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But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
The Hebrew word picture for “iniquity” is “bent”. Iniquity is the being “bent” from straight, twisted from the upright, and made crooked from the pure. While transgression are our comissions of sin, our iniquity is the propensity, or proneness to continue to sin.
Jesus, when He died, paid for our entire nature. He covered our individual sins, and our sinfulness. He, through His righteous act and sacrificial offering, made peace with God for us, by taking upon Himself the punishment we deserved.
[F]or if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10, portion
Freedom is found in the lack of chains.
A Psalmist wrote, “ I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1-2). When we make our decisions before God and man, do we understand that He is all that matters?
Categories: General, Kingdom, Revolution, Teaching Christ, Jesus, Kingdom, Righteousness, Seek First, Servant, Slave, Slaves, Yield
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
The ground floor of the church building is the life of the Spirit, that is, being led by Him.
There is no other life, no other functional place of ministry than to be spiritually minded, and any ministry that occurs outside of that will only reproduce after its own kind. Any other form of church is a hollow, man-made shell, with no lasting fruit nor legacy.
Jesus came and demonstrated the first spirit-led life. He was cut off from this Earth through the waters of baptism, lived apart and separated in the Spirit realm of the Holy Ghost, and only after His death was he granted brothers.
Categories: Church of the Beyond, Kingdom, Revolution, Teaching Basis, Carnal, Church, Dissipation, Distraction, Floor, Ground Floor, Jesus, Judgment, Kingdom, Man, Man's Order, Order, Revelation, Spiritual, True, True Church | <urn:uuid:11124e9d-07d5-40c4-b11f-b2959d993eef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.churchofthebeyond.com/?s=%22Galatians+1%3A10%22 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959354 | 504 | 1.757813 | 2 |
A Quote by Bertrand Arthur William Russell on thought, fear, thinking, and freedom
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin - more even than death... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Contributed by: Siona | <urn:uuid:35a4780f-6cfa-4b47-b19a-81048f0b750b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/bertrand-russell/67997 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934239 | 101 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Australia on a Gap Year and Backpacking in Australia
Backpacking and Gap Years in Australia
Australia on a gap year is a must! Australia is a big, beautiful country with vast, expansive spaces and not a lot of people. Gap year options in Australia are very varied, putting a visit to Australia on a gap year high on many backpacker bucket lists. Australia is a flat, arid land, with peculiar rock formations and a strange, dangerous wildlife. The Outback stretches for mile after mile, baking under blue skies and a bright sun.
For many backpacking in Australia conjures up images of an idyllic lifestyle of sun and sand, outdoor activities and lazy days. A sunny climate gives Australians an easy-going attitude to life that makes it particularly appealing to all, especially for those backpacking on a gap year and Europeans who want to escape the cold and rain. Beach culture reigns with the majority of inhabitants living along the coast in vibrant, youthful cities.
Almost all round the world flights feature a stop in Australia, making it almost synonymous with gap year backpacking. Whether you are looking for a gap year job, a Red Centre tour, some Gold Coast backpacking, Australia on a gap year pretty much has it all.
Australia - Your Guide to Adventure
If you're looking for adventure then look no further than Australia. It's got everything from mountain climbing to white-water rafting, from surfing to skiing, so jump in at the deep end and read Tourism Australia's guide to adventure; you won't be disappointed.
Backpacking in Australia
Backpacking in Australia is an amazing way to see the country. Australia is the most popular country for backpacking and not without good reason. With such a wide range of things to do, backpacking on a gap year in Australia is easy. For a quick introduction to gap year travel in Oz, check out our Backpacking in Australia section.
Map of Australia
Idea of the Month
Idea of the Week
The Gold Coast
In just fifty years the Gold Coast has grown from a small beachside holiday destination to one of Australia’s most visited sections of coastline, but there is more to it than just sandy beaches. Gold Coast backpacking is a great way to see what it really has to offer...
If you're heading to the Gold Coast you're going to want to know what to see and do.
What you need is our Gold Coast Backpackers Guide - it has everything you need to know from accommodation, to nightlife, to events. Whatever's going on in the Gold Coast, we've got it here, so make sure you give it a read...
Queensland is one of the most popular states in Australia and it's not hard to understand why. There's so much to see and do - you can chillout in Cairns, divie the Great Barrier Reef, hike in Daintree National Park, explore Fraser Island, and white-water raft the Tully River. You can do all of these and more in Queensland.
Quote of the Moment
"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money." | <urn:uuid:4bd30191-4ac0-4347-944e-636f163790dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gapyear.com/countries/australia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934813 | 656 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Pages related to TSP/SSP: | Main info | Available projects | FAQ (this page) | Examples of previous projects |
TSP and SSP - FAQ
Frequently asked questions for the special projects and TSP in computer science The School of IT has a few project offerings for the Science TSP and the SIT SSP programs.
Questions about enrollment procedures, and eligibility
- I am not enrolled in a school of IT degree, can I still do the SSP projects in computer science?
Yes, as long as your marks meet the requirements. You can enroll in these units the same way as you would with any elective unit.
- How do I apply for special permission to enroll in these units?
At the beginning of each year, and usually at the beginning of semester 2 as well, students with high marks, enrolled in units relevant to computer science are invited to the SSP program by email. Then the student follows the enrollment procedure which is described in the information pages. If a student is eligible but has not received an invitation, he/she must contact the SSP program coordinator ([email protected] at the moment) directly.
- Can I replace a subject that is core for my degree with an SSP project in computer science
No. The project units are not meant to replace core units. The only way to replace a core unit is by special permission by the undergraduate director.
- Do I need to drop a unit in order to do these projects?
You should consider these projects as any other 6cp unit of study. Most students will replace a unit with a project, but in rare cases a student may choose to overload a semester.
- When is the deadline to enroll in these projects
When it comes to admin issues you should consider these projects as any other 6cp unit of study that requires special prmission. The deadline to enroll is the same as the deadline to enroll in any unit in each semester. If you are replacing a unit in your enrollment, you should also consider the deadline to drop a unit. The deadlines are posted by the university every year.
- How many students are in these SSP projects in computer science
The program is very selective and therefore very small. The aim is to have about 10-15 students over all years working in SSP projects.
- How long have these projects been around?
The SSP in CS was introduced in 2010.
- How many of these projects can I do?
There is one project unit in every semester in years 1,2 and 3.
- Can I do two of these projects in the same semester?
No, there is exactly one unit of study code for each semester.
- I am in the TSP program. Are these SSP projects different than what I can do through TSP?
No, not at all. The SSP program is very similar in spirit to the faculty of science TSP. If you are in the TSP program you can choose to do these a computer science project as a TSP project or a school of IT SSP project. There is no difference. In most cases, TSP students will choose to do these projects using TSP unit of study codes.
- Is there a list of available projects?
There is a list here. However in many cases students can discuss other topics with potential supervisors. Look also at this page for a list of research groups and areas in the school.
- How do I enroll in these units?
You need "special permission" in order to enroll in these units. In order to get this special permission, you need to (first of all meet the entry criteria, and then) find a suitable project and supervisor. The program coordinator will then sign a special permission form that you can use to enroll in the units.
Questions about the projects
- Can I do a project with a supervisor from a different school?
We can only organize the enrollment in these projects for work supervised in the school of IT. Other schools may have similar project programs. For example the faculty science has the TSP prgram, as well as SSP prgrams in each school.
- Are there examples of past projects that I can look at?
- I would like to do a project but I am not sure what area to choose
Excellent! That's a very good start, and expected for most students. Arrange a meeting with the coordinator to discuss possible areas and possibly meet potential supervisors.
- What kind of work is involved in these projects?
The type of work varies. A lot. A typical project will start with a lot of reading of background material, followed by a number of tasks which can be implementations, or solving theoretical problems. At the end of the semester, a written report is required, describing the project, background material, the work done, and the results.
- How are these projects marked?
Carefully. The project work (aims, expected outcomes, deliverables etc) should be part of the discussion between the student and supervisor in the beginning of the semester. When the work is complete, and the report has been submitted, the supervisor will mark the project along with the SSP program coordinator.
- Is it ok to contact a staff member directly about these projects?
General information about the TSP and SSP programs
- TSP: The talented student program of the faculty of Science.
- SSP: Special studies program, in the school of IT; consists of one special project unit for every semester, in years 1,2, and 3.
Special Studies Program in the School of IT (SIT SSP)
The special studies program (SSP) in the School of IT gives high achieving students the opportunity to enroll in research-related project units as part of their undergraduate studies in years 1,2, and 3. The special project units are the following:
- INFO1911 Special Project 1A (Semester 1)
- INFO1912 Special Project 1B (Semester 2)
- INFO2911 Special Project 2A (Semester 1)
- INFO2912 Special Project 2B (Semester 2)
- INFO3911 Special Project 3A (Semester 1)
- INFO3912 Special Project 3B (Semester 2)
This program is separate to the Science TSP and is open to all Science TSP students as well as students enrolled in engineering degrees with strong interest in computing an information sciences. Entry criteria include: (1) For first-year students: a minimum ATAR (or equivalent) of 99, an HD average in IT units of study and a Distinction average in non-IT units of study (2) For second- and third-year students: an HD average in IT units of study and a Distinction average in non-IT units of study and (3) finding a suitable project and supervisor in the School of IT.
Invitations to the program are sent by email in the beginning of each academic year (usually during O-week). These invitations may not be sent to all eligible students, as they target students enrolling in engineering degrees with high ATAR scores, and also students that have completed some core subjects in computer science. Student that meet the criteria and have not received an invitation can also apply for entry in this program (contact the program coordinator for more information).
Contacts for TSP and SSP in SIT
Taso Viglas (SSP and TSP Coordinator), Katie Yang (Undergraduate Admin Officer), Josiah Poon (Undergraduate Director) | <urn:uuid:efd7ebd7-e864-489e-9b89-5564571254e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rp-www.cs.usyd.edu.au/~tasos/SSPFAQ.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945296 | 1,569 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Social CRM Fundamentals
The definition of social CRM is complete only if you consider the fundamental elements of a successful social CRM strategy. Social CRM includes two main elements: influence and community.
The influence of the customer is extremely important to the success of any social CRM strategy. This is important when managing customer expectations and building the strength of customer advocates within their respective communities.
Employee and customer influence within communities are truly a fundamental part of a successful social CRM platform, which plays on the elements of community and influence between your customers and employees.
Focus on community building
In order to build a successful social community, a business must first understand how and why consumers engage with their brand through social channels. Studies have shown that a vast majority of Facebook Page fans are either current or past customers. This means that your fans have already interacted with your business through another channel — your storefront, website, e-mail, telephone line, and so on.
All this indicates that the social media ecosystem is a breeding ground for community building between fans and past fans. It’s the perfect mix of people! The following are examples of community building:
Posing questions: People are more apt to respond to a question than comment on a statement. Giving fans two options in a question can elicit responses, too. When you’re trying to engage the social community, you can ask questions that may generate ideas for future content.
Repurposing content from fans and followers: Fans and followers are part of the community element of your brand. The content they create on social media sites can help fuel the content for your brand. After all, your customers are your best salespeople, right?
Promoting contests: Photo contests have gained great popularity on Facebook. Many people are proud of their photos and are more than eager to share them.
Creating cross-channel marketing: If a certain piece of content is gaining engagement on Facebook, it’s a good bet that it’ll catch e-mail subscribers’ attention, too. This idea works in reverse. Listen to what your customers like and use that content to help fuel other avenues of your marketing initiative, such as e-mail.
Now, if you get a transaction somewhere in that mix, bonus! However, with community building, transactions can’t be the main aim, and that’s a tough pill to swallow for much of enterprise that clings to the way things used to be.
Give influence to your customers
This doesn’t mean you have to turn your entire business over to them. Customers own and define their own personal experience with a brand, and companies can learn to optimize these experiences. You determine who you are as a company — your mission, your philosophies — but each customer has a personal and individual experience with your brand.
Customers are telling businesses when, where, and how much they will purchase and have embraced a variety of channels to do so. Social sharing sites like Pinterest and social shopping sites like Glam exemplify the idea of community building around commerce.
Glam Media, which proclaims to be the leading curated social media platform company, is a content promotion company that focuses on lifestyle topics like fashion, food, and parenting. Glam helps brands build a loyal base of writers who enjoy the brand’s products.
Glam’s blog writers are paid based on the advertisements attracted to their pages, and advertisers become attracted to a blog after an audience (consumers) is generated. So the consumers determine where the advertising dollars will go and distinguish what content is actually valuable.
Collaborate with customers
Fundamental to the social business is collaboration with customers. This is about creating a place where customers can define the conversation and start building and deepening an understanding of the brand. Your best salesperson is your happy customer. Use it to your advantage.
Determining the value of a customer goes beyond loyalty. A repeat customer can drive profits but a repeat customer who also sends your brand referrals can more greatly affect your bottom line. Who doesn’t love raving fans?
A customer’s value goes well beyond just what she buys. Companies need to take into consideration that customer’s potential to generate profitable new customers. What a customer may say about your brand and his or her willingness to refer new customers to you definitely holds value and expands upon customer loyalty.
Incentivizing your socially engaged customers is great way to turn them into brand advocates. Here are few examples of incentives that you can offer to customers:
Earn a $20 credit to your account when your next referral subscribes.
Refer three friends to buy the same deal you just did, and your purchase is free. That’s how LivingSocial encouraged its customers to promote a deal.
Wherever your customers are talking is where you should be listening and collaborating. With review sites, social media, and search gaining popularity and usage from customers, it’s critical for you to be listening to what your customers are sharing on these sites. Many consumers turn to review sites for recommendations on just about any type of service on the fly. | <urn:uuid:d2eb9c1d-3731-407f-8d3c-53f8d4916d68> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/social-crm-fundamentals.navId-815476.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940614 | 1,055 | 1.71875 | 2 |
By Johnny Jackson
Declining retail gas prices have made more than consumers happy.
"We're expecting to get more business," said Parminder Singh Grewal, owner of McDonough Station in downtown McDonough. "There's a big difference... when gas prices are low, people start coming in."
Grewal said cheaper prices at the pump always have translated into more business in his neighborhood filling station store. He said his hopes are to increase in-store business with the typical spike in traffic as the Memorial Day Weekend approaches.
However, the Memorial Day Weekend historically has been connected with higher gas prices, according to Jessica Brady, spokeswoman for AAA Auto Club South.
"Typically, you do see gas prices rise at this time of year," Brady said. "Memorial Day Weekend marks the beginning of the summer travel season. But if you couple the ample supply that we have and the strong dollar, you have lower gasoline prices."
The average retail price for regular unleaded gas has decreased by 10-cents over the past week in metro Atlanta, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Monday's $2.70 per-gallon average fell below the $2.73 per-gallon average reported the month prior.
"Lower retail gasoline prices are always welcomed by consumers, and they can expect to see just that as retail prices drop again this week," added Brady. "It wouldn't be surprising if it actually continued throughout the rest of the month."
Brady said declining gas prices have been the result of plummeting crude oil prices which have dropped three weeks straight on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Crude oil prices held around $70 per barrel Monday on the NYMEX as markets and investors responded to speculation about the global economic recovery.
"The European crisis has pushed the value of the euro down 12 percent against the dollar, and is one of the major factors that has caused the price of crude to decrease," explained Brady. "At the same time, U.S. stockpiles of crude grew for the 15th week. The possibility that Europe's financial problems will slow global demand at a time when U.S. demand is already slow to rise, has investors worried."
Brady said the lack of demand has been demonstrated in the constant increase in U.S. stockpiles of crude, now well above 362 million barrels, or at nearly 88 percent capacity.
She expects to see prices rise at some level later this summer to as much as $3 or more per gallon briefly, in some spots around the Southeast, which currently enjoys the cheapest gas prices in the country.
Filling station owner, Grewal, believes when gas prices stay below $3 per gallon, customers are more apt to enter his store and make other purchases. When prices are above $3, he said, customers tend to shy away from neighborhood stores like his, to got to larger outlets and retailers.
"People will stay in the neighborhood now," Grewal said. "When gas is cheap, people don't care what brand they get, or where they get it." | <urn:uuid:690b0194-1758-4b3e-b22f-35fa0eed92cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.news-daily.com/news/2010/may/24/gas-crude-oil-prices-continue-their-descent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971944 | 641 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
by Djuna Barnes
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0811216713, Paperback)Nightwood is not only a classic of lesbian literature, but was also acknowledged by no less than T. S. Eliot as one of the great novels of the 20th century. Eliot admired Djuna Barnes' rich, evocative language. Lesbian readers will admire the exquisite craftsmanship and Barnes' penetrating insights into obsessive passion. Barnes told a friend that Nightwood was written with her own blood "while it was still running." That flowing wound was the breakup of an eight-year relationship with the lesbian love of her life.
(retrieved from Amazon Thu, 03 Jan 2013 11:35:43 -0500)
Originally published in 1936, this novel by Djuna Barnes describes the life of Americans and Europeans in Paris in the decadent 'Roaring Twenties'.
Is this you?
Become a LibraryThing Author. | <urn:uuid:9d5a93d3-71c9-48d6-b632-7e2028c632ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.librarything.com/work/12916 | 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 | 0.936796 | 206 | 1.765625 | 2 |
"Total Truth" a Bold Manifesto for the Christian Worldview
- Saturday, March 18, 2006
Books come and go, with hundreds of new titles released each week. Most of these books will quickly go out of print, make their way to remainder tables, and eventually be forgotten. On the other hand, sometimes a book comes along that demands immediate attention and will earn long-term influence. That is certainly the case with Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey, which may well be one of the most important Christian books of our times. Total Truth, subtitled "Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity," is a manifesto for Christian worldview thinking in the 21st century. The book is a masterpiece of cultural analysis and intellectual engagement, tracing the odyssey of its author even as she provides virtually an entire education in Christian worldview understanding in a single volume. This is no small achievement.
Nancy Pearcey is a gifted writer, and one of the brightest minds serving evangelical Christianity. Raised in a Scandinavian Lutheran home, she grew to know about Christianity as a child without coming to faith in Christ. She eventually became an adult convert to Christianity, but only after an intellectual and spiritual pilgrimage that took her from one side of the Atlantic to the other--including time at Francis Schaeffer's L'Abri, a study center for young people asking big questions.
Pearcey now serves as the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute and as a Visiting Scholar at the Torrey Honors Institute at Biola University. She is also well known for her work as a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle. An articulate opponent of evolutionary theory and one of the church's most gifted authors, Nancy Pearcey brings a wealth of credibility and passion to this book.
Total Truth serves as a basic introduction to Christian worldview thinking, but its depth and clarity of thought sets it far above the usual fare. Throughout the volume, the influence of Francis Schaeffer is apparent. One of the twentieth century's most significant apologists, Schaeffer was an eccentric and magnetic figure who helped an entire generation of struggling young evangelicals find their way into biblical Christianity. Schaeffer served as a prophet of cultural engagement during an age of rebellion among America's youth, and he shaped the thinking of an entire generation of theologically-minded Christian young people.
Nancy Pearcey's conversion came when she recognized that "God had won the argument," and that her response must be to "give my life to the Lord of Truth." In other words, she came to believe that the gospel is true, and that its truth demanded obedience. "Once we discover that the Christian worldview is really true, then living it out means offering up to God all our powers--practical, intellectual, emotional, artistic--to live for Him in every area of life. The only expression such faith can take is one that captures our entire being and redirects our every thought. The notion of a secular/sacred split becomes unthinkable. Biblical truth takes hold of our inner being, and we recognize that it is not only a message of salvation but also the truth about all reality. God's word becomes a light to all our paths, providing the foundational principles for bringing every part of our lives under the Lordship of Christ, to glorify Him and cultivate His creation."
One of Francis Schaeffer's key insights was the split in the modern mind that separated "religious" truth from all other truth. This "two-story" division of truth into secular and sacred spheres ultimately undermines the Christian truth claim and leaves believers with nothing more than a claim to "spirituality" and "meaningful experiences" rather than objective truth and biblical authority.
Nancy Pearcey conducts a thorough autopsy on these deficient patterns of thought, demonstrating throughout her book that all too many Christians fall prey to this kind of thinking. She tells a story of a theology teacher in a Christian high school who drew a heart on one side of his blackboard and a brain on the other. He told his class that the heart is what we use for religion, while the brain is what we employ for science. What this teacher was insinuating is that Christianity is a matter of feeling and emotion, while science is a matter of fact and objective truth. As Pearcey laments, "Training young people to develop a Christian mind is no longer an option; it is part of their necessary survival equipment."
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Godwin's Law - RIAA's Big Push to Copy Protect Digital Radio
Immediately below is the text of the joint resolution by RIAA and other groups, asking Congress to copy-protect radio (which has never been copy-protected before). Following that is RIAA's "one-pager" outlining for Congress the reasons RIAA offers for Congress to authorize the FCC to put in place a copy-protection scheme for radio. (Note the use of the term "HD Radio" -- implying that there's something "high-definition" about digital audio broadcasting, even though everyone who knows anything about digital audio broadcast content knows it's of much lower quality than that of audio CDs.)
It speaks volumes regarding the legitimacy of Big Content's position when they consistently
shade the truth, oh hell, lie when they push legislation or regulation designed to shore up their business model at the expense of innovation in technology and consumer electronics.
Whereas American arts and entertainment industries account for 6% of the American Gross Domestic Product and employ 2.6 million Americans;
That seems an implausible number. In 2003, the last year for which comparable numbers are avaliable for all industry sectors, the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis says that Publishing, Sound recording and motion pictures, Broadcasting and telecommunications, as well as Arts and entertainment accounted to 5.1% of the GDP. That number is clearly an overestimate, as the "Publishing" component, representing 1.1% of that total figure, also includes the software industry, the "telco" component of "Broadcasting and telecommunications" (worth 2.6% of the total) includes the contribution of companies like Cox, Verizon, or AT&T, and the "Arts and entertainment" industry includes live sporting events, and gambling revenues.
I can't even imagine the RIAA et al would be brazen enough to throw retail contribution to GDP in there, simply because music retail is a puny slice of the overall number.
Obviously, Big Content accounts for nowhere near the 6% of GDP they claim.
Whereas digital theft of music has caused extreme harm to the American music industry over the past five years;
A questionable statement on many levels: does "digital theft" really exist? Making a copy of something and stealing are two different things. As to the "extreme" harm, and attribution thereof, it's not clear that other explanations for the music industry's doldrums aren't also to blame (and in far greater proportion than this idea of "digital theft"): cartel-like price-fixing behavior, poor product pricing, competition for discretionary spending, overall economic conditions, poor product mix (such as fewer singles), and simply bad product.
Whereas the digital theft of music stifles the careers of new artists, betrays the songwriters and recording artists who create it and threatens the livelihood of the thousands of working people—from recording engineers to record-store clerks—who are employed in the music industry;
If "digital theft" existed, I guess that would be bad. On the other hand, file sharing and other forms of digital distribution have certainly enhanced the careers of artists like Wilco, Pearl Jam, DJ Danger Mouse, and others.
Sure, it's not hard data, but I'll take my anecdotal examples over Big Content's straw man any day.
Whereas the United States Supreme Court ruled in MGM v. Grokster that it is illegal to engage in digital theft directly or to encourage or induce digital theft;
I am not a lawyer, but this one also seemed fishy. Grokster, as I read it, isn't quite that cut-and-dried. First of all, "digital theft," like Pamela Anderson, is a distortion emanating from Los Angeles. The term doesn't appear in the SCOTUS opinion. It's not a minor point. Grokster doesn't define a different standard for liability for digital forms of infringement (in other words, they didn't undo Sony). What they did was create a netherworld with an new "intent" standard that will now have to be painfully clarified by trial (literally) and error.
Whereas Korean and Australian courts followed with similar rulings preventing the establishment of business models predicated on digital theft;
I notice India, with their thriving intellectual property industries (pharmaceuticals, films, music, software) isn't on this list of worthies. Why so picky?
Whereas public broadcast spectrum is granted by the U.S. government to be used in the public interest;
Finally, a factually correct statement.
Whereas the public interest is not served by the allowance of digital theft;
Again, if "digital theft" existed, this might, or might not, be true.
Whereas Congress has stated that radio broadcasts should not facilitate or result in the digital theft of music;
Whereas the Federal Communications Commission promulgated rules to protect digital video broadcasts from illegal redistribution over digital networks;
Whereas the Federal Communications Commission is examining the promulgation of rules to protect digital audio broadcasts from illegal copying or redistribution over digital networks;
Whereas the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently vacated the Federal Communications Commission’s ruling on digital video broadcasts based on a need for a direct Congressional grant of authority;
Whereas given the breadth of this decision regarding the Commission’s scope of authority in this area, any direct Congressional grant of authority should include both digital video and audio broadcasts;
Whereas Congress is considering efforts to expressly grant such authority to the Federal Communications Commission;
Translation: our buddies at the MPAA got screwed when they tried to end-run Congress and go straight to the unresponsible (in the political sense) bureaucrats of the FCC. As long as they're asking you for their Broadcast Flag, we'd like one for radio, too. Thanks. | <urn:uuid:cf94de98-a0e5-48a8-b4a0-c39511d89af1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://scriban.com/movabletype_archives/2005/09/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942801 | 1,197 | 1.734375 | 2 |
'Resort' as both noun and verb
Playground or detention centre? Depends on which side of the fence you are on, writes Louisa Waugh.
THE Thursday flight from Sicily lands on the isle of Lampedusa just before 8pm. The sky is beginning to glow pink and green as Italian holidaymakers walk from the plane towards the tiny arrivals hall.
On the way they stroll past a block of low orange buildings tacked on to the end of the airport and surrounded by a shoulder-high fence and reels of barbed wire. Behind the bolted gates a large group of black men are playing basketball. These are some of the clandestini who, having survived the boat journey from North Africa, are imprisoned in the local detention centre.
"Welcome to beautiful Lampedusa," says the sign inside the arrivals hall. Lampedusa is an upmarket resort between Sicily and North Africa. It belongs to Italy, but is nearer Tunisia than Sicily. It is renowned for its splendid beaches and diving — and, increasingly, for the boatloads of desperate migrants smuggled here from North Africa. The clandestini receive a completely different kind of reception.
The airport detention centre was built to accommodate 200. But when Medecins Sans Frontieres was finally allowed inside last year to monitor conditions, it reported that as many as 10 times that number were inside.
The authorities used to ferry the clandestini from Lampedusa to Sicily and allow them to apply for asylum there. But late last year they began flying them to Libya, regardless of where they came from and in defiance, many believe, of the Geneva Convention. Meanwhile Medecins Sans Frontieres has been told it will not be readmitted to the detention centre.
Just a few minutes away from the airport, crowds of boisterous, well-heeled Italians are out for a stroll along the harbourfront. Local trattorias sell excellent fresh seafood and their menus advertise exotic blends of traditional Italian and North African cuisine. The cocktail bars stay open late, and there is a new nightclub pumping out Sicilian pop music.
My hotel's receptionist, Franco, recommends a boat trip around the island. He's from Lampedusa and says summer is great fun because the tourists liven up the place. As for winter, he rolls his eyes and imitates blowing his brains out. The hotel closes and there is nothing to do. So in winter Franco works for the carabinieri, trawling the coast for renegade boats from Africa.
He says the carabinieri use radar-equipped vessels to detect the pathetic fleets of rowing boats and dinghies attempting the 150-kilometre crossing from Libya or Tunisia. But the boats are often so small that the radars can't spot them, and a horrific number of people drown or die of thirst en route. But they keep coming; up to 10,000 clandestini arrived in Lampedusa last year.
The mayor, Bruno Siragusa, has complained about the number of bodies being washed ashore. He says Lampedusa needs additional boats from Sicily to help clean up the waters, because the corpses are spoiling the tourist trade.
Judging by the number of yachts, schooners and fishing boats in the harbour, the tourist trade is doing fine.
Andreas runs boat trips around the island. He takes a dozen tourists at a time on a slow, day-long cruise, stopping for them to snorkel among shoals of glittering fish.
He has been running these trips for 10 years and has called the carabinieri several times after seeing boats foundering out at sea. He understands why the clandestini try to cross the treacherous Sicilian straits, but says the south of Italy is poor, and Lampedusa can't afford to provide for them.
He pauses for a moment then adds: "Tourists don't see the clandestini on these trips because the carabinieri make sure they stay away from the beaches."
As Gertrude Stein said: "Paradise, if you can stand it." | <urn:uuid:c37639f7-08b9-4671-bf92-c4a43aa1708c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/resort-as-both-noun-and-verb/2005/06/21/1119321731432.html?from=moreStories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950619 | 852 | 1.648438 | 2 |
|THE FACE OF THE WORKING CLASS TODAY|
Okay, so it is Labor Day, sort of America's goofy take off of May Day, except it really is not about workers, the working class or much of anything else of note. There are some unions who march around, often with flags, and never talking beyond wage slavery. Mostly, people just take the day off, barbecue, go to the lake, hang out, catch a ball game, again nothing much of note.
I figured I would try to do something that somehow relates to workers and even to "organized labor." No, I don't go around glorifying unions in this country, since virtually 100% of them are merely helping to prop up capital, certainly not challenging its existence anyway.
Still, and some of my more pure friends will belittle me for saying so, we'd be better off with a strong union movement as opposed to a mostly dead one.
So with all that in mind, and with that fact that I have to go enjoy "labor day" with the rest of America, I will leave you with this interview taken from AlterNet. Perhaps, the significance of this discussion has to do with the fact that it is about a very much rising part of today's working class, of the Precariat, and of the Multitude.
It ain't all that much about steel mills and big factories anymore.
But that is another story... | <urn:uuid:9b0a3787-1b09-4622-a42d-4f1742fa3352> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oreaddaily.blogspot.com/2012/09/domestic-workers-and-face-of-working.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974893 | 292 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Seventeen-year-old Owen Griffiths learns to find his own way to a future in science through a friendship with a girl whose life is dedicated to music.
The story unfolds like life, following the course of Owen and Natalie's friendship, in their senior year of high school. Owen narrates, at the end of the year, trying to figure out exactly what the year, and Natalie's friendship, meant to him.
But the story itself is not that important. Owen and Natalie themselves are the heart of the book, and are two of the most human characters I have ever encountered. Owen has never fit in with people, wants to be a scientist, and has trouble telling anyone what he really wants from life. Half of his trouble may be that he isn't quite sure what he wants. Natalie is a musician, who performs and teaches, but she is really a composer. Unlike Owen, she knows what she wants from life, and is following a careful plan to reach her goals. Of course, neither is really that simple; no real person can be summed up in two sentences, and neither can Owen and Natalie.
"Very Far Away from Anywhere Else" is a book which is easier to read than to explain, and any summary will lose the parts of the book that make it really worthwhile. If I could sum up the book for you, I doubt I would love it enough to reread it at least once a year. Let me close, then, by telling you how much I love this book. I own hundreds of books, and love at least half of them. Of all those books, this is the only one I brought to college this year. This is the one I take on all my trips. This is the one I read whenever I start to feel my life is pointless. This is the one that is dangerously close to falling apart, just because I read it so much.
Buy this. Read it. Trust me.
This is a beautiful, heartfelt book about the friendship between two high school outsiders. Owen and Natalie are vivid, three-dimensional characters, and their conflicts with family, society, and each other are both real and balanced: parents and teachers aren't villains, nor are Owen and Natalie petulant, demanding kids. LeGuin's themes of individuality vs. societal pressures and the conflict between friendship and love are deep and written into the structure of the book rather than tacked on as lectures. A witty and very moving story. | <urn:uuid:e3983899-90a0-4232-81db-bcaa10aa5741> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.ca/Very-Far-Away-Anywhere-Else/dp/0689305257 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979676 | 506 | 1.664063 | 2 |
“There were people who saw us and said – you are like a group of the United Nations and I suppose we looked strange as we walked together down the street both because of our different dress and appearance and because we laughed together and it was clear that we greatly enjoyed working together. “Example of “op art”, artist: Victor Vasarly
19 people from 9 countries: Zambia, India, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru,Haiti, Mongolia and Israel, were chosen this year to participate in the “Ford Motor Company International Fellowship of 92ndStreet Y.” Rabbi Idit Lev was one of them. The course was organized by 92ndstreet Y, sponsored by the international car manufacturer Ford Motor Company . Read the summary of this fascinating journey.
I was invited to attend an intensive course of three and a half weeks in New York. We dealt with different topics connected to running an organization: planning strategy, personnel management, fund-raising, publicity, etc. During our lessons at Columbia University,we met representatives of different organizations (whom the organizers thought we could learn from).
From Dream to Reality
We studied models of dealing with different problems, and also about the problems of civil society in New York. At the “Doe Fund” we heard about the way a dream becomes reality. We were advised not to give up on our dreams, to respect everyone, to take chances and to build an organization that has a sound economic base. We learned about the problems of those who live on the street in New York and how they cope with this.
At “God’s Love We Deliver” we received an amazing lesson about the activities of volunteers feeding the needy, and we learned about nutrition problems among the New York poor.
In discussions during the meetings, lessons and, of course, before and after the activities, I learned much about what happens in other countries. I learned that each of us has different ways of coping. And when I found out about ways of coping that were different from mine, they seemed harder to me, while my ways of coping seemed difficult to others. I learned that there is so much in common between people of different cultures, different ages (from 26-72), and so much to learn from each other.
A Rare Discourse Space
One of the things that amazed me during these weeks was our ability to listen to each other – not to interrupt in the middle of a sentence, not to assume one knew the answer to a question – to listen and to react to what was said. Although we had never met before (and I do not know who or when I will meet again), we had real and wide-ranging discussions, honest and respectful. I am not used to such extensive cooperation.
There were people who saw us and said – you are like a group of the United Nations, and I suppose we looked strange as we walked together down the street, partly because our dress and appearance was different and also because we laughed together and it was clear that we enjoyed working together. We learned a lot, we laughed a lot, we were a little spoiled on our trip to Michigan where we were hosted by the sponsor of this course, the Ford Motor Company.
It was such a deep and meaningful experience that it is difficult for me to appreciate it as I write this, as I am still too close to it. I feel that I am looking at the world through new glasses, more sharply. I think that I can do a better job with my organization and with those circles that I want to influence. Furthermore, I gained good friends from all over the world.
On our second Friday, we went to a Jewish family who are connected to 92Y. The opening melody of the Kiddush“Shalom Aleichem Malachei Hashalom” (you are welcome angel of peace) had an effect on our group, and for me the lyrics represent our group. This time was the time of the angels for me. We came in peace, greeted each other and shared our knowledge. Finally, we separated and each returned home. We left strengthened in the hope that we could expand our activities and our influence, and that the day would come when we would all meet together again. | <urn:uuid:e2e73096-e2b5-41d8-b1b8-cd226345c6dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rhr.org.il/eng/2012/07/time-of-angels-summary-of-an-international-meeting-of-representatives-of-organizations-in-the-usa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983501 | 879 | 1.539063 | 2 |
- Organically grown
- Fire roasted and hand peeled
- Jumbo sized peppers
- Equivalent to 8.5 small jars
- Gluten Free
- Size - 4.2 lbs/1.9 kilos
If you look closely at the picture you will see an unlikely work of art! The ladies that hand-peel these delightful peppers somehow place them in perfect order in the jar. It must take the patience of Job to arrange the neat rows!
They are so good that a friend of ours had an open jar by her desk and feasted on them all day long! These extra large beauties are the perfect tapa for a festive party.
NOTE - THESE PEPPERS ARE STORED IN THEIR OWN JUICE -- THEY MUST BE USED WITHIN 3 DAYS OF OPENING.
Pimientos del Piquillo are a unique, traditional specialty of Lodosa, a village in Navarra, which have only become available commercially in the last 25 years. They come from a unique variety of red peppers organically grown in Lodosa and its surrounding area in northern Spain.
Triangular in shape, they have a uniquely curved point (piquillo). You may have read about these celebrated peppers in the New York Times, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and Gourmet -- or perhaps you enjoyed them when you were in Spain.
These thin-fleshed, mild piquillo peppers are grown organically and mature to a bright red hue. They are picked between late September and November each year. They are slow roasted immediately at a low temperature, peeled by hand and placed individually in a bottle in their own juice: no washing, no chemical treatment, all ecological.
Heat the peppers, and then serve alone or with a little olive oil. They are also good with fried eggs, or perhaps with some grilled morcilla blood sausage. One of the favorite ways to serve them is stuffed with fish, crab or shrimp.
Piquillo peppers (91%) salt and citric acid. Gluten Free. | <urn:uuid:1d20a149-3f8f-4892-a905-f88df7ffd218> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tienda.com/food/products/pq-03.html?site=1 | 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 | 0.953442 | 424 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Clickfraud (v., n.) Refers both to the act of, and the person who commits the act of, dropping names and references in email, without explanation, knowing that readers will have to use Google and/or Wikipedia to understand.
The clickfraud gains a temporary superiority over his reads ("I know stuff you don't") but at the cost of extra (and wasted) clicks for his readers. See also urldumper. Clickfraud is usually a sign of insecurity. Clickfraud can be cured with humour and gentle mockery: the clickfraud (n.) will either understand and change his habits, or will find another community in which to grandstant. Aggressive and persistent clickfraud is a form of trolling, and considered offensive. | <urn:uuid:24deb392-0b3d-4337-a628-c826f691d20c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.devilswiki.com/wiki:clickfraud | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945732 | 156 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Wastewater market takes off
- From: Vol 7, Issue 2 (February 2006)
- Category: General
- Region: Middle East
- Country: United Arab Emirates
- Related Companies: Cardno, Denton Wilde Sapte, Saur, Suez and Utilities Development Company
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You can read a further 2 articles for free.
A wastewater market is developing rapidly and attracting European private water companies to the region.
There is a growing trend towards involving the private sector in water distribution and wastewater projects as GCC governments come to terms with the enormous levels of investment required in the sector over the next decade and the pressure that population growth is putting on existing systems.
The regional pioneer is Kuwait, which was the first country in the Gulf to use the private sector on a large scale to build its 375,000m3/d Sulaibiya wastewater treatment and reclamation plant in 2002. Developer Utilities Development Company (UDC) subsequently announced that it had received notification to extend plant capacity to 500,000m3/d (see GWI, December 2005, p15).
The first wave of wastewater projects to make use of private sector expertise included As Samra (2003), Ajman (2003) and Fujairah (2005).
The Ajman project was pioneering as it was the first to take full retail risk – consumers are responsible for the payment of charges. An enforcement mechanism was built into the contract to protect the project developer – Ajman Sewerage (Private) Company – against non-payment.
However, the revenue collection challenges experienced by the developer may mean that the model is not replicated elsewhere. Under the project structure, consumers must pay an upfront charge to be connected to the sewerage system, followed by a monthly service charge.
According to the latest figures seen by GWI, around 70% of consumers have paid the connection charge. “We have had strong support from customer payments,” according to one project source, “but we can’t deny that people have generally wanted to pay once they are connected”.
The problem is the 30% of consumers who have decided not to pay at all. Non-payers were to have had their electricity services disconnected by the Federal Electricity & Water Authority (FEWA) – a good idea in theory, although the practice has proved rather different.
The Ajman project is currently undergoing a restructuring (see p.13) which will decouple the requirement to collect charges from the construction phase – consumers will instead be allowed to pay later.
Like Ajman, Fujairah is based on a concession structure, although risk is allocated differently. There is a connection charge to fund construction and a service charge although there is no retail risk as the government is responsible for consumer billing. It then pays the connection and service charge to project developer Tanqia FZC.
“There are pros and cons to both approaches,” says Raj Kulasingam, partner with law firm Denton Wilde Sapte, which worked on both transactions. “There is less risk for the operator at Fujairah but the model can only work if the government is willing [to collect revenues]. The Ajman government was not prepared to do this at the time,” he comments. “From the [Ajman] government’s view, the [Ajman] model is much cleaner”.
A new set of water distribution and wastewater projects are following the examples of Sulaibiya, Ajman, and Fujairah and although the models are slightly different, they all involve the private sector in some shape or form.
The most radical development to date has been in Abu Dhabi, which is proposing to privatise its sewerage networks and treatment plants. An ADWEA subsidiary – the Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company (ADSSC) – has taken over the ownership and operation of all municipal WwTPs in the emirate. It is also responsible for the operation & maintenance of the networks. Both functions had previously been the responsibility of the Sewerage Projects Committee (Abu Dhabi) and the Sanitary
Drainage Department (Al Ain).
With an excellent record of attracting private sector capital, Abu Dhabi favours a model which has been tried and tested on its IWPP programme. Under this approach, it is proposing to sell its treatment plants to a project company which would also be responsible for their expansion and operation. For the emirate’s IWPPs, ADWEA has taken a 60% shareholding in the project company and invited a private partner to hold the remaining 40%. Funds for investment are then raised on a project finance basis.
ADSSC’s Mafraq WwTP currently serves an 850,000 population equivalent (p.e.) while a treatment plant in Al Ain serves a p.e. of between 300,000 and 400,000. Both facilities require significant extension, according to one Al Ain-based consultant.
“The structure has served Abu Dhabi well in the IWPP sector,” says Kulasingam. “In effect it is a BOO model which would be very easy to finance since it is based on a government backed payment stream.”
The big difference between Abu Dhabi and Ajman is that the Abu Dhabi government has the resources to support such an agreement. Wastewater tariffs are not cost reflective but the government is in a position to make up the shortfall. “There is no sense in taking retail risk in a situation like this”, says Kulasingam, “which is why the [BOO] model suits Abu Dhabi.
“If the government wants to move to implement cost reflective tariffs for other [environmental] reasons, they can do so at their own pace.”
ADSSC has hired Australian engineering company Cardno to advise it on the privatisation programme and is aiming to have a private sector investor in place within a year.
While the BOO model might suit Abu Dhabi, it is not appropriate in all cases. However, where governments are unable to benefit from the private sector’s access to capital, they are anxious to reap the rewards of the operational efficiencies it can deliver. “There is a general realisation that [government run] public works departments have been heavily overstaffed and inefficient,” says one consultant, “and there is a definite trend towards changing this”.
Of the agencies seeking to harness the management and operational skills of the private sector, the Oman Wastewater Services Company (OWSC) is the most advanced in its negotiations. It is due to announce a preferred bidder in the next few weeks for a five-year contract to provide management support services on the Muscat wastewater project. All of the big three French water companies have submitted bids. They are also likely to feature in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, which is set to tender a PPP contract for the provision of water and wastewater services in Riyadh (see table).
It shows how seriously the Europeans now take the market. “There is a definite positive trend in this market”, acknowledges Saur’s Charles Dupont. “We have a strong interest in the O&M and performance-based contracts and we are also hoping to bid in Abu Dhabi.”
Suez is also following the market closely, although its involvement to date has been through Degrémont, which claimed its first wastewater treatment project in the Gulf in December when it was awarded a $260 million DBO contract by the Qatar Public Works Authority. | <urn:uuid:53165b0d-b2ec-48ed-94a3-db84b80ea7e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalwaterintel.com/archive/7/2/general/wastewater-market-takes-off.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966215 | 1,580 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day
I’ve just started reading a book entitled Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day by Dave Evans. And over the course of the next few weeks, as I finish a new chapter, I’m going to try to incorporate it into a blog post for discussion.
Chapter 1- The Backlash
Person-to-person connections have always been valued. In the first chapter of Evans’ book, he goes into detail about how social networks came about with the introduction of the Internet as well as the impact of advertising on consumers.
The Internet that many of us are familiar with today would probably not have come about if it wasn’t for the National Science Foundation (NSF) in conjunction with the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). According to Evans, it was the NSF who championed the cause of an “open” Internet- in other words a network that any entity (whether it be a person or business) could use for any purpose. However, problems would later arise.
Pushing Too Hard
To the average consumer, people who work in advertising and those who work in marketing are one in the same: sales people. Any time you turn on the television and try to watch your favorite show, unless you have a DVR or have otherwise pre-recorded the program, you’ll more than likely end up sitting through commercials that wind up being as long as the program! The challenge in advertising on television is to target a particular message to the viewer. However, the ability to succesfully do so is infinitely limited. Looking back, when television was fairly new, commercials made up less than ten minutes of each one hour show. However, today commercials have doubled- perhaps tripled that. Don’t believe me? Take a look at all of the hoopla that is involved with Super Bowl ads!
If you ask any relatively sane person what their opinion is on commercials, they’ll tell you how much they can’t stand them. After all, that’s why the DVR was invented, right? Well, in the same way that commercials were beginning to intrude on people’s ability to enjoy television programs, a similar thread was happening with the Internet. The arrival of spam brought about many issues. Here was this network in which people could communicate and exchange ideas freely, targeting specific people in their niche, and now their conversations were being interrupted by pop up messages while their email inboxes were filling up with emails from people they didn’t even know who were trying to sell them something. Keeping this in mind, Evan states:
In their purest form, all conversations are participative and engaged in by choice. This simple premise goes a long way in explaining why interruption and deception on the Social Web are so violently rejected.
All of the aforementioned items have played (and continue to play) a vital role in how social media is evolving. Consumers are in control of what content gets shared; not the advertisers and marketers. Need evidence? DVRs were introduced so that consumers could skip over the annoying advertisements that were disrupting their programs. And let’s not forget about telephone marketing. If you’ll recall, in 2003 the telemarketing industry felt the backlash of consumer control as the Do Not Call Implementation Act passed. In summation, Evans highlights several points related to this media backlash below:
According to Evans:
- The emerging role of the individual as a source of information which is then used to influence purchase decisions is increasing as the role of the marketer and traditional media programmer in establishing the primary advertising is lessening.
- The “backlash” developed when the practice of pushing ads to consumers moved to the digital platform, which consumers have control over.
- Trust is essential if you want to succeed as a marketer. | <urn:uuid:140d16b1-8f44-4756-b922-93d074816cc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://createbusinessgrowth.com/social-networking/social-media-marketing-where-weve-come-from-where-we-need-to-go | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973411 | 794 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Advance Care Planning
Frequently Asked Questions
About Advance Directives
What is an advance directive?
An advance directive is a legally binding document in which you express your wishes for your health care in the event that you become unable to make your own health care decisions. A health care proxy is an advance directive in which you appoint another person to make health care decisions for you if you are unable to make them yourself. In Massachusetts, health care proxies are authorized by chapter 201D of Massachusetts General Laws.
How does a durable power of attorney differ from a health care proxy?
A power of attorney is a document in which you, as principal, appoint another person to serve as your attorney in fact (in other words, as your agent) in business and financial matters affecting you or your property. A power of attorney is “durable” if the power it confers remains effective even though you later become incapacitated. Your attorney in fact has no authority to make health care decisions for you. To appoint an agent to act for you in health care matters, you must sign a health care proxy.
What is a living will?
A living will is a written statement in which you declare your preferences for medical treatment if you become so ill that there is no reasonable hope of recovery and you are unable to make or communicate health care decisions. Living wills are not legally binding in Massachusetts. That is why we strongly urge you to complete a health care proxy form and Personal Wishes statement after discussions with your family and health care agent about your health care treatment, in the event you cannot speak for yourself.
How do I choose an agent?
Your health care agent should be someone you know and trust. He or she should be a person with whom you are comfortable discussing your wishes regarding your health care, including such issues as terminal illness, treatment alternatives such as hospice care, and the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining measures. Your health care agent should understand your values and beliefs, and be someone you are confident can act as your advocate in making your wishes known and seeing that they are respected.
Do I need an alternate?
It is not necessary to name an alternate health care agent, but it is advisable to do so if your health care agent may not be available to act for you at all times.
Who can witness the signature?
Anyone age 18 or older, including a family member, can witness your signature on your health care proxy. The only people who cannot serve as witnesses are your health care agent and your alternate health care agent.
How do I fill out the form?
To complete the health care proxy form, fill in the blanks identifying yourself, your health care agent and, if you choose to name one, your alternate health care agent. Sign the form in the place indicated for your signature, in the presence of two adult witnesses. The witnesses must also sign the form. By doing so, they are affirming that they saw you sign the form and that they believe you to be at least 18 years old, of sound mind, and acting of your own free will.
If you are physically unable to sign the health care proxy form, someone other than a witness may sign your name for you, provided he or she does so at your direction and in the presence of the two witnesses.
Do I need a lawyer?
You may wish to talk to a lawyer about the health care proxy, and many lawyers will prepare a health care proxy as a matter of course as part of an estate plan. But you do not need a lawyer to complete the form.
When does my health care proxy go into effect?
Your health care proxy becomes effective as soon as it is signed and witnessed. Your health care agent, however, cannot act for you until your attending physician has certified in writing that you are "unable to make or communicate your own health care decisions." If your physician determines that you have regained the ability to make your own health care decisions, your health care agent's authority to make them for you will cease.
How do I make my specific wishes known to my health care agent?
You can make your specific wishes known to your health care agent in a conversation or in a separate personal wishes statement. You will not be able to consider every possible situation that might require your agent to act on your behalf, but you should let your agent know how you feel about those conditions, illnesses and treatments that concern you the most. If you wish to limit your agent’s authority in any way, you should describe those limitations specifically in the blank space provided on the health care proxy form.
What is a personal wishes statement?
A personal wishes statement is a document in which you communicate to your health care agent your wishes regarding your medical treatment and the care you wish to receive in the event of a terminal illness.
Is a personal wishes statement legally enforceable?
No, a personal wishes statement is not legally enforceable. However, the law authorizing the creation of a Health Care Proxy requires a health care agent to make health care decisions in accordance with the agent’s assessment of the principal’s wishes. A personal wishes statement enables you, as the principal, to make your wishes known to your health care agent.
Can I direct that my organs be donated in a personal wishes statement?
You can express your wish that your organs be donated in a personal wishes statement. However, because a personal wishes statement is not legally enforceable, any expression it contains of your wish to donate your organs is not legally binding. The most effective means to donate your organs is to complete an organ donor card at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Can I direct my funeral arrangements in a personal wishes statement?
No, a personal wishes statement is not a proper place for funeral arrangements. A letter of instructions should be left with family members or a funeral director.
How do I make my wishes known to emergency personnel outside a hospital?
Ask your physician to obtain for you a Comfort Care/Do Not Resuscitate Order Verification, in either paper or bracelet form, from the Department of Public Health. EMS personnel who encounter a person in respiratory or cardiac arrest who has such a form or bracelet will not resuscitate that person, but will provide palliative care as appropriate. Persons in respiratory or cardiac arrest without such a form or bracelet will be resuscitated by emergency personnel.
What if I change my mind?
If you change your mind about your health care proxy at any time, you can revoke it by tearing it up; by telling your health care agent, your alternate, your doctor, your nurse or your lawyer that you are revoking it; or by doing anything else that clearly shows that you no longer intend the health care proxy to have effect.
If you fill out a new health care proxy form, any earlier health care proxy of yours will automatically be revoked. Your health care proxy will also be automatically revoked if you legally separate from or divorce a spouse who was named as your health care agent.
Do I need to renew the directive?
No. Unless you revoke your health care proxy or it is revoked automatically, it will remain in effect until you die. You should review it regularly to make sure that the names, addresses and telephone numbers of your health care agent and alternate health care agent are still current, and that the people you have named as your health care agent and alternate health care agent are still willing to serve.
How will my doctor know if I have a health care proxy?
You should be sure to tell your doctor that you have completed a health care proxy, and you should make him or her aware of your treatment preferences.
Where should I keep my health care proxy? Who should have copies?
Keep your original health care proxy with other important papers in a place that is safe but easy to find. Do not keep it in a safe deposit box.
You should give a copy of your health care proxy to your health care agent, your alternate health care agent and your doctor. You may also wish to give copies to family members, your lawyer and your clergy.
What happens if I sign a health care proxy in another state, and then move to Massachusetts?
A health care proxy that is executed in another state and complies with that state’s laws is enforceable in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, the better practice for a new Massachusetts resident is to sign a Massachusetts health care proxy as soon as it is convenient to do so. | <urn:uuid:1af81fb7-810a-4b71-a3ff-884587df6fa2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.betterending.org/advance_care_planning/faqs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95968 | 1,731 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Articles tagged with: How to
There is something magical about a great black & white photograph. The tools have simplified the process but knowing when to process for color or for black and white isn’t always apparent. Photographer Sid Peña’s tutorial on shooting black and white photographs and getting the best results.
Here’s a cool tip recently posted to the LensFlare Studio Facebook page. It’s a quick and slick tip for using LensFlare Studio to add great-looking lens aberrations with Photoshop.
It’s no secret that Hipstamatic app has many thousands of happy users the world over. Many of them however, are a little mystified by some of its features. The ‘Favourites’ feature is perhaps, the most useful and yet the most under-used of all. Here’s how to get the most out of it.
iPhoneographer Dilshad Corleone is featured in this great, inspirational, well-shot video with some great advice for shooting, composing and telling a story with an image.
If you want super quick access to your iPhone camera, to add amazing spot metering to the generic camera or to take pictures without anyone knowing, as well as some cool non-photographic tweaks, then ‘Jailbreaking’ your iPhone or other device may be for you.
We get questions. “What exactly does Cortex Camera do?” Cortex Camera is actually a pretty cool app to have in certain situations, including low-light situations and others where reduced noise is desirable.
The rapid-fire, four image strip was designed for facial portraiture. However, for photographers who think outside the booth, some forethought can produce interesting results.
Many iPhoneographers prefer to watermark their images with photographer and copyright information. In the name of simplicity, the © symbol is nowhere to be found on the standard iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch keyboard. Here are a few quick and easy-ish ways you can make a real one instead of the alternate and less attractive (c).
Squaready is an easy to use utility that crops a photo into square format, then lets you easily share it straight to Instagram. It not only crops down, but lets you shrink full landscape or portrait photos into the frame.
The developer of Geló has created some online tutorials to illustrate some of the capabilities of this simple, yet versatile photo app, including sunrise and sunset enhance as well as a killer duotone effect. They’ve allowed us to reprint several of them here.
If you accidentally delete any of your favorite apps from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, you now have more options than ever to at least get the app itself back. Here are a few of our favorite app restoration tips.
Instagrammer @wilburtheant, along with @darren2112 and @dudettewalnuts, have been circulating a recipe to recreate the look of Instagram’s old Gotham filter using Camera+. | <urn:uuid:c832b146-81de-4e7d-8d26-da7819ed4435> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifeinlofi.com/tag/how-to/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937958 | 623 | 1.59375 | 2 |
I can’t remember exactly when I first smoked pot. Perhaps that’s understandable because it was sometime during the Sixties – and you know what they say about remembering the Sixties.
At the time, weed was already popular in rebellious high school and college circles and in certain neighborhoods. I wouldn’t estimate what percentage of the populations within these venues used the drug, but it was so common everyone knew someone who had at least tried it.
Pot was an intrinsic part of the revolutionary air that defined the Sixties; that is, an important component of the antiwar movement, the racial revolt, the hippie phenomenon and the women’s movement. For a brief period, all you had to do to be “hip” was take a couple of tokes off a joint as it floated by. (In later years, undercover cops infiltrated the scene and, by the time this situation became clear, half my friends had already been arrested.)
During the 1970s, pot slipped into the background and other, more dangerous drugs captured the spotlight; i.e., coke during the disco fling and, still later, methamphetamine. But grass was still around. Indeed, its popularity spread, even though people were still being busted for using it.
Finally – and it’s about time – during the past 20 years it has become increasingly clear that something has gone terribly awry. Our prisons are hopelessly overcrowded with people who’ve done nothing more than smoked a joint. The police were first to change their attitude. They simply said to hell with it and quit enforcing most of the pot laws. Thereafter, the laws themselves started to change; for example, in Seattle, the possession of an ounce of grass was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor and the cops even refused to enforce that. Then too, University of Washington medical facilities confirmed that marijuana had legitimate healing properties, particularly in treating glaucoma and relieving the pain of cancer patients. Thereafter, regional medical pot facilities popped up here and there; first, as you might suspect, in the U-district, where patients could buy weed if they had a medical prescription. Exactly who could issue these prescriptions was never clear in my mind and still isn’t.
The other day I stopped by one of the alternative medical centers in our region. I asked the girl in the window if I needed a doctor’s prescription to get in. She rattled on for two or three minutes as though her hard drive had been flushed, until I interrupted and said I didn’t understand. She smiled slyly and abruptly closed the window. I stood there, alone and unsupervised, for perhaps 30 seconds, and eventually I simply walked onto the grounds. The place was a spacious, pretty, garden-like park, which may have been a pot farm, though I didn’t confirm this. There were a number of picnic tables and benches and a clear-plastic canopy beneath which a number of people were selling bongs, joints and loose cannabis of various weights and graded intensities. Joints were passed around and one fellow took a healthy huff on a large, sample bong – and promptly slipped a bit lower in his chair.
Anyway, the last statistics I saw indicated that roughly half the U. S. population between 18 and 60 years of age has tried pot at least once. Grass had become so commonplace there’s a measure on this year’s state ballot that would make using it completely legal for anyone at least 21 years of age. If this passes – and current polls suggest it’s favored by a small margin – our new law would stand in sharp contrast to federal law. The consequences of this disjunction aren’t known, but there would certainly be court challenges. However, I sincerely doubt that Obama would initiate any action against it because, back in the day, he fooled around with pot for a number of years. And he inhaled.
Our president is an ex-pot smoker. That’s reason enough to vote for him. | <urn:uuid:aa16b613-09d1-45f5-8550-316822fa15df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courierherald.com/opinion/175664911.html?mobile=true | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984462 | 840 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Two days ago, Google unveiled Google Instant -- the company's newest solution to making googling even faster. The feature presents search results which appear even as you're still typing (for background, watch the super-creepy, super-enthusiastic, almost Onion-ish video below).
While that solution seems obvious and not particularly elegant -- Is it just us who find our eyeballs spinning in their sockets using this thing? -- the Google team apparently played with all kinds of different UI solutions to the problem.
Google describes the challenge as being to present that mass of information whizzing by your eyes in a way that's "relevant not distracting," so the solutions thus had to do with grouping information in clever ways. For example, here's one prototype that trying to group results from similar searches only after you typed:
And here's a version with the suggested search results to the left of the toolbar:
Obviously, none of these were going to work -- the first prototype above was bound to show you irrelevant searches; and the second simply increased the number of places on the screen you had to look to perform a search. A little design know-how would have made that obvious, but Google instead tested these ideas out.
We ran through a sequence of prototypes, usability studies (testing with people from the community), dogfooding (testing with Google employees) and search experiments (testing with a small percentage of Google users).
If you have any type of design background, it's probably funny to you that Google frequently mentions "design," but doesn't mention any "designers" involved -- the Google design process seems to simply be creating a bunch of fairly obvious alternatives, and testing the hell out of them.
Before Google Instant, probably the most infamous example of Google's design-by-testing approach was the "41 Blues" --- Google's engineers apparently couldn't decide on two shades of blue for showing search results, so they tested 41 of them to see which attracted the most clicks. (They eventually settled on a blue that is basically the average of all the blues used in hyperlinks across the web. Duh.)
You might imagine such a robotic approach to design would be frustrating for anyone with a design background. And you'd be right -- Douglas Bowman, a prominent UI designer and now the creative director at Twitter, left Google, apparently due to day-to-day inanity of trying to actually design a user experience there:
I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can't operate in an environment like that. I've grown tired of debating such minuscule design decisions. There are more exciting design problems in this world to tackle.
When I joined Google as its first visual designer, the company was already seven years old. Seven years is a long time to run a company without a classically trained designer. Google had plenty of designers on staff then, but most of them had backgrounds in CS or HCI. And none of them were in high-up, respected leadership positions. Without a person at (or near) the helm who thoroughly understands the principles and elements of Design, a company eventually runs out of reasons for design decisions. With every new design decision, critics cry foul. Without conviction, doubt creeps in. Instincts fail. "Is this the right move?" When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board. And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions.
Sounds about right, given all we know about Google.
But back to Google Instant. What's baffling about the whole thing is that Google's "solution" to providing instant results still seems so primitive and ugly. In the name of shaving a second off of a user's search, is it really worth it to make them go through the pain of scanning five to seven different results pages as they type?
A second might matter tremendously to an engineer -- and indeed, Google is happy to point out that those seconds, over a year, add up to hours of time saved. But that's kind of a silly way of thinking about it. After all, it's not like you get all those hours at the end of the year as a dividend. If you saved a second while googling, what are you going to actually do with that second? Take another sip of coffee?
The chief mandate of design thinking is empathy -- and I'm pretty sure Google's engineers didn't have too much empathy for all those over the age of 28 who don't find it all that useful to have their eyes assaulted by information they weren't looking for in the first place.
Which brings me to my last point. Testing can only tell you so much -- and it often only reveals that people only like things that are similar to what they've had before. But brilliant design solutions convert people over time, because they're both subtle and ground breaking.
For example, imagine if Google, in presenting its progressive, instant results stripped all the text away from below the hyperlinks. What if the details only filled in as your typing began to slow? Might that have decreased the visual confusion? Could they at least have worked on a way of reduce the sheer pixels of information you have to look at, while also providing you with more content? I'm pretty sure that testers would have complained about "missing something." But over time, I'll bet that the reduced strain would have emerged as a boon.
Testing can, at best, prevent massive mistakes. But it can also give you a blinkered perception of reality -- and that's just as dangerous. Remember that New Coke was vastly preferred over regular Coke in blind taste tests -- the New Coke disaster happened because marketers never tested the deep real-world associations people had with the brand. Coke is bitter and acrid, and that's what makes it a "Coke."
The exact wrong lesson to take from that is that you should test even more, with greater detail. The right lesson is that testing artificially limits the worldview of the people doing the testing. Market research can't tell you whether the "problem" you're trying to solve is even the right one to be addressing. It can't tell you that the entire project you're working on was a bad idea to begin with.
Google is the perfect example of this. As they've added new products, has your G-mail or Google Reader gotten any easier to use, or less stressful on your eyes? Have either of them become a pleasure to look at or play with? No. But why not? Every new Apple product seems to make progress on that -- and I'm not even talking about hardware. Just look at the music listings in new, redesigned iTunes.
Then again, I'll bet the testers (and engineers) still prefer their Google as it is now, simply because it's what they've always known.
For more about Bowman's departure from Google, click here.
For more about the infamous 41 blues, click here.
[Top image: A Chinese factory photographed by Andreas Gursky] | <urn:uuid:cfd763e9-8ffe-4c23-a1d6-fda65c971a34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662273/google-equates-design-with-endless-testing-theyre-wrong | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970761 | 1,509 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Teachers are being celebrated for a second time this month.
World Teacher's Day was on October 5 and was the perfect chance to let your teacher know you thought the world of them.
New Zealand Educational Institute Te Riu Roa spokesman Chris Stuart says World Teachers' Day was all about recognising the role and the passion teachers have for making learning exciting and guiding a student's quest for knowledge.
Mr Stuart says the union feels it is important to acknowledge the day and is holding a celebration tomorrow.
"Teachers shape the future of our children and young people by encouraging them to have inquiring minds, resilience, and confidence to be the best they can be," he says.
He says it is an opportunity to celebrate the complex role of balancing the academic, social and emotional needs of students to bring out the best in them.
Mt Roskill Primary School will host people from schools and early childhood education centres from throughout Auckland.
There will be displays of students' work to give people an insight into what teachers are doing in classrooms.
From 10am to 2pm there will be performances from school cultural and choir groups, with activities including face painting, a bouncy castle and the chance to make a card for a teacher.
Parent groups will be fundraising by selling food and drinks.
Parking is available on the field for a small charge.
- © Fairfax NZ News | <urn:uuid:71f8d3d0-b6d3-4820-92f7-67fbd522867d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/local-news/central-leader/7862221/Teachers-deserve-another-special-day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965741 | 283 | 1.796875 | 2 |
When the president addresses the nation tonight at 9, some North Carolinians will keep their ears open for anything he says that could affect the state.
Published reports say President Obama will cover a variety of topics, including nuclear disarmament, gun control, immigration reform and the looming budget impasse with Congressional Republicans that would force the nation, if it's unresolved, to make deep cuts to military and domestic spending.
National news accounts say he will announce plans to create jobs, and improve education, clean energy production, manufacturing and infrastructure.
Many of the president's topics could affect the Fayetteville-Fort Bragg community, said Doug Peters, president of the Fayetteville Regional Chamber.
"We obviously are supportive of anything the Obama administration wants to do that creates opportunity for Americans, and certainly as that relates to folks right here in our own region," Peters said.
"Any effort that would lead to the creation of wealth and opportunity for the middle class would be widely supported by the business community, so long as it isn't supported by tax increases on the back of business, which then causes the economy to sort of come out as a wash, so to speak," he said.
Sequestration - a set of spending cuts to the military and domestic programs that will take effect March 1 if the president and Congress fail to make a budget deal - "is an ongoing frustration," Peters said.
Defense contractors who work for Fort Bragg are caught in limbo with their long-term business planning while they wait to see whether the government will slash spending, Peters said.
"They can't plan, they can't hire, they can't do anything," Peters said. "They've sort of got their hands tied."
The business community, Peters said, wants to see the president announce changes in education, too.
The requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind law have been too focused on standardized tests to produce students who are prepared for the workforce. Peters would like to see a shift in education toward "STEM," science, technology, engineering and math.
State educators had similar desires to change the law.
There was discussion of changing the law early in Obama's first term, "but it seems to have fallen off at some point," said Rodney Ellis, president of the N.C. Association of Educators.
The law is so focused on high-stakes testing that it fails to account for the reality that students learn at different rates, he said.
June Atkinson, the state schools superintendent, would like the president to recognize that public schools and community colleges have career technical education programs preparing students for the workforce.
"Along that same line, I would like for him to challenge businesses across the United States to provide work-based experiences for our students who pursue career technical education," Atkinson said, perhaps through internships, co-ops or apprenticeships.
Atkinson, too, wants No Child Left Behind changed to curtail red tape, teaching to the test and other aspects that she thinks get in the way of effective education.
When the president discusses building up the middle class, "my general hope would be that the president would not shy away from talking about poverty and about inequality," said Rob Schofield of the liberal N.C. Policy Watch.
"There's some acknowledgement ... there is this enormous gap and yawning gap between the well-off and a huge proportion of the population," Schofield said. "And I think there's a great deal of appetite in the public to hear talk about making people at the pay their fair share."
Immigration advocates on both sides of the issue are attuned to reports that the president plans to discuss offering a path to citizenship to immigrants illegally in the country.
William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, calls for strict enforcement of immigration laws and opposes any plan to offer citizenship to illegal immigrants.
"If he succeeds in passing his path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, North Carolina voters can expect over 300,000 new illegal-immigrants-turned-voters, to form a voting bloc - b-l-o-c - that will radically transfigure North Carolina politics forever more," Gheen said.
More immigrants would be encouraged to enter the country illegally, he predicted. He thinks it would become politically untenable to enforce immigration laws and Democrats and Republicans would suffer as illegal immigrants asserted their power.
Angeline Echeverria, executive director of the El Pueblo organization, said she is hopeful that the president will push for meaningful immigration reform and a path to citizenship.
Many immigrant families have a mix of people, some living here legally and some illegally, she said. A path to citizenship would provide "a way for folks to be able to move forward in their lives and become fully integrated into the fabric of North Carolina," Echeverria said. | <urn:uuid:96ab5430-ebfd-46f6-94f3-0861282e62a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fayobserver.com/articles/2013/02/12/1236713?sac=fo.military | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975029 | 990 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Sustainability Month heralds arrival of new green products at UWS
At the Sustainability Month launch, David Bradbury (left) and Professor Geoff Scott (right), UWS Executive Director of Sustainability, with the event's mascot
The launch of a new range of sustainable products available from uwsconnect outlets at the University of Western Sydney was one of the first campus events for Sustainability Month 2012.
The products which include notepads, pens, pencils, diaries and even chocolate have been selected based on sustainable product criteria.
Tony Geange, uwsconnect General Manager, says every stage of the product’s life has been assessed for its impact on the environment from raw materials to manufacture to end of life management.
“The new line of products reflects the increased awareness of the community of the true impact of their purchasing decisions. These products have a low ecological footprint and are made from sustainable sources using less energy to minimise their impact on the planet,” says Mr Geange.
Attending the launch on the Penrith campus, Assistant Treasurer and Federal Member for Lindsay, David Bradbury, congratulates UWS on this initiative.
“Universities right across Australia will be looking to UWS as a leader in campus sustainability and green innovation,” says Mr Bradbury.
“UWS is making a strong contribution to Australia’s cleaner environmental future by increasing their energy efficiency, investing in sustainable products and promoting environmental awareness.”
Products are manufactured from at least 20 percent recycled materials and at the end of their life must be at least 70 percent recyclable, biodegradable or compostable.
Sustainability Month at UWS - a collaboration between the UWS Office of Sustainability and uwsconnect - will also include information days, green trivia competitions, clothing ‘swap and sells’ and recycled craft markets.
A full list of the events and further details are available from the Sustainability Month Calendar.
1 August 2012
Photos: Sally Tsoutas
See more photos of the Sustainability Month launch event | <urn:uuid:b135c7e0-3b1c-48cf-81ae-2e391517a5c9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uws.edu.au/newscentre/news_centre/more_news_stories/sustainability_month_heralds_arrival_of_new_green_products_at_uws | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937809 | 438 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Buster Keaton leaves his family vaudeville act for the movies. He starts out as a bit player but quickly becomes famous as he acts in and directs his own films. Casting director Gloria Brent is in love with him, but he favors a starlet. When she rejects him, he starts drinking, a problem which only worsens when sound destroys silent cinema and his career. Will Gloria's love and his desire to make people laugh win out? Written by
The money the real Buster Keaton earned selling the rights to his life story allowed him to buy some property in the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. He lived on the property the rest of his life. See more »
Keaton's wife, a stylish studio employee, continues to wear WWI-era fashions well into the late Twenties-early Thirties. See more »
Donald O'Connor gives a poignant portrayal of someone who never existed
O'Connor is very good here and gets the elements of Buster's comic timing down very well, plus he is very moving as a composite figure of a silent star who, just as he is doing his best work, is overcome by talking film, and just can't come to terms with the fact that at such a young age he's been made a dinosaur overnight. The problem is, other than the alcoholism, the overspending, and the talkies putting a dent in the value of pantomime comedy, this just isn't Buster's life.
In Buster's biography it was stated that Paramount meant to turn Buster's actual three wives into the one screen wife, Gloria Brent (Ann Blythe). Somehow, though, Paramount mixed together eggs, butter, and flour and came up with a steak!. None of Buster's three wives were casting directors at any studio as the screen wife is. And this maudlin melodrama of Keaton matrimony is just plain fiction. The film shows Buster roughing it on vaudeville as a kid and often going hungry, landing a studio contract by sheer force of will as a young adult, and then being a savvy business fellow when dealing with fictitious "Famous Studios" when none of this is true. From the time Buster became part of his family's act as a small child, the act succeeded and the family lived very well, and the doors of Hollywood swung wide for Buster Keaton starting with his very first meeting with Roscoe Arbuckle in 1917. Only the coming of sound hurt Buster because he didn't have the money to go on independently, causing him to sign with MGM and conform to their movie factory standards.
I'd watch this to see Donald O'Connor given a rare chance to really show his versatility and his acting chops, but this is definitely not even close to Buster's life.
A couple of side notes of interest - The screenwriters were in such a hurry to shove something out the door that they got some key facts about the era wrong - The Jazz Singer being an all talking picture and Peter Lorre's character trying to unnerve Keaton by telling him that John Gilbert's contract was canceled after his first unsuccessful talkie are two falsehoods, but they are common enough myths. However, one part of the plot caused by their sloppy research is just plain hilarious if you actually know something about Keaton's life. You may wonder where the Lena Lamont-like star came from that Keaton pants over until she marries a duke (Rhonda Fleming as Peggy Courtney). Fictitious Peggy Courtney was modeled after Mae Murray, who married European royalty in the 1920's before torpedoing her own career. You see, the screenwriters got confused and got Mae Murray mixed up with Mae Busch, a Keystone comic with whom Keaton did in fact have an affair. Keaton and Mae Murray were never involved. Sometimes a good research department can be invaluable!
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful to you? | <urn:uuid:af411498-0124-47c5-b4d8-95d28e0291fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050218/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98129 | 810 | 1.578125 | 2 |
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Relief at the news summer’s on way
AFTER weeks of seemingly endless rain, Swindon is finally to get its summer weather at the weekend – much to the delight of gardeners and schoolchildren.
Forecasters predict that after the wettest April and the wettest April to June period on record, the normal dry, sunny conditions will start to return tomorrow.
The cause of the wet summer has been the unusually southerly location of the jet stream, a high-altitude belt of wind. This is expected to move northwards soon, resulting in normal conditions.
Among those pleased with the news are gardeners and allotment owners, whose plants and vegetables have suffered in the deluge.
John Aldridge, the chairman of the Swindon Allotments and Leisure Gardens’ Association, said: “I’m delighted because, quite frankly, my garden and many others are a complete wash-out this year with so much rain.
“Everything we grow seems to provide food for the slugs and snails. “They eat it all before we can make use of it.”
The 83-year-old, of Somerset Road, Rodbourne Cheney, who has been gardening for about 70 years, said he could not remember a summer so bad for gardening.
“It’s very pleasing to see it might be improving, we need lots of sunshine,” he said.
“Beans and peas, , for example, need pollinating by bees and insects and I go out in the garden and see none of them – they need sunshine to bring them out.” And for the parents of schoolchildren, many of whom finish school today but officially start their six-week summer holiday next Tuesday, it is also welcome news.
Mum-of-one Sally Nunan, 42, of Sycamore Grove, Pinehurst , said: “It will be perfect if it does improve. “The kids will absolutely love it, and also the parents will, because what do you do if it’s pouring with rain for six weeks?
“It would cost an arm and a leg, we wouldn’t be able to go anywhere or do anything other than indoor attractions, and that will cost.”
A Met Office spokesman said: “Saturday is the day when we will start to see a day with no rain, which would be nice. “Generally speaking, it will be dry with a few bright sunny spells on Saturday.
“I think temperatures are going to be 19-20 degrees celsius.
“Sunday should be a generally bright and sunny day almost all the way through, with light winds and temperatures in the low 20s.
“And those kind of conditions are going to continue through to the middle part of next week. “It looks like we’re getting a little bit of cloud pushing itself through from the north from Wednesday onwards.”
Fun in the sun
THE sunny, dry weather is good news for the hundreds expected to attend events in Wiltshire over the next two weekends.
A free family fun day is due to be held at Queen’s Park on Sunday from 11.45am to 5pm.
The day is a celebration of Swindon’s hidden environmental jewel and the community, with all money raised being ploughed back into community projects.
Music will be hosted by Ron Travolta, of radio station 105.5, and the acts include pop singer Elliot, Elvis (alias Bobby B) and the Nathan Jones Allstars Jazz Band.
There will be a 100m Olympic event, with fun races for adults and children.
Other attractions include vintage cars, a recycling box swap, a bouncy castle, Swindon Bonsai Club, face-painting, competitions and game, and stalls.
The annual Festival On The Farm, due to take place this weekend, has been cancelled due to the rain. But the bands are due to put on a small music festival, at Riffs Bar, Hook, from today until Sunday.
It will raise money for the festival’s three charities: Goldenhar Family Support Group, Purton Helping Hand, and the Your Day Foundation.
Tickets are available from www.festivalonthefarm.co.uk or www.riffsbar.com
The following weekend, international music festival, WOMAD will mark its 30th anniversary at Charlton Park, Malmesbury. Many big names have already been announced, including Sensational
Space Shifters, Jimmy Cliff, Hugh Masekela and Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club.
For details visit www.womad.co.uk . | <urn:uuid:1c98f6d1-8a82-44bf-924f-fb7b1db8496c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/9827695.Relief_at_the_news_summer___s_on_way/?ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945939 | 1,015 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Ohio was one of the key battleground states in this year's presidential election. NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty has this report on how Ohio and other key states factored into the President's victory as well as links to Mr. Obama's victory speech and Mitt Romney's concession speech.
The president's victory came surprisingly easily, as he won seven of the eight key battleground states, and appeared on his way to win the eighth, Florida, which is still too close to call. By holding the "Midwest firewall" — including Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Michigan — the president handily defeated his challenger, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
Ohio's Republican senator says President Barack Obama is distorting Republican Mitt Romney's position on the auto industry bailout, a key issue in the pivotal state.
Sen. Rob Portman says President Obama’s comments have been "reckless and irresponsible." Portman particularly objected to the president’s speech in Dayton , on Tuesday in which he said there might not still be an American auto industry if Romney had been president. | <urn:uuid:3c17004a-8eff-4f2a-a87b-1b017c8efb4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyso.org/term/president-barack-obama?page=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976433 | 217 | 1.609375 | 2 |
With all due respect to our friends down the street, there are seals at Mystic Seaport, too.
At least there was Wednesday morning of this week.
There is a colony of harbor seals near Fisher’s Island, so that’s one possible explanation. We’ve also learned that this is the time of year juvenile harp seals come down from the Arctic to explore (perhaps they’ve heard of our Frozen In exhibit?).
Either way, it doesn’t make a difference to us. What it means to us is that Mystic Seaport attracts all kinds. And in the harshest of winters, there’s no problem with that. | <urn:uuid:83f86bfb-02eb-4a7b-8a23-b56348259148> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mysticseaport.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967301 | 141 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Swiss utility BKW FMB Energy has delayed a decision on making safety-related upgrades at the Mühleberg nuclear power plant. The decision - originally expected in mid-2013 - will now be made at the end of 2013.
|Mühleberg (Image: BKW)
The utility noted that the timeframe for planning the upgrades will only become clear after the Federal Court has made a ruling on the continued operation of the Mühleberg plant.
Switzerland's Federal Administrative Court (FAC) ruled on 1 March 2012 that the 40-year-old 372 MWe boiling water reactor can only operate until 28 June 2013, overturning a 2009 decision by the environment ministry to issue an unlimited-duration operating licence to the plant.
BKW lodged an appeal with the Federal Court against the FAC's ruling, but is still awaiting the court's decision.
The company has informed the Bern government and the country's regulatory authorities that its decision has been delayed by at least six months while it undertakes additional investigations into its plan for the long-term operation of the plant. BKW said that "the initial indicative tenders show that the original estimated costs of CHF170 million ($187 million) will be exceeded."
It added that, "due to a lack of competition among the suppliers", investigations into price fixing would need to be carried out before the results of the economic viability audit and the application to conduct the work can be submitted to its board of directors.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News | <urn:uuid:5d47b157-28ad-4460-a33a-99566bbf3b55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://world-nuclear-news.org/C-Muhleberg_upgrade_decision_delayed-1912125.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961763 | 317 | 1.765625 | 2 |
AOL said in a regulatory filing that that job cuts are meant to save about $300 million annually. The company said it would ask for volunteers, and then resort to layoffs if it did not get enough people to accept a buyout package.
Time Warner, which merged with AOL in 2000, a deal that was disastrous for both companies, decided earlier this year to spin off its struggling Internet unit. The spinoff is set to be completed by Dec. 9.
In the most recent quarter, AOL’s revenue was down 23 percent, or $235 million, to $777 million. Of this decline, $138 million was ascribed to a fall in subscriptions, while $92 million was due to a drop in advertising.
AOL became a force on the Internet in the 1990s through its dial-up service, but fell behind as high-speed service became widespread and the access business became commoditized. | <urn:uuid:a92603af-279c-4716-841c-91db599908f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/aol-to-cut-2500-jobs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98982 | 187 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Noon Update: Great white shark moving south again
Published: Friday, November 30, 2012 at 12:30 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, November 30, 2012 at 12:18 p.m.
Noon Update: Great white shark Mary Lee moving south again
Mary Lee, the 2-ton, 16-foot-long great white shark cruising the Cape Fear coast, took a turn to the south this morning. The latest ping from her satellite tracking device was at 11:27 a.m. Friday and put her in the vicinity of Frying Pan Shoals.
The shark, being tracked by thousands of people via the Ocearch website, became an overnight celebrity when she turned north and moved in close to shore near the Isle of Palms, S.C.
Wednesday evening she pinged near the Ocean Isle Fishing Pier in North Carolina. By Thursday morning she had explored the mouth of the Cape Fear River before moving around Bald Head Island later in the day.
According to Ocearch, the nonprofit organization that tagged the 16-foot shark in September, Mary Lee must break the surface of the water for her tracking device to register location data.
Check back later for updates on Mary Lee's progress.
Great white shark tracked from Cape Fear to a mile out
Mary Lee, a two-ton great white shark with a tracking device bolted to her dorsal fin, swam into the Cape Fear region Thursday, heading first north into the mouth of the Cape Fear River before veering east. Pings Thursday night showed the shark meandering around, swimming out to sea before returning closer to land, just off Bald Head Island.
Though the shark's path seems a bit scattered, it's likely she simply headed to the river waters to feed before heading back out to sea, said Paul Barrington, director of husbandry and operations at the N.C. Aquarium at Fort Fisher.
"The mouths of all these river inlets is a migratory route of a lot of in-shore fishes, so there's a tremendous amount of food supply," he said. "It doesn't surprise me at all that she showed up there."
But the amount of tracking data available for Mary Lee was surprising to Barrington. According to Ocearch, the nonprofit organization that tagged the 16-foot shark in September, Mary Lee must break the surface of the water for her tracking device to register location data. To date, Mary Lee has posted hundreds of tracking points – impressive for an animal that doesn't need to surface in order to breathe.
"It's a fish and it utilizes the entire water column. It's just fortunate that this animal is spending so much time at the surface," Barrington said. "What's most surprising is how active this animal is. It traveled a huge distance just overnight, and to have it show up in the mouth of the Cape Fear River is very exciting to me."
But not everyone was thrilled with Mary Lee's presence. StarNews readers reacted to a story about the shark with a mixture of awe and fear, some saying the threat of carnivorous sharks keeps them from ever entering the ocean.
Inman Campbell, shop manager and instructor at Scuba-Now in Wilmington, acknowledged that a great white shark is one of several species he'd prefer not to see on a dive. But he said the idea shouldn't dissuade residents from enjoying area beaches.
"I wouldn't be too freaked out. It's just this time of year, they love the 60-degree water temperature," Campbell said. "I dive almost every day, and if I saw a great white, I would just surface and get out of the water."
Barrington was more enthusiastic, saying he'd happily take to the water in search of the shark if chances were better that he'd actually be present when she surfaced next.
"I'd like to go out in my kayak," he said, "but I know the odds are slim that I'd be able to find her."
Kate Elizabeth Queram: 343-2217
On Twitter: @kate_goes_bleu
All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published without permission. Links are encouraged. | <urn:uuid:57639f9f-4403-469f-9bdc-7bff76311d7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20121130/ARTICLES/121129676 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963518 | 865 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The TEFCU Student Branch Program
TEFCU’s in-school branch internship program is a formal partnership between the credit union and the school for the support and enrichment of the education process. The program can be implemented in the Elementary, Middle and High School levels. The High School program will be essential to the Business and Finance or Accounting class as students are learning the fundamentals of Banking, Credit, Savings, Investments, and Money Management during the year.
The in-school branch will be open during lunch periods or after school on specific days within a school week as agreed upon by both the school and TEFCU for the upcoming school year.
The core of TEFCU’s in-school branch internship program is to teach financial literacy and encourage students to open and maintain savings accounts. Under the leadership and supervision of a Teacher/Liaison in the school, the school branch will form and elect student leaders to act as the Student Branch Manager, Assistant Branch Manager and Marketing Manager. The students will rotate working positions quarterly to provide each student a chance to learn leadership skills as well as team-building qualities. The elected Student Branch Manager and Assistant Branch Manager will be in charge of the daily credit union in-school branch operations. The student intern Marketing Manager will plan and implement monthly promotions and marketing campaigns to attract more students to open a savings account and utilize the student-run credit union branch.
Each student interns will be trained as a full-pledged teller and earn Student Service Learning hours. Through TEFCU’s in-school branch internship program, students are provided with opportunities for “Job Shadowing” Days, paid summer internships, guest speakers, scholarships, “real world working experience”, employment opportunities, and financial literacy projects. TEFCU will also support the school by providing speakers and presenters, financial literature and by participating in school functions and activities such as Back-to-School night, Freshman Orientation, Academy Day, PTSA meetings, school fair, Career Days, and sporting events.
If you want to get involved, call our office at (202) 832-5100. We may be able to talk to your school and see if they would be interested in partnering with TEFCU. Together, we can make it happen. | <urn:uuid:ee3ea61b-4620-49d2-b2f4-21fb86e0dc16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tefcu.org/?page=about_studentbranchprogram | 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 | 0.958741 | 471 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Toloudis, Nicholas. (2001) "Common procedures, common problems: Moving toward uniform electoral procedures for EP elections". In: UNSPECIFIED, Madison, Wisconsin. (Unpublished)
[N]ational level political interests and ideas have impeded the reform process. I will test this argument by examining the manner in which political and ideological factors have played out at critical periods in the history of the directly elected EP and two member states to prevent the installation of uniform procedures. Results indicate that the issues under consideration during the debates on direct elections legislation have had lasting effects on subsequent efforts to impose uniform electoral procedures. Failure at the supranational level to find consensus on a reform proposal came even in the face of a concerted effort to account for domestic interests. The installation and amendment of EP electoral procedures provide an excellent perspective on how member states' perception of the EU has changed and are a unique and important case of electoral reform.
|Social Networking:|| |
Actions (login required) | <urn:uuid:f0fd942b-f18d-4f08-9ed5-f2568baa23bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aei.pitt.edu/2195/ | 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 | 0.93598 | 204 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Solar powered trash cans are among the newest tools being used by the City’s Sanitation Division to make Winston-Salem more environmentally kind. “Big Belly” trash cans, named for their large capacity, compact the trash
Established in 1974, The Chronicle is the area’s oldest and well-respected community newspaper. Published each Thursday, The Chronicle has an audited circulation of over 7,000. 85% of that circulation is located within Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. | <urn:uuid:4c59d647-1083-4759-9f09-39b2349fb3df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wschronicle.com/tag/wells-fargo-center/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958637 | 105 | 1.609375 | 2 |
October 2012 Web – New Law 16-21-22
On June 4, 2012, Governor Chaffee signed into law a bill pertaining to school health programs to incorporate a procedure for addressing incidents of anaphylaxis of medically identified students who ride the school bus. The policy shall include a procedure whereby a parent or legal guardian of any child may expressly authorize the school bus drivers and monitors to administer the epinephrine on his or her child in case of an emergency. This procedure will ensure that the epinephrine is kept in a conspicuous place, readily available and that their proper use is made known to school personnel. School bus drivers and monitors shall receive training in the administration of epinephrine. To treat a case of anaphylaxis, trained school bus drivers (First Student Bus Company) and /or monitors shall administer the epinephrine auto-injector to an identified student.
Medication policies shall also include a procedure to allow children to carry and use prescription inhalers, and auto-injectable epinephrine, while in school, at a school event or in transit to and from school by the school bus service provider. Just as Jamestown School has a medication policy to administer school doses; parents who wish their child to self carry their auto-injectable epinephrine must allow follow the same guidelines. Parents shall provide the bus service company and school of their child's allergy and the need to administer epinephrine in an allergic emergency.
No school personnel, school bus driver or monitor, shall be liable for civil damages which may result from acts or omissions in use of the epinephrine which may constitute ordinary negligence.
The student's parents and/or guardians are responsible for supplying and replacing when necessary all prescription medication that is authorized pursuant to this bill.
Letters were sent home or mailed to parents of medically identified students who have a child with an allergy requiring auto-injector epinephrine. In this letter, I stated the procedure to follow for student safety: doctor's orders, their written permission, labeled and current Epi-pen, emergency form with child's photo, emergencies numbers to contact the parent once the pen is given. A recommendation was made that these children wear some form of Medical Alert jewelry as another identifier in the event they are not responding to verbal stimulus. As with all medication kept in school nurse's office, neither School Department nor the bus company will be held responsible if medication is lost or stolen. Should the parent opt not to have their child self carry on the bus, their auto-injector and inhalers will be sent on school field trips off site.
Screenings for October: Vision in Kindergarten, Hearing in Grade 6 | <urn:uuid:bd90e9ce-5d9b-48da-8b92-26c999882a40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jamestownri.com/school/front/nurse/nurseoct.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948635 | 551 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Bangladesh said Sunday that a much-delayed deal over sharing water with India was making progress as Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited from New Delhi to shore up damaged cross-border ties.
The deal to share Teesta river water was meant to be a highlight of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Dhaka last September, but it fell through after opposition from the chief minister of India's West Bengal state.
The failure soured relations between India and Bangladesh, where Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has staked much political capital in resolving an issue crucial for farmers in the country's drought-hit north.
"The Indian government is working on the Teesta deal. They are very sincere about it. So we are hopeful that it will be struck," Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dipu Moni told reporters after talks with Mukherjee.
Mukherjee on Sunday concluded a two-day visit to Bangladesh, where he met with Hasina to review agreements signed during Singh's visit, including one to end complex border territory disputes.
Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, won independence in 1971 with Indian military help, but relations have been patchy ever since due to decades of mutual mistrust.This article was distributed through the NewsCred Smartwire. Original article © Agence France Presse 2013 | <urn:uuid:70a16ac5-a677-4f38-b2f2-71f86959e8f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://india.nydailynews.com/politicsarticle/d27a43b9a0afcf5e345e6ab38ac94d13/bangladesh-hopeful-of-river-deal-with-india | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975385 | 268 | 1.757813 | 2 |
I say that it's time to treat your plants to a dose of compost. Container plants can suffer from compaction and loss of fertility over time. Adding compost supplies a steady source of nutrients and loosens the soil. Remove some of the old soil around the edges and fill the spaces with compost. Don't worry about disturbing the roots. Then topdress with more compost. | <urn:uuid:396191cf-8052-400f-b966-43f78293922c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://organicgardening.com/learn-and-grow/potted-plant-care | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930047 | 75 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A former summer camp for boys, Kill Kare State Park is located on Lake Champlain at the southwestern tip of St. Albans Point, a three-mile peninsula defining St. Albans Bay.
Kill Kare is surrounded by sparkling water on three sides, with beautiful views of wooded islands, green hills and the Adirondack Mountains in the far distance. Just offshore are Mosquito and Burton Islands, to the northwest lies Woods Island. All three are state-owned, and a passenger ferry runs daily between Kill Kare State Park and Burton Island.
At Kill Kare you’ll find a large picnic shelter with group-sized grills; this is a popular venue for wedding receptions, group picnics, and family reunions. The park’s main building was a resort hotel in the mid-to-late 1800’s.
Today Kill Kare is a favorite launch site for paddlers heading to Burton, Woods, or Knight Island State Parks. Burton Island, with its marina and bistro is but a short paddle from Kill Kare and many visitors will canoe or kayak from Kill Kare out to the island and enjoy breakfast or lunch at the bistro or a hike around the island. At Kill Kare one might also enjoy a picnic on the shady,green lawn, a swim in the lake, or a stroll through one of the park’s many flower gardens. Reservations for the picnic shelter can be made through the central reservations call center at 1-888-409-7579 Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM. | <urn:uuid:0746d7e8-157f-4d98-8614-2595d3191c63> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vtstateparks.com/htm/top5viewkillkare.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937441 | 324 | 1.5 | 2 |
ext1isr is the function. Im trying to make a pointer to a function.
Originally Posted by wolf99
So I have the rest of the pointer manipulation working bar trying to assign the functions address to the pointer.
In Keil C (and ANSI C AFAIK) the code would be this:
Which is what seems to be throwing the only error that functionName is an undefined identifier....
pIsr = &functionName;
I placed the ISR function above the main() in the file and the error leaves but is replaced by a warning: "redundant "&" applied to function" which makes me think that what is happening here is that the program is actually calling the function and expecting a variable to be returned that will then be placed in the variable pISR, some thing like if I had written:
int x = add(5,5) // expect x = 10 | <urn:uuid:889a21a8-6466-4819-af94-9b774812a39e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?670122-RESOLVED-void-pointer-to-interrupt-function | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932338 | 190 | 1.789063 | 2 |
When investigating incidents or accidents, there is a fundamental relationship between administrative controls (including procedures/policies) and the management portion of enforcement/accountability. The question is not only, “Do policies and procedures impact human performance?”, but should also be “How much to policies and procedures impact human performance?”. I want to discuss the role management and corporate culture have on the use of procedures and policies and what can be done to change both the management culture as well as the working culture with these documents.
SPEAKER: Ed Skompski, Vice President, Systems Improvement, Inc.
Edward Skompski has an engineering degree from the University of Florida, 1989. He has worked for the past 16 years helping companies improve both human and equipment performance through better Root Cause Analysis and corrective action design. Through teaching accident investigation, performing investigations and audits, and working with companies implementing improved systems he has been able to improve the safety, reliability, and productivity of thousands of workers and hundreds of companies.
Many industries including mining, pretrochemical, chemical, aviation and healthcare have benefitted from Ed’s experience and expertise. In the healthcare industry for example, he has worked extensively with both Patient Safety and Risk management to improve the quality of care provided to patients, as well as improving the work place for healthcare professionals. Prior experience includes working in the fields of health safety and environment with years of experience managing environmental cleanup and characterization.
Mark your calendar for 26 February to participate in this webinar » | <urn:uuid:06a4ce1d-7179-42ba-8c82-416fce6c40f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spe.org/tech/2013/02/hse-featured-webinar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959212 | 314 | 1.726563 | 2 |
“Outlander” is about the work of Kephart, who was a librarian, academic, author of Our Southern Highlanders and founder of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. With music by Frank Lee, storytelling and humor, Gary Carden weaves details about life and customs in the mountains of Western North Carolina from 1912 to 1930. Admission is $5 at the door.
Kephart play comes to Bryson CityWritten by Admin
Western North Carolina writer Gary Carden will present his play “Outlander” at 7 p.m., Sept. 25, at the Swain County Center for the Arts in Bryson City. Earlier in the day, this historical play about the work of Horace Kephart and the mountains of Western North Carolina will be performed in a school assembly for students of Swain County High School. | <urn:uuid:5a462af2-2d86-41cf-99db-4131d731e4ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smokymountainnews.com/aae/item/8823-kephart-play-comes-to-bryson-city | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950889 | 175 | 1.5625 | 2 |
By Tom Billups, C.S.C.S.
Congratulations to Mike Tolkin, recently announced as the new national team head coach by USA Rugby. Although my former teammate and long-time friend David Hodges was also an applicant for the position, I wish Mike nothing but success. As America’s coach, Mike will have a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time.
As simple as it is to state all the things that need to happen, nothing will be accomplished without a high degree of focus and attention to detail by the team’s staff. In my experience, in order for the national team players to have their best chance at success, player management and technical coaching must be very clearly thought out and well executed. Significant planning of each day of team assembly is of great importance to overall success. Dress codes, meal plans, technical training agendas, even team transportation timelines are examples of some of the topics that require focused planning. This will allow the players to focus on their on-field roles, responsibilities, and match day performance.
Of course no player is “perfect” but the best players at each position must be identified and developed with all available resources. For the best players to be identified, the staff should look everywhere, including both inside and outside of the rugby community. Additionally, if a player is good enough, then they are old enough for consideration. Some were critical of selecting collegiate players such as Mike MacDonald, Lou Stanfill or Mike Palefau but current college players with similar athletic profiles are the right place to commit national team resources.
All applied sport sciences should be accessed. Now a full member of the United States Olympic Committee, USA Rugby has a portal to cutting-edge sport science information and services. Even though it is sevens, not test rugby, which will be in the 2016 Games, best practice from the USOC should be woven into everything the senior team does.
Technology should be used to shrink down the geographical distance between national team players. Technology is now available to keep players and coaches much more highly connected when the team is not assembled. Performance areas like analysis feedback, online player logs, and other sport science deliverables have become vastly more accessible through technological advances.
At the core of the coaching staff’s work will be the technical approach to how the team plays. This approach should be based on which players are available and what their skill strengths are. Assembling a group of athletes and identifying their collective strengths in conjunction with what the team needs to do to be successful is mission critical. This approach to the technical aspect of the team assists in creating its identity. It is not clear that this has happened over the past few years.
Here’s to hoping the team culture is one that promotes competition. When competing, everything matters, and that requires the players to redouble their focus. When attention to detail wanes, on field or off, the team’s competiveness lessens. Said another way, when a player misses a flight and is late into a team assembly, the entire team is just a bit less competitive. Every time a player misses an assignment in a match, the whole team is temporarily less competitive and must scramble to recover.
If players are competitive at every turn, the whole of the team will improve. A competitive team environment encourages players to continually raise their performance levels, revealing those that aren’t as committed to the team’s improvement. My former United States national team head coach once said after almost turning over World Cup champion Australia, “The honor not in selection, but in the fulfilment of your responsibilities.” These are words I encourage all national team players and staff to embrace.
Gilbert has released a new line of rugby cleats. The Gilbert Virtuo 8S is part of the exciting new product. Check it out.
The Barbarians are one of the top invitational rugby sides with a long history and classic rugby jersey.
The Nike Tiempo is a solid rugby cleat and one of few styles still made from full-grain natural leather.
The Lions get ready for their matches with this green training jersey. It's what the players wear. Get in the Gear!
A cool looking all black rugby cleat with the high performance adidas is known for. Get in the Gear!
Wear the crest of the British and Irish Lions on your t-shirt. A great look for the summer.
The Lions are ready to get their Australia tour underway. They arrive in Perth on Monday.
The New Zealand All Blacks training jersey for 2013/14. Get in the Gear!
The USA Rugby Pro Alternate rugby jersey is perfect for any fan of the Eagles. Get yours to wear during the summer Test matches.
The NEW All Blacks 2013/14 jersey has arrived at World Rugby Shop. Dare to wear the colors of the All Blacks. | <urn:uuid:1ae64c34-2726-4a5a-aada-b1b56aeea6b1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rugbyrugby.com/news/by_country/u_s/7000405/our_national_team | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964867 | 1,000 | 1.703125 | 2 |
President Obama said in a recent speech, “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” “You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else.”
With those phrases Obama dismisses hard work and individual ideas. He trashes achievement. He says nothing is possible without government assistance. Maybe Obama is too used to crony capitalism in his quest to transform America. It must take a heavily subsidized village.
The speech may come to be seen as a defining moment into Obama’s mentality and his campaign.
Elizabeth Warren, who is running for the Senate against Scott Brown parrots Obama, ” “there is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You build a factory out there, good for you, but I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate.”
Who does she think pays the bulk of the taxes to pay for the roads and schools?
Thomas Sowell notes, “There was a time, within living memory, when the achievements of others were not only admired but were often taken as an inspiration for imitation of the same qualities that had served these achievers well, even if we were not in the same field of endeavor and were not expecting to achieve on the same scale.”
Sowell also writes, “People who succeed — whether in business or anywhere else — are often said to be ‘privileged,’ even if they started out poor and worked their way up the hard way….Personal responsibility, whether for achievement or failure, is a threat to the whole vision of the left, and a threat the left goes all-out to combat, using rhetoric uninhibited by reality.”
Charles Krauthammer writes, “the most formative, most important influence on the individual is not government. It is civil society, those elements of the collectivity that lie outside government: family, neighborhood, church, Rotary club, PTA, the voluntary associations that Tocqueville understood to be the genius of America and source of its energy and freedom….Moreover, the greatest threat to a robust, autonomous civil society is the ever-growing state and those like Obama who see it as the ultimate expression of the collective.”
Krauthammer continues, “Obama’s infrastructure argument is easily refuted by a controlled social experiment. Roads and schools are the constant. What’s variable is the energy, enterprise, risk-taking, hard work and genius of the individual. It is therefore precisely those individual characteristics, not the communal utilities, that account for the different outcomes.”
In the collectivist mind, citizens are treated as orphan children who must be guided and cared for; and only government can do that properly. Only the elites in government, the anointed ones, are smart enough and caring enough to do that “for the children.”
Above all citizens must be taught proper thinking and action; they must be controlled so they can enjoy the resulting collectivist utopias such as Cuba, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union.
”I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.” -Thomas Jefferson
Obama’s words show that he does not understand America and what it is to be an American.
The Cato Institute has a report that bears on the matter of political philosophy: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. | <urn:uuid:0b70c15b-d56c-4b23-9268-f8491eec55b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/tag/collectivist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968237 | 802 | 1.84375 | 2 |
ESCANABA - A winter storm warning remains in effect for Delta, Menominee, and Schoolcraft counties until 10 p.m. EST this evening.
According to the National Weather Service in Marquette, an axis of moderate to heavy snow is expected to develop across portions of central Upper Michigan as a low pressure system moves northeast across Lower Michigan and into Canada during the day today.
A winter storm warning for heavy snow and blowing snow means severe winter weather conditions are expected or occurring.
"Basically we're going to see some snow showers picking up in intensity throughout the day," said NWS meteorologist Jane Marie Wix.
The three-county area is expected to see between three to four inches today, while southern Menominee County could see snow totals of approximately five inches.
Snow will taper off this evening, but could result in approximately one-half inch of additional accumulation in Delta, Menominee, and southern Schoolcraft counties. The system will transition into lake effect snow affecting mostly Alger and Luce counties, said Wix.
Temperatures will also steadily drop throughout the day, reaching single digits in Menominee County and the low teens in both Delta and Schoolcraft counties. Wind chill values are expected to dip into the single digits this afternoon in the area, so those out and about are reminded to dress warmly and to keep their extremities covered.
Wix also noted It will get windier as the day continues with some wind gusts reaching 25 mph. Drivers should expect to face snow covered and slippery roads, while patchy blowing and drifting snow will make for difficult travel conditions.
"Especially since it's going to be on the breezy side, that's going to reduce visibility on the road," said Wix. | <urn:uuid:d653cea3-faad-4243-a99e-34ca93fcf665> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailypress.net/page/content.detail/id/540527/Area-under-storm-warning.html?nav=5003 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965231 | 365 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The institute has become increasingly involved with undergraduate education and will now report directly to the dean of Arts and Sciences, according to a new arrangement approved on Feb. 1. Mind/Brain had reported to the university's provost.
The institute, located in Krieger Hall, was founded in 1990, in part through a $7.5 million donation from Zanvyl Krieger and the Zanvyl and Isabelle Krieger Fund.
Mind/Brain will continue to be independent of Arts and Sciences, much like the Space Telescope Science Institute; although STScI is not part of Johns Hopkins, some faculty from Hopkins have joint appointments there, said Richard McCarty, interim dean of Arts and Sciences.
"We are not creating a new department," McCarty said.
Current Mind/Brain scientists are members of the School of Medicine faculty. Future appointments to Mind/Brain will be made through both Arts and Sciences and the School of Medicine, he said. Adjunct appointments will likely be made.
Mind/Brain researchers work extensively with departments at Homewood, including Psychology and Cognitive Science, and they are directly involved with undergraduate education. A new neuroscience major was made available to undergraduates in the fall of 1996.
"The Mind/Brain Institute has always been interactive with colleagues both in the medical school and at Homewood," said Guy McKhann, director of Mind/Brain and a professor of neurology. "We intend to retain that relationship and still maintain close ties to the medical school." | <urn:uuid:3ea84722-56be-4868-8b46-cc702c0793b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/janmar98/mar0298/02mind.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971771 | 310 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Sidestepping Unseen Tax Pitfalls For Same-Sex Couples
Not many people look forward to their annual tax deadlines. A process that is already riddled with confusing forms and statements has become increasingly convoluted for gay couples. As states are beginning to legally permit and recognize gay marriage, LGBT couples are forced to learn how to file their taxes in a manner that will appease agents on both state and federal levels.
Heterosexual couples that are legally married at the state and federal level do not face many discrepancies when filing their taxes at each stage; they can file jointly at both. Gay couples, however, are viewed as legally married in some states, but are never legally recognized as married by federal agencies such as the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This often results in gay couples having to file entirely different sets of paperwork at the state and federal level: one state form as a legally recognized couple, if they are fortunate enough to live in states that have legalized marriage, and other governmental forms sent separately as individuals to the IRS.
Some gay clients still prefer to simply file separately at all levels, rather than endure a document-induced headache from learning and complying with all of the different state and federal tax procedures. But for many LGBT clients, deciding whether or not to file their taxes together is less than half of the battle. Not only are they tasked with making the complicated call of handling their taxes jointly, but they also face the challenge of finding a capable and willing accountant.
Mark Berry, an accountant particularly well versed in tax law as it pertains to the LGBT community, discusses the negative consequences to gay couples that spawn from the government’s current tax policies. He asserts that, "Under present law, LGBT couples are at an economic disadvantage in that they pay a higher overall tax rate than couples that are able to file jointly. LGBT couples are required to file as singles and would pay more in tax versus a two-earner couple that is able to file jointly."
He adds that there are also various estate tax disadvantages for gay couples.
"Those couples in ’traditional marriages’ also receive estate tax benefits depending on the size of the estate," said Berry. "Married couples receive the benefit of transferring the assets in the deceased spouses’ estate in most cases tax free, whereas LGBT couples do not receive that benefit."
Taxes can get increasingly complicated for gay couples with children. In addition to the paperwork required to file tax returns at the federal level, the IRS also requires that couples with adopted children jump through additional hoops each year. One client, who wishes to remain anonymous for fear of repercussions from the IRS while her case is still open, is experiencing first-hand the tax pitfalls to being a gay adoptive mother.
In December 2010, this client was granted full parental rights to her two adopted children. When she had to file her taxes, she sent in her usual 1040 form with statements and billing receipts from her attorney to prove legal parentage of her children. But the IRS rejected this paperwork, insisting that she provide a copy of her Judgment of Parentage, which is proof that the court has granted her status as her children’s legal parent. She never received this document from the court until July of 2011.
Attempting to rectify the situation, she has reached out to various agencies and organizations responsible for providing people in her situation with assistance.
"Call any of those agencies in Pennsylvania or New Jersey to get help or answers," she said, "and see if you can talk to a real person. Real people there are just non-existent. You get recordings and messages and it is impossible to navigate."
Through no fault of her own, this client was unable to provide the IRS with the necessary documents to prove her parentage. Rather than being pardoned for her misfortune, the IRS has fined her time and again for not having the paperwork that the courts have failed to provide her with. She estimates that since her federal tax debacle began in 2010, she has accumulated up to $40,000 in tax debt, about 20 percent of which is from interest and penalties that she has accrued. Running out of ways to pay off this debt, the client has had no choice but to use part of her 401(k) plan to keep her family’s debt at bay. She has yet to see any kind of resolution in her case with the IRS.
Gay couples across the United States are being forced to comply with a federal tax system that is actively working against their best interests. The organizations designed to assist them are inaccessible, and accountants and attorneys willing and able to serve as their advocates are few and far between. The federal government expects these couples to acquiesce to its convoluted and prejudicial tax law, but has failed to create an environment that is conducive to them following it.
"Even though states are increasingly recognizing same-sex marriage, until DOMA is repealed, LGBT couples will be treated unequally in the eyes of the federal government," asserted Berry. The federal government has not hesitated to bury same-sex couples in paperwork. A simple solution to ease the workload for both parties would be to replace that endless stack of paperwork with one document: a marriage license. | <urn:uuid:730834af-98b1-42de-b1fc-73940752262e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edgeprovidence.com/business_finance/finance/141971/sidestepping_unseen_tax_pitfalls_for_same-sex_couples | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982736 | 1,060 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Transition and reform
James Ndung’u and Manasseh Wepundi | Saferworld | 2012
The date of the next Kenyan presidential and parliamentary elections has now been set for 4 March 2013. These will be the first polls since December 2007, when revelations of voting irregularities triggered waves of inter-ethnic violence, resulting in 1,300 deaths and the displacement of half a million people.
This report draws on extensive local consultations undertaken in different parts of the country between February and September 2011 in order to identify the issues of concern to ordinary Kenyans in the run up to the next elections. It suggests a number of recommendations for the European Union to consider in its engagement with the Kenyan authorities and in its efforts to maximise opportunities to build peace and prevent further conflict. This research is part of the EU-funded ‘People’s Peacemaking Perspectives’ project, a joint initiative implemented by Conciliation Resources and Saferworld and financed under the European Commission's Instrument for Stability.
The project provides European Union institutions with analysis and recommendations based on the opinions and experiences of local people in a range of countries and regions affected by fragility and violent conflict. | <urn:uuid:c99792bf-dbfc-4b3c-9740-0dd20ddfca28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frient.de/de/publikationen-service/dokumente/library/transition-and-reform.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931427 | 244 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Permanent lines on music whiteboards are helpful in other contexts as well. They can be used when teaching handwriting, or in any other application where straight lines are needed. Hertz Furniture has wall-mounted and mobile music boards so you can choose you ideal arrangement.
Mobile music boards are ideal for any place where rooms are used for a number of purposes. If you don’t have a separate band practice room or music classroom, it is unlikely that teachers of other subjects will want to have permanent lines going across the dry erase board. When you have a mobile model, you don’t have to worry about getting access to the same room every time you have a music lesson. Instead, you can simply wheel the board into the classroom you are using and have everything you need, no matter where you are.
An additional benefit of our mobile boards is that they provide twice as much work space. With double-sided models, teachers can feel free to fill-up the whole space, and simply flip the board over when they need more room. If there is a desire to reference or return to the notes which were written at the beginning of a lesson, the board can simply be flipped back over, and everything will be exactly where it was.This arrangement also saves the time it would take to erase the board in the middle of a class.
We also have mobile models which include a music board on one side and a natural cork board on the other. This is great when you want to have some extra hanging space, while still having the surface that is needed for music lessons. The cork side can be used to display announcements when there are no lessons going on in that particular space, and simply flipped to the other side when band practice is beginning.
A high-class school that has the space and resources to furnish a designated band room or music room might prefer the wall-mounted option. Our music whiteboards come in a number of different sizes to fit in the wall space you have allotted. A built-in marker tray running along the bottom of the board provides a convenient space for writing implements so instructors don’t have to constantly be holding them or rummaging around to figure out where they are.
Best Rite music boards are designed for years of recitals, debuts and encore performances. The black lines running across them won’t fade, even with repeated use and erasing. When you need to zoom in on notes, scales or chords, these boards provide a reliable space to harness student talent and provide clear instruction.
At Hertz Furniture, we know how important it is to have music in the educational environment. That’s why we provide all of the equipment you need to furnish a music room or band room in your school. Our music boards are designed to make lessons easier for instructors and clearer for students, so everyone can enjoy the experience.
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View Details » | <urn:uuid:01443c4f-3bb8-4598-8bd8-a01e3c2afcbd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hertzfurniture.com/Music-Boards--166--ca.html?superParentCategoryID=category_root&parentCategoryName=Boards&pcid=cat_6&cn=Music%20Boards&cat=1166&r=1&history=fcgoudzw%7C%7Crt~1%5Esub_attr_name~Promotion%5ErefineValue~Made%20in%20USA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946311 | 636 | 1.625 | 2 |
Geographical Index > Canada > British Columbia > Report # 21563|
Submitted by witness on Thursday, September 06, 2007.
Childhood Sighting Near a House in the Okanagan
(Show Printer-friendly Version)
PROVINCE: British Columbia
LOCATION DETAILS: I cant remember the exact address but know the house very well.
NEAREST TOWN: Withheld
NEAREST ROAD: Withheld
OBSERVED: You cannot believe just how nervous I am doing this. I want to relate an incident that occurred many years ago. I am reticant about relaying this story because of the amount of 'grief' and ridicule I have taken over the years from people that I have told. I have always been open about my concern about camping and the risk of running into a Sasquatch and I think it all stems from this incident.
In 1974 we lived in a house on a bench overlooking Okanagan Lake, B.C. The back of the house had a stretch of lawn that met up with orchard that went to the edge of the bank and then down to the lake. The house is (it is still there but owned by other people that I do not know)a rancher and sits in a north/south position with the back of the house facing west. There was a small concrete patio at the back with a sliding glass door - this was positioned about half way down the house. On the south side (facing the lake - west) was a bedroom window where my brother and I stayed.
Early one summer morning, I estimate the time to be around 0500 or so - everyone in the house was still sound asleep but it was very bright out - I got out of bed and looked out the bedroom window across the lake. Immediately I noticed to the right, a very tall and large 'animal' standing and facing the sliding glass door of the house. It was standing perpindicular to me and I was looking at the right-hand side of it's body. From the profile the body appeared thick. It was tall enough that it stooped under the patio eve as it faced the house. It stood there motionless for a very short time and then turned 180 degrees to its left and walked across the lawn and down into the orchard. I have no idea where it went after that. Along with being tall and stooped slightly forward, I recall only that its arms hung by it's side and it was very dark in appearance. It stood still until it turned. It never turned and faced me and I cannot provide any other description with regards to its appearance. I was about 8 years old at the time and never told anyone until many years later.
To say I have been mortified by this encounter is an understatement and thus I am hugely relucant to do this. I do this only because I constantly read about sightings in BC, the Okanagan, and the west coast of North America in the hopes I can get a better understanding about what I saw. It has impacted me enough that I wont camp and wont even drive from the coast to the Okanagan at night. That is the source of amusement/ridicule for people when I tell them about this - that it has affected me so much.
Even thinking about this right now and writing about it has the hair on the back of my neck standing up!
I have decided to go ahead and do this after looking at your website and many others for the past few years and seeing what others are saying. It took me a long time to decide to do this and I am still not even sure it is the right thing to do - though I wonder if I will feel better if I talk to someone in the field. I do not want any publicity or my name used.
I will talk to anyone from your outfit and if there comes a time that I am in the area and someone wants to join me, I can show them the exact house. After 33 years I can remember it very clearly.
ALSO NOTICED: Nothing.
OTHER WITNESSES: Other people in the house at the time but I was only witness.
OTHER STORIES: I have recently read online about a sighting in or around the road just below where this house is located. I will try and find the incident and have it read if I am contacted. Where this incident occurred, is at the bottom of the embankment that where the orchard ends. If the creature had walked off the end of our orchard and down the embankment and a little south it would be in this area.
TIME AND CONDITIONS: Very early in the morning. Perhaps 0500 or 0530. Cleary and bright summer morning.
ENVIRONMENT: Rural residential. Lots of orchards and trees. Low growth of weeds. Hills and mountains nearby with pine trees. Large body of water nearby. Very small town nearby. Very quiet roadway can best be described one lane country road at the time. Not much in terms of livestock except for domesticated animals such as dogs and some chickens in neighboring yards.
Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Blaine McMillan :
I have spoken to the witness for well over an hour and I have found him to be honest and forthright. He talked of a shocking incident that happened to him when he was a young boy and it has haunted him to this very day. The witness wishes the area and his identity to remain anonymous.
The witness grew up in a ranch style house overlooking the Okanagan Lake. It sat on a mountain bench some distance back from the water. Early one morning for no apparent reason he woke up at about 5 a.m. His bedroom occupied one end of the house with a window that looked out towards the orchards and the lake below. Because of the positioning of the window he could also look down the length of the house towards the other end. As he stood there gazing out something caught his eye.
Standing before the patio doors, at the other end of the house was a tall upright hair covered creature. He described it as being dark in colour. He told me that the hair covering was long on its body but shorter on its head, which was coned or sloped towards the back. It stood close to eight feet or higher as the brow of its head was at the height of the eves of the house. It was standing on the concrete patio looking in towards the patio doors facing east.
The witness told me that after a minute of standing there the creature turned around 180 degrees and walked away from the house towards the lake. Walking in this direction it would have passed through several orchards and one or two other houses.
This was a tramautic event for the witness. For years he has kept quiet about the incident for fear of being ridiculed by his family and friends. He must be commended for approaching the BFRO with his report.
The witness has submitted the following sketch of the property showing what took place at the time of the incident.
About BFRO Investigator Blaine McMillan :
- Retired Canadian Military (Reg Force) Safety Systems / Aviation technician with experience on CF-101 Voodoo, CT-133 Silverstar and various SAR platforms including CC-115 Buffalo and CC-130 Hercules.
- Married with two young sons. An avid camper, hunter and fisherman.
- Holds a BA in Criminology from the University of Manitoba, courses in Alternate Dispute Resolution, Anthropology and Political Science
- Attended the BFRO BC Expeditions in August of 2005, 2006, 2012 as well as Vancouver Island 2010 and 2012.
- Organized the 2007, 2008 Vancouver Island as well as 2009 North Vancouver Island Expeditions. | <urn:uuid:f5fcc2e9-1d7e-4033-8263-fe7f8ce5d877> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bfro.net/GDB/show_report.asp?id=21563 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976314 | 1,610 | 1.632813 | 2 |
One of the nation’s most respected historians and a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, H.W. Brands has the rare gift of investing historical narrative with unmatched verve and insight. The Heartbreak of Aaron Burr sheds light on the life of the third vice president of the United States, a man who is perhaps best known for killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
©2012 H.W. Brands (P)2012 Recorded Books
This book would appeal to someone who is primarily interested in the letters between Burr and his daughter.
Probably not. He relied too much on direct quotes.
It was a decent reading; the content was the main problem.
The second half of the book was much more engaging because it incorporated the content of letters into a cohesive narrative, rather than depending almost entirely on lengthy quotes from letters --- which characterized the first half of the book. So, I would edit the first half to match the second half.
Burr's story itself is quite compelling and was handled much better elsewhere.
Report Inappropriate Content | <urn:uuid:f7fdb9bd-6a65-4dcd-9fdf-fa52dbb41197> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=mp_nr_1_10?asin=B0083IO2YQ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972408 | 216 | 1.5 | 2 |
On Friday, Syncrude and its new lawyer Jack Marshall appeared in St. Albert provincial court (just outside Edmonton) requested that the company's sentencing for the deaths of migrating waterfowl in its tailings ponds be adjourned. The company was convicted back on June 25th, 2010 under the Migratory Birds Convention Act for the deaths of 1600 ducks in April 2008 (my posting here). Originally, sentencing was to take place on August 20th, but Syncrude said that it has requested the adjournment because it has hired a new team of lawyers to respresent its interests through the "creative sentencing" phase of the case. During the trial phase of the case, Edmonton attorney Robert White represented Syncrude, however, apparently other clients now require his time and efforts.
As it stands now, Syncrude is discussing with both federal and provincial prosecutors about a creative sentence where assessed fines can be donated to conservation projects or research initiatives or other organizations. In this case, the fines could be used to improve the situation for migratory birds. If the penalties assessed in this case were to follow the letter of the law, the federal charges could bring a fine of $300,000, which could be applied per bird, for a total of as much as $481 million (extremely unlikely), with the provincial price tag ringing in at a maximum of $500,000.
Syncrude was expected to use the Kienapple principle; under that decision, the Supreme Court of Canada established that an accused cannot be convicted of multiple offences when they arise out of the same conduct or action; this basically protects Canadians from being punished twice for a single offence. The Kienapple decision was made when in 1974 during the Kienapple v. The Queen case when the accused was charged with rape and unlawful sexual intercourse with a female under 14 years of age. At trial, he was convicted on both charges, however, the conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse was overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. The use of this defence could become moot if Syncrude and the prosecutors agree on a creative sentence.
Just in case you forgot, I did have three creative sentence options as follows:
1.) Require the three top executives of Syncrude to swim or wade across one of the tailings ponds with no protective gear.
2.) Require the three top executives of Syncrude to drink one glass of water from the tailings pond.
3.) Require the three top executives to publicly re-enact the deaths of the waterfowl (since the death of one of the birds was caught on video) after which they will recite in unison an apology to the families of the waterfowl killed in the incident.
Now we have to wait until October to see if Crown prosecutors are as creative as I am. | <urn:uuid:1ab64e89-978d-48f0-8ca5-be0645f78b2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2010/08/syncrude-day-of-reckoning-hath-not.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973503 | 577 | 1.710938 | 2 |
|Tamar Frankiel, Ph.D., is recognized as one of the leading teachers of Jweish mysticism today. She teaches the history of religions at the University of California, Riverside, and is the author and co-author of many books. She lectures frequently on topics of Jewish mysticism. Frankiel, her husband and five children live in Los Angeles.|
|The Gift of Kabalah|
List Price:The world you see is not the real world. Jewish mysticism has long fascinated people. In name this ancient teaching is familiar to practically everyone
|Entering the Temple of Dreams|
List Price:This inspiring, informative guide shows us how we can use the often overlooked time at the end of each day to enhance our spiritual, physical and psychological wellbeing.
|Minding the Temple of the Soul|
List Price:Frankiel and Greenfeld, a dancer/choreographer and the founder of a personal fitness training company, have collaborated on this handbook of prayer and meditation based firmly on Jewish tradition and belief. | <urn:uuid:ece5116d-a6ed-457e-a54e-d63ffcc16a75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.judaism.com/bio.asp?author=Tamar%20Frankiel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933601 | 215 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Penderyn (pronounced Pen-derrin) is the only single malt whisky distillery currently operating in Wales. It is located in the village of Penderyn in the Brecon Beacons National Park in south Wales. The distillery is one of the youngest in the UK and is owned by the Welsh Whisky Company, which is made up of a consortium of local businessmen. The WWC was formed in 1998 and production began at Penderyn in September 2000. They adopted the name of the village - it translates as 'head of the kite' from the Welsh language (that's kite as in the type of bird and the Brecons is home to one of the largest populations of them in the UK).
Penderyn is the first legal distillery to produce single malt whisky in Wales for over 100 years. The previous one was named Frongoch (pronounced fran-gok) and this was located in the town of Bala in north Wales, close to the famous Snowdonia National Park. The distillery had a short life - the first spirit flowed in 1889 and it was closed in 1900, with the company being wound up in the High Court in 1903. They rather cheekily named their whisky 'Royal Welsh Whisky' (as shown on one of their posters, left), despite never being issued a Royal Warrant. Prince Charles, the current Prince of Wales, is one of the Penderyn's biggest supporters and serves Penderyn whisky at his Highgrove House residence.
Our tour of Penderyn is taken by Sian Whitelock, the Commercial Director at the Welsh Whisky Company. It begins in the impressive visitor centre (actually, it began at Aberdare train station where Sian met us!). The visitor centre and the distillery are all housed under the same roof. The building looks impressive from the outside - it is black and has the increasingly recognisable Penderyn gold flash adorning it (see top image, above). We learn that this flash represents a seam of rare Welsh gold that can still be found in the local area and that the words Aur Cymru and AC initials that are on Penderyn labels, means 'Welsh gold' in Welsh.
The tour begins with an exhibition about Penderyn and its place within the local, Welsh and whisky communities. It feels fresh and light and gives plenty of information on wall and free standing boards and also a short film. The exhibition explains how the geology of the local area and the quality of their water source helped pick the distillery's location (it has a bore hole located next it). There is also a collection of interesting artifacts relating to the old Frongoch distillery, including one of the few bottles left in existence. However, our favourite part was a historical time line that stretched along one side of the room that incorporated significant dates in Welsh, world and whisky history. This helps greatly in putting Penderyn in to context within these three categories.
Next, Sian takes us through to the still room viewing area. Here, we get to see the unique set up that Penderyn have. Firstly, the production process is different. They use a pre-made fermented wash that is made to Penderyn's specifications at the Cardiff based Brain's brewery. In the Scottish whisky industry, the mashing and fermentation processes must happen on the same site as the distillation. We had a sniff of this pre-made wash and it was like a sweet ale, without the hops.
The still room is viewed through glass on the regular tour, but we were fortunate enough to be taken in to have a more detailed look through the tiny still room. This unique copper still was specially designed by Dr David Faraday, who is descended from Sir Michael Faraday (a pioneering scientist who studied electricity and magnetism and invented such things as the electric motor and the dynamo). The still has three main sections that are linked. A copper pot still (seen in the image, left) has a pipe leading from the top to another column-still-like structure and the final spirit is collected in a huge glass bulb still safe. The production is a batch process, with each batch taking roughly 10 hours and producing just a single cask of spirit.
The still produces very little waste product as for each charge or batch, it runs on a continuous process. The fermented Brain's wash is heated and the evaporated alcohol vapour rises up the neck before passing along the pipe to go through the column-still-like section. Here, the vapours
begin to re-condense and in a similar way to a column still the vapours can be collected as the desired spirit given that they re-condense at the desired point at which they are removed then piped in the huge glass bulb still safe. The spirits that are not collected are returned to the original copper pot part of the still via another pipe. They then pass through the process again and again until just 1% of the original 2500 litres put into the still is remaining. It is a fascinating set up and one that is truly unique, from transporting the wash in to the still design but also that this entire operation is manual.
The spirit that is collected is higher in alcoholic strength (known as the ABV) than the Scottish distilleries casking strength. Penderyn's new make spirit is roughly 80% ABV when it is put into the cask, whereas the average figure is around 65% in Scotland. A higher ABV will mean that the spirit will draw more from the wood in the cask and therefore mature at a quicker rate. We tried some of the new make spirit and despite its strength, it was extremely fresh, vibrant and fruity (think of green juicy fruits like pears and apples) with a spicy chili-like nature to it. The casks are not stored on the compact site of the distillery/visitor centre but in a warehouse a few miles away.
Penderyn use ex-bourbon casks for the majority of their whisky's maturation. These are sourced from the Buffalo Trace distillery in Kentucky, USA. The core range of Penderyn consists of three single malts - the regular release is then part matured in Madeira casks and there are two further, more limited bottlings. The Sherrywood is part matured in sherry casks and the Peated is part matured in ex-Islay smoky whisky casks (this is where it gets its peatiness, rather than using peated malt in the more traditional way). The whiskies are closely monitored and selected at their optimum age by Master Distiller Dr Jim Swan and on-site distiller Gillian MacDonald.
Penderyn is also one of the few distilleries that do their own bottling. This is again viewed through a large glass window but we were allowed in to observe from a safe area. They bottle all of their products, including the Brecon gin and Five vodka that they also produce at the distillery. Before bottling, the whisky is brought down to 46% ABV using water from the local bore hole. The tour then concludes with a tasting in the sampling area (we were the first people to try out their new stylish chairs here!). On the regular tour, you are treated to two drams but we got the 'special' treatment! Sian and ourselves were joined by distiller Gillian MacDonald and Visitor Centre Manager Keith Tench, who sampled and explained everything from their current range.
Penderyn Madeira - this is the cornerstone of the Penderyn range. The colour is straw-like with an interesting fragrant nose - vanilla, fresh fruits (apples/pears) and something herbal (dried grasses). On the palate, this remains light with sugary caramel, dried fruits and malted cereal notes present. The vanilla, fresh fruit and herbal elements from the nose come through also. The finish is reasonably long for something a light whisky and is refreshing, with an enjoyable sugary sweetness and woodiness. For our full review - click here.
Penderyn Sherrywood - partly matured in sherry casks, this whisky is golden amber in colour. The nose has an interesting combination of aromas - dried fruit (sultanas/orange peel), caramel, spices (cloves) and herbal grassy note (imagine dried grasses/hay). On the palate, there is sugary sweetness (brown sugar/honey), then dried fruit (sultanas/dried apple). It is buttery and coats the inside of your mouth. The finish is again initially sweet before a grassiness kicks in and makes the finish pleasantly dry. Click here for our full review.
Penderyn Peated - this is partly matured in ex-smoky whisky casks. Therefore, the peatiness is subtle. The colour is light and straw-like and the nose is subtle and fresh (vanilla/toffee/damp earth). On the palate, there is fresh fruit (pears/apples), vanilla and something floral (maybe honeysuckle) before the earthy peat smoke comes through. The finish becomes grassy, herbal and a little dry. Our full review will follow shortly.
Penderyn Rich Madeira - a limited edition whisky that was bottled to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Welsh Rugby Union Association. It has been matured in ex-bourbon casks then one year in a Madeira cask. Released at 50% ABV, there are only 1250 bottles. It is rich amber in colour and the nose is sweet (caramel) and fruity (dried fruits/sultanas/candied orange peel). These aromas carry through to the palate, combining very well with wood spice (cinnamon/nutmeg) and herbal (dried grasses) notes. A lovely long sweet finish. Our favourite whisky of the day. Our full review will follow shortly.
Penderyn Port Wood - this is Penderyn's most expensive (£275) and smallest (207 bottles) release to date. It was released in August 2009 and bottled at 60.6% ABV. The colour is dark amber/red and the nose has individuality - plenty of caramel/treacle, candied orange peel, dried red fruits and cocoa powder. This is rich on the palate but easy drinking, despite the strength. It is silky with the notes of the nose replicated. With water, more caramel/toffee comes out. The finish is rich, fruity and dry. This reminded us of an Armagnac or Cognac. Our full review will follow shortly.
The tour of Penderyn is unlike any other that we have been on, but that is because Penderyn is unlike any other distillery that we have been to. If you go expecting to see the grain mill, mashing, fermenting and maturation as on a traditional distillery tour then you may leave disappointed. However, this offers something fresh and new with a modern, ground breaking take on the traditional techniques. We both thoroughly enjoyed our time and recommend it highly. We thank Gillian MacDonald, Sian Whitelow and Keith Tench at Penderyn (pictured from left to right, respectively), for the invite to their distillery, their hospitality and information while we were there and for letting us sample their innovative whiskies.
Information for the regular Penderyn tour
Entry - £5 per person/ Tour duration - 45 mins/ No. of drams - 2/ Further details - www.welsh-whisky.co.uk | <urn:uuid:cd7c4948-79d8-4f33-a895-77361fdf492f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whiskyforeveryone.blogspot.com/2010/01/distillery-visit-penderyn.html?showComment=1264660370094 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963347 | 2,389 | 1.539063 | 2 |
My Talk With a Smart Guy About Smart Phone Apps for Healthcare and Hospitals
January 24, 2012 • By Jean Kelso Sandlin, EdD, Senior Strategist
Last Friday at a lunchtime gathering of public relations, marketing and strategy professionals, the conversation was mainly focused on new media.
We compared our assessments of new tools and the new strategies we’ve employed because of those tools. We both delighted in the wide range of new opportunities and commiserated over the fast-paced changes that have demanded more of our time to keep up-to-date with these quickly evolving tools.
As a group, we talked about the impact of mobile technologies on our work. For those of us in healthcare, we’ve been watching this trend since Susannah Fox of Pew Internet & American Life teamed up with the California HealthCare Foundation to survey American adults and found 85% use a cell phone, and of cell phone owners:
- 17% have used their phone to look up health or medical information and 29% of cell owners ages 18-29 have done such searches.
- 9% have software applications or “apps” on their phones that help them track or manage their health. Some 15% of those ages 18-29 have such apps.
Most of us at the lunch were non-technical types, but among the group was an application architect and senior developer. His name is Ramesh Thalli, and he is author of Windows Phone 7.5 Data Cookbook.
Knowing the growing trends among mobile users, he was peppered with questions from those of us on the “user side.” He was kind enough to answer our questions, and was willing to have me share his lunchtime wisdom with you. Following are the highlights of our conversation with him.
Why are apps becoming important?
Some of the reasons apps are becoming important are:
a. Apps are specific in content delivery and consumer driven.
b. Apps can be built to be smart, customized to the individual needs. They can filter out unwanted information and push towards quick decision-making.
c. Apps can be location sensitive so can help you localize, i.e. helping your patients navigate to nearby pharmacies.
d. Apps can be tied to social sites like Facebook or Twitter.
e. Apps are safe compared to web or desktop applications.
f. Apps are sharable with friends with a click of a button.
Why might healthcare clinics or hospitals want to use apps as part of their social media strategy?
Here’s an article that addresses the growth of apps in healthcare. Following are a few of the reasons I think apps are important for healthcare clinics or hospitals.
a. There’s an increase in the number of patients and professionals using the smart devices.
b. Smart phone apps are much easier and accessible to elder or handicapped patients.
c. Smart phones apps support patient driven healthcare, where patients contribute and monitor more proactively their own health.
d. Apps have the potential to build community around patient, professional and hospitals.
e. Apps can help collect feedback quickly and remotely using text, voice, video or photo.
f. Apps make it easy to deliver updates and notifications.
What kind of apps currently exist for hospitals or healthcare clinics?
What’s the advantage of having a customized app?
Some of the advantages of customized apps are:
a. Designing the apps for your focused area.
b. Connecting to your database.
c. Keeping it simple and informative for patients.
d. Bringing patients and doctors closer.
e. Educating your patients and helping them make good decisions
You’ve just published a book on writing apps. Tell me about it.
My book is about another new Smart Phone Platform, Windows Phone 7.5. This is mainly targeted for Windows developers to build data driven applications quickly. Even though this smart device is struggling to compete with iPhone and Android, I still feel there is a room for more choice. The name of my book is Windows Phone 7.5 Data Cookbook and you can find it at Amazon.
What if I have more questions or want to talk about a customized app for my hospital?
You can email me at [email protected]
How we help
Hive Strategies helps hospitals engage patients through social media. We don’t manage social media. Instead, we help hospitals or their agencies develop an effective social media strategy and mentor them through the implementation process. For hospitals with existing social media strategies, we can help make them more effective. Read about our services. Start a conversation. Email us or call us at 503-472-5512.
|Jason Boies||Nice read, Jean. Loathe though I am to admit it in some circles, I've become absolutely addicted to my Android. So I agree that mobile apps can and SHOULD be a part of any healthcare brand's strategy moving forward. The SmartPhone really is on its way to being our "first screen" as some call it. Cheers - Jason Boies - Radian6 Community| | <urn:uuid:8bb0b956-b963-4e48-954e-5c13552e4705> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hivestrategies.com/2012/01/my-talk-with-a-smart-guy-about-smart-phone-apps-for-healthcare-and-hospitals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940876 | 1,057 | 1.804688 | 2 |
July 31, 2001
by Jim Kerr
Walk into any repair shop and ask the technicians what kind of automobile problem is the hardest to diagnose. They may answer “squeaks and rattles”, or “vibrations”, but most would tell you that “driveability problems” are the hardest to repair. Driveability encompasses a very wide range of vehicle problems, from transmission shifting to hard starting. Driveability problems can cost a lot of money and time.
A while back, I had the task of locating a driveability problem on a co-worker’s Buick Park Avenue. The make and model are not important because this story is typical of many cars and trucks on the market. This owner, let’s call him Bob, had a hesitation or stumble in his car whenever he was cruising at 80 kph. The hotter it was outside, the more the problem appeared, but when he stepped on the gas, the car accelerated fine.
Bob does a little of his own work, but hadn’t had a tune-up in a long time, so he took the car in and asked them to do one. The sparkplugs were replaced, timing was checked, and all the other usual inspections were done. Everything looked good. The next warm day, Bob was driving the car and the stumble was still there. Disgruntled, Bob took the car to a different repair shop and told them what had been done.
This shop rechecked everything the first shop had done, took the car for an extensive test drive over a period of days, and got the car to act up. They determined the problem only occurred just as the clutch locked up (engaged) in the transmission’s torque converter at 80 kph, and the problem was with the transmission. After charging for the diagnosis, they sent Bob to a transmission repair shop.
The technician at the transmission shop drove the car and thought the problem was not in the transmission but rather it was a problem with the engine. Now Bob was totally disgusted! He had spent several hundred dollars and still didn’t have the car fixed. Off to a third repair shop.
This shop went through all the diagnostics, confirmed it was a transmission problem, charged him of course for the time spent, and sent him on his way. Back to the transmission shop! Bob told them it had been checked out by two repair shops, and both had told him it was the transmission. Then Bob told them to overhaul the transmission! $2500 later, the problem was still there. Then Bob came to see me.
I just happened to have a group of students working on driveability problems at the college where I teach automotive mechanics, so I told him we would take it on as a project.
After making up a diagnostic plan, we ran the car on a chassis dyno at highway speeds, but we could not get the car to hesitate. We had to drive the car on the highway to duplicate the conditions and make the car act up. The problem did occur when the transmission locked up the torque converter clutch, but this also places a higher load on the engine, so we thought it was an engine problem.
Rechecking all the work done previously, including fuel pressure (which causes many driveability problems), we narrowed it down to one cylinder misfiring intermittently. Switching spark plugs and fuel injectors between cylinders did not correct the problem. The spark plug wires were new, but they checked fine as well. Time to look deeper.
Camshaft lift and timing were checked, the intake manifold was removed to check for a hidden vacuum leak, and the cylinder compression was checked. Everything appeared OK. Working in a systematic way with students, the diagnostics had taken three weeks, and we still didn’t have it fixed.
Finally, we replaced the complete distributor with a known good one off another vehicle. The car ran fine! A close inspection of the distributor showed a small carbon track inside the distributor cap where the spark had jumped. This caused the misfire! Now lest you think I am a little slow and should have found this right away, in my defence, the distributor cap was new. Bob had replaced it himself before the tune-up, to save a little money. Also, the carbon tracking could only be seen with a magnifying glass.
A small $20 part had cost Bob over $4000 in repair bills! So what can we learn from Bob’s experience? First, don’t jump from shop to shop. Each repair shop rechecked the work done by the previous shop and charged for it again. If the first attempt didn’t repair the car, take it back. They know what they did and won’t spend a lot of time rechecking it.
Secondly, tell the repair shop what the problem is, not what you think causes it. If Bob had said the problem was a hesitation, the repair shop would have still done a tune-up because many driveability problems are fixed with a tune-up, but they would have looked specifically for the hesitation. Bob told them to do a tune-up, and that is what they did.
Finally, sometimes it just takes time to find a problem. A technician has to make the vehicle act up before they can diagnose the problem. If the problem doesn’t appear, a technician can only guess at what is wrong. Many costly parts are changed for no reason because of guesses. Give the technician ample time to locate the fault. In this case, time spent on diagnosis would have saved a costly transmission overhaul.
No related posts. | <urn:uuid:2a843fb7-2b7f-4494-8b14-c6b893ee0d97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.autos.ca/auto-tech/auto-tech-driveability-problems-take-time-to-solve/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987236 | 1,165 | 1.757813 | 2 |
|7:30-7:35 PM||Welcome and Introductions
Stephen L. Kopecky, MD
|7:35-7:50 PM||Presentation of the ASPC Joseph Stokes, III, MD Award
Recipient: Sidney C. Smith, Jr., MD
|7:50-8:30 PM||Emerging Understanding as Approach for Primordial Prevention of Adult Heart Disease
Gerald S. Berenson, MD
|8:30-9:30 PM||ASPC Annual Business Meeting*
*Open to all ASPC members and interested non-members
Program includes station style lite bites. Cash bar will be available.
Click here to download a copy of the program.
About the Featured Keynote Speaker: Gerald S. Berenson, MD
Dr. Berenson, a native of Bogalusa, Louisiana, is a graduate of Tulane University and the Tulane School of Medicine. He has taught as a cardiologist at both Louisiana State University (LSU) and Tulane University Medical Schools for over 40 years. He was Section Chief of Cardiology at LSU Medical Center for 17 years. His primary interest is in atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, and hypertension. He is the Principal Investigator of the Bogalusa Heart Study, which has become known nationally and internationally for the study of the early natural history of heart disease. As an outgrowth of observations of poor lifestyles, unhealthy diet, smoking and inactivity contributing to obesity, he and his colleagues developed a prevention program for elementary school children, the Health Ahead/Heart Smart health education program, and a Family Health Program to control cardiovascular risk factors. Dr. Berenson's interest is in the prevention of heart disease and he encourages health education of children and families as a public health approach for preventive cardiology.
Dr. Berenson's lecture will review important messages from the Bogalusa Heart Study that cardiovascular disease and detrimental risk factors in adulthood reflect poor lifestyles starting in childhood. Approaches for prevention must begin in childhood before complicating morbidities begin. This is important since addressing risk factors and behaviors in early life can achieve the maximum effects of prevention. Thus, strategies for primordial prevention need to be developed and implemented, essentially for all children.
About the ASPC 2013 Joseph Stokes, III, MD Award Recipient:
Sidney C. Smith, Jr., MD
Sidney C. Smith, Jr., MD is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Dr. Smith received his medical degree from Yale Medical School and completed his medical internship, residency, and cardiology fellowship at the Peter Bent Brigham (now Brigham and Women's) Hospital/Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA.
Dr. Smith is a past president of the American Heart Association (AHA), a past member of the AHA Board of Directors. After completing his term as AHA President he has served as the Chief Science Officer for the AHA and has served multiple appointments on the AHA Science Advisory and Coordinating Committee. He chaired the ACC/AHA guideline committee to revise PCI guidelines, the committee on guidelines for the management of acute myocardial infarction (STEMI), and chaired the AHA/ACC Guidelines on Secondary Prevention for patients with atherosclerotic vascular disease. He served as Co-Chair of the ACC/AHA Bethesda Conference on Professionalism and Ethics and is a past chair of the ACC/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines.
Dr. Smith is currently President of the World Heart Federation (WHF). He has served as chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the WHF, Co-Chair of the Scientific Program Committee for the 2010 WHF World Congress of Cardiology in Beijing and Co-Chair of the Congress Management Committee for the 2012 WHF World Congress of Cardiology in Dubai. He also serves as Chair of the Executive Committee for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health's Integrated Guidelines for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and is a Senior Advisor to the NHLBI. Dr. Smith has been elected to fellow status in a number of associations including the American Heart Association, American College of Physicians, American College of Cardiology, European Society of Cardiology, and Royal Society of Medicine. He was the recipient of Honorary Fellowship in the Japanese Circulation Society. Among his many honors include the AHA Physician of the Year Award, AHA Distinguished National Leadership Award (1996), AHA Gold Heart Award, AHA Eugene Drake Award and the NHLBI/NIH Award of Special Recognition.
Dr. Smith has authored or co-authored more than 350 published papers and chapters and has served on the editorial boards for the Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine, Journal of Clinical and Experimental Cardiology, Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation. He has spoken about heart disease and stroke in interviews with CNN, CBS, and NBC, and been quoted widely by multiple national and international media. Each year since 1998, he has been elected to Best Doctors in America. | <urn:uuid:b30add4d-a745-4e51-8ab1-93ce9d5eb9d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aspconline.org/meetings/2013/annual_meeting_2013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939101 | 1,053 | 1.742188 | 2 |
OBJECTIVE: The high rate of co-occurrence of substance abuse and mental disorders renders the availability of psychiatric programs, or integrated service delivery, a vital quality-of-care issue for substance abuse clients. This article describes the availability of psychiatric programs and integrated care for clients with severe mental illness in the private substance abuse treatment sector and examines these patterns of service delivery by profit status and hospital status. METHODS: Survey data from the National Treatment Center Study, which is based on a nationally representative sample of privately funded substance abuse treatment centers, were used to identify the proportion of centers that offered psychiatric programs in 1995-1996, 1997-1998, and 2000-2001. Centers reported whether they treated clients with severe mental illness on-site or referred them to external providers. Repeated-measures general linear models were used to test for significant changes over time and to assess mean differences in service availability by profit status and hospital status. RESULTS: About 59 percent of private centers offered a psychiatric program, and this proportion did not significantly change over time. The proportion of centers that referred clients with severe mental illness to external providers increased significantly from 57 percent to 67 percent. For-profit centers and hospital-based centers were significantly more likely to offer psychiatric programs and were less likely to refer severe cases to other providers. CONCLUSIONS: Although the importance of integrated care for clients with dual diagnoses is widely accepted, data from the private substance abuse treatment sector suggest that this pattern of service delivery is becoming less available. | <urn:uuid:0f8a0303-f16e-470a-8bc1-320f1e3d2613> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ps.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleid=88354 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954949 | 302 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Time’s Karen Tumulty is surprised by President Obama’s decision to lower the biologics’ 12-year exclusivity deal to 10 years. “My sources tell me that the first inkling the industry and its allies got to the contrary came in a private meeting in recent days,” Tumulty reports. “In that session, California Congresswoman Anna Eshoo–the lead supporter of the 12-year provision in the House–asked the President to affirm that he supported it. ‘As a matter of fact,’ Obama told her, ‘I don’t.’”
This may be the first time Obama became personally involved in the specifics of reform legislation, but he didn’t go far enough in lowering the price of biologic drugs or closing the loopholes in existing patent law. After all, the 10-year exclusivity agreement for brand-name biologic drugs — a new class of ‘wonder drugs’ that contain living organisms and are incredibly expensive — could postpone any real savings far into the future:
A 2008 analysis by former Clinton Administration official Robert Shapiro, who has consulted for both biologics companies and their would-be generic competitors, suggested that generic versions of the top 12 categories of biologics whose patents have expired or will expire soon could save Americans up to $108 billion in the first 10 years and as much as $378 billion over two decades. “It’s the low-hanging fruit,” says Mark Merritt, head of the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, the trade organization for prescription-drug-benefit managers. “If you can’t get this right on cost control, what can you get right?”
Currently, there exists no expedited pathway for approving generic versions of brand name biologic drugs. “[A]ny prospective competitor to a brand-name product would have to go through the same lengthy and expensive approval process and clinical trials as the original manufacturer. As a result, there is very little economic incentive to develop a competitive version of a successful biologic.”
Health care experts believe that biologics could some day help treat everything from cancer to Parkinson’s disease and lawmakers are seeking ways to lower costs by increasing competition, while giving brand-name manufacturers the patent protection they need to continue researching and developing new medicines. In 1984, Congress tried to strike this balance with traditional drugs by passing the Hatch-Waxman Act. The bill, which at the time excluded the very small biologics industry, established a pathway for “generic drug firms to challenge weak branded drug patents” and introduce cheaper generic drugs into the market place. But in recent years, brand-name manufacturers have started exploiting a loophole in the law and paying “competitors to keep cheaper, generic versions off the market.” These so-called pay-to-delay schemes have cost consumers “an average of $3.5 billion a year in potential savings, according to a recent report by the Federal Trade Commission.” The federal government loses money “by being forced to pay billions for higher-priced medications needed by patients covered under government health insurance programs” and the Act stifles competition by granting a 180-day exclusivity period “to the first generic manufacturer attempting to market their generic,” detracting other companies from entering the market place.
Former anti-trust enforcer and CAP Senior Fellow David Balto describes the 180-day exclusivity period “for the first generic company to challenge a patent” as “the ticket to the generic market and only one person gets that ticket, the first one that challenges it.” “The generic company could enter the market and it will make a certain amount of money for that period of time, it will do really well. Then at the end of the six-month exclusivity period the prices quickly compete down to marginal costs,” Balto told the Wonk Room. “Ten years ago generic companies figured out that there is only so much money that generic firm can make by entering the market. But, if the branded firm shares its monopoly profits with the generic firm, then both of them profit and both of them are better off,” he said. “In the pharmaceutical industry lawyers actively work to find regulatory loopholes to go and delay the entry of generic drugs.”
If health care reform is to improve the affordability of prescription drugs, reformers must close the loopholes in the current law and create a new generic pathway to reduce the costs of the next generation of biologic drugs. To address the former, a coalition of consumer advocacy groups has written a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) asking them to declare pay-for-delay “per se illegal.” Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) included this language in the House bill, but there is no similar provision in the Senate bill. The letter also asks House and Senate negotiators to extend the 180-day exclusivity period to “subsequent successful challenges to patents.” “Expanding the exclusivity period is vitally important, since it removes the barrier to entry that has protected collusive settlements between brands and first filing generics,” the letter argues.
Limiting the exclusivity period for biological drugs would also increase competition and lower drug costs. A recent Federal Trade Commission report comparing “potential entry and competition by FOBs with entry and competition by small-molecule pharmaceuticals,” concluded that “competition by FOBs is unlikely to be similar to branded-generic drug competition [partly] because” of the substantial costs associated with obtaining FDA approval and “the lack of automatic substitution between an FOB drug and a pioneer biologic drug.” The report concluded that “the 12- to 14-year regulatory exclusivity period is too long to promote innovation by these firms, particularly since they likely will retain substantial market share after FOB entry” and recommended against establishing an exclusivity period.
During House Energy and Commerce Committee’s mark-up of the health care bill, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) “had pushed to shield biologics for no more than five years — the same amount of time that traditional pharmaceuticals get under the Hatch-Waxman law,” but Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA)’s 12-year shield prevailed. Obama had originally suggested a 7-year exclusivity provision as a possible compromise, but has now, as Tumulty reports, increased that number to 10.
PhRMA, the lobbying arm of the pharmaceutical industry, is mobilizing against the reduction and threatening to withdraw its support for health care reform. “Mr. Waxman is pushing hard, with the support of the President, to drop our 12-year FOB period down,” PhRMA CEO Billy Touzin wrote in an email to his board. “We are all letting everyone we know hear that we could not support the bill if this happens. Please activate immediately all of your contacts.” | <urn:uuid:7a8f5b26-e91b-49b7-a614-9066b05f4d34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thinkprogress.org/health/issue/?m=20100118&mobile=nc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953829 | 1,493 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Who can forget that time in February 2005 when Apple‘s (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock price was abruptly cut in half? One Friday afternoon, the stock is quietly trading just shy of $90 a share. Come Monday morning, it opens at $44 a share. And there wasn’t even any news over the weekend to suggest the company’s financials warranted such a dramatic change in the stock price.
OK, I suspect pretty much everyone but Apple’s investor relations department has forgotten that weekend, because the change in Apple’s stock price was caused by a garden-variety stock split. But I bring it up because it highlights how silly it is to obsess over something that can be as randomly determined as the price per share of a stock. Because it’s dependent in good part on a number of factors, such as how many shares a company decides to leave outstanding.
However, people clearly do love to obsess over Apple’s stock price, and not just the shareholders. We saw it last Thursday when Apple’s share price of $633 surpassed Google‘s (NASDAQ:GOOG) price-per-share figure for the first time. The first time ever!
But nobody got worked up about the number of shares outstanding for both companies (932.4 million for Apple, 325.1 million for Google, for anyone counting). Which means, as Fortune pointed out, Apple’s worth surpassed Google’s a long time ago.
And, of course, we saw it earlier last week when two analysts suggested what struck some market observers as the unthinkable: that Apple would reach $1,000 a share. Something about having a lot of zeros in a number muddles people’s thinking — as the paranoia over the Millennium bug showed.
One of those analysts, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray, offered an argument for a $1,000 price target that, whether it proves true or not, seems well reasoned. Munster saw Apple reaching that magic number by the end of 2014 (within the coming year, the standard time range for Wall Street price targets, his target is $910).
Apple has risen 56% so far this year, against a 7% rise in the Dow. It trades at 18 times its historical earnings. Munster reckoned that Apple’s earnings per share in 2014 would reach $65, and a $1,000 share price would value it at 15 times those earnings. Considering that the consensus of analysts is that Apple’s EPS will reach $44 this fiscal year and $50 in fiscal 2015, $65 in 2014 doesn’t seem outrageous at all.
The other analyst, Brian White at Topeka Securities, has a flair for the dramatic. In a moment of Spinal Tap-like one-upmanship, he put a $1,001 target on Apple (at his previous firm, White had a $666 target on Apple). And he sees Apple reaching that level not in 2014, but in the next 12 months.
Even considering the iPad 3, the expected iPhone 5, a new generation of Macbook Pros and perhaps an Apple TV — all released this year — it’s tough to believe that a rational investor would pay $1,000 a share for Apple in the next 12 months. But the key word in that statement is “rational.”
In the early days of the dot-com bubble, wild price targets became self-fulfilling prophecies. There was the infamous $400 target on Amazon, and the $1,000 target on Qualcomm, which caused both stocks to surge briefly before they both crashed. Both calls came when investors were willing to abandon fundamental analysis and rational investing.
Apple’s stock rose 6% last week — hardly a surge, more like a typical week for Apple these days. So, at least investors aren’t getting caught up in the obsession over large numbers, even if some analysts are: White also predicted Apple would reach $1 trillion in revenue in the next decade. Which is just silly. Given enough time, any company that doesn’t go out of business will see $1 trillion in revenue.
As for the $1,000 targets, if Apple wanted to get there sooner, it could buy back a lot more of its shares. Or if it wants all the chatter to end, it can do something even more sensible: Split the stock again. Then its share price will fall back to $500. And at the end of the day, it won’t make much difference to investors.
As of this writing, Kevin Kelleher did not hold a position in any of securities mentioned here. | <urn:uuid:e869d08b-cf0c-4d47-8dcf-ab9c96f8323a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://investorplace.com/2012/04/apple-at-1000-dont-get-caught-up-in-that/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955145 | 975 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Potomac Hospital of Woodbridge, Virginia, recently selected SonicWALL, Sunnyvale, California, network security, secure wireless, remote access and data backup solutions to protect patients and its more than 1,000 employees and 250 medical staff mem-bers.
“Our goal was to provide optimal security for our systems while interacting with the outside world,” said Tony Davis, manager of network systems for the 183-bed community hospital.
The secure distributed wireless network provides Internet access. The hospital also uses the devices for two active wide area net-works and as secure wireless switches and controllers.
In addition to protecting against security threats, the new technology allows the hospital to provide easy and secure remote access for physicians and service providers who work from home or remote offices. | <urn:uuid:976daf33-4e30-408a-ab15-f8ad192a6594> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecmag.com/print/section/miscellaneous/potomac-hospital-deploys-new-technology-enhance-protection?qt-issues_block=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933413 | 157 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Your bags should be packed. The swimsuit chosen, and a couple of paperbacks picked out. But if you haven't switched your pounds into a foreign currency yet, you still aren't fully prepared for the summer holidays.
The time to get out of sterling is now. The pound is heading for anther significant fall on the foreign exchange markets.
This week, sterling hit a 16-month low against the euro, and a five-month low against the dollar. But it has a lot further to fall. The weaknesses of the UK economy are getting more and more obvious every day. Already, figures from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange show speculators taking more positions against sterling than at any time since July last year. It is only a matter of time before the pound takes a beating on the markets.
There are four big reasons why sterling could face another 20% to 30% devaluation.
First, the budget deficit is going to get worse. The Office for Budget Responsibility is still forecasting growth of 1.7% this year. It isn't going to happen. Lower growth means less tax. The deficit targets will be missed. And countries with deficits that look out of control get punished by the financial markets - just ask the Greeks.
Second, interest rates are going to stay at 300-year lows for at least another year. The economy is still too weak to raise them. But they are going up elsewhere. Sweden just raised rates. The European Central Bank will lift rates soon. That makes other currencies look more attractive.
Thirdly, the crisis in the euro-zone has given the UK a free pass. The financial markets have been so busy trying to guess which of the euro nations will go bust next that they haven't had any time to focus on Britain. Another cobbled together rescue package for Greece will fix the euro for a few months. When that happens, the markets may look at the UK instead - and they won't like what they see.
Finally, there could be political instability ahead. Will the coalition last a full five years? No one really knows. The record suggests it may not. If there is one thing the foreign exchange markets hate more than anything else, it is a weak and unstable government. If that gets added to the rest of the point against sterling, the pound will plunge through the floor.
By the end of this year, sterling will hit parity with the euro. That will be a key psychological moment. And it will drop below $1.40 against the dollar.
That might be a good thing. The devaluation of sterling in 2008 after the credit crunch led to a modest revival in manufacturing and exports. The pound probably needs to fall again if it that is to be sustained - and the re-balancing of the British economy away from financial services is to gather strength. The UK needs to make more things and sell them abroad. But it will be painful. Inflation will rise even further. Counties that import as much as the UK can't devalue without having to pay more for what they import. It will mean a further cut in living standards in real terms.
Good or bad, it is going to happen. And whether you are an investor or a traveller, you need to switch out of the currency now.
Follow Matthew Lynn on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mattlynnwriter | <urn:uuid:50edee5c-1e15-4bd1-9571-fa0a6f1dfbc4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/matthew-lynn/switch-out-of-sterling-wh_b_890049.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962543 | 685 | 1.695313 | 2 |
"Federal court records show that Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits challenging government secrecy by news groups have declined, according to an analysis by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). This slump in the number of media suits does not seem to indicate that there is less government secrecy. In fact, the overall number of FOIA suits by individuals and other organizations has increased under the Obama administration. Among the reasons cited for the decline are slashes in newsroom budgets and the development of alternative organizations ferreting out more and more government information that was previously unavailable. Included in the short list of the most active news organizations using the FOIA were the New York Times, the Fox News Network and the Associated Press. Among those who did not file a single suit during the last term of President Bush and the first term of President Obama were USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Huffington Post. The report also examined usage of FOIA by reporters submitting requests to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) over the last two years." | <urn:uuid:37723187-c434-45bb-9125-a6f3e3ffba26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/032882.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964376 | 207 | 1.734375 | 2 |
For months, Beth Gardner and her wife, Nicole, had been looking for someone to help them conceive. They began with sperm banks, which have donors of almost every background, searchable by religion, ancestry, even the celebrity they most resemble. But the couple balked at the prices—at least $2,000 for the sperm alone—and the fact that most donors were anonymous; they wanted their child to have the option to one day know his or her father. So in the summer of 2010, at home with their two dogs and three cats, Beth and Nicole typed these words into a search engine: “free sperm donor.”
A few clicks later, the couple slid into an online underground, a mishmash of personal ads, open forums, and members-only websites for women seeking sperm—and men giving it away. Most donors pledge to verify their health and relinquish parental rights, much like regular sperm-bank donors. But unlike their mainstream counterparts, these men don’t get paid. They’re also willing to reveal their identities and allow any future offspring to contact them. Many of the men say they do it out of altruism, but some also talk unabashedly of kinky sex and spreading their gene pool.
Curious, Beth and Nicole posted to a Yahoo Group, and within days they had more than a dozen suitors. “We got some weirdos,” says Beth, a 35-year-old tech professional near San Diego. But most of the donors were “very nice and obviously well educated.” After careful vetting—consisting of a homemade questionnaire, interviews, reference checks, and STD tests—the couple settled on a 30-something professional and arranged the donation.
Reporter Tony Dokoupil talks about the logistics of non-traditional sperm donation
Like most women in search of free sperm, Beth and Nicole asked for artificial insemination, or AI. As opposed to natural insemination (code for actual sex), AI typically involves injecting fresh sperm into the vagina, or loading it into a latex cup that fits on the cervix. Beth and Nicole had to work around three people’s schedules and an ovulation calendar, so the venues at which they met their donor had a saucy impromptu feel: a hotel, the back of the couple’s SUV, a camper trailer, a Starbucks bathroom. At Starbucks, the donor ejaculated in the bathroom in private, exited, and handed the sperm-filled latex cup to Nicole, who in turn entered the bathroom and attached the cup to her cervix. As nature took its course, the three sat down for coffee together. “It wasn’t my highest moment,” says Beth. They didn’t conceive.
The couple is trying again with a new donor—and Beth has become a fervent believer in the strategy. In January, she launched the Free Sperm Donor Registry (FSDR), a sleek, user-friendly portal that works kind of like a dating site, only the women are listed as “recipients” and men as “donors.” The homepage quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson: “The only gift is a portion of thyself.” Six months in, FSDR has more than 2,000 members, including about 400 donors, and claims a dozen pregnancies. The first live birth is expected this fall.
Tony Dokoupil talks about the men in the non-traditional sperm donor scene.
Reproductive medicine is as close to miracle work as humans can muster: it has supplemented the stork with the syringe, creating thousands of new lives annually where none seemed possible. But in lifting the fog around infertility, doctors have moved nature’s most intimate act deeper into the lab, and created a population of prospective parents—straight, gay, single, and married—who crave a more human connection. That need is now being met by sites like FSDR, which joins a global boom in the exchange of free, fresh sperm between strangers.
At least six Yahoo Groups, three Google sites, and about a dozen fee-based websites are dedicated to the cause. Most of them are in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, where sperm banks have seen donations drop in the wake of recent laws that limit fees and, in some cases, forbid anonymity. The donor pool is still large in the U.S., where college kids can make as much as $12,000 a year from sperm banks for anonymous twice-weekly donations.
But sperm banks, though regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, carry risk. In recent years sperm with a host of serious diseases and disorders has been sold to hundreds of women, according to medical journals and other published reports. Earlier this year ABC News identified at least 24 donor-children whose father had a rare aorta defect that could potentially kill his offspring at any minute. And in September, The New York Times reported on sperm banks’ creating 100-kid clusters around a single donor, raising questions about not only disease, but accidental incest.
Tony Dokoupil discusses whether the government should become more involved in regulating sperm donation.
Cost is also a concern. In many states, insurance won’t cover donor insemination unless a woman can show that she hasn’t been able to get pregnant. This makes it hard for lesbian couples and single women who don’t have male partners. And all couples face insurance caps that can mean thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket pay.
Many women also believe their donor-conceived children have a right to know their fathers, something most sperm banks have resisted, fearing such openness would scare off potential donors. Even banks that do reveal dads’ identities will do so only when a child turns 18.
As the first generation of donor-kids come of age, a growing number are expressing frustration at this closed-door policy. Confessions of a Cryokid and Anonymous Us are among the websites where they come to vent, airing unhappiness at feeling “half-adopted” and aching at the thought that their fathers could be anyone. “The system is severely broken,” says Wendy Kramer, founder of the Donor Sibling Registry, a website that unites kids who have the same donor-fathers.
Of course, the market for free sperm raises its own set of questions. What if a donor sues for custody? What if he lies about an STD? Is he a potential threat to public health? What if his real motive is sex—and would that even matter? Just who are these guys anyway?
To find out, I registered at FSDR as a “just looking” member and spent two months following forum discussions, participating in chats, surfing through profiles, and interviewing more than a dozen donors and recipients. I also contacted donors who have set up personal websites or advertised on other sites. What I found was a universe that’s often more lascivious than a Nicholson Baker novel, but somehow less bizarre and more relatable. Far from being overrun by sex-crazed “sperminators” and “desperate girls,” the way British tabloids have portrayed the business, most of what I found was mundanely human.
Many of the women want to reproduce on their own terms, while they still can. Some have had miscarriages; others are widowed; still others, divorced. Some say they got pregnant when they were much younger and gave up the baby or aborted it, and now want another chance. Others have been busy with careers. Hope, a single 43-year-old zoologist, echoes most FSDR searchers when she says, “I really want to have a child, and I want to give that child the best shot at having a good life, which is why I chose this route.”
As with traditional sperm banks, most of FSDR’s users are lesbian couples or would-be single mothers. But the site does have an active cohort of straight pairs and married women, like a 37-year-old homemaker near Columbus, Ohio, who gave her name as Wendy. She says on a forum post that her husband—whose sperm count was diminished by a childhood case of the mumps—interviewed prospective donors with her. His one condition: AI only. “It seems more ‘our’ baby if sex is not involved,” she recalls him saying. Their son is due in January.
Donors on FSDR are a bawdier mix of high intentions and caveman dreams. One donor, whom Carissa, a 38-year-old divorcée in Fargo, N.D., was about to invite over for a “natural insemination” session, spooked her. “He wanted me to yell, ‘Make me pregnant!’?” during sex, she says.
It’s a telling detail. Many donors say they are motivated not by sex so much as a desire to spawn as many children as possible. “I actually have little interest in even a stone-cold fox if she isn’t going to get pregnant,” says Ray, a 38-year-old who declined to give his real name. Ray, who already had two kids with his wife and claims to have two more via one-night stands, started donating sperm in 2009. He prefers to donate the natural way, which he says has a higher chance of success than AI (it doesn’t), and he boasts of six births and six current pregnancies in attempts with about 40 different women. “I guess in some ways, helping lesbians, I am like an astronaut of inner space,” he says, “going where no man has gone before.”
One of the men who responded to Beth and Nicole, a married 29-year-old, said his IQ was in the 99.8th percentile (“note: results available”) and said he would like to “propagate my genes, and help support the society of tomorrow by combating dysgenic reproductive trends.” Translation: make babies as smart as he is. Down a few pegs on the pomposity scale, there’s “Mongol,” a 31-year-old Canadian who donates AI-style on both sides of the border. He arrives prepared, with a porn-loaded BlackBerry, headphones (to preserve the tranquillity of the moment), Hitachi-brand penis massager, and likes “the whole idea of having people out there related to you.”
It’s a motivation that flummoxes some sex researchers. Rene Almeling, a sociologist at Yale University and the author of a new study of the fertility market, Sex Cells, says that among the 20 sperm-bank donors she interviewed, the most common motives were money, spreading “amazing genes,” as one guy put it, and helping women conceive. University of Nevada, Las Vegas, anthropologist Peter Gray, coauthor of Fatherhood, about the evolution of paternal behavior, says this drive to propagate reminds him of the ancient khan men of Mongolia—and of Moulay Ismail, the 17th-century emperor of Morocco—men who fathered as many as a thousand children, parenting none of them. “I’ll have to think about this a bit,” he says.
As the market for free sperm grows, regulators are keeping a watchful eye. Last December, Canada’s public-health department issued an “information update,” noting the rise of free-sperm websites and warning that “the distribution of fresh semen [for assisted conception] is prohibited.” In the U.S., the FDA recently targeted at least one donor, citing his failure to comply with a 2005 law that requires donors to undergo STD and communicable-disease tests, reviewed by doctors, within seven days of every donation. (Commercial sperm banks use frozen sperm and test donors at the beginning and end of a six-month quarantine.) The case has emerged as a legal challenge for the alternative world, potentially slowing the market, since such tests can run up to $10,000, making donations cost-prohibitive.
It began in December 2006, when Trent Arsenault, now 36 and a bachelor outside San Francisco, began offering his sperm through Trentdonor.org, a website bedecked with shots of Arsenault as a cute toddler and hunky outdoorsman. Tall and blond, Arsenault works as an engineer at a tech company and is a former Naval Academy midshipman (he dropped out to move to Silicon Valley). His qualifications might make a sperm bank drool. But he prefers to work independently, he says, having already donated to about 50 women, mostly Bay Area lesbians. Perhaps thanks in part to his twice-daily “fertility smoothies” (a blend of blueberries, almonds, and other vitamin-rich fare), he has sired at least 10 children, he says.
His prospects came to a halt in September 2010, when FDA agents knocked on the door of his 700-square-foot bachelor pad. They interviewed him in his bedroom, and collected medical records and other material related to how he “recovers and distributes semen,” according to the FDA investigation. The tone was cordial, Arsenault recalls. He even wrote a thank-you letter to the agency, complimenting “the professional and courteous attitude” of its agents.
But the following month, there came another knock on the door, this time from local police delivering an FDA order to “cease manufacture” of sperm, the first such order leveled against an individual citizen, according to a search of government records. Per the order, the agency considers Arsenault to be essentially a one-man sperm bank, referring to him as a “firm,” and alleging that he “does not provide adequate protections against communicable diseases.” If he engages in the “recovery, processing, storage, labeling, packaging, or distribution” of sperm, he faces a $100,000 fine and a year in prison. “I saved the FDA letter,” Arsenault says. “It may be worth something someday on eBay.”
In some ways, Arsenault is like other guys who are giving away their sperm, “fulfilling a needed role as women realize that anonymous biological fathers often deprive their offspring a needed identity,” as he put it in a letter to the FDA.
But he also finds the work gratifying in its own right. His only sexual activity, he says, involves masturbating into a cup and handing off the cup. “I describe myself as donorsexual,” he says, “so my sexual activity is limited to donation.” He jokes that in a few years he’ll be “the 40-year-old virgin with 15 kids.” He’s appealed the FDA ruling on the grounds that free sperm donation is a form of sex, and thus not subject to government interference. The case is under internal agency review as officials decide whether Arsenault is trying to “skirt the law,” as the FDA’s lawyers have argued in documents sent to Arsenault, or if free sperm donation should be protected as a private sexual matter. The FDA declined to comment on the case.
Any attempt to limit private sperm donation is “preposterous,” says Beth Gardner, the FSDR founder. “If it’s legal to go to a bar, get drunk, and sleep with a random stranger, then it can’t possibly be illegal to provide clean, healthy sperm in a cup.” Still, she’s the first to admit that not all donors are professional, and not all recipients make the most informed choices. She hopes FSDR will help change that, which is why it prohibits nudity, dirty talk, cruising for casual sex, and any behavior that other members deem harassing or inappropriate. There are also testimonials, how-to articles, cost comparisons, and legal materials.
Now Gardner says she has plans for expansion, adding an egg-donor section and recruiting bloggers. She may change the name to the Known Donor Registry because it’s more “expansive.” “The site is at the point now where I need to take it to the next level,” she says. In August page views topped more than 2 million—and, like its users, Gardner only hopes they’ll multiply.
As for Arsenault, while he waits to hear about his reproductive future, he is enjoying the fruits of his past, posting pictures of his babies, and keeping up an active relationship with the five or six families who have requested one so far. Last month he visited with Keri and Amber Pigott-Robertson, a 30-something lesbian couple in Modesto, Calif., who found Arsenault through a Google search in 2009 and now have a 1-year-old daughter via his donation.
“When he saw her for the first time, his face just lit up,” says Amber, who made peach pie for the occasion. “He was a perfect match. He gave us what we had been longing for, what we felt would complete us. So there’s no expressing how much gratitude I have for him. People like Trent come once in a lifetime.” | <urn:uuid:b1b8ca75-f6f4-4802-adc9-b5a7a286114f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/10/02/free-sperm-donors-and-the-women-who-want-them.print.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97076 | 3,679 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Hymenoplasty is a surgical process of tightening the outer edges of the vagina by reconstructing the hymen tissue. Since the hymen is present along the vaginal entrance, hymenoplasty is often sought as a part of treating vaginal damage caused during accidental falls, heavy weightlifting and other scenarios wherein the hymen’s structural stability has been compromised. Hymenoplasty is reputed to be largely safe with negligible risks. However, the surgical procedure does present some complications and potential risks.
Hymenoplasty is a surgical procedure that involves restoring to normal a torn hymen for cultural, religious or social reasons.
The hymen is a ring-like skin membrane that sits in the lower 1/3 of the vagina. It marks the spot that the vulvovaginal bulbs fuse with the Mullerian ducts from above then hollow out to form the vagina. Most often there is a 5 or 6 pointed star opening in the hymen after maturity. With first intercourse or by accident from falling or tampons, 2 or 3 areas tear in the hymen. Most often there is bleeding at the time of tearing.
The hymenoplasty procedure (to reconstruction the hymen), is after using local anesthetic
for tissue dissection and to stop small blood vessels from bleeding, the areas which were torn are "denuded" meaning the upper layer of tissue is removed. This is so that they will grow back together when they are approximated with stitches. Then after they are denuded, the edges are brought back together to reform the star-shaped "ring" as it was prior to relations, accident etc. It is made small enough, so that when first sexual relations occur later on, it will "tear" again, there will be some pain, and there will be bleeding.
Most surgeons only perform hymenoplasty or hymen repair (hymen restoration surgery) at the request of someone who needs the surgery for ethnic, cultural, or religious reasons. Also, most surgeons will not perform hymenoplasty surgery in a woman who has given birth.
Hymenoplasty generally takes about one to two hours, with patients able to return to work the next day. Restoration of the hymen is done on an outpatient basis, under local anesthesia or sedation. Prior to surgery, patients are required to have a pre-surgical consultation and thorough gynecological examination. During this time, she should communicate her needs and expectations to the doctor, and in turn, will learn
Vaginal physiological state significantly affects a woman’s physiological state. Structure reconstruction of the vagina may well bring back the younger feel, and contribute the sexual life and self esteem improvement a woman is looking for.
Some surgeons perform procedures involving laser surgery, where others use methods such as radio surgical techniques or scalpel techniques.
Is it a safe procedure?
Since the hymen is present along the vaginal entrance, hymenoplasty is often sought as a part of treating vaginal damage caused during accidental falls, heavy weightlifting and other scenarios wherein the hymen’s structural stability has been compromised. Hymenoplasty is reputed to be largely safe with negligible risks. However, the surgical procedure does present some complications and potential risks.
Potential Risks and Complications of Hymenoplasty
Hymenoplasty is a surgical process of tightening the outer edges of the vagina by reconstructing the hymen tissue.
Post-Operative Bruising, Swelling and Pain
Though the procedure is undemanding in terms of the medical expertise required to reconstruct the hymen, a slightly demanding recovery period is indicated for some people. This usually happens among women where the hymen is naturally positioned in such a manner that it is compressed to a greater degree by the surrounding vaginal tissue. This can make the post-operative period a bit painful.
Though some amount of discomfort in walking and sitting is indicated for all women undergoing hymenoplasty, such patients are susceptible to some degree of bruising and severe swelling. Again, this is more likely to happen among women wherein the inner skin tends to rub hard against the vaginal skin upon walking.
Taking some basic, over-the-counter medications is the only solution for such problems since they aren’t considered very serious. Most surgeons agree that greater bed rest and allowing natural healing to take its due course is the wisest option to solve such problems.
Bleeding and Hematomas
Please note that some degree of bleeding isn't a cause for worry. In fact, depending upon the age of the patient and the condition of the hymen, some form of bleeding might be expected. However, this kind of minimal bleeding is expected to stop within a few days after the surgery. Most surgeons opine that this bleeding is at par with menstrual bleeding in terms of intensity and thus, should not be perceived negatively.
However, the problem arises when the bleeding doesn’t subside and its intensity seems to rise. This is when the chances of a hematoma surface. Though a hematoma can be surgically drained and treated by the attending surgeon, some specialists might be a bit hesitant to treat it immediately. This means enduring a few days of living with a hematoma that is known to be painful.
Secondly, if the hematoma is not treated in a comprehensive manner, it can develop into a major hematoma, much after the post-operative care. This might need a separate surgery. Such untreated hematomas can also complicate into severe blood clots that might lead to embolism.
There is a possibility that the treated hymen can become discolored. Rather than identifying the discoloration, decoding its exact nature is more perplexing, i.e. the discoloration might be temporary and resolve itself without any medication or it might turn into permanent pigmentation.
As opposed to post-operative pain, some patients might complain of numbness in the vaginal area. Though this is expected for a few hours after the surgery due to the use of anesthetics, the numbness might continue for days. The worst scenario arises when the numbness is caused by a nerve injury that occurred during the surgery.
Hymenoplasty is one of the three major areas of cosmetic vaginal surgeries. The procedure aims to correct dysfunctions and improve the woman`s hidden aesthetics. The way a woman feels about the look and sensation in her vagina and pubic areas has a major impact on her self-esteem, her sexual desire, and her intimate relationship. | <urn:uuid:80bbd429-8ad3-415d-983e-e8038b86be8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://aakashmedicalcentre.com/Hymenoplasty.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954552 | 1,337 | 1.5 | 2 |
Brush Up on Synthetic Makeup BrushesYou already know that being kind to animals is as easy as choosing cosmetics made by companies that don't test on animals, such as Paul Mitchell. But wait … before you dust on that bronzer, take a good look at your makeup brush. Chances are that it's made from animal fur, and if you wouldn't wear fur, you definitely don't want to use it to apply your cruelty-free cosmetics!
Cruelty That'll Make You Do More Than BlushMakeup brushes are commonly made from squirrel, mink, sable, horse (sometimes called "pony" or "camel"), or goat hair. Mink and sable brushes are products of the cruel fur industry. Every year, millions of animals are trapped, drowned, and beaten to death in the wild and strangled, electrocuted, or beaten and skinned alive on fur farms. Horse hair is commonly obtained from horses who are slaughtered for their flesh. Squirrels are hunted or trapped, and goats are shorn like sheep. Workers are often paid by volume, so they shear the goats quickly, which can result in serious injuries.
Many makeup brushes are manufactured in developing countries where there are few or no animal welfare regulations.
Super SyntheticsThere's no reason to use animal-hair brushes, especially when there are so many high-quality synthetic brushes available. Check out these companies' luxurious offerings:
What You Can DoPlease write to your favorite makeup companies that still use real animal hair in their brushes and ask them to switch to taklon fibers.
Search for more cruelty-free products.
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:9fdb5dbd-6bb0-42b9-9feb-c250891c0667> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peta.org/living/beauty-and-personal-care/synthetic-make-up-brushes.aspx?PageIndex=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97313 | 391 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Islamic leaders in Missouri and New Jersey are calling for lawmakers to limit free speech after lies from the left about a US film.
The Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City has launched a petition calling on Congress to “establish a law against insulting one’s religion.”
“We understand the First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and, as such, prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, etc., but when the allowance of “free” speech incites violence it should be banned,” read a statement from the Islamic Society.
While condemning the violence that was originally blamed on the film, the Muslim group said ti would “be in everyone’s interest to ban such actions from reoccurring.”
“We condemn the violence and feel that, in spite of the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, action may be necessary to pass such a bill or, at least, censure such actions in order to calm the current situation as well as prevent future re-occurrences,” the statement read.
The Islamic Society in Kansas City is not alone in their calls for limiting free speech.
“We, as Americans, have to put limits and borders on freedom of speech,” Imam Mohammad Qatanani told The Blaze.
He leads the Islamic Center of Passaic County, one of the largest mosques in New Jersey.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American Islamic Relations, told Fox News that he doesn’t believe the calls for speech restrictions will go anywhere.
“I think it’s just an expression of frustration at the insults directed at the Prophet Mohammed,” he said. “It’s really a non-starter. The First Amendment protects freedom of expression – – even hate speech.” | <urn:uuid:d5632a33-51f2-4f54-961b-b8a1879db4c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pushbacknow.net/2012/09/28/islamic-leaders-are-calling-on-lawmakers-to-limit-free-speech/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940516 | 418 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Valley of Ancients Tour
Did you know?
Adult Nile crocodiles can weigh more than 700kg and grow up to 6m in length.
Crocodile cage diving, reptile handling and big cat encounters are just a few of the activities offered to explorers on the Valley of Ancients Tour at the Cango Wildlife Ranch, which has attracted thousands of visitors to the peaceful Karoo town of Outdshoorn.
On the Valley of Ancients Tour you will discover the ruins of The Great Temple, which was built by an ancient tribe of the region, as well as a plethora of wildlife, including African leopards, white lions, pygmy hippos, crocodiles, otters and a variety of birds, such as flamingos, vultures and emus. The first interactive ring-tailed lemur experience in Africa may also be enjoyed here.
The Valley of Ancients Tour also offers cage diving with crocodiles. No diving experience or qualifications are necessary. Divers are secured inside a cage, which is lowered into water filled with Nile crocodiles. As the water is clear, divers get an excellent opportunity to see the way these ancient beasts move underwater, and just what their teeth look like from a few centimetres away!
Explorers can also walk across a suspension bridge and look down at the crocodiles in the water below. A demonstration entitled Jumping Jaws is held daily to show just how far out of the water these 4 metre-long crocodiles can jump to catch food.
Various other wildlife encounters are offered at the Cango Wildlife Ranch. Cheetah and tiger handling is available to people older than 16. Reptile encounters are suitable for anyone older than two, while crocodile cage diving is limited to those older than 12.
Travel tips & Planning info
Who to contact
Cango Wildlife Ranch
Phone: +27 (0)44 272 5593
Phone: +27 (0)44 279 2532 | <urn:uuid:faaf3c7b-4a6a-4df8-8d07-0199e824dc2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.southafrica.net/trade/en/articles/entry/article-southafrica.net-the-valley-of-ancients-tour | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932363 | 400 | 1.78125 | 2 |
A Costa Rican diplomat has been freed by his captors in Venezuela after a kidnapping ordeal that lasted more than a day, authorities have said.
Guillermo Cholele is in good health, Venezuela’s Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami said in a message on his Twitter account on Tuesday.
He said in the message that the diplomat, the trade attaché for the Costa Rican Embassy in the capital Caracas, was with police and "on the way to being reunited with relatives".
Cholele was seized on Sunday night as he returned to his home in La Urbina, a middle-class neighborhood in the eastern part of the capital.
Police found Cholele at about 2am local time on Tuesday walking near a gas station in the town of Charallave south of Caracas, where his captors released him, state police chief Eliseo Guzman told The Associated Press.
"He was a little disoriented,'' Guzman said in a telephone interview. He said the diplomat had a small cut on his head.
The police chief said Cholele told police his captors had kept him blindfolded in a vehicle as they drove around for about an hour before freeing him.
Asked if any ransom had been paid, Guzman said: "We aren't in a position to know if a payment occurred, or what were the other things that had an influence in his liberation."
Costa Rican Foreign Minister Enrique Castillo said in the statement that the news "brings enormous tranquility" to the family and the government.
Cholele was taken for medical checks and was questioned by Venezuelan authorities who are investigating the abduction, the Costa Rican Foreign Ministry said.
Diplomats in Venezuela have been targeted in several attacks in recent months, underlining rampant insecurity that mostly affects Venezuelans and which voters say is their biggest concern as President Hugo Chavez campaigns for a new six-year term in the October 7 election.
In January, Mexican Ambassador Carlos Pujalte was abducted together with his wife. They were freed four hours later.
Last year in November, Chile's consul in Caracas was briefly kidnapped and was released by his captors about two hours later.
A diplomat from Belarus was also kidnapped last year.
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Other articles in Americas
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Live Blog: Turkey Protests
Protests at Taksim Square in Istanbul started after trees were torn up to make way for the redevelopment of Gezi Park. ( 16-Jun-2013 )
|William T. Hathaway|
|Fidaa Abu Assi| | <urn:uuid:a6bec926-0596-4a56-aedf-e812b4ffda34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mwcnews.net/news/americas/18148-diplomat-released.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973586 | 654 | 1.523438 | 2 |
This week is a continuation of the topic for the past two weeks – hearing aid distribution systems. Last week’s distribution systems related to contract services, purchasing groups, big box retailers, pharmacies, and health care companies. This week additional distribution systems that have been tried are discussed.
Lens Crafters (1987)
Hearing Care 2000 was a Division of Precision Lens Crafters. For the first time, a patient could have their hearing evaluated, and then the hearing aid fabricated and fitted in one place, during one visit. An on-site laboratory made possible the fabrication of the hearing aid during the first visit, and primarily referred to custom-molded products. Just as Lens Crafters advertised one-hour eyeglass fitting, the intent was to allow the patient to leave the same evaluation session with a custom-molded hearing aid. Their promise was to “…custom fit you with the best possible hearing aid….and we will do it in one visit.” The hearing aid would be made while the patient watched. This was during the time when custom-molded hearing aids dominated hearing aid sales.
The SeboTek PAC™ (Post-Auricular-Canal) hearing aid was presented at the AAA (American Academy of Audiology) meeting in 2003, and the hearing aid industry was forever changed – changed with an impact that rivaled that of digital hearing aids. It was the first successful same-session fit hearing aid. This development sparked a monumental reversal in hearing aid design, sales, and use – from custom-molded in-ear/canal variations, to essentially invisible BTE (behind-the-ear) configurations. And even more significant, it helped bring an untold number of new hearing aid users into the market. The invention was responsible also for improving patient satisfaction of existing hearing aid wearers, bringing many back to hearing aid offices for this “new and better” design. But, while it changed the hearing aid industry relative to fittings, it did not change the traditional distribution systems already in place, even though it could have done this easily.
MAIL ORDER HEARING AID SALES
Lloyds of Rockford, Illinois has been selling hearing aids via mail order for 45 years, and now sells them via the web as well. Also, Hearing Help Express of DeKalb, IL started selling hearing aids via mail order 31 years ago. Currently, mail-order hearing aids are synonymous with Internet hearing aid sales, because those former mail-order companies have followed marketing trends and now offer the option of on-line purchasing. Surfing the web will identify many similar hearing aid sales operations today.
Attempts have been made to ban mail order hearing aid sales. Some states passed laws prohibiting OTC (over-the-counter) and mail order sales without a dispensing license, indicating that it is within the power of the state to pass such rules as a public safety and welfare issue .
However, such state laws were contested in a 2006 case involving the Missouri Board of Examiners for Hearing Instruments Specialists v. Hearing Help Express, an out-of-state mail order/Internet hearing aid seller. Hearing Help Express asked the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to review a lower federal district court decision that had stopped Hearing Help Express from selling hearing aids to the residents of Missouri without prior audiologic testing or fitting as required by state law . On review of the lower court’s decision, the US Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling. According to Liang et al , the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Missouri state law was invalid because it was preempted by the federal Medical Devices Amendment (MDA) to the Food, Drug, & Cosmetics Act, 21 U.S.C. The MDA states that No State… may establish…any requirement (1) which is different from, or in addition to, any requirement applicable under this chapter to the device, and (2) which relates to the safety or effectiveness of the device or to any other matter included in a requirement applicable to the device under this chapter. Under federal law, an adult patient that wishes to purchase a hearing aid must either undergo an auditory evaluation or execute a signed waiver prior to being allowed to purchase a hearing aid. This can be interpreted that under federal law, an auditory examination is optional prior to hearing aid purchase. Overall, the Missouri law was considered to be in direct conflict with the federal regulations, and hence, unenforceable.
Essentially, the Court held that adult patients may purchase hearing aids OTC (over-the-counter) in retail stores, online or through mail order with a signed waiver and without an audiologic fitting or testing. (The latter requirements are not necessary for the sale of PSAPs).
STARTER HEARING AIDS
Low-cost “starter” hearing aids have been introduced through traditional hearing aid distribution channels to compete with OTC, mail order, and Internet sales of hearing products that are sold directly to the consumer. Dispensers somewhat grudgingly accept the fact that not everyone is willing to make a hearing aid purchase with a capital “C” (commitment of dollars), especially when they are hesitant to accept that they have a hearing loss that is severe enough to require amplification. The more marginal the hearing loss, the less likely is the willingness to make a hearing aid “Commitment,” especially when substantial dollars are involved. This issue is as old as hearing aids – it is not something new. For the most part, all major hearing aid manufacturers have had something in their product line that has been offered as an “introductory” product to help address this issue, but the price has not been as low as what some non-traditional and traditional distribution channels of hearing products have offered.
The first systematic approach to quality, low-cost hearing aids was addressed by Songbird in 2000, with a disposable hearing aid. However, the original Songbird failed due to dispenser non-interest. Some dispensers have opined that it failed because it was an inferior product, a common argument against most low-cost hearing aids. However, when the Songbird was compared with the leading programmable digital hearing aids at the time, the Songbird performed technically as well, or better than the premium-priced hearing aids – and even more so in its ability to reduce circuit noise , .
Two reasons that the product was not the success hoped for were: 1) dispensers were unwilling to sell a product that cost the consumer $39.00, substantially depressing gross profit margins, and 2) the instrument did not fit as many ears cosmetically as had been projected due to its fixed design. With today’s sized components, the latter would have been essentially eliminated. What the Songbird showed, however, was that a quality hearing aid could be produced consistently for a low cost.
Does this mean that all low-cost hearing aids (or devices that appear to be hearing aids) are high quality? The answer is no. Some have limited adjustability, marginal circuitry, and some utilize cast-off components and dies of older hearing aids. The primary consideration related to quality of these units would seem to be related to the manufacturer making the product.
For the most part, “starter” hearing aids have not introduced new distribution channels. Traditional sellers of hearing aids offer these as affordable hearing aids to compete with OTC, mail order, and Internet sale of products that are sold direct to the consumer. Prices to the consumer range from about $500 to $900.
Confusing the issue of “starter” hearing aids is that many share the same performance characteristics with some of the better PSAPs (personal sound amplification products – to be discussed in a later presentation, and which have introduced new channels of distribution of products designed to assist hearing).
Next week the topic of hearing aid distribution systems will feature Internet sales, consumer hearing aid purchase based on audiogram/self test, and over-the-counter (OTC) sales.
- Goldsmith, M., Another voice…to hear: why it is OK to try retail or mail order hearing aids, June, 2011, ICOT Hearing Systems↵
- Missouri Board of Examiners for Hearing Instrument Specialists v. Hearing Help Express, Inc. 447 F.3d 21 C.F.R. §801.421(a) (2006)↵
- Liang, B., Law, financial arrangements, and implications for audiology↵
- Moore, B.C.J., Stone, M.A., and Alcántara, J.I. Technical review of the Songbird™ Disposable Hearing Aid, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, Commissioned by Defeating Deafness, 2001↵
- Brooks, D., Moore, B.C.J., and Taylor, R. Songbird disposable hearing aid – Panel Report commissioned by Boots Opticians, Ltd. 2001↵ | <urn:uuid:3cd7af0f-3da6-44c8-990d-8d87e43b7d19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hearinghealthmatters.org/waynesworld/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958823 | 1,858 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Ido Aharoni on Israel’s Nation Branding
Ido Aharoni, Israel’s Consul General to New York, talks on Knowledge@Wharton about Israel’s nation branding. Watch the full video clip to hear his excellent insights and experience of positioning Israel.
Israel’s brand used to be a producer of conflicts and bad news. When the challenge was defined, instead of trying to win a debate about an issue, he thought Israel should focus on building a relationship that is meaningful to both the country and consumers by broadening the conversation beyond conflicts and finding ways through research to better communicate Israel’s assets such as creative spirit and innovation.
His long-term effort demonstrates what he believes to take to position a place or a nation: the ability to identify your own competitive edge and to communicate that competitive edge to relevant audience.
During the interview, he names the city of New York, Spain, and Croatia as very successful place positioning efforts. Also, he believes that self-congratulatory messages as one of the least effective strategy in place positioning. | <urn:uuid:524376b2-4c1a-4b44-b4ba-e74bfbb734f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nationbrandinglab.com/2012/08/08/ido-aharoni-on-israels-nation-branding/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94107 | 224 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Olympic level sports people find Aqua beneficial in their preparation for the Olympics so imagine what Aqua can do for you. Everyone can exercise in water and Aqua fitness classes are gaining popularity with the young and fit.
Although some people think they are only for older people or pregnant mums, many people are starting to realise the benefits of Aqua for everybody.
The fitness industry reports Aqua is its fastest growing sector, and Western NSW residents now have some unique opportunities to train as a leader for this exciting exercise option.
Free two day workshops to train new Aqua Leaders will be held in Dubbo on the weekend September 15-16 and again on September 18 and 19. Aqua Leader training in Lightning Ridge will be held on the weekend September 22-23.
Training presenters are well known fitness trainer Colleen Wilson-Lord OAM and her husband Dr Brian Lord.
They have been training fitness leaders for over 30 years and are passionate about rural areas getting similar opportunities to metropolitan cities.
The workshops are organised by the Health Promotion Team covering Western NSW and Far West Local Health Districts.
These Aqua workshops are not the same as formal fitness leader training, but are of a very high standard. The training is open to anyone who is prepared to run free Aqua classes in their community in the next 12 months.
“Providing weekend and mid week course options has been identified as important to provide greater access for people wanting to be trained,”Clinton Gibbs, Aqua leader, Health Promotion said.
For people of all ages, Aqua reduces the risk of exercise injuries.
With the buoyancy effect of water, and without the jarring action of land based exercise, avoidance of injury or recovery from injury can often be achieved a lot quicker in water.
Many top level sports people have done this in their preparation for the Olympics and other championships or finals.
If you want information about the workshop or get a Registration Form, contact Health Promotion Officer Clinton Gibbs on 6841 5590 [email protected]. or Far West NSW Medicare Local Program Clinician Leigh Black on 68291800 [email protected] | <urn:uuid:0eb471a2-35a6-4d2f-9e9d-3c6c222231f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theridgenews.com.au/story/223360/fitness-gets-in-the-swim/?cs=1657 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956219 | 443 | 1.734375 | 2 |
If I were a Paraguayan politician, I’d be thanking God right now for Honduras. Last Friday, June 22, Paraguay’s Congress resoundingly impeached, convicted and removed from office President Fernando Lugo for dereliction of duty – and his trial, while technically constitutional, was conducted in a fashion so rushed and summary it would have embarrassed kangaroos. Fortunately for Paraguay, its actions are being measured largely against Latin America’s most recent coup, the June 2009 putsch that ejected then Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, at military gunpoint, after a similar but less legitimate express-lane vote in his nation’s Congress. By that standard, Paraguay likely dodges the golpe (coup) label.
(MORE: Behind the Honduras coup.)
Still, a number of Latin American countries, including Mexico and Brazil, have recalled their ambassadors in Paraguay as they decide whether to recognize Lugo’s Vice President, Federico Franco, as the new President. Mercosur, the South American common market, has suspended Paraguay from its summit in Argentina this week. (The U.S. too says it is “taking stock” of the situation.) José Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), is traveling to Asunción, Paraguay’s capital, for a fact-finding mission. And while he probably won’t find the makings of a genuine coup – or, for that matter, a compelling reason to disqualify Franco – he’ll certainly encounter a dark, retrograde political system that deserves the international grief it’s getting.
To be fair, Insulza will also find an ousted President, Lugo, who like Zelaya brought much of his own grief on himself. When the lower house of Congress votes 76-1 to impeach you, and the Senate convicts you 39-4, it’s a good bet you’ve spent a lot of your time in the palace estranging friends as well as foes. The leftist Zelaya – for all his arrogant missteps, including disobeying his Supreme Court – could at least count on mass street demonstrations three years ago protesting his overthrow. But when the leftist Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop – the first prelate ever elected as a head of state – looks out his window this week, he isn’t exactly blinded by throngs filling the plazas to demand his restoration.
When Lugo won the presidency in 2008, it ended the 61-year-long rule of Paraguay’s conservative Colorado Party, which had featured the brutal 35-year-long dictatorship (1954-89) of General Alfredo Stroessner. It seemed a modernizing, watershed moment for a small, poor, landlocked nation long considered the archetype of benighted South American politics. But the moment faded quickly. Lugo was soon fending off paternity suits from women with whom he’d had sexual relationships while a bishop, and he’s since admitted to siring at least two children. Lugo had far less talent for cultivating political bedfellows, even within his own coalition. His major partner, the Liberal Party (to which Franco belongs), accused him of shutting it out of his government’s decision-making, which by most accounts could have used the help, especially as Lugo faced a Colorado-controlled Congress.
All that greatly diminished Lugo’s ability to get much of anything fixed – especially Paraguay’s most onerous problem, land reform. (Just 1% of the population still owns 80% of the country’s usable tierra.) That failure in turn alienated Lugo’s social base, including landless campesinos or peasant farmers. Then, on June 15, 17 people were killed in a shootout between police and the campesinos they’d come to evict from a large rural property (owned by a Colorado pol) the farmers were occupying. Both Lugo’s Colorado opponents and Liberal allies blamed the tragedy on his incompetence – which was added to a list of charges against him that included past attempts to politicize the military and circumvent Congress.
Lugo’s removal wasn’t exactly illegal, particularly given Paraguay’s broad constitutional leeway for getting rid of Presidents. And it wasn’t quite equal to the Honduras coup – in which that nation’s Congress, to hasten Zelaya’s exit, summarily declared him guilty of a crime he hadn’t committed (instead of trying him legitimately for the one he probably had) then had soldiers put him on a plane to Costa Rica in his pajamas.
But the pariah treatment Paraguay is feeling is warranted nonetheless. While they aren’t calling Lugo’s impeachment a coup, even center-right Latin American leaders like Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos – and, ironically, current Honduran President Porfirio Lobo – say his trial was “a violation of due process.” Lugo was given little if no real chance to mount a legal defense in the Senate, which within a few hours tried and convicted him in less time than it usually takes legislatures to vote on a national flower. One of the astonishingly stupid things about the Honduran coup was that Zelaya’s opponents, if they had simply taken the adult time to follow due process themselves, still could have booted him and won the world’s democratic kudos at the same time. Instead, they chose to show the world that Latin America still had a penchant for the putsch. And Paraguay, especially the Colorado Party, demonstrated last week that it hasn’t come much closer to the 21st century.
Lugo, who last week had said he would respect the Congress’ vote, reversed his position this week and pledged to fight to get restored to the presidency. But if Zelaya couldn’t do it even when he had a legitimate coup to complain about, it’s doubtful Lugo will be able to muster the kind of international sanctions that could make Paraguay bend. Paraguayan politicians, meanwhile, are lashing out at the international criticism and the calls for major legal and political reform there. The country’s ambassador to the OAS argues Congress had no choice but to act as swiftly as it did because “strange things were happening that will soon come to light.” But for now, the only strange thing the world sees in Paraguay is kangaroos. | <urn:uuid:ca4c4b66-bd4a-4c6a-8527-17f7915cd786> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://world.time.com/2012/06/27/paraguay-presidents-forced-exit-was-no-coup-but-still-deserves-scorn/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969869 | 1,369 | 1.726563 | 2 |
As U.S. security forces prepare to pull back from Iraqi cities, violence has surged: In the past two weeks alone, some 200 people have died in suicide bombings. As a result of the heightened violence, some American troops are being repositioned in the areas surrounding the most volatile cities in an effort to ensure a more peaceful transition to Iraqi security forces.
The Christian Science Monitor:
The commanding general in charge of US forces in the north says American combat troops pulling out of Iraq’s most volatile cities are being shifted to areas encircling the cities to try to stop what has proved to be a resilient Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups.
Maj, Gen. Robert Caslen, commander of the 25th Infantry Division, says in an interview that he is watching closely to see whether a recent spike in attacks will continue after the June 30 deadline for US combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities.
The deadliest attack in more than a year damaged a Shiite mosque and leveled an entire block of houses near Kirkuk last Saturday, killing more than 80 people and wounding more than 250 others. | <urn:uuid:f0036940-c4ce-4562-9806-48250591ea12> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20090626_gis_arent_leaving_iraq_just_yet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96379 | 225 | 1.804688 | 2 |
|Church services in Kenya have been targeted by militant Islamists|
“The gun shots in the compound made worshippers run out in panic only to the waiting killers. Using police guns, they rained bullets on fleeing worshippers and many who could not run. Blood could be seen everywhere, furniture strewn all over and worshippers left in shock.” This account of an attack on a church in Garissa in July 2012 vividly illustrates the danger faced by many Christians in Kenya from the militant Islamist group al-Shabaab.
In October 2011 the Kenyan government sent troops across the border with Somalia to fight the group, and since then there has been a spate of gun and grenade attacks on congregations in Kenya. At least 25 people have been killed, including a nine-year-old boy whose Sunday school class was attacked with explosives, and many more have been wounded.
There is also evidence of a concerted Muslim backlash against conversions from Islam to Christianity. It is not unusual for converts to be harassed, threatened and persecuted by their families and Muslim leaders, but pressure on them has increased recently. For example, a convert church was ordered to close within six months, and at least one person has been killed after leaving Islam to follow Christ.
Kenya is more than 80% Christian and has seen massive church growth in recent decades. But Muslims form the majority in some areas, and Christians there may suffer discrimination from individuals and businesses. Muslims are seeking to Islamise these regions, and the new Kenyan constitution allows them their own (Kadhi) courts to adjudicate on matters such as divorce and inheritance. | <urn:uuid:f7fa0567-f7f1-4563-9d38-8b502bb8c219> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://barnabasfund.org/NZ/Our-work/Our-current-projects/BF-Project-Countries/Kenya.html?startno=601&Orderby=Country%3BASC | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977557 | 326 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Paws for Reading
Read to a dog at the library!
Kids in grades K-6 who are learning to read, or just need to polish their skills, can snuggle up and read to a furry, nonjudgmental listener each month (October-May) at the Main Library.
On the third Saturday of the month, volunteer pet partner teams from Therapy Pets of the Red River Valley join us from 1-3 p.m. to lend an ear. Kids may bring their own books to read, or choose from a selection of library books. Register for a 15 minute session by calling 241-1495. | <urn:uuid:09fa38e0-6705-4485-bf7a-9b48add1926b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cityoffargo.com/CityInfo/Departments/Library/ChildrensServices/PawsforReading/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949975 | 128 | 1.710938 | 2 |
January 11, 2013
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - The Navy is reviewing the suitability of its working uniforms after a test revealed how flammable they are.
In October, a test conducted by the Navy Clothing Textile Research Facility in Natick, Mass., showed the uniforms will burn until they're completely consumed.
The test results didn't surprise Navy leaders. The Navy removed the requirement for all sailors to wear flame resistant uniforms at sea in 1996. But many sailors were still upset about the test results.
On Friday, the commanders of U.S. Fleet Forces and U.S. Pacific Fleet sent a message to their commanders saying that two uniform working groups would review the issue.
The Navy says the primary consideration for both working groups is sailor safety. Navy officials hope to have the group's findings within a few weeks.
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Click here to view other polls on our site and past poll results. | <urn:uuid:277e9102-2807-4ba2-b7fb-8fe1e686ef1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/Navy-Reviews-Suitability-of-Flammable-Uniforms-186479431.html?site=full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953195 | 375 | 1.515625 | 2 |
When asked if the health law was constitutional, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi sneered, ‘Are you serious?’ Now the Supreme Court has decided it’s a worthy question.
By David B. Rivkin Jr. & Lee A. Casey
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether ObamaCare is constitutional, granting certiorari in a case brought by 26 states shortly after that law was enacted in March of last year. In so doing, it will be ruling upon the very nature of our federal union.
The Constitution limits federal power by granting Congress authority in certain defined areas, such as the regulation of interstate and foreign commerce. Those powers not specifically vested in the federal government by the Constitution or, as stated in the 10th Amendment, “prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” The court will now determine whether those words still have meaning.
As we argued two years ago in these pages, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (aka ObamaCare) is unconstitutional. First and foremost, the law requires virtually every American to have health insurance. Congress purported to impose this unprecedented “individual mandate” pursuant to its constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, but the requirement is not limited to those who engage in any particular commercial or economic activity (or any activity at all). Rather, the mandate applies to everyone lawfully present in the United States who does not fall within one of the law’s narrow exclusions.
Under our Constitution’s system of dual sovereignty, only states have the authority to impose health and safety regulations on individuals simply because they are present. The Supreme Court has ruled many times that the Constitution denies to the federal government this type of “general police power.” Federal legislation must be grounded in one of the “enumerated” powers the Constitution grants to Congress—such as the power to regulate interstate commerce. Although the Supreme Court has interpreted that power broadly (especially since the 1940s), it has consistently held that the Commerce Clause has limits.
If Congress can require individuals to buy or otherwise obtain and maintain health insurance simply because they may be said to impact commerce by their very existence, without regard to any particular activity in which they have chosen to engage, then there is no limit on federal power. For example, if Congress can require you to buy health insurance because your lack of insurance may, at some point in the future, impose costs on the wider economy, then on the same theory it can require the purchase (or sale) of virtually any good or service, since the failure to have or use the relevant product can always be said to have some economic impact.
Both the trial judge and Court of Appeals in Florida et al. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services duly struck down the mandate as outside the scope of Congress’s legitimate authority. It is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court will overturn that decision. To do so would require it to junk nearly 200 years of its own jurisprudence and create a federal government of unprecedented and uncontrolled power.
There are, however, a number of other critical questions the Supreme Court will now resolve. In addition to imposing the individual mandate, ObamaCare revolutionizes the Medicaid program. For more than 40 years, Medicaid has been a cooperative federal/state program to fund medical care for the poor. The states also contribute funds and have enjoyed wide discretion in designing and implementing their own programs. Now, as a means of ensuring the universal coverage ObamaCare set out to achieve, Medicaid has been transformed into a massive new health-insurance program for many in the middle class. The states must accept new, detailed federal requirements or lose all federal Medicaid funding—leaving their neediest citizens without any safety net.
Although there is always an element of choice in accepting federal money, the Supreme Court has clearly stated that if federal funding conditions and threats become coercive, they also violate the Constitution’s fundamental federalism principles. Here, both the trial and appellate judges acknowledged this rule—based on a 1987 case called South Dakota v. Dole—but felt constrained to uphold ObamaCare’s Medicaid provisions because they found no direct and controlling Supreme Court precedent on the point. By accepting certiorari on this question, the Supreme Court has signaled its willingness to determine where that all-important line of federal versus state coercion may be, and whether ObamaCare has crossed it.
The Supreme Court will also consider the question of “severability”—whether the entire statute must be struck down because one or two of its provisions are unconstitutional. The test here is whether Congress would have still enacted the law without the unconstitutional provisions. As the trial judge correctly concluded, there is little question that without the individual mandate Congress would not have enacted ObamaCare’s other provisions, many of which make little sense without that critical requirement.
Finally, the Supreme Court has also agreed to consider one of the highly technical arguments raised in the case, whether the federal Anti-Injunction Act (AIA) prohibits a challenge to the individual mandate before the requirement actually takes effect in 2014. This issue has always been a red herring, arising because the government tried to argue that the individual mandate can be justified under Congress’s power to tax, even if it is insupportable under the power to regulate interstate commerce.
Virtually every lower court to consider ObamaCare—both those that have struck down the law as unconstitutional and those that have upheld it—has agreed that the AIA does not apply here. There is every reason to believe that the Supreme Court will do the same. The AIA was designed to protect federal tax-collection activities, generally requiring that a tax be paid before its legality can be challenged in court. The mandate, of course, is not a tax—but an affirmative regulatory requirement. It is enforced by a penalty. The only connection with the federal tax apparatus is that the penalty will be collected by the Internal Revenue Service from tax refunds otherwise due to violators, and its application here would only postpone challenges to the individual mandate to 2014.
Overall, the Supreme Court’s agreement to review ObamaCare’s constitutionality probably sounds that law’s death knell. When asked about these constitutional issues before the law was enacted, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi simply sneered, “Are you serious?” At this point it is safe to say, yes we are.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are lawyers who served in the Justice Department during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations. They represented the 26 states in their challenge to ObamaCare before the trial and appellate courts. | <urn:uuid:c69b52dd-d82f-4f0c-9144-166f163cf6d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://obamacare411.wordpress.com/tag/repeal-obamacare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954893 | 1,362 | 1.632813 | 2 |
I cut wings out of green construction paper. The wings were eleven inches long and eight and a half inches wide at the base. They were triangles and when I taped them to my bike I had them point slightly upwards. I used my dad’s duct tape to keep them on. I made my engine out of a battery. There were no wires, no instruments, or fuel. I eliminated all unnecessary weight. The runway ran parallel to the street directly in front of my house. The landing strip would be determined once I was in the air. I never stopped pedaling after I was unable to take flight. I ripped off the wings without stopping my bike. I rode around the neighborhood for fifteen minutes afterward. No one ever talked about it. That was the last time I ever attempted to fly. That was the closest I’ve ever come to building a manned aircraft. | <urn:uuid:f8491a09-b93a-4d63-960a-dcc5456d385b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mubi.com/users/291280 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989662 | 178 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Scientology's Seduction of Tom Cruise, Role in Nicole Kidman Split Detailed
THR's exclusive excerpt from Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright 's new book reveals how the church came between Cruise and Kidman, leader David Miscavige's intense courtship of the star, Bill Clinton's advice to the actor on how to lobby Tony Blair, and how Cruise once told Miscavige, "If f--ing Arnold can be governor, I could be President."
This story first appeared in the Jan. 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
The past year hasn’t been kind to the Church of Scientology. Katie Holmes divorced Tom Cruise. A Vanity Fair cover story that revealed the Scientology-run “audition” process to be Cruise’s wife included an interview with one of Cruise’s original candidates who was forced, she claims, to scrub toilets with a toothbrush as punishment. Meanwhile, Scientologist John Travolta was hit with several lawsuits (albeit unrelated to the Church) that spawned endless Internet speculation. Behind those sensational headlines, details of an organization whose secrecy long has been guarded began to seep out with detractors using the Internet to expose the Church’s sacred documents and allege wrongdoing. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Lawrence Wright, who profiled ex-Scientologist Paul Haggis for The New Yorker in 2011, delves fullon into the history and inner workings of the Church of Scientology in his book Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief.
Despite bad publicity and questions about its size — one survey puts U.S. membership at 25,000 (the Church claims 8 million worldwide), with the largest concentration in L.A. — Scientology continues to survive, with ex-members claiming it has assets of about $1 billion. As many as 5,000 people belong to the Sea Org, its elite clergy. Adherents are drawn to Scientology’s emphasis on self-improvement, though the Church’s theology and practices remain unknown to the public. (Since 1993, the IRS has classified Scientology as a tax-exempt religion.) Wright’s account, which is detailed through Church documents, court records and hundreds of interviews, including many with ex-members, is disputed by Scientology, which declined to give interviews for the book.
Karin Pouw, a representative for Scientology tells THR that, “The one thing ‘clear’ about Lawrence Wright’s book is that he continues to carry water for a handful of angry, bitter individuals ... [who] regurgitate six decades of false, bizarre tabloid allegations about the religion’s founder, its leadership and its prominent members.” Far from being in decline, she says Scientology opened 30 new churches in 2012. (Read Pouw's complete response here.)
Wright argues that the Church’s mystique rests mainly on its celebrity members. Early on, founder L. Ron Hubbard recruited Hollywood notables like Gloria Swanson. David Miscavige, who has headed the Church since Hubbard’s death in 1986, followed this strategy by cultivating Cruise, who has become the public face of the Church and one of its largest donors. Cruise, now 50, became a Scientologist in 1986 and the biggest celebrity to join the Church since Travolta. Cruise admired Miscavige’s confidence and bravado. Miscavige, in turn, was seduced by Cruise’s celebrity and opulent lifestyle. But by the mid-’90s, Cruise and wife Nicole Kidman drifted away from the Church, which frantically scrambled to win him back. In this exclusive excerpt, Wright details the relationship between Cruise and Miscavige, the star’s renewed commitment to Scientology following his divorce from Kidman and his emergence as possibly the second most- powerful figure in the Church. — Andy Lewis
For five days in October 1998, Tom Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars in the world, secretly drove into a private parking lot in the back of the historic Guaranty Building on Hollywood Boulevard, with the yellow Scientology sign atop. Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino used to have their offices here -- now the lobby is a shrine to the life and works of L. Ron Hubbard. A giant bust of the founder greets the occasional visitor.
Cruise went in a back door that led to a basement hallway and went directly to the "secret" 11th floor, where senior Church officials like David Miscavige and Marty Rathbun maintained offices. "He was not in good shape, spiritually or mentally," Rathbun observed. "He was personally very enturbulated," Scientology terminology for agitated.(1)
Rathbun, then the Inspector General at the Religious Technology Center, which oversees the Church's spiritual materials, had gone to Los Angeles to meet Cruise for auditing, the Church's system of religious counseling. (Rathbun is no longer connected to Scientology and is now one of its most outspoken critics. The Church has dismissed his accounts and refers to him as part of a "posse of lunatics.")
Cruise, the Church's most visible adherent, had been drifting away. According to Rathbun, Miscavige -- Scientology's de facto head since Hubbard's death -- blamed the actor's wife, Nicole Kidman, and viewed her as a gold digger who was faking Scientology. He says that Miscavige was hopeful that if they portrayed Nicole Kidman as a Suppressive Person, Cruise could be peeled away from her.(2)
After that episode of auditing, Cruise went quiet again. He and Kidman were in England filming Eyes Wide Shut for Stanley Kubrick. Suddenly, in January 2001, Rathbun said he got a call from the actor asking for help. Cruise said that he and Kidman were finished. Cruise never offered a public explanation for the divorce, and Kidman herself was clearly surprised by his decision.
This was a decisive moment in Cruise's relationship with Scientology. Rathbun provided the star with more than 200 hours of auditing over the next couple of years. From July through Thanksgiving 2001, Rathbun was with Cruise at the Celebrity Centre frequently, doing auditing rundowns. He paired Cruise with another actor, Jason Beghe, to do training drills; for instance, Beghe would think of a hypothetical date, which Cruise had to figure out using the E-Meter, a Scientology device that measures a body's electrical resistance by gripping two metal rods, a guessing exercise Cruise found really frustrating. (Cruise's attorney says, "Cruise may have had a chance encounter with Beghe at the Celebrity Centre but had no such meeting with him.")(3)
First footnote: Interview with Mark "Marty" Rathbun.
Second footnote: Interview with Mark "Marty Rathbun.
Third footnote: Interview with Jason Beghe.
- MOST SHARED
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At least once a day, Ukiah Police Chief Chris Dewey said his department has a "violent encounter" with a transient, and that he needs more officers to deal with the problems caused by the city's "homeless influx."
"(On Tuesday), we were in a violent struggle with a transient who's wrist was actually broken," Dewey told the Ukiah City Council Wednesday, providing an update to his report on the problem last year. "The transient population has continued to impact the department routinely, and we arrest three to four people a day."
Rather than just react when crimes occur, Dewey said next month his department will be launching a campaign to educate the community, particularly business owners, on how to help his department reduce the problems created by people living on the street, which include "being drunk in public, urinating and defecating in public, sleeping on (others') property," and other activities that affect residents.
"Our goal is to have the detectives visiting businesses and educating owners and store clerks on what they can do to help us, so panhandling and loitering isn't so much of a problem," Dewey said, adding that his department worked to create posters dissuading others from giving people handouts directly, and to create a pamphlet detailing the different resources available to people in need of help.
Resident Judy Pruden suggested that the UPD also educate the community on the issue of people stealing recyclables from Ukiah Waste Solutions'
"I watch transients take out as many cans as they can carry," said Pruden, suggesting that "the police department go down to the recycling centers, (where) you will see quite an interesting population showing up. An active recycler will easily pick up $10 to $15 on a weekend, which is then spent on cigarettes and alcohol, so that's another area where we can do an educational component."
Dewey said the Ukiah City Code does prohibit the removal of recyclables from bins in front of homes or businesses, and that his department was having officers on the graveyard shift focus on the issue "early in the morning, when the trash cans are out.
"We have received a number of complaints on this issue," he continued, explaining that his department is very much in a reactionary mode, so it doesn't have a lot of time to focus on the lowest priority of crimes, which he described as "quality of life."
When Council member Phil Baldwin asked how long there had been such an ordinance in Ukiah, and whether it was really illegal to take things out of the bins once they were on the street, City Attorney David Rapport said the ordinance "had been on the books for a long time.
"And it's actually theft for someone to take cans out of the bins (even in the public right-of-way) because they belong to the waste hauler," Rapport said.
Council member Mary Anne Landis then asked Dewey to explain the "three tiers" of crimes that his department responds to:
The first tier, he said, was "crimes against people, such as sexual assaults, robberies, murders, and assaults, of which we average about 280 per year, and is by far our strongest emphasis."
The second tier, he said, is property crime, such as theft and vandalism, and "we average around 1,400 of those crimes a year.
"The last tier is quality of life, such as drunk in public, abandoned vehicle and signage," he said. "And today, we are so reactive, we only do those when we have the time. At some point, we're going to need more officers."
Landis said she asked him to explain the tiers because she was asked about the recently passed "nuisance abatement ordinance, and whether there had been a lot of activity with that. But because (those issues are on the) lower tier, there really hasn't been very much attention on them, because we don't have staff for that.
"But a lot of these complaints involve quality of life, which really create the texture of our community," Landis said. "So I think it's something we need to have more of a conversation about."
Later, when the council discussed its list of goals for next year and reached the statement that mentioned "funding for one or two more police officers," Landis said she thought it was "very necessary," and Council member Benj Thomas said "Absolutely."
"Does that mean you're going to vote yes for funding another police officer?" asked Vice-Mayor Phil Baldwin, who has consistently lobbied for increasing the number of UPD officers.
"I think we need to figure out how we're going to fund (more officers)," said Thomas, and Mayor Doug Crane and Council member Mari Rodin agreed that the council needed to find funding.
Justine Frederiksen can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter @JustFrederiksen or at 468-3521. | <urn:uuid:1a227b85-b3a5-46da-9dac-efbe00e788c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.willitsnews.com/health/ci_22747365/police-chief-says-transient-problem-not-abating | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986066 | 1,033 | 1.617188 | 2 |
April 5, 2012
School health fairs for students and parents are planned for April and May 2012 at Brawner Intermediate School and Nettie Baccus Elementary School.
Brawner is hosting a “Camp Shine” health fair on Thursday, April 12 from 5:30-7:30 P.M. Presentations will be made by H-E-B, Hood County YMCA, and Lake Granbury Medical Center. There will also be several booths and activities for students and parents.
On Thursday, May 12, Baccus will hold its annual health and safety fair from 5:30-7:00 P.M. Medical information and screening services will be available at booths manned by numerous community organizations. Among the services provided will be fingerprinting, audiology exams, posture checks, and tips on water safety.
Past participants at the Baccus event have included the Citizen’s Police Academy, Hood County Sheriff’s Department, LGMC, and Ruth’s Place Clinic. Special guests making appearances have been Simba the Lion with the Granbury Lions Club, Sparky the Fire Dog with Hood County Volunteer Fire Department, McGruff the Crime Dog, and Smokey the Bear.
The fairs are both open to all Granbury students and families.
For more information, contact Brawner at (817) 408-4950 or Baccus at (817) 408-4300.
Links to Related Information: | <urn:uuid:05b71c40-c69a-465e-9a37-4197f22f1c17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.granburyisd.org/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&ModuleInstanceID=2750&ViewID=7b97f7ed-8e5e-4120-848f-a8b4987d588f&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=18994&PageID=9070 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937017 | 306 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Rome is one of the world's most photographed cities due to its glorious monumentality: The Vatican, the Trevi Fountain, St Peter's Square, the Colosseum... The hub of ancient empire is also one of Europe's big cities, a romantic place for honey-moon, favorite holiday destination, and the city of art and fashion.
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city. he Historic Center of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With wonderful palaces, millenium-old churches and basilicas, grand romantic ruins, opulent monuments, ornate statues and graceful fountains, Rome has an immensely rich historical heritage and cosmopolitan atmosphere, making it one of Europe's and the world's most visited, famous, influential and beautiful capitals.
Today, Rome has a growing nightlife scene and is also seen as a shopping heaven, being regarded as one of the fashion capitals of the world (some of Italy's oldest jewellery and clothing establishments were founded in the city). With so many sights and things to do, Rome can truly be classified a "global city".
Once you arrive they spot you as new. Bags and day packs are stolen in a flash so... Watch It! Even if you think you're savvy you still need to look out. They're very organised in distracting people. They cut straps and through the bottom of bags. Wear your pack on your front; place handbag clasps on the inside by your body; spread your money around various pockets and pouches. The polizia are not generally friendly or helpful.
if you want to visit the Vatican Museums (incl. Sixt. Chapel) you should plan in advance and make booking for this visit - else you may have to wait hours for entrance and ticket buying in a long row - maybe ending up with no time left for the visit at that day
Best place to eat Est Est Est!!! An authentic wonderful family owned pizza joint.
Simples e pode ser passado por ele, apenas como "olha, eu vi"
A Beautiful but very chaotic city. Try wondering the streets and explore the city on foot. I've found some of the smaller streets have awesome and cheap food, and makes you feel more like a local instead of a tourist. Finally BEWARE of your belongings and watch out for pick pockets. Petty theft is a huge problem in Rome so expect it. | <urn:uuid:d2e6168b-568a-4e68-9d6f-198f71beb04e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.touristeye.com/Rome-p-1072 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95189 | 505 | 1.539063 | 2 |
July 16, 2007 Speaking via an interpreter is difficult enough at the best of times, so you can imagine the difficulties soldiers in foreign lands have communicating with the population when there is a significant language barrier, no interpreter and lots of big guns in the near vicinity. The AHKY (Arabic for ‘speak’ ) is a new wrist worn translation device developed by Iraqi-born University of Derby student, Amin Ismail, will soon tackle the problem when it is deployed by British troops serving in Iraq. The AHKY currently has ten phrases which have been programmed in English, Arabic and Kurdish. Phrases such as ‘nothing will happen to you’; ‘turn around slowly’; and ‘come here’. Other languages and phrases specific for a user’s specific mission are uploaded prior to each use.
Ismail’s design concept generated international publicity when it was first shown at the University of Derby’s Arts, Design and Technology Degree Show and the design was seen by Civil Defence Supply (CDS) - CDS is an official supplier to NATO, the UN, the US Defense Department and the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MOD), and the firm’s researchers had been working for eighteen months beforehand on a circuit board to develop a language converter when they heard about Amin’s concept in the news – and immediately made an appointment to talk to him followed by an invitation to him to join them.
Amin was appointed Synthetic Speech Project Manager for CDS and since then a working prototype of the device has been developed, with full production set to begin within the next six months.
Amin’s initial project was done in conjunction with British soldiers from the 4th Battalion Parachute Regiment who took part in his extensive research for the device. Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baldwin, Commanding Officer of the 4th Battalion, welcomed the research and said: “This innovation is unique and will provide an interface with the local population improving the way we communicate, while at the same time enhancing the protection of the civilian community and the soldiers who have the task of improving the security within the environment in which they operate.”
Managing Director of CDS Eran Bauer said it was an ideal fit at the right time. “We had the circuit technology, he had the product.”
The opportunity which presented itself is clearly not lost on Amin.
“We have been so impressed with him,” said Bauer. “The design concept is one thing, with fantastic research involving the Army to back it up. But his personality, determination and willingness to succeed have also been fantastic.
“He has not just joined us as a designer, but as a project manager. I will have no hesitation in letting him present this device to NATO and the MOD as he has the spark, the confidence and the personal vision to succeed.
“I have no doubt this device will be a success in so many applications, not just for battle situations, but for the police, in immigration, charity projects abroad, terrorist monitoring, the Courts, and in hospitals – to name just a few.” Indeed, any situation where translating a language is essential.
Just enter your friends and your email address into the form below
For multiple addresses, separate each with a comma | <urn:uuid:b92419a5-cc20-4893-8fa7-99141a77286c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gizmag.com/go/7624/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973226 | 683 | 1.703125 | 2 |
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After getting hit with higher payroll taxes due to ongoing federal budget negotiations, U.S. workers may be feeling uncertain about the job market and the economy, according to Randstad’s latest Employee Confidence Index.
The Index, which tracks U.S. workers’ perspectives around jobs and the economy each month, decreased 3.3 points in January to 52.1. Only 26 percent of employees surveyed believe the economy is getting stronger, down five percentage points from the previous month’s reading. On a brighter note, the Index remained above the confidence threshold of 50.0 throughout the past year.
Higher Taxes Dampen Workers’ Outlook on Economy
Many economists and other widely cited confidence indices, such as the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index, point to the increase in payroll taxes having an effect on workers’ sentiment,” said Randstad US managing director Jim Link. “It is possible this tax hike could dampen consumer confidence for the near future and our findings are clearly showing an impact on January’s numbers already.
Workers Are Wondering: Where Are The Jobs?
According to the survey, more than have of employees (53 percent) believe there are fewer jobs available, down seven percentage points from the previous month’s reading. Still, more than 43 percent of workers indicated confidence around their ability to find a new job.
“Workers should also note other positive signs of improvement in industries such as retail, manufacturing and healthcare, as well as increased activity in the housing market,” Links said. “Many of these industries are anticipating steady growth, even in the midst of changes to taxes and spending cuts
Workers Report Feeling Confident In Their Current Employers
Even with decreased confidence in the job market and economy, most employees (72 percent) feel secure in their current jobs while a majority of workers (61 percent) expressed confidence in the future of their current employers, up two percentage points from the previous month’s readings.
“As workers and employers alike keep watchful eyes on the debt ceiling debate and other fiscal uncertainties, we believe variable or temporary labor will be a valuable, turnkey solution to any anticipated market volatility,” Link said. | <urn:uuid:903dc820-c3a3-428f-8bc3-9e84a2e0319b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.randstadusa.com/workforce360/jobs-the-economy/employee-confidence-dips-as-new-year-begins/61 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93928 | 486 | 1.601563 | 2 |
From the Stars and Stripes archives
Audie Murphy is back with his old outfit
Stars and Stripes
AUDIE LEON MURPHY, America's most decorated soldier of World War II, is shooting his way across Germany again.
Now 36 and showing some lines in the baby face that has always plagued him, the soft-spoken Texas farmboy-turned-movie-star is back with his old outfit, the 3d Inf Div, to make a documentary film about the missiles used in the Army of today.
The reunion at Würzburg marks his first visit to Germany since 1945, when as a battlefield-commissioned first lieutenant he took part in the capture of Augsburg and Nurnberg.
These battles marked the end of a trail that started in North Africa and led through Sicily, Italy and France.
Along the way, Murphy received the Medal of Honor, Distinguished Service Cross, two Silver Stars, three Purple Hearts and more than a dozen other decorations.
When asked if he had met any of his old buddies since his return, Murphy replied, "I'm afraid not. Out of my original Co B, 15th Inf Regt, there were only two men left after the war." A company at that time had approximately 200 men.
In reply to the question, "What do you think makes a man do the things it takes to win the Medal of Honor," Murphy: said, "A soldier does the things he's been trained to do. There's certainly no dramatic premeditation involved."
A German newspaper correspondent asked how Murphy could be the outstanding American hero of the war and not show any signs of wounds.
Murphy explained it by saying, "Well, I got hit three times, but nothing serious. I always got hit in the head."
The truth of the matter is that he is classified as 50 percent disabled from his wounds. He was suffering from a severe leg wound at the time he won the Medal of Honor by climbing up on a burning tank destroyer and mowing down some 50 attacking Germans.
Although Murphy has been making movies since the war, he never lost interest in the Army. He was a member of the Reserve and National Guard for a time.
When the Army asked him to come to Europe and make the missile film, he took time out from a TV series underway and donated his time and services.
Someone once described an actor as a "man, huddled over, banking the fires around his ego." Or as Marlon Brando put it, "An actor is a guy who when you ain't talking about him, he ain't listening."
Despite the bright lights and press agents of Hollywood, Murphy is the other extreme. He still has a self-conscious, almost shy quality about his personality. In fact, he gives the impression that he really doesn't enjoy being a movie star.
But above all, he doesn't like the hero bit. When someone starts asking about his experiences, he'll either attempt to pass them off as a joke, change the subject, or take off for the men's room.
About the only traditional Hollywood characteristics he displays are the flashes of temperament that reveal he stays wound up pretty tight much of the time.
Like the day at Würzburg when the cameraman halted the action and said Murphy needed additional makeup because of the heat. The makeup man indicated Murphy should take a chair sitting in full view of a large number of the troops taking part in the film.
Murphy's Irish came up quickly. "Oh, no you don't. You're not going to set me down and put on makeup in front of the whole damn Army."
The makeup man and Murphy then repaired to a truck parked nearby and he suffered through the ordeal without further complaint.
When it comes to dealing with the fans, Murphy is more than pleasant. He was busy handing out autographs and the director yelled for the autographing to cease so they could get on with the filming.
Murphy protested with his boyish grin, "I'm selling these. You're cutting in on my take."
Although Murphy has made several pictures other than westerns, the movie moguls still see him as a slightly over-age Billy the Kid. "They don't think I should get too far away from a horse," he explained.
This doesn't make Murphy too unhappy. Horses have always appealed to him, and he spends as much time as possible at his ranch near Riverside, Calif.
He didn't bring his wife, Pamela, or their two sons with him to Europe and he plans to bug out for home the minute the filming is completed in Germany and Italy next week.
The film, titled "The Broken Bridge," will be released to both military and civilian theaters late this year. Murphy takes the part of an "oldtimer" returning to his unit and finding how the weapons have changed since the war.
When asked if the missile age made him feel a little antiquated, Murphy replied, "I'm a little obsolete, but I hope to catch up. It brings back memories every time I pick up a piece of equipment."
Like most returning soldiers, he was impressed by the way Germany has been rebuilt since the war. And like many combat veterans, he has great respect for the German soldiers.
Perhaps the most ironic point of all is that he never would have fought against the Germans if some unknown recruiting sergeant hadn't sent him home.
When at the age of 17 he left his home at Farmersville, Texas, and went down to enlist in the U.S. Marines, the recruiting sergeant took one look and told him he was too small.
There has been some talk that the Army should send the sergeant a letter of appreciation. | <urn:uuid:d238b2ac-6e31-44c0-988d-031e939f711f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stripes.com/news/audie-murphy-is-back-with-his-old-outfit-1.36307 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98522 | 1,181 | 1.625 | 2 |
From a homily given exactly a year ago today
by Fr. Jet Villarin, SJ
Back when we were kids, our parents made us do the house garden on weekends. We had a smooth carpet of bermuda grass which had to be tended because unsightly weeds would crop up every now and then in our front yard. Where they came from was always a mystery. With makeshift chisel or screwdriver or even the old butter knife, we would pierce the soil to unearth these ligaw na damo. Invariably, some of the good grass came off with the bad. That wasn’t so mysterious at all since we knew and saw how those roots (good and bad) had become entwined over time.
In the Gospel today, our Lord likens the kingdom of heaven to a man of leniency and patience. When his field of dreams is attacked by weeds sown by his enemy, the Master cautions his workers against uprooting the work of his enemy. “If you pull up the weeds you might uproot the wheat along with them. Let them grow together until harvest; then at harvest time I will say to the harvesters, ‘First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles for burning; but gather the wheat into my barn.’”
Let them grow together. In other words, the Master tells us to let go. He counsels us to be patient. He is not being indifferent or insensitive or amoral this way. He is merely not obsessing over a smooth carpet of bermuda. And he knows anyhow that the good has yet to ripen and of course that there will eventually be a season for the sorting (and reckoning) in the end.
If he is not obsessing over such, neither should we. Since weeds are found everywhere (yes even in the holy catholic Church that we love), we do well to check ourselves when we are disheartened by the unsightliness and unseemliness of all that we see, even in the stuff we most cherish. Since ligaw na damo crop up uninvited even in the garden of our souls, we do well not to obsess about ridding ourselves of these unlovely blades that ruin our image of how manicured landscapes ought to look.
The key verb here is “obsess.” By all means, we should make every effort to avoid evil and do good. But we should also be mindful of the obsessive way we can work the ground to a smooth green that is flawless but false. Such obsession can be a form of pride and delusional righteousness. That was the sin of the Pharisees, which disabled them from spotting the weeds right in their own front yard. Such was their tragic compulsion that they were prevented from seeing the fences they had built to quarantine them from the unchosen weeds that were growing wildly all about them.
The presence of evil is a mystery. Its diabolical power is found in the deceptive and methodical way it embeds and entangles itself in the roots of even the good. The mysterious ways we can turn down love and turn away from the truth are legion.
Yet as the parable makes clear, for all its devilry, evil may thrive but it does not have the power to uproot (or outroot) the good. Like truth, evil will out, along with the good. It is only a matter of time which, if your horizon is eternity, is just around the corner.
The presence of goodness is itself a mystery. Its gracious power is found in the quiet yet steadfast way it grows like a mustard seed in the “humus of our humanity.” The surprising ways we can replant love and be good again are as numerous as sand on the shore.
At their 34th global meeting (called a general congregation), in affirming their identity once more as “servants of Christ’s mission,” the Jesuits acknowledged that “our many faults we know and confess; our graces are more important because they come from Christ.”
We know all too well the tangle of weeds that have snarled up our lives; yet we remain unfazed. Far more important than our weaknesses are our graces. Our faults we confess are ours. But our graces embolden us for we know from whom all these graces come.
So that even if we should be dismayed by the weeds that we see around us, we will take heart in what Wisdom tells us in today’s first reading: “you taught your people … that those who are just must be kind; and you gave your children good ground for hope that you would permit repentance for their sins.”
The ground in which evil seems to thrive is the same good ground that has been known to grow hope and contrition and forgiveness.
Next time you’re tempted to work the earth and knife those weeds out big time, hold that obsessive hand. Fret not unduly (compulsively) over those unsightly blades of lost grass. You would be better off keeping that old butter knife for the butter. | <urn:uuid:6a797a8f-a307-4bab-8e35-e38e8c1c4f31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://angperegrino.com/2012/07/04/weeds/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974107 | 1,062 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Future Friendly Thinking & The Myth of Mobile ContextAdd a comment.
About this post:
Links to good research and thinking about where, why and how people use mobile devices
As we do our own research and planning for clients' mobile efforts, we learn a tremendous amount from our peers. So many myths are prevalent in mobile strategy today, it helps to have solid research to counter people who rely on hunches or personal anecdotes to guess how other people will behave.
This is a collection of links and quotes that we've found particularly helpful.
Future Friendly group has a nicely curated list of links on aspects of "future friendly"/aka mobile, tablet, desktop, whatever development: http://futurefriend.ly/resources.html
Jeremy Keith's discussion of the mobile friendly context here is a good summary of people's arguments http://adactio.com/journal/4443/
"Rather than creating one site for an imaginary desktop user and another for an imaginary mobile user, we need to think about publishing content that people want while adapting the display of that content according to the abilities of the person’s device. That’s why I’m in favour of universal design and the One Web approach."
Research summary on LukeW's blog on when and where people use mobile devices: http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1263
Notice that usage is highest (and longest) at home. Full study he cites is here: http://blog.compete.com/2010/03/12/smartphone-owners-a-ready-and-willing-audience/
Luke also spends a lot of time on the idea of detecting features and having UI that supports those features when present and when they aren't. And interesting way to change your thinking:
"Personally, I think that mobile context is better thought of as device capabilities and constraints coupled with the fact that mobile devices can be used anywhere and everywhere."
That's not to say that people aren't using their phones "on the go" with limited time frames and attention spans. That is a use case for sure. But it is not *the* mobile context; there isn't one. People use their smartphones because they are almost always more convenient, powered up, have internet access, and are easily at hand. But they use them for "desktop" just as often (if not more so) for "mobile" tasks. Elaine Simpson illustrated the "mobile context" problem nicely in her UX Booth article, http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/how-to-design-a-mobile-responsive-website/
I've seen and heard users complain about being taken off to the mobile "optimized" version of the site, only to complain and look for the view full site link. They are using the site on both platforms, and maybe a tablet too. If they've looked up something on the desktop site earlier, they often remember where it is visually not architecturally. They want to be able to find it again on their phone. But it isn't there on the mobile-optimized version. It's important to consider how the two experiences complement each other.
Where are smartphone being used? Infographic (sadly I'm not sure how accurate this is since it doesn't cite a source)
Here's some great research about how much people use their phone while watching TV (e.g., http://mashable.com/2011/10/13/tv-tablet-smartphone-study-nielsen/ and http://thefonecast.com/News/tabid/62/EntryId/3602/Mobile-shopping-is-popular-when-watching-TV-says-Orange-UK-research.aspx)
Research on Tablet traffic is always showing tablet users are visiting news sites when they are most likely to be at home
It's also really interesting to note that that what people do on their smartphones is highly individualistic and variable. (PDF)
It's somewhat depressing to note that people get too attached to their phones and actually experience anxiety when separated from their phone and it may be making you dumb. | <urn:uuid:2f3e2cd8-bb15-40b0-b5d8-1adb59767174> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidenewcity.com/blog/view/future-friendly-thinking-the-myth-of-mobile-context/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942067 | 866 | 1.710938 | 2 |
In most normal parts of the world, when children graduate from their local middle school (also known as intermediate school or junior high school), they go onto their local high school. Their school choice is pretty much set by their address. New York City, however, given its position as most extraordinary city in the solar system, has to have a far more complex and stressful solution.
Jack, who is now 13, has to submit almost two dozen choices for school next year.
First of all, we had to decide if he should continue to go to private school or return to the public school system. If we had chosen the former, he’d have to take a very long multiple choice math and reading exam, then write essays and be interviewed at however many schools we had visited and thought good candidates. Then, if we he was accepted at one, we would spend over $100,000 to make sure he got a high school diploma.
Because we’ve opted to send him to public school. his choices are multiplied. First we had to go through a directory of NYC High schools that is over 600 pages long, listing choices from the FDNY High School for Fire and Life Safety to the Urban Assembly School for Careers in Sports, from the EL Puente Academy for Peace and Justice to the School for the Future.
Patti, Jack and I, collectively and separately, have gone on scores of school tours, grilled acquaintances for inside info, read books, articles and websites, and finally narrowed down on our list to the mandatory top 12 schools. That’s right — everyone who applies to NYC public high school must rank their top dozen choices to get into even one.
Some of the schools are really amazingand we are so lucky to have them as options (we visited one that just got 12 million bucks from Bill and Melinda Gates, another which takes the kids on trips to Europe) while others are scary and ringed with metal detectors and classrooms full of hooligans and pre-cons.
There’s more. New York also has a group of “Specialized” High schools that includes schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science that are among the very best schools in the country. To even be considered for admission to these schools, Jack had to study for several months and then, last weekend, along with 25,000 other students, took a three hour test with a few insanely hard questions (in helping him prepare for this test I have had to take a nightmarish stroll down memory lanes to my dusty repository of algebra and geometry, knowledge I haven’t accessed once since Carter was in the White House). He also took yet another test for entrance to Bard, which covers all of high school and the first two years of college before the students turn eighteen.
If all all of this sounds like I am a neurotic, over achieving yuppie parent, I promise you, we are merely average in this city. As soon as you enter the maelstrom of high school selection, you inevitably are faced with all these choices and feel you must at least do what you can to give your kid the best options. And, because you have to rank those twelve schools without knowing whether your kid will get his first choice or his twelfth, you must get somewhat involved and get the lay of the land. Every one does it, from bus drivers in Staten Island to investment bankers in Brooklyn to short order cooks in the Bronx. If you can make it here, you’ll make it anywhere. Otherwise, move to New Jersey (shudder).
Alright, I hear you wondering, so what does all this have to do with drawing?
Well, about a dozen of the schools in town are art schools of one kind of another. Most seem to be training people who will end up in making mechanicals or painting signs, anything to divert talented kids who would otherwise be spraying graffiti everywhere. We checked out a couple of these schools and they seemed quite grim, with lousy facilities, unimaginative teachers and slack-jawed students. One school, however, LaGuardia High School of Music and Performing Arts has been top Jack’s list for a while. The guitar player from his band was admitted last year and he raves about it. LaGuardia was the basis for the movie and TV show “Fame” (“I’m gonna live forever…) and it full of amazing singers, dancers, musicians, actors and artists. Each year thousands of the most talented kids in the most talented town audition for entry. Less than 10% get in.
Jack has been working hard on his portfolio for the art program. He has to submit fewer than twenty mounted pieces and then take a test: drawing a figure from life, a still from memory and a pastel painting form his imagination.
Jack loves to draw and had filled many sketchbooks with masterpieces. However, he has never really taken much in the way of academic art and usually resists formal teaching. For his application, however, he has had to sit down and really concentrate on the sort of art neither of us particularly love to make. He has drawn long careful portraits of Patti and me, has drawn a range of still-lifes in various media, had drawn urnban landscapes, done some watercolors and has even attended four hour life drawing studio classes with me, sticking it out for the whole session (no nudes, alas).
I am amazed at his commitment and at the strength of his drawings, I had neither the ability ntr the commitment at his age.
The question of course is, will he get in? And the next question is, if he does, should he spend this much time on art? That’ss an interesting question coming form me — I have always bemoaned my own lack of formal training and would personally love to go to art school. But Jack is also a very good student, getting As and B+s in every other subject and we are concerned with whether the academics at LaGuardia will be enough. The fact is, other schools offer better social studies and writing and math programs, no question. But he loves to draw… Well, we’ll see what’s what this spring when the decisions are made by the Board of Ed and we learn the options
Meanwhile, I am posting the pieces he has made for his portfolio. Would you accept him? | <urn:uuid:b7c2a475-b74f-45c2-a0ac-a06fc91fe62f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dannygregory.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/the-mouse-race/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=744caefc44 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981285 | 1,319 | 1.742188 | 2 |
March 13, 2013
Topics: Social Media
What is the difference between what someone says, and what they really think? According to new social network Pencourage, a lot:
Their About page is a fascinating scroll through what is presented as a new type of truly authentic social network. Instead of having to show your best face via a public persona under your own name, you can now show “every aspect of your life as it really is” via Pencourage.
Let’s muse upon that concept for a second:
1. Are you really showing every aspect of your life as it really is, if you aren’t disclosing your real identity on Pencourage?
Yes and no. The idea is with Pencourage is that by removing certain identifying factors, you will be more free to share the real you. How ironic is that? Very! But here’s the thing: when I found myself completing my profile, I started to write the truth. While my Facebook page (attempts to) present myself in the best light possible, the About statement on my Pencourage page is definitely the real me, the good and bad, the fab and the drab about my actual life.
None of this really hit home until I started to complete my Pencourage profile…. and damn if I didn’t start to write the truth. This is exactly what they hope to encourage. Look at your profile settings: you don’t have to disclose anything if you don’t want to!
Conversely, this means that you can also feel comfortable disclosing anything you really do want to in your Pencourage Journal. You’re “pencouraged” to write what you’re really feeling about in your heart, and going through in your life:
2. Similarly, when we do disclose our real identities on Facebook, do we really show every aspect of our life as it really is?
Same answer: Yes and no. Let’s face it: I’m friends with people on Facebook that I have business relationships with, but not personal ones. I can’t just let it all hang out. On the occasions when I do, I find myself encountering humor and encouragement, as well as backlash or ridicule.
Recently, I posted something about abortion on Facebook. It let to me having to actually block someone because they kept endlessly ranting on my page. Granted, that could also happen on Pencourage, but I can’t imagine it would be nearly as violating of an experience. Because no one would really know who I was, and the enraged, public diss that this person accorded me would no longer be as “public”.
I also have friends who post adorable photos of their children (ostensibly taken moments ago), when I happen to also know that the child in question was actually vomiting all over them an hour earlier. Sure, this is funny, but it’s also worth noting that we all are pretty much guilty of selectively crafting our Facebook personas. I certainly am as well, no doubt about it.
I posted this photo of myself once to Facebook. It’s gone now. Why? Because even though this shows part of the real me, and I can make a fantabulously horrrrible monster face, it ended up coming back to haunt me. I was afraid it made me look immature/unprofessional/crazy/ you name it. And that’s really too bad.
The people who really know me as I really am can appreciate this photo. My hugely elastic monster face has always been a source of hilarity, in particular for the many children that I used to babysit for growing up.
Why are we so scared to be our monster-face selves on Facebook? Well, it’s not just about Facebook, it’s about being authentic about our lives in general. It’s about self-acceptance.
However, it’s also about your network. Being friends with a larger network of people, I also have to keep some things private. It needs to be appropriate. I can’t really let my boss or my mother-in-law find out how insane I am, for example. The people that I went to high school with also must continually be in awe of how jaw-droppingly awesome I am now compared to what a nerd I was in high school. Google+ has attempted to solve some of this overlap with with their circles of people, but adoption has been slow. Very slow.
While there is endless potential for crafting selective or even false personas on social networks, I do however think that Pencourage has, as their name implies, done a good job in encouraging HONESTY. Pencourage has demonstrated that honesty can exist independently of transparency. There’s not much incentive to create a Pencourage profile that makes you “look” good (who cares? no one actually knows who you are), as to create one that will facilitate honest, meaningful, and heartfelt interaction.
I could debate this endlessly. I don’t know what the answer is. In fact, I think I may have even lost the thread of this blog post. I’m off on a tangent. But you know what I like about it? I’m being honest and candid instead of Ms. Buttoned-Up SEO Professional, and maybe, just maybe, showing you a little bit more real. I don’t think I’d be worth my salt as a social media marketer if I couldn’t do that. | <urn:uuid:bb3274d2-162d-44d8-b235-1595572b9410> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bigdaylight.com/social-media/the-search-for-authenticity-in-social-networks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966246 | 1,170 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The first U.S. Consulate in Afghanistan was opened in the western city of Herat on Wednesday.
In his address to senior Afghan officials, civil society representatives, business leaders, and Consulate staff, after opening the diplomatic office, Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns described Herat as a city with a rich cultural history and tremendous economic potential, and a vital place for a United States diplomatic presence. The Consulate, he said, reaffirmed the long-term commitment of the United States to Afghanistan's success and the "indelible bonds of friendship between our people."
The ceremony was attended by Herat Governor Saba, Farah Governor Khpalwak, and Badghis Deputy Governor Sabiri—representing three of the four provinces comprising the Herat Consular district. The U.S. diplomat expressed special appreciation to Governor Saba for his staunch support for a U.S. diplomatic presence in Herat.
The Consulate facility had opened on March 12 after almost two years of restorations. The ceremony recognized Afghan contributions to the renovated building. An average of 70 skilled Afghan craftsmen and carpenters worked on the project each day and substantial local products were used. Original artworks by Herat University students and faculty and photos of Herat by David Hume Kennerly are on display in the Consulate foyer.
Herat is the third largest Afghan city having an international airport. As the gateway to Iran, it collects the highest amount of Customs revenue for Afghanistan.
Opening of a Consulate in Herat will help people in the south-western part of the country avoid traveling to capital Kabul, the eastern city where the U.S. Embassy is situated, for travel purposes. The two regions are separated by a distance of 640 kilometers.
Also, it extends U.S. diplomatic interests and services to this remote part of Afghanistan.
by RTT Staff Writer
For comments and feedback: [email protected] | <urn:uuid:ec28f891-9a43-4213-9881-31924f6c0269> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rttnews.com/1906388/us-opens-its-first-consulate-in-afghanistan.aspx?type=usp&SimRec=1&Node=B1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954772 | 401 | 1.773438 | 2 |
On his 100th day in office, President Barack Obama started campaigning for re-election in 2012. He went to a small town in Missouri, a red state he didn't carry last year, and boasted that "we've begun the work of remaking America."
Indeed, he has begun to do exactly that with trillions of dollars turned over to the executive branch of government by the legislative branch. A few days later, the announced resignation of Supreme Court Justice David Souter gave Obama the additional power to use the judicial branch to remake America into Obama-nation.
When asked what sort of a justice he will be looking for to fill Souter's seat, Obama replied that his major criteria will be the candidate's "empathy" for the poor, the gays and other minorities. This embellished Obama's previously proclaimed view of the judiciary's mission: to engage in socio-economic redistribution rather than to enforce the U.S. Constitution as written.
Obama revealed his long-term goals for the judiciary in a radio interview on Chicago's WBEZ-FM in 2001, when he complained that the very activist Earl Warren court had limited itself to changing some of our laws but had failed to order "redistributive change" of our economic system by breaking "free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution." Students of the judiciary know that it was the Earl Warren court that started the long lines of activist decisions in many areas, including religion, elections, property rights, immigration and criminal law.
David Souter, who was President George H.W. Bush's mistake, flipped from presumed conservative to liberal as soon as the media began ridiculing him for tardiness in completing opinions. The same month that Souter voted for the only time with conservatives on the abortion issue, in Rust v. Sullivan (1991), Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times declared, "Lawyers who watch the Court closely have taken to referring to Justice Souter's chambers as a black hole, from which nothing emerges."
Then, in rapid-fire attack, ABC World News Tonight and even Souter's close-to-home Boston Globe wrote scathing criticisms of Souter. They were angry that he voted against abortion, but their criticisms humiliated him for his slow writing abilities.
Souter got the message and rarely voted again with conservatives in high-profile cases. The liberal media, in gratitude, never criticized him again.
Phyllis Schlafly is a national leader of the pro-family movement, a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Feminist Fantasies.
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BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Gang of Eight Immigration Reform Bill | Daniel Doherty
Whoa: US Hasn't Detained Five Benghazi Terrorists Due to Trial-Related Evidentiary Concerns | Guy Benson
Baucus & Hatch Grill IRS Commissioners Who Don't Know Anything: "That's A Lie By Omission" | Greg Hengler | <urn:uuid:52cae4ab-e2e2-401d-908f-0f6916d2fd59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/phyllisschlafly/2009/05/05/david_souters_departure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966465 | 642 | 1.789063 | 2 |
In August, many cities’ and counties’ law enforcement agencies participated in a National Day of Johns Arrest. It’s a start at a coordinated effort to tell men, “don’t buy women for sex.” People debate about whether prostitution should be legal, but evidence increasingly shows that legitimizing prostitution makes sex slavery worse, not better. Here’s my conclusion… legal prostitution creates an incentive to supply cheap prostitutes, and human traffickers are willing and able to provide. In places where prostitution is illegal, arresting the prostitutes and pimps has little effect and further victimizes the women, many of them underage. On the other hand, Sweden has shown that when they focus on making buying prostitution illegal, and direct their law enforcement efforts at the buyers of sex, the incidence of prostitution goes down, and so does human trafficking.
Imagine for a moment if there were zero customers for commercial sex. There would be no prostitution, and therefore no sex trafficking. Of course, there will never be zero customers, but you get the idea. Reduce demand, and you’ll reduce the market for sex slaves. Yes, we need to continue to rescue and rehabilitate sex trafficking victims. But we also need to focus preventative efforts on reducing demand. One way is to educate men and boys that it’s unacceptable to buy women for sex. An additional step is to focus law enforcement efforts at arresting prostitution customers. There should no longer be a “boys will be boys” attitude about prostitution, because that response ignores the victims — the girls and women who are too often coerced into providing sex to the “boys.”
Fortunately, US law enforcement is slowly starting to turn attention away from the prostitutes/victims, and realize that the problem won’t go away until customers stop buying. Those are my opinions based on the reading I’ve done. Please leave a comment with your thoughts. Find out if your city/county participated. Urge law enforcement in your community to focus their vice resources on fighting demand.
You can read more at Demand Abolition
Or view a press release, also at Demand Abolition
For more research, check out the book The Johns by Victor Malarek on the Non-fiction books page. | <urn:uuid:e5df3361-e7ca-4ae4-9920-b3a064129af2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://humantrafficking.wordpress.com/2012/09/17/national-day-of-johns-arrest-did-your-city-participate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943841 | 466 | 1.570313 | 2 |
I seem to have developed a mild case of thrush, a fungal infection of the mouth that can be caused by a lowered immune system due to chemotherapy.
My tongue, throat and mouth felt a little sore, like when you're coming down with a cold, and my tongue got white and coated. At my new support group I asked if this might be mouth sores (also due to lowered immunity from chemo) and was told it sounded like thrush.
Thrush is common in babies and young children, as well as cancer patients on chemo. Dr. G prescribed clotrimazol (Mycelex), dissolving lozenges. You place one on your tongue and let is slowly dissolve over 15-30 minutes -- five times a day. It might take seven to ten days for this infection to clear up. Like antibiotics, the symptoms may disappear sooner but you have to finish the whole dose.
So far it's just annoying and hasn't stopped me from swallowing or eating. But it's a symbol that the chemo is doing something, and that makes me feel hopeful it will be very effective, have manageable side effects, and be very tolerable. The next dose of Doxil is scheduled for on Monday, if my counts permit. | <urn:uuid:50e4ea06-5bef-4c7a-858e-1aabe7953590> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jillscancerjourney.blogspot.com/2010/07/thrush.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976332 | 258 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have penned a 28-star letter to Congress warning that the U.S. military is at a “tipping point” in the face of future budgetary reductions and uncertainty. The chiefs paint a grim picture of a post-sequestration military, arguing that they will have to “ground aircraft, return ships to port, and stop driving combat vehicles in training.”
While that is supposedly a consequence of the future, today’s outlook doesn’t sound any better:
Not enough people, not enough parts, not enough training, not enough everything.
Those were the blunt words of the admiral in charge of the surface fleet this week. He went on to note how demand has only grown while resources have gone down even though the new defense strategy, issued just last year, indicated otherwise.
Think the “hollow force” is only something that could happen if policymakers plow ahead with sequestration? Not according to the admiral:
When a combatant commander says a ship’s supposed to leave on deployment and it doesn’t leave on time for whatever reason, then we know we’ve probably gotten there [a hollow force]. And there’s ships right now that aren’t doing it.
Unfortunately, this is no surprise. By the time a problem this deep bubbles up to the Joint Chiefs, it is often beyond obvious to the military’s daily operators. Problems plaguing reduced readiness levels for sustained periods of time are typically masked or in hibernation due to Band-Aid fixes before they show real and clear consequences.
Even when it appears as if the force is healthy on paper, maintainers and operators using equipment on a daily basis often cannibalize parts to patch up ships, vehicles or aircraft to let them last another day or, worse, get notice of deferred or cancelled maintenance after leaders perpetually underfund regular upkeep to make up for shortfalls elsewhere.
Former Army chief of staff George Casey previously referred to an invisible “red line” of readiness that is often not detected by senior leaders until much later (or, in some cases, too late). Retired general Casey said that leaders like the chiefs — he was one from 2007 to 2011 — don’t often know that they’ve crossed the line until after the fact. For example, he noted that in 1972, after combat forces fully left Vietnam, some were saying the Army was broken: “But it took eight years for the chief of staff to come out and say it’s hollow.”
Once readiness has fallen to this point, it is much more expensive and takes significantly longer to fix because in order for these problems to be visible, there is usually much more hidden. Think of it as the unreadiness iceberg.
The chiefs had largely signed on to the many defense-budget cuts to date, saying the force could absorb more risk, and the strategy had meant troops will do less. The fact that they’re sounding the five-alarm bell now should worry our elected officials. Reality across the force is surely even worse. | <urn:uuid:0d3cbaa1-e924-48f9-9228-7080f4a08fd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nation.time.com/2013/01/18/the-unreadiness-iceberg/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970457 | 646 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Thanks for checking out my page on Q105FM.com!
I am originally from
Memorial Day is almost here, which means sunshine, blue skies, cold drinks and dinner on the barbeque. Want to serve a mean hot dog, hamburger, steak or chicken dish for your friends? Make sure to avoid these eight grilling mistakes you're still making from Yahoo.com!
1. Don't Skip the salt. Don't believe stories that salting meat will make it tough --season it about a half-hour before grilling.
2. Don't Use Lighter Fluid to Get the Grill Going. You're better off using a chimney starter.
3. Don't Press Hard on Burgers. What drips out is the flavor and moisture! Leave them alone and flip just once.
4. Don't Flip Out. You don't need to turn the meat over and over and over --flipping once or twice is sufficient.
5. Don't Abuse the Barbecue Fork. Tongs or a spatula are much better options.
6. Don't Battle Flare-Up with Water. H20 and grease don't mix --calm fires with a flame-resistant kitchen towel.
7. Don't Check for Doneness with a Knife. Steak needs to rest --leave it alone for at least ten minutes or you'll wind up with a tough, dry piece of meat.
8. Don't Cook Meat All the Way Through. It keeps cooking after you take it off the heat, so remove it before it's done to your liking
Never let it be said that the Portland, OR Police Department is not a friend to wildlife. This officer was in "hot pursuit" when he came across some ducks trying to cross the road. He then...well...you'll see in the video. | <urn:uuid:7a75b55b-629b-4db6-8b12-75c284360b71> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.q105fm.com/pages/JoshWolff.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930673 | 377 | 1.507813 | 2 |
ILLINOIS (WIFR) -- Christmas has arrived early for state gun advocates. A federal appeals court has ruled the Illinois law that makes it illegal to carry guns in public, is unconstitutional.
You'll have to be a little more patient, because you can't have a gun in public just yet. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is giving lawmakers 180 days to craft a new law - one that makes it legal to carry a gun in public. As always, people are split on the decision.
"We're going to have more people on the streets carrying guns which means there's going to be an increase of accidental shootings,” said Stanley Campbell with Rockford Urban Ministries.
"This is great news. Being the only state not to allow citizens to protect themselves never made sense,” said Sen. Dave Syverson, (R) 34th District.
The court found that the second amendment does create a right to defend yourself, even when you're not at home, partly because people are more likely to be attacked in the streets.
The court wrote "A Chicagoan is a good deal more likely to be attacked on a sidewalk in a rough neighborhood than in his apartment on the 35th floor of the park tower." it argued if law abiding citizens are walking the streets with a gun, criminals may think twice.”
I believe that concealed carry will make Illinois a safer place, will make Winnebago county a safer place,” said Winnebago County State’s Attorney, Joe Bruscato. He also added, “Individuals will have to apply for concealed carry permit and there will probably be some training attached to that."
Senator Syverson says he thinks a new law can be voted on as early as January, because there won't be as much political bickering between parties, but how restricted it will be is still up in the air.
If they don’t come up with a new law, the case goes back to the courts and the judges could come up with a law, but nobody thinks it will come to that. Attorney General Lisa Madigan released a statement today saying she's reviewing what legal steps can be taken in the meantime.
CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal appeals court has struck down a ban on carrying concealed weapons in Illinois -- the only state where carrying concealed weapons is entirely illegal.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals announced Tuesday that state lawmakers have 180 days to write a new law that legalizes concealed carry.
The ruling is a victory for gun rights advocates, who argue that the prohibition against concealed weapons violates the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment and what they see as Americans' right to carry guns for self-defense.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office says it is reviewing the ruling and would comment Tuesday.
The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed by former corrections officer Michael Moore of Champaign, farmer Charles Hooks of Percy in southeastern Illinois and the Bellevue, Wash.-based Second Amendment Foundation. | <urn:uuid:869d7687-5747-4ca4-b867-e1b2a4d19b98> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wifr.com/home/headlines/Illinois-Ban-on-Concealed-Carry-Struck-Down-183023451.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975354 | 621 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Articles By CHARLES MUDEDE
- Way Out of Africa
Chris Abani endured years of torture and persecution by the Nigerian government. But don’t hold it against him.
Originally appeared in Poetry magazine.
This poem has learning resources.
This poem is good for children.
This poem has related video.
This poem has related audio. | <urn:uuid:4ff3b98f-f171-4a38-a200-074a8c7a6bde> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/charles-mudede | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934105 | 77 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Is Pooper Scooper Really a Recession-Proof Job?Published September 10, 2010
We've seen the headlines and the images on the evening news. Countless Americans are finding themselves with a severance package in one hand, the contents of their work desk in the other, and their sense of security rapidly flushed down the drain. But have you heard the story about a growing, expanding, and even booming industry in today's times? According to the U.S. Department of Labor's statistics, almost every job in the pet industry is projected to grow "much faster than average" - meaning an increase of 20 percent or more. Veterinarian employment is projected to rise by 33 percent, animal care by 21, animal trainers by 20, non-farm caretakers by 21, and veterinary technicians by a whopping 36 percent from 2008 to 2018. Countless news articles have accepted these legendary numbers as the tell-tale signs of a "recession-proof" job. But where did these jobs come from? Are these numbers even believable? Many assume the success of the pet industry is due to a small group of celebrities who pamper their toy-sized pets. But Charlotte Reed, pet entrepreneur and expert, disagrees. The days of pet luxury are over. Instead, she attributed the boost in the pet market niche to the changing role of pets in their families. "Their dogs are an integral part of the family. [Owners] want to keep them healthy and happy," said Reed. "People want the best for their dogs; they want professionals." Since 62 percent of U.S. households proudly own a pet, according to the 2009 to 2010 National Pet Owners Survey, the market is not just a niche but a whole canyon. Not only are there more consumers, but the consumers are willing to pay big bucks for the well-being of their furry family members. According to The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, owners were willing to spend up to $12 billion last year for veterinary bills. That's double the numbers from a decade earlier. Since Reed's start in the pet business 15 years ago, the business has clearly changed from a "hobby lifestyle" to something with a bit more corporate teeth. With an endless supply of dedicated pet owners in the nation, the opportunities in the pet care job market are endless. Even the variety of jobs in the industry have exploded to fit our pets' every need. "It's not just about being a dog trainer or vet tech," said Nancy E. Hassel, founder of Long Island Pet Professionals. Instead, jobs in the pet industry now range from the childhood dream of becoming a veterinarian to the lesser known doggy chauffeur, pooper scooper, pet blogger, and pet clothes designer. "You can see from our many members the spectrum of different pet professionals." And many have already chosen this path of fiscal security like Mike Carmody, owner of a Cozy Pet store in Babylon Village, NY. Carmody switched careers from police officer, home improvements, and then the pet industry, due to the increasing economic instability. "If I didn't start my own Cozy Pet, I would've been done financially," said Carmody. "I just hope the pet business treats me even better." Often, momentous changes, like being laid off from a steady job, have served as an impetus to reinvent oneself and dare to pursue a lifelong dream. Hassel recounted her earlier years, working for a PR firm. However, she was laid off in late 2007 as the company experienced economic troubles. Instead of losing her way, Hassel used this opportunity to make a career out of her passion for pets. Or in the case of Reed, who began as a lawyer on Wall Street, a unique event helped motivate her to consider a career in the pet industry. She calls it "the incident." After a trip to Europe, she returned home a few days earlier than planned. She expected the welcome sight of her fuzzy companions, but instead, she stumbled upon something that she claims "literally changed my life." "I saw my dog walker in my clothes," said Reed. She joked that he looked better in her clothes, but nevertheless, when she heard slews of similar stories about finding dog walkers inviting their boyfriends over to share a shower and other inappropriate behaviors, she decided to supply the world with better, professional dog walkers. Now, she finds herself a happy and successful pet trend expert and even a spokesperson for ARM & HAMMER. From different walks of life, all these pet professionals share at least one thing in common - an intense passion for pets and pet care. But beware - the job isn't all about cooing over adorable pets. It's still a career, and professionals must remain on top of pet trends by reading books, attending dog shows, studying health initiatives, and much more. Reed claims that in her classes, people often sign up with the misconception that if you're a "animal person" or "pet lover," you're automatically a great fit for the pet industry. "The dog is not your client," said Reed. "Ultimately you have to interact with the owner... They're paying you; they're entrusting you. You can't be so pet-centric." Learn more about getting a career in the successful pet industry with Reed's Pet Pro classes. Maybe one day, you could join Rick Caran, owner of a celebrity Yorkie named Jilli, in sharing your very own success story. "There are options for people who are unemployed," says Reed. "So why not consider it?"
- Filed Under: News & Blogs | <urn:uuid:c61e045b-5828-4b4d-98a3-593967dfe69e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.petside.com/article/pooper-scooper-really-recession-proof-job | 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 | 0.971692 | 1,149 | 1.5625 | 2 |
We took our FPV equipment, put it on a balloon, and sent it up in tandem with Felix Baumgartner. I'm low on sleep and I'm dealing with News on running the story now but here are some cool pics and basics. I'll post more as I can tomorrow, but there's a lot more info on our QuestForStars Facebook page.
1. ServoCity: Using the pt785/985 hybrid to move 1.2ghz 13db yagi and 23cm/33cm 14.5dbc Antenna
2. EagleTree: OSD Pro and Elogger, and Eagleeyes
3. GPS: dual Venus 10hz and Byonics GPS4
4. Numerous cameras and a student X-ray experiment for a NASA rocket contest
>> I think we have quite possible set the distance record for FPV video TX/RX. We flew to 98K feet and a slant range of 85miles before losing video. Basic home wire Dipole hanging under the payload.
>>You can see the liftoff and a good portion on youtube. We now realize that venus is high affected by a 1.2ghz xmitter and we'll need a filter on it the VTX to keep Venus happy. Oddly enough it finally locked but with no GGA.
Pics and more info here.
Time for some sleep--adrenaline from less than 2hrs of sleep a night since friday starting to take a toll. I'll be back tomorrow. Enjoy | <urn:uuid:b3bdae59-d42a-4cc6-b5a7-b76bb4266485> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/redbull-stratos-and-fpv-testing-for-upcoming-stratoshuttle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931218 | 316 | 1.546875 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. and Israeli generals say they are embarking on the largest exercise in their long military relationship.
The air defense drill planned for late this month will involve 3,500 Americans and 1,000 Israeli forces.
It’s been in the making for more than two years, but comes now against a backdrop of tension with Iran and sharp rhetoric in the U.S. presidential election.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin says American forces have started arriving in Israel for the exercise. Others will participate from positions around Europe and the Mediterranean.
Israeli Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel says the ground and computer-simulated drill is to practice teamwork in reacting to a range of threats such as rockets and long- or short-range ballistic missiles.
Heller reported from Jerusalem | <urn:uuid:6b0fd978-fa81-4807-9894-225e15388e61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.salon.com/2012/10/17/us_israel_to_begin_major_air_defense_exercise/print/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948871 | 173 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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