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Written by Michelle Kretzer
Update: Good news! We love James Cromwell even more
than we already did because of his willingness to face arrest to help bring attention to cruel brain experiments on cats at the University
of Wisconsin–Madison, and now we love that local prosecutors have declined to bring criminal disorderly
conduct charges against him—as
well as against the PETA staff member who was arrested with him—for pointing out that the
experiments are unethical and must be stopped. The pair have instead been cited for noncriminal
county ordinance violations—similar to a traffic ticket.
The USDA's documentation confirms
that pain was inflicted on cats—including
Double Trouble—who suffered
from chronic life-threatening infections after having
holes drilled into their skulls and metal coils implanted in their eyes and
being constantly starved to force them to obey commands. Please join James
Cromwell today in urging
the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents to stop these cruel and deadly experiments.
The following was originally posted on February 7, 2013:
Members of the University of Wisconsin (UW) System Board of Regents sat stunned as actor James Cromwell entered their meeting to challenge them over experiments on cats. Likely the last thing the board expected today was to have an Academy Award nominee rush in, holding a grisly picture of a cat with a large metal post protruding from her head, and exclaim, "This is not science! This is torture! Shame on you!" But James, a longtime PETA supporter, felt that it was high time the board got personally called out for UW-Madison's abuse of cats. Campus police arrested him and a PETA staff member but not before the board had to stare into the face of just one of the many cats who had been tormented and killed in UW-Madison's disturbing brain and ear experiments.
The orange tabby cat whose image has become synonymous with the cruel cat laboratories is Double Trouble. Experimenters screwed a steel post to her skull so that they could immobilize her head and planted electrical devices deep inside her ears. They allowed her massive, bloody head wound to become severely infected, and they then starved her for days at a time so that she would cooperate with them in exchange for a morsel of food to eat. Finally, calling the experiment a failure, they killed and decapitated her.
PETA has repeatedly asked UW-Madison to end its abusive experiments on cats but has received no response. Please e-mail UW's Board of Regents and urge the members to listen to James and the hundreds of thousands of other compassionate people who want the school to end these cruel cat laboratories and switch to modern, superior, non-animal research methods.
you have a general question for PETA and would like a response, please e-mail [email protected]. If you need to report cruelty to
an animal, please click
here. If you are reporting an animal in imminent danger and know where to find the
animal and if the abuse is taking place right now, please call your local
police department. If the police are unresponsive, please call PETA
immediately at 757-622-7382 and press 2.
Follow PETA on Twitter!
Almost all of us grew up eating meat, wearing leather, and going to circuses and zoos. We never considered the impact of these actions on the animals involved. For whatever reason, you are now asking the question: Why should animals have rights? Read more. | <urn:uuid:7811bc04-bcfe-4720-869d-c910637340e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peta.org/b/thepetafiles/archive/2013/02/07/james-cromwell-arrested-protesting-uw-cat-experiments.aspx?PageIndex=32 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968025 | 720 | 1.609375 | 2 |
SQUARE FORMAT . A year or so ago, the Author produced a large landscape format book 'The Sandstone Estates Railway' (still available) which was, quintessentially, a steam railway book, It focused on the larger ex South African Railways locomotives, particularly the Garratts and Kalahari.
A square format has been chosen for this book. . Text is limited to an introduction and the book presents a photo souvenir of many aspects of the heritage operations at Sandstone, not just the steam railway. The steam locomotives play a major part, but this time the smaller locomotives are featured just as much as their big brothers. Also here are other magnificent steam machines ..... traction engines, steam cranes, rollers ....... a veritable cornucopia of vintage, mostly working, machinery to satisfy all tastes. The renowned Sandstone oxen even have the last word. If you have been to Sandstone and wish you had a souvenir photo book, look no further. If you haven't been, but wish you had, then you probably need this book even more.Prices start from under Rand 300 depending on format chosen.
As always a full and free preview of the book is available.
For details of all twelve of the Author's book titles, please enter
Dennis Moore steam
in the www.blurb.com search engine, or go straight to the bookstore.
If purchasing 'real books', postage and packing are the same for several books , as for a single book. So please consider other titles in the Author's BLURB catalogue, and / or get together with like minded friends to combine an order. | <urn:uuid:9f3d757a-ae42-4342-8013-d77eea6f3854> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://la.blurb.com/b/3199658-sandstone-estates-the-sandstone-heritage-trust-sma?alt=SANDSTONE+ESTATES+THE+SANDSTONE+HERITAGE+TRUST%2C+as+listed+under+Travel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930449 | 345 | 1.625 | 2 |
DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Senegal's justice minister says former Chadian dictator Hissene Habre will go on trial next month for alleged crimes against humanity.
The trial got the go-ahead after a vote in Senegal's parliament last month. It is to take place in a special tribunal authorized under the African Union and would mark a major step toward Africa dealing with its own alleged war criminals.
Justice Minister Aminata Toure said Tuesday that the trial is expected early next month. Belgium has offered to help finance the cost of special African tribunals within Senegal's court system.
Habre faces accusations of torture, crimes against humanity and war crimes during his rule from 1982 to 1990. He has enjoyed 22 years of impunity after fleeing to Senegal — leaving behind a country strewn with mass graves. | <urn:uuid:b5923351-f216-4e36-a89f-053e744616db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whas11.com/news/world/187104181.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968312 | 165 | 1.515625 | 2 |
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” ~Matthew 7:1-2
This scripture, or really all of Matthew 7, really hits home. In fact, I was talking about it with a friend the other day. I was realizing all at once just how flawed my servanthood is. See, I try to have the heart of a servant (as we should!) and I suppose I do. But it isn’t a constant heart. I’ll give – either time, prayer, food, whatever it is I can give to bless a person. And at some point I expect that to be reciprocated in kind. I get frustrated when it isn’t. Then I complain.
The law of common sense says ‘you get what you give.’ It’s human nature to expect it and desire it. But when we expect appreciation and support from people for doing things we’re supposed to do anyway (we are called to be servants, after all), and don’t receive it, it can trigger bitterness in us and can even start to affect that relationship. And really, it makes no sense to apply human nature here; you can’t use worldly standards to measure God’s work and calling. It just won’t add up. Serving someone the way Jesus said to, and by Jesus’ example, and using my human measuring stick to determine that the person I served should now turn around and bless me….well that’s just silly. The concept of having the heart of a servant is all over the place in the Bible. The concept of serving only when it’s reciprocated is nowhere. When Rebekah watered all those camels at the well and spent hours doing so, was she measuring how much she would get in return from this elderly servant? No. She helped without measure, as she was called to.
A few days ago I posted about a friend who has had a lot going on, and how no matter how much time and prayer I gave to her, I felt like when I needed prayer, I was brushed aside. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I was thinking in terms of ‘she always ____’ or ‘she never ____’. I was generalizing. And it wasn’t fair. After all, how many mistakes have I made in the eyes of the Lord? How many times have I put God second or pushed Him farther back on my to-do list that day? And yet, for all that, is Jesus really holding up a measuring stick to my faith? Is He measuring how small my steps are today compared to what they were yesterday? Or how far to the right or left my focus is, rather than on the straight and narrow path He’s set before me? No. He isn’t. He may temporarily, just to bring it to my awareness what I’m doing. But as soon as I repent and bring my focus back in, He simply applauds me for coming back on track.
And yet, here I am, holding this measuring stick up to the friendship of a person who, like me, is only human. We’re flawed. And our flaws come with us when we sit at God’s table. It’s not up to us to decide who ranks better or what somebody ‘should’ be doing or how we ‘should’ be treated. Should Jesus have been crucified and tortured? Of course not – He didn’t deserve it. But He took it. And in spite of what He went through to save me, and in spite of the horribly poor job I do at repaying Him, He loves me. There is no condemnation in Him when I make mistakes, only forgiveness and love. My steps have been guided by Him today, but not measured. Neither should I measure anyone else’s.
So I am trying to break this habit of score-keeping when it comes to giving. My serving and blessing someone should have nothing to do with whether they’re serving and blessing me. I’ve actually started looking at it as a training ground. If I can’t serve a fellow Christian (someone who will pray with me when I’m dragging and faltering), how can I ever go out and serve others? Jesus, give me Your heart for this world. Help me to keep focused on Your eyes alone, and let the fire I see in them burn up my worldly measuring tools. No tool I have can show me Your work. So God, keep my eyes on You and give me a heart that takes joy in blessing others as you have so abundantly blessed me. I love You, Jesus, and in Your name I pray.
I invite you, readers, to take a second and think about what measuring sticks you’re holding. Go through your relationships – friends, family, acquaintances, and coworkers – and look hard at the dynamic of the relationship. Is there someone you’re not inclined to do favors for because you know they won’t do the same to you? Is there someone you are frequently frustrated with because you give and they seem like a ‘taker’? Anyone in your life you’d classify as a mooch? Take a hard look at these relationships, and submit them with me to the Lord. Ask Him for His heart for each of these people, and to bless you with a generous spirit for them in spite of how they appear. Drop the measuring sticks once and for all. Lay them at the Lord’s feet and allow Him to take over and dictate how you serve – when, whom, and how often.
Our Savior was the ultimate example of this, and gave the ultimate gift. Compared to Him and what He did for us, neither we or our friends are all that great. Or all that generous. And He isn’t measuring us. So it’s time to stop measuring each other!
I’d love to pray for you in this and anything else God is doing in your life – write to me at [email protected]. God bless! | <urn:uuid:130d3323-a9c7-4891-b3db-a1e42d667b4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beingrebekah.com/2012/04/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974478 | 1,323 | 1.679688 | 2 |
In today’s post I will be reviewing; a few books collectivly. Dover Clip Art CD ROM books.
- Publisher: Dover Books
My Reason for Buying
I’ve had these books for a while now. I wanted some oriental images for cards and book covers and it was getting very expensive to buy stamps. With the CD ROMs I have the option of resizing the image in a graphics package. Useful if I want to make a batch of similar cards/projects.
I tell you this as often a review is based on how well the book lived up to the expectations of its reader, for their purpose
These books contain the images that you will find on the CD ROM. When you put the CD into the computer you need to instal the reader for the images, but not the images themselves so it doesn’t take up too much space on your computer. Some of the books contain pre coloured images, others just black and white outlines. Refer to the copyright agreement in the front of the book to check what is and isn’t acceptable use of the images before you start using them.
- Space saving; To get this many images in rubber stamps would take up an awful lots of space, the discs and books offer you lots of images on each disk and take up next to no space to store.
- Cost effective; You get a lot of images on each disk, it would be a lot more expensive to buy stamps for each image.
The biggest advantage for me was the option of being able to print multiple images on a single sheet and to be able to resize the images too. You do need to take the jpeg that is on the desk into a graphic packgage or Word document to be able to do this. Straight from the disc you would get a single image on your page in the size the disk gives you.
Not a con as such, but if you do choose to enlarge the image in a graphics package, don’t over do it. If you increase the size of the image from the disc too much it will pixilate.
Value for Money
Excellent, these are a great visual resource. You can use them for all kinds of creative work. Simply print an idividual image to colour in, or use as a template to create on a range of surfaces. I’ve printed one of these off and traced a design onto a wooden blank to burn using Pyrography. Do check the small print for what is and isn’t acceptable use for the images before you create something for profit though.
Would I buy it Again?
Yes, I am building quite a collection of these books on a range of subjects.
These books are great. The book gives you a visual reference for whats on the disc, which is nice as you can sit and browse through till you find an image you want to use then print off your favorite one. Once you open the image if you put it into something like Word you can alter the size, which is useful. I like these books and highly recommend you try them out.
- Clip Art Design on CD ROM: CD ROM area of Dover Books site.
Best wishes and thanks for reading, see you soon | <urn:uuid:13ef010b-9b5b-4525-829f-0a2dd2292055> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://billiescraftroom.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/review-of-dover-cd-rom-books/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=72a7b014e3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946105 | 666 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Physician’s Grant Application
Physicians in the Jeffrey Modell Canadian Immunodeficiency Network are eligible to receive a grant of up to $5,000 Canadian. These funds are specifically restricted to the diagnosis and testing of patients with a suspected Primary Immunodeficiency and/or for physician education and public awareness. Physician symposia expenses such as conference facilities, audio-visual, printed material, coffee breaks, etc. can be funded under this program. Expenses for travel, hotel accommodations, honoraria, and personnel are discouraged.
Applicants will be advised of approval within 60 days from the date of submission through a letter outlining conditions for the grant and requirements of a short final report. Subsequent grants will only be considered after the final report has been received.
Examples of Previous Grants
Drs Ellie Haddad, Aubert Lavoie and Reza Alizadehfar for the Physician’s formation of Primary Immunodeficiency. This symposium intended to build awareness and education on the identification and diagnosis of PI among Quebec physicians. This event was open to every Quebec physician with an interest in treating PI.
The CI Society’s quarterly PID Video Conference series held at hospitals across Canada. It is a highly valuable medium to discuss difficult cases.
Dr. Christine McCusker of Montreal’s Children Hospital for Immunology rounds. This seminar series aided in the education of staff and trainees by discussing specific primarily immunodeficiencies and the genetic basis and management of immune disorders.
Dr. Amin Kanani held Immunodeficiency Rounds to promote new developments in understanding and treating Primary Immunodeficiency. Rounds were targeted to clinical immunologists, allergist and other sub-specialists from across Vancouver lower mainland.
Drs. Adelle Atkinson and Reza Alizadehfar for a 2nd Conference on Host Defense held during the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Annual Scientific Meeting in Edmonton, Alberta. Hosted by the CI Society, opening comments, Dr. Chaim Roifman, Plenary lecture: Dr. Richard Stiehm, Moderators Drs. Adelle Atkinson & Reza Alizadehfar. Presentations: Dr. F. Le Deist – CD3 zeta deficiency, Dr. E. Grunebaum – Purine Immunodeficiency- novel treatments, Dr. S. Turvey – the emerging role of innate immunity. Followed by six short case presentations by fellows/network members, Moderators Drs. S Carr and A. Kanani.
Dr. Adelle Atkinson, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Canada, to provide a series of lectures on primary immunodeficiencies, their diagnosis, work-up and management. These lectures would take place in the community as well as other healthcare institutions both community and university based.
Dr. Amin Kanani, University of British Columbia/St. Paul’s Hospital, Canada to provide two events for Primary Care Practitioners and three events for specialists. Topics included new developments in our understanding, recognizing, investigating and managing primary immune deficiencies. Discussion were also be held on challenging immunodeficiency cases.
Dr. Bruce Mazer, Montreal Children’s Hospital to host a symposium as part of the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology in Montreal, October 2006.
The CI Society’s production and distribution of What is PI booklet aided patients and physicians in understanding how the immune system works, what PI is, and how it is diagnosed and treated in Canada. Distributed to hospitals across Canada.
Drs. Amin Kanani and Stuart Carr for a joint project, Do Bugs Need Drugs, which raised awareness of the 10 warning signs of Primary Immunodeficiency (25,000 copies of pamphlet distributed across British Columbia and Alberta).
Drs. Adelle Atkinson and Reza Alizadehfar, for a national physician awareness project aimed at educating physicians on the 10 warning signs of PI and raising awareness of the Network among physicians for support and consultations. Approximately 10, 500 physicians across Canada, within paediatrics and family practice, were provided resource and referral materials. | <urn:uuid:4d6560a4-8541-408c-a803-bdadafccb176> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cisociety.com/blog/healthcare-providers/mission-and-membership/previous-grants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930453 | 858 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Bang Lang Reservoir (bottom edge) is the largest reservoir in Yala Province. The dam is 85 metres high with a crest of 422 metres long, and the reservoir has a capacity of 1,420 million cubic metres. It is used for irrigation, flood control as well as to produce 1,275 kW of electricity.
- Open days
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday | <urn:uuid:fdc045a1-448a-4559-9b42-c25b7ae33645> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bangkokpost.com/travel/20441_info_bang-lang-reservoir.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955312 | 83 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Where better to find out than from its supporters? Here’s a pro-homeopathy alt med blog found via the Health Fraud List. This post from the blog outlines the “mechanism.”
Concerning the dilution of the remedy it says “Once we reach the 12C potency, according to chemical science, there should be no more physical substance left in the dilution……..Potencies above 12C work very effectively as though there was still a material substance present. Even though there is nothing left of the original physical substance, the medicine acts as though there were.” Then how could there be any biological effect? Reading on----“the vital force in the water, which now holds the impression from the original substance, acts upon the vital force of whoever takes the medicine.”
So, let’s see. The original active ingredient, though diluted so many times that no molecules remain in the water, leaves an “impression.” That impression is held in the vital force of the water, which in turn acts upon some vital force in the patient. Got it? Aren’t you glad this is supported by your tax dollars? | <urn:uuid:4c95069c-5dbd-43ef-a160-8d8675e9e86f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://doctorrw.blogspot.com/2005/11/what-is-supposed-mechanism-of.html?showComment=1132745700000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941447 | 245 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Web Spam Identification Through Language Model Analysis
Nowadays, Web Spam is one of the main problems of the search engines because the quality of their search results has been degraded by the methods used by spammers. During recent years there have been many advances in detection of these fraudulent pages but, in response, new spam techniques have appeared. It might be said that research in this area is fighting against an adversary who constantly uses more and more sophisticated methods. For this reason, it is necessary to improve anti-spam techniques to get over these attacks. | <urn:uuid:01212830-c916-402b-a86b-6eb5053a1332> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techrepublic.com/whitepapers/web-spam-identification-through-language-model-analysis/1828139?scname=spam-e-mail-fraud-phishing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962686 | 111 | 1.804688 | 2 |
VIDEO: Veterans receive medical care, benefit information at Stand-Down
LATHAM — Both homeless and at-risk veterans filled the Colonie Elks Lodge 2192 Saturday for the Homeless Veterans Stand-Down. The event, sponsored by the Eastern New York Homeless Veterans Coalition, provided veterans with a one-day, one-stop shop of sorts, where they could receive medical care and obtain information about housing and other services they either didn’t know about or have gone without.
Coalition Chairman Doug Williams said it is an event that makes veterans feel welcome, even if they have been previously discouraged by either the government or the general public when seeking needed services. The Stand-Down can also help prevent other veterans from becoming homeless.
“A large percentage of the people here are Vietnam veterans,” Williams said. “A lot of them either don’t like the government or don’t trust it. They want someone at the door asking them how they are doing and getting friendly care.”
The event started bright and early at 7 a.m. with coffee and breakfast. Following the meal, each veteran received a card to verify his participation in the event before he moved on to a station to receive medical care. Representatives from the Albany Stratton VA Hospital along with second and third year students from Albany Medical College provided the veterans with a variety of services, including mental health and infectious disease screenings, routine eye exams and flu shots, which the veterans could check-off on their cards. Alternative medicine options and massages were also available. Upon completion of the medical screenings, the veterans could present their cards to volunteers at the Elks’ outdoor pavilion, where they could receive free clothing.
Representatives from the New York State Department of Labor and the Albany Housing Authority were also on hand to offer assistance in their areas of expertise.
“Sometimes people don’t seek assistance because they might not know how or they might be afraid to,” explained Kristen Danforth, who manages Stratton VA Hospital’s Healthcare for Homeless Veterans program. She added that the event also provides a comfortable setting for veterans. “Veterans like to be with other vets. It’s attractive to a lot of folks so they come in.”
Danforth said around 250 to 300 veterans are served during the Homeless Veterans Stand-Down each year thanks to the nearly 250 volunteers who come to help.
Chuck Wallard, former Vice President of the New York State Elks Club, admitted that was he hesitant to hold the Stand-Down at the Colonie Elks Lodge when Williams first approached him about hosting the event there. The events of Sept. 11, 2001 forced Williams to find a new location for the event.
“This costs time and money to do things like this,” Wallard said. “This was just one more thing. But Doug convinced me at the time and that was the start of it.” Continued...
It’s an event that picks from several areas of the community to show veterans that their service for the country is valued, Danforth said, and it’s one veterans appreciate.
“It’s really great,” Danforth said. “The event pulls together lots of people in the community that want to thank them for their service.”
Andrew Beam may also be reached at 270-1294.
Location, ST | website.com
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Join Rafi Topalian as he discusses the past, present and future Armenian news, stories and related issues that effect not only the Armenian Community in the Capital District but non-Armenian readers alike. | <urn:uuid:ba84e167-8adf-4e7c-a1a1-a01eb8642a6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://troyrecord.com/articles/2012/09/30/news/doc5067e1bc2802a934944538.txt?viewmode=fullstory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957261 | 1,070 | 1.585938 | 2 |
When painter Vick Vercauteren made the move from the San Francisco Bay area to Florida seven years ago, it provoked a change both in her work and her lifestyle.
First, the lifestyle: She bought a house in Bradenton’s Village of the Arts. “I could never afford to do that in California,” she says. Pride of home ownership aside, though, her new place was small, just 700 square feet. So the scale of her images quickly changed from the sometimes six-feet-wide canvases of California to smaller ones here. She began to try out new media, too.
“I had used oil paint for over 20 years,” says Vercauteren (her last name comes from her Belgian ancestors). “But with the climate in Florida and a house without air conditioning, that’s no longer feasible for many months of the year. So I’m investigating acrylics and mixed media. I tend to work multiple canvases at once, often in a series.”
The themes of the work have changed with her move to Florida, too, but she hasn’t adopted the sunshine-inflected palette you might expect. “Living in Florida, seeing hurricane patterns on TV, one becomes aware of how transient the idea of having a roof over your head really can be,” Vercauteren explains. “The language of the weather fascinates me, too; my all-time favorite is the ‘Cone of Uncertainty’ to describe the possible path of a hurricane. Don’t we all live in a cone of uncertainty? Everything is always in a state of flux.”
In addition to images of churning, black-on-black storm clouds and dramatic horizontal lightning, you’ll also see dwellings being dragged out to sea or otherwise imperiled. But as a primarily abstract painter, Vercauteren says, “I know that viewers of my work bring to it the sum of their own experiences. What resonates with a viewer may not be the same thing that resonates with me, and that’s OK.”
Vercauteren has received grants from the State of Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and Change, Inc. (funded by the Robert Rauschenberg estate). Her work has shown in numerous galleries around the country; she’s represented here by the new Kathleen Bernhardt Gallery in the Rosemary District and is part of a group show currently on view at St. Petersburg’s Donna Gordon Gallery through March 3. For more information about her work, call (941) 744-0162 or go to absolute-arts.com/portfolios. | <urn:uuid:6e383c4c-bba1-47db-a796-4b51d24711ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sarasotamagazine.com/blog/2011/01/01/art-of-uncertainty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951068 | 561 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Thursday, April 25, 2013
The bylaw amendment passed Wednesday by 18 votes.
Town Meeting did away with the town’s controversial seasonal leaf-blower ban Wednesday night, replacing it with a list of restrictions that’s been dubbed the “leaf-blower compromise.” Some Town Meeting members took issue with the term “compromise,” as they said the new bylaw, which passed 113-95, “eviscerates” the intent of the seasonal ban. The seasonal ban, which Town Meeting passed 95-85 last May, would have prohibited the use of gas-powered leaf blowers on private property from May 15 to Oct. 15. The ban was never in effect (it would have been starting next month). The new bylaw, which was developed by a Town Meeting committee, allows commercial and town employees to use leaf blowers from Sept. 15 to June 15. Then, from June 15 to Sept…
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Town Meeting members will consider a bottled-water ban and leaf-blower compromise.
Today is Wednesday, April 24. Here are five things you need to know. 1.) Town Meeting members will vote on a bottled-water ban and leaf-blower compromise tonight during a Special Town Meeting. The bottled-water ban, which was opposed by the Board of Selectmen, would prohibit the sale of single-serving bottled water in town. The ban is being proposed by three Arlington High seniors – Amy Currul, Sonia Zacher and Marina Milan – for environmental reasons. The leaf-blower compromise, which was crafted by a town committee, looks to lessen the restrictions on gas-powered leaf blowers from the seasonal ban, which was passed at Town Meeting last May and upheld at a Special Election in July and Special Town Meeting in October. If the compromise is …
Friday, March 15, 2013
Two issues that have been the talk of the town are set to go before the board.
The Board of Selectmen will consider two controversial Special Town Meeting warrant articles Monday evening, the bottled-water-ban and the leaf-blower-compromise articles, according to the agenda. Three Arlington High seniors, Amy Currul, Sonia Zacher and Marina Milan, submitted the bottled-water-ban article by petition, and they’ll also be the ones presenting the article to the board. The Board of Selectmen inserted the leaf-blower-compromise article, which was crafted by the 2012 Special Town Meeting Leaf Blower Committee. Both articles will be decided on by Town Meeting in late April. The Special Town Meeting portion of the regular Town Meeting starts on Wednesday, April 24, at 8 p.m. The board’s meeting is at 7:15 p.m. Monday, March 18…
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
The recommendation, which drastically lessens the restrictions on leaf blowers from the currently approved seasonal ban, will go before the Board of Selectmen again on Monday, March 18, before heading to Special Town Meeting, Wednesday, April 24.
The 2012 Special Town Meeting Leaf Blower Committee, which was tasked with crafting a leaf-blower compromise, unveiled its recommended bylaw amendment Monday to the Board of Selectmen. The recommendation, which was not put forward unanimously by the committee, will now be discussed and voted on by the board on Monday, March 18, before going on to the Special Town Meeting on Wednesday, April 24. Arlington’s seasonal leaf-blower ban, which prohibits the use of gas-powered leaf blowers on private property from May 15 to Oct. 15, was passed at Town Meeting last May in a 95-85 vote. It was then upheld at a Special Election in July, and a Special Town Meeting in October, when the current leaf-blower committee was formed. The ban has not been in…
Monday, January 14, 2013
The compromise was voted on almost unanimously by the committee, according to a representative from the Arlington Landscape Association.
Monday, January 14
The following was emailed to Arlington Patch by Joe Kerble, of Brothers Lawn Service, on behalf of the Arlington Landscape Association. As members of the Town of Arlington leaf blower compromise committee, we would like to invite you to a public meeting on Monday, Jan. 14, at 7 p.m. in Town Hall to see the result of all of our work to come up with a compromise leaf blower law for Arlington. You will see the proposed bylaw that was written and voted on almost unanimously by our committee of 13 citizens who set out to amend the current bylaw to reflect the views of the voters. This bylaw sets sensible guidelines and hours of operation that allows people to care for or have their property cared for the way they see fit while protecting the …
Monday, December 24, 2012
The meeting is from 7-9 p.m. at Town Hall.
Monday, December 24, 2012
The following is from the Town of Arlington. The 2012 Special Town Meeting Leaf Blower Committee will hold a public meeting on Monday, January 14, 2013, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. in the Auditorium of the Arlington Town Hall, 730 Massachusetts Avenue. The public is invited to attend. The agenda for the meeting is as follows: For complete additional meeting details please visit the 2012 Special Town Meeting Leaf Blower Committee page. Past Leaf-Blower Coverage
Friday, October 12, 2012
Cartoonist Chris DeRoo's take on Arlington's leaf-blower saga.
For more on Arlington's leaf-blower ban, including the results of Wednesday's roll-call vote at the Special Town Meeting, see Arlington Patch's Leaf Blowers Topics Page.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Town Meeting members who voted "Yes" were voting for substituting the motion that would have put a repeal of the ban to a vote. Members who voted "No" were voting against substituting the motion and, therefore, were in favor of keeping the ban in place.
For more from Wednesday's Special Town Meeting, see "Town Meeting Upholds Seasonal Leaf-Blower Ban." The attached results were provided by Town Clerk Stephanie Lucarelli.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Members also agreed Wednesday to establish a leaf-blower committee, which will be tasked with crafting a compromise for Town Meeting next spring.
Town Meeting members kept the town’s seasonal leaf-blower ban in place Wednesday night. Members voted 110-95 against substituting a motion that would have put a repeal of the ban to a vote. Town Meeting Members' Individual Roll-Call Votes The substitute motion was proposed by Stephen Harrington, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 13 who forced the Board of Selectmen to call Wednesday’s Special Town Meeting by submitting a petition with more than 200 signatures to have the ban reconsidered this fall. Wednesday’s final tally was recorded by a roll-call vote – Town Moderator John Leone read members names one by one, and their individual voice votes were recorded. About 81 percent of members were present for the vote. The ban, which prohibits…
The ban will be back before Town Meeting, starting at 8 p.m.
Town Meeting members will be asked tonight to repeal the seasonal ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, which they passed in May. Tonight’s Special Town Meeting, which starts at 8 p.m., had to be called by the Board of Selectmen after Stephen Harrington, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 13, submitted a petition, with more than 200 signatures from registered voters, asking for the ban to be reconsidered. Selectmen voted “no action” on Harrington’s article. However, Harrington recently submitted a substitute motion (attached), putting the repeal back on the table tonight. Before Harrington’s substitute motion is addressed, Town Meeting members will be asked by Selectmen to form a new leaf-blower committee, which would be tasked with crafting a… | <urn:uuid:6af4ab59-ffd4-4061-a60d-c7e3a69e9f5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arlington.patch.com/topics/Leaf+Blowers?logout=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964997 | 1,660 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Minneapolis—April 25, 2011—The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University announced today the addition of four new online certificate programs to help educators enhance their effectiveness in the classroom as they explore ways to motivate and support students and colleagues in their organization.
Walden’s new graduate certificate programs for educators are:
- The Graduate Certificate in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment provides educators with the tools to plan, develop and implement standards-based curricula and instruction to motivate students and promote their academic success. Educators also identify how to measure performance through effective, ongoing assessments and to support students in monitoring their own learning progress.
- The Graduate Certificate in Engaging Culturally Diverse Learners engages educators to explore learning that reflects global societal concerns about teaching students from diverse backgrounds. They study the latest tools and technologies, including models such as Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and differentiated instruction, to create supportive and effective learning environments.
- The Graduate Certificate in Integrating Technology in the Classroom allows education professionals to explore the most current knowledge and strategies in the field as they gain the technological skills they need to enhance learning and support problem-solving in the digital age.
- The Graduate Certificate in Teacher Leadership offers education professionals the opportunity to discover their leadership strengths and learn to apply them to key educational challenges, including increasing student achievement and fostering parental involvement.
Walden’s Riley College of Education and Leadership also recently introduced online graduate certificate programs in College Teaching and Learning, Enrollment Management and Institutional Marketing and Professional Development. For more details about Walden’s new online certificate programs, visit www.WaldenU.edu.
About Walden University
For more than 40 years, Walden University has supported working professionals in achieving their academic goals and making a greater impact in their professions and their communities. Today, more than 42,500 students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries are pursuing their bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees online at Walden. The university provides students with an engaging educational experience that connects them with expert faculty and peers around the world. Walden is the flagship online university in the Laureate International Universities network—a global network of more than 55 online and campus-based universities in 27 countries.
Walden offers more than 50 degree programs with more than 225 specializations and concentrations. Areas of study include health sciences, counseling, human services, management, psychology, education, public health, nursing, public administration and information technology. For more information, visit www.WaldenU.edu. Walden University is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission and a member of the North Central Association, www.ncahlc.org. | <urn:uuid:300e7d29-3b4b-4859-be3c-bb156b57676f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.waldenu.edu/about/newsroom/news/2011/0425-new-online-certificate-programs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936892 | 561 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Buy or make a nut to hold in the jaws. Use another as a jam nut to secure. Collet would be perfect. If it is a true lead screw and has Acme or Square threads don't worry about it. Hold it in the jaws and go easy.
just bore a hole in a short bar of aluminum, the exact diameter of the thread OD.
Then saw a slot through one wall, and insert the screw.
Close the 3 or 4 jaw chuck on the aluminum, it will clamp the thread as true as your bore!
Then you can machine the ends to suit your needs!
Check the thread " Manual to CNC lathe conversion. I have pictures of exactly what " Widgitmaster" has explained above. It works, its safe, its accurate.
If the material is hardned all the way through you should use a 1/64 radius cutter with a little positive rake, such as a CMNP or CNMG carbide insert,this will give you a good finish and decent depth of cut. | <urn:uuid:d9b657b4-828b-401b-ae44-c5890ff3156c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cnczone.com/forums/general_metalwork_discussion/25097-workholding_lathe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949717 | 212 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Whether it was Shah Jahan building the monument of love for his wife or Shivaji escaping from prison in a basket, Indian history is full of intriguing tales. On January 26, a new Hindi play, Bhamasha, will premiere at the Tata Theatre, NCPA, bringing to the audience another rich chapter from
India's freedom struggle.
The tale dates to the time of Akbar's reign in India. Bhamasha was a rich merchant who chose to donate all his wealth to help the legendary Rajput warrior Maharana Pratap raise an army against the British.
Rather than just his philanthropy, the play will explore the other sides to Bhamasha's character as well.
"People know him largely for his benevolence, but not many know that Bhamasha was also a capable warrior. He fought alongside Maharana Pratap in all his battles. Bhamasha was also an astute individual and is also referred to as the Chanakya of the Rajputs," says director Manoj Shah.
The play will be narrated by veteran actor Om Puri. Actor Daya Shankar Pandey, who has been part of films such as Lagaan (2001) and Swades (2004), plays the role of Bhamasha. He admits that he was bowled over by the intensity of his character.
It's amazing how these men fought for their motherland with such passion. There's this line in the play where Maharana Pratap asks Bhamasha if he's giving him all his money as charity and the latter replies saying that it was not charity, but a dedication to his motherland. That scene is incredible," says Pandey. He adds that he has tried to give the character his own distinct style.
"Theatre is not like film where you shoot a scene and it is done. You can improvise on your character. That's what I've tried to do."
The play also features music by folk musician Chugge Khan and his ensemble of musicians from Rajasthan. "I am trying to tell a story that's 300 years old. I need to be able to take the audience back to that time, so it needs to feel as real as possible," says Shah.
© Copyright © 2013 HT Media Limited. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:33f9b466-b2f9-4ebc-a00f-d3e70857cbb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/Print/1001632.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989428 | 473 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Critics have warned that the development of innovative products that integrate Twitter could be stifled after Twitter said that any new app that wants to serve more than 100,000 users must now seek the firm's permission.
The new rules, announced yesterday in a blog post, also mean that any apps that already have more than 100,000 users can expand by 200%, but then have to get Twitter's approval to grow further.
This forms part of changes to Twitter's Application Programming Interface (API), a device which allows one application to share content with another.
Twitter's API has already enabled the creation of various popular services, such as Hootsuite, Twitpic and Tweetdeck, which was bought by Twitter last year for more than £25m.
In a blog post, Twitter's MIchael Sippey said that the strict new guidelines were part of the microblogging site's efforts to "deliver a consistent Twitter experience".
To be rolled out in the "coming weeks", version 1.1 of the Twitter API will require every request to the API to be authenticated.
Sippey said that the current version of the API allows developers to access public information "without us knowing who they are".
"For example, there are many applications that are pulling data from the Twitter API at very high rates (scraping, bots, etc.) where we only know the IP address of the applications," he wrote.
"To prevent malicious use of the Twitter API and gain an understanding of what types of applications are accessing the API in order to evolve it to meet the needs of developers, it's important to have visibility into the activity on the Twitter API and the applications using the platform."
Sippey said that any apps that believe they will reach 100,000 individual user tokens, meaning individual users, will have to get permission directly from Twitter.
Any businesses expecting more than 1m individual users will also be offered 'guidance' by Twitter on how best to gear their service, he added.
"One of the key things we've learned over the past few years is that when developers begin to demand an increasingly high volume of API calls, we can guide them toward areas of value for users and their businesses," he said.
"To that end, and similar to some other companies, we will require you to work with us directly if you believe your application will need more than one million individual user tokens.
"If you are building a Twitter client application that is accessing the home timeline, account settings or direct messages API endpoints (typically used by traditional client applications) or are using our User Streams product, you will need our permission if your application will require more than 100,000 individual user tokens.
"We will not be shutting down client applications that use those endpoints and are currently over those token limits. If your application already has more than 100,000 individual user tokens, you'll be able to maintain and add new users to your application until you reach 200% of your current user token count (as of today) - as long as you comply with our Rules of the Road.
"Once you reach 200% of your current user token count, you'll be able to maintain your application to serve your users, but you will not be able to add additional users without our permission."
Following the announcement, the term "Twitter's API" has been trending on the microblogging site.
Twitter's new system for third-party apps will not have an immediate impact on its users, but it has been widely criticised by developers.
Alongside the restrictions outlined above, there are also further new rules about the embedding of tweets and the layout of messages on third party sites.
Marco Arment, the creator of popular reading service Instapaper, said that developers building apps on Twitter should now "start working on another product".
Arment noted that many apps on Twitter's platform compete with it to some degree, and so the firm "doesn't need a lot of its nontrivial apps, and in fact, they'd be happier if most of them disappeared".
"Twitter has left themselves a lot of wiggle room with the rules," he wrote in a blog post.
"Effectively, Twitter can decide your app is breaking a (potentially vague) rule at any time, or they can add a new rule that your app inadvertently breaks, and revoke your API access at any time.
"Of course, they've always had this power. But now we know that they'll use it in ways that we really don't agree with. I sure as hell wouldn't build a business on Twitter, and I don't think I'll even build any nontrivial features on it anymore." | <urn:uuid:c37c7247-cbab-4f28-8ec8-6104b74f6f67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalspy.ie/tech/news/a400140/twitter-criticised-over-third-party-apps-changes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961747 | 967 | 1.828125 | 2 |
5. Scene V. A Room in Gloster's Castle.
I speak in understanding; you are, I know't:
Therefore I do advise you, take this note:
My lord is dead; Edmund and I have talk'd;
And more convenient is he for my hand
Than for your lady's.--You may gather more.
If you do find him, pray you give him this;
And when your mistress hears thus much from you,
I pray desire her call her wisdom to her
So, fare you well.
If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,
Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.
Would I could meet him, madam! I should show
What party I do follow.
Fare thee well. | <urn:uuid:0a941139-da52-4920-b83a-44eef458f3e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.literaturepage.com/read.php?titleid=shakespeare_kinglear&abspage=75&reset=yes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938248 | 163 | 1.710938 | 2 |
in the Lions' Den"
always worshiped God. He was thrown into a den of lions by
some jealous rulers who claimed he had broken the law by worshiping
* Coloring page: Daniel
in the Den of Lions
Theme Activities, Crafts and Coloring Pages | <urn:uuid:f0f2b56a-0632-4e33-b37f-fc3388a79aa5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.first-school.ws/online_coloring_bible/ot_characters_book/daniel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931031 | 58 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Civil unions may make for good legislative compromise in Rhode Island's gay marriage debate, but the proposal won nothing but scorn during a public hearing at the Statehouse on Wednesday.
Gay marriage supporters told lawmakers that civil unions treat gay couples as second-class citizens. Opponents said the bill creates an easy steppingstone to full marriage rights for same-sex couples.
The bill would allow a gay couple to form a civil union granting all of the rights and benefits given to married couples under Rhode Island law.
The proposal was introduced after legislative leaders said gay marriage legislation lacked the votes to pass this year. But lawmakers searching for common ground in the General Assembly have so far only united both sides of the contentious gay marriage debate.
Neither side likes civil unions, they told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee, but for very different reasons.
"This is a cop-out," said Joseph Cavanagh, a Providence attorney and member of the National Organization for Marriage-Rhode Island. "It totally avoids the issue."
"This creates a separate status only for gay people to send a message that gay people are not worthy of the protections marriage provides," said Karen Loewy, an attorney with Gay & Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.
The sponsor of the civil union bill said both sides need to understand political reality.
"Both sides are acting like schoolchildren," said Rep. Peter Petrarca, D-Lincoln. "We either do nothing and let this thing continue to fester, or give same-sex couples the rights they deserve."
Petrarca said he believes many gay marriage supporters will quietly back the civil union bill, if only because gay marriage won't pass this year.
Still, some lawmakers say they're wary of supporting a compromise that seems to lack public support. Rep. Doreen Costa, R-North Kingstown, said she's received more than 300 emails and messages from residents on the civil union bill. Only two were in support.
"I think civil unions are just a no-win situation," she said.
The bill was filed after House Speaker Gordon Fox, D-Providence, said gay marriage legislation would not pass the General Assembly this year. Fox, who is openly gay, supports gay marriage but said it couldn't overcome opposition, particularly in the Senate where Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, is a notable opponent. Paiva Weed has said she supports civil unions.
The civil union bill borrows heavily from similar laws recently passed in in Illinois, Delaware, Hawaii and New Jersey, as well as Rhode Island's existing marriage law. Five states now recognize gay marriage and several more have enacted some form of civil union law.
Gov. Lincoln Chafee, an independent who has urged lawmakers to pass a gay marriage bill, has said he would sign the civil union measure.
A leading gay marriage advocacy group, Marriage Equality Rhode Island, is working to resurrect the gay marriage bill. Ray Sullivan, MERI's campaign director, said he hopes the House will revise the civil union bill into a marriage bill when the legislation is debated on the House floor.
The House Judiciary Committee could vote as early as next week on whether to send the measure to the full House, according to Rep. Edith Ajello, D-Providence and the committee's chairwoman. | <urn:uuid:63ed3d06-0e4c-452d-a89f-6bfa9f1ca2dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2011/may/11/ri-civil-union-compromise-wins-little-support/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968724 | 680 | 1.757813 | 2 |
India's industrial output grew 0.1 percent in July against the analysts' expectation of a 0.5 percent growth as compared to that in the same period a year ago, showed the data released by the Indian government Wednesday. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) contracted 1.8 percent in June.
The cumulative growth for April-July, 2012-13, over the corresponding period of the previous year declined 0.1 percent, suggesting that the weakened economy shows no signs of recovery in the near future.
The mining sector recorded a decline of 0.7 percent compared to a 0.6 percent growth in June, and the manufacturing sector output declined 0.2 percent in July as compared to the 3.2 percent decline in June while the electricity sector grew 2.8 percent against the 8.8 percent growth in the previous month, as recorded in the data released by the Central Statistics Office of the Ministry of Statistics and Program Implementation.
Consumer durables recorded a growth rate of 1.4 percent while consumer nondurables grew 0.1 percent. In June 2012, consumer durables recorded a robust growth rate of 9.1 percent while consumer nondurables declined 1 percent.
The basic goods grew 1.5 percent in June. However, the capital goods sector declined 5 percent in July, better than the sharp decline of 27.9 percent in June.
The economists are of the view that though there is nothing to cheer about, it is indeed a relief from the contraction of growth a month ago.
"One of the things that we can look forward to, is a push from govt on the infra side - like road, coal power etc. Those could see a turnaround once that happens. But if we are talking about private sector investment, there will be a certain time lag for a pick-up in sentiment," said Aditi Nayar, an economist from ICRA, to NDTV Profit, a business news channel.
"The data highlights structural weaknesses of the economy, with poor domestic demand amid political gridlock and contracting exports," said Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong, to the Economic Times.
Though the data is expected to give strength for industries' demand for monetary easing, analysts believe that it is highly unlikely that RBI will change the key rates.
"It may lead to renewed expectations of a rate cut this month, although we believe that the odds still favor the RBI to stay put," Kowalczyk said.
India's BSE Sensex was trading at 17937.05, up 85.02 points or 0.48 percent and NSE Nifty was up 21.90 points or 0.41 percent at 5411.40 at 12.20 p.m. Wednesday.
To contact the editor, e-mail: | <urn:uuid:917ffbf0-e628-42a7-9d1b-f3bccae77d26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/383315/20120912/india-s-iip-july-grows-flat-0.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952755 | 579 | 1.648438 | 2 |
After experiencing a slight dip in 2010, credit unions are leading the pack when it comes to customer satisfaction, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index.
In its annual report released Dec. 13, ACSI said credit unions are at an all-time record high when it comes to overall satisfaction.
The report’s respondents said they are more satisfied than ever before with credit unions, as the industry’s score soars 8.7% to 87 on a scale of zero to 100, which is the highest score ever reached by any of ACSI’s 47 industries, the index showed. In just one year, credit unions have tripled their ACSI lead over banks.
Claes Fornell, ACSI’s founder, said while it is too early to quantify just how much business the big banks have lost to smaller competitors, the new ACSI data suggest credit unions and smaller banks now have become an even more attractive alternative for consumers.
“Banks are facing difficult times on multiple fronts. Profits are being squeezed, regulators are more demanding, foreclosures remain problematic, and consumers are fighting back on fees. On top of all this, many banks are losing customers, including defections prompted by grassroots efforts like the recent Bank Transfer Day,” Fornell said.
In 2010, credit unions experienced a 5% drop in satisfaction attributed to rapid growth, higher fees and reduced customer service. The December report from ACSI measures retail banks, credit unions and insurance companies.
Data collected from interviews with approximately 70,000 customers annually is used to measure satisfaction with more than 225 companies in 47 industries and 10 economic sectors, along with more than 200 services, programs, and websites of approximately 130 federal government agencies.
In other sectors, customer satisfaction with banks, which includes personal banking services such as checking, savings and personal loans, dropped 1.3% to 75. ACSI said this downturn comes from a 1% slip in satisfaction with the aggregation of smaller banks that make up a large portion of the industry’s market share. Still, at 79, the smaller banks stayed well ahead of the four largest banks, despite considerable improvement by Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, ACSI found.
Among the four big banks looked at–Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, last year’s leader, Wells Fargo, kept its customer satisfaction stable, but a 6% improvement for Citigroup placed the two in a tie for first at 73. ACSI said Citigroup’s score reflected customer satisfaction with services of its Citibank division.
“In the aftermath of the subprime mortgage crisis, Citibank is shrinking as it closes branches and serves fewer customers. The customers who have chosen to stay are more satisfied,” the index noted.
The second gainer among four banks, JPMorgan Chase, improved 4% to 70 and moved past Bank of America at 68. | <urn:uuid:d40eb980-a0be-4e77-b051-2c6e096abdf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cutimes.com/2011/12/18/cus-back-on-top-in-satisfaction-poll?t=trailblazers-40-below | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956956 | 601 | 1.570313 | 2 |
That's appropriate for Manotti, who writes about greed and decadence among France's ruling elites. Though Manotti is decidedly of the left politically, her books shun politics in the everyday sense of policies, debates, and party affairs. The bad guys in Affairs of State are Socialists, but that's only because the Socialist Party, in the person of Francois Mitterand, held the French presidency in the mid-1980s, when the book is set (though certain details of Mitterand's past may have fired Manotti's imagination). In Manotti's world, money is all that matters. (She's an economic historian when not writing award-winning crime novels.) Here's how she begins a short afterword to Affairs of State:
"In France, the 1980s were commonly referred to as the `years of easy money,' because during this decade money came to represent, for an entire political class and regardless of whether they were in power or in opposition, an end and a value in itself, at a time when entrepreneurs and financiers became the new heroes of modern times."Manotti is not quite as bleak as Jean-Patrick Manchette, but she shares with him an aversion to overt partisanship that makes her books all the sharper as social critiques — and all the more effective as fiction.
© Peter Rozovsky 2011 | <urn:uuid:e5ea8fe2-724b-4a88-8750-2b5dbde14c30> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/dominique-manotti-apolitical-political.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974705 | 274 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The soldering assistant is a project idea I had to have my soldering supplies conveniently in one spot. The Solder spool holder is close to the work area to have a read supply of solder to feed directly from the spool. The soldering assistant also features and adjustable vise to hold your projects securely as you assemble them. Just behind the work area is a parts bin, to put your resistors, capacitors, IC's tweezers or other supplies. Side "fins" make it possible to make custom add-ons that can just snap into place. The only part that isn't printable through a 3d printer is the center threaded rod that moves the base, this is a 1/4" threaded rod that can be purchased at any local hardware store. 2 hex nuts are also required, one that fits into the moving side of the platform, and one on the stationary side. This is an entry for the "Make it real Challenge" contest. If you like the design, please vote, Thanks.
The angled platform can be added as an accessory, or use the Soldering assistant without this accessory as shown in the gallery pictures. The adjustable platform pivots on a pin at the front of the base. At the rear of the base is a "C" shaped channel that also pivots, and there is a T-shaped cylinder the rides the inside of this channel. To adjust the height, the user would simply have to tilt the platform forward, lining up the position holes on the C channel, then insert the pin through the C channel and into the T cylinder. There is one on each side of the platform for stability. No more hunching over to work on your PCB's! This allows you to work in a more comfortable position. Special thanks to those who commented and suggested an angled platform! | <urn:uuid:2c3de128-0c45-41bf-9d97-8d581bb2546e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.instructables.com/id/Soldering-Assistant/COAZUNUH1YOJ22X | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95316 | 373 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Many people are talking about a referendum on Senate Bill 5. Though the bill to decimate our collective bargaining process has not yet passed the Ohio House, nor has it become law, that day could be coming fast. Many people want to start mobilizing opponents to sign petitions to get the issue on the state ballot NOW.
If we do this successfully, we can file a referendum for the state ballot, asking voters to decide whether or not this bill should become law.
What does this mean for us? We have to get started mobilizing our supporters now. Backers of the referendum must file a petition with signatures from 6 percent of the number of Ohioans who voted in the 2010 governor's election. That's at least 231,148 valid signatures from at least 44 of Ohio's 88 counties. The process will begin as soon as the governor signs the bill or allows it to become law without his signature. At that point, we'll have 90 days to collect the signatures.
Why now? While it's likely the bill will pass the Ohio House, all parties involved know that S.B. 5 must pass by Apr. 6 for any valid referendum petition to be on the November 2011 ballot. Otherwise, it would appear on the November 2012 ballot. We believe that the GOP would rather see this on the ballot in 2011 than in 2012, during a presidential election.
If the bill passes by Apr. 6, here are the critical referendum dates:
* Petition deadline: July 5
* Signature validity evaluation by county Boards of Election: July 26
* Date to file supplemental signatures: Aug. 5
* Deadline for the Secretary of State to determine signature validity: Sept. 4
In the meantime, keep working to kill this bill. Join Teachers for Better Schools (TBS). Attend rallies and meetings. Write your local papers. Tell your friends. Contact your legislators. Use the Educator Connector phone line at 1-888-907-7309 and go to http://ow.ly/3WtWY to sign up to become an OEA ACE (Advocates for Children and Education). | <urn:uuid:d0e78b59-1f73-49ea-886f-ac6dee97069c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ceaohio.org/GD/Templates/Pages/cea/ceaDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=120&Content=4699 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952779 | 429 | 1.625 | 2 |
Being a 20 year-old college student, some might say that I am too young to have an opinion. Others may say that I am too young to have an “informed” opinion. Well, just so you all know, you’re wrong. Grant it, many people my age could care so much less about getting out to vote much less being an educated voter. But me, I am a cut from a different cloth than that. For me, voting is not only a right, but also a duty that each of us has been blessed with. That being said, I feel that if you are going to exercise that right, you must first educate yourself and that is what I have done.
When the 2008 Presidential Election started heating up, it was all I heard about. From stories saying “Barack Obama has made history by […] becoming the first African-American with a viable chance of winning the White House” (The Guardian) to “[…] Palin, 44, the first woman to be a Republican vice presidential nominee” (CNBC). This was an exciting race of new things. On top of it all, Senator Obama was electric. When he spoke, you couldn’t help but listen. He was not only a politician, but a star. He was someone who spoke of giving the government back to the people. He was exciting! The whole election was exciting. The election of 2008 showed that America has evolved and remained the most welcoming place on earth where anyone can succeed. An African-American man from Hawaii, a woman from Arkansas, and another from Alaska. All breaking the status quo for American politics and showing that we, as a country, are better than we were.
Like many people, while I had not supported Barack Obama in the general election, it was exciting to see what we as a country, had accomplished and overcome. It was not too long ago that the idea of an African-American President was completely laughable. Inauguration day in 2009 was inspiring for Americans and the entire world. But this celebrity turned President had a lot of promises to keep and he needed to get to work fast. Everyone was watching to see what would happen. What they were watching would soon turn to a disaster.
In 2009, President Obama had momentum on his side. The country had chosen him, at a hefty margin, to be the fix-it-man. He was lucky enough to have been able to have a slew of Democrats elected with him and keep the Democratic Majority in the House and the Senate. He could do anything and everything he wanted. Boy oh boy do we ever regret giving him that power. There are now 495,000 more unemployed American than there were in 2008, up to 8.1% from Inauguration day (43 months). That is the longest unemployment has ever been above 8.0% since the Great Depression. The Middle Class average income has dropped and gas has gone up. Home values continue to fall, college tuition is up by 25%, 15 million more Americans are on food stamps (up 46%), and our debt has increased by $5.4 trillion (up 51%) in Obama’s first 4 years. We voted for change, but not this kind.
The biggest failure for President Obama, was his healthcare reform most commonly referred to as “Obamacare.” Before it was passed, Americans did not know what was even in the bill. As then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) put it, “[Congress] has to pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it” (U.S. News). Well, it did pass and Americans soon learned that they did not like what was in it. For months Republicans argued it was the biggest tax increase in American History while Democrats said it was nothing of the sort. Twenty-seven states filed suit against the Federal Government to fight against Obamacare calling it an unconstitutional mandate on the people that the Federal Government would have no right to enforce. The case ended up right where those states wanted it and that was knocking at the door of the Supreme Court. In March of 2012, the Supreme Court heard the debate on the Healthcare Law and that June they handed down their findings. The Healthcare Law would be upheld, but how? The court gave a surprising twist in their decision by upholding the law as a tax. How is that whole “it’s not a tax thing” working out for the Democrats now? More than 50% of Americans continue to oppose the Healthcare Tax.
All of this leads me to say this, why would we re-elect someone with this record of failure? To add too it, we now are on the brink of disaster in the Middle East with the recent attacks on many of the American Embassies beginning on September 11, 2012 with the attacks in Egypt and Libya and ended with the Libyan Ambassador and 3 others being murdered. What has our response been?
We (America) are sorry. Yet another failure to add to the list: economy, debt, healthcare, and foreign policy. Barack Obama ran a campaign speaking of “Hope and Change” in 2008. For me, I do not believe that change is impossible, but it is certainly not easy. I believe in the change President Obama talked about 4 years ago, but it is clear he no longer does. America is headed down the road of destruction, and the only things he can seem to talk about are Mitt Romney’s tax records, fundraisers with Beyonce and Jay-Z, and David Letterman? What happened to creating a prosperous America? What happened to my Fathers America, my Grandfathers America? Like Obama, I too have the dreams of my Father, but unlike Obama, they are not dreams of socialistic society. I dream of living the American Dream. I want to be able to someday tell my kids and grandkids of the hard work and dedication that I had, to make a success of myself. In Obama’s America, those dreams of mine are becoming less and less realistic. Soaring unemployment, failed economic stimulus, failed healthcare reform, higher taxes, and more government. A concoction of failure at its highest level. If I want to have a chance to live the Dreams of my Father and Grandfather, the only choice is to Elect Mitt Romney as President of these United States so he can lead us back into the American century, lead us back to prosperity, and lead us back to being the Greatest Country this world has ever had the pleasure to know!
Harwood, John. “McCain Shakes Up Race By Picking Sarah Palin for VP.” CNBC.com. NBC News, 29 Aug. 2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://www.cnbc.com/id/26454655/McCain_Shakes_Up_Race_By_Picking_Sarah_Palin_for_VP>.
MacAskill, Ewen, and Suzanne Goldenberg. “US Elections: Barack Obama Wins Democratic Nomination for President.” The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 03 June 2008. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/04/barackobama.hillaryclinton>.
Roff, Peter. “Pelosi: Pass Health Reform So You Can Find Out What’s In It.” US News. U.S.News & World Report, 09 Mar. 2010. Web. 23 Sept. 2012. <http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/peter-roff/2010/03/09/pelosi-pass-health-reform-so-you-can-find-out-whats-in-it>. | <urn:uuid:8498323d-5827-4be3-9efd-a3e6a194a14e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thecompetentconservative.com/fool-me-once-shame-on-you/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979476 | 1,605 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Tax sugary drinks. Savings: $50 billion
A 3-cent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, the drinks that health experts have been urging Americans to cut back on for years, would raise $50 billion, the CBO said. Since obesity triggers a number of expensive medical problems, this tax also might help with health care costs, says Marc Goldwein, policy director of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
Reduce payments to health care providers. Savings: $140 billion
While hospitals and other providers agreed to cuts under health care reform, "there are still areas where we are overpaying," says Goldwein. The bipartisan commission proposed reducing funds to teaching hospitals, saving $60 billion. It advised Medicare to stop reimbursing providers for deductibles and copays they failed to collect from beneficiaries, saving $23 billion. The commission also advised speeding up changes in home health care payments, saving $9 billion. The CBO suggested that Medicare clamp down on payments to health care providers in areas where costs are 10 percent more than the national average, saving $48 billion.
Require drug companies to offer Medicare rebates. Savings: $112 billion
This option is the least painful to beneficiaries, say many liberal and moderate experts. Drug firms now must provide a significant refund for drugs purchased by Medicaid. If that same discount were to be applied to all low-income Medicare Part D beneficiaries, the CBO says, $112 billion could be saved.
Expand savings in health care law. Savings: unknown
The law, which the CBO has already calculated will reduce the deficit by $210 billion, includes new pilot programs to cut Medicare health care costs, which the commission says should be rapidly expanded. It also created the Independent Payment Advisory Board to limit the growth of spending. The CBO did not estimate savings from either measure. "There are savings in the law that have not yet been realized … let the law prove that savings can be had without pain," says Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.
Also of interest: Drugmakers hike prices of meds. >>
Bara Vaida is a Washington writer who covers health policy issues. | <urn:uuid:0075e729-9d37-46a6-809c-ae25bb946256> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aarp.org/health/medicare-insurance/info-10-2011/deficit-committee-considers-medicare-cuts.2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963562 | 451 | 1.617188 | 2 |
If I say that I'm the only person in my locality, who take pictures of each and every creature, irrespective of whether small or big, living or non-living, then it will not be wrong. The response of older people is not encouraging, however kids take great interest in my hobby. Therefore, whenever they find some thing interesting, like a snail shell, a caterpillar, a spider or a flower they bring it to me. Below are the pictures of some abnormal eggs laid by our neighbors hen. Their kids brought them to me for possible photography and I not only took pictures of the eggs, but also decided to share them with you. The smallest of these eggs is about 23 mm long (3rd pic) and the largest is 46 mm long (2nd pic). You can see these eggs in comparison with normal egg in last picture.
Abnormal Chicken Eggs Pictures
Normal VS Abnormal Eggs | <urn:uuid:bef7a2f8-e7ca-4dda-82bf-1a80c987883e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pk-photography.blogspot.com/2010/05/abnormal-chicken-eggs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965433 | 184 | 1.632813 | 2 |
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. - Crimes against aging parents and grandparents are on the rise, especially crimes that target life savings.
“A year ago, I may get two or three maybe four (calls) a year, now we’re averaging maybe one or two a month,” said Overland Park Detective Byron Pierce about the number of tips on crimes against the elderly.
The department investigated a case of elder abuse involving an Olathe man earlier this year. The Johnson County District Attorney’s office charged Thomas Hess with stealing more than $100,000 from his elderly mother and depriving her from getting proper health treatment.
A bank employee contacted police after Hess tried to withdraw a large sum of money from his mother's account. Hess killed himself before going to trial.
Investigators say cases like this are common. It is important to keep a close eye on aging loved ones. Some red flags that a loved one may be at risk of financial crimes:
1) They become close friends with a stranger or particular friend/relative
2) They are isolated from family and friends
3) They suddenly add another person’s name to bank accounts or grant them power of attorney
4) Large purchases appear on their bank accounts or credit cards
“If you see significant amount of charges to an account and they are to very high end stores, I think you need to say 'wait a minute, something is going on',” Pierce said.
On Thursday, members of the Johnson County District Attorney’s office will be taking phone calls regarding questions about crimes against the elderly. Please call 816-932-4321 between 4:30-6:30 p.m..
Copyright 2012 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Top Call For Action Headlines
The Leawood landlord who has been the focus of a Call For Action investigation has been found incompetent to stand trial and must be treated at a state mental hospital. | <urn:uuid:9a498ed7-f218-47ff-919a-0e2b2cb510ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kshb.com/dpp/money/consumer/call_for_action/protecting-aging-loved-ones-from-criminals-targeting-their-life-savings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947408 | 420 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Keep Yourself Ready For Combating Hurricane Isaac
With the alarm bells tolling across most low lying states in and around the Gulf of Mexico, people hurried to the makeshift shelters across Alabama, Florida, Mississippi and Louisiana with emergency rations which included food, drink as well as ample clothing, to ride out the tropical storm Isaac.
The Path of Isaac
The storm started moving on Tuesday at 70 miles per hour and winds started lashing at the mouth of the River Mississippi. It is expected to hit New Orleans bang on but the people are bracing themselves for it with adequate precautions being in place, a lesson learnt after Hurricane Katrina ripped apart the town on this very day, seven years ago. Hurricane Irene in 2011 was certainly not as destructive but the practical lessons learnt from these horrifying experiences will help them to cope, hopes the entire population of America. But how do you decide what to retain and what to discard as you move to a storm shelter or just sit at home praying for the hurricane to pass? Irene or Katrina or Isaac, the rules remain the same and you simply need to keep your head and arrange for the food that can help you to counter Isaac .
With President Obama declaring a state of emergency in Louisiana, Federal help is more forthcoming and personnel have been depicted all along the four crucial states to save people as well as property from devastation.
We are keeping our fingers crossed even as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney escapes the hurricane in Tampa, Florida where he attended a GOP meeting. But the opening was muted almost bordering on symbolic, and Romney did not look as confident as he looked while making pancakes within the comfortable seclusion of his summer house, last week.
With the news of Isaac about to turn into a full blown hurricane of Category-I coming in, we hope for the best and wish that there are no casualties this time round. Good Luck!
Image Credit- nationalpost | <urn:uuid:981deb24-ae4b-4247-8b7b-a35a4dcc2a6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ifood.tv/blog/keep-yourself-ready-for-combating-hurricane-isaac | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962331 | 382 | 1.632813 | 2 |
In 2009 I was asked to be one of the Orange Prize for Fiction judges. I loved it.
Although my boyfriend groaned every time I opened another book, I revelled in it. As I charged through the 30 or so books I was sent over in a large box around Christmas, I entered worlds as diverse as 1930s New York, to the Cotswolds in the 1980s, to Japan in the future. It was an incredible treat and a privilege. Marilynne Robinson won for her novel Home and meeting her at the ceremony was one of the highlights of the whole experience.
I was delighted when the prize's co-founder, Kate Mosse, asked me if I would like to join the board that had set up the prize and I couldn't say 'yes' fast enough.
It is the largest-selling book prize in the world and the only one that is entirely devoted to women. It is a celebration, not a moan. It is to inspire more reading among both genders and to show the fabulous breadth of talent out there.
The prize has become very important in driving a diverse range of book sales as well as championing the talent that might be hidden in some far corner of the globe.
The prize has never complained about the gender balance within the literary prize world, instead it has sought to address it. Fourteen out of 45 Booker Prize winners have been women and yet women are 65 per cent of fiction writers. I am a feminist and I love reading so this strikes me as a strange fact when there are so many talented women out there.
So, it was imperative that as Orange decided to move away from this particular kind of corporate sponsorship, we found another way of supporting this important cultural institution.
On Monday, we announced that we are privately funding the prize for 2013 under its original name of the Women's Prize for Fiction. I am proud to be amongst a wonderful array of angel donors and companies that want to make sure female writing talent is nurtured and supported.
The board are also excited about working with a new set of corporate partners in future years.
What could be more engaging?
We know that companies who take their wider societal responsibility seriously have more engaged staff and more engaged customers. We know that fiction provides a fabulous backdrop from which to pull any number of different stories about what your corporate values are. We know that the encouragement of reading and writing are among the most basic of human education needs and we know that this joyous, glamorous, high profile institution is one of the best in the UK.
Every chief executive is worrying about how to make sure their company survives and thrives in this fierce economic environment and every chief executive is thinking about how to drive growth while the world seems to be chaotic and unpredictable.
I think that building and supporting such a major cultural landmark is one surefire way to do something great for women, for UK PLC and your own organisation, and I am confident others will too.
Martha Lane Fox is the UK's digital champion and a successful
entrepreneur, co-founding Lastminute.com and more recently, Lucky Voice, a
She will be sharing her experience and insights at the Telegraph's Festival of Business on October 19. | <urn:uuid:71d0a6f3-0e11-4b05-b0c5-384d5bfc4b50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/9596069/Martha-Lane-Fox-Why-I-helped-save-the-Orange-Prize-for-Fiction.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978041 | 658 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Tax changes affecting individuals in the health reform legislation.
I'm writing to give you a brief overview of the key tax changes affecting individuals in the recently enacted health reform legislation. Please call our offices for details of how the new changes may affect your specific situation.
Individual mandate. The new law contains an “individual mandate”—a requirement that U.S. citizens and legal residents have qualifying health coverage or be subject to a tax penalty after 2013. Under the new law, those without qualifying health coverage will pay a tax penalty of the greater of: (a) $695 per year, up to a maximum of three times that amount ($2,085) per family, or (b) 2.5% of household income over the threshold amount of income required for income tax return filing. The penalty will be phased in according to the following schedule: $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 in 2016 for the flat fee or 1.0% of taxable income in 2014, 2.0% of taxable income in 2015, and 2.5% of taxable income in 2016. Beginning after 2016, the penalty will be increased annually by a cost-of-living adjustment. Exemptions will be granted for financial hardship, religious objections, American Indians, those without coverage for less than three months, aliens not lawfully present in the U.S., incarcerated individuals, those for whom the lowest cost plan option exceeds 8% of household income, those with incomes below the tax filing threshold (in 2010 the threshold for taxpayers under age 65 is $9,350 for singles and $18,700 for couples), and those residing outside of the U.S.
Premium assistance tax credits for purchasing health insurance. The health care legislation provides tax credits to low and middle income individuals and families for the purchase of health insurance. Specifically, for tax years ending after 2013, the new law creates a refundable tax credit (the “premium assistance credit”) for eligible individuals and families who purchase health insurance through an Exchange. The premium assistance credit, which is refundable and payable in advance directly to the insurer, subsidizes the purchase of certain health insurance plans through an Exchange. Under the provision, an eligible individual enrolls in a plan offered through an Exchange and reports his or her income to the Exchange. Based on the information provided to the Exchange, the individual receives a premium assistance credit based on income and IRS pays the premium assistance credit amount directly to the insurance plan in which the individual is enrolled. The individual then pays to the plan in which he or she is enrolled the dollar difference between the premium assistance credit amount and the total premium charged for the plan. For employed individuals who purchase health insurance through an Exchange, the premium payments are made through payroll deductions.
The premium assistance credit will be available for individuals and families with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level ($43,320 for an individual or $88,200 for a family of four, using 2009 poverty level figures) that are not eligible for Medicaid, employer sponsored insurance, or other acceptable coverage. The credits will be available on a sliding scale basis.
Higher Medicare taxes on high-income taxpayers. High-income taxpayers will be subject to a tax increase on wages and a new levy on investments.
Higher Medicare payroll tax on wages. The Medicare payroll tax is the primary source of financing for Medicare's hospital insurance trust fund, which pays hospital bills for beneficiaries, who are 65 and older or disabled. Under current law, wages are subject to a 2.9% Medicare payroll tax. Workers and employers pay 1.45% each. Self-employed people pay both halves of the tax (but are allowed to deduct half of this amount for income tax purposes). Unlike the payroll tax for Social Security, which applies to earnings up to an annual ceiling ($106,800 for 2010), the Medicare tax is levied on all of a worker's wages without limit. Under the provisions of the new law, which take effect in 2013, most taxpayers will continue to pay the 1.45% Medicare hospital insurance tax, but single people earning more than $200,0000 and married couples earning more than $250,000 will be taxed at an additional 0.9% (2.35% in total) on the excess over those base amounts. Self-employed persons will pay 3.8% on earnings over the threshold.
Medicare payroll tax extended to investments. Under current law, the Medicare payroll tax only applies to wages. Beginning in 2013, a Medicare tax will, for the first time, be applied to investment income. A new 3.8% tax will be imposed on net investment income of single taxpayers with AGI above $200,000 and joint filers over $250,000. Net investment income is interest, dividends, royalties, rents, gross income from a trade or business involving passive activities, and net gain from disposition of property (other than property held in a trade or business). Net investment income is reduced by properly allocable deductions to such income. However, the new tax won't apply to income in tax-deferred retirement accounts such as 401(k) plans. Also, the new tax will apply only to income in excess of the $200,000/$250,000 thresholds. So if a couple earns $200,000 in wages and $100,000 in capital gains, $50,000 will be subject to the new tax.
Floor on medical expenses deduction raised from 7.5% of adjusted gross income (AGI) to 10%. Under current law, taxpayers can take an itemized deduction for unreimbursed medical expenses for regular income tax purposes only to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5% of the taxpayer's AGI. The new law raises the floor beneath itemized medical expense deductions from 7.5% of AGI to 10%, effective for tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2012. The AGI floor for individuals age 65 and older (and their spouses) will remain unchanged at 7.5% through 2016.
Limit reimbursement of over-the-counter medications from HSAs, FSAs, and MSAs. The new law excludes the costs for over-the-counter drugs not prescribed by a doctor from being reimbursed through a health reimbursement account (HRA) or health flexible savings accounts (FSAs) and from being reimbursed on a tax-free basis through a health savings account (HSA) or Archer Medical Savings Account (MSA), effective for tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2010.
Increased penalties on nonqualified distributions from HSAs and Archer MSAs. The new law increases the tax on distributions from a health savings account or an Archer MSA that are not used for qualified medical expenses to 20% (from 10% for HSAs and from 15% for Archer MSAs) of the disbursed amount, effective for distributions made after Dec. 31, 2010.
Limit health flexible spending arrangements (FSAs) to $2,500. An FSA is one of a number of tax-advantaged financial accounts that can be set up through a cafeteria plan of an employer. An FSA allows an employee to set aside a portion of his or her earnings to pay for qualified expenses as established in the cafeteria plan, most commonly for medical expenses but often for dependent care or other expenses. Under current law, there is no limit on the amount of contributions to an FSA. Under the new law, however, allowable contributions to health FSAs will capped at $2,500 per year, effective for tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2012. The dollar amount will be indexed for inflation after 2013.
Dependent coverage in employer health plans. Effective on Mar. 30, 2010, the new law extends the general exclusion for reimbursements for medical care expenses under an employer-provided accident or health plan to any child of an employee who has not attained age 27 as of the end of the tax year. This change is also intended to apply to the exclusion for employer-provided coverage under an accident or health plan for injuries or sickness for such a child. A parallel change is made for VEBAs and 401(h) accounts. Also, self-employed individuals are permitted to take a deduction for the health insurance costs of any child of the taxpayer who has not attained age 27 as of the end of the tax year.
Excise tax on indoor tanning services. The new law imposes a 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services. The tax, which will be paid by the individual on whom the tanning services are performed but collected and remitted by the person receiving payment for the tanning services, will take effect July 1, 2010.
Liberalized adoption credit and adoption assistance rules. For tax years beginning after Dec. 31, 2009, the adoption tax credit is increased by $1,000, made refundable, and extended through 2011. The adoption assistance exclusion is also increased by $1,000.
I hope this information is helpful. If you would like more details about these provisions or any other aspect of the new law, please do not hesitate to call.
___________________________________________________________________This tax tip provides information to clients and friends of our firm. This general information should not be acted upon without first determining its application to your specific situation. The information in this tip was used with permission from RIA. For further details on any tip, click here.
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By Jim Perry
Given the performance boost the Macintosh platform has achieved with its latest G4 processors, optimized architecture, and advanced connectivity standards, Apple should have no trouble furthering its already strong position in the graphic design, publishing, and prepress markets. But will the changes mean anything to users involved in 3D content creation? Especially to those of us already churning out work on NT and SGI workstations? The short answer is: Yes.
Looking back over the events of past years, it seems clear that Apple got left in the dust when 3D development turned to NT, with its integrated OS support for powerful multiprocessor architectures. In 3D applications, speed is king, and Apple's lack of integrated multiprocessor support cost the company significant marketshare in digital prepress and video production as well as in the 3D market.
Now, however, a change is at hand. With the release of Mac OS X (due out January 2001), the Macintosh operating system will be multithreaded. As a result, all Mac OS native applications should realize significant speed gains without having to be recoded. Users should also find OpenGL performance much improved under OS X, according to Chris Bourdon, Apple's product manager for OS X. "We have already achieved performance on a par with OS 9, and we are just beginning to optimize OpenGL for the final release of OS X," he reports. "There is significant headroom for increased performance."
Even without multiprocessing, the current G4 architecture is proving attractive to some 3D developers. "The G4 chip loves the LightWave code," comments Brad Peebler, vice president of 3D graphics tools for NewTek (San Antonio, TX). The G4 chip is optimized for heavy floating-point calculations, which LightWave relies on to produce its rendering. NewTek is one of a relatively small number of vendors that has continued to develop professional-level 3D applications for the Mac in recent years. Another is Maxon Computer (Thousand Oaks, CA), which recently shipped a new version of its 3D modeling and animation package, Cinema 4D.
Last spring, at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference (WWDC), the company revealed a prototype dual-processor Power Mac G4 in a closed-door session. The dual-processor unit was running a developer release of Mac OS X and reportedly performed more than twice as fast as a single-processor G4 system.
|In developing the Macintosh version of Lightwave 6, NewTek developers worked closely with Apple to make sure the new software would be optimized for the Mac platform.|
Of course, how the G4, with or without multiprocessing, will stack up against established workstations running 3D applications-NT machines, for example-remains to be seen. That situation will become clearer when and if more 3D applications and peripherals arrive to take advantage of the machine's capability.
And will they? Perhaps the most telling commentary on this front was Alias|Wavefront's announcement (also at WWDC) of its pending release of Maya Complete for Macintosh OS X. Maya development for the Mac has been quietly ongoing for some time, and Alias has slated the release of Maya for January of 2001, to coincide with the premiere of OS X. Con sidering Maya's market dominance in the digital content creation space, this says much about the potential of the Macintosh 3D market.
Multiple-monitor hardware and software developer Appian Graphics (Redmond, WA) is another company that has decided to jump on the G4 bandwagon with its recent release of the Jeronimo 2000, a dual-monitor graphics accelerator for the G4. Mike Larson, director of business development for Appian, claims that the instruction set of the G4 combined with the Appian J2000 OpenGL hardware acceleration will create some strong competition for Mac OpenGL accelerators such as those from 3Dfx (San Jose, CA) and ATI (Ontario, Canada). 3Dfx itself has only recently begun Mac-related development. The company recently announced its first offerings for the platform-a pair of Voodoo cards.
|According to Alias|Wavefront, development for Maya-shown here under Mac OS X-was spurred by unprecedented user demand. |
A phenomenon similar to that going on in the 3D market can be witnessed with Apple's push into video production and DVD authoring. Partnering with the Matrox (Dorval, Canada) Video Products Group, Apple has jointly announced the first PCI video card for real-time digital video editing on the Macintosh. The RTMac, architected by Matrox and Apple engineers, is tightly integrated with Apple's Final Cut Pro video creation software to provide real-time editing, effects, and compositing. Fully configured systems are expected to start at under $5000. Apple has also announced that it has teamed with video editing vendor Pinnacle Systems (Mountain View, CA) to offer the Targa Cinß, a broadcast-level uncompressed editing system for under $10,000.
Assuming this development continues apace, the result should be a win-win situation for everyone involved in digital content creation. As pockets of content creation begin to migrate back to the Mac, repurposing digital assets across various media will become less complicated and more efficient at a time when the demand for diverse deployment of content is at an all-time high. With Apple's QuickTime media layer evolving as an extremely popular choice for video editing and audio production tools and Web streaming content, the task of deploying content across many different delivery options such as the Web, CD-ROM, DVD-Video, etc. will be simpler than ever before.
With the substantial speed advantages inherent in the G4 today, and with multiprocessing G4 systems on the horizon and invigorated 3D and video-editing development on the Mac platform, the potential for the balance of power in these markets to shift toward Apple certainly exists. Regardless of whether that comes to pass, Apple will surely shake things up a little-probably a lot-in the 3D and video arenas.
In developing the Macintosh version of LightWave 6, NewTek developers worked closely with Apple to make sure the new software would be optimized for the Mac platform.
Now that Apple has the hot-selling iMac to cater to the price-sensitive consumer space, it is able to focus on delivering performance to pow er-hungry graphics professionals. With the Power Mac G4, the company has taken aim at satisfying the needs of creative professionals in print, video, and multimedia markets.
The introduction of the Power Mac G4 series heralded sig nificant changes in Macintosh hardware, with the most obvious being the shift to Motorola's G4 PowerPC processor. The rede signed G4 chip represented an overhaul of the PowerPC architecture and boosted performance, especially for applications written to take advantage of Motorola's AltiVec vector processing unit. AltiVec has been dubbed the "Velocity Engine" by Apple and has garnered initial support by Macintosh multimedia developers whose applications demand horsepower. The Velocity Engine is now supported by Adobe Systems' Photoshop 5.5, Terran Interactive's Media Cleaner Pro, and Heuris's MPEG Power Professional, to name just a few.
According to Apple, the G4 is the first microprocessor able to achieve sustained performance of one billion floating-point operations per second, or one gigaflop. (The company likes to say that achieving this benchmark puts the G4 in the class of a supercomputer.) In stark contrast to some of Apple's hardware offerings of the past, the performance of this Power Mac G4 is not inhibited by inappropriately matched subsystems that impede system performance. It used to be that Apple outfitted many of even its highest end systems with slow 5400-rpm disk drives. Most likely, this was done as a attempt to strike a balance between performance for the professional while holding down price for the consumer.
The Power Mac G4's performance is accomplished with a new system architecture that implements a 100mhz MPX system bus with 800mb-per-second throughput. With regard to memory, the system supports up to 1.5gb of SDRAM. That's twice the capacity of the original Power Mac G3 mach ines. And maximum memory bandwidth has been in creased from 400mb to 800mb per second.
|In addition to the new interface (Aqua), OS X will feature multithreading, which should leverage processor performance. |
The unit is rounded out by high-performance display technology and a reasonably fast hard drive subsystem. By utilizing FAST ATA/66 hard drive technology, Apple has settled on a disk subsystem that is economical yet able to provide respectable performance. The ATA drives manage to read and write data at sustained rates of over 20mb per second.
Photoshop users will appreciate the speed boost yielded by the faster drives alone. Since Photoshop manages large graphics files by constantly caching data to and from the Mac's hard drive, a speedier disk subsystem can substantially increase performance in itself, beyond the gains afforded the application by the G4 chip, the Velocity Engine, and the optimized architecture of the new G4 Power Macs. The graphics card provided with the review unit, the ATI Rage 128 Pro Video, is good but could be improved upon. A well-known shortcoming of the G4 with regard to 3D viability is a lack of 3D accelerators. That may be changing. Some boards to watch for are the Voodoo4 4500 PCI and Voodoo5 5500 PCI cards due out from 3Dfx this summer, and the J2000 OpenGL from Appian Graphics.
I ran an informal Photoshop comparison between the Power Mac G4 500mhz system and my 266mhz G3-based Wallstreet PowerBook, both running Mac OS 9.0 with virtual memory set to off. A dramatic difference was apparent just opening the 34.3mb CMYK test file from within Photoshop. Taking 10 seconds to open the TIFF, the G4 bested its G3 counterpart by some 13 seconds. For another Photoshop test, I created a 148.4mb CMYK file and applied the render clouds filter. The G4 took 39 seconds to complete the task, while the G3 required 1 minute and 26 seconds.
For a 3D application face-off, I rendered a small 240-frame animation out of Electric Image Anima tion System 2.9.2. The G4 rendered the animation in 23 minutes 40 seconds, while the G3 took 43 minutes, 20 seconds. While these tests obviously don't compare the G4's performance to Wintel mach ines, they show how the new system represents a dramatic performance increase compared to its predecessors.
The newer generation of Power Macs has eliminated direct support of long-standing connectivity standards familiar to Mac users. You won't find a serial, printer, ADB, or SCSI port on these systems. Instead you will find one internal FireWire port, along with two external FireWire ports and two external USB ports. The good news is that both USB and FireWire options are great connectivity standards that are far more effective and troublefree than the standards they replace. The bad news is that solutions you may rely on that are based around SCSI technology are no longer directly supported by the new Power Macs.
The FireWire ports on the G4 provide fast 400mb-per-second performance. In the case of video hardware, a single FireWire cable not only provides for high-speed data transfers, but also machine control. So, with one simple plug-and-play cable, you can attach your video camera or deck to your Mac, then transfer the clips you want to the machine for editing.
|The G4 rendered this Electric Image Animation Studio scene much more quickly than did the G3.|
I tested FireWire connectivity on my G4 test unit by hooking up both a VST 37gb FireWire hard drive as well as capturing FireWire data directly from a Sony camcorder. Apart from needing to install appropriate drivers, I realized true plug-and-play simplicity with both devices.
I also tested the G4 with USB products including an ADB-to-USB converter called the iMate from Griffin Technology, which successfully converted my ADB dongles to USB for EIAS 2.9.2, After Effects 4.1 Production Bundle, and LightWave 5.6.
The essential form factor of the G4 tower is similar to that of the previous generation of "Bondi blue" G3 systems. But the G4 graphite towers are trimmed out quite nicely and in contrast to the G3 towers appear more "serious." A nice new feature is that the four corners of the tower case are designed as handles, which add a great deal of functionality when you need to move the system. Users like myself who are always accessing the connectivity options on the back panel will find this simple improvement a real plus.
An especially notable feature of the new G4 case is the side panel, which opens and hinges down with the pull of a single latch. The revealed inside offers unobstructed access to everything you need: RAM, drive bays, PCI, and graphic slots. This is the most accessible computer case I've ever seen, and Apple deserves recognition for finally responding to users who've complained about the lack of such accessibility.
If there is a downside to the new Power Mac, it is the mouse. This awkward hockey puck mouse has been unpopular ever since it was first introduced with the iMac. Additionally, the keyboard lacks a full function-key set, stopping at F12. I never realized how much I relied on F13 until I lost it. The three missing Fkeys were undoubtedly dropped to reduce the footprint of the keyboard.
Apple has taken a big step forward with the new G4 systems. The power and connectivity options make it a desirable option for graphics professionals-and also for some 3D professionals. The price, $3500 for the unit reviewed, puts it in the ballpark for workstations of similar capabilities. All in all, if you're a longtime Macintosh user, you'll be delighted with the power of the new Power Mac G4. If you've never used a Mac before, and particularly if you're involved in video editing, you might just want to check out this machine.
Jim Perry is a 15-year veteran of the printing and prepress industries. He is principal of Empower Direct, which provides consulting, training, and production services to digital content creators. He can be reached at [email protected].
The Power Mac G4 comes equipped with Mac OS 9, a dramatic upgrade to the Macintosh operating system. New features include support for wireless networking, an expanded file size limit from 2gb to 2tb; AppleScript and file sharing capability over TCP/IP; and a host of other new capabilities.
As a major upgrade, however, it requires a user to be diligent in getting the latest OS 9-compatible updates to any software that is going to be installed. This includes not only major applications, but ATM (OS 9 requires Version 4.5.2 or later), and any USB, FireWire, or other device drivers and font management utilities. Before installing your applications, visit Apple's Web site at www.info.apple.com/support/pages.taf?product=mac os9
For my own part, despite needing some updates for Play's Electric Image Animation Studio 2.9, I was able to install the following without incident: Adobe Photoshop 5.5, Adobe Illus trator 8.0, QuarkXPress 4.1, Adobe After Effects 4.1, Final Cut Pro 1.2, LightWave 3D 5.6.
There are some great features in OS 9 to be sure. It's a worthwhile upgrade, but proceed with caution. -JP
PRICE AS REVIEWED: $3499 (without monitor)
CONFIGURATION AS REVIEWED: OS 9; 500MHz G4 processor; 1MB L2 Cache; 256MB of SDRAM; 27GB Ultra ATA hard disk; ATI Rage 128 Pro Video card | <urn:uuid:1212c951-ba85-48e0-a81e-5398de4d035b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cgw.com/Publications/CGW/2000/Volume-23-Issue-7-July-2000-/Power-Play.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93012 | 3,346 | 1.648438 | 2 |
By Pete Kotz
By Michael Musto
By Michael Musto
By Capt. James Van Thach told to Jonathan Wei
By Kera Bolonik
By Michael Musto
By Nick Pinto
By Steve Weinstein
They are hunted, harassed, forced to conceal parts of themselves that cannot always be hidden. They are hounded and criminalized not so much for any actions as for the paranoid phantasm of what their unspoken desires mightlead to. They are reminded every moment of their lives that those desires and what they mightlead to render them unfit to protect their country. Regardless of their skills, their training, their proven abilities, they are told that they are the enemy within. When the First Liar set in play the chain of betrayals that has come to characterize his presidency, he did so with a political move whose cynicism was uncharacteristically overt. Bill Clinton's "solution" to the Pentagon ban on gays in the military was to improvise a policy that traded self-erasure for protection. As it turned out, the protection offered by "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was little more than illusion. And silence was not nearly enough.
According to a survey released last month and compiled by Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), a Washington group providing legal aid to military personnel, the fallout of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is far greater than previously understood. Annual discharges of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals from the military have almost doubled since the Clinton policy went into effect on February 28, 1994, with the Pentagon cashiering 1149 military members for being gay, lesbian, or bisexual in 1998 alone. Ironically, the discharges occurred at a time when the Pentagon is reporting drops in military enrollment that one high-ranking air force officer publicly proclaimed "the greatest shortage we've ever had in peacetime."
The navy currently has 6900 unfilled positions. The air force, which suffered severe pilot shortages in recent years, projects that it will be at least 2000 pilots shy of the 13,641 enlistment quota it has set for 2002. Despite signing and retention bonuses, boosted college education funds, thousands of new recruiters in the field, and tens of millions of dollars in advertising campaigns (the navy opened 150 recruiting stations last year and increased its ad budget from $58 million to $72 million), the personnel deficit in an expanding military will soon reach many thousands. In February, Army Secretary Louis Caldera argued that the armed forces should relax their standards and permit recruitment of high school dropouts for the first time. "Frankly, right now we have rules that don't make sense," said Caldera. "Every day we turn away people who want to join."
Yet every year the armed forces jettison people whose sexuality is their only impediment to service. Of the 414 air force discharges reported last year, fully 271 were gay-related and took place at a single air force base in Texas. Throughout the services, reports of asking and pursuit have increased by 42 percent, according to the SLDN. Even by the downplayed standards of General Accounting Office estimates, the cost to taxpayers of discharging gay service members has already exceeded $130 million. To calculate how conservative this figure is, consider the military's costs to replace people who are kicked out, to investigate suspected and accused homosexuals, and to defend the policy in federal court. Jill Szymanski left the navy after a 12-year stint during which she earned a master's degree in trauma and critical-care nursing, an education taxpayers funded. Despite a promising career, in which she oversaw the duties of 1000 nurses worldwide, Szymanski resigned last year. As she recently explained to The Advocate, "For years I figured that if I had a perfect record, I'd be safe in the navy even though I was a lesbian. But when I saw gay people being discharged, I wondered how I could continue to give 150 percent to an organization that could turn its back on me overnight."
Institutional betrayal is by no means the only threat facing service members. "It has become an increasingly hostile environment," says SLDN's Michelle Benecke, coauthor of "Conduct Unbecoming," a report documenting rampant escalation in antigay harassment throughout the armed forces. "Up to and including death threats."
The protective essence of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" lies buried in a Department of Defense directive stipulating that "sexual orientation is considered a personal and private matter, and homosexual orientation is not a bar to continued service unless manifested by homosexual conduct." But for many service members, following the letter of the policy offers little security. "Living in forced isolation, in constant fear of investigation and inadvertent disclosure is harmful to gay service personnel," wrote one naval officer last year, in a letter resigning his commission. "Each day I am witness to . . . antigay comments and attitudes. The navy takes no action to stop this improper and outrageous behavior on the part of its best and brightest officers. My witness to this unfortunate antigay climate and the direct harm that it causes me, forces me to disclose to you that I am gay."
Neither is silence enough. Testifying before Congress in 1993, General Colin Powell vowed that "we will not witch hunt. We will not chase. We will not seek to learn orientation." The witch hunts Powell referred to were hardly events in the misty past. Wholesale gay purges of the last decades included the 1980 investigation of women onboard the USS Norton Sound, which resulted in the discharge of eight women sailors; the army's ouster of eight military police officers at West Point in 1986; the 1988 investigation of 30 women, including every African American woman, onboard the destroyer-tender USS Yellowstone (eight were discharged); the 1988 investigation of five of the 13 female crew members onboard the USS Grapple; and the two-year investigation, beginning in 1986, of the Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, where 246 women were questioned, at least 27 women were discharged, and three were sent to jail.
It was into this atmosphere of paranoia and intolerance that Bill Clinton delivered gay service members, armored with the flimsy rhetoric of a policy whose cornerstone is the imperative to lie. "The way it works is, if you don't constantly affirm heterosexuality, homosexuality is implicit," explains Mark Navin, who resigned from the naval ROTC last year out of concern not only for his career but for his life. "Never mind being 'out.' Just not acting completely straight was not an option. I was 'passing.' It was an act I perfected. But I was living in fear."
The 21-year-old Navin, son of a career naval officer, enlisted in the ROTC while an undergraduate at Cornell, in part because a $100,000 scholarship package was "pretty appealing," but also because "my father was a great gentleman and a great citizen and I thought serving my country was something I really wanted to do."
From the first weeks of basic training, however, Navin found himself "under constant suspicion. I was constantly being asked and constantly lying. There is tacit agreement that all fags are bad. You hid yourself if you did not want to be mocked."
On a 1997 weekend trip with six other midshipmen to the military shooting range at Quantico, Virginia, Navin was publicly "accused" of being in a relationship with another midshipman. He was "called a fag and a homo." Navin continued his studies and remained in the ROTC, hoping his situation would improve when he reached the equivalent of junior officer status. Last year, before shipping out on a final training cruise, he came to the conclusion that his dreams of naval service were an impossibility. "I had thought maybe it was not going to be as bad among officers as among enlisted men," he explains. "No one ever threatened to kill me. But I know enough about things that have happened, guys saying, 'In port, we went and beat up some fags.' Stuff like that is tolerated at all command levels."
Recognizing the increased incidence of harassment under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered new antiharassment guidelines drawn up in April 1998; the guidelines built on an earlier memorandum drafted by Undersecretary of Defense Edwin Dorn. But the Pentagon has yet to distribute the Dorn memo to service chiefs, the SLDN claims. "They're accomplishing through harassment what the policy can't," Benecke says.
Overall discharges of gay service members have increased by 86 percent since the imposition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Most, the Pentagon claims, involve service members who "voluntarily" state their sexual orientation. "There is no question that telling the military you are gay is the quickest way of getting an honorable discharge," says Charles Moskos, the military sociologist at Northwestern University who helped draft the policy. "And we know for a fact that there are false accusations of harassment."
Yet, as Benecke insists, "Pentagon officials have been less than forthcoming" in telling the American public that they define any disclosure of sexual orientation as "voluntary." Among the "voluntary" admissions that have resulted in discharge against gay service members are statements to psychotherapists, in personal journals, in response to direct questioning, in anonymous online profiles, to military clergy, and those "coerced out of service members due to fear, intimidation, assaults, death threats and threats of criminal prosecution." According to Pentagon Guidelines on Homosexual Conduct in the Armed Forces, "The listing by a service member of someone of the same gender as the person to be contacted in the case of an emergency, as an insurance beneficiary, or in a similar context, does not provide a basis for separation or further investigation." But designating a same-sex beneficiary, says one ex-navy officer, is equivalent to signing a confession. "Very few service members 'outed' by the military in these circumstances," asserts the SLDN report, "experience being forced out of the closet as voluntary."
Many who have served under the Clinton policy now find they "have had to leave the armed forces," says Benecke. "Harassment was not unheard of before, but it was not, in most units, a daily or hourly event. Now it's the norm. It's gotten bad, too, for people who support the rights of gay members to serve. They're seen as sympathizers. They can be investigated, too."
On Christmas Eve of 1998, Tom Reed an army officer who asked that his real name be withheld was conducting barracks check when two soldiers assaulted him. "My job that night," he explains, "was to maintain the security of the batallion, to babysit basically. I checked doors, looked for minors in the barracks, for alcohol. Being it was Christmas night, I stuck around longer than usual. And these guys were talking about this person is gay, that person is gay, baiting me into saying that I knew whoever. They thought I was gay, although I have never given any indication that I was." As Reed was getting ready to leave, one of the soldiers jumped up and attacked him. Although the two soldiers were later discharged on a variety of counts (not all related to the assault), their allegation that the incident began when Reed made a homosexual pass led the army to investigate him. Reed now faces not only discharge but possible criminal charges himself. "Five months later, there's still an investigation on me," he says, from his new posting. "They said I had been drinking. But I have years in recovery and I don't drink. I had to do staff duty again right after the incident and walk through barracks at night. I'm 28 and few things make me afraid. But that made me afraid. There's a lot of young ignorant kids out there who know nothing of life. You put a couple of drinks in them and they could do you some serious harm."
According to the Navy's General Medical Officer Manual, "one way of looking at homosexuals in the military is to distinguish between those who adapt to the military environment and those who do not. The adapters are invisible and do not seek to disclose their homosexuality." But fewer are finding it possible to remain invisible in an atmosphere of taunting and harassment, of threats arising on all sides, and of the dissembling that is its own form of death.
Brandon Dubroc filed for discharge from the navy on the eve of a six-month deployment. Dubroc originally enlisted because he "honestly enjoyed the discipline, the strict core structure, the fact that everything in the military is black or white." He also relished the "opportunity to serve my country. I'm patriotic, believe it or not." Dubroc says of himself that he "doesn't fit the stereotype of gay." He was never publicly identified as such in the service. Yet he found it increasingly difficult to "exist in this atmosphere of ridicule and hiding and constant discrimination," as shipmates joked openly and repeatedly that " 'nobody'd better be queer, because in the navy we kill our fags.' " Dubroc made a decision to seek discharge in 1998, "when I heard some guys talking and saying, 'If we find one on the ship, we'll throw him overboard.' I realized then that I couldn't go to my command and say, 'Look, this is what has been said,' because then it's me they'd investigate." Not wanting to choose "between silence and being murdered by my shipmates," Dubroc concluded that the only recourse was to sacrifice his career by committing an act whose probity has greater moral dimension than the man in the White House can ever hope to achieve. He came out.
Research assistance: Lou Bardel
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Public entrance to show & sale: 11:00am
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African Violets are one of America’s most popular houseplants. Under the right growing conditions, they are able to bloom almost continuously. They are available in many colors and growth-habits. Knowledgeable society members will be on hand to answer your questions. Culture Class held in Classroom B at 10:30 am. Plants and potting mix will be available to purchase. Sponsored by the South Coast African Violet Society. | <urn:uuid:c0a586e1-fca1-4e02-bf07-e545c4241f12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://southcoastbotanicgarden.org/event/south-coast-african-violet-show-sale | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957725 | 127 | 1.507813 | 2 |
With the average size of an industrial facility exceeding 200,000 square feet, and often with several tenants spanning the space, these buildings have the potential to bring challenges of great scale to the companies that own them.
Roofs are often thought of as the problem hotspot, but as uncovered here, the list of challenges presented by industrial facilities ranges – especially considering the increased demand for energy efficiency. If you own or manage an industrial facility, you must take these things into consideration (as well as the dwindling economy), and come up with creative solutions to the challenges these facilities offer. Check out what some of your peers are doing …
Embracing Energy-Efficient Lighting
"Energy and operational efficiency are incredibly important, especially as everyone is trying to be cost conscious and making sure that a facility is competitive in terms of occupancy," says Joel Pizzuti, president and COO of The Pizzuti Companies. "Trying to determine ways to cut energy costs and looking at different ways to become LEED certified or operate as a sustainable building are important, too."
Tenants are looking not only at lease rates, but also at operating expenses, he explains. "It’s important for owners and property managers to make sure the operating expenses are as controlled as possible. People are scouring their budgets to look at ways to save money; in doing that, it’s important to make sure we still maintain a really high level of service for tenants."
While it may be an extra upfront expense for you, one way to cut operating expenses is to employ alternative energy solutions. The Pizzuti Companies did this by installing prismatic skylights when it built a new facility in Chicago (see photo on page 50). "We put in a series of prismatic skylights that act as a way to light the building using natural light and not as many high-bay lighting fixtures," says Pizzuti. "This is resulting in a 20-cent decrease per square foot to run the building over the span of a year. On a clear day, we can get 45 to 50 footcandles of natural light inside the warehouse."
Adding skylights are an upfront cost, "but we felt like, long term, it would add a lot of value to the building, cut down on the expenses for our tenants, and make us more competitive when we’re trying to lease the facility," says Pizzuti. Happy tenants and easier leasing down the line make a nominal upfront cost more than worth it.
If natural lighting isn’t an option, the use of energy-efficient lighting is another way to cut operating costs. Think about installing a T5 or T8 system with occupancy sensors. "If somebody is moving within an aisle of racking, that aisle will light up. As they leave, the warehouse lights won’t stay on in areas where nobody is working," says Lance Ryan, vice president of marketing and leasing for Watson Land Company. "Over time, there’s a huge savings in terms of utilities, and [we’re seeing] up to a 50-percent reduction in utility costs with energy-efficient lighting. In addition, you’re also lowering ongoing maintenance because you’re not using warehouse lights as frequently, so your energy-efficient lighting doesn’t require a change-out as frequently."
Donning Drought-Resistant Landscaping
Ford Land Company takes a different tactic. "We assessed our lawns and classified them as A, B, and C lawns," says Joe Black, corporate properties manager at Ford Land. "When you’re driving by my plant, you see an A lawn, so we take better care of an A lawn before a C lawn. In addition, like at our world headquarters, we’ve taken out what used to be turf grass and put in sunflower fields. Now we’re not running a lawnmower over it every week."
Watson Land Company takes a similar course of action by planting drought-tolerant plants. "In terms of sustainable development, there’s a desire to hold or retain water onsite and not tax the sewer system," says Ryan. Watson Land Company frequently uses bioswales in front of its buildings to collect water and act as a natural filter. "We use a lot less water, and probably have more than a 50-percent reduction in irrigation costs. You’ve got a huge savings in terms of water, and you have less infrastructure in the ground to maintain over time."
Drought-tolerant landscaping doesn’t have to mean cacti and rocks and a dry, hard surface that lacks color. "What we’ve found is that, with the right design, there are plenty of drought-tolerant plants that bring color into the project," Ryan explains. Watson Land Company has had success in finding great drought-tolerant replacements for what it used to have (turf grass). "Drought-tolerant plants have a different growth cycle, so you’re not pulling plants out and replacing them frequently, and you don’t have the same rigorous trimming that you might have with other plants. So, over time, it saves in terms of ongoing maintenance, and it saves in terms of water usage."
Weathering the Stormy Economy
"The No. 1 operational issue for us is making sure that tenants are capable and able to fulfill their lease obligations," says Greg Grainger, head of industrial property management at Jones Lang LaSalle.
Working closely with tenants can help you spot troubles before they become significant to your business. "We have to maintain a very strong relationship with our tenants," says Grainger. "Part of recognizing a tenant in trouble – before rent stops coming in – is visiting the facility." If you see that inventory levels are reduced or shifts are being eliminated, that’s a red flag. "The more interaction that you have, the more ability you’ll have to see what’s happening with the tenant’s operation," says Grainger.
While some tenants may look for rent reduction, other tenants may be looking at you to help them reduce operating costs or meet their goals. "There are some things a landlord or representatives for the landlord can do to help them weather a downturn and a turnaround, and have a positive impact on the property later on," says Grainger.
For example, at one of Jones Lang LaSalle’s industrial properties, Grainger recently talked to one of his tenants about a possible relamping opportunity. It would save money, and has a one-year payback. "In essence, the money they spend to do the improvement would have a savings within that budgetary year. There are opportunities to do that, and tenants are looking for landlord expertise," says Grainger.
Like the Boy Scouts: Be Prepared!
To keep challenges from even occurring in the first place, be one step ahead of your maintenance or operations challenges. Regular inspections, preparation, and team experience are all key to keeping potential problems at bay.
According to Chuck Sullivan, head of global operations at ProLogis, preparation is the No. 1 way to address maintenance challenges (having experienced teams closely follows). An example of preparation and experienced teams preventing potential maintenance and operations challenges happened this past winter for ProLogis after the Northeast received a record-setting amount of snow. "We understood the snow loads [of buildings], and most of them are built to withstand some pretty heavy snow, but even the best roofs can be challenged. Our property managers are very well prepared and well trained, and they understood what to do. In this instance, they were extremely busy with engineers, inspecting those loads. The key to being prepared is knowing your buildings, knowing your product, and knowing what could happen and how to prepare."
Sullivan emphasizes that there is no substitute for having an experienced team when it comes to addressing problems in industrial facilities. "We have processes and procedures in place. We train our people with regularity so that the ways we approach challenges is consistent." For ProLogis, a snow event in France and a snow event in New Jersey are met with the same practices, which makes reacting that much easier.
Forgoing routine inspections may appear to be a way to reduce costs, but they do so only short term. These inspections help catch potential problems before they blossom into larger problems, and while they’re still cost effective to fix.
As an example, Black talks about roofing. "If you have a roof leak, it starts out with a problem with the membrane. If you fix that quickly, you contain costs. If you don’t, it saturates the insulation; then you have another problem, and you lose energy. If you don’t fix it when you have a problem with the membrane and insulation, then the deck deteriorates. So when you get around to the repairs, it’s very expensive compared to just fixing a membrane." Finding the tear in the roof membrane during a regular inspection is more cost effective than waiting to fix subsequent problems.
"Everyone is trying to make sure that they’re not spending money unnecessarily," says Pizzuti. "Making sure budgets are in line with the market demands of the tenants, but balancing that with providing an A-plus facility for clients, is a challenge. While tenants and landlords want buildings to be more efficient and cost less to operate, you have to make certain you’re not sacrificing any level of quality."
Kylie Wroblaski ([email protected]) is associate editor for BUILDINGS magazine. | <urn:uuid:0f3b8658-c44e-4587-b6c0-26980f951efc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/9808/title/thinking-outside-the-industrial-facility-box.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959799 | 1,998 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Bay State beaches close due to increased bacteria
LYNN, Mass. (WHDH) -- Beaches across the Bay State have reopened after they were closed due to increased bacteria in the water.
According to the Globe, beaches in Quincy, New Bedford, Eastham, Wellfleet and Nantucket were closed Thursday due to the elevated levels of bacteria.
Nantucket had 10 beach closures.
Some of the beaches were allowed to reopen Thursday evening.
The exact cause of the increase in bacteria is not known but officials believe heavy rain may have been a factor.
Affected beaches will reopen to swimmers once the levels in the water are back to appropriate levels. State officials test all of the beaches that are open to public swimming once a week for bacteria levels. | <urn:uuid:012ca99f-aeea-49e1-a25a-64aa8c53add9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/local/boston/12008168192333/bay-state-beaches-close-due-to-increased-bacteria/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981664 | 160 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Utah’s business landscape is rich with professionals who have le...Read More
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Travel & Tourism
On Wednesday, the Sandy Area Chamber of Commerce hosted an open house to introduce chamber members to its new business resource center. While the chamber has long offered education and other services, it now has space dedicated to providing resources to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
“There are so many great resources available to the business community. We wanted to collaborate with some of them so our members—small business owners, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs—would become aware that these resources are available, and many of them are free,” said Jevine Lane, director of programs and the business center at the chamber.
The Sandy Chamber is partnering with Salt Lake Community College’s Miller Business Resource Center and Zions Bank to coordinate seminars and other activities, Lane said. The chamber can also refer entrepreneurs to contacts at Zions Bank for loan advisement.
Other community partners of the resource center include the Department of Workforce Services, Westminster College and Strayer University.
The chamber’s resource center offers free educational materials, along with a computer so members can “use the center as an office away from their office,” said Lane. An online learning center will be launched in January, according to Lane. This will consist of workshops that were held earlier this year and filmed for the chamber’s website.
The workshops cover topics like effective marketing strategies, social media, customer relationships and retention, IT solutions and emergency preparedness. And many additional workshops are planned for the upcoming year, said Lane.
The workshops are free for members; non-members are welcome to attend for a fee, usually $20.
The Sandy Chamber decided to launch a business resource center to help its members grow and successfully run their businesses, said Lane. “It was our job, and an important resource for our members.”
A key element of the resource center is the networking opportunities it provides. Lane estimates that at least 75 percent of the center’s activities involve a networking element. “Networking is a very effective, inexpensive way for small businesses to grow,” she said.
Networking and volunteer work are what brought Lane to the chamber originally. “I started out as a member of the chamber, as a business owner,” she said. She quickly became involved in chamber committees and mentoring other business owners. Lane joined Sandy Chamber staff in 2006.
“I do a lot of mentorship with our members,” she said. “I love business. I understand the heart of the entrepreneur.”
For more information, visit http://sandychamber.com. | <urn:uuid:3b269233-365f-4793-8d78-a63473c819f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://utahbusiness.com/articles/view/sandy_chamber_gives_members_a_peek_at_its_new_brc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949804 | 603 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Arts, sciences and humanities build healthier, more livable, vital communities. They are essential to a strong education system. They contribute enormously to our economy.
She sat on the throne of Peter The Great and ruled the largest empire on earth. Her signature, inscribed on a decree could mean life or death for any of her twenty million subjects. She was intelligent, well read and a shrewd judge of character. As rare as it was for a woman to behold such power she did so with rationality and practical efficiency. Tune in this Sunday evening when Al is joined by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Robert Massie. His new book "Catherine The Great" is a true portrait of a woman destined for greatness. | <urn:uuid:609c60a4-79aa-4503-b0a5-afd6de709b3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wicn.org/podcasts/audio/robert-massie | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971118 | 144 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Plenty has already been written about the way Cuban music came home to Africa in the first part of the 20th Century, spreading via records, radio and actual musicians to find new musical synergies. Afro Latin: Via Kinshasa is a two-disc anthology documenting mostly the golden decade of the 1960s, when the Congo blend that was called rumba, with its horns and electric guitars, took full flight and became for some time the dominant African pop sound across the continent and beyond.
The tracks here each fall within one of two wide sortings. First, there is the smooth and urbane rumba of African Jazz (and, later, its many spin-offs), with emotive vocalists Kalle and Rochereau (among others), and the electric guitar of Docteur Nico, whose floating, articulate melodies and patterns danced with and around the Congo/Cuban percussion and the pillow-like — but always firm — rhythm guitar of his brother Dechaud.
Then there is the style of the rival outfit, OK Jazz, led by the great Franco, tending toward a faster, rougher, more rootsy feel during this era — the leader’s guitar pushing at the beat with a more insistent and stabbing sort of excitement.
While these two approaches became revered blueprints, it is interesting to hear what happened as times changed and bands splintered and reformed. (All this is dizzyingly documented in the liner notes.) After the splinter of African Jazz, and later African Fiesta, Nico’s Fiesta Sukisa journeyed, paradoxically perhaps, deeper into both Cuban sounds and Congolese folkloric guitar styles. Kalle, after nearly a decade, kept his smoothness while going almost all the way into Latin music with his African Team, featuring Cuban Don Gonzalo’s charanga-style flute.
The OK Jazz approach might well have, as the decade changed, bridged a gap, had Franco’s little brother Bavon Marie Marie — a brilliant, wide-ranging guitarist and charismatic performer with Negro Succes — not died so young. (As it turned out, a new energy was to come along in the ‘70s, with the arrival of the fierce and hypnotic youth bands.)
But the beauty, grace, and power of the classic era still pulses, rocks and shimmers, and is well captured in the sides gathered on Via Kinshasa. | <urn:uuid:cdb04bcd-cb3b-40be-bd15-d088b8787372> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/6482 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964337 | 504 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Who We Are
What is Eagle’s Wings Co-op?
We are a co-operative of Christian homeschool families, in South Eastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island creating academic and enrichment classes for our own children by pooling our teaching strengths and abilities. As an extension of our families’ homeschools, we help one another meet our educational goals in a wholesome environment that fosters godly character and encourages both children and parents to excellence.
What is the Vision or Mission Statement for Eagle’s Wings Co-op?
We pool our resources, expertise and children for group activities that are difficult for our families to do on their own.
Where and when does the co-op meet?
We meet together for classes on Fridays at the Rehoboth Baptist Church on Route 118 in Rehoboth, MA. Semesters usually run 10 weeks in Fall, 6 weeks in Spring, with specific dates determined at an organizational meeting prior to that semester.
Are there any fees?
There is a $10 per family fee per semester (that’s just $1 per week), due on or before the first class of each semester. This covers incidental expenses for the classes, as well as a small “thank you” donation to the church for use of their facility. Particular classes may require an additional materials or book fee.
Who can participate?
A currently participating family recommends an interested new family (with at least one child age six or older) to the co-op. The new family must agree with the vision and mission of the co-op, visit during a Friday meeting to see what we are like in person, attend a planning meeting, and be willing to volunteer as outlined below. A new family will be accepted on a space-available basis for the next semester.
What kinds of classes are offered?
We try to accommodate the needs of the whole family. Currently there are classes for:
- Grades 1-8 (ages 6 to 14), usually in multi-age groups
- Nursery for infants and toddlers
There is potential for:
- Supervised study area for children not engaged in a class
- Fellowship or Bible study for parents not assigned to a class
- Academic support group for parents
What are parental responsibilities?
The success of the Eagle’s Wings Co-op depends on all moms (and/or available dads) contributing their time and talents to run the co-op. Remember, we’re called a “cooperative,” meaning we all cooperate together toward our goals.
- We expect all Mothers (and/or available Dads, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Older Siblings), whose children are involved, to be willing to lead/assist in activities, care for little ones, administrate, help set up and clean up.
- Families are expected to arrive promptly each session and leave promptly when all clean up chores are done.
- A Parent (usually Mom) should be in attendance at all co-op sessions.
- Parents should expect to volunteer at least two out of the three hours. (We understand about new babies, debilitating illnesses, jury duty and other odd problems, and will work with you to find acceptable alternative ways to contribute.) The specific chores will be assigned, but you can list which ones you hate first. We will try to work around your preferences, but we don't make any promises to fulfull them.
- Parents without specific assignments should expect to fill in where needed.
The bottom line is, Everyone needs to help. When everyone pulls their own weight (kids included), no one will suffer burnout, and the co-op will be a pleasure and benefit for all of us.
Older Children are welcome to help in classes, carry props and teaching aids, work in the nursery along an adult, and even to teach a class if they give their plans to Christine first. Let's remember the resources that teens can be.
What are the behavior expectations for children?
Kids should use “library voices” in quiet study hall, “conversational voices” in class, and “genteel party behavior” during set up, breaks, clean up and class projects (such as science class). Children are expected to be respectful to adults and their peers at all times.
Parents, please explain behavior and attitude expectations to your kids before they come to Co-op, and to each class before you begin. Don’t hesitate to address any misbehavior you observe during sessions, but refer all discipline matters to the child's parent.
If a child is distraught, naughty or ill, teachers should summon a floor officer who will bring the child to his or her parent. If the parent is teaching, the helper should cover the class and another parent should be brought in to assure that there are always two adults in each classroom.
What if I have a conflict or offense with someone?
Don’t let a personal conflict go unresolved! This allows the enemy to wreak havoc in your relationships and can poison the entire co-op. If you are offended and cannot extend grace in the situation, then you must go to the offender directly—not discussing it with anyone else. If you cannot resolve the situation, then you must involve the leader (Christine). Dealing with it quickly is essential. Our goal is to keep the conflict as small as possible and see the relationships restored as soon as possible.
Eagle's Wings co-op has a board made up of Christine Guest, Colleen Lombardo and Christine Winchell. They will review arrangements made at planning meetings and group meetings, making final tweeks as necessary. We’re always looking for ways to improve, to increase our efficiency and to better meet the needs of our children. Share ideas, as well as difficulties, challenges or problems with Christine, | <urn:uuid:0838555a-47a2-45f3-b40d-8ed604869d42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eagleswingscoop.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950028 | 1,213 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Recently, a lawyer told me that if my company makes a product (in my case an electronic board) like another patented product on the market, but my product adds functionality to the original product, then my product would automatically be a “utility model” and not violate any patents.
But I read online that a utility model is itself a patent. And now I'm a little confused.
What is the real difference between a patent and an utility model?
Can my utility model can be replaced by another utility model?
My jurisdiction is Italy but the patented product may be protected by patents in other countries including US. | <urn:uuid:c37811d2-ad92-43f4-a7ed-ed86f6e9d97a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/2114/what-is-the-real-difference-between-a-patent-and-a-utility-model?answertab=active | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944569 | 128 | 1.585938 | 2 |
I'm not sure why exactly Krugman says, 'disturbing large role' of conspiracy theories (like the Diebold snafu, et al), instead the phrase seems more a tool of dismissal used by the media and their favorite conservatives (Rethugs and Democrats alike) against uncomfortable questions. Krugman, being an actual columnist, and not an internet conspiracy monger/web-zine author, of course makes the point better.
It would be an abuse of the English language to call the claim that the administration misled us into war a conspiracy theory.
Some people say that bizarre conspiracy theories play a disturbingly large role in current American political discourse. And they're right.
For example, many conservative politicians and pundits seem to agree with James Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, who has declared that “man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”
Of more immediate political relevance is the claim that the reason we hear mainly bad news from Iraq is that the media, for political reasons, are conspiring to suppress the good news. As Bill O'Reilly put it a few months ago, “a good part of the American media wants to undermine the Bush administration.”
But these examples, of course, aren't what people are usually referring to when they denounce crazy conspiracy theories. For the last few years, the term “conspiracy theory” has been used primarily to belittle critics of the Bush administration — in particular, anyone suggesting that the Bush administration used 9/11 as an excuse to fight an unrelated war in Iraq.
Now here's the thing: suppose that we didn't have abundant evidence that senior officials in the Bush administration wanted a war, cherry-picked intelligence to make a case for that war, and in some cases suppressed inconvenient evidence contradicting that case. Even so, it would be an abuse of the English language to call the claim that the administration misled us into war a conspiracy theory.
A conspiracy theory, says Wikipedia, “attempts to explain the cause of an event as a secret, and often deceptive, plot by a covert alliance.” Claims that global warming is a hoax and that the liberal media are suppressing the good news from Iraq meet that definition. In each case, to accept the claim you have to believe that people working for many different organizations — scientists at universities and research facilities around the world, reporters for dozens of different news organizations — are secretly coordinating their actions.
But the administration officials who told us that Saddam had an active nuclear program and insinuated that he was responsible for 9/11 weren't part of a covert alliance; they all worked for President Bush. The claim that these officials hyped the case for war isn't a conspiracy theory; it's simply an assertion that people in a position of power abused that position. And that assertion only seems wildly implausible if you take it as axiomatic that Mr. Bush and those around him wouldn't do such a thing.
The truth is that many of the people who throw around terms like “loopy conspiracy theories” are lazy bullies who, as Zachary Roth put it on CJR Daily, The Columbia Journalism Review's Web site, want to “confer instant illegitimacy on any argument with which they disagree.” Instead of facing up to hard questions, they try to suggest that anyone who asks those questions is crazy.
Indeed, right-wing pundits have consistently questioned the sanity of Bush critics; “It looks as if Al Gore has gone off his lithium again,” said Charles Krauthammer, the Washington Post columnist, after Mr. Gore gave a perfectly sensible if hard-hitting speech. Even moderates have tended to dismiss the administration's harsh critics as victims of irrational Bush hatred.
But now those harsh critics have been vindicated. And it turns out that many of the administration supporters can't handle the truth. They won't admit that they built a personality cult around a man who has proved almost pathetically unequal to the job. Nor will they admit that opponents of the Iraq war, whom they called traitors for warning that invading Iraq was a mistake, have been proved right. So they have taken refuge in the belief that a vast conspiracy of America-haters in the media is hiding the good news from the public.
Unlike the crazy conspiracy theories of the left — which do exist, but are supported only by a tiny fringe — the crazy conspiracy theories of the right are supported by important people: powerful politicians, television personalities with large audiences. And we can safely predict that these people will never concede that they were wrong. When the Iraq venture comes to a bad end, they won't blame those who led us into the quagmire; they'll claim that it was all the fault of the liberal media, which stabbed our troops in the back. | <urn:uuid:7a44617b-39ab-455e-b812-516806041ea5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.b12partners.net/mt/archives/2006/05/whos-crazy-now.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966919 | 1,001 | 1.6875 | 2 |
|Blackberry QNX OS|
Surprises are presented Research in Motion (RIM) is making access to approximately 250 thousand Android applications that can run on the latest mobile devices from the BlackBerry. This happened because an innovative partnership forged between the rim with Google.
The initial idea to bring Android to the BlackBerry device pioneered by RIM's current flagship tablet, the BlackBerry Playbook. Android was originally used to support the 'App Player' that gives users access to present a variety of applications through the Android Market.
As quoted by TG Daily, Friday (26/08/2011), the latest version of the BlackBerry mobile operating system called QNX and this is also a total modification of the BlackBerry interface which lasted until the last decade.
QNX is an operating system that gets lots of praise, even with strong multitasking capabilities and intuitive design, making RIM ready to compete with the iPhone and Android phones in various international markets.
But some observers deplore why this new operating system is raised today, although the QNX OS that is refreshing and good for RIM, but RIM is still considered to have failed to compete with its rivals.
The use of prime QNX operating system on the BlackBerry, is expected to succeed in 2012 and this might be the last chance RIM to survive in the face of the current smartphone competition.
The ability to run Android applications on BlackBerry devices, is a major step in increasing sales of the Blackberry in the next year and achieve the goals mentioned above. | <urn:uuid:74eb5f5d-c99a-4f5d-a94f-5e21b01aeb14> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phonetechno.blogspot.jp/2011_08_21_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941435 | 310 | 1.78125 | 2 |
You’ve been asked to speak. You may have an audience of 4 people or one as large as 400. The question you must answer is why? What is the reason someone, some business, or some organization has invited you to speak to a group of people?
Or maybe you have been volunteered to speak: the boss wants you to give a presentation to the board of directors about your past meeting with potential buyers.
Or maybe you have sought the speaking engagement on your own. You have emailed, phoned, or sent a letter to the Rotary Club, asking them to consider you as one of their guest speakers.
What are your credentials? Why should someone hire you to give a presentation or invite you to speak to their club or organization over someone else? What makes you different from the rest? Could you call yourself an expert in your field?
Do you know how many people talk about the same topics over and over and over again? My question to you is what sets you apart from the rest? That should not only be part of your strategy in formulating your speech or presentation but it should also serve as your label.
As a voice specialist, I am The Voice Lady. I market myself as The Voice Lady and I call myself The Voice Lady. When someone gets in touch with me, they know something about me already. I deal with the speaking voice.
Let’s say, for example, that you want to become a motivational speaker. Why should someone hire you over Mark Victor Hansen or Tony Robbins? (Besides the fact that your fee would probably be less expensive at this stage in your career!) What one thing sets you apart from both of these world-renowned speakers? Did you walk across the country and give all the donations to a favorite charity? Did you successfully put your 12 children through college working as a food server? Have you survived a fatal disease and are alive to tell about it 10 years later?
For someone to hire or invite you to speak, you must have accomplished something and that something could be a philosophy, an idea, a feat, a discovery, a project, a new business, or an ability that allows you to stand out from the crowd. I once had a student give an informative presentation on how to make the best chocolate chip cookie. That it was the best chocolate chip cookie was what set her apart from all the others. (Yes, this is subjective, but if you knew the secret ingredient, you would understand why it is the best.)
Perhaps you are a member of Toastmasters; you are scheduled to give an informative presentation at the next meeting; and, you don’t have a topic. Make a list of your interests, your hobbies, and/or your experiences. What one thing do you do well? Don’t limit yourself thinking it is too trivial. One of my students gave an informative on detailing a car which was one of the best and most interesting presentations I’ve ever heard.
Your informative presentation could also be the retelling of an experience that was exhilarating, frightening, eye-opening, rewarding. The list goes on and on. I’ve heard about speeding tickets, weddings, births, divorces, bartending, getting lost, winning a game, LPs, marshal arts, the most important person in the speaker’s life, and everything else you can imagine.
On the other hand, you may be asked to give a persuasive presentation; and, once again, you are stymied for a topic. Do you hold an opinion on a controversial subject that you would like to share with others? Do you agree or disagree with abortion, same-sex marriage, or socialized medicine? Perhaps you have an opinion on the lowering or the raising of the drinking age. If you feel strongly on a particular subject, do your research and then talk about it.
Whether you have been invited to speak, volunteered to speak, or are seeking an invitation to speak, become an expert in your topic and stand out from the crowd.
The Voice Lady Nancy Daniels is a voice specialist and president of Voice Dynamic as well as the SelfGrowth’s Official Guide to Public Speaking. Holding corporate and 2-day workshops throughout the US and Canada, she launched Voicing It! in April of 2006, the only video training course on voice improvement. You can watch clips from her DVD on her website and ‘before’ & ‘after’ takes of her clients as well as download an audio presentation in which Nancy how voice training can improve your life both professionally and personally at: www.voicedynamic.com
Additional Resources covering Public Speaking can be found at: | <urn:uuid:799e109d-ba9e-4b83-bb7d-8fce63865737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/The_WHY_in_Public_Speaking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971174 | 958 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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Free Research Paper on Maya Angelou: Maya Angelou (born Marguerite Ann Johnson; April 4, 1928) is an American author poet, memoirist, novelist, educator, dramatist, producer, actress, historian, and an important figure in the American movement for civil rights. She became … Continue reading | <urn:uuid:863bebe7-fbd3-41d8-bdde-4062253ff787> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://goodexamplepapers.com/tag/maya-angelou-term-paper/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947968 | 190 | 1.710938 | 2 |
There is one thing the great Herb Lubalin and our very own Andreas Brietzke agree on: most design innovation is driven by advances in technology. This is one of the reasons why Andreas is always the first to explore innovative technologies.
For him as a designer, technology provides the tools to tell his story. He likes his toys shiny and new and has little time for technophobes: “Imagine a joiner who is scared of using a saw.” Once he gets his hands onto some new software, no feature will be left uncovered, no programming stone left unturned.
Andreas applies the same inquisitive discipline to any design task. If one can divide the world roughly into skaters and diggers, Andreas is most definitely a digger, drilling down into the depths of a design problem until he finds a solution that is satisfying his exacting standards.
Photograph Deniz Saylan | <urn:uuid:62bc2ecd-a964-41e1-9c83-c5ef370441d2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manss.com/en/andreas-brietzke | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958498 | 185 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Put 2 sprigs of fresh tarragon and a sprig of parsley into the cavity of the bird along with butter, salt and pepper. Truss the bird and then slip a few tarragon leaves under the skin of the breast, working down from the neck and being careful not to puncture the skin as you separate it from the flesh. Brush the bird with seasoned melted butter in which you have steeped a few tarragon leaves. Roast according to directions for spitted roast chicken , basting with more tarragon butter during the cooking.
Serve with tarragon butter and potatoes that have been wrapped in foil and roasted in the coals. A bowl of fresh raw vegetables is an excellent accompaniment.add your own note | <urn:uuid:76251ba9-03a7-4e7a-a4ad-8ef617bb5b40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chicken-Tarragon-101732 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951481 | 155 | 1.507813 | 2 |
DENVER (AP) -- Colorado is trying to regulate an energy boom that is coming closer and closer to suburban homes and schools.
State regulators earlier this month passed new regulations requiring that rigs stay at least 500 feet back from occupied buildings.
Colorado and other states are trying to figure out how to protect residents' health and desire for quiet in their neighborhoods without stifling a surge in energy exploration that may allow the United States to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world's top energy producer.
The reaction to Colorado's new rules shows how hard that will be. Environmentalists complain there are too many loopholes. Industry officials say they're too burdensome. | <urn:uuid:421cf63c-26fc-4d9e-b91e-4e56abd9e8ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://daily-jeff.com/ap%20state/2013/02/27/as-energy-boom-nears-cities-a-backlash-grows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947846 | 130 | 1.679688 | 2 |
China Is Now World’s Second-Largest Economy, Should Soon Overtake U.S. for Top Spot
China’s chief currency regulator, Yi Gang, revealed today that China has overtaken Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, and is now dwarfed only by the United States. However, projections from banks and economists suggest that China will trump the U.S. by 2025. Reuters reports: “China’s economy expanded 11.1 percent in the first half of 2010, from a year earlier, and is likely to log growth of more than 9 percent for the whole year, according to Yi. China has averaged more than 9.5 percent growth annually since it embarked on market reforms in 1978.” It’s a rate that the Chinese official claims is “unprecedented in human history.”The United States will still be victorious in other areas, namely, per-capita income (our $21,000 handily beats their $3,800) and friendliness toward Google. Alas, China’s military is still the world’s largest, their population is still the greatest, and the Beijing Olympics’ opening ceremony was still history’s most entertaining. And the International Energy Agency announced last week that China now consumes more energy that the U.S., which is an honor we should be happy to relinquish. In this scenario, we win by losing! | <urn:uuid:e486c906-f3d6-4a91-bbd0-5808e540e240> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2010/07/china-is-now-worlds-second-largest-economy-should-soon-overtake-us-for-top-spot | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949597 | 299 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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Could this Poole businessman have the cure for addictive behaviour?
9:07am Monday 17th September 2012 in Latest
THE experience of seeing his chain-smoking father die of cancer has inspired a businessman to invent a device for dealing with compulsive behaviours.
Grant Penfield of Poole is marketing the Moderator – a double-ring made of silicone which slips over two fingers and forces the wearer to think twice before pursuing their habit.
The idea came to him when he was playing with a dress ring which he inherited from |his father, who died aged 48 when Grant was only 25.
“It came to me spontaneously when playing with the ring and thinking about smoking,” said Grant.
He noticed that when he reached for a drink, the ring would clink against the glass and remind him how often he was picking up the glass.
The experience prompted him to devise a ring which would link the index and middle fingers – so the wearer would have to consciously take it off before smoking.
“My father smoked 60 cigarettes a day and drank,” said Grant.
“I got to thinking if he’d had The Moderator he could have at least cut down. If he’d smoked 20 a day, he might still be alive.”
Rather than launch the product untested, he spent £10,000 on research. The survey was conducted with 100 smokers aged 18-49, who were all looking to cut down. It showed 94 per cent were reminded by the Moderator that they were trying to cut down and 83 per cent smoked fewer cigarettes while wearing the device. And among his own circle, Grant says the Moderator has helped people cut down on snacking, scratching and even compulsive texting.
Grant, 56, moved to Poole from Nottingham in 1994 and is group managing director of the printing ink company Druckfarben in Stanley Green road.
He developed the Moderator with the help of Innovate Design in Salisbury.
It is produced by Superior of Ferndown, which makes seals for jet engines. Grant says he could have produced it more cheaply abroad but wanted to support British jobs and to have control of the texture and colours.
The Moderator sells on his website for £6.99, the price of a packet of cigarettes.
He hopes it could be taken up for a retailer – or even one day find its way into the NHS’s stop-smoking kits. | <urn:uuid:c9cb6ff1-cbd3-49d0-882f-5b5a0785c4cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thisisdorset.net/news/tidnews/9932475.Could_this_Poole_businessman_have_the_cure_for_addictive_behaviour_/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98302 | 530 | 1.585938 | 2 |
To examine the relations of cardiorespiratory fitness, as measured by maximal oxygen uptake and exercise test duration at the initiation of the study, with overall, cardiovascular disease (CVD)–related, and non–CVD-related mortality.
A population-based cohort study of 1294 men with no CVD, pulmonary disease, or cancer at baseline in Kuopio and surrounding communities in eastern Finland. During an average follow-up of 10.7 years, there were 124 overall, 42 CVD-related, and 82 non–CVD-related deaths.
The relative risk of overall death in unfit men (maximal oxygen uptake <27.6 mL/kg per minute) was 2.76 (95% confidence interval, 1.43-5.33) (P = .002), and the relative risk of CVD-related death was 3.09 (95% confidence interval, 1.10-9.56) (P = .05), compared with fit men (maximal oxygen uptake >37.1 mL/kg per minute) after adjusting for age, examination years, smoking, and alcohol consumption. The relative risk of non–CVD-related death in unfit men was almost the same magnitude as for overall death. Furthermore, adjustment for serum lipid levels, blood pressure, plasma fibrinogen level, diabetes, and fasting serum insulin level did not weaken these associations significantly. Exercise test duration also had a strong inverse relation to overall, CVD-related, and non–CVD-related mortality. Poor cardiorespiratory fitness was comparable with elevated systolic blood pressure, smoking, obesity, and diabetes in importance as a risk factor for mortality.
Cardiorespiratory fitness had a strong, graded, inverse association with overall, CVD-related, and non–CVD-related mortality. Maximal oxygen uptake and exercise test duration represent the strongest predictors of mortality. | <urn:uuid:c5a7b6f0-2bf7-4725-b11a-afa6cbf8130b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=647696 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947158 | 395 | 1.757813 | 2 |
First black woman MP Diane Abbott has entered the Labour leadership race
Backbench MP Diane Abbott has joined the race for the Labour leadership.
The Londoner told the BBC her bid was "serious", saying there was little between the other candidates, who "all look the same".
The 57-year-old Cambridge graduate, who became the UK's first black woman MP in 1987, said she was getting support from female and left-leaning colleagues.
She is the sixth person to enter the race after David and Ed Miliband, John McDonnell, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham.
Contenders have until Thursday 27 May to gather the backing of 33 Labour MPs - a timetable some have said is too tight, particularly for less high-profile candidates.
'If not me, who?'
Ms Abbott, the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP, who in recent years has been a fixture on the BBC's This Week programme, said: "So many people have asked me to stand.
"The other candidates are all nice and would make good leaders of the Labour Party but they all look the same... We cannot be offering a slate of candidates who all look the same. The Labour Party's much more diverse than that."
She added: "I looked at the field and said 'If not now, when?' And 'If not me, who?'"
Ms Abbott said: "It's important that we recapture the civil liberties agenda from the Tories and the Lib Dems.
"It's important that we re-energise the party and bring democracy back to the party.
"We need a proper debate on immigration, where children of immigrants like me also have a voice."
Ms Abbott said she wanted a "proper debate" on tackling the budget deficit and whether this should be achieved by raising taxes or cutting spending.
At the general election, she increased her constituency majority to 14,461, with a swing to Labour from the Liberal Democrats.
Former Health Secretary Andy Burnham, 40, announced his intention to stand for leader and "rebuild the party for new times" in an article for Thursday's Daily Mirror newspaper.
Born in London in 1953
Daughter of Jamaican welder and a nurse
Became Britain's first black woman MP in 1987
Previously worked at Home Office and Thames TV
Regular panellist on BBC One's political show This Week
He said the party owed a "debt of thanks" to former prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair but said he would end "stage-managed" politics.
On Wednesday Ed Balls launched his campaign, saying he wanted to "listen first, hear what the public say".
The close ally of Mr Brown said the contest was not about "Blair versus Brown" or "old Labour versus new Labour".
Left-wing MP John McDonnell said he wants to stand but the timetable makes it "almost impossible" and argues the process has been "stitched up from the start".
Ed Miliband has also said it should be longer. On his Twitter page, he wrote: "MPs/members annoyed about short nominations timetable: I have to say I agree. Need broadest possible choice & time for MPs to decide&consult".
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so. | <urn:uuid:af3a1c34-9220-4cff-b20f-f6c7345943cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8693687.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96314 | 732 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Narrator: On tax day, did you ask yourself, how exactly does President Obama spend your tax dollars? Billions in handouts to green energy companies like Solyndra, which went bankrupt, sent jobs overseas or were risky from the start. Now, we learn that a federal agency spent nearly a million dollars on their lavish Vegas conference, complete with clowns and mindreaders. Criminal charges are now expected. And, in an ironic twist, the head of the agency couldn't make it to Vegas because she had meetings planned at Solyndra, a different sort of gamble. The agency's employees also flew to Hawaii for an entire week on the taxpayer's dime to attend an hour-long ribbon-cutting ceremony. What do those in charge have to say?
Video of Jeff Neely: On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my Fifth Amendment constitutional privilege.
Narrator: And the president? He might say...
Video of Obama: This is a pretty big government.
Narrator: It is a big government, but shouldn't someone be in charge?
Originally published April 26, 2012
A TV ad by a conservative group gives some factually challenged answers to its own rhetorical question, “How exactly does President Obama spend your tax dollars?”
•It wrongly claims that the boss of the General Services Administration “couldn’t make it to Vegas because she had meetings planned … at Solyndra.” That’s not true. The claim linking the two scandals is based on an inaccurate April 10 report that was quickly corrected — nearly two weeks before the ad first aired.
•The ad incorrectly characterizes federal loan guarantees to clean-energy firms as “handouts.” In fact, the low-interest loans are supposed to be repaid and only 2% have gone bad.
•It displays the flag of China while stating that $2.3 billion in clean-energy stimulus money went for “jobs overseas.” But Chinese firms got a small fraction of that, and it’s not known how many jobs were created in China or any other foreign country. Companies in Spain, Germany, Portugal, Australia, Japan, Italy, France and the United Kingdom received nearly all of that money, and some foreign-based companies have manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
The American Future Fund, a conservative group started by Republican activists in Iowa, announced on April 24 that it would spend $2 million on a TV ad called “On the Hook.”
It opens with a couple working on their taxes and asks the question, “How exactly does President Obama spend your tax dollars?” The answer, of course, is on big-ticket items like Social Security ($735 billion), defense ($700 billion), Medicare ($480 billion) and Medicaid ($480 billion) — which combined accounted for nearly $2.2 trillion of the $3.6 trillion budget in fiscal year 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Instead, though, the ad focuses on a few recent examples of misspent federal money that amount to a minuscule slice of the federal pie.
The ad says the Obama administration gave “billions in handouts to green companies like Solyndra, which went bankrupt.” These are federally guaranteed loans, not free “handouts” — although in Solyndra’s case the company did file for bankruptcy and taxpayers are on the hook for most of the $535 million it borrowed.
There are two loan guarantee programs: section 1703, which was created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and section 1705, which was created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The Energy Department has committed $34.7 billion to nearly 40 projects under the low-interest loan programs, according to information published on its website. Two of them — Solyndra ($535 million) and Beacon Power Co. ($43 million) — have filed for bankruptcy, according to a March 12 report by the Government Accountability Office. That’s a total of $578 million, or less than 2 percent of the total program. (EnerDel, a maker of electric-car batteries, filed for bankruptcy in February after receiving $55 million of a $118.5 million grant under a separate federal grant program.)
The ad also says the “billions in handouts” went for “jobs overseas.” But the image on the screen is misleading. The ad shows a picture of the Chinese flag and the words “$2.3 billion to jobs in foreign countries.” The statement is largely true, but Chinese companies got little of that $2.3 billion, as we reported when this issue first came up in the 2010 elections.
The ad cites a Sept. 9, 2010, story in the Washington Times, which reported that “as much as 80 percent of some green programs, including $2.3 billion of manufacturing tax credits, went to foreign firms that employed workers primarily in countries including China, South Korea and Spain, rather than in the United States.” That story referenced the reporting of Russ Choma, an investigative reporter then working at American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop, who wrote that companies based overseas were receiving stimulus money to build wind farms in the U.S. On Sept. 27, 2010, Choma wrote that about $2.38 billion in stimulus money went to foreign developers — but he told us at the time that only $2.6 million went to firms in China. He could not say how many jobs were created in China or any other foreign country.
Choma, Sept. 27, 2010: Some of those foreign-owned turbine manufacturers have factories in the United States and some American-owned turbine manufacturers have factories overseas. We simply don’t know where all of the parts were made. We found several specific examples of major wind farms where we know none of the parts were made in the United States.
But … it should be noted there were no farms that we could find that used turbines entirely built in China, so we can’t say for sure how much of this stimulus money went to create jobs in China. Some money definitely did, but it is safe to say more money went to creating jobs in the U.S. and Europe.
Choma, who now works at the Center for Responsive Politics, told us in an email that he had not updated his figures since September 2010. “They’ve given out a lot more money since then — and I’m sure much of the money, that went to at least the wind companies, continued to go to foreign-owned ones, because that’s who dominates the market.” Regardless, the ad misuses the 2010 figure of $2.3 billion.
The ad accurately portrays the wasteful spending at GSA, which burned more than $800,000 at a conference it held in Las Vegas that included clowns, a mind reader and bicycle building as a team exercise. There were also trips by GSA officials to exotic locales, including one to Hawaii for a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony that prompted the agency’s inspector general to say: “I can’t see how anyone can condone that.”
But the ad strains the facts when seeking to tie together the Solyndra bankruptcy, which likely will cost taxpayers nearly $535 billion, and the GSA scandal. The ad says that “in an ironic twist,” the GSA administrator “couldn’t make it to Vegas because she had meetings planned … at Solyndra.” But that was based on an inaccurate April 10 report, which was corrected a day later and nearly two weeks before the ad first aired.
Like the inspector general, we don’t condone government misspending. But neither do we condone stretching the truth. This is one of those cases when sticking to the facts would have better served American Future Fund — and its viewers.
Citations and links to original sources available at FactCheck.org. | <urn:uuid:ca9e9cbe-6819-4d56-a168-fb8c9a72cc70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/politics/political-ad-tracker/video/786865/american-future-fund-on-the-hook | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974777 | 1,673 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Help beef up definition of “grass fed”
The USDA is looking for comments on a proposed definition of "grass fed," for an addition to its Process Verified Program (via Growers and Grocers). Believe it or not, right now the agency is considering requiring that 99% of an animal's energy come from "grass or forage" (yay!), up from 80% in the original proposal — which would have allowed cows finished in feedlots on grain to still qualify for the label (boo!)
The organic meat, fish and poultry market experienced the highest growth last year, 55%, of any food category. I know "organic" and "grass fed" often don't refer to the same meat, but I'm sure Big Beef has an army of lobbyists working on watering down the USDA's definition.
So find a stamp: The Sustainable Agriculture Coalition has a downloadable PDF with more information and a letter you can mail to the USDA, reiterating how important it is for the 99% requirement stay in so that the "grass fed" label will mean something.
No related posts. | <urn:uuid:86547bd3-45ac-4d10-bc97-78e40da98bd7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ethicurean.com/2006/07/10/grassfed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958706 | 226 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been shown a new avenue of attack in its patent war with Samsung. According to a report published in the Guardian on Wednesday, the European Commission is considering imposing heavy fines on Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930) to punish the company for the way in which it carried out its patent attacks on Apple.
According to the Guardian, Samsung could face billions in fines because it attempted to use its patents on 3G to get Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) products banned in European countries. The case rests on the usage of so called “standard essential patents”.
Standard Essential Patents, or SEPs, are patents that must be implemented in a technology in order for it to meet technical standards set out by regulatory bodies. Because of the necessity of their use, holders of these patents are often compelled to license them at a reasonable price, even if those licenses are to its own competitors.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) holds patents that are technically necessary for the use of 3G receivers in mobile devices, these patents are considered Standard Essential Patents. Samsung’s use of them to get Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) products banned in European countries. Samsung announced on the 18th December that they were going to halt their campaign to get those products banned.
The cessation of those activities was likely in advance of this news from the European Commission. The original announcement that this matter was of interest to the Commission came on the 21st, but it is likely that European officials warned the parties involved in advance of making the investigation public.
If the Commission decides to rule against Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930), it may cost the company billions in fines, and lead to a preliminary declaration of victory by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in the so called patent wars. The highest fines that Samsung can be compelled to pay is 10% of the firm’s worldwide revenue.
Similar cases have been fought in recently in the United States. Motorola was ordered to pay restitution after a court ruled that its use of SEPs amounted to a “hold up”. Samsungs use of its SEPs on 3G are still being investigated in the United States.
So far in the patent wars, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has been carefully avoiding the use of any SEPs against its opponents. Samsung has been less restrained in its use of the standard patents. Their decision to use them is coming full circle.
Despite the announcement that they would no longer use SEPs to get Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) products banned in Europe, Samsung made no such promises about its activities in the rest of the world. The Federal Trade commission is already investigating their use in the United States, but that has not fazed the company.
The patent wars, if they ever end, will probably be remembered as one of the most counterproductive and inevitable periods in the history of consumer technology. The only things that might end the reign of tedium are the creation of a new patent system, or the capitulation of one side in the fight. | <urn:uuid:168f4eb7-f0a4-4fc4-a033-aec1267d14c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.valuewalk.com/2012/12/apple-inc-aapl-hopes-eu-fines-bury-samsung/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9662 | 681 | 1.695313 | 2 |
More than 50 residents of Tegwana parish, Pece division in Gulu Municipality were this afternoon left homeless after fire razed their huts.
The fire that started at around 3:00pm reduced 8 huts to ash.
One of the victims, Monica Awino said the fire was started by a 17-year-old girl who was cooking in one of the huts.
She says that te fire spread rapidly to other huts because of the strong and dry grass that was used to thatch the huts.
She said she tried to save some few properties from the huts but was defeated by the fire that was being reinforced by the strong wind.
However residents of the area mobilized themselves and fought the fire before it spread to other huts.
Most of the owners of the huts were not at home at the time of the incident. | <urn:uuid:26087c91-c35b-461e-970d-335e938a8697> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ugandaradionetwork.com/a/story.php?s=31205 | 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 | 0.990503 | 178 | 1.546875 | 2 |
I was in my local library last week looking for a book called House Histories A Guide to Tracing the Genealogy of Your Home, recommended to me by Marian Pierre-Louis of Fieldstone Historic Research. Marian researches house histories as part of her business so we chatted about that for a bit.
At the library after finding this book I ran past the genealogy section which is sadly, very small. I did find a book I had not seen before, or just didn’t “need” before called Tracing Your Civil War Ancestors by Bertram Hawthorne Groene. It is a thin book with small print and I read almost half of it last night. What a fantastic book for anyone researching their Civil War ancestors!
As I read I should have been taking notes but decided after I read through it once, I’ll go through it again and take notes and see what I missed. There is so much great information!
Bertram outlines where the records are, what they contain, how to get them and a few tips about requesting them. He also talks about artifacts he has located and how he researched the people behind them if a name was engraved on the artifact. Very interesting.
Take a look at this book if you are researching your Civil War ancestor. You will not be disappointed! | <urn:uuid:eda25d04-78c1-4998-abed-aeacca50a55c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://familyhistorytips.wordpress.com/2011/03/30/tracing-your-civil-war-ancestors-book/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=1c9f85538d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975479 | 272 | 1.671875 | 2 |
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Friday, May 24, 2013
Addiction and Substance Abuse
Seroquel Withdrawal Symptoms
I`d like to direct my question to Dr Edna M Jones. I`m taking 450mg Seroquel and my doctor is not sure whether the drug is doing anything beneficial for me or not. ( I was put on the drug by a different doctor). At the moment I`m trying to come off the drug however I`m very scared of withdrawl symptoms.( Withdrawl symptoms seems to be something that occurs when coming off any of these psychiatic drugs). What I`d like to know is how slowly do I need to come off the drug to avoid the withdrawl symptoms???? Would 50 mg a month be slow enough???
Seroquel does not cause what we consider to be "true withdrawal." However, having said that, it can cause some symptoms if removed too quickly, when someone has been on it for too long.
Because of your worry, I would suggest a slow medication reduction of 50 mg per week until off of Seroquel, however, this is really a discussion you should have with your current physician. Hope this helps and good luck!
Edna M Jones, MD, MRO
Clinical Assistant Professor of Family Medicine
College of Medicine
The Ohio State University | <urn:uuid:b58d54e4-bfa4-4c53-bb79-213de841e11e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.netwellness.uc.edu/question.cfm/82982.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967225 | 304 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Iran is getting closer to the nuclear threshold, Brig.-Gen. Itai Bron, head of
the IDF Intelligence research department, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee on Tuesday.
“International pressure and sanctions
concern the Iranian regime and pushed them into talks,” Bron told the
At the same time, the pressure has not brought a change in
Tehran’s nuclear plans. Bron said Iran entered talks while avoiding closing the
nuclear site in Qom and continuing to enrich uranium.
By the end of this
year, Bron explained, there will be enough uranium enriched to 20 percent for
one nuclear site. Once this occurs, Iran will be able to produce a bomb in six
months to a year-and-a-half.
In addition, Iran has 450 missiles capable
of reaching Israel, and will continue to plan terrorist attacks abroad, such as
those in Thailand, India and Georgia, as a response to international
The meeting was the first in which MK Ronnie Bar-On (Kadima)
served as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and he said he
was honored to have the privilege to lead the committee in such a “sensitive
“For a long time now, the region has been under great, historic
upheaval,” Bar-On stated. “What looked like the Arab Spring ended up as the
winter of radical Islam, which is growing stronger in a volatile region.” | <urn:uuid:6cd9a040-498d-40b9-a770-1cb5423a75ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=271072 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938569 | 309 | 1.515625 | 2 |
I found the news today particularly serendipitous because my neighbor stopped by early this morning with a 400 gram Cadbury's Dairy Milk Bar she brought back from London. The bar she brought, if this huge chunk of chocolate (see photo below) could be called that, commemorates the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
According to the Swansea Council staff at the West Glamorgan Archive Service made the discovery of the Coronation Commemorative Tins during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations when opening up a Swansea Corporation file in the Civic Centre that had been undisturbed for nearly 60 years. The file contained two special Coronation celebration tins of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Chocolate.
The navy blue tins are in a good condition. They were accompanied by a compliment slip that said the items were aimed at commemorating the Coronation of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953. "The chocolate looks in good condition and still smells like normal milk chocolate, but I wouldn't personally recommend tasting it after its being in storage for nearly 60 years!"
I think I'll eat the Cadbury's Chocolate that Jeni brought back from London!
Pussycat, Pussycat, where you have been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen. | <urn:uuid:91d634ab-4b8b-4999-91ed-e37de4579954> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dyingforchocolate.blogspot.com/2012/06/royal-chocolate-queens-coronation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966423 | 260 | 1.734375 | 2 |
What makes coffee exceptional?
“Today I want to ask a question. What makes coffee exceptional?” Thus opened Maxwell Colonna Dashwood in his winning presentation to the judges of the UK Barista Championships at the London Coffee Festival this weekend. It’s a good question, and one which takes quite some answering.
Colonna Dashwood answered it on the day with a series of superlative espressos, cappuccinos and his ‘signature drink’ for the competition: a Rwandan espresso served alongside freshly squeezed ruby grapefruit juice and a spice infusion of liquorice root and star anise. The first to “tone [the] acidity down and to highlight the caramel in the coffee - the floral becomes hoppy”, and the second “to bring those tart, sharp, fruity notes back to the cup.” The tasting process is as exacting as every aspect of exceptional coffee: the sourcing, the roasting, the brewing, the serving. The myriad flavour notes mimic the complexities of the relationships between the farmers, producers, importers, roasters and baristas. When we decided we wanted to know more about exceptional coffee, we had no idea the depths we were getting into.
Maxwell Colonna Dashwood presenting to the UK Barista Championship judges
Steve Leighton of Has Bean, a specialty coffee roaster based in Stafford, (and supplier of beans to several barista champions, including the current World Barista champion), outlined that coffee “is the most complex food known to man. It has 1200 flavour components... The nearest comparison is red wine with 450 chemical compounds in the flavour make-up. And then we go and roast it – different chemicals are burning away, others changing – this all adds to the complexity.” This is a blessing and a curse to the coffee industry; on the one hand you have a stunning range of products – but how do you tame the volatile compounds and make them communicable to the public?
Traditionally, this has been done with ‘roasts’ – Italian Roast, French roast - these terms stand for something in our minds, but we’d struggle to pin down how they taste. In the commercial coffee world “your skill is to produce something year round that delivers on a brand promise” Colonna Dashwood explains - consistent is king. “In most commercial blends there are 10 to 12 different coffees , from different farms. And imagine you sit in the cupping room and you get a really interesting coffee – you’d never put it into the blend – because when it goes, the blend would change.” Interesting coffees therefore have little place in the commercial world. But where these guys leave off, the specialty guys get going. Rather than going for consistency of flavour, they sell consistency of quality.
To ensure quality, as a supplier, you need to be on top of your game; roasters check samples from farmers and importers, visit farms and build relationships with the growers. Landing a shipment of beans can take many months; Has Bean’s latest shipment from El Salvador has involved four months of planning, and started with a visit to the farm. But on location is not where the deals are done. Steve “can’t decide at origin” whether or not to buy – “the sun’s out, you’re chatting with the farmers” – quite a different scene to Stafford in January. Instead, samples are sent back to base, where they will be roasted and ‘cupped’ – a simple roast process, ground and filtered for four minutes in hot water. Once approved, the beans are shipped “green, in parchment” and when they get through the door, the roasters “play with the roast profile …tweaking time and temperature to … highlight particular flavours – chocolate, fruits, vanilla, caramels - thousands of different flavours. A high temperature at the end [of the roast] gives acidity, a short roasting time lends sweetness, and a longer roasting time gives body.” When they’re happy – it’s time to sell it to the specialty baristas, individual enthusiasts and coffee shops.
At the coffee shop, each batch of fresh roasted coffee is given a ‘brew recipe’ outlining the time, temperature, weight in grams, measure of shot, to be used. Then each morning, the batch is tested again, and the brew recipe altered, to allow for the changes in the beans over the 3 or 4 days it’s served up in the shop. Colonna Dashwood can even programme his coffee machine to change the pressure during the espresso-making process – all to get the most out of those beans. When I asked if this was a manual or programmed process, he laughed – “You programme it – I don’t believe in the manual thing because it’s too variable. Why have another variable?!" Even champion baristas have their limits.
Other short-hands exist; notably the Cup of Excellence programme creates a clear route between growers and specialty roasters or baristas to access great coffee. The not-for-profit scheme started in 1999 as a way to boost sales through an all-time price low of under $1 per lb. Any producer can enter to be assessed by national Cup of Excellence jury, and the best 60 lots to go through to an international jury. If the coffee scores higher than 84/100 it goes to internet auction for buyers to buy. This cuts out a lot of leg-work which can be prohibitively expensive for small outfits.
What’s interesting is that the Cup of Excellence judges are not looking to make all coffees the same, nor are the baristas, nor the competition judges. The move away from ‘roasts’ and to a more sommelier culture of individual taste reinforces the point that the skill, for everyone, is to adapt to the coffee. “A coffee is really judged on how these parts come together to form a cohesive structure of flavour called character.” There is character aplenty in the specialty roasters, baristas, competition judges, Cup of Excellence promoters, and customers – all the passionate individuals who want to find something interesting and satisfying from a simple cuppa joe.
What do you look for in coffee? Do you seek out exceptional coffee? What was the best cup of coffee you've ever tasted? | <urn:uuid:3ac5acca-3029-4705-b6c1-e472cfdbb542> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/food/2012/05/today-i-want-to-ask.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943864 | 1,341 | 1.585938 | 2 |
PROVIDENCE, R.I. –Secretary of State A. Ralph Mollis is urging Rogers High School students to register to vote during a drive at school this Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
"People who register to vote are more likely to become engaged and effective citizens of Rhode Island. Some of these youngsters will become our next generation of leaders. Now is the time to reach out to them," said Mollis.
Rick O'Neill of the Newport Board of Canvassers office coordinated the visit in partnership with the state Board of Elections and school administrators.
"I am grateful to our partners for their commitment to this important initiative. Our success will pay dividends for decades to come as these new voters cast ballots election after election," said Mollis.
The visit is part of his "Voters in the Classroom" initiative, which targets students. Mollis plans to stage voter registration drives at Rhode Island high schools and colleges leading up to the 2012 elections.
His emphasis on young people reflects the success of voter registration activities over the past few years. More than 700,000 Rhode Islanders were eligible to vote on Election Day 2010.
"The growth in our state will come from reaching out to newly eligible groups like high school students," said Mollis.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 48.2 percent of eligible 18-to-24-year-old Rhode Islanders were registered to vote on Election Day 2010. Just 39.2 percent actually voted in that election.
Students who miss the Secretary of State's visit are still in luck. Mollis posts voter registration forms and answers to frequently asked questions on his website.
The Secretary of State's office prepares the ballots for all federal, state and municipal elections held in Rhode Island. In addition, the office maintains the state's central voter registration system and distributes handbooks that explain how to run for office, how to register to vote and how to vote.
Secretary of State Mollis is committed to making it easier to vote, helping businesses grow and making government more open and accessible. For more information the programs and services the Secretary of State offers Rhode Islanders, visit sos.ri.gov.
MEDIA CONTACT -- Chris Barnett at 222-4293 or [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:556c1ef8-b8e7-440d-ba46-384bca4ec559> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ri.gov/press/view/15574 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961981 | 485 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Pakistani army doctors treat Malala Yousafzai, 14, an activist for the education of girls, who was shot by a gunman while boarding her school bus in Mingora, Pakistan. / AFP/Getty Images
A 14-year-old Pakistani activist who has championed the education of girls was shot Tuesday by a Taliban gunman while she was riding home from school in a bus.
The teenager -- Malala Yousafzai -- was shot as the bus was about to leave the school grounds in the town of Mingora in Pakistan's volatile Swat valley, the Associated Press reports.
Malala has stirred the anger of the Taliban by publicizing their atrocities, particularly on women and girls.
The town's police chief says the gunman approached the bus and asked which one of the girls was Malala. Another girl pointed to Malala, but the activist denied it was she and the gunman then shot both girls, the AP reports.
But a police official also tells the BBC Urdu service that unidentified gunmen opened fire on the schoolgirls as they were about to board a van or bus.
Malala was shot twice - once in the head and once in the neck - but her wounds are not life-threatening, says Tariq Mohammad, a doctor at Mingora's main hospital. The second girl shot was in stable condition, the doctor says.
Pakistani television showed pictures of Malala being taken by helicopter to a military hospital in Peshawar.
In the past, the Taliban has threatened Malala and her family for her activism. When she was only 11, she began writing a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC's Urdu service about life under Taliban occupation.
After the Taliban were ejected from the Swat Valley in the summer of 2009, she began speaking out publicly about the militant group and the need for girls' education.
While chairing a session of a children's assembly supported by UNICEF in the valley last year, the then-13-year-old championed a greater role for young people, the AP reports.
"Girl members play an active role," she said, according to an article on the U.N. organization's website. "We have highlighted important issues concerning children, especially promoting girls' education in Swat."
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: Taliban gunman shoots teen advocate of educating girls | <urn:uuid:18730394-c3d9-441c-9d91-ae762824eac6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jconline.com/usatoday/article/1622171?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975903 | 486 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Every lawsuit has a deadline. If you do not commence a legal proceeding within the time period prescribed by law, your right to make that claim is forever lost. Even the very best claim can disappear because of the expiry of the limitation period.
Currently there are two principal statues which set out limitation periods in Ontario: the Real Property Limitation Act and the Limitation Act, 2002. The Real Property Limitation Act deals with real estate and other interests in land, such as mortgages. All other limitation periods are found in the Limitation Act, 2002. As a general rule, almost all claims which deal with real estate in Ontario are subject to a general six year limitation period and almost all other claims which arise under Ontario law are subject to a general two year limitation period.
However with every rule there are always exceptions. For example, a person can commence a claim for any of these issues after 2 years:
• environmental claims that have not yet been discovered. The limitation period only begins to run once the environmental claim has been discovered.
• assaults or sexual assaults during any time in which the person with the claim is incapable of commencing a claim because of his or her physical, mental or psychological condition.
• a proceeding by the Crown for the collection of a fine, taxes or interest that may be added to a tax or penalty.
• the collection of student loans, awards and grants.
WHEN DOES THE LIMITATION PERIOD START TO RUN?
But the most important question to ask your lawyer is when does your limitation period begin to run? Under the Limitations Act, 2002, the general rule is that the limitation period begins to run on the earlier of:
• the day on which the person with the claim knew:
o that the injury, loss or damage occurred,
o that the injury, loss or damage was caused by or contributed to by an act or omission of the person against whom the claim is made,
o having regard to the nature of the injury, loss or damage, a legal proceeding would be an appropriate means to seek to remedy it; and
• the day on which a reasonable person with the abilities and in the circumstances of the claimant first ought to have known of these matters.
It is not always easy to determine when the limitation period starts to run because there could be intervening circumstance which might stop or start the clocking running again. For example, in the collection of an unpaid account where your invoice states that payment is due 30 days after the date of the invoice, usually the limitation period begins to run 30 days after the date of the invoice. However, if the debtor acknowledges the debt in writing and signs the acknowledgement then the limitation period can be extend and will begin to run from the date of the acknowledgment of the debt. The delivery of a post-dated cheque or partial payment of the debt has been held to constitute an acknowledgement of the debt.
Also the limitation period does not run against minors and mentally incapable persons. The Limitation Act, 2002 provides for an extension of the beginning of the limitation period until the minor reaches the age of majority or until a litigation guardian is appointed to protect the minor or mentally incapable person’s rights.
If you think you have a claim then it is very important to consult a lawyer to determine when your limitation period begins and ends. The lawyers at BrazeauSeller.LLP can help you preserve your claim.
Marcia A. Green is a lawyer at BrazeauSeller.LLP. She practices in the area of commercial litigation. To learn more about Marcia, please go to www.brazeauseller.com. Marcia can be reached at 237-4000 ext. 228 or by e-mail [email protected] | <urn:uuid:71f24996-f943-4f10-a200-4531ba2e0c94> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.obj.ca/Blog-Article/b/19920/Procrastinate-At-Your-Own-Peril | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945288 | 770 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Covered with muck from the shallows, Confidia brought her 6 surviving ducklings to me at the north end of the pond. They are healthy and will probably all make it to adulthood if they can avoid the turtles since they are almost a month old. Two drakes are in attendance with this brood all of the time. How much added protection they provide is unknown. When food is around, they bite the kids to get them out of their way. I think they’re more interested in fathering Confidia’s next brood than guarding the youngsters.
Yesterday, I found them alone peeping like crazy in encourage mom to come home. She had left them to dally with the two drakes. This video has lots of traffic noise in the background since they are only 30 feet from a 5-lane road, but you can still hear them call out. It’s a sound to file away in your head so, when you hear peeping like this on ponds where you live, you’ll know there are ducklings looking for mom even if you can’t see them.
Al the posts relating to 2012Brood4 are here. | <urn:uuid:ecf7f756-2f3c-4b5e-9d3a-961f82973582> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.words4it.com/?p=9681 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97373 | 241 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Teach young aspiring musicians to play the piano using video game technology. I Can Play Piano is a piano teaching system that allows kids to quickly and easily master the basics of piano, and have fun doing it. There are easy-to-follow graphics and a musical color-coding system that turn each song into a simple game kids can play using the keyboard. The keyboard features three octaves... More at Amazon.
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COLOR - How to choose a color?
There is an international guide for color selection. It is commonly referred to as the J.L. Color Code. The numbers you'll find listed are standard throughout the hair goods industry. This color code is only a guide. Dye lots differ which causes variations in the shades, especially with the lighter colors. Colors also have different tones. For example, a brown can have red tones or golden tones. A color ring may be purchased and used for reference. Be sure to mention that you chose your selection of color from this ring as dye lots may vary from texture to texture. Note: Not all textures are available in all colors, so check desired texture for availability. | <urn:uuid:80ceaa84-082e-46c2-accd-c0cf65b32b97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hairfactory.com/Color-Guide/departments/121/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933826 | 143 | 1.59375 | 2 |
As part of its ongoing efforts to enhance cooperation with local and regional government bodies, the Ministry of Finance (MoF) recently received a delegation from the Ministry of Education - Saudi Arabia at its headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The main aim behind the visit was to exchange expertise and to familiarise the visitors with MoF’s expertise in designing government financial systems. The meeting also shed light on the application of zero-based budgeting (ZBB) and the means adopted to achieve the greatest possible benefit from these systems.
In the presence of Assistant Undersecretaries and Heads of Departments at MoF, HE Younis Haji Al Khouri, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance, received the Saudi delegation, headed by Saleh Bin Abdul Aziz Al Humaidi, Assistant Undersecretary of Administrative and Financial Affairs at the Ministry of Education, in addition to a number of specialized staff in the financial and administrative areas.
HE Al Khouri welcomed the Saudi delegation while stressing on the importance of enhancing cooperation opportunities between the Ministry of Finance and various Saudi government bodies. Additionally, HE Al Khouri highlighted the need to develop and reinforce those relations in order to achieve the greatest possible benefits for both countries.
The meeting included a presentation by the Ministry of Finance on its implementation of the ZBB system. The Budget Department team at MoF presented analyses charts to clarify the results of this initiative.
HE Al Khouri said: “The Ministry of Finance has already realised the importance of automating the government financial processes to fall within an electronic framework that allows all professionals to interact remotely, especially in the field of preparing the draft federal budget. In return, this will act as the leading example to be followed by other government bodies in this field at regional and global levels.”
It is worth mentioning that the Ministry of Finance last October also received a delegation from the Capital Market Authority of Saudi Arabia. | <urn:uuid:2a56976c-244e-4640-9575-31f4702ae8ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albawaba.com/business/pr/mof-saudi-arabia-462890 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949384 | 385 | 1.570313 | 2 |
THE culmination of many months of research and design has seen the Lithgow Partnerships Against Domestic Violence and Family Abuse (LPADVAFA) launch their new awareness campaign, Lithgow Cares.
The cornerstones of the campaign are bright decals for the windows of various service providers.
The committee held a community-wide call for entries for the artwork of the designs and children across various age groups entered with four designs being chosen to create unique pieces of artwork for windows.
The artworks explore four separate themes — ‘Lithgow Cares’ about happy families, a positive community, keeping kids safe, and healthy relationships.
The committee has also compiled a domestic violence resource card, available in two sizes, which outlines all the services in the area for victims of domestic violence, from medical assistance to emergency housing and counselling.
The resource card was developed to also assist services and organisations which aren’t domestic violence specific services to make more appropriate referrals if women and their children disclose violence is occurring.
The card is available in two sizes.
While the service providers will be the only initial recipients of the window decals, the committee is aiming to extend the campaign in the future to incorporate the wider community.
The campaign has been so well received that groups in Dubbo are considering adopting a similar approach.
The campaign targets one of the biggest problems relating to domestic violence head-on; awareness.
The LPADVAFA identified that community education was a major way to raise community awareness around domestic and family violence, and that encouraging and supporting positive community and relationship models is a great way to encourage involvement and bring out the best in our area.
Between 35 to 50 service providers will soon be proudly displaying the artwork.
LPADVAFA thanks all who entered the competition and reminds the community to be on the lookout for the bright decals in the coming weeks. | <urn:uuid:c56114ed-550f-4c61-9c12-dd9280dc2184> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lithgowmercury.com.au/story/233622/the-kids-helped-with-the-lithgow-cares-campaign/?cs=1464 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953249 | 383 | 1.648438 | 2 |
A new sealing device for liquid containers extends the product's shelf life, preserves freshness and reduces waste, its manufacturer claims.
According to the Canada-based manufacturer Inter-Sphere Productions Inc (ISPS), the new Capz en-closure seals are ideal for most types of liquid container, ranging from bottled water, alcohol, juice and dairy packages, as well as oil and household cleaner containers.
"The Capz design is such that it can be produced very small, for juice boxes of ink refill bottles, and very large, for wine barrels and 45 gallon drums," ISPS president John Coulson.
The cap seals come in a variety of designs, but all feature a patented closure that hermetically re-seals the product after use. As well as keeping the product fresh, the Capz retains the liquid in a container, so prevents spillage and contamination, he said.
The one-piece caps all have a funnel attached, to allow customers to pour out some of the product without having to remove the lid, he added.
Coulson added that the seal on each Capz is also tamper resistant, particularly useful if the product is harmful or expensive, and customers can purchase two more safety measures if necessary.
In terms of Capz for beverage products, Coulson claims that the size of the opening allows a certain amount of air to flow in as the product flows out.
"This reduces burps, spits and gurgling of ingestible products like pop, juice, beer, wine, water, alcohol and the like," he said.
The beverage Capz also come in a range of speciality designs, featuring space capsules, orbital shuttles, movie action figures and sports heroes.
In terms of the design materials, Coulson said it depends on the individual companies that wish to license the product, but that they will most likely be "plastics and light weight materials."
Several important food manufacturers are already interested in the product, including Campbell Soup and Proctor & Gamble, he said.
An Israel-based packaging firm operating in China is also interested in taking the Capz product into the Asian markets, and a Taiwanese plastics company has requested the licensing rights to manufacture and sell the product in the New Zealand, Australia and East Asian dairy and juice markets, he added. | <urn:uuid:3251dc50-b760-4739-b4b8-c114f2614312> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/New-no-spill-caps-set-for-global-launch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950357 | 473 | 1.648438 | 2 |
NEW PRESS RELEASE.
Easingwold leukaemia survivor Harvey Greenwood is urging people from across Yorkshire to step up for a five-kilometre sponsored walk through York to raise money for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.
The 39-year-old, who has walked hundreds of miles to support groundbreaking research into blood cancers, is inviting people of all ages to join him for the York Forget Me Not Walk on Sunday 3 October and help the charity find better treatments and cures for leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma.
Harvey was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) in March 2001, a moment he describes as “the most frightening time of my life”. Fortunately, Harvey responded well to Imatinib, a drug developed through research, and is now able to manage the disease by taking daily medication.
Determined to ensure that other patients continue to have access to the best possible treatments, Harvey joined cricket legend Sir Ian Botham on his 25th Anniversary walk to beat childhood leukaemia earlier this year, and completed a gruelling 270-mile trek along the Pennine Way in June, raising a combined total of £7,500 for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.
Now Harvey is stepping out for the York Forget Me Not Walk on Sunday 3 October with his wife Fiona and daughters, and asking other families to join them in walking to beat blood cancers.
Harvey says: ”Every mile I’ve walked for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research has been about giving something back and making sure other patients benefit from the chances I’ve had. It’s vital that everyone diagnosed with one of these diseases has access to the best possible treatments.
Sign up and join us for the York Forget Me Not Walk. Everyone is welcome; it’s not competitive, so you can take in the historic sites at your own pace, and help make a difference to the lives of patients and families touched by blood cancers.”
On the day, walkers will set out from the York Castle Museum at 10am at a leisurely pace. The five-kilometre route will take participants through the centre of the historic city passing the iconic Gothic Minster before returning to the museum, where walkers can collect a well-earned medal.
Those wishing to join in should contact James Wright on 020 7269 9006 or visit www.forgetmenotwalks.com. The entry fee is £7.50 for adults, £5 for children aged 12 or under, and just £20 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children. The fee includes a t-shirt and medal. | <urn:uuid:424301ea-4714-4521-96e1-86d77036c8db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://leukaemiacharity.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940875 | 555 | 1.710938 | 2 |
While reading some of my readings written by Eva L. Perry, a contributing writer for the “Carolinian” in North Carolina. “Come, Let’s Think” about LOVE. “LOVE”: A friend of mine says that the greatest of all human qualities is love, because it is an expression of the very essence of God. His Is unconditional love that loves us in spite of ourselves. The Bible tells us that God loved us “while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8). His lov e was ex pressed in sending Christ to the cross the pay the penalty of sin for us. Learning to love is a lifelong process of growth and maturity. Most of us love those that love us Initially, our love is often narrow and self-centered.
HELLO MORENO VALLEY
Moreno Valley I wish to congratulate all the graduates from K to a college degree, What an honor to hear Mr. Roy Overstreet, the first African American to graduate in 1958 from UC Riverside speaking to the graduating class of 2011.
Also, another UCR pioneer, Ms. Zelma Ballard graduated in 1959. These two pioneers blazed the trail for so many. To you I say “THANKS.” As we live this life let us all be the best role model to help someone else along the way.
How is your garden growing? Will you be able to feed your family out of your garden if you had to? Here is a tip: Let Flowers And Herbs Block Problems.
Flowers and herbs can intercept pests physically. Flying insects often ride the breezes, landing wherever they find a suitable plant to make into a meal. If you can interrupt their flight path with a inedible item, you may be able to limit their access to your crops.
Surround your garden with herbaceous plants such as sunflowers that are tall in summer, when pest problems are at their peak. Use deciduous bushes to screen your garden throughout the growing season; plant evergreen shrubs and trees to block the wind year round. Leafy barriers such as these also serves as shelter for beneficial insects. Next week I will speak about flowers that bring in “Good Bugs.”
Moreno Valley let us live on a higher level as we stay focused on who we are and who’s we are. We can only do this by coming together, loving, recepting, praying, honoring and keeping ourselves in order.
Dr. J thanks each and everyone for their pouring of support to his radio program, Transform Today With Dr. J at 1:00 P.M. on KCAA 1050AM on your radio dial (951) 329–9362.
REMEMBER THE DATE: The Moreno Valley Black Chamber Of Commerce has a special date June 26, 2011 at 4:00 P.M. Do you really know who you are or who you belong to?
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:e7c5fe8f-2a55-40f6-9857-ce8e5527f37c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blackvoicenews.com/columnists/eyes-a-ears-of-moreno-valley/46296-eyes-a-ears-of-moreno-valley.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956735 | 615 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Seth Godin, marketing genius, has a terrific blog. Most of his posts are short and punchy. Occasionally, though, he goes in for a long one. Here, for instance, he makes a distinction between recessions:
There are actually two recessions:
The first is the cyclical one, the one that inevitably comes and then inevitably goes. There's plenty of evidence that intervention can shorten it, and also indications that overdoing a response to it is a waste or even harmful.
The other recession, though, the one with the loss of "good factory jobs" and systemic unemployment--I fear that this recession is here forever.
Why do we believe that jobs where we are paid really good money to do work that can be systemized, written in a manual and/or exported are going to come back ever? The internet has squeezed inefficiencies out of many systems, and the ability to move work around, coordinate activity and digitize data all combine to eliminate a wide swath of the jobs the industrial age created.
I think he's right. And that makes the Obama administration's weird obsession with 1950's style Big Labor, and 1970's style overregulation, all the more destructive. Godin is a little vague, but I think he's directionally correct:
The future feels a lot more like marketing--it's impromptu, it's based on innovation and inspiration, and it involves connections between and among people--and a lot less like factory work, in which you do what you did yesterday, but faster and cheaper.
This means we may need to change our expectations, change our training and change how we engage with the future. Still, it's better than fighting for a status quo that is no longer. The good news is clear: every forever recession is followed by a lifetime of growth from the next thing...
Job creation is a false idol. The future is about gigs and assets and art and an ever-shifting series of partnerships and projects. It will change the fabric of our society along the way. No one is demanding that we like the change, but the sooner we see it and set out to become an irreplaceable linchpin, the faster the pain will fade, as we get down to the work that needs to be (and now can be) done.
This revolution is at least as big as the last one, and the last one changed everything.
And I think he's right, too, that this idea of "job creation" is a really nasty one, and it's going to set us further back as a country. Governments, presidents, central bankers, unions, doesn't matter who -- none of those creates jobs. There's something so ossified and paleo about this president, and his party, when they refuse to acknowledge this. | <urn:uuid:ff7ae0df-c9a7-4efa-8fd6-af504723d396> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ricochet.com/main-feed/The-Recession-is-Here-Forever | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970864 | 576 | 1.515625 | 2 |
With the announcement of the iPad 3, came the announcement of a new processor: the A5x chipset with (presumably) a dual-core CPU and quad-core GPU. The A5x is more powerful to be sure, but should we think of it as a next-generation chip, or merely a spec bump?
AnandTech believes that the A5x is running the same dual-core Cortex A9 CPU as before, but now features a PowerVR SGX543MP4 GPU, instead of the the dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2. Apple says that the A5x GPU is twice as powerful as the A5 found in the iPad 2 and four times more powerful than NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 chipset. And overall, the chipset is believed to be twice as powerful as the Tegra 3. Whoa.
Under what conditions they performed that test, remains to be seen, but shouldn’t come as a shock considering Apple’s A4 and A5 chipsets have routinely outperformed more powerful hardware from competitors.
So what does this mean for the iPad? Well games and video are obvious benefactor here. And it will also ensure that battery won’t suffer as much when trying to push pixels to the Retina display. It may not sound like an numerically-imposing, cutting-edge upgrade like Sony’s PS Vita announcement was a year ago. But if Apple’s A5X can manage to outperform NVIDIA’s chipset — which has four Cortex A9 cores (plus a fifth low-power core) and 8 GPU cores — that would be an impressive feat. | <urn:uuid:015139d2-cde7-48b8-980a-d770d1d8cf66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2012/03/inside-apples-a5x-processor-dual-core-cpu-quad-core-graphics/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955258 | 345 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Featured in our Spring 2005 catalog
It is 100 degrees in the desert now and the warm grease flows smoothly through the sock filters, glowing amber gold and smelling like yesterday’s tempura. In another hour we will have filtered a full 60 gallons – enough to cruise comfortably all the way from Joshua Tree to Yosemite.
Down the road in Twentynine Palms there is a mural showing a pioneer family arriving in an old jalopy with all their possessions tied to the roof. Compared to them, we’ve got it pretty good: spending months sliding around the map, tracing the legacy of so many before us. We migrate along the stone monkey’s flight path, the standard seasonal trade route of American dirtbag climbers. We live at campgrounds in Joshua Tree, Yosemite, Indian Creek, Red Rocks, Cochise Stronghold, Hueco and wherever the weather is conducive to long days sending on the rock.
What makes Em and I different from other already low-impact climbers is our vehicle. Her name is La Refrita. She is an ‘88 Bluebird school bus converted into an art studio/climbing road-trip mobile that runs on recycled vegetable oil from the fryers of restaurants – a completely renewable resource. In fact, the oil-producing plants that become the fuel for our bus absorb exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide from the air when growing as they replace when burned in our engine. La Refrita has allowed us to answer the call of climbing and create art all across the continent without compromising our environmental ethics. And thanks to the fried-food-consuming masses of our nation, just about everywhere we visit has a grease joint to fuel our bus.
I turn the key and La Refrita roars to life. Today she will release an effluvium that will make the cars behind us want to stop and order sushi. For us, living modest lives and running a vehicle on vegetable oil does not absolve all the guilt involved with being a modern human and caring for the planet on which we play. But it is important to start somewhere, and it feels good to do something positive. Because of La Refrita, we are not just chalked-up, paint-stained people with a constant jones for splitter cracks and time to paint. We are grease people too, coming to a restaurant near you for some free, eco-friendly fuel. | <urn:uuid:989422ac-891e-49b9-b924-543911e83fbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=5378 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942162 | 492 | 1.585938 | 2 |
On his visit to America, Pope Benedict has met with victims of molestation by priests, attempting to heal wounds that had been inflicted repeatedly for years. While it's refreshing to see that the church has finally formally acknowledged the wrongdoing of its priests, the prescription of prayer and trying to keep pedophiles and homosexuals out of the priesthood doesn't feel like enough. First, homosexual does not equal pedophile. Second, prayer is not a proven method to prevent problems. Third, pedophiles are by necessity crafty and duplicitous, and are rarely filtered out through a preemptive strike. There's a reason so many pedophiles become teachers, clergymen, or marry into other families, because they know that in those positions, they will be trusted by children and parents. The Catholic Church has just about as much hope as the rest of the world of rooting out pedophiles in their community, and prayer and their "holy" status will not help.
The sex abuse scandal that the church claims has ruined their reputation could have been prevented. It all started in Boston back in the 1960s, with Father John Geoghan. The despicable way his case was handled singlehandedly opened the vault on how the church responds to scandal. When parents told church officials about Geoghan, instead of turning him over to the police, Bishop (later Cardinal) Bernard Law sent Geoghan to another parish after undergoing church-approved "counseling," where, of course, Geoghan victimized more children. This time, when parents voiced their outrage, Law sent the priest in for another round of counseling and moved him to another parish. This continued for 30 years, until the Boston Globe broke the story, and Geoghan and later Cardinal Law were forced out of the church. Still, with all the evidence, although Geoghan was eventually put in prison on a dubious charge which had apologists rallying to his side despite what he had done in the past, another priest interviewed for an American Justice episode about Geoghan said he preferred to remember Geoghan as a "saint" and martyr. Geoghan was not sent to prison and defrocked just because of his beliefs, he was a pedophile who used his status to prey on innocent children entrusted to his care. If Geoghan had gone through the proper justice channels the first time around, many children would have been spared, the Catholic Church would have been applauded for appropriately dealing with a criminal who had snaked into their ranks, lifelong Catholics wouldn't have had crises of faith and formed their own factions or abandoned the church altogether, and the church's attitude toward the sex crimes of priests would not be called into question as they are now. Of course, this is assuming the church and Geoghan didn't try to circumvent the rules, and there would be repercussions from something like this no matter how it was handled. One thing probably would have happened whenever Geoghan went to prison; he was murdered by an inmate who didn't want to be in the presence of a child molester.
As everyone in DC knows, the pope had a mass in Nationals Stadium today. That meant crowds of the faithful, curiosity seekers who just want to see an iconic presence without thinking about what it means, and men of the cloth clogged the metro, and probably will until the end of the day. I saw a monk, in a brown robe, getting off at the Takoma station. When do you ever see monks, except around old churches in Europe? As far as I know, there aren't any monasteries in the Takoma/Silver Spring area. And on my way to work, for two stops, I was surrounded by six priests. I was tempted to take out the copy of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian, but, after thinking about it, I decided I didn't want to create an incident or, worse, cause a descent of priests desperate to "save" another immortal soul. | <urn:uuid:d7186969-0d3e-4d74-b42e-b8c4e971dfc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://salomedesade.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986811 | 793 | 1.625 | 2 |
Is the real world imitating our online shopping habits?
Vending machines spark new era of convenience shopping
Fifteen years ago, few of us would have considered buying a pair of jeans online or ordering the weekly shop, let alone booking a holiday or virtually viewing a house.
These days the world of online consumerism is an essential element of our 24-hour, instant-access lifestyle.
Doubters said it would never catch on – people wanted to touch products before they decided to buy, they wanted a personal service and a tailored customer experience. Clearly not. Deloitte’s Store of the Future report (March 2012) predicts that four out of ten shops will close down in the next five years as shoppers turn their backs on the high street in favour of the online marketplace.
Part of the success of online shopping is down to technological advances and e-tailers’ response to what customers demand. 360 degree views, super zooms, interactive tours and even no quibble returns policies have helped make online shopping a viable alternative to the real world high street.
A similar revolution is happening in the vending industry where the days of clunky, coin-rejecting drinks machines that needed a well aimed thump are well and truly behind us.
In Japan, where there is one vending machine for every 23 people, you can buy anything from music to live crabs. Following the earthquake of March 2011 when the country was crippled by blackouts, some even said vending machines offered a lifeline to residents.
Here in the UK, we’re starting to see the advantages too. Each year, 7 billion products are vended in the UK and the range and variety of what’s on offer is staggering – swimming goggles in leisure centres, protective clothing on the factory floor, toiletries in hotel lobbies and SIM cards at airports. Don’t worry, you can still buy a hot drink, but instead of coffee flavoured water in a flimsy cup, you’ll get a frothy cappuccino from a machine that can grind its own beans.
Even online retail behemoth Amazon is getting in on the act with their Amazon lockers service, allowing buyers to collect goods from secure vending locations around the country.
Dave Berman, director of VendEase, said: “Vending machines offer instant, 24 hour access in an age where convenience is King. Today’s machines are sophisticated and secure and businesses are switching on to the benefits for their customers and their staff.”
Most new machines operate via touch screen technology and there are emerging security technologies that can allow access to products through an identity code or even face, retinal or finger print recognition. Vending machines could even become glorified luggage lockers for online retailers. Goods get delivered to a conveniently located vending machine for customers to pick up using a unique identity system.
Searching for the right change is an irritation of the past. Modern payment options include debit or credit cards and, in five to ten years, systems like “wave-pay” (used with London’s Oyster Card) could become the norm. There’s even a machine in South Africa that will dispense a free drinks sample if you send a simple Tweet. | <urn:uuid:a5fdb342-a0a2-4b41-9b48-85c8cbc0f05b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cision.com/the-advanced-network/r/is-the-real-world-imitating-our-online-shopping-habits-,c9319809 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944902 | 669 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I was an X-ray away from having my right hand in a cast.
Thankfully, it was just pulled tendons and I had to rest it for a few days.
No driving. No typing. No brushing my teeth properly, washing the dishes or any of the other daily activities I take for granted.
Do we realize how much we need something while we have it… or while we don't?
My injury occurred during the Three Weeks, the saddest period of the Jewish Year, in which we mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and all it represents.
And I recalled the famous verse, "If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget [its skill]." (Psalms, 137:5)
I'd never really thought about it before, but what does "let my right hand forget [its skill]" mean?
I saw a number of interesting explanations.
No one can imagine functioning without a right hand, and it is inconceivable we could forget it. It is equally impossible for us to forget Jerusalem, a concept inextricably attached to who we are as Jews.
Indeed, for the Jew to forget Jerusalem is tantamount to forgetting God, for God is always at our right hand -- "I have always set God before me; I shall not falter because He is at my right hand." (Psalms, 16:8)
Another explanation is that God is saying this to the Jewish people, i.e. He vows never to permanently forsake Jerusalem. For Him to do so would be equivalent to a human being giving up his right hand.
The Jewish people are God's right-hand man.
Jerusalem is the Jew's right hand.
There is a natural, innate connection.
Yes, people do make do with one hand or the loss of other limbs, but it is not the ideal.
And yes, Jews are living in physical and spiritual abundance today without the Holy Temple in a rebuilt Jerusalem.
But it is not the ideal. It is not natural.
My right hand shakes a client's hand… Moves the words on this page… Raises my cup to drink…
When we realize Jerusalem can also shake us, move us and raise us even higher than we are now, chances are we could merit a return to the Holy Temple speedily in our days.
For the speedy recovery of Miriam bas Leah, my dear mother-in-law, who broke her right hand two weeks ago! | <urn:uuid:24ae34de-2d00-486a-bde5-f35188bc3c36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aish.com/h/9av/ht/48968921.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950561 | 515 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Faith Leads to Hope
“I Am Congo” is a groundbreaking video series featuring five amazing people living their lives amid the deadliest war in the world.
Christians are called upon to tell and retell the story of hope, grace, and change that we see acted out in the scriptures. It is through hearing and responding to this story that our own lives and stories are transformed today. It is through the telling of stories that we learn about the lives and worlds of those who live next door or those who are halfway across the world.
Extreme poverty, famine, war, and disease can seem like overwhelming problems with no hope or solution. But faith can move the largest mountains even in our world today.
These are stories of hope. These are the stories of the people who call the Democratic Republic of Congo home—in their own words.
In eastern Congo, we meet a human rights lawyer who fled a volcanic eruption with just her law book and became an advocate for rape survivors. An artist pulls together a film and music festival every year in a city with few paved roads, let alone a theater. In a national park bigger than Yosemite, a conservationist protects endangered mountain gorillas caught in the middle of decades of conflict.
“I Am Congo”— a series more than a year in the making by the Enough Project’s Raise Hope for Congo campaign—features professional video storytelling on an issue largely ignored by the mainstream media and unknown to many.
The goal is simple: to introduce more people to the Congo and empower them with solutions to help end the conflict there.
Too often, stories from Congo focus on the extremes: either killing, raping, and crushing poverty or “feel-good” stories that ignore the chaos. These extremes not only fail to capture the full picture of Congo; it leads many to turn away.
“I am Congo” tells the full story of the Congo and its juxtapositions: natural beauty collides with decay; humanity struggles against a constant drumbeat of war; brave community leaders overcome personal tragedies to fight the status quo of corruption and conflict.
I Am Congo – Faith Leads to Hope, is intended to highlight the work that God is already doing in a war-torn region of the world and raise awareness among Christians to the conditions and struggles of God’s children around the world. | <urn:uuid:983617b9-f965-4baa-ae3e-9687c71ce5a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sojo.net/blogs/2012/08/23/faith-leads-hope | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945492 | 484 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Russia sent an 11-vehicle convoy today from Bosnia to re-supply its troops at the airport in Pristina. Russian control of the airport has caused an embarrassing diplomatic standoff as Western nations struggle to reach an agreement with Russia over its role in the massive peacekeeping mission.
The Russian convoy included paratroopers and supplies for the two to three hundred Russian troops at the airport, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The surprise arrival of the Russian troops ahead of NATO has given Moscow greater leverage in negotiations over its place in the peacekeeping force. So far, they have refused to let British troops enter the airport.
- Nicholas Kozlov, Associate Professor of Economics at Hofstra University. He has written extensively about Russia.
- Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Editor of The Nation and Co-Author of ??Voices of Glasnost: Interviews with Gorbachev’s Reformers. | <urn:uuid:a02a5cae-e915-40a0-b1f8-634ac9a493a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.democracynow.org/1999/6/15/russias_role_in_peacekeeping_in_kosovo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94192 | 186 | 1.546875 | 2 |
After 41/2 years of investigating Tiger Force, the only soldier disciplined in the case was the one who brought it to the Army's attention.
To Sgt. Gary Coy, it was an ironic end to an investigation that began when he first talked to Army officials on Feb. 3, 1971.
By the time the investigation ended in 1975, a letter of reprimand was in his file.
The reason: He told investigators he saw a Tiger Force soldier decapitate a baby during a sweep of a village in November, 1967.
He later admitted he didn't actually see the atrocity - but only heard about it.
Still, his story to investigators about the infant's death led to an investigation that would be known as the “Coy Allegation” - or the Tiger Force case.
It was in 1971 when Army agents first visited Sergeant Coy at Fort Campbell, Ky., to interview him about an unrelated war-crime investigation.
Agents wanted to know about accusations against the 101st Airborne in Vietnam, but Sergeant Coy told them about a smaller unit within the airborne division, Tiger Force.
He said a soldier whose first name was Sam severed a baby's head inside a hut. Investigators later identified the suspect as Sam Ybarra.
Mr. Coy told investigators he lied about witnessing the atrocity because he thought they would take the case more seriously, according to an Army investigator's report. He said he knew they would find other soldiers who saw the killing.
He went on to tell agents that he and a fellow soldier promised each other that whoever survived the war would bring the incident to the Army's attention. The other soldier, John Aherne, died in battle the next year.
Investigators later interviewed several witnesses who said Private Ybarra bragged about severing the baby's head to get the infant's necklace.
One former soldier, Harold Fischer, told The Blade in a recent interview that he witnessed Ybarra leaving the hut with a bloody necklace on his wrist and looked inside to find the decapitated baby.
Mr. Coy, 56, who now lives in Missouri, said he didn't feel he was treated fairly by Army investigators.
“All the hassle I went through, with the war being over ... it wasn't worth it.”
(Story was published on Oct. 20, 2003) | <urn:uuid:ce45ad1e-7f77-40f0-ba3a-0bce90ad3f05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.toledoblade.com/special-tiger-force/2003/10/20/Hearsay-account-triggered-the-probe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982645 | 481 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Football, the most popular sport in the world and you would think that the second most populous nation in the world would figure in the top 20 teams in the world. No? Top 50? No? Top 100 then surely! Well you are in for a rude shock! India is ranked 168th in the world out of a possible 209 nations that play football. While it is not right to criticize the players, it is high time the authorities in charge step up and start looking at the sport in a serious manner. Football in India offers tremendous scope and if managed properly, it has the potential to put the IPL to shame.
The country’s premier domestic competition in India is the I-League. The National football league which was the main domestic football league from 1996-2007 was rejigged with a few changes and the I-League was born in 2007. The I-League is contested by 14 teams with each team playing all the other teams on a home and away basis. Teams from West Bengal and Goa dominate the I-league, with eight of the fourteen teams in the league from the two states. The three teams that have won the I-League (Dempo, Churchill brothers and Salgaocar) are all based in Goa.
The Santosh trophy is similar to the Ranji trophy and is contested by the state associations. The Durand cup is the third oldest football competition in the world, only behind the F.A Cup and the Scottish cup. Football in India is mainly concentrated in the North East and in Goa although the sport is picking up fast in the rest of the country but not in a big enough way.
The ranking by itself tells the tale of Indian football. The All India Football Federation (AIFF) is the apex body which governs Indian football. Praful Patel, a Member of Parliament and Cabinet minister for heavy industries is the chairman of the AIFF. He was the person who scripted the downfall of our national carrier, Air India. As long as Patel is in charge of the AIFF, there will be no light at the end of the tunnel for Indian football.
Despite frenzied efforts by FIFA to take the game to the next level in India, the game is, in fact, going nowhere. Just when things started looking up with Bob Houghton in charge of the Indian team, baseless charges were slapped against him and he was forced to resign. Under Bob Houghton, Team India played remarkably well and constantly punched above their weight, the highlights being the Nehru cup triumph, AFC challenge cup triumph and qualifying for the AFC Asian cup after a span of 34 years. After Houghton resigned, Team India has been largely listless. They were swamped by all the teams in the 2012 AFC challenge cup. Lets hope that India can retain the 2012 Nehru Cup, which begins on the 22nd of August.
When will the administrators wake up and spend more time and allocate more funds for sports? Only time will tell. Hopefully with more people taking to the sport and with the popularity of football surging ahead, there is a flicker of hope. The 2030 FIFA World Cup champions maybe! | <urn:uuid:6aaf5fc8-7509-44af-846a-373e2f79e5bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sportskeeda.com/2012/08/20/a-wake-up-call-for-indian-football/?ref=more-from-sport | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971729 | 644 | 1.75 | 2 |
Homemade chicken-corn soup is a staple in Amish kitchens, especially, it seems, in Pennsylvania. I think the traditional probably began because the soup is hearty and contains just very basic ingredients. This recipe of the Amish Cook’s appeared in the column way back in 2003. Enjoy!
CHICKEN CORN SOUP
1 (4- to 5-pound) chicken, cut into 8 pieces
2-12 to 3 quarts water, or as needed
1 large onion
8 to 10 black peppercorns
2 teaspoons salt, or to taste
10 ears of corn, (or 4 cups frozen corn kernels)
3 celery stalks, diced with leaves
6 ounces wide egg noodles (or use your own homemade equivalent)
Freshly ground white pepper
23 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Place chicken in soup pot with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and skim foam as it rises to the surface. When it has subsided, add onion, peppercorns and salt. Simmer gently but steadily, partly covered, for about 1-12 hours or until tender.
Remove chicken. Trim and discard bones and skin, and onion. Let soup cool, then skim fat from surface. Tear meat into spoonable pieces and return to soup.
Cut kernels from 4 ears of corn, then grate kernels from remaining 6 ears. Add whole kernels and grated or pureed corn to soup along with celery and noodles. Simmer gently until corn and noodles are cooked. Add salt and white pepper to taste. Stir in parsley and serve, garnishing each portion with chopped egg.
(This soup freezes well, but do that before adding the noodles).
Yield: 4 to 6 bowls of soup | <urn:uuid:51b26333-ebb1-417b-8014-ca2590d2128b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oasisnewsfeatures.com/chicken-corn-soup/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933731 | 381 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Thayne and Chris Hamilton are true animal lovers, and they haven't let their physical location hold them back when it comes to rescuing dogs in need, the Islands Sounder
The couple, over the course of their seven-year marriage, has rescued 12 pooches from all over the country. They have also flown pups in from places as far away as Texas and Arizona.
The rambunctious group of canines range in ages from 6 to 17 years old, and some have health issues, such as blindness and arthritis.
"We look for old dogs who don't have a chance at a forever home," Chris told the news source about their adopting methods.
Animals arrive at the Hamilton's five-acre property and are immediately showered with love and affection. They try to find permanent homes for the pooches, and once they get adopted, they fill its space with another pup in need.
Every year six to eight million cats and dogs are cared for by rescue shelters in the United States, according to the Humane Society. | <urn:uuid:5b5e0424-af3f-4382-b4e2-9bf1daf735a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theveteransite.com/clickToGive/ars/article/Couples-desire-to-help-animals-led-to-large-family-of-mutts565 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976762 | 214 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Man dies of bird flu in southwest China: Xinhua
BEIJING (Reuters) - A man in southwest China died of bird flu on Sunday after three days of intensive care treatment in hospital, the official Xinhua news agency quoted the Ministry of Health as saying.
The 39-year old -- who died in hospital in Guiyan, capital of Guizhou province -- began suffering from fever on January 6.
Xinhua said China's centers for disease control and prevention at provincial and national levels confirmed the man had died after being infected with the H5N1 bird flu strain.
The man had had close contact with 71 individuals, but none had shown unusual symptoms, the health ministry told Xinhua. The report did not mention whether the man had been in recent contact with birds.
The virus is normally found in birds, but can jump to people who have no immunity to it. Researchers worry it could mutate into a form that would spread around the world and kill millions.
The virus has become active in various parts of the world, mainly in east Asia during the cooler months.
Authorities in China are worried about the spread of infectious diseases around this time when millions of Chinese travel in crowded buses and trains across the country to go home to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
The current strain of H5N1 is highly pathogenic, kills most species of birds and up to 60 percent of the people it infects.
Since 2003, it has infected 573 people around the world, killing 336.
The virus also kills migratory birds but species that survive can disperse it to new, uninfected locations. It transmits less easily between people, but there have been clusters of infections in people in Indonesia and Thailand in the past.
The latest death follows that of a 39-year-old bus driver from Shenzhen in southern Guangdong province on December 31.
(Reporting by Nick Edwards; Editing by Ron Popeski)
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- Digg this | <urn:uuid:d0098a37-c3f4-45fd-b076-1a9efeed863b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/22/us-china-birdflu-idUSTRE80L0B020120122 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973599 | 413 | 1.773438 | 2 |
This paper is the second in a series investigating how we can promote financial security and wellbeing at a time of declining living standards and constrained public spending. The British welfare state is confronted by three interconnected and intractable problems: declining public support; relative ungenerosity (particularly for those on middle incomes); and imposing too high a cost to the Exchequer. In order to sustain and rebuild public support for a welfare settlement, the Government must find ways of addressing these tensions between generosity, reciprocity and public trust.
Squaring the Circle looks at the role that policymakers can play in addressing these tensions, through driving financial literacy, promoting the take-up of products that boost financial security and highlighting the everyday financial risks to which we are all exposed. The previous paper in the series, Duty of Care, looked at the role of employers, and subsequent papers will be focused on employees and other key stakeholders, including trade unions and disability groups. | <urn:uuid:2a893b03-6a3a-48a5-be96-cdeecd614043> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/squaring-the-circle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949049 | 188 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Popham Beach State Park
Located in Phippsburg, Maine, Popham Beach State Park sits just 14 miles from the coastal town of Bath and continues to be one of the most beloved and visited state parks in Maine.
For those visiting Maine and the Popham Beach State Park area, swimming is a fun and relaxing activity. Bordered by the Kennebec and Morse Rivers as well as Fox and Wood Islands, outdoor enthusiasts have plenty of beachfront to explore around Popham Beach State Park.
For those not interested in swimming, there is still plenty to do including searching for shells and sea glass, sunbathing, beachcombing, and bird watching. Interestingly, while the tide is out, beachgoers can reach Fox and Wood Islands by foot—however it’s important to watch the tide; when it comes in, you’ll be stranded!
Tide pools are another perk for families with children who are drawn to the shallow, miniature bodies of water that sit on the sands at Popham Beach State Park. Kids love finding a variety of sea creatures in these warm pools of water.
Remember to check the State of Maine Beach Advisory Calendar before planning your trip; high tide here can result in little open sand space on the days Popham Beach State Park is at its busiest. | <urn:uuid:7ba706fb-a379-4c7b-81d8-f4e39ecf4ee4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitmaine.com/attractions/state_national_parks/state_parks/popham_beach_state_park/?_print=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940516 | 272 | 1.5 | 2 |
Prof. Harvey Sapolsky
This course explores organizational concepts and research methods that explain the performance and development of military organizations in peace and war. Classic studies are reviewed. Approaches to current policy problems based on theoretical insights into military organizations and practices are also considered. The class stresses development of new theory. | <urn:uuid:55f42ec3-c3c2-402b-acee-84b39242931e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/political-science/17-466-organization-theory-and-the-military-spring-2003/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93119 | 61 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Retrospectives are always popular this time of the year, and the blogosphere last week shared one of the first collections of the year in photos.
The No. 2 subject on blogs from December 5-9 was BuzzFeed's 45 Most Powerful Images of 2011. Largely the province of news magazines in an earlier media era, the internet-based BuzzFeed, has now moved into the scene, ranking and sharing some of the most dramatic news events of the year. The photos selected ranged from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan to students being pepper-sprayed at UC Davis, from the tornado in Joplin, Missouri to the drought in East Africa.
The images were so popular they resulted in BuzzFeed's biggest traffic day ever, according to the site's founder, Jonah Peretti. A week after its posting, the page of images had been viewed almost eight million times.
Read the full report, Bloggers Recall the Year in Pictures, on the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism Web site. | <urn:uuid:e9381799-7ac7-4271-b3ba-55b76e256177> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_report_detail.aspx?id=85899367844 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959318 | 205 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Higher Ed: Buffeted By Change, Embracing Reform
by Francie Grace
How can higher education control costs? How does our education system measure up compared to the rest of the world? American Council of Education president Molly Corbett Broad touched on these questions and more in the March installment of the Maxwell School/ Public Agenda Policy Breakfast discussion series.
A former president of the University of North Carolina, Broad talked about issues including national standards for college readiness, student loan legislation, "helicopter" parents, tuition prices and other obstacles to college completion. She also discussed challenges like college costs and spending on athletics, and innovations such as no-frills colleges and three-year degrees. Such fast track programs, said Broad, are helpful only for the tiny proportion of students who arrive on campus already knowing exactly what they need to study, are ready to do college-level work, and won't need to change majors - something she sees as a big part of the learning experience for many college students.
So, are radical changes in the works? Radical, Broad observed, is a relative term for institutions that have been around for centuries, adding that "radical ideas" are nonetheless on the table for reform in higher ed. Colleges who ignore this trend, said Broad, will find that they are losing standing.
Click here to watch the video of the interview with National Public Radio's Robert Siegel. To learn more about these issues, check out our research, especially Can I Get A Little Advice Here?, Squeeze Play 2010, Campus Commons and Convergence and Contradictions in Teachers' Perceptions of Policy Reform Ideas. | <urn:uuid:9654e87d-dbc4-40b3-a700-b1fa4d36a1e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://publicagenda.org/blogs/higher-ed-buffeted-by-change-embracing-reform | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947568 | 331 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Hipster-Hassidic: Fashion Forward or Just Plain Wrong?
There was one last bang as Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week winded down last week.
Actually, make that a shofar blow.
Ricardo Seco’s fall/winter 2013 collection was inspired by his recent move to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where hipster and Hasidic culture collided to create "ALIVE."
Born in Torreon, Mexico, Seco is considered one of the country’s most influential designers. After a dozen years in business, the self-taught Torreon went on to study design at the Marangoni Institute in Milan and Paris.
Continuing to challenge himself creatively, his designs often feature detailed fabrics, patterns and sophisticated fits. Unfortunately, this second men’s collection (the first debuted at New York Fashion Week in February 2012) looked less like innovative design and more like costumes for an all-Jewish production of "Spring Awakening."
Struck by the intersection of these cross-pollinating cultures, Ricardo attempted to incorporate the strict formality of the Hassidic dress code with the just-rolled-out-of-bed look of the younger Williamsburg crowd, incorporating a variety of fabrics and textures including leather, velvet, wool, cashmere and cotton.
"I observed men who acknowledged and respected religion; who were in touch with music and art," said Seco. "I felt a deep respect for their culture." His interpretation included relaxed, oversized garments in an expected palette of gray, black and white with the occasional hit of green.
The collection premiered in The Eyebeam Art + Technology Center in the Chelsea gallery district. Like many local galleries, hurricane Irene hit The Eyebeam hard and it was great to see the space open to the public. The clothes, while on point with Seco’s inspiration, didn’t appear particularly innovative or unexpected.
The models were styled with yamakas and payos (the sidecurls often worn by boys and men in the Orthodox Jewish community). The effect felt a bit forced, as well as the "Yentl"-inspired female model tossed into the mix. Perhaps a rendition of "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" may have perked things up.
While Seco seemed struck by the convergence of history, religion, culture and urban development, the collection ultimately felt like disparate pieces that could already be found on the rack. As he continues to explore his men’s line in future seasons, perhaps the execution will meet the inspiration. | <urn:uuid:0a4f93a4-83c6-454a-bc68-5767cddfde86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgesandiego.com/style/fashion/141703/hipster-hassidic:_fashion_forward_or_just_plain_wrong | 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 | 0.958988 | 527 | 1.570313 | 2 |
These days when I read about Spain I'm wondering more and more how and why it is that the country has any access at all left to international finance markets. The bond auction this week was even sort of bearable, even as yields rose. I'm guessing that either investors have a hard time reading the news or they're going double or nothing in a risk-on bet that Germany and the IMF (China?!) will come to the rescue.
There's certainly a lot of humor in the stories. Which defy even the most imaginative minds; and don't try telling me you could have made this up. Pater Tenebrarum at the Acting Man blog has a few choice bits:
[..] every time a bank merger is consummated, it turns out that the losses of the weaker banks are far greater than was previously assumed (or rather, admitted to). As a result, Spain's deposit guarantee fund (DGF) has run out of money.
The solution to this particular problem the authorities have hit upon is comparable to the most recent exercises in financial creativity in Greece (it is the extent of creativity that is comparable). The government doesn't want to contribute anything to the fund in order to be able to meet its deficit target, or rather, not miss it too badly. So the banks are going to lend the fund €24 billion, with their individual contributions graded by their market share (initially, €12 billion will be disbursed).
If you're still with us, the short version is that the banks are going to lend the fund that is supposed to bail out the banks the money to bail them out. As Exane's bank analyst Santiago Lopez Diaz notes, although the loan is a true contingent liability, it won't (at least at first) be influencing earnings statements – except perhaps positively, as the banks will book interest on it! As he notes, this is simply astounding financial alchemy.
The Spanish banks are lending their own government the money it needs to bail out... the Spanish banks. That may seem absurd at first glance, but wait till you see where those banks get the money to lend to their own government. From earlier in the same article (which seems to miss this point a bit):
Spain's banking system continues to make waves and unwelcome headlines. On Friday it became known that the banks have borrowed a record €316.3 billion from the ECB as of March, up from €169.8 billion in February – 28% of the gross borrowings of all banks in the euro area (in terms of borrowings from the ECB, it represent an even bigger percentage). This means Spain's banks have little to no access to the interbank market or other private funding and have evidently made maximum use of the second LTRO.
Oh lordy. The Spanish sovereign is being propped up by its own defunct banks. Which get the money to do the propping up from the ECB (re: Germany). That’ll go over well in Berlin once it's fully understood.
Not all of the €316.3 billion the banks borrowed as of March goes to the state and its bankrupt bank bailout fund, however. Quite a bit also is used to buy Spanish government bonds. Which is a sort of official goal of the LTRO, so Berlin can't say much about it:
Here's more from Yalman Onaran for Bloomberg on this strange circular magically realistic "logic":
Spanish, Italian and Portuguese banks are loading up on bonds issued by their own governments, a move that shifts more of the risk of sovereign default to European taxpayers from private creditors.
Holdings of Spanish government debt by lenders based in the country jumped 26 percent in two months, to 220 billion euros ($289 billion) at the end of January, data from Spain’s treasury show. Italian banks increased ownership of their nation’s sovereign bonds by 31 percent to 267 billion euros in the three months ended in February, according to Bank of Italy data.
German and French banks, meanwhile, have cut holdings of those countries’ bonds, as well as Irish and Greek debt, by as much as 50 percent since 2010 in some cases. That leaves domestic firms on the hook for a restructuring such as Greece’s last month and their main financier, the European Central Bank, facing losses. Like Greece, governments would have to rescue their lenders with funds borrowed from the European Union.
"The more banks stop cross-border lending, the more the ECB steps in to do the financing," said Guntram Wolff, deputy director of Bruegel, a Brussels-based research institute. "So the exposure of the core countries to the periphery is shifting from the private to the public sector."
The jump in sovereign-debt holdings by Spanish and Italian banks has been fueled by the ECB’s 1 trillion-euro long-term refinancing operation, or LTRO, initiated in December, to provide liquidity to the region’s lenders. Encouraged by their governments to take the money and buy bonds, banks borrowed 489 billion euros on Dec. 21 and 530 billion euros on Feb. 29.
For lenders in so-called peripheral countries -- Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Italy -- profit also was an inducement: They could borrow at 1 percent to buy government bonds yielding between 6 percent and 13 percent.
Lenders in those five countries have taken about 715 billion euros from the ECB through emergency programs, including the LTRO, according to the most recent data provided by the central banks of those nations. Irish and Greek lenders have borrowed an additional 83 billion euros from their central banks, using collateral that isn’t accepted by the ECB.
Bank saves sovereign saves bank saves sovereign. Bank saves sovereign with ECB money, and sovereigns rescue their lenders with funds borrowed from the European Union. The Spanish zombie stalks the Madrid and Barcelona midnight streets bleeding German euro's. Magical realism at its best.
Of course, the banks need some of the ECB money for themselves too. As the Acting Man article (let’s go back there for a moment) explains through a "Portuguese detour":
"Fitch Ratings-London-11 April 2012: Fitch Ratings says in a new report that performance indicators for Portuguese mortgage loans securitised in RMBS transactions are misleading, as originating banks' support for borrowers is masking the true extent of past underperformance.
In addition, house price indices that are typically quoted as indicators of the health of the market significantly understate the value declines witnessed on properties sold under 'forced' circumstances. This hides the full extent of future risks for Portuguese RMBS transactions.
Fitch expects the pressure on macroeconomic fundamentals – especially increased unemployment – to translate into weaker performance of mortgage loans. However, the weakness of the Portuguese mortgage market is not yet fully visible in the reported performance of RMBS transactions.
"The true extent of loan underperformance continues to be masked by support from the originating banks, through a combination of loan modifications, substitutions and repurchases," says Gioia Dominedo, Senior Director in Fitch's European Structured Finance team.
"On average, 11% of the collateral backing RMBS transactions has been affected by loan modifications, but this figure is as high as 50% in certain cases. In addition, an average of 12% of loans has been repurchased or substituted. This intervention makes estimating the real risks associated with the underlying mortgages far more challenging."
We mention this because the same thing is happening in Spain. [..] Spain's banks make ample use of conduits (i.e., the very SIV's that became so infamous during the US mortgage credit crisis). The risk from these conduits is considerable, as similar to how this scheme worked in the US, the banks are the guarantors of the conduits' funding and liquidity.
Moreover, as we have frequently mentioned, officially quoted real estate prices as per the price indexes used by the banks and approved by the Bank of Spain are a complete sham. It's not only the fact that the biggest appraisers are an oligopoly owned by the banks. As a friend pointed out to us, the real estate market is basically dead, so the majority of transactions that does take place involves banks repurchasing properties from clients at artificially inflated levels.
If these properties were appraised correctly, then the banks would have to take the losses from previously purchased properties and/or loans collateralized by such properties. One reason why it is well known that the valuations are not credible is that the banks refuse to create new mortgages based on these appraisals, unless they are for properties on their books.
Alphaville recently reported on Fitch taking a closer look at over 8,000 properties that were repossessed in RMBS it has rated in Spain. It remarks precisely on the practices described above, whereby the banks shuffle properties around, often within the same banking group, for the sole purpose of creating the artificially inflated prices that can then be used to carry on with this particular extend & pretend scheme.
"What Fitch is noting here is that the properties fell a lot more from their original valuation than what an official house price index says it should have fallen by at this point in Spain’s post-bubble economy. This difference pops out first when these properties were repossessed, and then, even more so when they were sold at a forced price."
[…] properties managed and serviced by Catalunya Banc/CX have the lowest recorded depreciation rates (20%) of all transactions in this analysis; however, this level is maintained artificially low due to a large volume of sales to intra-group companies at above-market prices. Elsewhere, properties managed and serviced by EdT/BBVA have higher depreciation rates (58%), driven by a commercial strategy that results in one of the shortest time-for-sale ratios (11 months) when compared to other transactions.
The question, to get our real point, being what happens next. Fitch already notes that some Spanish banks are unlikely to have the capital on their own to absorb defaulted loans much longer. But if they accelerate foreclosures, the price decline is huge. Fitch’s data set here strongly suggests this. Ultimately this plugs into the debate over Spain setting up a bad bank — in this case to take toxic loans to real estate developers from banks’ balance sheets. Discounts applied to loans in that operation could also be severe."
It's enough to make one feel dizzy.
The upshot of the above is that the markets have apparently become increasingly aware of the problem of late and are interpreting it to mean that Spain's government will end up in even bigger fiscal trouble than hitherto suspected, as it is easy to see that the banks will require much more support (we are by now assuming as a matter of course that the socialization of bank losses is official policy all over Europe). We repeat: although Spain's banks are well known for sweeping everything under the rug, they are now slowly but surely running out of rug.
More on the deteriorating position of Spanish banks, those saviors of the nation, from Charles Penty for Bloomberg:
Spain’s surging bad loans are spurring doubt on whether the government can persuade investors that it can clean up the country’s banks without further damaging public finances.
Non-performing loans as a proportion of total lending jumped to 7.91 percent in January, the highest level since 1994, from less than 1 percent in 2007, according to Bank of Spain data. [..]
Defaults are rising and credit is shrinking at a record pace as 24 percent unemployment corrodes the quality of loans built up in the country’s credit boom and saps the appetite of banks to make new ones. Doubts about the extent of Spain’s non- performing loans problem is hurting bank stocks and driving up the government’s borrowing costs on investor concern that the expense of propping up ailing lenders may add to the debt burden. [..]
"A lot of our doubts are based on the grounds that non- performing loans should increase," said Tobias Blattner, an economist at Daiwa Capital Markets in London, adding that he expects house prices still may fall by as much as 20 percent. "That could make a further hole in balance sheets of the banks."
Rajoy’s government announced plans in February to force banks to take their share of costs of 50 billion euros ($65.6 billion) for building provisions and capital to make them recognize losses on real estate piled up on their balance sheets during the country’s housing bust.
The Bank of Spain said late yesterday that lenders will take a total of 53.8 billion euros to meet the new requirements, including 29.1 billion euros in provisions and 15.6 billion euros to create capital buffers. The Bank of Spain said most companies would be able to comply "without major difficulty." [..]
The plan implies a loss ratio for those assets of about 25 percent based on the fact that banks have already made provisions of 50 billion euros against total real estate risk of 340 billion euros, said Daragh Quinn, an analyst at Nomura International in Madrid.
Depending on how much the economy contracts and asset prices fall, further provisions of as much as 40 billion euros may be needed, said Daiwa’s Blattner.
"In light of the bleak profitability outlook for the Spanish banking sector, we are concerned whether banks will be able to put aside the provisions the government has requested," he said.
So far the government’s efforts to bolster confidence in the banks has focused on making them recognize losses linked mainly to real estate. Banco Espanol de Credito SA (BTO), a Spanish consumer bank controlled by Banco Santander SA (SAN), said April 12 that first-quarter profit fell 88 percent as it made provisions to cover about half of the 1 billion euros in real estate charges the company must make this year to comply with the government’s order.
Still, Spain’s deteriorating economy means other classes of loans apart from those linked to real estate are also at risk of going sour, Blattner said.
The Bank of Spain, which says banks are burdened with about 176 billion euros of "troubled" real estate assets, lists about 21 percent of the 298 billion euros of loans linked to property developers as non-performing. The bad-loans ratio for industry excluding construction has jumped to 5.4 percent from 1 percent in 2007, according to the Bank of Spain.
Well, at least part of the picture becomes clear. I hope.
One more thing: most of what I see floating by in the news when it comes to Spain's real estate talks about the cajas, the small banks. But I don't believe for a moment that the big banks, like Santander and BBvA, were not involved in creating that behemoth bubble. Well over 10% of Spanish homes are reported to be empty. The country built more homes prior to the crisis than Germany, France and Britain did combined.
Santander then went on to acquire Alliance & Leicester, Bradford & Bingley and Abbey’s in Britain, as well as Sovereign Bancorp in the US and many other banks internationally. So I wonder sometimes if perhaps anyone in those countries ever asks themselves how safe those operations are today. If these guys can transfer overvalued bad loans and securities around between their Spanish affiliations, can they also do the same in their international branches?
Wouldn't that be interesting? | <urn:uuid:2b44435a-e3d6-4021-a587-f60acbba6eee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theautomaticearth.com/Finance/spain-land-of-magical-financial-realism.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968279 | 3,219 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Need for Geography
I am delighted to have the opportunity to guest blog on Opinio Juris, and look forward to dialoguing with you in the coming days. Many thanks for including me. I want to lead off with a few reflections on international law and geography that seem relevant in our heated pre-election environment.
Beginning with Harvard in 1947 and continuing over the decades that followed, many of the elite U.S. universities expelled their geography departments. Harvard’s president even questioned geography as a university discipline. By the end of the twentieth century, Dartmouth College was the only member of the Ivy League to still have a geography department. Although Harvard’s 2006 launch of a Center for Geographical Analysis may be a sign of this tide reversing, the dearth of geography education in many elite universities creates a troubling difficulty: Many of those making major international law and policy decisions have had minimal exposure to geography.
This lack of geographic training may serve as a barrier to thoughtful analysis of the many complex choices that arise in the international arena. For example, a recent op-ed in the Chicago Sun-Times by Alec Murphy of the University of Oregon’s Geography Department highlights the dangers of simplistic geopolitical analyses of the Middle East. The piece begins by noting:
After more than three years and a deluge of information to the contrary, why do 64 percent of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein had strong links with al-Qaida? Ignorance or gullibility might be part of the answer, but Donald Rumsfeld’s recent statement before the Senate Armed Services Committee provides another clue.
If we leave Iraq soon, Rumsfeld argues, “the enemy would tell us to leave Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the Middle East, they’d order us and all those who don’t share their militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands from Spain to the Philippines.”
Since the early days after 9/11, two vastly different geopolitical visions have dominated thinking about the Middle East.
The Rumsfeld — and Bush — vision sees the region as a staging ground for attacks against the West by an increasingly broad-based movement aimed at expanding the influence and territory of the “Islamic world.” The other sees the region as an unstable and fragmented area with many authoritarian regimes, as well as some dangerous but diffuse terrorist movements.
He later cautions:
Despite repeated efforts by the critics of Bush’s Iraq policy to highlight the differences between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, most people’s perceptions have not changed. Why? Perhaps because the critics are not speaking to the real reasons people think there is a link.
Confronting those reasons means taking on the Bush-Rumsfeld geopolitical vision. This is no easy task given the shifting arguments coming out of the White House and the limited exposure of most Americans to the history and geography of the Middle East.
Ironically, the Bush-Rumsfeld geopolitical model and the future hope of radical Islam are remarkably similar. Radical Islamicists clearly understand the diversity of the Middle East and the opposition they face from many state leaders. Their goal is to overcome that diversity and opposition by fostering a sense of common cause against the West in general, and the United States in particular. Wars are usually won by figuring out your enemy’s geopolitical objectives and undermining them. Under the circumstances, should we really be taking our enemy’s geopolitical vision as our starting point?
Arguing that Saddam had no direct connection with 9/11 will have little impact on continued support for the Bush-Rumsfeld foreign policy unless it is accompanied by an effective challenge to the geopolitical visions that sustain belief in that connection. That means highlighting regional complexities and emphasizing the dangers of playing into extremist geopolitical visions. Sadly, policies motivated by the “Middle East as a staging ground” geopolitical model are like self- fulfilling prophecies. Each day we insist on treating the Middle East as a monolithic bloc, we stoke the fires that make it more so. | <urn:uuid:d548a60d-7c47-4672-98f6-4c097e102e2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opiniojuris.org/2006/11/01/the-need-for-geography/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949939 | 833 | 1.75 | 2 |
Scientists Discover We’ve Got a Sixth Taste Bud, This one’s For Fat
Now I have something to blame when it comes to my craving for a bag of taco flavored Doritos.
Remember back when life was simple and we only had four types of taste buds, sweet, sour, salt, and bitter? And then the ’80s, we found out there was a fifth type, one that tasted savory flavors?
Well now it turns out we’ve had a sixth one all along. And the flavor it detects will not shock you. Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have found we have a sixth taste bud that tastes fat.
The sensitivity of the fat taste bud varies a lot from person to person and could actually be one of the contributing factors to why some people are prone to eat less healthily than other people. But don’t freak out just yet, more studies are coming! | <urn:uuid:de124d3c-9db1-4747-aee0-1cb7387e77ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://keyw.com/scientists-discover-weve-got-a-sixth-taste-bud-this-ones-for-fat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95832 | 193 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Tim Burton Says He Wanted to See Lincoln Vampire Movie Before He Made It
Tim Burton is known for (aside from his bromance with actor Johnny Depp) an affinity for quirky film premises — case in point being the strange 90′s classic Edward Scissorhands, about a young man living in a castle on a mountain in Levittown who has actual scissors for hands.
So it probably seems pretty natural that Tim Burton’s name would be attached to the just-released Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter. That film is based on a novel by the same name that was published in 2010 and written by Seth Grahame-Smith, and the revisionist fiction seemed a clear-cut big-screen leap when it was released.
Now that Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter is in theaters, Tim Burton has been talking about his initial interest in the film and what drew him to it. According to Burton, he didn’t even have to read the book to know that he wanted to bring it to the big screen — the Corpse Bride creator explains:
“I just heard the idea and the proposal and right away — and I never do this — I wanted to see this movie… Something in my brain went crazy.”
While Abe Lincoln revisionism has a steampunk bent to it, Burton actually says that the premise reminded him of films he’d watch as a kid growing up in Los Angeles — he recalls:
“There was this theatre in Burbank that would show triple features of films like ‘Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde’ and ‘Blacula.”‘
But to Burton, the idea of Abe Lincoln as a vampire slayer didn’t seem to be too unbelievable — the quirky filmmaker says that seeing old pics of the former president suggested a “haunted” look that appeared he was ”hunting vampires while doing his day job as president.”
Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter was released nationwide on Friday. | <urn:uuid:a7ce8bf2-a2fc-416e-8306-a806cb4038f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.inquisitr.com/261413/tim-burton-says-he-wanted-to-see-lincoln-vampire-movie-before-he-made-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975214 | 414 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Green Web Hosting is getting a lot of attention as it seems that every business of any size is setting up a website. Businesses with a commitment to environmental sustainability are looking for the cleanest, greenest ways to run their websites.
Green web hosting companies are able to offer their services as being more environmentally responsible by reducing or mitigating emissions from their own server and IT electricity consumption. The CarbonFree® Business Partnership program makes this a simple and affordable step, and HostBaby Web Hosting of Portland, OR recently made the move to green web hosting with Carbonfund.org.
HostBaby offers web hosting services that help independent musicians, authors and artists create highly customizable websites. Now HostBaby’s services will be CarbonFree® through HostBaby’s support of Carbonfund.org’s renewable energy and clean air technology projects.
In addition to its CarbonFree® commitment, HostBaby maintains a robust recycling program and paperless billing. The company helps facilitate ride-share programs for its employees by offering discounted year-round bus passes and giving gas cards to employees who rack up carpooling miles. They also participate in the Bike Commute Challenge every year with sister company CD Baby.
"It’s essential that all businesses conserve and establish sustainable practices,” states Chris Bolton, HostBaby Marketing. “The future is at stake. HostBaby is committed to doing our part."
While there’s been a lot of press about the increasing carbon emissions associated with rapidly expanding global technology usage, management consulting firm McKinsey & Company cites ways in which information and communications technologies can lead the way in reducing operational carbon emissions. CarbonFree® Business Partner A2 Hosting has been ahead of this curve for the past six years, offering its customers a greener, cleaner solution to server hosting.
A2 Hosting is a Linux based web hosting company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan providing a range of services including website hosting for personal homepages up to full service solutions for businesses of all sizes. And A2 Hosting is committed to ensuring responsible and ethical business practices including offsetting all server and equipment emissions with Carbonfund.org.
In 2007, A2 Hosting launched its FutureServe Green Hosting partnership with Carbonfund.org, supporting the development of energy efficiency technologies, clean renewable sources of energy, forestry and biodiversity preservation, and the resulting reduction of CO2 emissions on a global scale.
In December 2012, A2 Hosting launched hosting services in Reykjavik, Iceland. This hosting location is 100% green-powered by natural geothermal energy, and utilizes the frigid Iceland air to power its cooling units. Combining geothermal energy and natural cooling technologies allows the data center to run at very low power usage effectiveness levels and leaves no carbon footprint. And A2 Hosting is currently launching the ability to host sites using Solid State Drives (SSDs). SSD drives offer a greener footprint as they consume roughly one-third the amount of energy as traditional hard disks.
"We are committed to doing right by our customers and the environment,” says Bryan Muthig, Founder and CEO of A2 Hosting. “Until more clean energy solutions are available to everyone, we are pledging to offset our server emissions in order to help protect our fragile environment."
Since 2007, A2 Hosting has offset over 630 metric tonnes of carbon emissions, the equivalent of the carbon dioxide sequestered by almost 15,000 trees grown over a ten-year period.
A2 Hosting focuses on delivering the type of systems hosting they would want to use as a customer, which means all-inclusive hosting with no hidden fees, US-based around-the-clock customer support and ultra-reliable servers with high performance. This commitment to excellence in service and leadership in environmental responsibility make A2 Hosting a great example of a small business doing its part to help hasten our transition to a cleaner energy future. | <urn:uuid:7ae253da-0ac5-444b-8a78-11ec8d126326> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.carbonfund.org/blog/itemlist/tag/web%20hosting%20services | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944391 | 808 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Not satisfied with selling content to adults only, Amazon (
) has now ventured into content for kids. The company recently
announced the launch of of "Amazon Kindle FreeTime Unlimited" aimed
at kids of ages 3-8. The service gives unlimited access to
thousands of titles including exclusive to Amazon Android apps and
games. The prices for the services are low at ~$3 per month per
child or ~$7 per month per family for Amazon Prime members.
Customers who are not Prime members pay a monthly price
of $5 per child or $10 per family.
A study estimates that nearly 70% of the tablet owners with
children under 12 allow their kids to use the devices for gaming,
studying and entertainment. With an estimated 2.5 million tablets
shipped by Amazon in Q3 2012 and more expected in Q4, the potential
market for the offering is huge. Though the package pricing of the
product limits the revenue potential, we expect it to instead make
up by attracting large number of families looking for a way to
curate content their children are exposed to while saving at the
same time. The content bundling could boost sales for the Kindle as
the preferred tablet instead of an Apple (
) iPad or iPad mini.
See our full analysis for Amazon's stock
The service offers a bouquet of curated, kid-friendly
movies, games and books. It lets kids create their own profiles and
control their library. They get to explore content on their own and
use their imagination without being dependent. They also get access
to separate home screens which isn't shared and won't lose their
place in a movie/TV show when someone else uses the device.
Parents' worries have been attended to as they get to curate the
content, impose time limits and thus limit their kids' screen time.
The service also does away with advertisements and links to social
media which track data and might have led to age inappropriate
content. We believe that the bouquet pricing of the service is a
clever way to get people to spend more money and free unlimited
content will get parents addicted to the device and service.
The company will face competition from Barnes & Noble's Nook
which is popular among parent because of its wide catalog. Apple
too would be a competitor as the company through a Netflix (
) app on its devices offers kid-focused films.
We have a
estimate for Amazon
which is 12% below the current market price.
a Post at Trefis Powered by Data and Interactive Charts
Drives a Stock at Trefis | <urn:uuid:76ca9a16-45b4-470a-8bfa-535bad262fc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nasdaq.com/article/amazon-entices-families-with-bundled-content-for-kids-cm196686 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940069 | 546 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Ten Tips for Great Blogging to ensure your blog is found, is read, is returned to, is acted upon, is shared and benefits from interaction.
1. Punctuation, Grammar, Spelling – Writing a blog post should undergo similar practices to writing a book – planning, preparation, writing, editing, spell checking, reading it aloud and only then, do you hit publish. I have to admit that I am guilty of not proofreading properly sometimes, just doing a quick skim read and then wondering why I missed an occasional typo. Spelling, punctuation and grammar are just as important in a blog post as they are in a book, in a published article or in an examination. Use the spell checker, use a thesaurus and/or dictionary and if you feel your punctuation or grammar could be improved, read it aloud or ask a friend or colleague to do so.
2. Quality Pictures – Try to include good photographs in your blog posts. Every blog post should have a minimum of one photograph, partly to create visual interest and to break up the text and partly to serve as a photograph to pin on Pinterest, thereby serving as a link to your blog post.
If you use a photograph that does not belong to you, credit the source. not yours, then credit them. Try to use your own original photography if you can. The photograph above was a simple one I took of our windmill on my iphone. I used it as I wanted a fairly plain background to place the text against.With so many people having smart phones now, it is much easier to snap a quick photograph if you see something suitable when you are out and about.
3. Blog regularly – Try to blog fairly regularly. If you post 3 or 4 times a week, then schedule some posts if you are going to be away or if you have a busy week coming up. Try to have a regular topic once or twice a week, e.g. Tuesday’s Tip or Fabric Friday.
4. Personality – whether your blog is a personal or business blog, your readers should be able to get to know you by reading your blog. This doesn’t mean that you have to include details of your social life or your family life in every blog post if it is a business blog but let your readers get a sense of the person behind the business and the blog by incorporating a sentence or two of your life into a percentage of your blog posts.
5. Share on social networks – There are so many social networks available now that it is important to share your blog post there too. Don’t rely on your blog being found on its SEO alone, help potential readers find it by sharing it on all or some of the following social media platforms: pinterest, twitter, facebook, google +, and linked in. Remember your aim is to get more traffic to your website and use your blog as the core of your social media – to bring traffic from the other networks back to your blog and hence to your website.
6. Interaction – It can be very hard to get comments on your own blog (unless you are a guru) if you don’t comment on other blogs. I know it is difficult to find the time and I don’t comment on as many other blogs as I should. However, I often interact with the blog writer on facebook or twitter instead. It is also important to respond to those who write a comment on your blog, not necessarily every commentator but occasional ones. Enjoy the conversation and become part of a community by using your blog in this way.
7. Knowledgeable – if you don’t know enough about the subject you are writing about and you are leaving gaps, there is a high likelihood this will either be pointed out by someone in the comments or some won’t return to your blog again. If you don’t know enough, do some more research before you hit ‘publish’. Ensure your content is unique too – if you have taken information from another website or blog, credit that source.
8. Be Compelling – A blog is not a text book so make it as interesting as you can – in terms of layout, using images or diagrams to break up the text if it is long, and be as entertaining and informative as the subject matter allows.
9. Join blogging groups - Joining an offline blogging group will further your relationships with other bloggers, increasing support for your blog. It will also help to iron our any problems you may have as you can get answers to your questions. I always come away buzzing from our KLCK bloggers network meetings. Blogging groups can be online too – I’ve noticed a Dublin Bloggers group set up on facebook recently and there are bound to be hundreds more too – either in terms of geographical area or in subject area.
10. Ease of Navigation – Remember that a reader may come to your blog initially via a post you wrote a year ago. Can they find related posts easily? Are your posts categorised? If they want to contact you, is your ‘contact us’ page set up? Can they see a picture of you in the About Us page or in the sidebar? Can they access your most recent post easily? Ease of navigation is important as readers may wish to read more posts in that subject area or just to read more of the wonderful content you have written. Remember to include a call to action too – readers need to know what you want them to do and how they can benefit more from your service or products.
Blogging is a great tool and if used well, can result in incredible returns – both in terms of building your profile, monetary rewards and personal benefits.
Have I left out any tips? Do you have any to add?
Do like our facebook page for the latest updates from both of us at Write on Track. | <urn:uuid:22498f0a-f1d5-4957-bca5-07fe3512d324> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.writeontrack.ie/blogs/10-tips-for-great-blogging/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951614 | 1,210 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Srila Prabhupada wrote in one letter: "The point is to be engaged in doing something for Krishna, never mind what is that job, but being so engaged in doing something very much satisfying to the devotee that he remains always enthusiastic."
This is one of the great secrets of success, at least while we are still conditioned by the modes of material nature. Find out what you really like doing, what you have a natural talent for, and then to throw your whole heart into doing that very, very well. Many successful devotees have found a field where their natural strengths and abilities are exactly what is required to do the service and achieve the desired results.
You can also find a field in which you can do be totally absorbed. A service or area of endeavor that completely fascinates you, that holds your attention, that is a natural expression of your unique talents and abilities. When you are doing what you love to do, you can have a continuous flow of excitement, energy, and ideas to do it better and better.
Here are two questions for you. Number one, if you got a million dollars, tax-free, tomorrow, would you continue to do what you are currently doing? Number two, would you stay in your current service? These questions simply ask you what you would do differently if you had all the time and money you needed and you were free to choose your service or occupation.
Successful devotees, if they got a million dollars in cash, would continue doing what they are doing. They would perhaps do it differently or better or somewhere else. But they love their service so much that they wouldn't even think of leaving it or retiring.
One of the great responsibilities of your life, when you are surrounded by so many different choices of service, occupation and activity, is for you to find out what it is that you really love doing for Krsna and then to dedicate yourself to that field. And no one else can choose it for you. | <urn:uuid:e2c224c4-6149-49b1-9cbe-b9c3f4ad3335> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gitacoaching.blogspot.jp/2007/10/do-what-you-love-to-do.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983268 | 407 | 1.632813 | 2 |
It sounds like one of two problems. You either have a malfunctioning wireless card or you have interference in between you and the router. In my experience, interference is the more likely culprit, but I have a feeling you may have a bunk card due to the fact that other laptops don't have connection issues.
You can test my theory by moving your laptop to another area in the house where you know for certain that other computers can receive a strong signal. If your signal is still weak in this area, then you know that your card is bad. If you receive a strong signal, then you likely have some sort of interference in the area you normally use.
If you have a bad card the solution is very simple, buy a new one. I suggest a USB Wireless Stick. They're easy to use, portable and are fairly cheap. Branding doesn't matter much as long as you buy a device that's compatible with Windows 7 and will work with your router. The latest Linksys USB device is the AE1000
. However, the 600N
would work too.
If you think you have interference, then you need to find the culprit. Anything that sends out or blocks radio waves could be interfering with your signal. Some metals can do this, but this isn't usually a problem unless you have large sheets of copper or brass which almost no one has. Microwaves can be an issue, as can some cordless telephones and any other device that broadcasts or communicates wirelessly. | <urn:uuid:4d9f1325-9371-4df0-b3d8-04ea2bc09b6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sevenforums.com/network-sharing/96747-why-my-signal-so-poor.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971628 | 303 | 1.695313 | 2 |
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