldviews seem far too divergent to offer any hope for this project or for communication between them. The story plays out in alternating first person voices, and inches surely toward catastrophe and then just as surely toward a connection that raises interesting questions of judgment and opinion, and what really matters, especially in the peer-driven world of middle school. But common ground? The answer would appear to be, well, no.
The book has been dicussed in several places including Mitali's Fire Escape, where the interview covers some of the same terrain I like to tramp around in, here on WWBT. Here's my e-mail interview with Jessica Leader:
[JL] When I first created Sachi, she was a supporting character in a manuscript about one of the other girls in Nice and Mean. That manuscript never saw the light of publication, thank goodness, but it left me with the desire to focus a story around Sachi, since the way I portrayed her had raised many questions that, to be honest, I had never addressed. She was always supportive, always cheerful and calm, always competent, but what would that be like for her? What would she do if she felt selfish and grumpy? And what would happen if she wanted to pursue something that other people wanted her to avoid?
To answer these questions, I had to push past my own preconceptions of Sachi’s character. I had to figure out when she would be charitable and when she would be judgmental, and if she did pass a judgment, how that would manifest itself? (Certainly not at all like the other narrator in the story, Marina, who never met a quip she didn’t like!) When Sachi faced others’ opposition, as she does when her parents don’t want her to take a video class, I had to give Sachi enough gumption to push past it, which was sometimes hard to manage, since I had envisioned her as such a pleaser. It was all a far cry from the nice, sweet Sachi in the first manuscript, but she was so much more real and interesting this way that I knew it had to be right. In fact, I think that Sachi’s friends and I went on a similar journey in this book: we both learned about another side of someone we thought we knew.
[UK] In among the awkward truths of middle school, you've managed to create two characters, Marina and Sachi, who are in instant opposition. The tensions of that opposition drive the story. You say you're a plotter--talk about how you built the two girls' stories and made them intertwine without dropping a thread!
[JL] Goodness, I don’t know! I think that at first, actually, there was too much resonance between Marina and Sachi. Would you believe that even in a very late-stage draft, they both had one older sister and one younger? Too much similarity, and too many characters. Plus there was also this one chapter where Sachi thought Marina was stealing her video, and her friends were acting silly about a crush they had…. Margaret Bechard, the advisor at Vermont College who worked with me on this, was generally pretty positive about the draft I sent her, but when it got to that particular chapter (I think it was number eight), she wrote something to the effect of, “As you can see, I am starting to get a little bit testy here.” Even late in the game, the story was bogged down with excess, and it wasn’t until I went into heavy revision, both with my advisor and my editor, that the current version began to emerge.
To answer your question, then, I think my process of building’ the girls’ stories was less about spinning this wonderful symmetry and more about paring away things that were just too ridiculous and did not belong.
[UK] And that paring away leaves this interesting oppositional symmetry. Moving on... Of the Indian-American readers who read your work while it was in progress, you say they "showed me my characters in a new light." What do you mean by that? What did you learn in the process of receiving and using this sort of insider help?
[JL] The feedback I remember the most from the draft that I shared with my Indian-American readers was that the relationship between Sachi and her older sister, Priyanka, was too parental. They said that in East Asian countries, the older sister might feel responsible for the well-being and reputation of the younger one, but in Indian culture, that just wasn’t so. This was actually a great opportunity for me. It spurred me to look more closely at the reason Priyanka was so disapproving of Sachi’s video aspirations and enabled me to endow her character with more nuance. And isn’t that what you always want to do with your characters—push past the obvious and into the personal?
I have to admit that for much of the process of writing Nice and Mean, I was nervous about seeking feedback from Indian-American readers. I was afraid that that they would find my story full of assumptions and resent the fact that I had taken a story from their experience of the world and used it to create a story of my own.
As I grew more serious about writing, though, and got closer and closer to that publication date, two things liberated me from this fear: first, I met writers who assured me that stories belong to everybody, as long as you approach them with respect and care. The second liberator, which was possibly more like an inoculation, was my realization that I’d much rather have a few acquaintances laugh at my assumptions than read a scathing review saying the same! I would say that the major learning here was: always consult insiders! If they don’t want to help you, they won’t. If they do—and I’ve found this with all types of experts, from video-makers to National Parks workers to conservative Christians—they will invariably help you deepen your story.
[UK] Thanks Jess! All best for a great year ahead in 2011.
[JL] Thanks for inviting me to your blog! | <urn:uuid:854d4ab2-3e3c-4236-a422-787a408a724e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://umakrishnaswami.blogspot.com/2010/12/nice-and-mean-by-jessica-leader.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984227 | 1,434 | 1.625 | 2 |
Become a volunteer at the American Swedish Institute!
Volunteering is a great way to connect with other volunteers, members, staff, and our visitors!
ASI offers semester and J-term internships. Current internship opportunities are posted on our Employment page.
For more information about internship opportunities please contact the Visitor and Volunteer Services Coordinator at 612-870-3344 or [email protected].
History of volunteering at ASI
The American Swedish Institute has relied on volunteers throughout its history to carry out its mission and serve the community. Over the years, volunteers have played a vital role in the shop and mansion by lending their time and talents at the reception desk, as guards and guides in the galleries, as café cashiers and bakers, and as shop clerks. The names of volunteer positions have changed, but the functions have remained relatively constant since the early days of the Institute. In earlier years, volunteer roles were separated into shop positions and mansion positions.
During the mid to late 1930s, a group of volunteers came together to form The Associates to coordinate the gift shop at ASI, which was located in the den of the Turnblad Mansion. The Associates held monthly meetings to report on shop business. During the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s, the shop was managed by a volunteer manager. In the late 1990s, the shop transitioned to its current management format, and volunteers continue to play a vital part in its success.
Throughout its history, ASI has relied on guards, guides, and reception desk volunteers. During the 1980s, John and Marge Pollack were in charge of coordinating volunteers for reception, guide, and guard positions. During this time, volunteer committees were formed, and a day leader would be in charge of all volunteers for a specific day of the week. An ad hoc committee met three or four times a year to discuss volunteers’ concerns, and to socialize. Over the years, as the Institute expanded its programming, volunteer opportunities increased, and more volunteers were brought into the ASI family.
In the early 2000s, a staff member began serving as a liaison to the volunteers, and through their efforts the volunteer program was greatly expanded. The process of becoming a volunteer has been streamlined into a simple application and interview process.
Benefits of volunteering at ASI
- Volunteers receive a 10% discount in the Museum Shop, and volunteers who work at least 40 hours in a calendar year receive a 20% discount.*
- Volunteers are automatic enrollment in a monthly volunteer-only raffle.
- Subscription to ASI's online newsletter Klipp!
- Volunteers are recognized at annual Volunteer Appreciation Dinner.
- Optional volunteer-only lectures and training sessions about ASI every other month.
- Volunteers enjoy the rewards of growth, learning, and satisfaction that come from contributing time and service to an organization.
- Free Parking!
* This discount does not include food items.
How to Become a Volunteer
For more information about volunteer opportunities please contact the Visitor and Volunteer Services Coordinator at 612-870-3344 or [email protected], or fill out the form on the side. | <urn:uuid:8e61ef6c-1f3a-4066-86b3-49fc51a27f38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asimn.org/join-support/volunteer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964746 | 660 | 1.601563 | 2 |
A Muslim in the Middle Hopes Against Hope
New York Times, Metro Section, June 23, 2004
By Chris Hedges
Imam Feiasl Abdul Rauf had a nightmare recently that has unsettled his days. He dreamed that Islamic terrorists had exploded a weapon of mass destruction in the United States and that Washington had made a retaliatory strike in the Muslim world. As he explained the dream, he used his index fingers to trace the paths of the arcing missiles.
"I have been worried," he said. "I told everyone in my mosque to pray more fervently for peace and the protection of our country."
"Our country" is America. And Imam Feisal, 55, a Columbia University graduate and the leader of the Masjid al-Farah mosque 12 blocks north of the World Trade Center site, is a man increasingly caught in the middle. He preaches a moderate Islam, one that embraces the values of Western democracy, carries within it a love of America and calls on Muslims to respect other faiths.
He condemns suicide bombings and all violence carried out in the name of religion. He meets regularly with Christian and Jewish leaders, not only to forge a common front but also to explain his belief that Islamic terrorists do not come from another moral universe - that they arise from oppressive societies that he feels Washington had a hand in creating. Last week, Imam Feisal joined three other American clerics of various faiths in a 30-second advertisement, broadcast on Arabic television, in which they apologized for the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison. He said that he had no hesitation when a rabbi asked him to participate and that reaction among his friends and colleagues had been "universally positive." "I see myself as a kind of marriage counselor," he said. "Iam not here to condemn one side or the other, but to tell Muslims what they must do differently and tell Christians and Jews what they must do differently. I want people to understand the things that have fueled this violence against us - not to excuse it, but to work to find ways to stop it."
But the world seems to be conspiring against him. The continuing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis, the bloody hostilities in Iraq, the beheadings of American hostages and the anger sweeping the Muslim world are creating a polarization that is becoming harder to stem. His dream, he worries, portends worse times. "I try not to be a pessimist," he said, "but things are not getting better."
Imam Feisal grew up in a polyglot world of cultures and languages. Both parents were Egyptian. His father was a religious scholar with degrees from Cambridge University and a doctorate from the University of London. He directed Islamic centers in Malaysia, Kuwait, New York and Washington, educating his five children largely in English as they moved across time zones and cultures.
The future Imam Feisal came to New York in 1965 as a 17-year-old who did not know "if I was Egyptian, Malay or English." "I had spent many years in Oriental society, where you never boasted about yourself," he said with a laugh. "You can imagine what a shock it was to come to America. Boasting for me was considered bad form. I couldn't sell myself."
He went to Columbia to study physics as the protests against the Vietnam War tore apart American society. The external conflict mirrored his inner turmoil. He, too, was on a search. "It was as if I was thrown into a wild sea," he said, seated one morning in his apartment on the Upper West Side, the walls decorated with frames encasing the looping calligraphy of Arabic script. "I was not anchored. I needed to educate myself spiritually."
He found his place in Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam. After graduation, he taught in New York public high schools and worked in a real estate investment firm. None of these jobs gripped him, but his passionate embrace of Sufism filled his life with meaning. In 1983 a Sufi sheik from an order in Turkey asked him to head a small Sufi mosque in New York. Since then, his mosque, whose name means "divine ease," and his role as imam have consumed his life.
He had little to do with politics before the 9/11 attacks, working on building the small congregation and doing the usual counseling and preaching of a cleric. But afterward he felt compelled to speak out. Islam, he felt, was widely misunderstood. He says he believes that Islamic terrorists are not obedient to the teachings of the prophet Muhammad, or what he likes to call the "Abrahamic ethic" common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
"The attacks changed me," he said. "Before Sept. 11, I was an Islamic teacher focusing on the theological, spiritual and jurisprudential side of my faith. I suddenly had to explain my faith and myself. I started going to television and radio studios, churches and synagogues, talking with other religious leaders about Islam."
He is promoting a plan he calls the Cordoba initiative, "a blueprint to mend the relationship between the U.S. and the Muslim world." He is married to Daisy Kahn, a Muslim from Kashmir, who also runs his small nonprofit foundation, the American Society for Muslim Advancement. He has two grown twin daughters from a previous marriage.
When he is not traveling and speaking, he cooks, his dishes reflecting the range of cultures he calls his own. He speaks of his Indonesian and Egyptian creations softly, with the slight hint of a British accent, evidence of his years in the British school system. His dinners are an eclectic mix of Asian, Arab and Western dishes.
"If he drank, he would be a wine connoisseur," Ms. Kahn said. "But since he doesn't, he is a gourmet cook."
Copyright © 2004 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.
back to top | return to main | <urn:uuid:3a5afd91-8b37-4813-afc4-c36b0b65af13> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asmasociety.org/home/p_press_16.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984717 | 1,227 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Asleep in Pink
Born 1945 – Hampshire, England
From schooling which was turgid and structured Ros escaped into London’s swinging sixties and into vibrant fashion retailing of The Kings Road in Chelsea.
Whilst serving socialites and the debutants of the day she also kept dipping into her water colour box and sketching new looks, new designs and styles. Ros trained as a fashion designer, this being the precursor to her concentrating on textile design. Many of her designs exist today with companies such as Whiteheads. She has even designed a popular range of wrapping paper.
The foregoing shows the love and appreciation for design.
Ros was totally unprepared for the creative release that a full time structured oil painting course gave her. She was able to harness all of her talents and disciplines and patiently work each image to her high standard of perfection.
Many of her works take up to six weeks to complete.
Ros concentrates on the natural pose of ladies both well coutured and “au naturelle” – in the nude. Skin and clothes with all their different hues are worked as endlessly for the final best possible result.
Whilst Ros has come late in her life to true painting, she does feel that all her foregoing experiences have contributed to each painting.
Ros is now a full time artist dedicated to improving each painting she completes. If Ros were a poet then her style could be described as “Wordworthesk” – to compare her work to well known artists would be to do both a disservice – maybe start at Dégas pastels of ballet dancers and then dream on. | <urn:uuid:d6ad303d-7cbc-485f-bacf-b10a229ea71f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fineartportfolio.co.za/resume/Ros-Walters/210 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979049 | 333 | 1.5625 | 2 |
“Schoolchildren and celebrities sang ‘Happy Birthday Madiba,’ as South Africans affectionately call the former leader, using his clan name. Millions of South Africans donated 67 minutes of their time to public service, one minute for each of the years he dedicated his life to service.
“Tributes poured in from around the world, while the Internet in South Africa lit up with birthday messages for Mandela, who spent 27 years in prison under the apartheid regime and emerged to become president in the country’s first democratic elections in 1994.”
The rest of the article is here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | <urn:uuid:691ef180-fc34-400d-98a0-3de5d7849e21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sierrafoothillsreport.com/2012/07/18/nelson-mandela-turns-94/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954444 | 131 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Robert Hasspoet and translator
Birthplace: San Francisco
Hass was appointed Poet Laureate of the United States in 1995 and used the post to promote poetry and literacy. During his term (1995–1997) he wrote weekly columns for the Washington Post, which were published as Poet's Choice: Poems for Everyday Life (1998). He's credited with transforming the formerly ceremonial post into one of activism.
He frequently writes about nature and California's environment, and his poems often explore language. He won National Book Critics Circle Awards for Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry (1984) and Sun Under Wood (1996). His first collection, Field Guide (1973), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.
Hass earned his BA from St. Mary's College in California, and his MA and Ph.D. from Stanford. He teaches at Berkeley.
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:9785222d-e71e-417a-88fd-f58f09ce11bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0901959.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963631 | 200 | 1.546875 | 2 |
“Contemporary art is creating fast advances. Everyday up to date art, like miniature or calligraphy, transforms the art scene.
The gallery desires such works in its permanent collections. we have a tendency to are showing ten years previous art to school and university students who visit us,”
said a senior official within the PNCA (Pakistan National Council of the Arts), who attributed the crippled progress of NAG to shortage of funds.According to officers within the NAG, the last major inductions done through the advisory committee on visual arts, created from revered artists from round the country, was virtually twenty years back when Khalid Syed Butt was the director general PNCA. He included Zubeida Agha’s works, who was the primary Pakistani fashionable artist and helped bring the trendy idiom to Pakistan; Sumaya Durrani, a Karachi-based practicing artist, and Jamil Naqsh, best known for his feminine nude figures, and a student of Shakir Ali to NAG’s permanent collections.
Later in Nineties, author and poet Kishwar Naheed was additionally captivated with supporting art and acquiring a lot of works.
According to the NAG officers, the last time 3 or four inductions using personal influences were Anna Molka Ahmed’s priceless mural known as the ‘Dance of Death’, Jamil Naqsh’s wood sculpture ‘Cry I’, Shakir Ali’s landscape oil on canvas and Rabia Zuberi’s ‘Human Existence’ capturing totally different moods placed at the doorway within NAG when it moved into the new premises in 2007.
Not solely is NAG missing works of dynamic Lahore-based painter Imran Qureshi, Shazia Sikander, who specialised in Mughal miniature painting and Persian miniature painting, or of Bashir Ahmed, a master painter, who founded the miniature department within the National school of Arts Lahore, the gallery even doesn't have one in all Pakistan’s foremost calligrapher Rasheed Butt’s contact data as well as acquire his recent works. The last time NAG acquired Raheed Butt’s works was between 1980 and 1982, said the senior official of PNCA.
Art critic Quddus Mirza additionally believed that in principle all public galleries ought to update their permanent collections.
Director/Curator NCA Gallery, Lahore, Qudsia Rahim additionally believed that NAG required to speculate in art a lot of, not simply visual however all types of arts. to assist them grow in anyway attainable. “The gallery is lacking in ideology. One expects them not simply to gather older art however perceive and appreciate up to date works additionally,”
When contacted, Director General PNCA Tauqir Nasir said budget constraint was a serious hurdle in acquisition of newer artworks.
“The advisory committee on visual arts that used to recommended/
He attributed additional delay to the budget cuts. “And the PNCA has been connected to many departments within the recent past and then
devolution hit us too. it'll be another four or 5 months for the PNCA to stabilise and find things organised,” said Mr Nasir. | <urn:uuid:bdd27332-fcb7-409b-9e72-331d242ffc55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prlog.org/11885820-artists-say-nag-turning-into-boring.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959171 | 682 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Reprinted from Antique Week, February 4, 2013
BY ERIC C. RODENBERG
There’s a “dirty little secret” within the Internet live auction industry; auctioneers don’t like to talk about it, Internet providers prefer to sweep it under the rug.
That secret is the proliferation of non-paying bidders.
“It’s a big problem,” said auctioneer Darren Julien. “It was 20-30 percent of our auctions when we used an online provider. That’s one of the reasons we went to our own platform in 2008.”
Many auctioneers credit live Internet bidding – through companies such as LiveAuctioneers and ArtFact – for saving their companies during a time of recession.
But, Internet live auctions both give and take.
Many auctioneers might contest Julien’s percentage of the level of online live auction fraud; however, one aspect of the problem is that when such an attack is made, it is more commonly the auction’s higher-priced items.
Beyond financial loss, the ramifications are major. Here is an example: In March 2012, several U.S. auction houses encountered “Tabbi Karim,” purportedly from London.
Karim made his presence known – in a big way – at Don Presley Auctions on March 3. Presley, who has a reputation in the business as a candid and savvy auctioneer, was calling bids at his Orange County, Calif. auction house. For Presley, it was a big sale: advertised as a “Once in a Lifetime Auction.” For Presley, who is not given to hyperbole, it was one of those landmarks in a 47-year-old auctioneering career.
Up for auction were Sevres and German KPM porcelain, a one-of-a-kind mosaic artwork depicting the Roman Forum, a 19th century sultan’s photo album containing pictures of his concubine, and even two imposing French harps.
Launching the auction at noon; Presley, calling bids in his inimitable style, was “knocking them out of the park.” Conducted worldwide by LiveAuctioneers, prices were eclipsing estimates as the bids kept rolling in. There was a “buzz” in the auction house, primarily driven by bids coming from throughout the world.
Julian Ellison, the CEO of LiveAuctioneers, also watched part of the auction, Presley said. “We were really happy,” Presley recalled. “We were
jumping around, celebrating. It was just a great auction.”
At the end of the day, Presley even gave each of his key staff members a $500 bonus. He went home elated.
The next day – a Sunday – Presley received a laudatory note from Ellison. “In his email, he congratulated me and added what a fine job that LiveAuctioneers did for me,” Presley said.
But such joy was short-lived. On Monday, the invoices weren’t rolling in as usual after a big sale. “I thought something was wrong with our printer,” Presley said.
But, no, it wasn’t a faulty printer. It was Tabbi Karim. Bidding from London, using LiveAuctioneer, Tabbi Karim had “purchased” about 240 lots totaling $540,000.
But Tabbi Karim, or whoever was doing the bidding had no intent of paying.
“Karim” may have been one person – or several people bidding from multiple computers. Presley was told that whoever illicitly bid up his auction was bidding through multiple computers with at least four portals open.
That put Presley into an auctioneer’s nightmare. The consignors, happy with the prices they saw soaring at the auction, were not kindly disposed to hearing that their items actually never sold. The underbidders, suspecting a scam, refused offers to purchase at the price they bid. Many of them accused Presley of “being in” on a sham auction.
“It’s real difficult going to the underbidders with a piece,” Presley said. “So, we decided that we’d just have another auction – we would just re-run the stuff that didn’t sell.”
In the meantime, Presley asked LiveAuctioneers to post a letter to those registered for the auction, explaining what happened. Ellison and LiveAuctioneers refused, Presley said.
But, the auction went on. The auctioneer’s hopes to placate consignors and “make peace” with bidders were to no avail.
“It was the biggest mistake of my life,” Presley said. “People came in and just turned up their noses. The items were no longer fresh … they were tainted. I even tried to sell a vase valued at $19,000 for $10,000, and no buyer fees, to a woman in New York. She wanted nothing to do with it … she still thinks I’m a crook.”
Ellison claims that LiveAuctioneers is only “the conduit” connecting bidders to auction houses. He said the company gives auction houses enough information to vet – and select – its bidders. LiveAuctioneers, Ellison said, states “up front” that it has no financial responsibility to the auction house.
“Don Presley let the flood gates open,” Ellison said. “We went out of the way to help Don … we’ve been there to offer assistance whenever we can.”
Presley disagrees. “They sloughed it off … it was my problem,” Presley said. “I absolutely believe (LiveAuctioneers) should take some responsibility, but it became abundantly clear after the auction that they didn’t feel the same way.”
However, Presley wasn’t the only auction house hit by “Tabbi Karim” that weekend. Chicago auctioneer John Toomey remembers Karim bidding at his auction; however, he was able to do enough damage control to limit the impact.
“Several auction houses were hit that weekend,” Toomey said. “I don’t know if Julian directly knew about it, but we never heard anything from LiveAuctioneers about the problem. You would think that if they had such unusual activity on a Saturday auction, they would alert auctioneers
who were conducting Sunday auctions … We ended up, on our own, alerting several other auctioneers about this possible problem.”
Sources say that as many as 17 auction houses were hit by Karim that weekend. “I don’t know if it was 17,” Toomey said. “But quite a few experienced problems.”
There were at least 13 auction houses hit by Karim that weekend, according to documents obtained by Antique Week. Six auction houses were hit by Karim on Saturday; Presley for more than half a million dollars; a bankruptcy auction lost nearly $23,000 in bids; a jewelry liquidation auction lost $5,550; and another general auction house lost $2,035.
The next day “Karim” ramped up for more illicit activity: More than $100,000 was lost at a fine jewelry auction to Karim; $38,320 in bids were lost by a Los Angeles auction; $13,625 was lost by a Florida auction house, and a jewelry and fine arts auction in California lost more than $10,000.
“Seventeen over one weekend? I find that hard to believe,” Ellison said. “I have never heard anything about this. And I am an extremely hands-on guy.”
Ellison said LiveAuctioneers monitors its clients “24/7” looking for unusual activity on their platform. He said staff at LiveAuctioneers routinely contacts individual bidders while an auction is in progress to confirm if the bidder is legitimate. He said the LiveAuctioneers staff, while monitoring auctions, contacts auction houses to alert them to unusual activities.
However, LiveAuctioneers customers – including Presley, Toomey, Leslie Hindman, Garth’s Auction and other auction houses – maintain they have never received such alerts.
“(LiveAuctioneers) shut down their offices for the weekend,” Presley said. “There’s nobody in the office I know of. They do leave us emergency in case the Internet goes down. I have used that number before … I remember we had (an Internet crash) problem. And then, I had to call them twice to get an answer … and that was a real emergency.”
There are auctioneers who are satisfied with the services provided by LiveAuctioneers. Jeffrey S. Evans, president of Jeffrey S. Evans and Associates, an auctioneer with gallery in Mt. Crawford, Va., reports a positive partnership. “LiveAuctioneers has given us a good value for their products. We’re pleased overall,” Evans reported. “They do offer their bidders with more privacy … but we haven’t seen a lot of non-paying bidder problems. Most of our auctions average about 700 to 800 lots, and we might have one to three lots that are due to non-paying bidders, but you could almost expect that even among bidders in the crowd.
“LiveAuctioneers certainly has brought in a higher number of bidders than Artfact … but we’re very careful. We run a check on new customers … Our experience in the past has been, if people stiff you on something, we then block them. We have had a couple sales where these bidders sign up under a different ID, but we’ve had enough information to block them when they register at our auctions.”
Presley does concede the possibly that LiveAuctioneers personnel may be monitoring auctions from outside its office; but, he has seen no evidence of such oversight.
Although Ellison does not acknowledge such problems, in December LiveAuctioneers sent a press release announcing the launch of “new technology” allowing auction houses to more closely vet the bidders they provide.
The primary feature was an “Experian” bar chart that rates how closely the personal information entered by a potential bidder – including the name, address, telephone number and more – matches with data in the credit bureau’s records. The press release is careful to note that the Experian bar is not a credit check, only a more “comprehensive bidder analytics” added to its package.
“The Experian thing is a joke,” said Amelia Jeffers, president of Garth’s Auction, summing up many auctioneer’s reaction to LiveAuctioneers’ latest technology.
One of the biggest “rubs” that auctioneers have with the Internet auction service is LiveAuctioneers’ policy of not sharing email addresses with client-auctioneers.
“We used to have access to email addresses, and that made it easier to vet bidders,” Auctioneer Leslie Hindman said.
“But LiveAuctioneers is always changing their practices, making it more difficult to see who is bidding.”
All the same, Leslie Hindman Auctions have had little problems with non-paying bidders.
“We don’t take chances,” Hindman said. “I have an auction coordinator extraordinaire who is very good at determining the legitimacy of a bidder … she is often here until 2 in the morning before an auction. We’re very aggressive.”
That “auction coordinator extraordinaire” Alexis Sutcliffe not only tracks down bidder legitimacy before an auction, but also manages a staff that monitors each on-going auction.
“The main problem is that to get to the bidding history you almost need to have access to emails,” Sutcliffe said. “I take the best information I have available and triangulate the factors to see if they all match up. We could call LiveAuctioneers for more information – like email addresses – but, that’s information they don’t want to give out.”
Ellison said he quit giving email addresses of registered bidders because auction houses were using those addresses to “spam” those contacts during later auctions.
He added there was a fear that LiveAuctioneers could be in violation of privacy laws.
“It came to our attention that our clients (bidders) were being constantly spammed by auction houses,” Ellison said. “The level of complaints from our bidders went through the roof. We had to do something immediately. We didn’t want LiveAuctioneers to be regarded as a mass spamming site, so we had to do something fast.
“That’s when we quit giving out email addresses, and rolled out a messaging system where the auctioneers could communicate with the bidder. There were also certain privacy issues involved … but at the end of the day, no one likes change.”
Presley, now, has hired additional personnel to vet bidders and monitor his auctions.
Other auctioneers, such as Hindman, Garth’s and Toomey, hire additional skilled staff at extra expense to guard against non-paying bidders.
“It would be lovely,” Hindman said, if her company could find a platform which would accurately vet and monitor her auctions.
“It’s a fine line we walk,” Toomey said. “We are here to give our consignors the best price and, at the same time, protect their interests. It’s not always the easiest job.” | <urn:uuid:a9d90e4d-1e66-4d38-9bca-2496b722193d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.donpresley.com/news/don-presley-in-antique-week-does-internet-live-auction-industry-own-dirty-secrets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975002 | 3,003 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Explore the fascinating world of the Victorian judges at this award-winning historic house.
Filming & Photography
The Judge's Lodging offers a fantastic opportunity for film and photography work revolving around the Regency & Victorian periods. Built in 1829, this Grade II* property combines a courthouse and miniature stately home. It houses three distinct elements in the courtroom and accompanying cells, private apartments used by judges and a full suite of servants' areas. All of these parts of the building have been brought back to their heyday appearance of the 1860s, complete with working gas and oil lights. There is no visible electricity, nor modern additions to the rooms.
Although the building is a working museum and therefore open to the public, this has never been an issue with filming and out of hours shoots are possible.
The town of Presteigne itself is small but thriving. It is quiet, but well supplied with shops, eateries and places to stay. Within easy reach of the Midlands (only 60 miles from Birmingham) and all parts of Wales.
If you are interested in using the building as a location, please contact us. If calling, please ask for Gaby or Dave. The staff are very experienced at working with crews and will be happy to help you organise what you need to make your work with us successful, from places to stay, other locations that may be of use, even sourcing some props or extras. Just ask and we'll do what we can to help.
The building has been used as a location for numerous Welsh and UK-wide documentaries and educational programmes, including the acclaimed BBC series Simon Schama's History of Britain, BBC Wales' Coming Home, Antiques Road Trip and in 2010 became the prime location for S4C's 13-part history series Byw yn ôl y Llyfr (Living by the Book) . Photographically, it has appeared in publications such as Country Life and World of Interiors.
Just call us on 01544 260650 for a chat or email [email protected]
A few photos from recent shoots: | <urn:uuid:a8bb55aa-2489-4e34-97d7-da9395b2f38a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.judgeslodging.org.uk/page/filming_and_photography/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957821 | 430 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Japan's Abe faces crucial poll test
Tokyo, July 29, 2007
Japan's conservative ruling camp braced for an expected election defeat on Sunday that could put pressure on hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to resign and usher in a period of policy paralysis and political confusion.
Polling stations across Japan opened at 7 a.m. (2200 GMT) on a cloudy morning.
The election for half the seats in parliament's 242-member upper house comes just 10 months after Abe, 52, took over and pledged to bolster Japan's global security profile, rewrite its pacifist US-drafted constitution, and nurture economic growth.
"I've always voted for the LDP, but this time I voted for the Democratic Party," said Toshio Muto, 75, a craftsman in Tokyo's Setagaya ward.
"I've seen the LDP pass a lot of legislation by force. I don't want this. I want change," he added.
The LDP and its junior partner, the Buddhist-backed New Komeito, need to win 64 seats to keep their majority in the upper house. The New Komeito is aiming for 13 seats.
Abe's coalition will not be ousted from government if it loses in the upper house, since it has a huge majority in the more powerful lower chamber, which elects the premier.
But laws will be hard to enact, threatening policy deadlock.
Abe's allies have said he need not step down even if the coalition loses and many analysts agree he might be able to hang on temporarily -- especially if the LDP wins at least 40 seats -- partly because of the lack of a convincing successor.- Reuters
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- Texas joins flood of states suing BP | <urn:uuid:5af689ba-e222-48fb-b895-a3445f415e6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tradearabia.com/news/INTNEWS_128085.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950383 | 452 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The highway closure heralded as doomsday ends up as an anti-climactic dud… where have we seen this one before?
Oh, right — St. Louis circa 2008. Just three years ago in this Midwestern metropolis, officials warned that the construction-related closure of I-64 would sentence the community to interminable gridlock and economic implosion.
Except, not unlike Carmageddon 2011, the hyperbolic prognostications never came to pass. St. Louis blog Gateway Streets says when it came to this year’s hype in Los Angeles, “St. Louisans knew all along”:
Anybody from St. Louis could have told LA that Carmaggedon would amount to almost nothing. St. Louis spent 2 years without 5-mile portions of I-64. Prior to the highway’s closure in 2008, many people pleaded to the city, county, state, and anybody who would listen to stop the imminent project, prophesying 3-hour commutes and economic ruin for the St. Louis region. Unexpectedly for many, traffic disappeared in most places for the first few days; the full impact of the highway closure, from a congestion standpoint, took months to develop. Also, a survey released near the project’s conclusion did not find any discernible economic impact on businesses near the highway as compared to businesses elsewhere in the St. Louis region.
What does it all mean? Only that contrary to “common sense,” the economic well being of cities across the country is not tied to the highways that cut through them. That, and air travel takes a minimum of 3 hours door to door regardless of how short the flight is.
All of this just goes to show, once again, that more car capacity is not the solution to congestion. Transit service, bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure, and a well-connected street grid that offers people plenty of route options are what keep “Carmaggedon” at bay, not interstates.
Elsewhere on the Network today: Bike Portland announces Tri-Met is expanding its “Bike and Ride” facilities for cycling transit users. Walkable DFW reviews Earl Smith’s new book about American highway culture, “Big Roads.” And This Big City carries a round-up of 25 great urbanism quotes. | <urn:uuid:72a87d03-1c90-43b2-b277-7c638bc44d9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://streetsblog.net/2011/07/19/st-louis-2008-another-carmageddon-that-wasnt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953553 | 484 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Work Experience Questionnaire for Year 11 Parents
We would like parents to be more involved in school, not just supporting us but also in the decision making.
This is the first year we have had Work Experience in September of Year 11; in previous years it was in June/July of Year 10. A short questionnaire is available at the bottom of this page, asking for your opinion on Work Experience.
In June 2011, we achieved the Investor in Careers Award. Our aims are to:
- Empower young people to plan and manage their own future
- Respond to the needs of each learner
- Provide comprehensive information and advice
- Raise aspirations
- Actively promote equality of opportunity and challenges stereotypes
- Helps young people to progress
We would like to continue to develop in this area and we can do this best with your help. Students learn and believe more by hearing from people who are doing the actual jobs in the world of work.
Would you be willing to speak to small groups of students in lessons, help at a Careers Fair, have students visit your place of work or even offer a Work Experience placement?
We would appreciate your feedback by answering and returning the questionnaire or emailing [email protected].
Mrs J Greenland
Work Related Learning Co-ordinator | <urn:uuid:ce2ea19a-caec-4940-8cda-c7307b627a6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chsg.org.uk/news/?pid=3&nid=1&storyid=256 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954928 | 269 | 1.820313 | 2 |
A youth soccer club in New York is banning the "High 5." They are also banning fist bumps and hand shakes at games.
Why? The club is trying to prevent the spread of the flu.
The president of the soccer club is also an infectious disease specialist. Sick players are encouraged to stay home. Others are encouraged to practice good hygiene like washing hands multiple times a day. | <urn:uuid:02943a6c-dece-41d6-86c2-f74bbb7abed4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kmov.com/news/health/Flu-fears-prompt-youth-soccer-club-to-ban-High-5s-187155071.html?ref=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971686 | 78 | 1.570313 | 2 |
sorry i didnt come to the forum for a while because the thread hadn't had any activity.
How about a picture of your setup?
I cant post pictures as this is my setup at work. I'm allowed to use it for whatever but I doubt i can post pictures of the setup, work secrets i suppose.
1. Accuracy on absolute measures isn't that important if you can compare fans using the same measure that is consistent and reproducible.
The test is very reproducible, its a professionally calibrated and serviced wind tunnel.
Some Really Nice Fan tests
The issue with this test, is that the fans are just blowing into some random tunnel/enclosure which doesnt have a known back-pressure. If he was blowing the air through a certain heatsink at least you would know the airflow through that heatsink.
At least that's what it looked like to me.
You get zero back pressure by having a fan on the exhaust of the tunnel and having 0 mm/H20 pressure in the middle of the tunnel.
2. What you have done is very impressive. Please consider reposting this message here:
Good idea, i will post there shortly.
3. Have you done any testing since you posted this message?
I've done tests since then but I do them for work and few fans have looked worth testing. We use high-airflow high-pressure fans usually so I cant post anything you guys would be interested in. Although I tested one fan which had amazing airflow/pressure and 80 dBA! (We have an anechroic chamber but there is so much noise in the building it wont go below 30 dBA). | <urn:uuid:28767019-f927-4736-8b9f-48aa7320d81c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=532994 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969709 | 342 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Bordered by Orange County and the Inland Empire in the north, the Mexican border in the south, Pacific Ocean to the west, deserts to the east, and blessed with an ideal climate San Diego is California’s paradise. This vibrant area is a top destination for everything from its 70 miles of sandy beaches to arts, culture and wild animals.
The second most populous county in California with over 3 million residents (2010 Census,) the San Diego area contains 16 significant naval and military locations including Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. Established in 1948, the Maritime Museum of San Diego is home to the largest collection of historic sea vessels in the United States. The USS Midway Museum consists of the aircraft carrier Midway and is the largest museum devoted to carriers and naval aviation.
San Diego County serves up a myriad of enticing menu options in its urban scene. The Gaslamp Quarter in the city of San Diego is considered Southern California's premier dining, shopping and entertainment district. The Quarter is home to a truly eclectic blend of food, fun and culture all within one of San Diego's most historic areas. San Diego’s North County boasts a variety of over 50 vineyards, from larger wineries that feature guided tours and full gift shops to small family-run places. Live music can be enjoyed at the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, an outdoor performing arts theater in Chula Vista, the largest concert venue of its size in the San Diego area.
Optimum weather conditions and diverse landscapes-including beaches, mountains, deserts and rural back country offers a list of outdoor recreational possibilities that is virtually endless. There are more than 100 miles of breathtaking trails within the county park system. Huntington Beach features the most consistent waves on the West Coast, an attribute that helped the city receive the nickname, Surf City USA®. Huntington Beach has been consistently ranked as of the United States safest large cities. San Diego County has a freshwater system of lakes ideal for all anglers. Although trout can be snagged during the right time, largemouth bass is king here. The 90+ San Diego Golf courses scattered throughout San Diego County is the last undiscovered, very affordable, “all-around” family fun vacation spots and SERIOUS golf destinations in the U.S.A.
Popular destinations include; Mount Laguna Observatory, the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Zoo Safari Park, Sea World, Balboa Park, Legoland, Oceanside Harbor, Julian Mining Company, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, San Diego Botanic Garden, Mission Bay Park and Mission Trails Regional Park.
The area which is now San Diego County was historically home to the Kumeyaay, Luiseño, Cupeño, and Cahuilla Native Americans for more than 10,000 years. Today, San Diego County has 18 federally recognized Indian reservations, more than any other county in the United States. In 1542, San Diego was the first site visited by Europeans on the west coast. Juan Cabrillo claimed the entire area for Spain, forming the basis for the settlement of Alta California 200 years later. European settlement began with the founding of the Mission San Diego de Alcalá, by Spanish pioneers, in 1769. This county was part of Alta California under the Viceroyalty of New Spain until the Mexican revolution. From 1821 through 1848 this area was part of Mexico until the Mexican-American war and the admission of California to the US. San Diego County was one of the original counties of California, and it was created at the time of California statehood in 1850. The county was named for San Diego Bay, which had been rechristened in 1602 by Sebastián Vizcaíno in honor of the Franciscan St. Didacus of Alcalá, known in Spanish as San Diego de Alcalá de Henares, and whose name was borne by Vizcaíno's flagship. Originally San Diego County was quite large, and it included all of southern California that was south and east of Los Angeles County from the Pacific Ocean to the Colorado River. During the later part of the 19th century changes to the borders of the country created Inyo, San Bernardino, Riverside, and Imperial Counties.
San Diego County has a varied topography of everything from coastline to mountains to desert. The county’s 70 miles of coastline gives way to hills, mesas, and small canyons. The western third of the county is primarily urban and the northeast portion is mostly undeveloped backcountry of mountains and desert. The Santa Ana, San Jacinto, Santa Rosa, Laguna, Palomar and Viejas mountains are all part of San Diego County’s share of the Peninsular Range which runs predominantly north-south. Palomar Mountain is home to the Palomar Observatory. Viejas Mountain can be seen from parts of metropolitan San Diego. The Sonoran Desert resides to the far-east, Cleveland National Forest is spread across the central portion of the county, and the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park occupies most of the northeast. Top Picks for lake fishing in San Diego County include; Lake Cuyamaca, Dixon Lake, Lower Otay Reservior, Lake Jennings, Lake Miramar, Lake Morena, Lake Murray, San Vicente Reservoir, Chollas Lake, and Santee Lakes. El Capitan is the only reservoir that allows the use of personal watercraft, such as jetskis. Major rivers in the county include Santa Margarita, San Luis Rey, San Dieguito, San Diego, Sweetwater, and the Otay rivers.
San Diego is one of the top-ten best climates in the Farmer's Almanac and is one of the two best summer climates in America as scored by The Weather Channel. Under the Köppen climate classification system, the San Diego area straddles areas of Mediterranean climate to the north and Semi-arid climate to the south and east. As a result, it is often described as arid Mediterranean and Semi-arid Steppe. The climate in the San Diego area often varies significantly over short geographical distances due to different topography resulting in microclimates. Frequently, particularly during the "May gray/June gloom" period, a thick "marine layer" cloud cover will keep the air cool and damp within a few miles of the coast, but will yield to bright cloudless sunshine approximately 5–10 inland. Inland areas tend to experience much more significant temperature variations than coastal areas, where the ocean serves as a moderating influence. Thus, for example, downtown San Diego averages January lows of 50 °F and August highs of 78 °F . The city of El Cajon, just 10 miles inland from downtown San Diego, averages January lows of 42 °F and August highs of 88 °F. Rainfall along the coast averages about 10 inches of precipitation annually. The months of December through March supply most of the rain, with February the only month averaging 2 inches or more of rain. The months of May through September tend to be almost completely dry. Rainfall is usually greater in the higher elevations of San Diego; some of the higher elevation areas of San Diego can receive 11–15 inches of rain a year. Snow in the city of San Diego is so rare that it has been observed only five times in the century-and-a-half that records have been kept.
Learn more about the San Diego Region including these areas:
The San Diego County area has a wide variety of attractions including the many golf courses, beautiful mountains, deserts, thoroughbred horse racing, miles of beaches, Sea World and beautiful Mission Bay ... just to name a few!
CLICK HERE to view San Diego attractions. Check back often as more attractions will be added.
With so much to explore, isn't it time to Camp California? Make your campground or RV Park reservation now. Click here. | <urn:uuid:228d21e2-4355-4c11-a0d0-7989bf055806> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.camp-california.com/San-Diego-Area/california-san-diego-visitor-camping-information.html | 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 | 0.946466 | 1,628 | 1.5 | 2 |
The Duke of Cambridge has been given the highest honour in Scotland after the Queen installed him as a Knight of the Thistle at a service in Edinburgh.
The Duke of Edinburgh, the Princess Royal and the Duchess of Cambridge, will also attend the event at the city's St Giles' Cathedral.
The Order of the Thistle is the highest honour in Scotland and is second only in precedence in the UK to the Order of the Garter. It honours men and women who have held public office or who have contributed in a significant way to national life.
The Princess Royal was invested in the Order of the Thistle in June 2001.
Large crowds gathered outside the Cathedral on the Royal Mile with people hoping to catch a glimpse of William and Kate, known as the Earl and Countess of Strathearn when in Scotland.
Kate was wearing a pale yellow coat and hat and carrying a bag made of Strathearn tartan.
The service was followed by a special parade down the Royal Mile to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
It featured 400 pipers led by the Lothian and Borders Police band marching from the City Chambers and finished outside the Scottish Parliament, opposite Holyrood Palace, with traditional folk music, Highland dancing and the pipers playing for the crowd.
The event comes as the Queen continues her annual week-long residence at Holyrood, which this year also marks her jubilee.
Engagements have included a visit to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, an investiture ceremony and garden party at the palace and a special jubilee thanksgiving service in Glasgow.
The visit will conclude with engagements in Perth on Friday. | <urn:uuid:7946075e-13aa-4423-96b1-01df50b42101> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scotland.stv.tv/history/309774-queen-presents-highest-scottish-honour-to-prince-william-in-edinburgh/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96547 | 341 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Four thousand people are taking part in the biggest test run so far for the London Olympic games.
The nationwide three-day test starting Tuesday is going to involve Games organizers, the British government, emergency services, health providers and transport operators.
The tests aim to mimic August 4-6, the eighth, ninth and 10th days of the London Olympics, where 26 sports will be taking place across 14 venues. Those sites include beach volleyball at the Horse Guards Parade, the triathlon in Hyde Park and tennis at Wimbledon.
Potential incidents will be thrown up to see how everyone involved reacts and test the procedures used to deal with the problems.
This is the third and final command exercise before the 2012 games begin on July 27.
"Obviously nothing can fully prepare us for the reality of hosting the world's biggest sporting event," Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a statement. "But we really want to make sure we do all we can to ensure we deliver an Olympics and Paralympics that are as safe and secure as possible, while also making sure everyone involved has a great time."
The Olympics run from July 27-August 12, while the Paralympics take place from August 29 to September 9. | <urn:uuid:9c9394db-309d-4da7-a389-18d519f2196a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.china.org.cn/sports/2012-04/24/content_25223770.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962152 | 246 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Yesterday I noticed a couple of birds fluttering in the grass on the hill in my backyard. I initially thought they were fighting and one might have been injured and hidden in the tall grass. Regretfully, I didn't take a closer look. I had to run out to the store and get some things for dinner. While at Costco, my wife called and told me our 6 year old son had found a garter snake eating a bird in the backyard. I told her to get the camera and take some shots but then I realized I left the camera in the car (with me). This was a garter snake eating a bird for crying out loud! When I came home my son directed me to the snake.
There were other birds flying over head, some sitting in the trees nearby, and a couple were keeping a close eye on the snake, a Puget Sound Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis pickeringii
Two of the birds came within a few feet of the snake as I took pictures. Based on the lump in the snake, I think it's possible the snake caught two birds this afternoon, or possibly another food item in addition to the bird. The birds would go up to the snake without fear.
Often we see birds picking seeds and insects off the ground in the backyard. The snake no doubt caught the bird(s) when they got too close.
It also looks like the snake sustained some injuries to its head and neck.
The snake had a difficult time crawling away.
Maybe a more typical meal? | <urn:uuid:75970b6f-2bee-4030-81cf-259a4bb17975> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fieldherpforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=125757 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985219 | 317 | 1.757813 | 2 |
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