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Posted on 21 January 2010.
A serial killer is a murderer of more than three people over a period of time, repeatedly committing the crime and the motivation behind all this being just the sense of satisfaction of elation he gets from the killings. More than not, a feeling of sexual gratification is also experienced by the serial killer while committing these crimes.
The top 10 serial killers in the world are:-
1. Pedro Alonso Lopez
Pedro Alonso Lopez was born to a prostitute in a Columbian environment, where crime was evolved. As a young boy, he was approached by a man who felt sorry for his situation, but then molested the boy. When he was 12, Lopez was molested by a male teacher. After that, he stole some money and lived in the streets. Lopez decided to get revenge by raping and killing. He has been one of the most dangerous serial killers ever. With a victim count of more than 300, children at most, he was infamously known as the monster of Andes. By 1978, he had killed about 100 tribal women in Peru. After 20 years of solitary confinement, Lopez was set free in 1998, even though he promised to kill again and again. Reasons being is that Peru did not have enough money for Justice. Lopez’s present whereabouts are unknown.
2. Henry Lee Lucas
Henry Lee Curtis was born to an abusive mother. She would dress him up as a girl and curl his hair. Then she would make him go to school like that. By the time Lucas was thirteen years old, he was introduced to sex and animal torture by his older half brother. He committed his first crime when he strangled a seventeen year old female for resisting his efforts to rape her. At eighteen years old, Lucas spent six years in prison for burglary, and in 1959, he stabbed his seventy four year old mother to death. Charged for a second degree murder, he received forty years in prison. Lucas was released ten years later, even though he did not want to leave prison, but after only eighteen months of freedom, was back again for molesting two teenagers. All together, the number of victims Lucas had ranged from 189 to 600 between the years 1960 to 1983. Henry Lee Lucas died in 2001 in prison of heart failure at the age of 64.
3. Bruno Ludke
Ludke was arrested in 1943, after a body of a 51 year old female was found near his home, strangled. Ludke admitted to have killed at least 85 more women, dating back to 1928. Each time he killed, he had sex with the corpses. It was unclear whether Ludke really did commit the murders as therhe was no evidence, such as fingerprints. It was at some point believed that Kriminalkommissar Franz used to clear up his unresolved cases, and hand them over to Ludke. It was also very unusual that Ludke could get away with murder for over 20 years, yet could get caught stealing something like chicken. Ludke was put in Vietnamese hospital instead of prison to have him experimented. He died in 1944 after an injection during an experiment.
4. Andrei Chikatilo
Russia would never have a criminal in the country until this man’s crimes came to life. Chikatilo was a good husband and father, and only his wife and two children saw the gentle and calm side of him. Chikatilo was a very troubled man, and was seen as sociopathic to the ones around him. At the time that the crimes began, Russia was still a communist country. Therefore, the crimes he committed would unnoticeable. Chikatilo, a former teacher, would sexually abuse both boys and girls. The amount of killings came to such amount that the crimes could no longer be avoided. Chikatilo chose his victims by the “undesirables”, those who were seen as a lower class to him, such as prostitutes. Chikatilo was convicted of crime, and and sentenced to death. In 1994, he was instructed to stare at the wall and not look anywhere else. He was shot in the head.
5. Gerald Stanos
Stano was an adopted child of Eugene and Norma Stano, who were unable to have their own children. Stano’s biological mother had three children whom she put up for adoption. She then had a girl who suffered a brain damage, and the girl was the only one whom she decided to keep. Statno was believed to be neglected, both physically and emotionally. Gerarld, who was first known as Paul, was considered to be unadoptable as a result of severe neglect. Even after Norma and Eugene adopted him, Statno had to be examined by physician, psychologists, and social workers. It was his adoption that seemingly led to Stano crimes. Stano killed over 40 women, including 17 year old hitchhiker, Cathy Lee Scharft. On March 23, 1998, he was put into an electric chair in Florida State Prison. | <urn:uuid:13ce06b4-94c3-4591-878b-55bfd160cc08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://top-10-list.org/2010/01/21/ten-serial-killers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.992703 | 1,034 | 1.703125 | 2 |
"It really was hard, especially at the start," Bautista said. "When I first got here, I could barely understand anything. I eventually got used to it, but I had to work harder than anyone else. I had to learn the language. That was the first step. I didn't take ESL (English as a Second Language) classes. I took the regular courses because I wanted to learn."
Bautista said that he learned English from two sources - reading and watching television.
"I did everything to improve my English," Bautista said. "I listened to music and I watched a lot of TV. I figured that if I could understand what they were saying on TV, then I could understand anything. It really helped me a lot."
Top of the class
However, no one could have ever dreamed what would have transpired in just three years. Bautista learned English so well that he is among the top students in the Weehawken High School Class of 2007. He has already secured a scholarship to attend Cornell University on a full scholarship to study engineering.
Recently, Bautista was the recipient of several individual awards at the Weehawken High School Academic Awards Night and National Honor Society Induction ceremonies.
The event took place May 4 at Schuetzen Park in North Bergen.
Bautista received three individual awards for being the top student in science, Math League and economics, while receiving another award for his work as a volunteer tutor.
It may be one of the greatest academic success stories in the school's history; a kid who couldn't speak a word of English emerging as a premier student in just three years.
"I didn't expect to receive all those medals," Bautista said. "I don't even know how I did it. I was surprised. I guess it is a great accomplishment. I always liked math and science, so that helped. I am doing better than I could have ever imagined."
Amanda Ward, who will be the valedictorian for the Class of 2007, earned the Academic Award, the top prize of the evening, given to the top senior.
Ward said that she had a good idea she was going to receive the Academic Award, because she received notice a few months ago that she had been elevated to the top spot in the class rankings.
"Even though I knew I was No. 1 in the class, I was still excited to receive the award," said Ward, who will attend Boston College in the fall. "I always take a lot of pride in my academics. It's nice to be recognized for working hard in the classroom."
Not only were the students awarded for their academic excellence and the new members of the National Honor Society sworn in, but Dr. John Ganim, a well respected author and lecturer, was inducted in the school's Academic Hall of Fame.
Ganim, a 1963 graduate of Weehawken High School who currently resides in California, has written 50 scholarly articles and three books about medieval English literature.
Motivation for future graduates
National Honor Society faculty advisor Kate Kitzie said that the annual Academic Awards dinner serves as a motivation for all of the school's students to excel.
"I think it's important for the kids to see the fruits of their labor," Kitzie said. "Not only are they surrounded by their peers, but they also have their parents, the school board and teachers all on hand. To get that kind of recognition enables the younger students to say, `Hey, someday that could be me.' I'm very proud of the students. We had a nice cross section of recipients. You just don't see kids who are academically talented receiving awards. There are awards for culinary arts, the band, and the chess team. Our students always seem to rise to the top of their ability."
Superintendent of Schools Kevin McLellan agreed.
"We have to be able to recognize individual talents," McLellan said. "When I speak to the inductees of the Academic Hall of Fame, they all talk of how they were truly inspired during their days in Weehawken. That's the message each inductee gives to the students. This year's inductee, John Gamin, said that in Weehawken he learned how to learn.
Added McLellan, "It's always very rewarding to see our students get acknowledged for their many years of hard work and perseverance. These are moments that they will keep in their memory banks and treasure them in years to come."
Jim Hague can be reached via e-mail at either [email protected] or [email protected] | <urn:uuid:9895599f-134c-4ace-bbf2-06af68b9a3be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hudsonreporter.com/view/full_story/2412262/article-Head-of-the-class-Weehawken-High-students-receive-top-awards | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989815 | 969 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Posted by Baceseras on June 06, 2007
In Reply to: Re: About to fall apart posted by ESC on June 06, 2007
: : : How do say that something is about to fall apart, but it isn't yet?
: : "It's about to fall apart" includes that it hasn't fallen apart yet.
: : You might also say it's on the verge of collapse, it's unstable, it will soon fall apart, it's near to disintegrating, it's going to come down, its life as an intact entity is almost over, it's a house of cards . . .
: Held together with spit and (take your pick) baling wire, chewing gum, prayer. There are several variations.
"On its last legs" ... "Here today, gone tomorrow" ... "Don't blink or you'll miss it" ... "The next strong wind will take it down" .... | <urn:uuid:80331c18-7815-46cc-9319-332bf5cf7113> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/54/messages/497.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981243 | 193 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A life coach, or business coach, is somebody who helps other people stay (or get) motivated and reach their personal or professional goals. It’s becoming a very popular career option and can be done worldwide. Nevertheless, not many are qualified to do this. You don’t need any advanced degrees or even lots of business experiences, but you do have to have the right mindset of a coach. What you need is to truly love working with others and teaching them. | <urn:uuid:30999d8d-674a-4c27-bbc7-04adf1c551ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nhpw.com/tag/life-coaching/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980331 | 97 | 1.507813 | 2 |
News and background stories on maroon communities in the Americas.
History was once again created in historic Charles Town in Portland when Akwantu: The Journey was projected on to a big screen for its world premiere. Never before has such a groundbreaking documentary premiered in any of Jamaica’s main Maroon villages. It had previously been screened in some North American cities.
Akwantu: The Journey chronicles Hollywood stuntman Roy T. Anderson’s search for his roots. Shot in the United States, Canada, Africa and Jamaica, it also tells the story of the indomitable Jamaican Maroons and, by extension, the story of the Jamaican people of African descent. An evening billed as the ‘Night of the Ancestors’, people from all over the island and the diaspora journeyed to Portland to see this new piece of work.
Also travelling from abroad for the premiere were Anderson’s wife, Alison, the co-producer of Akwantu; his brothers Winston, and Adisa Oji, the still photographer, who speaks in the film; his mother, who also speaks in the film; his sister, and her two children. It was a homecoming of sort, which spilled over into St Elizabeth, when Akwantu was shown to an audience of about 100 people in the community of Ridge Pen.
The premiere, which was part of the fourth Charles Town Maroon Conference, got off to a slightly late start, but when the images hit the screen, constructed through sponsorship from the Jamaica Social Investment Fund for the premiere, patrons could not take their eyes off it, and even when the screen and the entire Asafu Yard went pitch black for a couple seconds because of a power outage, viewers stayed put, and waited until the operators sorted things out.
Despite its historical nature, the story is interestingly told, and the entertainment value is quite high. Attorney-at-law Marcus Goffe, of the Jamaica Intellectual Property Office, told The Gleaner, “Generally, I thought it was a well-put-together movie. It has a storyline, a theme that I could identify with … . His sharing his journey with the audience, the quality, and the persons interviewed, I thought was very touching, and fused with an appropriate amount of humour. I thought it was enjoyable overall.”
Yes, patrons laughed at points, sometimes uproariously, at the utterances of some of the people in the film. Of note was ‘Chiney Man’, who made a strong claim to his Maroon heritage; the inimitable Dinah, Roy Anderson’s cousin; and herbalist Bongo Ray, whose description of what a certain bush medicine can do to a man, and his mischievous laughter and facial expressions are memorable.
Anderson’s uncle Clifton ‘Packiman’ Rowe’s use of the word “readical”, and his tribute by way of song to his ancestors as the closing credits rolled, cracked up the audience seriously.
He, however, had no idea that Anderson had used him to end the film like that. Before the viewing, Packiman was called on stage by Anderson to perform the same song in memory of Omar ‘Yankee’ Hernandez, a Charles Town Maroon who was killed late last year. A moment of silence was also observed for Yankee, who briefly appeared in the film dancing with the Charles Town Maroon Drummers and Dancers.
The community of Charles Town got a chance to see some of their own people in what is a world-class production. These were Marcia Douglas, curator of the Charles Town Maroon Museum and one of the dancers; Rodney Rose, blowing the abeng; and Colonel Frank Lumsden, to whom Anderson made two presentations by way of a framed picture of Rodney Rose blowing the abeng, and a framed official poster of Akwantu: The Journey.
Some people of note in attendance were Vivian Crawford, executive director of the Institute of Jamaica, which also significantly assisted and supported Akwantu’s screening in Jamaica; Bernard Jankee, director, Jamaica Memory Bank/African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica; the governor general’s representative, attorney-at-law Nicholas Chambers; Susan Robeson, granddaughter of the late African American singer Paul Robeson; and Professor Verene Shepherd, well-known social historian of the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.
Professor Shepherd speaks in the film, and had presented it at the media and industry launch at RedBones Blues Café on June 20.
Ms Robeson, who was in Charles Town to receive the Quao/Nanny Abeng Award on behalf of her grandfather, said of Akwantu: “Last night was just stunning with Akwantu. I thought it a beautiful way to tell a story through a journey, because it is a journey … . It just had an intimacy to it … and I hope it does phenomenally well.”
In speaking with The Gleaner the day after the premiere, about the turnout, Anderson said, “I was absolutely amazed, really excited about the turnout last night. To have Asafu Yard packed … it was amazing … . The word I keep using all the time is overwhelming … . Last night I felt like the journey continues.”
Read original story here: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120702/ent/ent6.html | <urn:uuid:0bc6a97d-6f35-4fad-b84c-8b470996fc76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abengcentral.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-journey-continues-akwantu-lights-up-charles-town/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968184 | 1,136 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Senators argued more than an hour Thursday before voting 23 to 22 for a broad requirement that voters show ID every time they go to the polls.
A bill with the ID requirement still must go to the House, where Elections Chairman Tommy Reynolds has in the past fought attempts to make Mississippians show driver's licenses or other I. before voting.
Senate debate centered on Mississippi's history of racial intimidation versus requirements of living in a post-9/11 world where people have to show ID more frequently.
The ID mandate was put into a bill to make Mississippi comply with the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002.
The 23 to 22 vote was for the ID amendment. The bill itself passed 29 to 18.
The federal law was passed to help states replace outdated voting equipment. It had a limited voter ID requirement. | <urn:uuid:cd5c3478-ce7a-4671-9c0d-8ce2bf02ccee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtok.com/home/headlines/220161.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955928 | 167 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Ever since Charlton Heston parted the Red Sea as Moses in the epic 1956 film, "The Ten Commandments," Hollywood has had a thirst for more, and now comes a husband-and-wife team who seek to do the Bible justice in a new, 10-hour series premiering on Sunday, March 3, on the History Channel.
Spanning Genesis to Revelation, the series producers may surprise many: First, the reality TV show guru Mark Burnett -- the man who made Donald Trump a TV star and "you're fired" a household catch-phrase, who changed the television landscape with "Survivor," which just debuted its 27th season, and created the ever-popular "Shark Tank" and "The Voice" -- is now taking on a project truly biblical in scale.
But he couldn't do it alone. Burnett asked for a little help from above: actress Roma Downey, the star of the TV classic, "Touched by an Angel," who is his wife.
"I'm married to an angel," Burnett said.
So why are the guy who created "Shark Tank" and "Survivor," and the woman who played an angel tackling "The Bible"?
"The Bible is the foundation of this nation, of our laws, of our society," Burnett said. "There wouldn't have been the Declaration of Independence. President Obama swore his allegiance to all of us not on one Bible, on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Bible and Abraham Lincoln's bible last month. It's on our money: 'In God We Trust.'"
They launched the project four years ago and say they were acutely aware of needing to make the special effects shine.
"We have three teenagers," Downey said. "One of the things they said to us [was], 'Oh please, whatever you do, don't make the special effects lame.'"
"We showed our kids, at the beginning of this project, a movie we had grown up on, 'Ten Commandments.' They were rolling their eyes," Burnett said. "That movie is beautiful, but it's 50 years old. So really, what we've done for 2013 is brought fresh visual life into the greatest story ever told."
Beyond the special effects, Burnett and Downey said this project was very personal to them. They said their faith is central to their lives and they took the responsibility of telling its stories seriously.
"We believe the Bible," Burnett said. "However, on this project, there's only one way to approach this. You have to take the Bible as a fact."
"We have run into people that have thought, believe it or not, that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife, or that Sodom and Gomorrah lived happily ever after," Downey said. "And [we] thought, if nothing else, just to set the record straight."
Burnett and Downey expect the series to have an enormous impact. They have recruited more than 40 theologians and academics to advise them on all aspects of the series.
How many people may watch?
"I'm telling you, a million will either open the Bible or reopen the Bible ... maybe a billion," Burnett said. "I think, to be honest with you, because I'm a very blunt person, I think a billion is a low number."
Burnett said it cost less than $22 million to produce the entire series, cheap by Hollywood standards, "although the bills are still coming in." Prayers, the couple said, were as important as the cash. Downey said that about four to six weeks before they were starting to shoot the principal photography, they had not yet cast the role of Jesus.
"To say that we were anxious about that would be an understatement," Downey said.
So she said she contacted various prayer circles and churches.
"I sent out an email and the headline on the email was, 'Looking for Jesus.' And prayer works," Downey said. "We found the most wonderful actor, Portuguese actor Diogo Morago, who has breathed such beauty and strength."
After Jesus was cast, they were still stumped on who would play his mother, the Virgin Mary. In the end, Downey herself stepped into the role.
"I went to Morocco with my producer's hat firmly on my head, but Mark said, 'You're not seeing the obvious,'" she said.
In addition to the theology both Burnett and Downey had to master, there were also a few real-life problems to overcome -- like cobras and scorpions that had to be cleared from the set in Morocco every day. But one snake ended up in a starring role as Satan, tempting Jesus, which meant on the first day of shooting their new Jesus would be sorely tested.
"His first day on the job, there was this huge poisonous snake," Burnett said. "I mean, huge. Like, 6-foot, thick snake crawling across his body and through his hair as he lay on the floor."
But they are a "Survivor" family and, with that, there has to be a little competition. A whole slew of Hollywood productions based on the Bible are launching: Steven Spielberg is doing "Moses," Will Smith is doing "Cain and Abel" and Russell Crowe will star in "Noah."
"I ran into Russell Crowe the other night and said, 'You know, our ark is bigger than your ark,'" Downey said.
And as for Burnett and Downey's kids, the couple said they let them screen a portion of the mini-series ahead of time and were pleased with the results.
"They called us after they screened it at school and said everybody loves it and have been coming up to them since, in school, saying, 'I cannot wait to see it,'" Burnett said.
"I said, 'What was the most-heard comment from your fellow teens at your school?' and they said, 'That's really cool,' so we felt, 'Hey, we got something right,' Downey said. "Because, you know what? The Bible is really cool."Also Read | <urn:uuid:91756b70-8a5d-4565-a0ba-1280a39afa25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gma.yahoo.com/hollywood-couple-created-bible-mini-series-set-record-033307696.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9873 | 1,270 | 1.5 | 2 |
Imagine you were born on the island of Bali in a little village on a rice farm. The likelihood that you would become a fervent Hindu is 99.9%. You would grow up, learn your parents’ craft and religious traditions. You would grow strong, get married and teach your children the same thing.
Imagine, instead, that you were born just a few miles to the east and west of Bali on one of the two neighboring islands on a rice farm. The likelihood that you would grow up as a Muslim is almost 100%. The cycle would continue through your children and theirs.
Imagine, if your egg were fertilized just a short plane ride to the north in Cambodia or Thailand. The likelihood that you would be Buddhist is high.
Imagine if you were born on the other side of the earth in America, you’d likely grow up in a Christian home.
Because all of your life, the religion that is prevalent where you were born is the one you assimilate. And that assimilation paints your view. And that view informs the way you debate topics like the origin of the universe or whether you agree with abortion or not.
But imagine again, you were born in any one of the Asian countries on a rice farm. And if you weren’t already doing so, imagine yourself as a little girl. Your family is poor. When you come within reach of your teen years, your father decides he can sell you to a brothel and get a bit of money to pay bills, buy food, and get by.
You, an almost teen, have no choice. You’re sold and you go to work somewhere that entertains wealthy businessmen in the large city of your island or country. There you learn to make a man feel like a man. You learn to fake enjoyment when you wrap your arms around men of all shapes. You learn to control your gag reflex when you taste their semen in your mouth.
You learn not to scream too loud when they rip your vaginal walls or when you’ve been fucked so many times you can’t even remember the man you were with before this one.
If you want me to imagine that the god of the bible, or the god of the koran, or the Buddha, or the deities of the hindu religion exist, you have to first explain to me the phenomenon of the ovarian lottery and how you, yes you, avoided getting fertilized a girl on a rice farm in South Asia, and the god, the Buddhas, or the gods didn’t intervene when the monsters came knocking at your door and entered through every opening they could find.
Is it really, by the luck of the draw or a divinely-guided universe that you were born where you were when you were and how you were?
Because if god is in control, and he guided the realistic scenarios above to happen, or let them happen, that, dear readers, is an atrocity.
I do not believe god exists, because if he did, he doesn’t deserve my worship. Or yours, for that matter.
If you do worship him, is it because you aren’t getting raped right now by a business man in Asia? | <urn:uuid:6091e7a8-72b5-49d0-a98a-b816426310d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cafewitteveen.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/imagination/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978224 | 663 | 1.71875 | 2 |
New Poll: 27% of Public Would Cut Transit Aid, Versus 12% for Highways
The latest weekly edition of the Economist/YouGov poll asks where, if a balanced federal budget were the goal, the American public would rather see cuts to federal spending. As the chart above shows, transit was given the theoretical axe by 27 percent of respondents, tied with agriculture and housing but far behind foreign aid, which held the lead at 71 percent.
Much of today's online reaction to the poll focused on its illustration of the challenges lawmakers face in trimming the federal deficit when so much of it comes from programs the voting public is loath to cut. (The red bars in the chart signify the share of the budget taken up by the program in question -- Social Security, for example, comprises nearly one-quarter.)
But the poll also carries a significant lesson for transportation policymakers. How can one survey find sizable public support for cutting transit rather than highways while another reveals across-the-board backing for more transit investment?
One explanation is the simple appeal of a positive query, seeking endorsements for more federal spending, as opposed to a negative one that assumes across-the-board fiscal austerity. But another may be the frequent emphasis on competition among different transportation interests, particularly between roads and transit, for a share of Washington's limited pot of funding.
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has done his part to defuse perceptions of a clash, telling a Chicago audience in September that "we don't want to pit one mode of transportation against another" and calling on local officials to help "strike a new balance." But lawmakers have continued to draw a dividing line between policies seen as favoring urban needs by adding transit to the mix and those that favor rural needs by spending more on roads.
"It seems to me," Sen. John Thune (R-SD) told a U.S. DOT official last month, that the Obama administration's livable communities office "is a program that's going to overwhelmingly focus on urban areas."
Every state in the union offers some form of transit service, including Thune's. But given that rail and buses are linked most often with major cities, wealthier, older, white voters outside of the northeast are likely to remain open to transit cuts in public polling.
The demographics that most strongly opposed transit cuts, according to the poll: Democrats, African-Americans, northeasterners, those between the ages of 18 and 29 (just 14% of whom agreed to cut transit), and those with a family income under $40,000 per year. | <urn:uuid:d34df757-e0ab-4a5d-878e-2ea2557914d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dc.streetsblog.org/2010/04/08/new-poll-27-of-public-would-cut-transit-aid-versus-12-for-highways/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95973 | 522 | 1.648438 | 2 |
“Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drowned your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”–Steve Jobs
The other night I had the best dream ever. I had taken a job as a call center supervisor, a job I have done in the past but have found to be unrewarding and downright soul crushing. I did it for the money, because in the dream I had caved to the difficulties and lack of stable income that comes with a creative lifestyle. I was getting settled into my cubicle when Tracy Morgan walked in, as his 30 Rock character Tracy Jordan. In a stilted voice, as if he were reading from a queue card, he said “Hello, my name is TV’s Tracy Jordan. You don’t have to do this. This is just a bad dream. To prove it, I will now go steal a penguin and then take everyone here to lunch at Chili’s“. Everyone in the call center cheered and began to run out of the building.
Stealing a penguin doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. If you watch 30 Rock, you know that Tracy does a lot of things that don’t make sense to anyone other than Tracy. Yet he’s generally a good person with a good heart, and he somehow manages to be highly successful in life in spite of the fact that he does things that are counter-intuitive or plain crazy in the eyes of most people. The symbolism of his appearance in this dream seems pretty clear.
Cut to Tracy, a penguin, and I sitting in Chili’s looking at menus, the restaurant filled with other call center workers. Now, a quick sidebar, Chili’s was my ex-wife’s favorite restaurant. She was not what you’d call culinarily adventurous. I would say that about 90% of the time, when we went out to eat, we went to Chili’s. It was safe and predictable. The symbolism here is, again, obvious. Tracy, the penguin, and I were even sitting in a booth in the bar, which is where my ex and I usually sat.
At this point Henry Rollins walks up to the booth and starts yelling at me. “Chili’s? Seriously? Seriously, dude?” There was a little more profanity than that, and if you’ve ever heard Henry rant you get the point. This was a guy who had a safe job managing an ice cream parlor, and left it to make a huge leap of faith and pursue a career as a punk musician. He’s made a lot of leaps of faith in his career, and he’s been successful because he’s an iconoclast and isn’t afraid to follow his dreams. The symbolism here is unmistakable.
I woke up and immediately had to write this all down, because I tend to forget my dream pretty quickly. While I was up, I checked sales figures for Asparagus Jumpsuit. I learned that we’d had our best sales week ever. It all seemed to validate that eschewing “traditional wisdom” and the easy path was the right thing for me to do.
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Some of the links in this post are “affiliate links”. If you make a purchase through these links, the owners of this site receive some form of compensation or commission. Regardless of this, we only recommend products and services that we use personally and believe will offer some value to our readers. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”. | <urn:uuid:6e3edb47-d430-4c14-999e-c398b79b7d92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://berinkinsman.com/2012/08/07/following-the-best-dream-ever/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972998 | 860 | 1.671875 | 2 |
With a top speed of 12.5 mph (20 km/h) on a vehicle that depends on battery power to maintain balance, a ride on Segway's i2 could certainly be called exciting. Two Valence Saphion lithium-ion batteries in the i2 deliver a range of up to 24 miles on a single charge. Saphion lithium-ion batteries are low-maintenance batteries that can operate at temperatures as low as 14F (-10C). The Segway PT uses several Microchip Technology products including the PIC16F 8-bit Flash microcontrollers. Among other tasks, the MCUs manage the battery power. Get more information on Microchip Technology's PIC16F 8-bit Flash microcontrollers.
Lantronix Inc. has expanded its line of controllers for sensor networks with the release of a rugged controller that improves management of automation systems used in a number of industries, including manufacturing, oil and gas, and chemicals.
Inspired by the hooks a parasitic worm uses to penetrate its host's intestines, the Karp Lab has invented a flexible adhesive patch covered with microneedles that adheres well to wet, soft tissues, but doesn't cause damage when removed.
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is | <urn:uuid:5d849374-303e-47b5-aadb-ef94ae61743c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=216701 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933247 | 382 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Originally published in 2002, Emma Sweeney’s As Always, Jack was reprinted this year. It’s a poignant, touching, sometimes humorous collection of love letters. And, it’s poignant because Emma Sweeney’s pilot father wrote them while he was courting her mother. Emma’s father, Jack, died while her mother was expecting her. These letters were the closest Emma ever came to hearing her father’s voice.
Emma Sweeney’s parents knew each other for only eleven days before he left with his flight squadron, headed for China in 1946. Over the course of seven months, he wrote Beebe forty-five letters filled with humor and love. He courted her in those letters, and married her three weeks after he returned home.They had four sons, and Beebe was pregnant when Jack’s plane went down in the Bermuda Triangle, disappearing there on Nov. 9, 1956.
Emma never saw a picture of her father until she was ten. Her mother remarried, and never really talked to her about Jack until Emma was in her twenties. She left her a packet of letters, these letters, when she died. A year later, Emma read them, looking to learn who her father was.
There really aren’t any spoilers in the above description. Emma Sweeney wrote most of that information at the beginning of As Always, Jack. As funny as some of the letters are, as romantic as they are, it’s sad to know that Emma never knew him, and searched for answers for years. Who was her father? What was he like? Did he even know he was going to be a father again? As Always, Jack is a small book, filled with history, love, and the answers for one fatherless child. Jack and Beebe Sweeney’s story is a beautiful love story representing a moment in U.S. history.
As Always, Jack by Emma Sweeney. Axios. 2012. ISBN 9781604190489 (hardcover), 179p. | <urn:uuid:6b83765f-b10d-49fb-91c6-ba53dfb36bb5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vibrantnation.com/our-blog-circle/book-review-as-always-jack-by-emma-sweeney/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982385 | 423 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Social media is booming! In the words of Wedbush Securities analyst Lou Kerner, “In less than two years, Facebook has become the dominant source of online user data and is rapidly becoming one of the Web’s premiere advertising destinations.” Facebook has more than 600 million users, and Twitter has around 175 million. In our day and age it’s essential to know how to get started in social media!
But how to start? Listen to a social media veteran: Canadian broadcaster, podcaster, blogger, and speaker, Amber MacArthur advises establishing a goal, ensuring a listening strategy, and creating compelling content. Making sure you have a solid framework in place greatly increases your chance of success. In order to keep your finger on the pulse of the “online conversation,” you can use resources like Google Alerts, business solutions websites, and software like Radian 6.
Remember, though, that social media is an unexplored medium. Since these online tools are so new, there are few legal guidelines out there. Bradley Shear, lawyer, entrepreneur, and blogger, says that “There is going to need to be some major lawsuits or decisions by federal courts, appellate courts or more to decide what are acceptable practices online for a real shift to take place. There are legal ramifications for everything you do online, and many people and businesses simply don’t understand that.” To deal with this, make sure to have a strong employee social media policy and be aware of legal constraints, including copyrights, FTC advertising and full disclosure requirements and general privacy issues.
Don’t let that scare you, though! Social media is a marketing world ripe to be explored and can really help your overall advertising strategy. Just take a bit of caution and make sure you can get the basics down and you’ll be on your way to getting started in social media!
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com. ChooseWhat is a company that provides product reviews and test data for business services and products. | <urn:uuid:6acace2e-cb40-424d-a41d-6d715479c2cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialmediarevolver.com/how-to-get-started-in-social-media/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94594 | 435 | 1.804688 | 2 |
OK, so I am supposed to have a Jewish background (which I don’t really, except going back to my grandparents’ generation from Russia and Ukraine), and I never was raised with any religion, nor have I ever fully found any (yet). But there is one religious holiday that I would like to celebrate – more than any other – and that is the Urs of Lal Shabaz Qalandar! I think readers of this blog should at this point know why (unless you are absolutely “brand new” here). And, much to my chagrin, I missed it again this month! (I understand that the Urs was on July 12.) But last night, I did finally find a good short clip in English that explains what this is all about:
There is also a very interesting description of the celebrations in a book that I’ve mentioned before, The Dancing Girls of Lahore. Though it isn’t quite as positive, and is much more amusing in places…but it still reveals some fondness for this tradition, from another westerner who has usually self-identified as an agnostic or atheist. I might transcribe that here fairly soon. | <urn:uuid:6459c38d-3c5c-468d-a2a1-41a306feb5d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://roughinhere.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/why-didnt-anybody-tell-me-two-weeks-ago-that-it-was-the-urs-of-lal-shabaz-qalandar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977984 | 244 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Link to Distant Cousins
New Jersey Wills - August 24, 1898 - Isaac Compton
Isaac Compton's Will
He Divides His Farm Into Four Equal Parts
He Left Four Children and His Son, William V. W. Compton, was Made Executor of the Will.
Isaac Compton of Port Monmouth, who died about two weeks ago, left a will in which he divided his farm at that place into four equal parts. One of the parts was given to his daughter-in-law, Jane Scott Compton, wife of William V. W. Compton; another to his son Stout S. Compton; another to his son Thomas Compton; and the remaining fourth to his daughter, Mary Emma Garnsey, wife of William Garnsey.
The part which goes to Jane Scott Compton, wife of William V. W. Compton, is the easterly part of the farm and contains the dwelling house and farm buildings. All the farming utensils, live stock, household furniture, etc., is included in this bequest, and all of this property goes to Jane Scott Compton. A provision of the will recites that this shall be the property of Jane Scott Compton so long as she remains the lawful wife of William V. W. Compton, and in case of his death it shall be hers as long as she remains his widow. At her death, or when she remarries, the property is to go to the children of William V. W. Compton and in case of their death, it is to go to their nearest heirs.
The boundary line setting off Jane Scott Compton's part of the farm runs north and south. When this section is set off, the remaining part is divided into three parts. The lines dividing these parts run east and west. The northern part, which adjoins the property of Isaac Compton's son, Stout S. Compton, goes to Stout S. Compton. The middle part goes to Thomas Compton, and the southern part to Mrs. Garnsey. William V. W. Compton, who is appointed executor, gets a special bequest of $100. All the rest of the real and personal property is to be divided among Mary Ella Garnsey, Stout S. Compton and Thomas Compton.
The witnesses to the will were George H. Lohsen and Daniel W. VanNote.
Source: Red Bank Register, Wednesday, August 24, 1898
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Back to Obituary Search | <urn:uuid:b45cbd32-3174-4650-bbcf-5e46cd61b49e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://distantcousin.com/obits/nj/1800/1898/aug/24/comptonisaac.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944871 | 544 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I saw a new story on the BBC just there and was appalled to hear that only 50 herbal remedies will be available to buy after April in the EU. All the alternative medicines I buy will be banned and they have caused me no side effects, only benefits.
This is totally new to me and alarms me as the only alternative is pharmaceutical drugs. Is the growing realisation that herbal remedies work
affecting the big companies who are loosing money as popularity using herbal remedies sours?
In my opinion this will lead to more black market sales via the net and the regulations porporting to protect consumers will result in more deaths as
people will buy from doubious sources.
This will mean anyone who could walk into Holland and Barrett (A well known herbal remedy shop in the UK) will be limited to 50 herbal remedies?
All these companies will go to the wall with this latest legislation.
Big Brother is certainly controlling our lives?
(visit the link for the full news article) | <urn:uuid:0ae17e0e-d48f-4353-8adb-17450d9b2b25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread662174/pg1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945866 | 203 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Re: hypermedia affordances
Mike Sokolov scripsit: > personally I'm happy to be a king's follower in this instance. I > don't mind coinage of new terms as needed, but to avoid jargon it's > preferable to repurpose an old one that's relevant. How about > "links" or "references"? We are so used to them that we don't easily see that "links" and "references" are just as much jargon as "affordances". Our field has been repurposing terms from its beginnings, perhaps starting with "computer", which used to mean someone whose job it was to compute things, with or without an instrument. Yanks and Brits collided in the early days over "memory": the latter preferred the less misleading term "store", but it didn't last. I laughed almost twenty years ago when I got a letter from the principal of my daughter's school talking about the newfangled Internet: he mentioned that he knew some of us parents were "expert browsers". A natural mistake, really: isn't a browser an animal that eats shoots and leaves (no commas)? But not everyone thinks our terminological buccaneering a Good Thing. Primo Levi in his essay collection _Other People's Trades_ talks about his mystification in trying to decipher the manuals that came with his shiny new Macintosh: The computer was delivered to me accompanied by a profusion of manuals. I tried to study them before touching the keys, and I felt lost. It seemed to me that although they were apparently written in Italian, there were in an unknown language; indeed in a mocking and misleading language in which well-known words like "open," "close," and "quit" are used in unusual ways. [...] How much better it would have been to invent a decisively new terminology for these new things. And he also speaks of the un-helpfulness of the glossaries in those same manuals, which proceed "in an opposite direction to that of common dictionaries; these [glossaries] define familiar terms by having recourse to abstruse terms, and the effect is devastating." In short, the question of "new terms or old?" is a matter of taste and common practice in a field, and "affordance" belongs to a field related to ours but not the same. -- Yes, chili in the eye is bad, but so is your John Cowan ear. However, I would suggest you wash your [email protected] hands thoroughly before going to the toilet. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan --gadicath
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[K:NWTS 7/2 (Sep 1992) 26-29]
I want to speak to you about a senior citizen—curious fellow, this—who came to Jesus one night. Out of the darkness, he came—came secretly—at night when no spying eyes could see. Out of the blackness of his own unbelief, he came—by night, Nicodemus came in John 3 to see Jesus.
Jesus, who had just stunned the crowds by driving the money changers, those well-heeled entrepreneurs, out of the temple. Jesus, who had just shocked the religious establishment—those good ol' boys of the Jewish religious bureaucracy—by claiming to be greater than the temple. "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." This temple—where God and man meet; this temple where God condescends to dwell with his people; this temple where God tabernacles in the midst of his pilgrim people. Jesus says, "I AM"—"I AM where God and man meet—I am theanthrôpos—the God-man. I am the dwelling place of God with his people—I am the tabernacle of God in the flesh—I am the Immanuel-presence in the midst of the pilgrim people of God." Since my resurrection, Jesus says, no more temple. I am the only temple you need!
And Nicodemus comes to see this One. Out of the darkness, curious Nicodemus comes to hear Jesus talk of a birth from above into the below—a new birth (even for senior citizens)—a birth of water and Spirit. With the darkness of night outside, Nicodemus listens to Jesus talk of the bronze serpent of Moses. "As Moses lifted up the serpent so shall the Son of Man be lifted up." And Nicodemus, with the black night outside, hears of faith in One lifted up from the earth—One greater than Moses—One greater than Moses' bronze standard—One who when he is suspended between earth and sky will put an end to the sting of sin and the biting-curse of death. With the darkness outside, Nicodemus listens—listens to Jesus talk of life, not death; faith, not unbelief; eternal life, not perdition and damnation.
Curious Nicodemus comes by night to see Jesus—and he listens. And in this Jesus, he begins to see that God so loved the world. Curious Nicodemus comes by night, and in this Jesus he begins to see the light!
I am speaking to you of a senior citizen. No longer a curious fellow—now, hesitant, a bit nervous and self-conscious—yet even now surprised at his own courage. Nicodemus stands to defend Jesus in John 7 before the council, in front of the Sanhedrin. Others are plotting the death of Jesus. He has healed a man on the Sabbath day; he is worthy of death for being merciful to the sick! He has made himself a blasphemer, calling God his own Father; he is worthy of death for he has made himself equal with God! He has fed thousands with bread and fish, laying claim to be the Bread out of Heaven; he is worthy of death for he says he is living bread and living drink! He has stood up in Jerusalem on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles and shouted, "If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. I will give him rivers of living water." Surely he is worthy of death for he claims to be greater than Moses—to be himself a fountain of living water for the pilgrim people of God. Arrest him! Put him to death!
And Nicodemus screws up his courage and rises to the defense. Curious fellow this Nicodemus. He who came to Jesus first under the cover of darkness, now stands before the Jewish council in broad daylight to speak for Jesus. To act the advocate on behalf of Jesus—to ask that Jesus have the right to due process. Nicodemus who first came to Jesus seeking light is now standing to defend the Light; this Light of the World—whoever follows this One will not walk in darkness. For Nicodemus, the darkness is disappearing in the face of the Light of the World. Those who believe in him no longer remain in the darkness.
I am speaking to you of a senior citizen who comes into the darkness—the approaching darkness of the evening on this Friday—the pitch darkness of a tomb—a sepulcher newly cut out of rock. Nicodemus comes into the darkness that hovers about a cross in John 19. Dark day this—this Black Friday. The One whom he sought by night now hangs lifeless on the tree; the One whom he defended by day now slumps from nails. The dusk is gathering. He and his friend, Joseph—Joseph of Arimathea—must take the body of Jesus from the cross and bury it before nightfall. The night—squeezing the light out of the sky—the night, inky night crowds in upon their work. These two—only these two; everyone else has fled, everyone has deserted him. How very dark it is!
These two come to attend their Lord! Nicodemus comes with myrrh and aloes—with spices for the burial of his Lord! As Mary had come with precious ointment to bathe his feet in the gift of her love, Nicodemus comes with lavish spices—hundreds of dollars worth of spices for his dead Lord. Nothing hesitant about his movements, no idle curiosity, no suggestion of timidity; the body of Jesus is lovingly wrapped, gently carried, tenderly laid in the tomb. And the stone is rolled over the mouth of the sepulcher—and Jesus is left in the darkness of the grave.
Yes, Nicodemus. I must go into the darkness, into the black hole of death. I must do this for you, Nicodemus. You came out of the darkness to find the light. Now I must go back into the darkness for your sake and for the sake of all whom the Father has given unto me. Let not your heart be troubled, Nicodemus. I go to the cross for you. I go to be lifted up from the earth for you. I go to be accursed in your place that you may never be condemned. I go to death for you that you may never die. I come to the grave by you that by me you may never remain in the grave.
Wait for the third day, Nicodemus. Wait for that first day of the week, Nicodemus. Wait for that blessed Easter morn, Nicodemus. The sun—the sun of righteousness will rise; the light of the world will burst forth; the bright and morning star will shine. On the third day, Nicodemus, the light will shine in the darkness and the darkness will not be able to overcome it.
Nicodemus, out of your fervent devotion you have wrapped my body for the grave. You have wrapped your soul in that birth from above—that new birth which comes by the water flowing from my wounded side and the Spirit by which I have been raised up. Nicodemus, out of your profound love and gratitude, you have poured a treasure of spices upon my grave clothes. You have treasured this crucified Son of Man—this Bread out of Heaven—this Light of the World. Nicodemus, on the first day of the week, the darkness will disappear. Nicodemus, when I rise from the grave where you laid me, there will be no more darkness.
Dear, beloved, Nicodemus. I have gone to prepare a place for you in a city where there is no more night. For in that city, they have no need of the light of the sun—nor do they need a lamp anymore. For the Lamb is the light of that city. Yes, Nicodemus, the darkness has disappeared once and for all—it has been swallowed up in light. Come, dear, beloved, Nicodemus—come walk in the light. Come, dear, beloved, Nicodemus—walk even now in the light of the age to come. | <urn:uuid:e4dfbcbc-0934-4afd-a655-3e8accce0cfe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV7N2A3.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956309 | 1,740 | 1.789063 | 2 |
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We'll just call this column the aftermath of the primary election. It is now safe to answer the phone without receiving a recorded message plugging a candidate, and there is more room in the mailbox now that campaign literature isn't taking up the space.
As one who is an early voter, I find myself replying to the recorded message, "Too late, I already voted."
Of course, they don't know that, but it does give me some satisfaction. I would venture a guess that we received mail or calls that equaled close to the number of voters in the precinct where I am an election judge.
Jane Fremgen and I have been judges together for a number of years in Precinct 8 at Blythe Park School, and we have it almost down to a science. Over the years there have been many changes to improve the system and they are almost there.
One of the best moves has been instituting a program of having high school students serve as election judges. Student judges are approved by their high schools and are given the information on how to sign up to become an election judge. They go through the same procedure all judges go through, whether they are new or veteran judges.
They take an on-line training course followed by a class at an assigned place, which lasts almost four hours. The training sessions include a short lecture and small group hands-on training followed by a hands-on test and a written test. You are graded on both tests.
Our student judges in Precinct 8 were James (Jamie) Christopher and Tatiana Roman, students at Riverside-Brookfield High School and RBHS graduate Mia Corpuz, now attending Northwestern University. They did their jobs well and learned much about the voting process.
It is a long day beginning at 5 a.m. and ending after the polls close at 7 p.m. By that time the judges have dealt with everything from explaining to voters why they must declare a party in a primary to fixing machines which may need minor repairs, taking care of any electioneering which may occur, as well as greeting voters.
This year with some switches in precinct assignments, some voters had to be directed to their new polling places. All in all, it went well.
So now it will be calm for a while. Most of the campaign signs have been tossed or saved for November when we will begin again with the phone calls and the mailings.
But that is the process, and aren't we glad we have it? | <urn:uuid:c9af1bb9-12bc-4fab-87a7-8742552e0c74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rblandmark.com/News/Articles/3-27-2012/A-sigh-of-relief-after-Election-Day/ | 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 | 0.982594 | 521 | 1.710938 | 2 |
We’re developing a kids’ magazine designed to educate 8-to-12-year-olds and develop their hearts of Compassion.
This free publication will teach kids about poverty and other cultures, and encourage them to engage with children in need.
They will enjoy photos showing what a day is like for kids in other cultures, tips for writing to their families’ sponsored children, recipes, games from other countries, and more.
They will also have opportunities to contribute to the magazine by submitting their own pictures and stories.
If this sounds like something for you and your kids, please let us know. Send an email to [email protected] with your contact information.
We need to hear from you soon, because we hope to launch our first issue in January! | <urn:uuid:25e5b24a-1422-4961-8dd7-6ccacae4400e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.compassion.com/are-you-interested-in-a-compassion-magazine-for-kids/quote-comment-11604/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958717 | 164 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Wed April 25, 2012
Fitch Upgrades Ford's Junk Status
Originally published on Wed April 25, 2012 5:10 am
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
It's MORNING EDITION, from NPR News. Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renee Montagne.
After all the reports about massive debts and credit downgrades, we have a story this morning of a credit upgrade. The ratings agency Fitch upgraded Ford.
INSKEEP: The company was at junk bond status, meaning a loan to Ford was considered a major gamble. Now, it's been moved to investment grade, the lowest investment rating: BBB minus.
MONTAGNE: While that doesn't sound like a big step, it is another sign of a turnaround for the U.S. auto industry, a turnaround that's evident both at home and abroad.
We begin with NPR's Sonari Glinton.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: In the middle of the last decade, Ford was in deep trouble. To get out of it, the company pledged every single asset it had to get what's described as the biggest home improvement loan in history: $23.5 billion. Every single asset - right down to the blue oval that says "Ford" - was used as collateral. The difference between 2006 and now, for Ford, is the difference between...
MICHELLE KREBS: Near death to flourishing life.
GLINTON: Michelle Krebs is a senior analyst with Edmunds.com.
KREBS: There was great question about whether Ford was going to survive.
GLINTON: That money it borrowed also helped Ford survive the economic collapse. Plus, Ford went out and got a highly regarded - and highly compensated - CEO, Alan Mulally. Krebs says Ford took that money and focused on its products - its cars and its trucks.
KREBS: Every time Ford came out with a new product - a new Ford Focus, a new Ford Fiesta, the new Ford Explorer - that cost hundreds of millions of dollars in engineering costs, in buying the parts, in retooling the factory so that it could make this new model.
GLINTON: And every time the company comes up with a new model, it essentially borrows money to do it.
Jim Gillette is with IHS Automotive. He says now that the ratings agency Fitch has upgraded Ford's credit, it can borrow at lower rates.
JIM GILLETTE: Everything's a little bit cheaper now for Ford, so that's going to give them a little more flexibility in pricing power when it comes to the end consumer, and it's going to give them more capability of investing in new technologies and new models to take out to the marketplace.
GLINTON: In the last half-dozen years or so, cars like the Ford Fusion and the Ford Focus have met with approval. The Fusion is one of the best-selling cars in America, and that hasn't happened for Ford in more than a decade.
Gillette says it may be premature, though, to break out the champagne over the Fitch upgrade.
GILLETTE: It's an upgrade that takes you right from the edge of being a junk bond company or a high-yield company, into being investment grade. So it's still on the edge. In other words, the work is not over yet. Ford has to continue to pay down its debts.
GLINTON: Part of the work that's left is to get back full ownership of the iconic blue oval, the one Ford put up to secure loans. That can't happen until another ratings agency upgrades its status, and Ford won't have to use its most prized possessions as collateral anymore. As a Ford executive says, that will be the real symbol of a turnaround.
Sonari Glinton, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:22668f21-c759-4079-a07f-a6b68989f11e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kazu.org/post/fitch-upgrades-fords-junk-status | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964721 | 821 | 1.554688 | 2 |
If you are worrying about getting out of debt, then there are several things you need to know right now.
You are not alone
Help is at hand
Fact : Millions of people are in debt crisis.
The phone rings for the hundredth time today. Of course, you already know who it is; it's that dreaded debt collector. Why won't they stop? Don't they take the hint?
Dealing with debt collectors is a very scary and nerve-racking ordeal, sometimes even unfathomable. Debt collectors can be tough, hard nosed and, at times, ruthless.
Their job is to collect your debt and some will pull out every trick in the book to get you to pay. From non-stop phone calls to threats of litigation, debt collectors mean business so you need to be prepared for the next time they call.
If managing your debt has become a problem, it’s important to do something about it as soon as possible.
It can be tempting to do nothing and just hope things will sort themselves out, but if you start to miss payments, your creditors can put you under increasing pressure to settle the arrears.
If you’re already in this situation, don’t be bullied into agreeing to pay more than you can afford, because that will make your problem worse rather than solve it.
Where to find debt help
If you need debt help, it can be difficult to know who to turn to. If you look on the internet there are many different companies offering different solutions and know where to start can seem daunting.
Whatever your circumstances are there will be solution to help you.
This guide will provide you with a brief overview of some of the most common debt solutions.
Debt management plan
Who is it for?
A debt management plan is designed to help people who have some money left over at the end of the month, but not enough to pay all their debts.
How does it work?
A debt management plan is
normally arranged by a third party
– for example, a charity or
a debt Management Company. The organisation arranging your plan will draw up a proposal for your creditors, asking them to accept reduced payments. They will also ask for interest and charges to be stopped.
For example, if you have 10 unsecured creditors you will only pay 1 monthly payment depending on the size of your available income and the debt management organisation divides this payment between your creditors.
Debt relief order
Who is it for?
A debt relief order (DRO) is designed to help people with debts of less than £15,000 in total and have no more than £50 left over each month after paying essential living expenses.
It’s a legal procedure similar to bankruptcy. It is not suitable for anyone who either owns their home or has assets totaling more than £300 (excluding one car up to the value of £1,000).
How does it work?
You apply for a DRO through an intermediary who submits the application to the official receiver. You have to pay a fee of £90.00, which you won’t get back if the application is unsuccessful. But if it is successful, your debts will be written off after 12 months as long as you keep to the terms and conditions of the order.
During the 12 months your creditors won’t be able to chase you for payments or add interest and charges to the debt.
Individual Voluntary Arrangement
Who is it for?
An Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is a legal procedure for people with unsecured debts of £15,000
or more. It is an alternative to bankruptcy.
How does it work?
An IVA is arranged by an insolvency practitioner who will help and advise you throughout the process.
Your finances are assessed and the insolvency practitioner draws up a proposal for your creditors. Your available income is used to make affordable monthly payments towards your debt over an agreed amount of time, usually 5 years. You may also pay a lump sum as well as your available income. The remaining debt is written off at the end of the agreed time.
A creditor’s meeting is called
and a vote is taken. If creditors representing at least 75% of your total debt vote in favour of the IVA, then it can go ahead.
This means that the creditors can no longer take any legal action to recover the debt providing you keep to the terms
of the arrangement. There is a fee involved but this will be included in the payments you make.
The insolvency practitioner contacts you once a year to review your finances and you and your creditors receive an annual progress report and notification when the IVA is complete.
Who’s it for?
Bankruptcy is a legal procedure for people who cannot pay their debts within a reasonable time. It is a form of insolvency so to be eligible, your unsecured debts must outweigh your assets, including property and vehicles.
How does it work?
If you make yourself bankrupt, creditors write off your unsecured debts, meaning you have a fresh start. However, you will be subject to certain restrictions during the term of the bankruptcy, which is usually 12 months.
In order to file for bankruptcy, you have to pay a fee of £700 (£175 to the court and £525 to the official receiver).
If the bankruptcy is approved, creditors must stop charging interest and are prevented from contacting you or taking legal action to recover the debt.
In some cases, you are asked to make monthly payments towards your debts from your available income. This is known as an Income Payment Agreement, and can last for three years.
Bankruptcy should not be taken lightly as it is a big step and you may have to give up your assets.
You should always get expert advice before making the decision to go ahead with it.
The places we'd suggest contacting are:
Christians Against Poverty
Debt counselling agency, which specialises in helping those who are emotionally struggling too. The religious focus is why they do it, not how they do it.
Link: Christians Against Poverty
Tel: 01274 760720
Opening times: different for each bureau
Citizens Advice Bureau
Full debt and consumer advice service with many bureau having specialist caseworkers to deal with any type of debt including repossessions and negotiation with creditors.
Link: Citizens Advice or visit your local CAB centre (find nearest)
Opening Times: different for each bureau
Community Legal Advice (includes Housing Duty Scheme)
Legal advice on a wide range of issues, including debt (usually for those on benefits or a low income). The Housing Duty Scheme gives free advice by phone or at around 100 courts across England and Wales if you are in danger of eviction or repossession.
Link: Community Legal Advice
Tel: 0845 345 4345 (or text 'legalaid' and name to 80010 to get a call back)
Opening times: M-F 9am-6:30pm, Sa 9am-12:30pm.
Consumer Credit Counselling Service
A full debt help service in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Online support is also available via its Debt Remedy tool and vulnerable people (due to age, mental health or capacity) are able to get extra help support via the free advocacy service.
Tel: 0800 138 1111 (also free from mobiles)
Opening Times: M-F 8am-8pm, Sa 9am to 3pm
Debt Advice Foundation
A debt advice and education charity offering one to one advice.
Link: Debt Advce Foundation
Tel: 0800 043 40 50
Opening times: M - F 8am to 8pm, Sa 9am to 5pm
Debt Support Trust
The Debt Support Trust is a not-for-profit debt advice charity covering England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland via it's phone, email or online debt analyser tool.
Link: Debt Support Trust
Tel: 0800 085 0226 (or email)
Opening times: M - F 8am to 7pm
A full debt help service in England, Scotland and Wales. Online advice is also available via its My Money Steps tool.
Link: National Debtline
Tel: 0808 808 4000
Opening Times: M-F 9am-9pm, Sa 9.30am-1pm (or see Business Debtline for business debts).
Free debt advice and solutions for those in financial difficulty.
Tel: 0800 280 2816
Opening Times: M-F 8am-9pm, Sa 9am-3pm
Northern Irish residents
Two free, confidential and independent schemes in Northern Ireland are: advice4debtNI, a government funded service offering phone and email advice and AdviceNI, local centers that offer face to face advice and the ability to chat online to an advisor via its 'beattherecession' scheme. | <urn:uuid:731b1789-6df1-4da0-bf73-1b26ef40da76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.youandyourrights.co.uk/how-to-survive-debt-collection-calls.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949111 | 1,861 | 1.648438 | 2 |
I don't have a gym membership and I want to do some muscle-building (mostly to enhance my running and also to help bone strength for old age). Any tips for "weight training" without weights? I do have little five pound dumbells but since I'm naturally strong already, they don't do much.
You can get a crazy workout just using your body weight and doing classic moves like pushups, lunges, squats, tricep dips and such. I do P90X2 and lots of the moves are done without weights and are extremely difficult. Try doing a pushup, then holding out your right arm and your left leg at the same time. Alternate, repeat, collapse!
I'm with Kiera on this one! P90X2 is an awesome way to work out at home-- I love it! One of my girlfriends who is an avid runner also does the program and shes says its an awesome addition to her regular training program.
I would definitely recommend giving P90X2 a try. :)
A lot of strengthening can be done with weight bearing exercises like Yoga, Pilates, TRX where you are just using your own body weight. You rent/buy DVDs or even find them on On Demand if you have cable.
For Yoga I love Sadie Nardine, Rodney Yee and Seana Corne
1-Water Fastens Weight Loss
2-Frequent Small Portioned Meals For Faster Weight Loss
3-Fruits & Vegetables for Healthier Weight Loss
4-Say NO to Fatty Foods
5-Regular Exercises for Faster Weight Loss
6-Avoid Late Night Meals
7-Listen to Your Body
8-Fiber for Fast Weight Loss
Join the Discussion!
Login or create an account on The Kind Life today and you'll be able to leave comments, share photos and videos with friends, and participate in community events! | <urn:uuid:9d74615c-8c95-40f8-9f69-8a46508ac9f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thekindlife.com/forum/topic/1685479/how-to-weight-train-without-weights | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93477 | 395 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Of all the issues that got some airing at this morning's National Journal-hosted event on early childhood education, one theme resounded more than any other: Politicians, and, by extension, the people who vote for them, don't see early learning as a priority.
That's the case in spite of broad agreement across the political spectrum that investing both public and private dollars in early childhood programs—especially for poor kids—pays numerous dividends down the line, said a slew of panelists who participated in an event titled "Early Education for Success: Early Childhood Education's Impact on the Economy." And that's the case in spite of "overwhelming" research that shows multiple, positive outcomes for children who participate in a quality early childhood program, according to Arthur J. Rolnick, a senior fellow and co-director of the Human Capital Research Collaborative at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, one of the panelists.
So why don't more folks running for political office—including the White House—talk about early childhood in substantive, meaningful ways? Will we, just a little over three months from the election, finally hear Mitt Romney talk about the earliest years of learning and what policies he would support if he wins the White House? Will President Obama—who has a track record on early childhood policies to highlight, from the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge to the overhaul of how federal Head Start funds are doled out—talk about those things beyond sound bites?
Panelist Mike Castle, a former Republican governor of Delaware and nine-term congressman, put some of the blame for the void on the media, saying that it "has just not done a good job" of covering the importance of early learning, or for that matter, K-12 education, and the direct connections to the long-term health of the economy. Reporters on the campaign trail ought to be asking about early childhood, but don't, he said.
Fellow panelist Jon Schnur, an education advisor to President Obama, didn't disagree with Castle, but he said candidates themselves should be raising the issue. He said that while there is political support for expanding and investing in early childhood programs, it's not "pervasive" enough. He also didn't miss his chance to point out that Romney hasn't talked at all about early childhood on the campaign trail and that no one from the campaign had come to participate in the National Journal discussion on early childhood.
Rolnick offered what is the most likely reason: Kids who stand to benefit most from public investments in early childhood programs are years away from voting and very often come from households where the adults are unlikely to trek to the polls on Election Day.
The lack of public discourse about early learning and childcare (or, in some cases, the misplaced attention it gets—the pregnant Yahoo CEO being a prime example) certainly irks lots of folks. Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak has a piece today carping about the utter absence of talk or policy focus on childcare during the infant and toddler years.
So, apart from haranguing the media into asking about early childhood issues on the campaign trail, or hoping that candidates, on their own, start raising the issue, what do we do to elevate—and sustain—the conversation? Will more statements about the smart economics of early childhood from influential people like the Fed chairman help? Please, weigh in. | <urn:uuid:1712552c-d2e8-4e1f-8e90-3b34f24aa45c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.earlychildhoodalliance.com/node/5942 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965716 | 697 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Posts Tagged ‘Goa’
The threat of US sanctions if dependence on Iranian oil is not reduced hangs over India. In the age of oil price inelasticity, this is a clear inflationary problem. This article from IE can be read as an indication that a significant part of the solution could be political:
With the Goa government proposing a reduction in petrol prices by Rs 11, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Rajiv Shukla today said the other states especially the BJP ruled ones should emulate the step to ease the burden on the common man.
“As far as petrol and diesel are concerned, states get more tax than the Centre from petroleum products. They impose more tax and get more. If states abolish taxes, then it will ease the burden on the common man,” he said.
Talking to reporters outside Parliament, he said long before Goa took the step, the Vilas Rao Deshmukh government in Maharashtra and the Andhra Pradesh government had initiated such a move.
“Central government had already reduced the custom duty…the share of the state govt is far bigger as far as money generated from petroleum products is concerned. State government should think over this (emulating Goa),” he said.
Shukla said the state government gets about 1.6 lakh crore as tax from petroleum products.
The Manohar Parrikar government had yesterday announced that only 0.1 percent value added tax (VAT) component would be levied by the state government during the presentation of the Budget.
Of course, party politics will never be separated from long term policy.
Across states there was a vote against inflation and local issues.
The Star News-AC Neilson exit poll said SP [Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party] would get 183 seats, followed by BSP [Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party] with 83 seats, BJP 71 and Congress at fourth with 51 seats. Headlines Today polls showed SP getting between 195 and 210 seats followed by BSP with 88-98 seats, BJP with 50-56 seats and Cong-RLD combine with 38-42.
Similarly, India TV-C-Voter exit poll showed SP winning 137-145 seats followed by BSP with 122-130 seats, and News24 and Today’s Chanakya poll claiming SP would win 185 seats.
Another poll by CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS had even gone over board by projecting SP bagging 232 to 250 seats in the 403-member Assembly.
However, results show that SP won over 220 seats and BSP around 80.
The CNN-IBN-The Week-CSDS poll predicted a +9% swing for the SP, -6% for the BSP, -3% for the BJP and -1% for the Congress+RLD. No margins of error were reported. A swing is the vote share in this election over that in the 2007 election. Z News reports that the actual swing for SP was +6%, most of it coming from a -4% for the BSP. There was a -2% swing for the BJP with the Congress picking up +2% and other parties together giving another -2% swing. It could be that the BJP and Congress are stuck with an older model for the electorate, whereas the BJP and BSP have created a new and larger electoral pool for themselves.
IBN Live reports:
Despite attaining absolute majority in Punjab, the Shiromani Akali Dal and its ally BJP lost its vote share in comparison to Congress which failed to leave up to its expectations in the poll results of the 117 member Assembly.
The father-son duo of Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal succeeded in convincing the Punjab electorate to give 56 seats to the SAD, but they failed to raise the party’s vote share as compared to its tally in 2007 polls.
While the SAD’s vote share in this elections declined to 34.75 per cent as compared to 37.09 per cent in 2007, its ally BJP’s vote share also came down to 7.13 per cent this time as against 8.28 per cent in the previous hustings.
Left parties CPI and CPM, however, seems to be disappearing from the political scene as the vote share of both the parties fell drastically this time as compared to 2007 polls.
While CPI fell from 3.31 per cent to 0.82 per cent, the CPM dropped from 2.25 per cent in 2007 to 0.16 per cent in 2012 polls. The vote percentage of CPI and CPM fell by 2.49 per cent and 2.09 per cent, respectively.
In the present House, the number of Independents came down from six to three but their vote share of 417 Independents in fray this time increased by 0.06 per cent from 6.82 in 2007 to 6.76 per cent this year.
Z News reported a downswing for both major parties: -1% for the Congress and -3% for the incumbent SAD (Shiromani Akali Dal). The swing votes went to smaller parties.
ET reported on the see-saw battle in Uttarakhand:
Congress tonight appeared on course to form government in Uttarakhand after it took a wafer-thin one seat advantage over ruling BJP in a cliff-hanger of a contest in state assembly polls.
Out of all the 70 results, Congress won 32 seats–four short of majority in the 70-member House–and ruling BJP followed closely with 31 seats.
Congress sources said the party would seek the support from three successful independent candidates as well as UKD, which won one seat, for government-making.
BSP won three seats and could also hold the to government formation in the state.
As Congress emerged as the single largest party, a delegation of the party called on Governor Margaret Alva late this evening and staked claim to form new government.
The reason for the close race is in vote swings. Z News reported that there were massive swings for the two major parties: +3% for the Congress and a stupendous +9% for the BJP.
The Hindu reported on Goa:
Cashing-in on the anti-incumbency factor in a big way, the Bharatiya Janata Party-Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party combine on Tuesday rode to power in Goa, ousting the Congress and securing a majority in a House of 40 members, nearly half of whom will be new faces.
While the BJP won in 21 constituencies, seven more than last time, the MGP raised its tally from two in the last polls to three seats in the March 3 Assembly election results for which were declared on Tuesday.
The Congress, which had 16 seats last time, was reduced to nine seats with many of its stalwarts, including several Ministers and Goa Pradesh Congress Committee president Subhas Shirodkar, biting the dust. Its ally the Nationalist Congress Party, which had three seats last time, was wiped out.
So pronounced was the wind of change, that 19 new faces were elected this time.
Goa is the BJP’s new heartland. Z News reports an astounding +8% swing for the BJP and +1% for the left at the expense of -2% for the Congress and another -7% for other parties.
It was an unexpected victory for the Congress in the 10th assembly election in Manipur. Till last night, Congress insiders had speculated that they would bag 25-27 seats. But today’s result in the state has defied even the most optimistic Congressman’s expectations. With no less than a landslide victory with a two third majority and 42 out of 60 assembly constituencies under its belt, the Congress is all set to begin its third term as the ruling party in Manipur.
And the Congress was fighting against major odds in these elections. Ahead of the elections came a dictat by seven underground groups operating in the valley areas which had banned the Congress party from the elections.
The main change in Manipur according to Z News is that the politics of this eastern state is coming closer to the national average, with a swing of +8% for the Congress and +6% for the BJP at the expense of -7% for the MPP and another -7% for the others.
The 2011 Census directorate classifies an area as urban if it fulfills one of two conditions. Any area that comes under a corporation, municipality or town panchayat is automatically classified as urban.
“We also have ‘census towns’ that are considered urban. These are places that have a population of 5,000 and above, have a density of 400 persons per sq km and 75% of the male population employed in non-agricultural occupations,” said S Gopalakrishnan, director of census operations in Tamil Nadu.
“Many areas earlier classified as rural have got better facilities and have been merged with a municipality or corporation,” said Dr N Audinarayana , professor and head, population studies department, Bharathiar University, citing the examples of Chennai and Coimbatore.
“In many districts, people have taken up a non-agricultural occupation even if they have only studied up to class eight. So the area is classified as urban even though it is surrounded by fields,” he said.
Here are some salient figures:
- 31.2% of the Indian population is urbanized, ie, 68.8% of the population is rural. Punjab, Mizoram, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Kerala and Tamil Nadu all have more than 35% of the population living in towns. Bihar, Orissa and Assam have at least 90% of the population in villages. Maharashtra has the largest urban population: 26.77 million.
- Urban areas have grown at the decadal rate of 31.9%, and the rural population by only 12.2%. This, in spite of the fact that the birth rate in rural areas is larger: 14.11% of the rural population is younger than 7 years, but only 10.93% of the urban population is so young. Does this imply large adult migrations out of villages, or a genuine fall in fecundity in urban areas?
- The rural sex ratio is 947 females per 1000 males. The urban sex ratio is 926 females per 1000 males. In the age group below 7 years the sex ratio is worse: 919 for rural areas and only 902 for urban!
Telegraph (London) reviews the book The Colour of Paradise by Kris Lane. Interesting details:
Where had those emeralds come from? The Mughals and Persian Shahs had a three-fold classification: the very best were said to be from Egypt, the next category came from ‘old mines’ in Asia and the lowest quality came from ‘new mines’ in the Americas. But this was a fiction. Just 10 years ago, a team of mineralogists analysed the oxygen isotopes in a number of famous Mughal emeralds, and found that almost all of them were from the Americas. To be more precise, they were from the highlands of Colombia; this analysis was in fact able to identify the specific outcrops from which they had been extracted.
The speed with which these jewels had passed along oceanic trade routes and percolated into India and Persia is remarkable. Admittedly, some emeralds had been filtering back into Europe since the 1530s, when conquistadors plundered them from the treasuries of the Amerindian rulers they conquered. More emerged once these rapacious Spaniards understood that in some of these societies, jewels were buried with the dead: graves were opened and skeletons tossed aside in the search for booty.
The wreck of a treasure galleon from Colombia, which sank off Florida in 1622, has yielded 6,000 emeralds; the surviving copy of the ship’s manifest does not mention them at all.
What held this trade together was a network of families, most of them Portuguese ‘New Christians’ (converted Jews), who had buyers in Colombia and the Caribbean, financiers and gem-cutters in Lisbon, and jewel-sellers in Goa. Some of Lane’s most fascinating pages tell the stories of their lives, with details culled from the Inquisition archives. The Inquisitors suspected, correctly, that many of them had not abandoned Judaism at all; by the mid-17th century it had expelled most of them from Colombia’s main trading centre, with predictable economic effects. Many moved to English or Dutch territory, and the jewel business of the English East India Company would soon be flourishing in the hands of traders with names such as Moses Henriques and Abraham da Fonseca.
Global trade is not a monopoly of the last 50 years.
Police in the Indian city of Mumbai have arrested a second man over an alleged sexual assault on a Russian girl aged nine holidaying in Goa.
The detainee, who was named as Aman Bharadwaj, was due to be brought back to the resort region on Saturday, police told Indian and Russian media.
A man named as Anil Raghuvanshi was earlier arrested in Goa.
The girl’s mother said she had been distracted by one man while the other attacked her daughter in Arambol.
India’s PTI news agency said the two men arrested had been working together as assistant machine operators in Goa.
Other alleged attacks on Russian tourists in Goa, one of India’s most popular tourist destinations, have been reported in Russia in recent years.
The police must be breathing easy that it wasn’t a politically connected person this time around; they can try to diffuse Russia’s annoyance by solving this case quickly.
From Gulf Times, Qatar:
Meanwhile, the All India Milli Council yesterday supported a demand of Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray to hang Kasab without trial.
Thackeray in an editorial in yesterday’s edition of the Saamna, a mouthpiece of the Shiv Sena, demanded that Kasab be hanged without trial.
Iqbal Mohideen, president of the All India Mili Council (Goa), said Kasab’s chilling crime should be judged through the Shariah.
Oh, the delicious irony of it all! | <urn:uuid:72819fd0-a9f3-4165-8d53-e10e1d32fac0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oakblue.wordpress.com/tag/goa/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967726 | 3,028 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Issue 132 - June 2012 (1st Edition) - Page 4
Images Of Strange Mermaid Found On Beach
Circulating photographs of a strange sea-creature are claimed to depict the body of a mermaid or alien found on a beach.
The photographs do not depict a real mermaid or alien. Instead they show a sculpture by artist Juan Cabana.
Detailed analysis and references below example.
Last updated: 29th May 2012
First published: 4th August 2006
Article written by Brett M. Christensen
About Brett Christensen and Hoax-Slayer
Subject: Strange Creature
The mermaid found on Malaysian island:
These images have been circulating via email, forums and blogs since 2006. They supposedly show a strange mermaid-like creature found washed ashore. This variant claims that the mermaid was found on a Malaysian island. Alternative versions of the message relocate the discovery to other parts of the world. Yet another version of the message claims that the creature is actually of extraterrestrial origin:
An alien was found by a fisherman in Teluk Bahang. Newspapers aren't allowed to publish it. Some mayb seen it b4. I dont know the percentage of original. Dont ask me what happen to the alien or where is the alien now either. Im curious to know it as well.
Not surprisingly, however, the mermaid is not a real, flesh and blood creature, but instead a sculpture by talented artist, Juan Cabana. A series of photographs
of the mermaid can be found on the artist's website along with an entire menagerie
of other strange and wonderful creations.
Mr Cabana has sold this mermaid and other creations
via eBay auctions under the name "SeaMystery". According to information previously available on the auction website, the winning bid for the mermaid was recorded at $1,550.00 US.
Cabana does not specifically state that his creatures are sculptures in his eBay descriptions. Instead, he creates fictional cover stories to go with the sculptures that include such information as how and where the particular creature was supposedly washed ashore and subsequently discovered. In an enlightening Small WORLD PodCast interview
, the artist claims that he gives the items a cover story to create excitement about the sale and add an element of fun. He says that he at first made clear in his auction listings that he had actually made the objects but that approach "seemed like it was boring". Adding a story, he says, generates a lot more excitement. He assumes that most potential buyers will understand that the stories are tongue in cheek. Within the context of their original eBay listings, this assumption is not unreasonable. However, when the pictures and stories "escape" into cyberspace and get passed around out of their original context, they are apt to deceive many recipients. It should be noted that the images are taken from the eBay listings and distributed without Mr Cabana's permission or knowledge.
The artist uses a variety of materials to create his mermaids and monsters, including animal skulls, fish and animal skin, steel, plastic and fiberglass.
Folk tales and apparent sightings of mermaids have been around for centuries. Juan Cabana's mermaid joins a long line of fabricated mermaid carcasses
that manage to tap into our deep-seated fascination for such creatures. Mr Cabana's exceptional talent at creating quite life-like creatures means that these mermaid images and the various descriptions that accompany them, are likely to continue circulating for a long time to come.
Tampa Bay Beach Sea Monster
Juan Cabana, Mermaid Sculptor Episode | small WORLD podcast
Dead Mermaid Found in the Philippines
Pages in this issue:
- Spurious First Aid Advice Message - Eggs For Treatment of Burns
- ANZ Bonus Reward Points Phishing Scam
- London Olympics 2012 Lottery Scam
- Images Of Strange Mermaid Found On Beach
- Walmart '$75 Credit for Customers' Phishing Scam
- American Express 'Verify User ID' Malware Email
- Postcard Campaign for Charlie - Please DO NOT Send Any More Cards
- Norton 'Protection Notification' Email Account Phishing Scam
- Domain Name Application Scam
- Immigration Quote Wrongly Attributed to Sir Edmund Barton | <urn:uuid:9628a4b8-5626-41c4-8686-ef96997f204b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hoax-slayer.com/132-4.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933275 | 871 | 1.53125 | 2 |
There is an age old argument about whether salespeople are born or made. Regardless of your answer to this question, there are fundamentals required in order for both born and made salespeople to be effective and perform at an optimum level. Salespeople who attend formal Local Sales Training are more effective which generally results in higher sales and increased revenue. Local Sales Training will typically address the four key areas of the sales cycle: prospecting, qualifying, selling, and closing. In order to sell anything, you must first have someone to sell it to. Prospecting, sometimes referred to as lead generation, is the process of identifying potential customers and then creating an interest in your product with those potential customers. Good Local Sales Training will definitely cover prospecting is detail. Once you have identified a potential customer and they are interested in your product, it is imperative you qualify that prospect. Local Sales Training will provide the fundamentals on how to best qualify a prospect. A common mistake salespeople make is not properly qualifying a prospect resulting in spending days, weeks or months selling only to find there is no budget, the person has no authority to buy, and a myriad of other potential pitfalls. Make sure any Local Sales Training you are interested in provides training on qualifying prospects. | <urn:uuid:676266d3-d74d-4163-ad13-974daf1275a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pointcom.com/CA/Palm-Springs/business-search/Sales%20Training/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970991 | 249 | 1.6875 | 2 |
National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority director general Vitalis Chadenga has died. Chadenga, a veteran conservationist, died at the Avenues Clinic in Harare yesterday afternoon where he had been battling for life since being admitted last weekend. He had collapsed in Bulawayo last Thursday while attending a Zimbabwe-Botswana Joint Permanent Commission meeting and was thereafter airlifted to the Avenues Clinic in Harare.
Parks board chairman Mr George Pangeti confirmed Chadenga's death yesterday.
"The director-general Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, Vitalis Chadenga, has died.
"He died this afternoon at the Avenues Clinic. Funeral arrangements will be announced in due course," said Mr Pangeti.
Chadenga was appointed National Parks director general on May 1 2010, after rising through the ranks. He replaced Dr Morris Mutsambiwa whose term had expired.
Before his appointment, he was director responsible for conservation.
Since the early 1990s, Chadenga served in various capacities in wildlife and natural resources management where he was the overseer of the clearing of tsetse flies - which cause sleeping sickness in humans and Nagano in livestock -- from vast tracts of land in the Zambezi Valley.
This made the Zambezi valley habitable.
He rose to the position of head of the Tsetse and Trypanosomiasis Research and Control, leading to his appointment as chairman of the Africa executive committee of the International Scientific Council for Trypanosomiasis Research and Control at a meeting held in the Gambia in 1995.
Thereafter he was appointed deputy director for research at the then Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management where he rose through the ranks to become the director of operations before becoming the director for conservation in the new look National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. Mourners are gathered at 848 Mount Pleasant Heights, Harare. | <urn:uuid:693f7ed7-be20-43f5-8270-bf7cca270a1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://allafrica.com/stories/201209060743.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960763 | 395 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Enterprise communications: the new target for cybercriminals by Andreas Seum
Security continues to give enterprises a headache across their networks. New security threats emerge weekly and enterprise corporate infrastructures are under attack as never before. According to Symantec’s annual State of Enterprise Security report, 29 percent of enterprises saw an increase in attacks over the 12 months .
Enterprise communications, including voice, is looking increasingly vulnerable. A recent report from ViperLab found that in just one year, attacks from hackers targeting enterprise unified communications (UC) servers increased by 50 percent. What’s more, a full 25 percent of all hacking attacks in the open Internet were against voice and UC.
Many of these attacks are attempts to commit toll fraud, says ViperLab. This is where a hacker takes control of an enterprise VoIP server to place long distance calls or premium rate service calls.One company told ComputerWorld magazine how they were hit with a $100,000 phone bill after being the victim of just such an attack.
These attacks hark back to the pre-Internet telephony crime called phreaking, where hackers would attempt to compromise enterprise PBXs in order to commit similar crimes. They are more widespread than you might think. Security magazine quotes an FBI report that says that a major international toll fraud ring hit 2,200 US enterprises with total estimated losses of a staggering $55 million.
So how do you prevent yourself from becoming a victim? The key is not to think of security as a series of discrete elements in your IT infrastructure. Security must lie at the core of your operations and be an integrated part of your IT and voice networks.
In the past, applications were developed in silos, with a modular approach that led to integration and security problems when applied across systems. But today’s enterprises need information to flow seamlessly across a variety of systems and applications to increase productivity. This requires a multi-layer approach to security to minimize the security risks.
Because security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, it is vital that fundamental security principles are incorporated throughout the lifecycle of each product, solution and service. These need to comply with internationally recognized standards, such as ISO 27000, BS 25999, IT Service Management (ITIL) and the National Institute for Standards & Technology (NIST).
This is the approach that Siemens Enterprise Communications takes to security. We believe that “security must be built-in, rather than bolted on”. Our security focus begins at the moment a product, service or solution is conceptualized and continues through to implementation by our customers, and beyond. Each of our offerings integrates a robust set of security technologies, processes and features to ensure compliance with our clients’ internal requirements.
During the design phase of each of our solutions, we perform a comprehensive theoretical threat and risk analysis to assess real-world issues such as password management, as well as penetration tests during the testing phase to uncover and correct vulnerabilities. We have an extensive security portfolio that secures a range of different products and services, including devices and clients, contact center, UC applications and converged platforms. | <urn:uuid:8c08e9e9-8fe2-4479-9ee8-dee68f5114a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.siemens-enterprise.com/us/products-services/security/securityblog/securityblog-archive.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950428 | 642 | 1.65625 | 2 |
As writers, we live with our stories and characters for years, even decades — so it is no surprise that when we take those stories out of our heads and put them on the page, our defenses rally to protect them. Hearing critiques becomes an intense and emotional experience. But those protective instincts and heightened emotions could be preventing your story from reaching its full potential.
As a first-time author, I had to learn to listen to feedback and filter it through my own vision for the book. I use a pattern of thinking that served me well during the process of writing and revising my first novel, The Fire Horse Girl.
Guest column by Kay Honeyman, author of the young adult debut,
THE FIRE HORSE GIRL (Arthur Levine, Jan. 2013). In a starred review,
Booklist said “Honeyman’s voice, authentic and consistent, transcends
this historical fiction/adventure/love story to embrace every young woman
who has ever searched for the real person hidden under the veneer of
society’s expectations.” Honeyman grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and
attended Baylor University. She currently teaches middle school and
lives in Dallas, Texas.
REMEMBER THAT THE PAYOFF IS A BETTER FINAL DRAFT
If the comments are critical, I resist the impulse to defend my story. In my first writing class, we wrote short stories and brought them to class to share. My instructor laid down one rule – “If it isn’t on the page, it isn’t on the page. Don’t waste time trying to prove it is.” I try to make listening to a critique my first instinct. It’s not always easy, but the rewards of clearer prose, a better story, and a richer experience for the reader are worth it.
DON’T CLING TO COMPLIMENTS
Positive comments come with that wonderful warm and fuzzy feeling, but they can be even more dangerous. Just like I try not to push against criticism, I work hard not to cling to tightly to one person’s compliments. Good can often get in the way of great.
EXAMINE *WHY* READERS HAVE THEIR CONCERNS
Once I have heard a reader’s feedback, I reflect on what they meant. Early readers have a difficult job – sorting through the messy, cumbersome first or second drafts of a story. I have asked them to find problems that, at that moment, even I can’t see. It is my job as a writer not only to listen to what people are saying but also dig beneath the surface and discover why they are saying it. If a reader doesn’t like a character, maybe I haven’t shown their role in the story or their motivations. If they point to a scene and shake their head, I need to look at its purpose and stakes. A good critique will spotlight problems in a manuscript or a scene. It will point to part of the mechanisms of the story and say, “This isn’t working.” My job is to tinker with the parts until it’s fixed.
I may deal with the suggestions the day I get them, or I may continue to write forward and deal with them later. Either way, it helps to write down every critique I get. I tend to put them in as comments on my Word document with the reader’s initials attached. That allows me to keep up with what was said and who said it. Until I have listened, reflected, and revised if necessary, the critique stays in the document.
Critiques can bring a fresh perspective if you allow them past your defenses, filter them through what you know about the story, and then use them move your story towards its potential.
Other writing/publishing articles & links for you:
- How to Write Your First Novel: 6 Pieces of Advice.
- The Importance of Setting in Your Fiction.
- NEW Literary Agent Seeking Writers: Claire Dunnington of Vicky Bijur Literary.
- How to Write a Plan a Book Series.
- Sell More Books by Building Your Author Platform.
- Follow Chuck Sambuchino on Twitter or find him on Facebook. Learn all about his writing guides on how to get published, how to find a literary agent, and how to write a query letter. | <urn:uuid:69ec7edf-5bc0-416d-baa0-c7c2e7b6e95e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/how-to-deal-with-writing-critiques-3-helpful-hints | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945679 | 914 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Rupert's Fund is supporting a research project in Canada to investigate pain so it is better understood and treated. It aims to look for structural damage to the brain and spinal cord between Cavaliers with and without clinical signs of pain associated with syringomyelia (SM) and chiari-like malformation(CM)
This pilot study is supported jointly with the For the Love of Ollie Fund. It is being conducted at the Thames Valley Veterinary Services (Jane Sykes and John Butler) in cooperation with the Lawson Health Research Institute (Karen Kennedy, Frank Bihari and Lela Deans in collaboration with Dr Rusbridge in the UK).
Jane Sykes is providing free pre-anaesthesia bloodwork on the dogs and Clare Rusbridge, a free grading certificate, which has allowed costs to be kept to a minimum. Thanks to Karen Kennedy''s hard work in co-ordinating the dogs, Rupert's Fund is delighted to report there have already been 7 A grade dogs identified, 5 of which have been over 6 years of age!!
This project has been made possible by the hard working army of Cavalier lovers whose donations, however small or large have made a huge difference. It is an excellent example of how breeders, researchers and pet owners are doing the best they can to ensure we get much needed answers. | <urn:uuid:40f14f0c-b086-44c3-b3f8-500efb688419> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/printthread.php?t=39622&pp=10&page=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955005 | 269 | 1.8125 | 2 |
SUDBURY, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Nov. 23, 2012) - Members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) from area Locals are meeting Monday to put into action a campaign aimed at protecting workers' democratic rights to free collective bargaining. The evening's event is one of a series of about 20 regional meetings taking place across the province.
"Public service workers across Ontario are facing threats of new provincial legislation that attacks our democratic rights to collective bargaining, and impartial third-party arbitration," said CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn. "These rights come from decades of hard work that have brought fairness and stability to labour relations in Ontario, they must be protected."
Bill 115, the Liberals' legislation that affects school board workers, and other proposed legislation strips long-standing rights from workers who collectively negotiate their contract with employers. It allows the government to dictate what a collective agreement must achieve and to change a negotiated agreement unilaterally. Proposed legislation also undermines the ability for workers to seek impartial third-party arbitration when collective bargaining hits a dead end.
The campaign is calling for the repeal of Bill 115 and an end to any further legislation proposed by the government and PC Leader Tim Hudak that undermines the rights of other public service workers.
"The Liberals are creating an unnecessary crisis by attacking our democratic rights," said CUPE Ontario Secretary-Treasurer Candace Rennick. "The government's intrusion could destabilize public services people depend on. We will be discussing steps to be taken locally to help protect these services - and our members." | <urn:uuid:e7e6e5ca-c3e1-451c-a750-a55960cabc6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/cupe-locals-launch-campaign-to-protect-democratic-rights-1729713.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954183 | 324 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Referee! Sport tackles Social Media
The news that footballer Marvin Sordell has sought treatment for Twitter addiction has kickstarted a new debate about sport and social media.
Plenty of ink has been spilled, with The Guardian’s Barney Ronay asking why 140-characters holds such a fatal attraction.
One thing is certain: it’s a mass affliction. In a minority of cases, such as Marvin Sordell’s, additional factors are likely to be in play, separating the “normal” obsession the rest of us are avidly and cheerfully pursuing.
But apart from the few cases in which message management requires clinical rather than PR advice, there is a wider tension within football. They’re happy to demonise social media as long as they can monetise it too.
One can imagine more managers declaring their players “addicted” and confiscating their smartphones, as Bolton already have.
Alex Ferguson proclaimed Twitter “a waste of time” back in 2011, but a prohibition, at any club, is unlikely.
Star players employ sophisticated teams of advisers, marketers and strategists aware of a pro footballer’s lifespan. In this context, social media is too valuable to ignore.
Other sports aren’t immune. Diver Tom Daley scored the highest growth in Twitter followers over the Olympics, enjoying a massive boost to his profile, but attracting criticism for not ‘taking a Twitter break’ during the Games.
His current reality show Splash! has been divebombed by those who argue “you can guarantee the next Chinese diving superstar will not have such distractions from training.”
For the managers, trainers and officials willing our top sportspeople to win, it’s not technology that is the threat, but anything that divides athletes’ attention and energy from the podium.
Yet when Daley’s mum fought back she gained a lot of celebrity support, reflecting a simple fact: we cannot reasonably prevent our sportspeople from expressing themselves.
Nor can we stand in the way of them pursuing opportunities and projects likely to secure them longevity beyond the mayfly lifespan of top-level competitors.
Would Tom Daley have scored an ITV commission without Twitter?
Impossible to say, but the potential audience would be harder to forecast without citing his 2.1 million followers; his personal momentum harder to trace and demonstrate without the cheap and easy analytical tools that Twitter and its fellows have brought into play.
Photo (cc) erase | <urn:uuid:ecd0790a-f01a-4f4a-8894-06e41ae113dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chinwag.com/blogs/verityfine/referee-sport-tackles-social-media | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945569 | 518 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Theatre de la Jeune Lune, Innovative Tony-Winning Regional Troupe, to Shut Down
By Kenneth Jones
In the great wilderness of non-traditional theatre in the United States, a tree has fallen. The board of directors of the ambitious, Tony Award-winning Theatre de la Jeune Lune in Minneapolis, MN, voted to list the theatre's headquarters for sale and to shut down the arts group as currently organized.
"We have reached these decisions with great regret," stated board president Bruce Neary. "However, our fiduciary responsibilities to our artists, our staff, our donors and our creditors dictate this action. We are listing the building for sale in order to fully satisfy our creditors."
Neary added, "The board is committed to an orderly shutdown, including satisfying all existing rental obligations through Sept. 30, 2008."
Jeune Lune has provided Minneapolis-St. Paul audiences with visually stunning, mind-stirring work often movement-oriented, projection-kissed and theatrically multi-disciplinary since 1978. Among popular or lauded titles were its early comedy hit Yang Zen Froggs and the nationally acclaimed Children of Paradise: Shooting a Dream, plus popular re-imaginings of operas, including The Magic Flute, Carmen, Maria de Buenos Aires, Don Juan Giovanni and Figaro.
The company won a Tony Award in 2005 as Best Regional Theatre, and has been recognized as one of the country's most innovative and visionary artistic institutions.
Dominic Papatola, theatre critic at the Saint Paul Pioneer Press since 1999, and an observer of Jeune Lune's work since the early '90s, told Playbill.com on June 23, "At its best, Theatre de la Jeune Lune was a model for what theatre in the Twin Cities and, I would argue, throughout the country could be. The company not only was visionary, but it remained true to its vision; challenging audiences as it delighted them. Through their partnerships with companies across the country, they breathed new life into the American regional theatre movement. The Lunies could experiment relentlessly, and they weren't afraid to fail. Their ambition and their daring gave license to a generation of theatre practitioners here and elsewhere to stretch their imaginations."
TJL's two local productions this year, The Deception and Fishtank, both exceeded box office expectations and their recent tour of Figaro, presented by Berkeley Repertory Theatre, received great critical acclaim, according to the troupe.
Dominique Serrand, artistic director stated, "It has been an amazing 30 years. Few theatre companies last as long. We never sought nor desired to be an institution. Our home was always intended to be a playground in which we could gather with other adventurous souls and create the unimaginable. We have benefited enormously from the incredible generosity of this community, and especially all of the artists without whom we would never have survived this long or created as much. We can never thank them enough."
Serrand added, "Today, we begin imagining a new way of working. Building upon our artistic legacy, and facing a different future, we are exploring ways to reinvent an agile, nomadic, entrepreneurial theatre with a new name that will create essential and innovative art for today's changing audience."
Theatre de la Jeune Lune was formed in 1978 by Ιcole LeCoq graduates Barbra Berlovitz, Vincent Gracieux, and Dominique Serrand. They were soon joined by Robert Rosen and eventually Steve Epp and other collaborators. Over the past 30 years they have created nearly 100 productions, performed for hundreds of thousands of people in cities across the United States and in France, but primarily in their home of Minneapolis.
A commercial broker for the sale has not been selected. The board of directors will establish a committee to manage the sale at its regular board meeting of June 25, 2008.
In a letter posted on TJL's website, Serrand stated, "For the first 14 years we were itinerant, making the most of any venue we found ourselves in. Then in 1992, with an amazing groundswell of support, we purchased and renovated the Allied Van Lines building in the Minneapolis warehouse district. We excavated the interior of this historic building to create a stunningly innovative and award winning performance space, opening our new artistic home to the public on November 18th of that year.
"Sixteen years later we are faced with an excruciating decision. With the organization burdened by mounting and unmanageable debt, the Board of Directors has voted to put Jeune Lune's home up for sale. After much soul searching and extensive fundraising and debt management efforts, we have determined it to be the only prudent and fiscally responsible choice. What has been acclaimed, as one of the most striking and unique theatre spaces in the country will go dark. It is a huge loss, a loss for us, for all of the artists who work with us, for our audience and for the community at large, both locally and nationally.
"And with the building, we have decided that the time has come to bid adieu to the theatre ensemble we have all known as Jeune Lune.
"We have always believed that the making of theatre is an important and essential act. We have always believed in the power of theatre to provoke, inspire, and excite. We have always created our work for and because of our audience. Over the years we have cultivated a loyal audience locally, regionally and nationally. We have garnered numerous awards and accolades, and of course at times we have elicited criticism and consternation. We have benefited enormously from the support of foundations, corporations, state and national organizations, all those who have served as board members, staff and volunteers, the incredible generosity of thousands of individuals, and especially all of the artists. Without all of you we would never have survived this long or created as much. We can never thank you enough."
It has been an amazing thirty years. Few theatre companies last as long. We never sought nor desired to be an institution. Our home was always intended to be a playground in which we could gather with other adventurous souls and create the unimaginable. A place in which to grow, change and evolve. The theatrical experience is an event truly of the moment immediate, fleeting and ephemeral. Yet in the space of that moment something takes place that is transformative to the human spirit and remains indelible in our memory the stuff that dreams are made of, the stuff we carry with us forever. We hope you will treasure well the memory of Jeune Lune.
But, as this story ends, a new one begins. We live to create. To do what we know best, what the artist's responsibility in society has always been to invent, to dream, to imagine.
"Starting today, we begin imagining a new way of working. What should a theatre-generating organization of the 21st century look like? How can artists create truly groundbreaking art in a fast changing world? Times have changed and so have we. Building upon our artistic legacy, and facing a different future, we are exploring ways to reinvent an agile, nomadic, entrepreneurial theatre with a new name. One that can embrace the concentric circles of artists we have worked with over the years. Together we will create essential and innovative theatre for today's changing audience. It's an exciting new journey and we hope you'll join us with your support, with your presence, with your belief. Fear not: the art is alive and coming soon to a theatre near you. Keep in touch."
For more information, visit www.jeunelune.org.
Send questions and comments to the Webmaster
Copyright © 2013 Playbill, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:6daa757c-54ac-4786-8b0a-aa814d9ae996> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.playbill.com/news/article/print/118922.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962865 | 1,594 | 1.601563 | 2 |
10-Dec-2008 -- This is the 49th of a series of 83 confluence visits during our voyage from Nigeria to Europe and back to Nigeria around the entire African continent. It all started on 28 January at 11N 5E.
Story continues from 18N 34E.
We have been spending several days with the Satti family in Wad Madanī. During this time we had the pleasure and were invited to the festivities of the `Īd al-Kabīr celebration. The custom is that there will be one or more rams be slaughtered and deliciously prepared. After we had been overindulging on these delicious meals, it was time to carry on.
We took the road from Wad Madanī to al-Qaḍārif. About 65 km on this road we got to the river Nahr al-Ralad. We found a path which lead us along the river in the desired direction and got as close as 900 meter to the Confluence. But then there was the river in our way with no way to cross it with the car. It was still early and there was nice scenery along the river, so we did not mind to drive the 13 km back to the main road and cross the river and try from the other side.
On the other side it proved to be difficult to find the correct path, but eventually we managed to get on the right path. All went well till we got stopped again close to the Confluence by overflow channels of a huge irrigation system. It was our bad luck, too, that they had this channel flowing at the time when we where there, otherwise the crossing would have been easy.
We tried to get around this irrigation system but after several hours we gave up and continued to the next confluence 14N 35E. | <urn:uuid:b4bc7c8d-902e-4c73-bccf-9fa4c4774c91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?id=14243 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983718 | 372 | 1.601563 | 2 |
March 1st, 2013 11:22 AM
Getting around hard drive password on dell laptop
So to make a long ass story short I got my laptop back today and the person that had it decided to put in a different hard drive because the one that was in it had a virus on it...why they swapped it out for this one is beyond me because it wouldn't have been to hard to remove the virus...anyways the hard drive that they put in is password protected so when you turn on the laptop it asks for a password before it will begin booting windows...after ****in around with it for a lil bit I realized that after three failed attempts at the password it seems to allow some access to the computer but says that the hard drive cannot be read or some ****. It does allow the option to boot from a cd tho so I booted from a linux live cd and it now allows me to use a version of linux so I can use the computer...anyways my question is does anyone know of a way to get around the password or maybe a program I can use to figure out the password while using linux? I am also able to boot up a program thats called windows xp mini version or some **** which is basically a watered down version of XP so if anyone knows of a program I can use on windows to get around the password thats possible too...hopefully I'll be able to get my old hard drive back because I know how to fix the virus on that one and then all this mess would be over with but it would be cool if I could get this hard drive figured out because its almost 100gigs bigger than the original one...any help is very much appreciated
00110001 01101101 00100000 00110101 00110000 00110000 00100000 00110001 00110011 00110011 00110111
March 1st, 2013 01:57 PM
Sure sounds like you're talking about a BIOS password.
Calling the person that entered the password would be thing to do... Because its against the rules to to publically discuss cracking passwords.
March 1st, 2013 07:57 PM
As far as I know, you can't really crack a hard drive password.....easily anyway. Best thing to do is to get the person who put the password on the drive to remove it. Other than that I think you are S.O.L....
March 1st, 2013 11:01 PM
The usual solution for a forgotten hard drive password is to replace the drive and reinstall everything.
The password and firmware are stored on a chip on the HDD's control card. It won't work with a different OS, or on a different computer; and if you wipe the chip, the drive won't work.
The BIOS tries to access the boot sector on the HDD, at which point the HDD firmware asks for the password to the HDD. This protects the drive even if you remove it, or use a different operating system. The password is not stored on the drive platters.
DELL laptops generally have three passwords (optional), two are the "power-up" or BIOS ones and the third is the HDD.
All these are access control rather than data security, so if you want to secure your data you need to use encryption. If you don't, someone with the right equipment and training could recover your data quite easily using standard techniques.
If you have the misfortune to "lose" the password, a data recovery company will be able to help, either by replacing the control card component or putting the platters on a spin-up table and extracting the data from there.
They don't attempt to "crack" the password as this is totally impractical given the submission/response times and the three strikes rule.
I have known this happen a few times in cases of probate, where only the deceased knew the password.
Last edited by nihil; March 2nd, 2013 at 10:49 AM.
If you cannot do someone any good: don't do them any harm....
As long as you did this to one of these, the least of my little ones............you did it unto Me.
What profiteth a man if he gains the entire World at the expense of his immortal soul?
March 4th, 2013 08:49 PM
It really depends on what system you are using. HDD encryption has increased over the the past 5 years or so and it is more relevant in the mobile market. The problem is the whole drive is encrypted I believe at the controller level, making it useless in any other machine. If it is this type of setup, you are most likely SOL. Sorry dude!
By the_dove69 in forum Newbie Security Questions
Last Post: September 21st, 2006, 12:03 AM
By homenet in forum Hardware
Last Post: May 22nd, 2004, 07:57 PM | <urn:uuid:8201a327-798f-4d1b-bbc4-8d50cf88b008> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.antionline.com/showthread.php?286197-Getting-around-hard-drive-password-on-dell-laptop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953592 | 1,008 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Traveling this summer is going to be a blast. You're taking the kids to the beach, visiting relatives and maybe making a side trip to see the world's largest display of alligator spit.
Summer travel can make great memories for years to come, but make sure you don't let anyone spoil the fun. Who would do that, you ask? Bad guys, that's who.
Tod Burke, a criminal justice professor at Radford University and a former police officer and crime prevention specialist in Maryland, offers tips to help you protect your family and your valuables while trekking miles away from home.
- Inform trusted friends and family members that you're leaving. Ask someone to keep your house running as if you were still home, Burke suggests. Have them pick up your mail and take out the trash.
- Don't leave a key under the welcome mat. It's the first place a would-be burglar will look, Burke says. Instead, leave a key with the trusted friend.
- Don't be too social about your vacation plans. Burke says posting your plans on social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter tips off bad guys that you're not home. Don't be tempted to post photos of you on a giant rollercoaster while you're still on the ride. Wait until you get home.
- Don't flash your bling: This seems like common sense, but flashy jewelry is a hot target for thieves and robbers. But don't leave those items in your hotel room either. Leave your valuables locked away at home, preferably in a home safe, Burke suggests. If you take jewelry on vacation, keep it in a hotel safe. The same goes for laptops, cameras and other electronic devices.
- Let yourself be the bad guy. At least let yourself think like a bad guy. For your home, think, "Where am I the most vulnerable?" Burke says, and "If I were a burglar, where would I look?" Taking this simple approach can take you a long way toward returning home to find everything just as you left it.
Finally, Burke says, while you're out, carry as little cash as possible, but do carry some. Robbers can get angry if you have nothing to offer.
If you do need to carry a large sum of cash, the professor suggests that men carry wallets in their front pockets, although it is best to distribute the money in various pockets of your clothing. Few robbers will spend time doing a pat down on a busy street. For women with purses or men with LeBron James-style "murses" or man-purses, carry those with the strap toward a wall if possible. The wall can obstruct the path of a potential purse snatcher. | <urn:uuid:444cc3cd-3f92-4f86-849a-37c159753d36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://radford.edu/content/radfordcore/home/news/releases/2012/june/travel-tips.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962224 | 562 | 1.625 | 2 |
It’s 2011 – are you vegan yet? If not, there are plenty of ‘go vegan’ campaigns out there to help you make the change, so what are you waiting for?
Many vegans got their start using the PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine) 21-Day Vegan Kickstart
. I’m one of them
. We often need a little nudge to start something that could be a complete lifestyle overhaul. This year, it seems, PCRM has stepped up their marketing efforts as veganism becomes increasingly mainstream and more people sign up to ditch the meat and dairy for 21 days. Though the look and feel of their website and e-newsletter is very sterile, I suppose it can be overlooked because they are PHYSICIANS after all. Plus, PCRM has gained the support of other blogs, like The Houston Vegetarian,
to promote their plight.
Getting a campaign published fo’ free is something entry-level Public Relations personnel try to accomplish daily. The blog M.I.S.S.
talks about PCRM’s handy iPhone App that sends recipes and helpful info right to your palm (or Palm, if you’re not an Apple fan). Called a M.I.S.S “Techcessory”, this free app will help you stay on target. Oh and look, a lovely Facebook
feed to follow. Though the actual kickstart with PCRM has already started, information is provided year-round and another kickstart will start in September, so get on it!
21st Century Vegetarians
have their own kickstart to talk about – 7 Day Vegetarian Starter Kit – which is an eBook devised for vegetarian and vegan recipes, family-style. Martha and Kamaal Theus devised this book, and subsequent website, to provide an easy transition to meat-free living. The kickstart eBook includes: “
7 Days of delicious, easy to prepare vegan meals,” transition tips, a shopping guide and several other resources. 21st Century Veg also promotes Meat-Free Mondays and has compiled a packet to help spread that program as well. Even though they promote mostly vegetarianism and not strictly veganism, this kickstart can be a great first step for diet-curious omnivores looking for a change. The vibe of 21st Century provides a voice mostly for the African-American community, but the information provided will be useful for anyone.
Don’t think PETA is sitting back and relaxing while everyone else creates a New Year’s campaign to go veg. PETA’s free Vegetarian/Vegan Starter Kit is a staple of their multi-faceted outreach. Their tagline is as simple as a statistic: “Did you know that you could save 100 animals per year just by adopting a meat-free diet?” As always, PETA aims to educate by making you think instead of passively ordering a pamphlet – so when you order their starter kit, you’ll also receive emails on current hot topic trends on the vegan and vegetarian front.
Already vegan? NOT OFF THE HOOK. Action for Animals
urges you to become more
active in 2011 for the cause. If you aren’t vegan, they make a case for you too. Part of their campaign strategy is to enlist you
to be their grassroots canvasser by giving you step-by-step info on how and where to go to preach it sistah. They’ll even give you the flyers if you don’t want to waste your Boca money at Kinko’s. AFA’s mission statement is clearly posted at the head of their blog: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” (Quote by Elie Wiesel). Can’t argue with that.
There are a few choices, so depending on your particular bent, sign up for a kickstart program and start the New Year right!
In this new Vegan Mainstream bi-weekly column we will bring you examples of marketing campaigns that are being done by various vegan organizations to promote veganism locally and globally. Know of someone doing great work we should feature? Email [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:36e870c5-d755-48ff-8261-2bf87e63f137> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.veganmainstream.com/vegan-marketing-campaigns-january-is-all-about-the-kickstart | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943088 | 893 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Nostalgia, Soviet Style
This weekend, my colleague and friend Irina Leonenko took me to a fascinating restaurant. Not much populated by locals, the place is furnished like a Soviet kommunal'naya kvartica of the 1960s-1970s--a big communal apartment. So in a way, it's like a historic house museum, but one where you can come in, sit down, and touch everything. Irina recognizes furniture and decoration just like in her grandmother's house. I suppose, in a way, it's the Russian/Ukrainian equivalent of Johnny Rocket's or some other kind of '50s diner or malt shop.
As I sat there, I thought about how useful a shift in perspectives is. From my original, too American-centric perspective, I made assumptions t that most people must have been happy to leave this communal life behind; that the end of the Soviet system was a good thing. But Irina (wise beyond her years) reminded me that a place like this is about nostalgia; that for whole generations, this was where your grandparents lived, where you celebrated New Years and other holidays; that this was home. In the same way, when Americans visit a '50s diner, we don't think about McCarthyism and segregation; people here probably don't think about their country and the time's problems either.
It seemed to be as well-furnished as a historic house museum might be, but the experience of actually sitting in the space, reading the newspaper and having tea made it much more meaningful than just a historic house tour. With all the debate in the US about historic houses and their declining attendance, it certainly encouraged me to think about other alternatives.
For a fascinating look at Soviet style communal living, check out this great website: Communal Living in Russia: A Virtual Museum of Everyday Life, produced, believe it or not, by professors at Colgate University in upstate New York.
Images from the restaurant; at top, Irina must look as her grandmother did! | <urn:uuid:07b94df2-8d8e-4003-805c-130bb7d20d2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uncatalogedmuseum.blogspot.com/2009/01/nostalgia-soviet-style.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969338 | 425 | 1.75 | 2 |
As our family grows we need more space in the house. What may have worked for you when you were newly married may see like a small house once you add two more kids to the house. Since moving to a bigger place is not always an option, one can create more space in the house by simply working with a few space creating ideas.
Below are some tips on how to create more space in your home without going in for major remodeling:
- Clean up – The first step to creating more space in the house is to throw out all the junk from the house. Clean out everything right from the closets to the garage. Most of us horde stuff that we do not need and this takes up useful place in the house that could have been used for more important stuff. So begin by ensuring that all the things in your house are useful and needed by you. Old clothes that do not fit anymore, decorative stuff that you do not use anymore, appliances that have gone bad and you have simply put them aside and even utensils that are not used by you anymore, everything needs to be removed from the house.
- Racks – There is no doubt that building a closet does help to create space but closets can be an expensive proposition. Instead get a few racks. These wracks are easy to move around and you can shelf everything right from books to toys to magazines to even small clothes in these racks. These racks come in a large variety of sizes and even materials and some can be bought in yard sales too, so the cost can easily be controlled by you. With a lot of extra stuffed stacked in racks you will find that your home will have a significant amount of extra space.
- Cardboard Boxes - There are things which we may not use immediately but do have use for at a later time. Now these things will not be thrown out of the house but need to be stored properly so as to occupy least space. Storing these items in cardboard boxes and placing them in lofts or basements will help to empty more space in the house. Store winter clothes through the summer and summer clothes through the winter and you will find a lot more pace in your closets right through the year. Toys, baby clothes, cribs, etc being stored for the next kid and other similar items that you may need at a later date can also be stored similarly.
Creating space in your house is not easy but if you put your mind to it you will be able to make optimum usage of the current space in your house and this will solve your problems to a large extent. So keep the tips listed above in mind and begin to organize your home more strictly in order to have more space than you do at the moment. | <urn:uuid:0c50ab11-287c-442c-aa93-a008c8bbc04a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.singlemom.com/creating-more-space-in-the-house/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971398 | 554 | 1.5 | 2 |
Part 2 of Beverly Goldie’s interview in front of the Food Coop Port Townsend store.
To get I-522 on the November 2013 ballot in Washington state, the Secretary of State’s office recommends collecting 320,000 signatures by December 31, to ensure 241,153 of them are valid.
Deb Shortess, Food Coop Port Townsend store inventory, pricing & systems (SIPS) Manager, explains the retail store’s GMO awareness program. They labeled their shelves with signage that shows what products are certified by the Bellingham based Non-GMO Project.
Proposition 37 is on the November 6, 2012 ballot in California as an initiated state statute. It is also referred to as “The California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.” Prop 37 (Yes/no) YouTube PlayList (8+ hours, 72 videos, updated daily)
Last week, two Yes On Prop 37 videos were posted on YouTube on the same day that used non-voters to sway California voters to support the GMO Labeling Bill:
“GMO World 3″ created by Los Angeles based 13-year old Sky Rowe, who eats fruit for desert, reads food labels and spent two weeks making this video because his voice kept going out singing like Jazz Legend Louis Armstrong.
Last night, I held a live video chat with Sky and his dad, Patrick, on Vokle.com. My connection was bad but we limped through the above 30 minute session. (We agreed to do another interview in the future.)
If you are interested in watching adults focused on this political hot potato, below is my YouTube “GMO Playlist” with videos from both sides of the issue:
Nicholas mentions that I-522 is following the footsteps of California’s proposition 37 that is on the November ballet. Below are a couple of videos that support GMO labeling and a forum discussion regarding this issue.
Music Video: “Right To Know” – Yes On California Prop 37 – No GMO
Right to Know: Vote Yes on Prop 37
On September 6, 2012, a California Proposition 37 panel discussion was organized at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles, CA by eight science students and the South Robertson Neighborhood Council.
Press Release: PCC Natural Markets contributes $100,000 in support of I-522
Initiative would mandate labeling of GMOs in food in Washington state
PCC Natural Markets (PCC), the nation’s largest consumer-owned retail grocer, has announced a $100,000 pledge in support of Initiative 522, “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.”
A statewide campaign to put I-522 on the November 2013 ballot has been underway for several weeks. The goal is to collect 320,000 signatures, recommended by the Secretary of State’s office, to ensure 241,153 valid ones by the deadline at year’s end.
“There are few issues that threaten so fundamentally our core values as the hidden presence of genetically engineered ingredients in our food supply,” said Tracy Wolpert, PCC’s CEO. “We believe consumers have a right to an informed choice. PCC has been involved in advocating the right to know about GMOs since the advent of rBGH in milk in 1993. We are compelled to do all we can to put I-522 before voters next year.”
More than 140 suppliers and business partners of PCC have joined the effort by endorsing I-522. Many are involved in signature gathering among their own organizations and contacts. PCC’s in-store campaign aims to collect 50,000 signatures from its own shoppers by the end of October, which is National Non-GMO Month. (Read More)
Natural Products Association Northwest Donates to
Washington State GMO Labeling Initiative: WA I-522
$10,000 donation + $10,000 challenge match announced at Annual Member Meeting
Seattle WA – On Friday October 5, the NPA Northwest announced a $10,000 donation in support of I-522, the proposed Washington state ballot initiative to label genetically modified foods. This donation was made in memory of Craig Winters, a well-known activist from Washington State who was a founder of the grassroots advocacy group Citizens for Health in 1992, who also founded the Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods in 1999 and was the 2004 recipient of the distinguished NPA NW Pioneer Award.
The NPA Northwest also pledged in support of this initiative to match donations up to an additional $10,000 made before October 31 in celebration of Non-GMO Month.
A $10,000 check was presented to representatives from Label it WA by NPA NW Board President Nick Pascoe at the region’s annual meeting during its trade show in Seattle.
Pascoe noted: “The Northwest Region has a long history of supporting GMO labeling. Our NW board felt this was a unique opportunity to make a difference and advance the right of consumers to know what is in their food.”
Outgoing NPA NW Treasurer Gavin McComas added: “It’s been our organization’s stated policy for over a decade that GMO foods should be labeled. This decision was a chance for us to put our money where our mouth is.”
Donations to be matched can be made to LabelitWa, PO Box 65018, University Place, WA 98464.
Checks are best, since a fee is deducted to service electronic donations. When paying by check and to qualify for matching funds, reference “NPA NW match” in the subject line. For more information about the initiative WA I-522, go to labelitwa.org or call LabelitWA at 253-256-1921.
Four years ago, Tiffany Alvord, 19, published her first video on YouTube. Playing guitar, sitting on her bedroom floor with a Kodak point and shoot digital camera.
Last week, the Los Angeles based teenage singer/songwriter’s YouTube Channel reached 1,000,000 subscribers. She wrote a song about the mile stone and produced the above music video as a thank-you to her growing international fan base. | <urn:uuid:7f05fc98-f434-4f40-a86c-c07132efe2e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/videoblogging/category/interview/page/4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954362 | 1,288 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Fears of Islamist Expansion Prompt Russian Support for Assad
By: Translated from An-Nahar (Lebanon).
In spite of the arm-wrestling between the United States and Russia - as revealed by their opposing positions on the Syrian crisis - there are ongoing contacts and consultations between the two [states] to reach a settlement that would stop the escalation of violence in Syria. [The two parties are discussing options] to clear the path for peaceful change that would lay the foundations for a democratic system, in place of [the Assads’] four-decades-old, sectarian, one-man dictatorship.
About This Article
According to Sarkis Naoum, Russian concern over the spread of political Islam make it unlikely to curtail support for the secular Assad regime - that is, unless the West is willing to accept some “extreme” conditions in return. In an election year, however, the Obama administration would be hard pressed to submit to Moscow’s demands, he argues.Publisher: An-Nahar (Lebanon)
Presidential Candidate Obama Will not Give in to Russia
First Published: February 1, 2012
Posted on: February 1 2012
Translated by: Rani Geha
Categories : Syria
In Washington, American observers of developments in Syria and their administration's position [on the ongoing crisis there] do not expect these consultations to lead to a principled understanding [of the conflict] or to a detailed settlement. Neither Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor President Barack Obama can give Russia what it is asking for in return for "handing over" the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. One of the main reasons for this are the 2012 US presidential elections which will take place in November. Obama is seeking a second term, and his candidacy will prevent him from submitting to extreme Russian interests that conflict with those of the US. So far, American interests lie in supporting the Arab Spring in its Syrian phase.
[The US’ position towards the Syrian regime has become especially clear] as the majority of Syrians have demonstrated that they are determined [to see] change despite the repression and violence they face. [Meanwhile,] Assad's regime has made it clear that it is determined to survive without seriously altering its domestic and regional policies, which have been very harmful to US interests.
Any retreat by Obama [on the Syrian issue] would cost him the votes of those who do not yet consider his rivals presidential material. It would also cost him votes from citizens who have yet to see employment or the economy significantly improve. And those voters know that the party that caused their economic problems is the one whose candidates are trying to remove Obama from the White House.
In short, American analysts identify Russia as a source of great concern for Obama. Obama is constantly evaluating Russia’s position on the Syrian crisis to see if it might one day be able to give up on the Assad regime were its collapse to be brought about by factors independent of actions taken by Washington, Moscow or even Assad himself. The analysts point out that in reality this strategy does not suit Obama, and does not fit with what Syria expects from its Russian allies.
Why does Russia support Assad's regime so fervently?
The American observers offer several responses to this question. First, Russian officials are very concerned that radical (Sunni) Islamists are benefiting from the Arab Spring. They fear that the Islamists will replace the collapsed regimes. The Russians are concerned by the Islamists’ radical and expansionist religious ideologies, even though some of these movements have taken steps to establish their moderation in the countries where they have risen to power. [Russia] sees their attempts as so far unconvincing.
Second, demographic estimates indicate that somewhere between the years 2040 and 2050, nearly 50 percent of all Russian inhabitants will be Muslim - the vast majority of them Sunni, like the Islamic currents sweeping into power in the Arab world and beyond.
Third, Russia fears that Islamic fundamentalist regimes in the Muslim world, built on the ruins of regimes once hostile to fundamentalist Islam, will encourage separatist tendencies by Muslims in Russia and its immediate vicinity. Russia fears that these regimes will provide direct support to [Russian separatists].
Fourth, Russia is determined to maintain a good relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Above all, it sees Iran as its first line of defense. Iran is also providing Russia with serious help in fighting the Islamic fundamentalists and militants moving into [Russia] and its neighboring countries. Iran does so because it is convinced that Russia is doing all it can to prevent the collapse of the Islamic regime [in Tehran]. Finally, Russia is convinced that supporting Iran and its allies in the region - primarily the Assad regime in Syria - is of vital and strategic importance.
Are Russian rulers mistaken in their calculations?
|Back to news list| | <urn:uuid:75766713-afdc-4bd6-8b22-9dc21bbd4d56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/02/presidential-candidate-obama-wil.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961549 | 981 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Why You Should Feed Your Dog Natural Food
Due to contaminated dog food scares recently, dog owners have become more concerned about the type of dog food they feed their pets. Because natural dog foods are just as easy to obtain as traditional commercial products and have healthier ingredients, they have become the product of choice.
As dogs require high amounts of protein in their diets the best natural dog food is made from a quality meat source. The freshest meat can be bought from a local butcher or meat processor. They can grind the meat for you and a bulk discount may even be available at these suppliers. | <urn:uuid:ce14f833-4091-46af-b757-ec4f374b06b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mbukruphra.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97346 | 119 | 1.625 | 2 |
|How amusing of Ada Louise Huxtable to write, in the introduction to On Architecture: Collected Reflections on a Century of Change, “Critics are no more clairvoyant than their fellow mortals.” The book, published in 2008, compiles many of her best pieces of architecture criticism, starting in 1963, from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Review of Books.
On first reading, I had skipped the introduction and gone straight to the section on the birth and death of the World Trade Center, the book’s most troubling part. It starts with an ominous 1966 Times piece on the hugeness of the imminent project and ends with a piece from 2006 on what the site was about to become again after a charade of post-disaster design competitions.
Not a week after the 9/11 attacks, Huxtable wrote in the Journal: “If the usual scenario is followed, the debate will lead to a ‘solution’ in which principle is lost and an epic opportunity squandered.” She may not have been clairvoyant, but she had clearly been around enough to predict one of the most expensive and anticlimactic acts of building ever. If Larry Silverstein, the leaseholder of the Twin Towers site, didn’t gulp with shame as he read Huxtable, then he really is everything she said he is, and then some.
It’s hard to convey the void Huxtable created in architecture by dying on January 7 at the age of 91. Her greatness as a critic lay in her confident, plain language, but more importantly in her deep reporting, which had to yield reams of information that she left on the floor of her office, sparing the reader, though all of it fed her budgeted column inches, sentence by ferric sentence. There will be no substitutes—there hadn’t been in almost 50 years, and nothing will change.
I am not the only one carrying around her last piece, which ran in the Journal in early December, like a song in my head. It was about a plan by Norman Foster to basically gut the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue. From the opening sentence, not to be read lightly, it is as if war had been declared. “There is no more important landmark building in New York than the New York Public Library…”
There have been a number of fun and moving tributes to Huxtable. Some have noted her overriding faith in good public space and the experience people have of cities “from the corner.” What should not go unnoted is her recognition in later years that landscape architects were doing the important work that architects thought they had been doing. In 2005, of the Groundswell exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, she wrote: “In one of those totally unpredictable shifts in sensibility that occur when least expected, it is the landscape architects who are re-engaging today’s radically innovative aesthetic with human needs and social functions; this is where the essential connections with the human condition are being made.”
Huxtable once told a French journalist that she wrote “from crisis to crisis.” Crisis is a loaded word around a French intellectual, but it’s true. It takes the kind of deep immersion Huxtable had in all of the forces that make a city—the shabby real estate people, the idiotic agencies, the lawyers, not to mention the architects—to write in a way that makes a difference. Anything else is chitchat.
In 2006, when the deals looked sealed on the uninspiring state of Ground Zero today, she wrote what New York needed to hear: “I do not believe for a moment that we are no longer capable of building great cities of symbolic beauty and enduring public amenity. What Ground Zero tells us is that we have lost the faith and the nerve, the knowledge and the leadership, to make it happen now.”
Landscape Architecture Magazine | <urn:uuid:7bc6ef88-cbe2-44ff-9f04-7ce76418593b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://asla.org/land/LandArticle.aspx?id=38398 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96934 | 835 | 1.84375 | 2 |
PHOENIX -- If somebody told you that you could eat all you want and still improve your health and lose weight, would you believe them?
Dr. Neal Barnard says you absolutely can. He explains how in his book "21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart." He says you can boost your metabolism, lower your cholesterol and dramatically improve your health.
Sound too good to be true? He swears it's not.
"The beauty of it is you're not counting calories. You're not limiting portion size," he said. What we're doing is we're focusing on four food groups -- vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans -- just like you mom always wanted you to eat."
The key to the program is that for at least 21 days, animal products like meat and cheese are off the menu. Not a "diet" per se, Barnard advocates a plant-based eating plan -- veganism.
"People lose weight because this approach revs up their metabolism for about three hours after the meal," he explained. "We're retraining the taste buds. It's just like quitting smoking. When people set the meat aside, after a couple of weeks they feel so good they're really glad they're doing it."
Dr. Neal Barnard is from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, 5100 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20016
WHAT: Dr. Neal Barnard details his three-week immersion program and signs his most recent book, 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart: Boost Metabolism, Lower Cholesterol, and Dramatically Improve Your Health.
WHEN: Friday, Sept. 21, 6:30 p.m.
WHERE: Encanto Park Clubhouse, 2605 N. 15th Ave., Phoenix | <urn:uuid:8fb096fa-4862-4c12-bbad-e51eab060af3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azfamily.com/news/health/21-Day-Weight-Loss-Kickstart-170735326.html?ref=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96185 | 366 | 1.8125 | 2 |
In this site
The aim of this website is to provide general information on cancer and cancer treatment, with particular reference to the patients in Cornwall.
It will outline oncological i.e. non surgical treatments of cancer, reviewing the roles of radiotherapy (X ray treatment), chemotherapy, hormonal therapies, targeted therapies (e.g. monoclonal antibodies) and other supportive treatments. Further details on these are available in the “What is oncology?” section.
How a specific cancer in a particular patient is treated will depend on a number of factors. These include the tumour type, location of the tumour, previous treatments received and a patient’s general health and wishes. This means that treatment should be individualised and discussed with an oncologist. This is beyond the scope of this website, but if you would like further details on this, please do use the contact details provided. | <urn:uuid:09577153-72bc-4c8c-9f9e-134106d4b1c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cornwallcancercare.co.uk/ | 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 | 0.935381 | 189 | 1.734375 | 2 |
REVEALING THAT you have been sexually abused doesn't come easily at any age. Child victims often fear for their lives. Years later, they fear the reaction of others to such a shocking admission.
But unless victims come forward, nothing changes.
The importance of coming forward was reiterated last week by boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard, who spoke candidly at a Penn State University conference on child sex abuse about a secret he had kept hidden for years.
Leonard, 56, said he was sexually assaulted as a youth by men he trusted as boxing coaches. The former middleweight and welterweight champion first revealed the sexual assaults in a book published last year. He has not identified the two men, now dead, whom he said abused him in separate instances.
Known for his bravery in the ring, Leonard had to muster up more courage to admit he wasn't always able to defend himself. He promised to stay in the spotlight if it will help bring more attention to a national problem. I'm going to be the poster child. I'm going to speak up. And speak out, he said.
Leonard's appearance at Penn State came only weeks after Jerry Sandusky, a former Nittany Lions assistant football coach, was sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for sexually assaulting 10 boys he befriended through a charity he had created for at-risk youth.
The two-day conference represents part of the efforts being made at Penn State to change a culture that failed to root out a sexual predator. Sandusky often brought his victims on campus.
But while Penn State has become the epicenter in the fight against child sexual abuse, the job must go far beyond that community. In Pennsylvania and other states, for example, lawmakers should open legal windows that go beyond current statutes of limitations so that victims abused years ago may file lawsuits that would give them a day in court.
There also must be stricter reporting requirements in Pennsylvania and elsewhere that would encourage child sexual-abuse victims to come forward and alert authorities sooner about the predators in their lives.
The Philadelphia Inquirer | <urn:uuid:cbc62ae6-ca50-44c4-9ba8-31ceca83894f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesleader.com/stories/Leonard-joins-sex-abuse-fight,226563 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980223 | 423 | 1.71875 | 2 |
- Where's SuperSpeed USB 3.0?
- What's the Delay?
What's the Delay?
Intel's xHCI spec became the object of controversy earlier this summer. Late in 2008 (no specific date has been set beyond the fourth quarter) the USB Implementers Forum, of which Ravencraft is the chair, will pull together the initial USB 3.0 specifications. Meanwhile, silicon chip giant Intel has been working on a separate spec for xHCI chipswhat Intel spokesperson Nick Knupffer called "the Dummies guide to building the chips." The spec itself is only 90 percent finished, but that's because, according to Knupffer, the USB 3.0 spec from the USB-IF is only about that far finished. When the USB-IF releases the full overall spec later this year, Intel will also release the final version of the xHCI spec.
Competitors AMD and nVidia complained that Intel was unfairly delaying release of the spec to give itself an advantage. To counter, Knupffer pointed out that Intel was absorbing the cost of developing the spec, thus saving AMD and nVidia the cost of developing one, themselves. "This is the same way we've done it with USB 2.0," Knupffer said. "So we haven't changed the way we do stuff." Nor is Intel charging for the use of the specification. "The faster the industry as a whole adopts it, the faster we'll be able to move huge files around," Knupffer said. "It generates demand for more processors. But we're also nice guys."
That's a description the folks at AMD and other places have called into question over the past month. And while AMD wasn't saying whether or not feathers were still ruffled, there was no question that people at the company are happy to have the current release. "We need to have an open industry standard," the spokesperson said. "USB 3.0 is something that everyone is watching. We want to make sure that our customers have the technology that their end users want. We just want everyone to use it so it becomes standard."
As for a timeline for seeing products in stores, Ravencraft said that depends on how fast manufacturers develop them. However, with an end-of-the-year release for the spec, the expectation is that manufacturers will be developing products through 2009, with perhaps the first few hitting the market as early as late 2009. It wouldn't even be surprising to find that someone has products available for the holiday market this year.
But the vast majority of computers and devices using USB 3.0 probably won't be seen until mid-2010. When asked whether Vista will get an upgrade to work with USB 3.0 and what kind of support the upcoming Windows 7 (expected to launch in 2010) will have for the new protocol, a Microsoft spokesperson said only, "Microsoft is always thinking about and exploring innovative ways for people to use technology."
Ravencraft did point out that Microsoft is actively involved in the development of the specification. In any case, the next generation of data transfer is on its way, promising faster and faster file transfers. Until the next-next generation of files gets too huge. And then maybe we'll be on to SuperDuperSpeed USB.
blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:17b6193c-9aae-47a7-97ac-8914a2223e1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2328186,00.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970928 | 679 | 1.773438 | 2 |
After eight months on view, 350,000 visitors, and three catalogue printings, California Design, 1930–1965 will close its doors for the last time this Sunday. While it will be sad to watch the culmination of six years of work dispersed to the four winds, it is encouraging to see that the spirit of modern California design lives on through many talented designers and craftspeople.
One of those exemplary figures is Trina Turk, an incredibly distinguished designer and entrepreneur. She is that rare breed—a genuine California native—and her aesthetic is informed by both the casual yet sophisticated lifestyle and the natural environment of her home state. She founded her company in 1995 with her husband, photographer Jonathan Skow, and they have built an incredibly successful line of clothing, accessories, and home décor that is heavily influenced by her passion for architecture and design. It is a little-known fact that Trina is a formidable collector of California design and has filled her two homes with an outstanding collection of furniture and objects. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with Trina to talk about her design inspiration and her passion for collecting.
Bobbye Tigerman: Trina, can you tell me about the origins of your interest in design?
Trina Turk: My husband, Jonathan, and I were really interested in New Wave music in the early 1980s, and I think a lot of the interest in mid-century design stemmed from that. We spent much more time thrift shopping than we actually spent in classes at the University of Washington (where I studied apparel design). We were fascinated by rockabilly, which was a 1950s-derived style, and also the B-52s, so our interest in the decorative arts really started with fashion and then led to the architecture, ceramics, and furniture that complemented those fashion styles.
BT: And is thrift shopping still a favorite pastime?
TT: Yes, but it’s not as good as it used to be.
BT: That’s what they all say.
TT: It’s true. Even ten years ago in Palm Springs, we could go thrift shopping and leave with bagfuls of beautiful vintage clothing, but those days are over.
BT: Where do you go now for your inspiration?
TT: We still do a lot of shopping, although we’ve moved up the food chain from Value Village in the Seattle area. We make a habit of going to both the Palm Springs and the Los Angeles Modernism shows. One of the places where I’ve learned a lot about design is Los Angeles Modern Auctions. Poring over those catalogues and looking at objects at previews have been incredible learning experiences for us.
BT: One could say that you truly personify and live California design. You own two remarkable modern homes, one by architect J.R. Davidson in Los Feliz, and the incredible Ship of the Desert, a streamlined, boat-like house that hugs the hills in Palm Springs. Can you talk a little bit about how you found your houses and what drew you to them?
TT: My husband, Jonathan, was working as a fashion stylist in the 1990s and did a lot of photo shoots in Palm Springs, so we started looking for a mid-century home there. Our real estate agent took us to see the Ship of the Desert and, although it was not what we were looking for at the time—it was too big, it was in terrible shape, we couldn’t afford it—we just fell in love. At that point, it was a stretch for us to buy it, but we felt a deep emotional connection to the house and decided to take the plunge. We found our house in Los Angeles later. It was built in 1948 for the Schapiro family. Jonathan had frequently done photo shoots at that house and would always come home after a shoot and describe it as the house we needed to find. Once when he was out of town, our real estate agent took me to a modern house, and I realized it was the same one that he had described to me so many times. We bought the house and have lived there for ten years.
BT: What is the house like?
TT: It’s classic mid-century. It was designed in the early 1940s, but not built until the late 1940s because it was difficult to build during World War II. It’s exactly what I think of as the epitome of California living. It has walls of glass, a very bright interior, and of course, a pool.
BT: I know you’ve filled your house with lots of amazing objects, and it sounds like it started way back in Washington with the thrift stores. But can you talk a little bit about your collecting and the particular designers that you collect in depth?
TT: One of the designers that I admire a lot is Claire Falkenstein. She did a lot of jewelry and sculptures, as well as the gates of Peggy Guggenheim’s museum in Venice. They’re made of twisted metal with pieces of colored glass embedded in them.
BT: That was a remarkable commission. And if you don’t want to go all the way to Venice, Italy, to see them, you can see the model for the Guggenheim gates in the California Design show at LACMA now.
TT: You can see Claire’s work all over town. She did stained glass windows for St. Basil Catholic Church (at Wilshire and Kingsley Dr. in Koreatown), and she made a monumental sculpture fountain for the courtyard of the Long Beach Museum of Art. The museum restaurant is actually named “Claire’s” after the sculpture. She also did extraordinary jewelry that didn’t attach to your body in the usual way and was often made of non-precious materials like brass.
BT: A favorite curator’s game is “What would you take home?” If you could keep one piece from the California Design show, what would it be?
TT: I would take home the Eames house and I would live in it, and then I would park my white Avanti in front of it! And I would wear the Claire Falkenstein necklace.
BT: My last question is about how you combine the essence of the mid-century period with contemporary style and how you make it relevant to today.
TT: In women’s fashion, it never really works to just knock off a vintage garment exactly because today’s bodies are different, today’s foundation garments are different, and there’s been a lot of technological development in fabrication since the 1950s. We use patterns found in vintage clothing for inspiration and interpret them for today’s taste and color preferences. I see that my job is to be inspired by the vintage material but to make it modern and relevant for today.
Bobbye Tigerman, Assistant Curator, Decorative Arts and Design
Special thanks to Aralyn Beaumont and Karen Kitayama for the transcript of this conversation. | <urn:uuid:fb0787e2-33cd-4087-b32d-b37df1f8ec3b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lacma.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/trina-turk-inspired-by-the-past-and-inspiring-the-future/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=5092e672ce | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97703 | 1,474 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Binghamton, NY (WBNG Binghamton) With Hurricane Sandy approaching New York many necessities like food, water and gas are in high demand.
Attorney General Eric Schneiderman today issued an open letter to vendors in the storm's path warning against price gouging.
General business law prohibits the inflation of necessary goods, as well as services like transportation during natural disasters.
New York State supermarkets, gas stations, hardware stores, as well as taxi services are among the businesses that received the notice.
Anyone who feels that they have witnessed potential price gouging can contact the Attorney General's office to file a complaint. | <urn:uuid:98671adb-7d27-4d95-ad56-b48a63f7d628> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbng.com/news/local/Warning-Against-Price-Gouging-During-Storm-176174181.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963499 | 126 | 1.546875 | 2 |
|<<||Ephesians 6|| >>|| |
|International Standard Version|| |
Advice for Children and Parents
1Children, obey your parents in the Lord,a
for this is the right thing to do.
2“Honor your father and mother…”b
(This is a very important commandment with a promise.)
3“…so that it may go well for you, and that you may have a long life on the earth.”c
4Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up by trainingd
and instructing them about the Lord.
Advice for Slaves and Masters
5Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear, trembling, and sincerity, as when you obeye
6Do not do this only while you’re being watched in order to please them, but be like slaves of the Messiah,g
who are determined to obey God’s will.
7Serve willingly, as if you were serving the Lord and not merely people,h
8because you know that everyone will receive a reward from the Lord for whatever good he has done, whether he is a slave or free.
9Masters, treat your slavesi
the same way. Do not threaten them, for you know that both of you have the same Master in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.
Putting on the Whole Armor of God
10Finally, be strong in the Lord, relying on his mighty strength.
11Put on the whole armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the devil’s strategies.j
struggle is not against human opponents,l
but against rulers, authorities, cosmic powers in the darkness around us,m
and evil spiritual forces in the heavenly realm.
13For this reason, take up the whole armor of God so that you may be able to take a stand whenever evil comes. And when you have done everything you could, you will be able to stand firm.
14Stand firm, therefore, having fastened the belt of truth around your waist, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15and being firm-footed in the gospel of peace.n
16In addition to having clothed yourselves with these things, having taken up the shield of faith, with which you will be able to put out all the flaming arrows of the evil one,
17also take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
18Pray in the Spirit at all times with every kind of prayer and request. Likewise, be alert with your most diligent efforts and pray for all the saints.
also for me, so that, when I begin to speak, the right words will come to me. Then I will boldly make known the secret of the gospel,
20for whose sake I am an ambassador in chains, desiring to declare the gospelp
as boldly as I should.q
21So that you may know what has happened to me and how I am doing, Tychicus, our dear brother and a faithful minister in service to the Lord, will tell you everything.
22I am sending him to you for this very reason, so that you may know how we are doing and that he may encourage your hearts.
23May peace and love, with faith, be with the brothers, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah!r
24May grace be with all who sincerely love the Lord Jesus, the Messiah!s
a 6:1 Other mss. lack in the Lord
b 6:2 Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16
c 6:3 Exod 20:12; Deut 5:16
d 6:4 Or discipline
e 6:5 Lit. as to
f 6:5 Or Christ
g 6:6 Or Christ
h 6:7 Lit. as to the Lord and not people
i 6:9 Lit. treat them
j 6:11 Or schemes
k 6:12 Other mss. read your
l 6:12 Lit. against flesh and blood
m 6:12 Lit. powers of this darkness
n 6:15 Or wear on your feet readiness for the gospel of peace
o 6:19 The Gk. lacks Pray
p 6:20 Lit. declare it
q 6:20 Lit. as I should speak
r 6:23 Or Christ
s 6:24 Or Christ; other mss. read Messiah! Amen. | <urn:uuid:f4b6c8de-8ade-4891-b47e-6f25d0b6e0d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biblehub.com/isv/ephesians/6.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934126 | 947 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Postpartum Sterilization With the Titanium Clip: A Systematic Review
Obstetrics and Gynecology, 07/07/2011
Evidence Based Medicine
Rodriguez MI et al. – Based on limited data, the titanium clip has decreased efficacy than partial salpingectomy in the postpartum population. Routine use of the titanium clip during the postpartum period should not be recommended.Methods
- The Medline and Cochrane databases from their inception through January 2011 for all articles in any language pertaining to the titanium clip use in postpartum sterilization were searched.
- Reference lists and device registration files were also searched.
- 13 articles for this review, 10 observational trials and three reports from one single randomized controlled trial were identified.
- Studies were included if they used the titanium clip for sterilization during the postpartum period and reported subsequent pregnancy as an outcome.
- Studies of the Hulka clip (spring-loaded) without a titanium comparison group or of the postabortion population were excluded.
- Standard data abstraction templates were used to systematically assess and summarize the data.
- Quality of the evidence was rated with the U.S. Preventive Task Force System.
- Efficacy of the titanium clip was estimated from the only randomized controlled trial identified.
- This trial found a significantly increased risk of pregnancy at 24 months with clip sterilization postpartum (cumulative rate 1.7 compared with 0.04, P=.04) compared with postpartum partial salpingectomy. | <urn:uuid:aca70236-bc34-466c-8121-0eab8a45f04d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mdlinx.com/obstetrics-gynecology/news-article.cfm/3650184/0/sterilization-tubal/next/14?month | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930382 | 315 | 1.804688 | 2 |
New Coptic Orthodox pope says Egypt’s constitution must be inclusive
The new Coptic Orthodox pope said on Monday that a constitution being drafted by Egypt’s politicians must be inclusive and the church would oppose any text that only addressed one part of the Muslim-majority nation.
Pope Tawadros II, picked on Sunday in a ceremony steeped in the traditions of a church that predates Islam’s arrival in Egypt, also told Reuters that Christians should be more active in seeking to shape Egypt’s politics after last year’s revolt.
The 60-year-old pope, the 118th to lead a church that traces its origins back to the early era of Christianity, has taken the helm when many Christians who make up about a tenth of the nation’s 83 million people are alarmed by the rise of Islamists.
Christians had for decades felt shoved to the margins of society and politics. Yet, even though many joined the uprising to oust Hosni Mubarak, they now worry they will be pushed further aside by Islamists who the former president repressed.
“The beauty of Egyptian society is the presence of Muslims beside Christians. Diversity is strong and beautiful,” the pope said in an interview at a desert monastery, where a day earlier he learned his name had been picked out of a glass bowl by a blindfolded boy in an elaborate ceremony at a Cairo cathedral. | <urn:uuid:2087eb40-1d11-44d4-afa6-4d5487d547b3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2012/11/06/new-coptic-orthodox-pope-says-egypts-constitution-must-be-inclusive/ | 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 | 0.968706 | 288 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Even if you're a programmer, you want to program for a living, you love programming, blah blah blah. Don't do it.
That's my short answer to this thread on Hacker News. The long answer goes here, because I got so annoyed at Hacker News discussions that I deleted my own password. Since I use randomized, automatically-secure passwords that are very hard for humans to remember, I've effectively locked myself out. Keep this in mind as you weigh the value of my advice.
I'm not saying you shouldn't take Comp Sci classes. You should, especially if you're somewhere like MIT, whose Lisp program is legendary. I'm not even saying don't get a degree. I dropped out of school, and I know great programmers who've done the same, or never applied to colleges in the first place, but if you can get a degree, it's usually worth the effort. But don't get it in computer science. I've come to believe that a computer science degree is actively counter-productive.
A random tweet:
An ensuing conversation between a pair of bald men:
By the way, plenty of older programmers still have their hair, and might disagree with our opinions here. Please find them and ask them. If you find any statistical correlation between hair loss and appreciation for art school, please report your findings immediately.
Here's another reason to appreciate art school:
Although to be fair, computer science made it to the top five.
I spent a year or so in art and music classes, and a good long stretch of time reading on all kinds of advanced topics in programming. Both made me a better programmer, and both happened around the same time. It's fair to say studying programming made me better at how, while art and music classes made me better at why.
The fundamental question of what comes from both of those - what you build will depend on what you know is possible and what you believe is worth building. Many programmers have unambitious ideas when it comes to what they believe is worth building. However, many programmers have unambitious ideas when it comes to how, too, including the ones with comp sci degrees, because many comp sci degrees fail to teach anything about higher-order programming. As far as I can tell, art school will expand your range of what you consider possible, while comp sci classes will inaccurately constrain it.
Of course the truth is that whatever works for you may be very different than what works for anyone else. Keep that in mind too. | <urn:uuid:464872ca-04b7-41f2-b50f-622712a2c47a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.in/2009/03/dont-get-computer-science-degree.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966698 | 516 | 1.695313 | 2 |
I've been learning about Fitts' law and am wondering if it's applicable to measuring the difficulty of platform type games where the challenge is to hit the platforms? If so, this could be used to ...
Within the confines of cognitive psychology, what is the difference between these two tasks? In the literature, playing chess is generally seen as the exemplar of problem solving. But recently (thanks ... | <urn:uuid:874dbe03-cb39-4862-b81d-625454ad86ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cogsci.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/video-games+cognitive-psychology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968221 | 82 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The death and destruction, brutality and barbarism of the Syrian government's latest massacre of its own civilians has passed a tipping point -- indeed if it had not been passed before -- mandating the invocation and application by the UN Security Council of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and requisite international action.
The past weekend's massacre followed a familiar pattern of Syrian assault and brutality. Syrian tanks, heavy weapons and artillery -- which were to have been withdrawn to barracks in accordance with the UN Security Council Resolution endorsing the Kofi Annan peace plan -- indiscriminately bombarded the Syrian town of Houla by day, and followed it up with a particularly barbaric night-time slaughter of its inhabitants -- a wonton execution, even by Syrian standards -- going house-to-house with guns, axes, and knives, leaving more than 108 dead, more than half of whom were women and children.
The Syrian government argues that this was the work of "armed terrorists"; but it was Syrian tanks and artillery that encircled and bombed Houla, in violation of the UN-supported ceasefire that itself has been violated again and again; and Syrian militias -- Shabihas -- as attested to by the UN monitors themselves -- perpetrated the atrocities.
Moreover, the weekend bloodletting was followed by still more killing of 50 civilians in Homs -- the oft repeated target of such brutal assaults -- again in violation of this "ceasefire."
Indeed, the massacre was so barbaric in its brutality that the Security Council moved quickly this past Sunday to unanimously condemn "in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of (Houla), near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighbourhood."
The non-binding UN Security Council Statement continued: "Such outrageous use of force against civilian populations constitutes a violation of applicable international law and the commitments of the Syrian Government under United Nations Security Council Resolutions."
But the Security Council action was only a press statement -- not even a Presidential Statement -- such that it does not even form part of the record of the UN Security Council. Shockingly, it is as if, for the official record of the UN Security Council, this massacre never took place.
Nor was this a resolution of the UN Security Council itself, nor did it contain any reference to the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, let alone invoke the doctrine as authority for collective action by the international community.
The tipping point for R2P has arrived. Indeed, this is a paradigm case for the invocation of R2P. More than 12,000 Syrian civilians have been murdered, close to 1,000 of them since the UN-endorsed Annan peace plan went into effect on April 12, and some 13 months after the Economist published a cover story in April 2011 entitled "Savagery in Syria." Thousands more have been imprisoned, some of whom were tortured and executed in detention, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. And while Kofi Annan was visiting with the Syrian leader, this past Tuesday, there was, yet again, the discovery of grizzly murder in Assukar in Eastern Syria.
Indeed, the UN-approved Annan "peace plan" has been unravelling, if it has not already unravelled. Simply put, the unarmed 290 peace monitors dispatched under the plan have not so much monitored the ceasefire -- which never occurred -- as much as they have been used as a political cover for the killings themselves as follows:
First, the Annan peace plan called for "a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms" and for the Syrian Government "to immediately cease troop movements towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centres," as a condition for the ceasefire. But the Syrian government has been violating this requirement since it was adopted, increasing its troop movements and bombardment of population centres -- such as occurred this past weekend and since -- while the brutality of the regime has continued unabated.
Second, the Annan plan sought the "timely provision of humanitarian assistance"; yet, by all accounts, Syria is experiencing a humanitarian disaster, with some one million civilians deprived of food, shelter, and medicine -- the basic staples of humanitarian relief.
Third, the plan sought to "intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons"; yet, arbitrary detentions -- and torture in detention -- have continued, as have disappearances and executions. The periodic release of some political prisoners, as has just been announced, is a cosmetic sop that belies the ongoing mass repression.
Fourth, the plan sought to ensure freedom of movement for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them; yet, much of the country remains closed to those who would seek to report on the regime's crimes, and thereby even deter them.
Fifth, the plan called for "respect for freedom of association and the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed"; but Syrians have demonstrated peacefully, as occurred recently in Aleppo, at their peril, if not at the peril of their lives.
Finally, the peace plan called for a transition to a "democratic pluralist political system" to address "the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people"; but this undertaking is repeatedly mocked by the Syrian Government's justification of the killings on the grounds that those who sought a democratic, pluralist political system were terrorists, thereby justifying the house-to-house killings this past weekend.
The question then becomes: What then needs to be done?
One is reminded -- and it bears reminder at this point -- of the poignant and painful dispatch of UK-based journalist Marie Colvin just before she herself was murdered in the assault on Homs two months ago, wherein she decried the Syrian government's "merciless disregard for the humanity" of the Syrian people. Her last words bear particular recall: "In Baba Amr. Sickening. Cannot understand how the world can standby, and I should be hardened by now. ... Feeling helpless .. No one here can understand how the international community can let this happen".
Simply put, Marie Colvin sought to sound the alarm on the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the Assad regime against the Syrian people -- the classic rationale for the invocation of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, when the state, eschewing the "Sovereignty as Responsibility" pillar of R2P is the author of that criminality. Indeed, one might ask, what happened to the hallowed R2P doctrine?
At the U.N. World Summit in 2005, more than 150 heads of state and governments unanimously adopted a declaration on the Responsibility to Protect, authorizing international collective action "to protect [a state's] population from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity" if that state is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, or worse, as in the case of Syria, if that state is the author of such criminality.
When the peaceful protests in Syria began in March 2011 in Deraa -- triggered by the arrest of youth whose only crime was anti-regime graffiti -- Syrian protesters then took to the streets, olive branches in their hands, proclaiming "peaceful, peaceful," the march heralding the prospective blossoming of the Syrian Arab Spring after both Tunisia and Egypt. Since then, those seeking freedom and democracy have looked for international support and solidarity in their struggle against the murderous regime.
What is required now is a UN Security Council resolution -- it is astonishing that no such resolution has yet to be adopted after 14 months of mass atrocity -- in order to implement the conditions of the initial Arab League peace plan which evolved into the UN-sponsored Annan peace plan. It is time that we acted on our international legal obligations under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine, whose first pillar is that of "Sovereignty as Responsibility."
In particular, what is so necessary now is a comprehensive, consequential, and binding UN Security Council resolution that would include: First, the cessation of Syrian government violence; the mandated deployment of a Arab-led peace protection force in Syria; and the ordering of troops and tanks back to barracks and bases.
Clearly, the deployment of 290 unarmed UN monitors, not unlike the initial deployment of Arab League monitors, has ended up with the monitors being observers to the killing rather than a protection force to prevent the killing to begin with.
Second, protecting against the vulnerability of the targeted civilian neighbourhoods -- and the related refugee flow towards Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders -- through the establishment of civilian protection zones, or what Anne-Marie Slaughter has referred to as "no-kill zones," along Syria's international borders. Any Syrian assault in these civilian protection zones would authorize a response that would be defensive in nature, and would only target Syrian forces that attack the designated civilian protection areas.
Third, the provision of unfettered access to the sick and wounded for the humanitarian agencies -- such as the International Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent. People are dying of hunger as by bullets -- by neglect as by artillery. As Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Red Cross Committee, put it three months ago -- and it has only gotten worse since: "It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help"; while the Sunday Times reported -- again, three months ago -- and again, nothing has changed since -- "The government's inhumanity persists, while the injured and sick, deprived of the necessary medical care, continue to die."
Fourth, the UN Resolution, pursuant to its implementation of the Annan peace plan -- must mandate media access, both as a means of providing independent verification of violations of the plan, if not to help deter these violations to begin with.
Fifth, what is needed, as the Foreign Ministers of Canada, the UK, France and others have called for, are expanded and enhanced sanctions, extending the list of sanctioned individuals and corporations already facing asset freezes and visa bans, the whole as enacted by the European Union in the aftermath of the "Friends of Syria" meeting in Tunisia three months ago, and individually by Canada, the US, Australia and the like.
Yet these actions were themselves met with more shelling, more execution-style killings, and what Syrian inhabitants of Baba Amr called "a scorched Earth campaign." Indeed, there were some 100 Syrians killed per day after, as well as before, these EU and related sanctions, while the Syrian Army announced -- and then carried out -- its intention to "cleanse the city of Homs" -- and specifically the Baba Amr neighborhood -- and then moved some two months ago to "cleanse the city of Deraa."
Clearly, however, while these sanctions were welcome, they were not enough even as sanctions go. What is needed in the matter of sanctions, is a total quarantine of Syria -- global travel bans and asset freezes, utter diplomatic isolation and condemnation, expulsion of Syrian diplomats, and the treatment of the Syrian government as the pariah it has become, devoid of any legitimacy.
Sixth, the Syrian government continues to violate the most basic principles of international law. One need only look at the chilling accounts of torture released by Amnesty International -- again going back three months -- and which has continued since -- and which makes the inaction of the international community incomprehensible as it is unacceptable. Indeed, Amnesty catalogued the widespread and systematic use of beatings, sexual violence, electrocution, crucifixion as well as 27 other forms of torture and severe mistreatment of prisoners, all of which amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Moreover, there is detailed documentary evidence that these crimes are being routinely carried out by every layer of the Assad regime's military, intelligence and security apparatus, including Air Force Intelligence, Military Intelligence and the Political Security Force. The Syrian political and army leadership should be put on notice that they will be held accountable for their grave violations of international law, and that their future is in the docket of the accused.
Seventh, and again pursuant to the Annan peace plan, the UN resolution must require the release of all arbitrarily detained persons and political prisoners.
Eighth, any resolution must order -- and implement a means for verifying -- a complete arms embargo, again as a condition of maintaining the peace. Indeed, there are reports of two ships -- one from North Korea and another from Russia -- that docked in the Syrian ports of Latakiya and Tartus ports -- carrying arms for the Syrian army, thereby fuelling Syrian aggression and assaults.
Ninth, any resolution, again pursuant to the Annan peace plan, should mandate an inclusive political dialogue and process that genuinely respects the legitimate aspirations of the whole of the Syrian people, including the large majority that are not Alawi, and in which, as the UN plan puts it, "citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations or ethnicities or beliefs," and with a view to President Assad stepping down as part of this process.
Tenth, the international community needs to leverage Russia and China -- Syria's main enablers -- who vetoed two previous UN Security Council resolutions. Let there be no doubt about, in vetoing two binding UN Security Council resolutions calling for an end to the violence, Russia and China emboldened Assad with a licence to kill and, in supplying Syria with arms, the capacity to do so. The U.S., the European Union and the Arab League need to leverage Russia such that it appreciates that, as the Syrian assaults, killings and torture continue, Russia itself becomes complicit in crimes against humanity, rather than simply as their enabler, however reprehensible that too has been; and that a country like Russia which is concerned with its international legitimacy as a super-power -- and seeks to be a major player in the Middle East -- is putting both its legitimacy, as well as its standing with the Arab League, at risk.
Finally, if Russia and China still remain steadfast and opposed to a binding UN Security Council Resolution in the face of these on-going crimes against humanity, the 13 remaining members of the UN Security Council -- including the United States, the Arab League and the European Union -- acting along the lines of the Kosovo precedent -- should use their preponderant majority to implement the Annan peace plan and mandate the end of the Syrian regime's killing fields.
In conclusion, Syria is a case study of the 5Rs of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. First, the principle of "sovereignty as responsibility" -- of a country's responsibility to protect its citizens as "the first pillar of the R2P doctrine," which has been manifestly violated in this instance by Syria being the very author of the war crimes themselves.
Secondly, the responsibility to remember the lessons -- le devoir de memoir -- of the dangers of incitement, and the responsibility to prevent.
Third, the danger of indifference and inaction in the face of mass atrocity, and the responsibly to act.
Fourth, the danger of impunity and the responsibility to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Finally, in the face of such crimes against humanity, the invocation and implementation of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine in such a binding UN Security Council Resolution.
As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon once put it, "loss of time means more loss of lives." Tragically, we have not yet done what needed to be done despite our knowing the cruel, desperate reality of the situation on the ground in Syria. Indeed, after all this time -- after all this killing -- we still do not have a UN Security Council resolution.
It is our collective responsibility to ensure R2P is not empty rhetoric, but an effective instrument for preventing mass atrocity, protecting people and securing human rights. If the Responsibility to Protect is to mean anything, it means acting here -- and acting now. | <urn:uuid:411c9c46-bb59-41ee-823e-65ab9ba5ac3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/irwin-cotler/syria-massacre_b_1560419.html?ref=canada-politics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959189 | 3,229 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Clinton suffers concussion, forced to stay off work
WASHINGTON - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fainted and suffered a concussion while battling a nasty stomach bug, an official said Saturday, just days before the release of a key probe into the Benghazi attack.
The news came just as Clinton, 65, had been expected to testify on Thursday to US lawmakers about the findings of the investigation into September's militant attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
The normally indefatigable Clinton, who in her four years as the top US diplomat has traveled almost a million miles visiting 112 countries, was "recovering" but plans to stay away from the office next week, her top aide Philippe Reines said.
"While suffering from a stomach virus, Secretary Clinton became dehydrated and fainted, sustaining a concussion," he added in a statement, without giving further details of what happened.
Her doctors said Clinton had experienced "extreme dehydration, and subsequently fainted. Over the course of this week, we evaluated her and ultimately determined she had also sustained a concussion."
Doctors Lisa Bardack, from Mount Kisco Medical Group, and Gigi El-Bayoumi of George Washington University said they had recommended "she continue to rest and avoid any strenuous activity, and strongly advised her to cancel all work events for the coming week."
They added that they would continue to monitor her progress.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wished Clinton a quick recovery.
"It is, however, unfortunate that Secretary Clinton is unable to testify next week... on the investigation into the terrorist attack that killed four Americans and left others injured," Lehtinen added.
She said lawmakers still have "tough questions about State Department threat assessments and decision-making on Benghazi. This requires a public appearance by the secretary of state herself."
Clinton has already been off work for the past week, after canceling a trip to North Africa when she contracted the stomach virus on her return from a five-day European tour.
She had been due to testify at open hearings next week in both the House and Senate on the outcome of the State Department investigation into the Benghazi assault in which the ambassador and three other Americans died.
State Department acting deputy spokesman Patrick Ventrell confirmed Friday the report should be completed by early next week.
Its findings are not binding, but "it's a chance for the department as a whole to look at our operations and look at what needs to be done to improve security," he said.
Clinton has said she takes full responsibility, repeatedly stressing that no one wants to find out what happened in Benghazi more than she does.
The September 11 attack became a political punchbag in the final, furious weeks of the 2012 presidential elections, and has already complicated Obama's calculations for his second term cabinet.
The report's findings are also likely to ignite another storm of protest, with Republicans already scenting blood.
Republicans have castigated President Barack Obama's administration for failing to provide proper security, and for employing local Libyan security staff.
They also allege the administration sought to cover up links to Al-Qaeda by initially insisting the attack was sparked by a protest over an anti-Islam video, which had triggered public fury in Libya's neighbor Egypt.
Veteran diplomat Thomas Pickering, who has been heading up the accountability review board and another member of the team, Admiral Mike Mullen, will instead brief the House panel Wednesday behind closed doors.
Even though Clinton aims to step down as secretary of state early next year, Obama has not yet revealed his pick to replace her.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice on Thursday abandoned her hopes of succeeding Clinton, after coming under Republican fire for saying in the days after the assault that, according to the available intelligence, it resulted from a "spontaneous" demonstration.
Rice asked Obama to withdraw her name from consideration, saying it would only lead to a protracted fight after several Republicans threatened to block her nomination.
Veteran Senator John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is now the odds-on favorite to replace Clinton at the helm of the State Department -- an ambition he has long cherished.
© 1994-2012 Agence France-Presse | <urn:uuid:c104f9f7-d228-4086-9919-c17b802b19ce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filipino/world/12/16/12/clinton-suffers-concussion-forced-stay-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970894 | 870 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Marilyn Martin was the first to release a version of this song on the soundtrack to "Streets of Fire" in 1984. On that version Stevie sings backup.
This song reflects the craziness of the Los Angeles scene during the time when Stevie and Lindsey were trying to make it there, and when Stevie lost her innocence about the music business. The beginning of the song talks about someone who is tired, worn-out, and miserable, someone who paid "a high price for [her] luxury." While she and Lindsey had little money at this time, she could be referring to the show business types around her, big stars whose fame does not seem to have brought them happiness.
The "man and woman on a star stream, in the middle of a snow dream" sounds like it's describing Lindsey and her, rocketing through the surreal world of stardom, looking for the "high life." But she says in the next line that she wants to "put [the sorcerer] on ice." I think she wants to stay away from becoming that show business type, from those problems. She feels like all the jaded, even frightening world of the fast living rockers she's surrounded by translate into "black ink darkness." She wants to find the "lady from the mountain", stick to the "real Stevie" (she has another song, a demo, called Lady from the Mountain, where she is also the titular lady). She goes on to repeat her inner conflict between giving into the temptation of becoming that show business "sorcerer" and losing herself. Who is the master? Did she win that battle or lose it? Only Stevie knows!
This song is obscure, but one of my favorite Stevie compositions. There's a rare Fleetwood Mac recording of this, that's almost bluegrass in its approach, which makes sense for the "Lady from the Mountain". I think the line "man and woman on a star stream, in the middle of a snow dream" could mean Stevie and Lindsay at the height of their success, and the snow dream could likely be Stevie's much-talked about cocaine problem. Over and over she wonders who is the master -- Fame? Success? the false stage persona? the innocent woman from the Mountain?
I have a completely differrent take on "Sorcerer." Perhaps it's the way I lived the '70s, or perhaps it just reflects a different life experience, but "Sorcerer" is, to me, clearly about cocaine.
If you've ever awakened sometime in the late afternoon after a very long night of indulging in coke, you'd understand the "tired and thirsty" line (especially the thirsty!). People who use cocaine on a regular basis get, in the lingo of the drug culture, "wild eyed." It's something you look for when you suspect someone is using: eyes open too wide, darting around the room. And believe me, when you must do a line and don't have any, that's the very definition of "misery." "Who is the master?" You or the drug? The "high price for your luxury" pretty much seems self explanatory in this context. Stevie admits to spending literally millions on cocaine.
So I believe Stevie's "Sorcerer" is a metaphor for a "Source"
Other cocaine references:
o "Man and woman on a star stream, in the middle of a *snow dream*"
o "Show me the high life/Come over, let me put you on ice.
o "Who found the lady from the mountain" (coca leaves are gown mainly in the mountains of South America")
o "I'm tired, I need you badly. ..." Unless you've been there ...
I realize Stevie says this song was written before her 11-year cocaine binge, but somehow, I think she was exposed to the drug early on. She tells a story about finding a "line" in producer Keith Olsen's house when she was still a "cleaning lady." And of course, her songs have been prophetic more than once. ...
Want to speculate about "Sorcerer"? E-mail me and I'll post your comments. | <urn:uuid:d90e85ca-8318-4b7a-a3a6-31afaae8e537> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buckinghamnicks.net/sn/tisl/sorcerer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971343 | 872 | 1.5625 | 2 |
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To make those connections, we need to bring people together. Please take a few minutes to register on this site and introduce yourself. Anyone with an interest in locally produced food is welcome to join.
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The foundations for successful riding
23 posts • Page 1 of 1
I am just starting back into riding after a two year hiatus and trying to build a plan from friels training bible. Hitting a few road bumps in terms of trying to figure out LTHR so I can figure out my hr zones and what not for my base rides.
For instance the other day I went on a ride with a friend and I was riding along feeling it a bit but not feeling like I was going to die or anything, anyway my heart rate was around 191 for a decent bit of the ride (not a hill). Then on another part of the ride we were riding on the flats at a real cruisy pace and my hr was still in high 160's and low 170's while feeling really fresh (cardio wise).
Anyway, does any one have any advice on what sort of number I should use for my LTHR?
Any ideas/advice would be greatly appreciated.
Without knowing at least your age it is hard to say anything.
The following links should give you some basic idea of heart rate vs age.
http://www.bodyblitz.net.au/calculators ... rate-zone/
Maybe see your local GP in any case before starting strenuous exercise.
Not sure if it's any help to you but I also have an abnormally high heart rate when cycling. I'm 25 years old, about 170cm tall and ~65kg. I consider myself fairly fit, I've been racing a bit and I do pretty well and I commute 25km each way to work when I can. However for many of my sub 1 hour rides my average heart rate is about 180 bpm, it often peaks to around 195 bpm when climbing big hills. I don't know why but my heart rate jumps up to 100-110 when I jump on the bike but before I've even left the house and it's up to 160+ as soon as I start riding. The only time it averages lower is when I'm on multi-hour very very slow pace rides.
"As long as you are healthy ..." you will have to work out your own training zones, I have ridden with guys with HR's n the 230's. So you will have to test to find your hr zones...and then they will change day to day / hour to hour. The reason I haven't bothered with HR for so long... not really very accurate.
Maybe they need to get accurate heart rate monitors
I did have have HR of over 230 but I have since ditched the useless Garmin premium strap and now use a Garmin standard strap.
This has given consistent results without any spikes or glitches (touch wood!)
IANAC but over 230 sounds either wrong or an underlying heart condition.
Any particular tests you would recommend to find my hr zones?
My peak HR is 182 (seems to go up 1 per year, not down ) but I can happily average low 160s for an hour in a race, and run at mid-to-high 170s on climbs. I'm early 50s. So I guess my 1 hr LTHR is/was 162. I must admit that was something of a surprise analysing the data after my first point-to-point race - previously hitting low 170s in training was right on the ragged edge. In the race and thereafter, it was pushing it, but comfortable.
My late cousin would average 180s on long (25km) climbs and hit 200s in the sprints. He was early 70s.
The takeaways are that HR is a very individual thing, age is a factor over time for the individual but perhaps less so than training, and you will get a clearer idea where your LTHR threshhold is with experience. Training up for a race, tapering in the last week, and then racing will give you a clear idea of where your real limits are.
My suggestion would be to find a quiet piece of road without traffic lights, taper like you would for a race in the week before, warm up properly and do a 20 minute time trial. If in Sydney, my recommendation would be the climb eastwards from Akuna Bay to West Head.
"People have a right to their own opinions, but not their own facts. Evidence must be located, not created, and opinions not backed by evidence cannot be given much weight." -- James W Loewen
I am just making the point that peoples heart rates vary so much you need to test yourself and not go by a book or formula... I think also you need to know how your heart reacts in certain situations over a period of time before you can set your zones properly... But at the moment I am late for a race so I better go!
I think we are in violent agreement
The book/formula just gives a starting point.
However quoting values of over 230 without clarification that these are elite athlete with medical supervision,
is dangerous. I would suggest that anyone with HR much over 200 have a medical checkup to ensure there
is no underlying heart condition.
From a google search:
Good luck with your race!
Go and do a 20 minute time trial on a closed flattish loop as hard as you can. Try to maintain the same speed. Have a few practice runs over a couple of days if preferred. Then, on your test run, record your average HR for the last 5 minutes. If you cannot record the data, just remember your HR 5 mins before the end and at the end, add and divide by 2. Multiply by 0.95. This is Coggan's method for determining Anaerobic Threshold.
It's more appropriate to base your zones on AT than HRmax.
Your HR zones will be the following %s of AT (NOT HRmax)
Heart Rate Zones:
Zone 1 = Recovery (<71% of AT) – uses the aerobic system
Zone 2 = Endurance (72-81% of AT) – uses the aerobic system
Zone 3 = Tempo Pace (82-91% of AT) – uses mainly aerobic system
Zone 4 = Threshold Pace ( 92-102% of AT) – uses mainly aerobic with some anaerobic system
Zone 5 = Anaerobic Pace (103-110% of AT) – covers zone where aerobic converts to the anaerobic system.
Zone 6 = Maximum aerobic capacity (Too short to record HR) – anaerobic and CP systems
Regarding high HRs, gifted athletes with healthy heart function are capable of exceeding their age matched normal HRmax significantly.
In their case, it is indicative their neural drive of cardiac function and the state of heart conductivity and muscle strength is healthy and strong.
How does one know when a high rate is a sign of a distressed heart? It is difficult to say sometimes, though you may feel distressed and short of breath because your heart is not managing to get enough oxygen to your tissue. If your HR is very high regularly, you should discuss it with your GP.
Thanks PawPaw. Going to go try it out on the local crit loop tomorrow.
Do some research on "perceived effort" as well... personally for me that worked much better than training with HR ( heart rate is pointless on efforts under 5 minutes etc ) before I got a power meter. These days I don't have anything on my bars...works fine. But I will get a garmin one day soon .
I tend to agree with TLL. Once you've been riding a bike for a few thousand hours, rating of perceived effort is going to be a pretty good pacing guide...and HR monitor and power meter won't be essential training aids.
I bought HRM Polar FT4.
I used it today for the first time cycling to work.
My average is 152 but max 219!!! I am 48.
I didn't push hard at all and only have a couple of small climb.
Is this normal??? I am a bit worried now.
If you are worried, go see a doctor. Easier to make sure than discover when its too late. However, when did you get the high rate? I noticed when I had a polar, until I had started to sweat a little, the HR monitor always overread.
During a race, my heart rate seems pretty steady at 155-160 and I feel pretty comfortable at that, and in the all out run to the line usually peaks around 185. I am 47.
"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever" Lance Armstrong
218 is not normal for your age.
However, it is normal for HRMs to over-read when skin contact is poor, or signal strength is compromised.
To be sure, put 50ml of water in a glass, then add a half tspn of salt, and stir. rub this on between your skin and HRM just before riding.
It is the next best thing to electrode gel and litres of sweat to improve signal transduction.
If you are still consistently getting HRs over 180-190, then try a mate's HRM (and computer). If that is also high, then explain to your GP and express your concerns and desire for a stress ecg.
If you are on a fast weight loss diet, this can also cause heart rhythm disturbances. But so can a stack of other morbidities, and even moderate caffeine use.
My view is readings over 200 in average recreational athletes over 35 are either HRM artefacts or sign of tachycardic events such as atrial fibrillation.
If its the new soft strap from Polar, run it under the tap before putting it on.
I got similar readings when it wasn't wet enough.
Though its not so nice sticking that thing around your chest when its frigid water out of the tap and you've just jumped out of a nice warm bed!!
The trouble with jogging is that the ice falls out of your glass
I remember a MTB race where my AVERAGE heart rate for 1:30 was 195bpm, i'm another one of these people who just seems to run at high rpm (though my resting HR is as low as 48). However i was riding at a steady pace the other day that should have had me around 140 and my HRM claimed i was doing 216, after a few seconds it then reverted to 144 where it should have been. So i would definitely do a couple of rides with another HRM to check against your own, and if things are still concerning you, head to the doctor. It doesn't hurt to make sure.
When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments- Elizabeth West.
I was glad to find that my max HR was 174 with average 157.
So I really need to wet the strap.
I was a bit worried, I didn't know it could give incorrect elevated reading like that.
Not what I call a failsafe system.
23 posts • Page 1 of 1
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Scrap metal prices have risen in recent years owing to a number of reasons, including a shortage of raw materials such as steel and aluminum here and abroad. In fact, much of our recycled metal is exported to countries like China and India. The strong scrap market is also part of the current rise in the recycling industry and “Go Green” initiatives.
Snow will soon cover our woodlands, and along with them, our old dumps and metal graveyards. But with the arrival of spring I expect to see a few more scrap seekers. | <urn:uuid:36d15465-e8fb-4d6a-b238-2512faf83fdb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.riverreporter.com/column/root-cellar/21/2011/12/13/scrap-seekers?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967072 | 111 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Look brown if you have too much rubbish
Published 20 Oct 2012 10:30 0 Comments
Fife Council say that residents can use their brown bins during the changeover to the new two-shift refuse collections.
A new collection service started on Monday which means household bins can be collected anytime between 6am and 9pm.
A council statement said, "If you are waiting longer than two weeks between collections and have run out of space in your landfill bin, you can start using your brown bin for all types of waste.
"This means that you can put landfill and recyclable waste in the brown bin.
"Regrettably, for this collection only, some of the contents of the brown bin may be sent to landfill.
"As soon as your brown bin has been emptied, please use it for food and garden waste only if you have four bins, and garden waste only if you have three bins.
"The recycling of the contents of the brown bin will start again from the 29th October.
"Fife Council would like to thank you for your patience and cooperation during the changes. | <urn:uuid:71797dd3-b2f0-4471-8945-d0b09fbbaf4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dunfermlinepress.com/news/roundup/articles/2012/10/20/438096-look-brown-if-you-have-too-much-rubbish/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956871 | 227 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The effects of selection for growth rate on weights and qualitative carcass and muscle traits were assessed by comparing two lines selected for live body weight at 63 days of age and a cryopreserved control population raised contemporaneously with generation 5 selected rabbits. The animals were divergently selected for five generations for either a high (H line) or a low (L line) body weight, based on their BLUP breeding value. Heritability (h2) was 0.22 for 63-d body weight (N = 4754). Growth performance and quantitative carcass traits in the C group were intermediate between the H and L lines (N = 390). Perirenal fat proportion (h2 = 0.64) and dressing out percentage (h2 = 0.55) ranked in the order L < H = C (from high to low). The weight and cross-sectional area of the Semitendinosus muscle, and the mean diameter of the constitutive myofibres were reduced in the L line only (N = 140). In the Longissimus muscle (N = 180), the ultimate pH (h2 = 0.16) and the maximum shear force reached in the Warner-Braztler test (h2 = 0.57) were slightly modified by selection.
Keywords: rabbit, growth, selection, genetic parameters, meat quality | <urn:uuid:f8a00112-a3e2-4892-81fe-2fc4ba19de5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pubmedcentralcanada.ca/pmcc/articles/PMC2697246/?report=abstract | 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 | 0.946369 | 277 | 1.789063 | 2 |
King’s dream lived out through week of service
By Kim Chaudoin on 1/8/2013
Service will be the focus of a week long Lipscomb community observance of the life of civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
King was best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights using nonviolent civil disobedience and service.
“Unless we live out his dream, they are just words. What does it look like to live out his dream? Serving others. By serving others, we are making his dream a reality,” said Tenielle Buchanan, assistant dean of students for intercultural development. “Through this week of service we want to show students that they can start where they are and give what they can. This is how his dream comes to fruition. This is how we can honor what he fought for.”
A special chapel service on Thursday, Jan. 17 launches the observance. Students will have the opportunity to reflect on the life and legacy of King through student testimonies and spoken word. Following chapel, students will have the opportunity to sign up for service projects.
Other activities include:
Friday, Jan. 18
School supplies drive for Youth Encouragement/Youth Life Learning Center
Students and employees are asked to bring new school supply items such as folders, paper, highlighters, pencils, erasers, crayons, glue sticks and coloring books to collection bins located throughout campus.
Saturday, Jan. 19
MLK Service Day
A day of service is planned that brings together students from Lipscomb, Belmont University, Tennessee State University and the Mt. Zion College Ministry to serve the Nashville community. Students will volunteer at a variety of nonprofit organizations throughout Nashville.
Students should meet at Mt. Zion Baptist Church (1112 Jefferson St., Nashville, 37208) by 11:30 a.m. for the kick-off event. At 12:45 p.m. transportation will be provided to students who need it from Mt. Zion to the service sites including Second Harvest Food Bank, Feed the Children and The Red Cross. Students will serve onsite from 1-3 p.m.
Buses will transport students back to Mt. Zion where they will take part in reflection activities and a door prize give-away until 4:30 p.m.
SALT and chapel credit are available to students who participate and stay until 4:30 p.m.
Sign up to participate in Allen Arena after the special MLK chapel at 10:55 a.m. on Thursday or click here.
Monday, Jan. 21
National Freedom March
Students will be able to participate in the city-wide MLK commemorative march that starts on Jefferson Street in Nashville. Participants should meet on the corner of 28th Avenue and Jefferson Street.
MLK Celebration and 2013 Inauguration watch party. Main level of Bennett Campus Center in the student lounge area. During the event students will package the school supplies that were donated for Youth Encouragement Services and Youth Life Learning.
Tuesday, Jan. 22
Cultural Conversation – Why We Celebrate
7 p.m., Hall of Fame Room, Allen Arena
A campus-wide discussion about the importance of observing MLK day and why it is celebrated.
Wednesday, Jan. 23
An Afternoon of service at Thriftsmart
Thursday, Jan. 24
MLK Life and Legacy, Reflection and Discussion
5 p.m. • Ezell 363
Join a conversation about six steps to nonviolent social change, reflect on the week’s activities and more.
For more information about these activities, contact Elizabeth Hayes at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:0a111041-9f7b-4b10-982a-543001a43731> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lipscomb.edu/news/Archive/Detail/13/25568 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935781 | 762 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Held at the Crossing Art Gallery on the ground floor of Queens Crossing in Flushing, the exhibition, “Going Green” opened on Saturday, August 13, will celebrate their creative, green endeavors.
From paintings to videos, interactive installations, and reactive sculptures, the exhibition will explore the artists’ varying approaches to the integration between natural systems and human patterns.
The beneficiary of the fundraising will be the Queens Council on the Arts (QCA), an arts service organization that is committed to developing the arts in Queens through its support of local artists and arts organizations, as well as its creation of programs and events to benefit local communities.
“They wanted to participate in some way to help Queens Council,” said Jacqueline de Dios, the Development Associate of QCA. Already, Crossing Art Gallery, which has been in an active partnership with QCA since 2010, has raised $2000 for the organization.
The money will be used to expand QCA’s programs, which include free or low-cost workshops that teach artists pursuing professional careers on writing effectively for grant applications, as well as studio art classes that help graduating high school students develop their portfolios for college admissions.
“When we collaborate, we’re able to give back,” Dios said.
Selected from an international pool of competitors by a group of panelists consisting of gallerists, curators, writers, and a sustainable urban development expert, the finalists vary as much in their techniques as in their approaches.
“All of my work is about the system of growth and decay, [and] the cycle of life and death,” said Rachel L. Kohn, a Long Island City-based artist who turns these natural, inevitable processes into visual landscapes.
“I’ve always been consumed by art— even in high school, I would see something and have to draw it.”
The sprawling mass of moss that had taken an unrelenting grip on the hexagonal tiles of Mamaroneck Alley inspired Kohn to create a piece that combined painting with sculpting. The saturation of green, which was used to represent the moss, served as “bursts of energy,” according to Kohn.
Some artists at the exhibit, however, like Mark Andreas and Maria Michails, dipped their hands into other modes of art — interactive and reactive sculptures.
“The environment dictates when things change,” said Andreas, an artist who used his experience as a boat builder for the project. “I’m chasing after the tipping point of change.”
The structure of one of his pieces, Hanging in Balance (bottom photo), is affected by minute changes in temperature. Usually, although not for this exhibit, Andreas places ice in the center of the structure. The temperature of its surroundings then melts the ice, forcing the side beams to collapse downwards with 1,800 pounds of force.
Michails, a zealous traveler, is drawn to the merging of nature and human patterns of development. Her piece, Handcar (top photo), generates electricity through human motion.
“When I climbed the mountains and I saw a lot of industrialization going on,” said Michails.
“Within a span of 100 years, we’ve seen an increase in environmental degradation so the debate of climate issue is no longer a debate.”
The gallery will exhibit three other artists as well: Susan Evans Grove, Diane Meyer, and Andrzej Wasilewski.
“Going Green” is on view until Sunday, September 11.
For more information, visit Crossingart.com | <urn:uuid:095837f8-a03b-4b26-9315-2860950527a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenpointstar.com/view/full_story/15125347/article-Contemporary-artists-go-Green-at-Flushing-Art-Gallery?instance=lead_story_left_column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958099 | 755 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Ask any person across Europe their top priority right now and they’ll likely say “it’s the economy, stupid.” Soaring unemployment, failing banks and massive government deficits continue to dominate the news headlines in several EU countries as ordinary people worry about their jobs and futures. As people tighten their pocketbooks, it is increasingly obvious that international institutions aren’t doing the same. This week, the EU’s Court of Auditors refused to once again sign off the EU’s budget – for the 15th straight year. For 15 years, the EU’s own auditors have not been able to give the EU budget a clean bill of health.
British think-tank Open Europe has just released a report, “50 examples of EU waste” listing EU projects which defy common sense, and in most cases, even belief. For example, as part of its 2008 €7 million ‘Year of Intercultural Dialogue’ initiative, the EU commissioned a project named “Donkeypedia”, where a Dutch donkey named Asino blogged his way across the Netherlands, talking to school children about the concept of European identity. Also in 2008, nearly €200,000 was spent creating a network of EU puppet experts in the Baltics. Let’s hope Asino doesn’t apply for more tax-payer’s cash for a rendez-vous with the Estonian puppets.
Open Europe’s report reveals the systematic and pointless nature of EU spending in several areas. EU ‘Structural Funds’ now join the Common Agricultural Policy on a growing list of immoral and unjustifiable budget lines administered by the EU. €45 billion a year of Structural Funds are allocated by Brussels to ‘share the wealth’ among EU member states. In reality, rich countries get almost as much of these funds as poorer ones and wasteful or corrupt spending has become notorious.
There is a much simpler way to do things. If the UK wants Lithuania to receive more foreign assistance, why doesn’t the government just send the money to Vilnius directly? Cutting a check to Brussels which is then mismanaged, misallocated and spent on projects outside of Britain’s control makes no sense. As part of David Cameron’s six point plan to preserve British sovereignty and repatriate key powers from Brussels, he must withdraw Britain’s contribution from wasteful budget lines such as Structural Funding where Britain could better manage its own money. | <urn:uuid:393b04ac-f8aa-4c13-a2b5-b43cd5f043db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.heritage.org/2009/11/12/asino-the-eu%E2%80%99s-e7-million-blogging-donkey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943018 | 515 | 1.84375 | 2 |
26.2 Miles From Hopkinton to Boston
More concerned about her carbohydrate intake than her schoolwork, Miriam R. Asnes '02 worries that Passover observation has interfered with her preparation for the 105th annual Boston Marathon.
At noon today, Asnes and handfuls of other Harvard students will join 15,000 registered runners and a few thousand unofficial participants for one of the most famous and most challenging long runs.
One of the largest single-day sporting event after the Super Bowl, the Boston Marathon has a reputation for its unpredictable weather and 26.2 miles of hilly terrain. Registered runners have qualified by running other marathons with times of less than three hours and ten minutes for men and three hours and 40 minutes for women.
For each of the 26.2 miles ahead, these athletes will run at roughly a seven mile per hour clip, beginning their journey in the small town of Hopkinton and finishing in Copley Square.
Throughout the race, official runners will have their pace monitored by chips installed in their shoes. At the finish line, volunteers will meet them with a warm blanket and a bronze participant medal.
The Boston Marathon is a tremendously difficult course. Runners must brave the four hills of Newton during the most mentally trying portion for runners, miles 16 to 21.
The notorious Heartbreak Hill gets its name from the one-mile stretch where each year runners simply hit the wall and may actually stop running.
"Boston has a lot of hills," Kirkland House Allston Burr Senior Tutor Timothy C. Harte '90 said. "But with the uphill you need to go downhill. The pounding of the downhills are difficult to deal with."
Half a million spectators will be cheering on the runners, as many as five people deep along certain areas of the course.
The allure of testing the limits of one's body and the promise of an unforgettable emotional experience have compelled students to attempt the
feat, despite the intense discipline required.
"The idea of running 26.2 miles is terrible for your body," said Jordan "Jack" A. Chase '02, who is running the marathon for the second time. "I just want to challenge myself to my physical limits. Running [the Marathon] is an incredible experience."
Adam J. Cohon '03 sees the Boston Marathon as a Harvard tradition. "It's just one of those things you have to do before you graduate. You sled down Widner, have sex in the library, piss on John Harvard and run a Marathon."
Cohon eventually plans to run the Ironman Triathlon in November. The last leg of that race is a marathon, so Boston is a practice event for him.
Curiosity inspired Aaron Nagiel '04 to attempt the marathon for the first time.
"I never ran officially in high school," Nagiel said. "My uncle had run
Boston before and he told me I cold do it. The long runs challenge me and I had really never run that far before."
Seniors tend to dominate the Harvard contingency, using the last year of college in Boston as motivation to run the marathon.
"I wanted to do a marathon before I got old. I'm in Boston and have the chance," David B. Amerikaner '01 said.
A tailgate party organized by the class marshals will await the senior runners near Cleveland Park at mile 22, directly after the steepest portion of the course.
"What will keep me going up the hills is knowing that they are all up at Mile 22 waiting for me," Amerikaner said. His mother and younger brother have flown in from California and will join the tailgate.
Training for the marathon is a commitment that begins for most in January. A series of short weekly runs with the occasional long weekend run comprise most of the training. Balancing the long runs with a Harvard schedule, though, can be demanding.
"It was tough to keep training with my thesis, but I tried to run about
six to eight miles four times a week and to run for at least an hour," T. Christopher King '01 said.
James T. Platts '01, who is a Crimson editor, said he has not trained as much as he did for last year's marathon.
"I went for a long 18-mile run two weekends ago and that went okay," he said. "Until then, I had not even decided if I was going to run."
Melissa A. Crandall '01, joined by her training partner Katherine S. Burrage '01, waited until senior year to ensure she would have adequate time to train.
"Senior spring is not the most stressful time for me," Crandall said. "I'm used to a big time commitment of about two and a half to three hours a day with soccer."
The two women will receive race numbers as part of the Dana Farber
Cancer Institute Team, which will use pledges from the race to raise money for
Most Harvard students have not met the strict qualifying times but will
run the course as anyway.
These so-called "bandit" runners will jump into the starting corrals, following the pack of qualified runners to test the limits of their endurance for the chance to participate in momentous and emotional test of physical and mental endurance.
Kirkland House marathon fans will provide an extra boost to Harte, who was named the House's new Allston Burr Senior Tutor last Tuesday. The inspiration to many runners in the House, Harte is Harvard's current marathon legend.
Two years ago he finished 38th in the men's pack with a personal record of 2:27. While professional runners fell to the weather conditions, Harte outlasted the heat.
The four-time participant has found scheduling training difficult.
"My training hasn't been as consistent as it has been in the past. I've gotten a late jump as I finish my dissertation," Harte said. "I'm not aiming so high this year. After becoming senior tutor, there are other things in
my life right now."
Harte, sidelined last year because of injury, feels both pressure and inspiration from the members of Kirkland House.
"In Kirkland House, everyone asks you if you are running. There are many
people counting on me to run," he said. "Being a runner in the Boston area, it's hard to avoid the Boston marathon."
With 25,000 Power Bars available for quick energy boosts, and spectators lining every inch of the course, Harvard's marathon runners should have plenty of inspiration.
First time runner Crandall offers has a clearly defined race goal. "I'm just hoping to finish." | <urn:uuid:09829a51-2039-4086-96b3-63a2d0486e1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2001/4/16/262-miles-from-hopkinton-to-boston/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968105 | 1,381 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Study: Oscar Voters Are Mostly White Men
LOS ANGELES -- A study of Academy Awards voters has found that it's not a very diverse group that hands out Hollywood's highest honors.
The Los Angeles Times found that 94 percent of the 5,765 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are white and 77 percent are men. Blacks and Hispanics account for only 2 percent each of academy members.
The newspaper's findings were reported Sunday, a week before the Oscars. The Times reported that through interviews with members and their representatives, it confirmed the identities of about 5,100 voters – 89 percent of academy membership.
The findings are in line with industry employment overall, in which whites and males dominate. But academy President Tom Sherak says the group is trying to diversify its membership rolls. | <urn:uuid:a85253d6-344c-45f3-b3f7-c5d2aca07121> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.moviefone.com/2012/02/19/study-oscar-voters-white-men_n_1287797.html?ref=tw | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962573 | 163 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Sebastopol, CA--In recent years, Ajax and Rails have been two of the hottest--if not the hottest--new technologies in web development. According to Scott Raymond, author of Ajax on Rails (O'Reilly, US $39.99), the two technologies have a bit of a symbiotic relationship: "Rails has popularized certain Ajax techniques, and Ajax developers have been drawn to Rails' approach," he explains. "Although most other Rails books have touched on Rails' Ajax abilities, they left a lot of fertile ground uncovered. I wanted to thoroughly explore the intersection of the two technologies."
As Raymond point out, there are solid reasons to believe that both Ajax and Rails will be significant features of the web development landscape for some time. "Big players are leading by example: Yahoo, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM have all started using and touting Ajax techniques, and Rails has become so associated with web startups that it's almost cliche." His new book, which is also available as a PDF (US $19.99), is the definitive guide to where these two technologies converge.
"My goal is that serious readers will finish the book with the confidence to call themselves Ajax on Rails experts," says Raymond. "That means you will not only understand how to use all of Rails' shortcuts, but you'll understand how they work as well."
"On the flip side," adds Raymond, "There is a lot in this book meant for pros as well that goes well beyond what any other resource offers. The book covers high-level topics like security, performance, testing, and debugging."
And there is one secret about the book, says Raymond: "Despite the title, this book is useful for non-Rails developers as well. Its extensive references to Prototype and script.aculo.us are the only such resources in print. Those libraries have users far beyond the Rails community."
Scott Raymond is a Ruby on Rails developer living in Kansas City. His work has been highlighted on the Rails web site and the "Wall Street Journal Online." Besides participating in the framework's development, he has led international training sessions and was a presenter at RailsConf 2006.Background and Market Information: http://del.icio.us/oreillymedia/AjaxonRails
O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly Media has been a chronicler and catalyst of cutting-edge development, homing in on the technology trends that really matter and spurring their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism.
PRESS QUERIES ONLY
Contact Sara Peyton | <urn:uuid:c1361ad0-6312-4d3c-b766-15a9a030df53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oreilly.com/lpt/pr/1680 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940875 | 580 | 1.625 | 2 |
ELECTIVE surgery waiting lists have blown out in the past year, the NSW opposition says, with John Hunter Hospital having the state’s highest number of listed patients.
But the government says that contrary to opposition scaremongering, most patients are seen within clinically recommended timeframes.
NSW Health figures compiled by the opposition show the number of patients on the elective surgery waiting list at the John Hunter rose from 3031 in March 2011 to 3250 in March this year.
The Newcastle hospital is one of the state’s busiest.
Waiting list increases were also recorded at Belmont, Cessnock and Kurri Kurri hospitals.
Numbers fell at Calvary Mater Newcastle, Gloucester, Maitland, Muswellbrook and Singleton hospitals.
Opposition health spokesman Andrew McDonald said the government had promised that when it was elected it would cut the elective surgery waiting list.
‘‘But instead we see the list continue to rise and rise on their watch,’’ Dr McDonald said.
He said waiting times were increasing because the government was failing to provide the extra money and medical staff hospitals needed to complete more surgery.
‘‘No one should have to go through months and months of pain and suffering while they wait for surgery,’’ Dr McDonald said.
Health Minister Jillian Skinner said yesterday that public hospitals did 4500 additional elective surgery procedures last year.
Money would be provided this year to increase the number again.
“In the Hunter New England Local Health District we performed more than 1000 additional surgeries compared to the previous year,’’ she said.
“Contrary to the scaremongering of the opposition, 93per cent of patients requiring urgent surgery at John Hunter Hospital were seen within clinically recommended timeframes,’’ Mrs Skinner said.
“Patients requiring elective surgery at John Hunter Hospital are waiting significantly less time than the state average.” | <urn:uuid:f6ec0231-956b-476c-bd29-c035c1117813> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theherald.com.au/story/205369/jhh-has-states-longest-elective-surgery-waiting-list/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958199 | 409 | 1.5 | 2 |
Behind the scenes of school infrastructure victory
On Monday 12 November I was sitting in a meeting at Equal Education head office in Khayelitsha and noticed the red light flashing on my phone. I read the message from Cameron McConnachie, EE’s attorney at the Legal Resource Centre in Grahamstown, and then interrupted a colleague in mid-sentence to announce that Minister Motshekga wanted to settle the case we’d brought against her almost a year ago.
Four days later we sat across the table from her in the impressive Department of Basic Education head office in Pretoria – proof that the DBE can certainly build when they want to. On the previous occasion that I was there with Equal Education we were not offered even water, but this was a different meeting: the Minister was hospitable and warm, and gracious in acknowledging that she had to settle the case because it “could not be morally defended”.
We now have an agreement that by 15 January the Minister will publish Norms and Standards for School Infrastructure for public comment, which will be open until 31 March. By 15 May we’ll have binding Norms and Standards. The content is for the Minister to determine, but her hands are somewhat bound by the fact that section 5A(2) of the SA School Act says that the “norms and standards … must provide for, but not be limited to … the availability of classrooms, electricity, water, sanitation, a library, laboratories for science, technology, mathematics and life sciences, sport and recreational facilities, electronic connectivity at a school, and perimeter security.” Of course we’re already preparing mobilization to ensure that the final document is a decent one, and will return to court if it isn't.
There is a great feeling of achievement in EE right now, coupled with some anti-climax at the 11th hour avoidance of what would have been a riveting court case, coupled with great determination and new energy for the work ahead. But how did we get here?
The very first campaign EE conducted in 2008 fixed 500 broken windows in one Khayelitsha high school. The issue was chosen by EE’s members because the classrooms would get cold and wet in winter and windy throughout the year. The successful campaign taught us that the physical condition of a school impacts the relationship students have with that school. Further research confirmed that there is a direct impact on learning outcomes too.
By late 2009 EE had begun to campaign for a national rollout of school libraries. Although we received written assurance from the Minister, and began to work with some provinces on their rollouts, we realised that the campaign needed a stronger footing. It was then that the appeal of norms and standards for school infrastructure began to register.
We discovered that draft norms and standards had been gazetted in late 2008, but had vanished with the departure of Minister Naledi Pandor. We began to campaign for their resurrection. In July 2010 there was a breakthrough: Minister Motshekga published a national policy with promised norms and standards for school infrastructure by 1 April 2011.
I doubt whether many people in the Department of Basic Education were even aware of this little deadline buried in a 60-page policy document, but it became a burning appointment on the calendar of thousands of EE members. The mobilisation had all along been intense. It had included numerous marches and a 24-hour fast by 5000 people, but now it intensified.
On 21 March 2011 over 20,000 EE members and supporters marched on Parliament in what was probably the largest youth march since democracy. The Minister sent a flunky to accept the memorandum, a serious PR blunder that alienated her from EE’s membership. When the 1 April deadline came and went the attitude of EE members hardened still further against the Minister.
Then on 25 June 2011 the Minister did attend and speak at the opening of an education summit hosted by EE. Addressing over 400 delegates from seven provinces she said for the first time that there would be no norms and standards, and offered as justification that her hands were tied by the provinces. But as every EE member knew, this was not true. As the campaign hit a new level of intensity, EE members slept outside Parliament from 12 to 14 July 2011, defying the police on the second night and narrowly avoiding arrest. Minister Motshekga ignored the protests.
Just five days later, EE met lawyers from the Legal Resources Centre and Advocate Geoff Budlender, one of the most experienced human rights lawyers in the world. Until that day Budlender had not been too sanguine about the prospects of a court case, but something clicked for him during that meeting and the case gathered a head of steam quite quickly.
We knew two things from early on. Firstly, that the legal argument would be difficult, because we’d have to convince a court despite the law saying the Minister “may … by regulation prescribe minimum uniform norms and standards for school infrastructure”, that she had an obligation – not a discretion – to do so. Secondly, that the facts – of the shocking conditions in thousands of schools – were overwhelmingly in our favour. The legal strategy was therefore a dual one: firstly to formulate a rights-based legal argument that the Constitution itself required norms and standards, and secondly to overwhelm the court with facts of such irresistible power and urgency that the law would take care of itself.
The most herculean undertaking was therefore the gathering of evidence. Under the leadership of Dmitri Holtzman, teams of EE volunteers and staff spent months visiting schools across the length of breadth of the country. The LRC Grahamstown team did similarly in the Eastern Cape. Many principals, teachers, learners and parents were nervous to tell their stories. In the end 25 remarkable affidavits were commissioned for EE’s court papers. They were summarized in EE Chairperson Yoliswa Dwane’s founding affidavit, and submitted as annexures.
The Minister’s answer was a long time coming. Three deadline-extensions later a flimsy answering affidavit arrived, not by the Minister, but by a Deputy Director General who purported, in what probably amounted to hearsay, to explain what the Minister was thinking in deciding not to prescribe norms and standards. Upon reading it our confidence leapt. It contained no strong arguments, and what resistance was offered was dealt with in EE’s replying affidavit. By then our hopes had also been raised by the fact that the National Planning Commission, the Auditor General, the Fiscal and Finance Commission and the SA Human Rights Commission had all independently come out and called for norms and standards.
Meanwhile the mass mobilisation continued. Hundreds of people wrote individual letters to the Minister, and we held further pickets and marches – including one which involved hundreds of EE members wearing a Minister Motshekga mask! Tens of thousands of posters and fliers were distributed countrywide; each time proceeded by a face to face discussion. We released videos, both animated and involving harrowing footage of rural schools. And we decided to rally hundreds of supporters to camp outside the Bhisho High Court from 17 – 21 November, over the time the case would be heard.
By the time the Minister finally bowed to the pressure and decided to concede all of our demands by settling the case, tens of thousands of people had played a role in this campaign. As Yoliswa Dwane said a few days ago, “This is a victory, first and foremost, for the members of Equal Education who have marched, fasted, slept outside Parliament, and studied long and hard to understand the issues.”
But this is far from finished. Our focus is now to ensure that the norms and standards soon to be published by the Minister are formidable, and then that they are implemented on the ground. It is that which will begin to change the lives of millions of young people.
Doron Isaacs is Deputy General Secretary of Equal Education. Follow him on Twitter @doronisaacs. | <urn:uuid:bfff7345-c2bf-437e-ae23-d40f639d9492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.groundup.org.za/content/behind-scenes-school-infrastructure-victory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980102 | 1,644 | 1.578125 | 2 |
A profanity-laced video of middle school students in upstate New York verbally abusing a bus monitor is sparking an outpouring of support as strangers worldwide rally to her side.
Students taunted Karen Klein, 68, with a stream of profanity, insults, jeers and physical ridicule. Some boys demanded to know her address, saying they wanted to come to her house to perform sexual acts and steal from her.
One comment from a boy aboard the bus was especially painful, she said. He told her that she does not have family because "they all killed themselves because they didn't want to be near you."
Klein's eldest son took his own life 10 years ago, according to CNN affiliate WHAM.
The bullying continued unabated for about 10 minutes in the video, as a giggling student jabs Klein's arm with a book and made fun of her weight.
Recorded by a student with a cell phone camera Monday -- the second-to-last day of school -- the brazen bullying went viral and spurred international outrage.
The incident occurred in Greece, New York, near Rochester. Klein is a bus monitor for the Greece Central School District, and the harassers hail from a district middle school, the school district said on its website.
In an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper, Klein said children misbehaved occasionally, but Monday's incident was unlike any other she had experienced.
Despite the incident, she said she does not believe her harassers are bad kids.
"Not deep down. But when they get together, things happen," she said. | <urn:uuid:88ff1008-0756-4a9b-8f57-a6ef97712cb2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyff4.com/news/national/Middle-schoolers-bully-bus-monitor-68-with-stream-of-profanity-jeers/-/9324256/15186822/-/1uq78cz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981292 | 324 | 1.5 | 2 |
NFL Football Players Showed the Power of Organizing Strategically
By Al Giordano
It’s been more than two months since I’ve posted here at The Field. Between finishing and premiering the first of our video series about the Egyptian revolution as told by its own participants (I'll post that here and tell you more about it in the coming days), receiving the 78 participants of the ten-day School of Authentic Journalism in May, editing their stories and videos ever since, with two weeks in June reporting on the road for 3,000 kilometers with Javier Sicilia and the Caravan of Solace against the drug war in 11 Mexican states and El Paso, Texas, then gathering for a week in Boston with many of the world’s foremost strategists and organizers of nonviolent civil resistances, among other pressing matters, the only media to which I’ve paid especially close attention - not having had much time to be a media consumer of late - has been the NFL Network and the daily back-and-forth of the National Football League’s lockout of players which has finally come to a happy ending after more than 130 days.
You don’t have to be obsessed with, or even like, American football to get that this was a most important story, one that marks the largest victory by labor on a national scale in the United States in a long time, and therefore carries lessons for all workers and others who organize to improve their lives. There is a superb analysis of all that the players won in The Nation today by Dave Zirin which explains some of the basics, and then I’ll fill in some other interesting details, and also invite you to participate in a project that rappels off this organizing victory as a way to create more of them.
“What the NFLPA has done is the equivalent of the Bad News Bears squeaking out a victory against the 1927 New York Yankees… It’s workers, in an age of austerity, beating back the bosses and showing that solidarity is the only way to win.
“When the lockout began, NFL’s owners had, in their judgment, and frankly mine as well, every possible advantage. They had a promise from their television partners of four billion dollars in ‘lockout insurance’ even if the games didn’t air. They had a workforce with a career shelf-life of 3.4 years, understandably skittish about missing a single paycheck. And most critically, they had what they thought was overwhelming public opinion. After all, in past labor disputes, fans sided against those who ‘get paid to play a game.’ Owners wanted more money and longer seasons and approached negotiations with an arrogance that would shame a Murdoch spawn.
“I remember talking to NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith at the start of this process, and hearing his optimism in the face of these odds, as he spoke of the bravery of workers in Wisconsin and the people of Egypt who he said were inspiring him to fight the good fight. He mentioned the books he was reading like the classic Civil Rights history Parting the Waters: America in the King Years by Taylor Branch. I remember smiling politely at De Smith and thinking, ‘This guy is going to get creamed.’
“I was very wrong…”
First, nice to hear from a journalist who can admit that his skepticism about an organized movement was overwrought. That ought to be a requirement for everybody who works in media. It turns out – once again – that those who carefully study and learn from the successful struggles of others do indeed have a good track record of winning their own.
Read the whole thing, and you’ll see the significant victories the players won. I would opine that one of the most important advances came at the beginning of the conflict, in that this movement would not allow itself to be defined by others and instead defined itself: rather than letting the media call it a “strike” by players, the NFL Players Association set to work defining the conflict as a “lockout,” putting the responsibility squarely where it belonged, on the owners, some of whom stewed in resentment since the last Collective Bargaining Agreement also won great advances for the players.
When the lockout began, the NFLPA withdrew itself from the legal status of a union, a step that allowed individual players to file lawsuits against the NFL for unfair practices. Some of the biggest star quarterbacks in the league – New England Patriot Tom Brady, Indianapolis Colt Peyton Manning and New Orleans Saint Drew Brees – were among the ten plaintiffs. When, last week, the owners voted to end the lockout, something which required a settlement of pending lawsuits, including what was known as the Brady suit, a couple of the plaintiffs (or, more properly, their agents) – San Diego Charger wide receiver Vincent Jackson and Patriot offensive lineman Logan Mankins – made noises of trying to extract personal demands for more money on their own contracts as a condition for signing on to the settlement, all hell broke loose: Other players throughout the league used their Twitter accounts (and, through them, the media) to rhetorically kick their asses back in line with the solidarity of the movement. Unity was reestablished, and this great victory was won.
I hope that the participants in the struggle write some good books about it, telling us about the strategic and tactical decisions they made at each step of the 19-week conflict, because I’m certain that the lessons learned can be applied not only to other union struggles but to all organized movements everywhere. Just as the NFLPA director DeMaurice Smith studied the strategy and tactics of Martin Luther King and drew inspiration from movements from Cairo to Madison, others will now be able to apply this battle to their own.
Now, not everybody made out as well as the players. A series of small businesses outside the NFL dedicated to the sport of fantasy football – played by 35 million people, based on the scores, yardage and other results by individual NFL players – were severely hurt by the lockout. At least one magazine went out of business. Online sites that analyze and rank players for fantasy football teams had to cut staff and many will be offering only scaled down services this year, these are also economic casualties of the NFL owners greedy gambit. In other words, a vacuum has formed, at least somewhat, when it comes to that related sport that everyday fans play at home.
Like nature, I happen to abhor a vacuum. I’m also, like many of you, an obsessive football fan, and a student of the strategies and organizing methods by head coaches who manage young and often rambunctious talent (it’s really not that different than, say, directing a School of Authentic Journalism). And so therefore, it is my great pleasure to announce today The Field’s latest innovation in the kind of low dollar fundraising that Narco News and The Fund for Authentic Journalism has pioneered over the past 11 years.
Today I invite my fellow and sister fantasy football addicts to join me in making our addiction work for a worthy cause: the world’s first-ever Fantasy Football-a-thon, to benefit The Fund for Authentic Journalism. For this venture – because I know that not all Field Hands necessarily come here looking for analysis about what happens on the football field – I’ve started a new blog exclusively for all things NFL and to report on this new fantasy league we’re forming: The Authentic League.
There, you can find out what this “Fantasy-Football-a-thon” is all about, and see if it is something you might also have fun playing while astounding your fans – and many other readers - with your own fantasy football prowess. And even if you play in different leagues, I’ll be offering my own analysis throughout the upcoming preseason and season because, after all, projecting sporting results is not really all that different from predicting primary and election results, something that I’ve done pretty well at over the years.
Basically, I decided that if I am going to have an obsession with something as silly to many people as a professional sport, I might as well make it count for something good while doing it, while also bringing the good news of the Authentic Journalism Renaissance to a potential 35 million fantasy football players and other NFL fans out there.
It’s an experiment that might or might not work (that’s what an “experiment” is), but as we say in the game, it has a “high upside” with, really, no risk, because this is what I would be doing in a tiny ten-team fantasy football league this autumn anyway even if we didn’t make it public.
None of this means I’m going to disappear as a journalist, political reporter and analyst of social movements, strategies and tactics. All that will still be going on here, just as it did during the 2010 football season. And we’ll also be announcing soon the dates and application process for the 2012 School of Authentic Journalism and, additionally, a three-day workshop in the New York City area this October, a kind of “mini-j-school” for journalists and communicators that report on civil resistance and community organizing. Stay tuned for all of that.
But meanwhile, I know that many of you, like me, are really, really ready for some football. See you over at The Authentic League, which we’ll update y’all here at The Field from time to time on the part that interests you; how this experiment might make possible even more reporting and authentic journalism on these pages about the struggles and conflicts that you come here to read about. Prepare for the kick-off! | <urn:uuid:25b3db9e-90b1-4eb5-9204-d0cfc113759a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://narcosphere.narconews.com/thefield/4590/nfl-football-players-showed-power-organizing-strategically | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971678 | 2,022 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Gulp … true confession time. I have not driven a car over the San Francisco Bay Bridge since sometime in 1985. This may not be a very remarkable statement other than the fact that during these 27 years I have lived in the Bay Area, on and off, for about 17 of them. You see, I have a debilitating phobia of bridges. More on this below, but I point it out to simply establish my bona fides as an expert on the topic of fear.
I recently heard fear described as that which we seek to avoid/destroy, while its opposite, passion, is that which we seek to get embrace/protect. The two have a symbiotic, yin/yang, relationship with elements of both existing within the other to varying degrees. As we look at our beliefs, particularly those nominally informed by science, I’m struck by the remarkable role that fear/passion plays in shaping them.
As humans, we seek safety, security, the health and well being of ourselves, our families and future generations. Thus we seek to avoid, we fear, risks or uncertainties that threaten those values. In fact, our brains are wired to instinctively react to such threats in a rapid subconscious manner. Probably coming from ancient survival mechanisms, the aptly named “fight or flight” response is ingrained into our being, and a key element of how we function. There is even some chemistry and biology involved … relax, I won’t (OK , can’t) get too sciency here. But we’ve all experienced the physical reaction to the release of adrenaline into our bodies…the rapid heart rate, sweaty palms etc. This stuff is tangible and real. Just as real is how it affects our belief systems.
One of my favorite examples of this is our fear of…dun dun dun…nuclear radiation (did your palms just moisten?). So, what came to mind the instant you read the last sentence? Fukishima, Chernobyl, nuclear bombs, Iran, contaminated waste sites, and giant radioactive ants? …. Probably. Less likely was life saving medical testing and treatments, carbon free energy, safer food, and space engines. That’s OK, I get it. But we have to own up to something here. The scientific data does not support the level of fear that we have. Some factoids on just one aspect of the issue … average decrease in life expectancy for all exposed atomic-bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is estimated to be less than 4 months … fatalities due to the release of radiation of Fukishima, Three Mile Island and Browns Ferry combined, is 0….Chernobyl, around 60. OK, I know, it’s not that simple, but the point is that the risks posed by nuclear power, and there are indeed risks, need to be viewed in context. For example, about 500,000 people die annually in the US from diseases triggered by air pollution If we take only 1% of that (low, high? … who knows) and attribute it to coal fired power plants, you are looking at 5000 annual deaths, just in the US. Now compare that to the nuclear figures … you may get my point, but I’m guessing you will still hold onto any fears you have of the use of nuclear energy, and its use as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Which brings me back to my friend [sic], the Bay Bridge. As I’ve told folks of my phobia over the years, they often quiz me with questions like, what are you afraid of, what could happen, what is the real risk? These all miss the point, for they assume my fear is based on some rational analysis. In fact, the exact opposite is at play. My fear is completely irrational, deeply subconscious and seemingly impervious to all manners of objective analysis or treatment (several shrinks will attest to this). Now, this is not to suggest that irrational fears are OK, particularly when the consequences of such fears affect more than just the individual. It simply points us to the fact that we need to look much more deeply into the sources of our anxieties. What are we seeking to flee, what are we seeking to protect, and why? | <urn:uuid:02f3de64-7bbc-4735-a618-c8fcb64b6d7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.sfgate.com/azwissler/2012/03/15/science-well-sort-of-giant-radioactive-ants-fear-and-the-bay-bridge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952992 | 868 | 1.539063 | 2 |
St. Rose and Children's Miracle Network Partner for Children
Children's Miracle Network is a non-profit organization dedicated to saving and improving the lives of children by raising funds for children's hospitals across North America. Each year, the 170 Children's Miracle Network hospitals provide the finest medical care, life-saving research and preventative education to help millions of kids overcome diseases and injuries of every kind.
Children’s Miracle Network hospitals help kids of every age and background overcome disease and injury - from asthma and broken bones to cancer, heart defects, pediatric AIDS, muscular dystrophy and serious injuries. These hospitals are also on the front lines of preventing disease and injury through research, education and outreach programs that keep millions of kids out of the hospital each year.
Since 1983, Children's Miracle Network has raised more than $9 million for Southern Nevada making Children's Miracle Network one of the largest contributors to the development of pediatric services in the Las Vegas Valley. Most funds are generated through donations from corporate sponsors as well as through special events such as the Torch Relay Walk-A-Thon sponsored by Marriott.
St. Rose Dominican Hospitals partnered with Children's Miracle Network in January 2005. Since then, 100 percent of every dollar raised in Southern Nevada goes to St. Rose Dominican Hospitals' Pediatric Center to provide pediatric equipment, charity care, and health education for children.
"St. Rose is committed to caring for the children of southern Nevada," said Rod A. Davis, President/CEO of St. Rose Dominican Hospitals. "This partnership will allow us to provide the best possible care to the children who need it."
To learn more about Children's Miracle Network or to become a supporter, please call 702.616.5755. For more information on Children's Miracle Network, visit www.childrensmiraclenetwork.org.
February 24-26, 2011
First Annual Children's Miracle Network Radiothon
When a child is sick - with croup, the flu or chicken pox - it tugs on a parent's heartstrings. When a child has cancer, heart problems or needs brain surgery, it touches the heart of every person who hears their story. That's why 720 AM KDWN and "The Coyote" broadcast stories of southern Nevada's "Miracle Kids" during a three-day Children's Miracle Network radiothon in February 2011.
KDWN broadcast live from St. Rose Dominican Hospitals-Siena Campus throughout the fundraising event, and funds raised from the radiothon helped Children's Miracle Network purchase specialized pediatric medical equipment, provide resources for families while their children are hospitalized and provide charity care for families who need assistance. | <urn:uuid:330007fd-53f6-47dd-b780-1357916f19f7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.strosehospitals.org/Medical_Services/182201 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938292 | 549 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The June 11 issue of The Star-Ledger carried a letter from a writer reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the birth control pill (“A sad anniversary”). He listed a litany of social ills and implied the birth control pill is the cause of a supposed increase in these ills since 1960. He is making the classic mistake of confusing association with causation. Yes, the incidence of divorce has increased since 1960, and yes, the incidence of legal abortions has increased since 1960, but how could those changes have been caused by the pill? Were couples happier back then? I doubt it. Because economic opportunities for women of that era were limited, and divorce was socially unacceptable, couples merely “toughed it out.”
The writer says that the well-being of children has declined, from depression to diet, to poverty, to neglect and to abuse. His facts are statistically suspect, but even if those conclusions were correct, how could they have been caused by the pill? He further states that these days, women are seen more as sex objects. Yes, society has a long way to go in this area, but is it worse now than in 1960? There is no scientific way to measure this.
I respect the writer’s obviously sincere commitment to his moral and religious philosophy, but he weakens his case by submitting statements that are not supported by sound logic and data.
Howard Beroff, Bridgewater
Comments reflect sexism
The author of “A sad anniversary” contends birth control pills have brought down the morals of women. I have news for him: Being able to prevent pregnancy does not cause a woman to become more promiscuous, get a divorce, stop caring for her children, have an abortion or become a sex object.
His comments could have only come from a man who resents that a woman can now have a job that used to belong to a man. I’m sure every decent woman who read his letter was outraged. To top it off, he tries to blame it on God. Women were given free will and the intelligence to use it. And thank God in this day and age we can.
Joann Kornas, Kenilworth
Not Obama’s fault
The Reader Forum author of “Explore other energy sources” (June 10) wants to know what the president has done to contain the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. To date he has overseen the dispatching of 1,200 response vessels, 1.75 million feet of containment boom and 990,000 feet of sorbent boom; the recovery of 10.83 million gallons of oily water, the spreading of 815,000 gallons of both surface and subsurface dispersants and the deployment of 22,000 personnel who are collecting shellfish samples, performing wildlife rescue missions and cleaning up the shoreline. He has declared a disaster in the fishing industries, allowing them to access the appropriate government help. He has consulted the best scientific experts and made four trips to the area. He has been on top of BP demanding that it fulfill its responsibilities to cap the well and expedite payments to the aggrieved parties.
It is disturbing and frustrating that no one is able to stop this well, but it should be emphasized that a lack of serious planning for emergencies and a lack of regulation are what lead to this disaster. It should also spur us to demand an Apollo-like program to replace fossil fuels so this never happens again.
JoAnn D. Claps, Randolph
I found two opinion pieces in The Star-Ledger of interest: One, written by John Farmer (“At every turn, another tough decision for Obama”), and the other by Cynthia Tucker (“To reduce the deficit, create jobs”).
Farmer’s piece wants us to perceive the president as a victim. Moreover, Farmer appears to enable the whining we’ve been hearing from this administration since it took office. Hard choices face every president, from George Washington to President Obama. In fact, it does not take a historical expert to know that many other presidents faced many more difficult challenges in office.
Tucker, on the other hand, makes some good points, but her facts are not accurate. She points to President Bill Clinton’s budget surplus, yet she conveniently neglects to point out that the Republican congress was in charge of the purse strings at the time. She also writes George W. Bush “frittered away President Clinton’s budget surplus,” but she fails to point out Democrats have been in charge of the congressional purse strings since 2006. In fact, prior to the Democrats taking over in Congress in 2006, the economy was doing relatively well. The Gross Domestic Product grew about an average of 2.3 percent through Bush’s administration.
So we see the work of two journalists: One a whiner, the other loose with her facts.
Jerry Komar, Collingswood
Limits on speech
A recent Reader Forum writer admonished Hearst Corp. for expediting the retirement of Helen Thomas for her comment that the Israelis should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go back to Germany and Poland.” To him, she was exercising her right of free speech.
America is presently prosecuting the two alleged terrorists from New Jersey who alarmed us with their threats “to kill more people than the hairs in my beard.” Free speech? I believe most Americans support and expect the efforts of our government to protect us from radicals who wish to kill us. The Israeli people should have the same expectations.
We need to distinguish free speech from speech that incites hate. Telling Jews to go back to Germany and Poland was the ultimate act of bigotry from a journalist who lived during the years of the Holocaust.
Richard Kochman, West Caldwell
While conducting a bird survey as a volunteer for a conversation organization at the Maurice River Bluffs on June 6, my peace and quiet was interrupted by the sound of unmuffled engines at 6:41 a.m. Yes, 6:41 a.m. I don’t have any way of knowing if the noise was from one car a dozen times or a dozen cars one at a time, but this continued until actual racing started at the New Jersey Motorsports Park.
There are rules dealing with noise at the racetrack. The first states, “Unmuffled engines must not be run between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m.” The second says. “Please, do not play loud music. Be considerate of those around you.”
I would like to know why I and my neighbors are subjected to the annoying noise levels originating from the NJMP? Why do I have to listen to the loudspeaker system at all times of the day, asking drivers to line up in their group? Why do I have to hear constant engine noise and tire squealing?
Be considerate of those around you, NJMP, practice what you preach.
Byron Robbins, Millville
Rules of the road
In reference to your recent article pertaining to language barriers at a road stop and the gentleman who spoke only Spanish (“Court to decide if language barrier creates a roadblock at DWI stops,” June 6), it does make one wonder what the police would be required to do if a person stopped on suspicion of DWI spoke any of the hundreds of other languages that immigrants speak. Driving is a privilege and it is mandatory that immigrants learn the rules of the road and what is expected of them.
Ellen Rubin, Parsippany | <urn:uuid:30442e80-ec22-4860-aa54-1fb6d4c3bd25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.nj.com/ledgerletters/2010/06/marking_the_anniversary_of_the.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96858 | 1,569 | 1.789063 | 2 |
The number of Philadelphia schools on the Pennsylvania Department of Educations list of persistently dangerous schools declined from 19 to 10, a drop of 47 percent.
The total number of violent incidents District-wide declined 14.25 percent from 4,921 to 4,220 in the 2010–2011 school year. In the high school subcategory, the total number of violent incidents also declined by 15.4 percent from 2,007 to 1,698 incidents in the 2010–2011 school year.
“The significant reduction in the number of schools designated as Persistently Dangerous is due in large part to the hard work and partnership between students, teachers, administrators, principals and members of the Office of School Safety,” said Dr. Leroy Nunery, Acting Superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia.
“We are very grateful for our partnership with the Philadelphia Police Department which has provided us with the leadership of Chief Inspector Myron Patterson and the assistance of many police officers. We have put in place the recommendations from the Safe School Audit of 2009–2010; trained principals and school-based teams through Safety Team meetings; deployed anti-bullying and other tactics to address climate issues; and continue to have ongoing discussions about how to improve our responses to school violence. We intend to continue to work with school communities, the Mayor, the District Attorney and others to remain vigilant on the complexities of school climate,” said Dr. Nunery.
The schools removed from the list are: Roberto Clemente Middle School; Stephen Douglas High School; Thomas Fitzsimons High School; Horace Furness High School; Simon Gratz High School; Olney East High School; Olney West High School; Overbrook High School; Roxborough High School; Edwin Vare Middle School; and Robert Vaux Middle School.
Schools still on the list are: Edison High School; Fels High School; Frankford High School; Kensington Business High School; Lincoln High School; Northeast High School; Sayre High School; Shaw Middle School; South Philadelphia High School; and Strawberry Mansion High School. | <urn:uuid:f7dc6a73-8130-439f-82c7-4446f0e96a3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://phillytrib.com/newsarticles/item/1075-phila-improves-standing-on-dangerous-schools-list.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94874 | 425 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Over the last few years, I have lost friends and become estranged from relatives because of politics. At one time, I would have thought such a thing was unimaginable. But in the past decade, as the rift between those on either side of the culture-values-political divide has expanded, it strikes me it was inevitable.
The world, after all, saw friends and families divided in America during the 1860s and in Germany in the 1930s and now we see it here. On the one side, we have Americans who believe that, in spite of its flaws, America is the greatest, most generous, nation on the face of the earth. On the other side, you have Americans who believe that this nation is a house of horrors that has to be radically transformed by the radical transformer in the Oval Office, which these days should be renamed the Offal Office.
If you’re convinced, as I am, that Barack Obama is the greatest menace America has ever faced -- a far graver danger than Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union or Islamic fascism, simply because they all lacked the ability or determination to destroy our Constitution -- losing a few friends and relatives is no big deal.
If we only had to worry about Obama, it would be bad enough. But he has all those moral rejects to do his bidding. People like Pelosi, Reid, Axelrod, Waxman, Emanuel and Barney Frank, are ready and anxious to serve their lord and master. He says, “Jump!” and they ask “How high?” Some of us thought his earlier friends and associates -- people like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko -- were bad, but we didn’t realize he’d ferret out even bigger weasels in Washington.
Psychiatrists are forever seeking the cause and cure of various diseases. They have focused on everything from paranoia to schizophrenia and clinical depression, but I think it’s high time they turned their attention to liberalism. It’s far more prevalent than those other mental disorders, and it appears to be particularly rampant among journalists, lawyers, union leaders and academics. Blacks, Jews and the young, are especially susceptible. And for reasons not entirely clear, it seems to strike hardest at people who reside near the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. So perhaps salt water plays a part in it.
The symptoms are all too obvious. Liberals will believe the silliest things said to them so long as they’re said by left-wing politicians, who form something of a priesthood for atheists. Liberals accept lies about man-made global warming and the extinction of polar bears and glaciers, while simultaneously rejecting objective evidence that the earth has been cooling off for the past decade, that the polar bear population has been exploding at a rate that suggests Viagra has been introduced into their diet and that, in spite of all the hot air Al Gore has been spewing, we have as much ice as ever.
Furthermore, liberals are convinced that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant and that “separation of church and state” actually exists in the U.S. Constitution.
As gullible as liberals are, there are certain things that they oppose with every fiber of their being. Among them are nuclear energy, a strong U.S. military, Judeo-Christian values and traditions, America’s exceptionalism and, of course, the 2nd amendment. They pay lip service to the 1st amendment, but in their hearts they believe it only pertains to them.
As bad as the run of the mill liberals are, their leaders are worse. Against all logic, Barack Obama believes that the way for the nation to get out of debt is by spending trillions more. He reminds me of the shopaholic who figures that if an $80 toaster is marked down to $75, all he has to do is buy 100 of them and he’ll make $500.
Speaking of making money, lately it seems like every radio show I listen to and every TV show I watch is jam-packed with commercials for gold. I have no idea if gold is a great investment, but I keep wondering why, if it’s as good as they claim, these folks are so anxious to sell it.
I mean, if I were in the clothing business, I see where I’d want to sell as many shirts, socks and suits as I could. I mean, what the heck am I going to do with them? But if gold is going to keep going up, why sell it to a bunch of strangers? Why not just hang on to it?
The other question is: If gold is going to continue rising in value because the dollar is going to plummet like a stone, what are they going to do with all those worthless greenbacks once they unload all their gold?
I mean, are they running a business or a charity? | <urn:uuid:f71fde15-6f6d-48a7-824c-9de9965a885a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2010/01/24/Burts-Eye-View--Leftist-Pathology----Carbon-More-Dangerous-Than-Terrorists | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977414 | 1,007 | 1.632813 | 2 |
SA Orthopaedic Journal
Print version ISSN 1681-150X
INTRODUCTION: The proximal thoracic spine is difficult to visualise on X-ray investigation with up to 22% of proximal fractures being missed. This is a major concern, especially in environments such as South Africa where trauma is endemic. AIM: To review the challenges of diagnosis and management in patients with proximal thoracic fractures. METHODS: Thirty-three patients with proximal thoracic fractures in the T1-T4 area managed in a spinal unit were identified. There were 21 males and 12 females with a median age of 31.8 years. A retrospective review of medical records and radiology was undertaken. Demographic data, mechanism of injury, diagnostic modalities, diagnostic delay, fracture characteristics, neurological status, associated injuries, hospital stay, management, complications and outcomes were recorded. RESULTS: The aetiology was 21 MVA passengers, eight drivers, one pedestrian, one assault, one bicycle and one hangglider accident. Eight had a one-day diagnostic delay, two between 2 to 5 days and five greater than 2 weeks. The fractures were A1 in seven, A3 in 14, B1 in seven, C1 in two and C2 in two. Twenty-three patients had neurological compromise, 13 being complete. Twentythree had associated chest and head injuries. Hospital stay was a mean of 27 days (max of 246). ICU median was 14 (max of 115) days. Twenty-six patients underwent surgery, posterior instrumented fusion being the commonest procedure. Although the surgery did not change the median kyphosis (25º pre-op to 20º at 1 year and 21º at 2 years), most kyphotic patients were improved (55º to 45º). CONCLUSION: Proximal thoracic fractures are most commonly encountered following motor vehicle accidents. There is a risk of delayed diagnosis due to poor visualisation with X-ray investigation. There is a high risk of associated spinal cord injury, chest, limb and abdomino-pelvic injuries that result in prolonged hospital stay. These fractures can be managed successfully by posterior pedicle screw fixation and fusion, only if unstable. A high index of suspicion for proximal thoracic fractures should be maintained in all patients involved in high impact accidents and with chest injuries, and CT should be employed if X-rays are unclear.
Keywords : Thoracic; spine; trauma; fracture; delay. | <urn:uuid:b2eeddd9-f6a6-4382-a0ff-38e5b63f2e33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1681-150X2011000400006&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948892 | 516 | 1.726563 | 2 |
TERRY, MS (WLBT) - Two horses were seized by the Hinds County Sheriff's Department Monday in Terry after they were discovered tied to trees with no shelter and living in squalid conditions.
One horse was caught up so tightly in a rope it was unable to move its leg or head. It was bound to a tree and trapped in a quagmire of its own feces and deep mud.
The rope from the animals rear leg was connected to the halter keeping the horse constricted and unable to reach food or water. There was no indication how long it had been left in this position.
After 3 On Your Side inquired, neighborhood kids cut the rope off.
The horses leg was swollen and he was limping.
The Hinds County Sheriff's Department came out along with a veterinarian to inspect for signs of neglect and poor health.
Another horse was also bound with a rope around its neck and no shelter.
Both horses were surrendered by the owner and taken away to receive medical treatment.
No word on any charges against the owner or whether the horses will be returned to his care.
©2010 WLBT. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Authorities are searching for a MS Department of Corrections inmate who escaped this morning.More >> | <urn:uuid:c186b79a-03c4-40fa-b71e-7c6998fe8dd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/11989147/2-horses-found-tied-to-trees-taken-from-owner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982817 | 271 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Yesterday I had two uninterrupted hours to myself, bang in the middle of the day, a rare opportunity on a week day. I could have taken a much needed shower, cooked something more elaborate than serving up masoor dal, baked tilapia and aloo-gajar yet again or at least cooked something, anything. But did I do that ? No.
Instead I googled for "detox diet ayurveda 3 days". Don't ask me why. Maybe I overdid the Biryani that we got on Sunday and the body was sending toxic signals.At least I didn't ask for "detox diet in a packet". Ok hold on, let me google this. Guess what there IS a detox diet in a packet, what fun, packaged, processed and with all the chemicals.
But the ayurveda detox thingy is not easy. They don't do things fast, to do it the right way, you need 60 whole days, S-I-X-T-Y, who has that ? But they have a point, the body is like your child, no point hurrying it, it is best to go with the flow, to let things balance out gradually.
"A complete ayurvedic cleansing program includes 15 days of preparation and 45 days of actual cleansing. Ayurvedic healers recommend paying special attention to your diet during these two phases to avoid overtaxing your digestion and to enable purification to occur easily and completely. Maharishi Ayurveda does not recommend fasting or entirely liquid diets such as juices, because that may cause your digestive agni to become imbalanced."
Why Do You Need to Detox ?
According to Ayurveda, there are three different types of toxins that can impact the physiology: ama -- the waste product of incomplete digestion, amavisha -- the reactive form of ama i.e ama + other doshas and garvisha -- external toxins from the environment, exposure to chemicals etc..
Ayurveda recommends a program of internal cleansing at every change of seasons to clear the channels of the body of toxins that may have built up over the previous season. Detox is particularly recommended at the time when winter is phasing into spring.
The Detox Routine according to Ayurveda
The following is a general guideline of what to eat and to avoid during this phase.
To know more in details about the kind of fruits and vegetables that you can eat depending on your body type, check this Food Guidelines
Along with the diet you also need to follow a routine of sleep, exercise and massaging. And then there is the eating habit you need to follow, of never skipping a meal and eating slowly, chewing each morsel.
Basically "the Ayurveda Detox Diet is what your Mom has been telling you since you were six and you never listened until Google told you to".
But seriously what I like about the detox plan is the use of spices in cooking the vegetables.
"Ginger, turmeric, coriander, fennel and fenugreek help open up the channels of the body and support the flushing of toxins via the skin, urinary tract, colon and liver"
These were the main spices (along with Nigella seeds and mustard seeds) that were used in the everyday Bengali Food that my Ma made. She did not use garlic or onions much and neither does everyday home cooked Bangla meals call for that. Everyday Bengali food is light, subtly spiced, not much garlic, onion, red chili or cream and tends to retain the texture and taste of the vegetables. Ahh, if we could just add some fish to that detox diet, I could have sealed the deal
Main Reference: Ayurvedic Detox Diet -- Maharishi Ayurveda
Though I don't have the determination or resources to go on a sixty day detox diet right now and I need to use up the 20% discount coupons at the local restaurants, I decided to do my body some good by making and sipping the Detoxifying Tea throughout the day.
This is a very light and extremely easy to make tea. A big cup of this and small sips throughout the day will help you feel good about yourself and you will also get all the water. Just drinking this tea alone will do nothing to detox I am sure but here's to a better beginning.
Bring to boil two quarts of water in the morning.
Add 1/4 t. whole cumin,
1/2 t. whole coriander,
1/2 t. whole fennel to the water and let steep for ten minutes with the lid on. I also added some fresh grated ginger and 3-4 Tulsi(Holy Basil) leaves.
Strain out the spices and pour the water into a thermos.
Sip throughout the day.
Disclaimer: I am not a Doctor. Biology was not even amongst my main 4 subjects in High School | <urn:uuid:5096ef1c-9eef-494f-8755-d6ec77152589> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bongcookbook.com/2010/01/detoxifying-tea-cleanse.html?showComment=1292824978439 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953064 | 1,032 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Even though data collected from credit unions indicates that an exemption meant to protect most credit unions from the impact of the Durbin Amendment might not be working when it comes to one kind of debit interchange, an association of retailers is claiming the amendment's small-asset exemption is shielding credit unions from any impact on another kind of debit interchange.
The Merchant Payments Coalition, an association of retail groups and individual retailers that is organized to lobby for lower debit and credit card interchange rates, argued in an announcement Monday that a recent CUNA survey of some of its members indicates that credit unions are being protected from seeing significantly lower interchange rates on debit transactions which are validated with a member's signature.
The MPC did acknowledge that the survey showed a 6% drop in interchange revenue on debit transactions which are validated by a personal identification number, but argued that the drop still left “banks” with higher overall interchange income.
“Even with the drop, the revenue is far more than what banks collected only a decade ago when the fee ranged between about 5 and 10 cents per transaction,” the MPC said.
Passed as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform act, the so-called Durbin Amendment, named for chief sponsor Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), capped interchange for debit card issuers with more than $10 billion in assets, but was supposed to exempt debit card issuers of fewer than $10 billion. Only four credit unions have assets of more than $10 billion and thus have their debit interchange capped by the rule, though several others seem likely to pass that threshold this year.
To help facilitate the exemption, the large card brands and card processors widely implemented a two-tier interchange schedule which set one payment rate for institutions which are covered by the cap and another for institutions, largely community banks and most credit unions, which are not. “Credit unions have confirmed what the FTC, GAO and Federal Reserve have found: the small bank exemption from debit reform has worked. This news demonstrates that debit reform has been good for consumers, Main Street businesses and smaller banks as well,” said Scott DeFife, executive vice president of policy and government affairs for the National Restaurant Association and a member of the MPC.
The MPC alleged institutions which are under the Durbin cap have promulgated a myth that the cap damages credit unions and community banks. | <urn:uuid:975ce43b-dd1d-42a8-9e70-4fd0e5d535c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cutimes.com/2013/01/07/retail-group-says-credit-union-data-shows-intercha?t=debit-atm-shared-branching&ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968211 | 489 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Characterization of transaction
In general, fees for cloud computing services should be treated as services costs, although it is important to determine which type of fees can be characterized as royalties.
Under Italian tax law, royalties are defined as remuneration of any kind received for the use of, or the right to use:
- copyright of literary, artistic or scientific works, including cinematograph films and software
- patents, trademarks, designs or models, plans, secret formulae or processes, or information concerning industrial, commercial or scientific experiences
- industrial, commercial or scientific equipment.
As a general rule, if no copyright is transferred to the buyer (i.e. the Italian company) then the amount paid should be considered as a service fee rather than a royalty payment.
Accordingly, if the buyer (Italian resident) is entering into an agreement with a cloud service provider (non-Italian resident) for accessing software stored on the cloud, the payment should normally be considered to be a service fee.
In this respect there is no distinct tax treatment between a public and a private cloud service.
Revenues for resident cloud service providers should be taxed in Italy, generally at 31.4 percent (27.5 percent corporate income tax plus regional tax ordinarily at 3.9 percent).
The service fees paid by the Italian buyer are normally fully deductible for corporate tax purposes.
Business income produced in Italy by a non-resident company should not be taxed in Italy unless the non-resident company has a permanent establishment (PE) in Italy. Accordingly, service fees paid by the Italian buyer to the non-resident cloud service provider should not be taxed in Italy (as they qualify as business income).
If the payments to the non-Italian cloud service provider are deemed as royalties according to Italian tax rules, then the withholding tax rate applied may vary:
- WHT should be zero percent if the royalty payment qualifies as a benefit under the EU "Interest and Royalties" directive 2003/49/EC.
- If the cloud service provider is resident in a non-EU country not covered by a double tax treaty at 30 percent, then WHT applies; such WHT is generally applied to 75 percent of the gross amount of the payment, resulting in an effective tax rate of 22.5 percent.
- If the cloud service provider is resident in a state covered by DTT, then the WHT should be reduced by between 5 percent and 10 percent.
The domestic definition of a permanent establishment (PE) follows the wording of Article 5 of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and provides that "computers and auxiliary equipment for the collection of the information and the transmission of data for the sale of goods or services will not, per se, constitute a permanent establishment".
The mere fact that a cloud platform is accessed by and in different countries (i.e. Italy) should not be expected to create, per se, a PE therein.
On the other hand, the server on which the cloud platform is stored and through which it is accessible is a piece of equipment having a physical location; such location may thus constitute a fixed place of business of the enterprise that operates the server and thus be considered a PE.
Related party transactions
In a private cloud scenario (i.e. a non-resident cloud service provider that provides cloud services to an Italian resident related party), it is important to analyze the potential transfer pricing issues.
Italian tax law contains a set of rules that allow for the adjustment of transfer prices. Statutory documentation is not required but is highly recommended for all transactions, as the tax authorities expect documentation to exist; in event of a tax audit, penalties may be avoided if the tax payer has such documentation available and has communicated its existence to the tax authority.
It is important to gain clarification from the tax authority on Value Added Tax (VAT) treatment of cloud services.
- If the supplier is an Italian VAT-registered person and the buyer is an Italian VAT-registered person, the transaction should not be subject to Italian VAT.
- If the supplier is a non-Italian resident VAT-registered person, and the buyer is an Italian VAT-registered person, the transaction should be subject to VAT in Italy at the standard rate of 21 percent through the reverse charge mechanism.
- If both buyer and supplier are Italian VAT-registered persons, the transaction should be subject to VAT at 21 percent. | <urn:uuid:0d754046-9188-424d-a1bc-fbd3f8b57cb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/taxing-the-cloud/Pages/italy.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937483 | 908 | 1.804688 | 2 |
This week marked the release of Literary Brooklyn by Evan Hughes, a new chronicle of the borough’s literary history and author residents, which is getting some serious buzz. We’re excited to read it, but to tide ourselves over we thought we’d continue our literary love letters series with a collections of odes to the “rougher” side of the river. We’ve pulled from fiction and essays by residents and non-residents, but Brooklyn lovers all. Add your own favorite passages about Brooklyn in the comments, or feel free to make up your own odes to our fair city. How many words rhyme with ‘hipster?’
The very first lines of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith:
Serene was a word you could put to Brooklyn, New York. Especially in the summer of 1912. Somber, as a word, was better. But it did not apply to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Prairie was lovely and Shenandoah had a beautiful sound, but you couldn’t fit those words into Brooklyn. Serene was the only word for it; especially on a Saturday afternoon in summer.
The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem:
Something in Pintchik’s unmistakable age and specificity, its indifference, made Dylan ache. Apparently Brooklyn needn’t always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan, as on Dean Street, on Bergen, on Pacific. Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self. Pintchik pointed only into Pintchik for provenance.
Brooklyn Is: Southeast of the Island: Travel Notes, James Agee:
It differs from most cities in this: that though it has perhaps a “center,” and hands, and eyes, and feet, it is chiefly no whole or recognizable animal but an exorbitant pulsing mass of scarcely discriminable cellular jellies and tissues; a place where people merely “live.” A few American cities, Manhattan chief among them, have some mad magnetic energy which sucks all others into “provincialism”; and Brooklyn of all great cities is nearest the magnet, and is indeed “provincial”: it is provincial as a land of rich earth and of this earth is an enormous farm, whose crop is far less “industrial” or “financial” or “notable” or in any way “distinguished” or “definable” than it is of human flesh and being. And this fact alone, which of itself makes Brooklyn so featureless, so little known, to many so laughable, or so ripe for patronage, this fact, that two million human beings are alive and living there, invests the city in an extraordinarily high, piteous and inviolable dignity, well beyond touch of laughter, defense, or need of notice.
“Brooklyn is my Neighborhood,” Carson McCullers:
“Miss Kate is a good woman,” this competitor said to me. “But she dislikes washing herself. So she only bathes once a year, when it is summer. I expect she’s just abut the dirties woman in Brooklyn.” His voice as he said this was not at all malicious; rather, there was in it a quality of wondering pride. That is one of the things I love best about Brooklyn. Every one is not expected to be exactly like every one else.”
Only the Dead Know Brooklyn, Thomas Wolfe:
Jesus! I’ve t’ought about dat guy a t’ousand times since den an’ wondered what eveh happened to ‘m goin’ out to look at Bensonhoist because he liked duh name! Walkin’ aroun’ t’roo Red Hook by himself at night an’ lookin’ at his map! How many people did I see get drowned out heah in Brooklyn! How long would it take a guy wit a good map to know all deh was to know about Brooklyn! Jesus! What a nut he was! I wondeh what eveh happened to ‘im, anyway! I wondeh if some one knocked him on duh head, or if he’s still wanderin’ aroun’ in duh subway in duh middle of duh night wit his little map! Duh poor guy! Say, I’ve got to laugh, at dat, when I t’ink about him! Maybe he’s found out by now dat he’ll neveh live long enough to know duh whole of Brooklyn. It’d take a guy a lifetime to know Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo. An’ even den, yuh wouldn’t know it all.
“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” Walt Whitman:
Flow on, river! flow with the flood-tide, and ebb with the ebb-tide!
Frolic on, crested and scallop-edg’d waves!
Gorgeous clouds of the sun-set! drench with your splendor me, or the men and women generations after me;
Cross from shore to shore, countless crowds of passengers!
Stand up, tall masts of Mannahatta!—stand up, beautiful hills of Brooklyn!
Throb, baffled and curious brain! throw out questions and answers!
Suspend here and everywhere, eternal float of solution!
Gaze, loving and thirsting eyes, in the house, or street, or public assembly!
Sound out, voices of young men! loudly and musically call me by my nighest name!
Live, old life! play the part that looks back on the actor or actress!
Play the old role, the role that is great or small, according as one makes it!
Consider, you who peruse me, whether I may not in unknown ways be looking upon you;
Be firm, rail over the river, to support those who lean idly, yet haste with the hasting current;
Fly on, sea-birds! fly sideways, or wheel in large circles high in the air;
Receive the summer sky, you water! and faithfully hold it, till all downcast eyes have time to take it from you;
Diverge, fine spokes of light, from the shape of my head, or any one’s head, in the sun-lit water;
Come on, ships from the lower bay! pass up or down, white-sail’d schooners, sloops, lighters!
Flaunt away, flags of all nations! be duly lower’d at sunset;
Burn high your fires, foundry chimneys! cast black shadows at nightfall! cast red and yellow light over the tops of the houses;
Appearances, now or henceforth, indicate what you are;
You necessary film, continue to envelop the soul;
About my body for me, and your body for you, be hung our divinest aromas;
Thrive, cities! bring your freight, bring your shows, ample and sufficient rivers;
Expand, being than which none else is perhaps more spiritual;
Keep your places, objects than which none else is more lasting.
Parnassus on Wheels, Christopher Morley:
New York is Babylon; Brooklyn is the true Holy City. New York is the city of envy, office work, and hustle; Brooklyn is the refion of homes and happiness. It is extraordinary: poor, harassed New Yorkers presume to look down on low-lying, home-loving Brooklyn, when as a matter of fact it is the precious jewel their souls are thirsting for and they never know it. Broadway: think how symbolic the name is. Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction! But in Brooklyn the ways are narrow, and they lead to the Heavenly City of content. Central Park: there you are — the centre of things, hemmed in by walls of pride. Now how much better is Prospect Park, giving a fair view over the hills of humility! There is no hope for New Yorkers, for their glory in their skyscraping sins; but in Brooklyn there is the wisdom of the lowly.
A House on the Heights, Truman Capote:
I live in Brooklyn. By choice.
Those ignorant of its allures are entitled to wonder why. For, taken as a whole, it is an uninviting community. A veritable veldt of tawdriness where even the noms de quartiers aggravate: Flatbush and Flushing Avenue, Bushwick, Brownsville, Red Hook. Yet, in the greenless grime-gray, oases do occur, splendid contradictions, hearty echoes of healthier days. Of these seeming mirages, the purest example is the neighborhood in which I am situated, an area known as Brooklyn Heights. Heights, because it stands atop a cliff that secures a sea-gull’s view of the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges, of lower Manhattan’s tall dazzle and the ship-lane waters, breeding river to pay to ocean, that encircle and seethe past posturing Miss Liberty.
Man Gone Down, Michael Thomas:
I cut across the shadow realm because I cannot stand it right now. I walk in lightless Brooklyn, where the sun never seems to reach, between the jail and Fulton Mall, where strays run, miscreants, gypsy cabs, nannies released from bondage, fry joints, usury shops — they will never “fix” this part of Brooklyn. And of course my response is dichotomized, but I’ll take a petty criminal over a suck-ass any day.
The Gift, Pete Hamill:
But the subways were a part of home to me, and I loved the sense of penetration they gave me, the roaring jamming slide into the blackness of the tunnels, the knowledge you had that you were deep below other life, that there in the tunnel you were being hurled under salesmen and millionaires, great stores and glittering mansions. I loved the charging rhythm of the train, its sense of plunge and blur, its violent race to Brooklyn. At Jay Street-Borough Hall, I crossed the platform to the D train, waiting there for our arrival, the odd muted golden color of its incandescent lights a signal of warmth. That was our train, the one that serviced the neighborhood, the one that took the young guys to their first jobs as messengers on Wall Street, the one where you might see a familiar face. | <urn:uuid:7801e89c-8142-4ed4-9d9f-430477d957d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://flavorwire.com/203036/literary-love-letters-to-brooklyn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941972 | 2,266 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Internet Spurs Blanding, Not BrandingHis e-mail address is
With a click of the mouse, you can access and purchase just about anything on the Internet. Whatever your tastes might be, there's a site to satiate your consumable cravings, each as unique as your individual taste.
You can purchase something as practical as a bag of groceries (though personally, I still enjoy squeezing and selecting my own produce), or you can indulge and buy something as obscure as a Balinese windup mouse for your cat.
It's all there, flowing freely through our digital boxes 24 hours a day, further providing an open door to informational and material worlds. Yet, how are these Internet companies establishing and maintaining a unique presence within this rapidly expanding industry of bits-and-clicks technology?
We have not hit our stride with this whole Internet, information age, dot-com thing. The technology is there; we've recognized its purpose, realized its potential and embraced it financially by throwing billions of dollars into it.
Companies are genuinely excited about the Internet's possible effects on their overall business models, but just how original are these companies in presenting what they have to say or sell? How realistic have they been in expressing themselves to their customers?
It's the Motion, or So It Seems
In the mad rush to adopt this relatively new technology, everyone seems to have forgotten that the Internet is just another tool - a mechanism or potential asset - that can portray a company's products or services to its customers.
Instead of defining their identities or brand messages through their products or services, these hi-tech corporations are expressing them by touting the technology in which it exists.
Bad idea. Why? Because the technology does not say anything about the companies and the products or services they are promoting.
Technology does not provide the meat of who they are and, therefore, creates no emotional connection with their customers. By identifying themselves with the technology, these companies are starting to look the same.
Have you noticed the identities or logos for these technology-driven companies? Call them what you want, but the logo "design du jour" for many has become this banal, nouveau-technological swoosh.
These elliptical, crescent-like graphic gestures, which seem to gyrate into infinity, are showing up everywhere, proclaiming motion and movement and telling consumers, "We're connected."
So what? Who isn't? What does it say about the companies themselves? Not much. Even some of the big guys have played into this corporate blanding, missing opportunities to express who they are and what they represent (sell) by promoting the technology instead.
History Repeats Itself
A decade ago, the logo of the day was the globe. It, too, was everywhere, with companies announcing to the world, "Our reach is global!" But if thousands of companies express a similar message, regardless of their market niche, then who really notices them? How are they distinct?
Today's swoosh replaces our past "global" aspirations, providing an even broader comment on our communicative psyches. With our increased appetites for messaging, we have created this virtual space that is even bigger than the planet.
Hence the hyperbole of these graphic gestures. As a result, we find companies swooshing into the future for no apparent reason.
Where Did It All Start?
I'm not sure where the swoosh seed sprouted. My hunch is that a combination of influences and events has perpetuated corporate America's captivation with it.
Maybe it is a simple resurgence of past preoccupations with technology, such as the Atomic Age, when American businesses expressed their progressiveness through swirling neutrons, protons and electrons. Forget about its initial primary use; the isotope was our friend, and businesses eagerly embraced its symbolic, technological references.
The same is true today with the profound effect of worldwide Internet technology, which has changed the entire business paradigm. In both cases of our mercantile history, these trends in corporate identity symbolize our blind determination to harness these newly found technologies and beat them to death.
Possibly a more plausible cue for our current swooshing may have come from one of the most prolific brands of our time, Nike. This identity, however, is more than just a swoosh. It has meaning. It was the first. It claims reference to its historical origin by representing a stylization of the wings of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory - an appropriate message for a company that sells athletic footwear.
Nike has become so recognizable through appropriate brand messaging that its swoosh distinguishes it now without even having a name attached. So thousands of other companies have followed in Nike's footsteps, thinking that by developing their own swooshes, they, too, will have similar success.
Instead of becoming recognizable, they essentially have made themselves invisible among their competitors.
Most of these companies have simply become wrapped up in the technology of the Internet, allowing it to drive their business pursuits instead of using it as a tool to meet their overall business objectives.
Technology Rules, But for How Long?
As the technology of the Internet becomes more commonplace, the claims that these swoosh companies make with their identities will have significance in the marketplace (as if they have much now).
Their customers will lose any emotional connection they might have had with these companies, and they will move on to those they do connect with.
These logos/identities eventually (probably very soon) will find their place in the logo graveyard, next to the swirling atomic particles and globes. Some of the better, more conceptual logos will survive, but the majority will have little effect or emotional response on customers.
These companies are very much like a substance abuser, with the substance being the technology. Companies need to stop relying on the technology to drive their messages.
They must learn to express their personalities and determine how those personalities match up with their customers. When they finally recognize that this path toward corporate blandness is the least beneficial one for establishing an effective brand with the consumer, they will be on their own road to recovery.
Tyler Blik is the principal of Tyler Blik Design, San Diego. | <urn:uuid:ff6020dc-0040-407f-95a8-936b253a28c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dmnews.com/internet-spurs-blanding-not-branding/printarticle/68412/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963658 | 1,277 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Coll Antropol. 2008 Jun;32(2):457-60.
Is female attractiveness related to final reproductive success?
Pawlowski B, Boothroyd LG, Perrett DI, Kluska S.
In order to test the assumption that female attractiveness relates to reproductive success, photographs of 47 rural Polish women taken in their youth were rated for attractiveness, and BMI at age 18 was recorded; these measures of attractiveness were then compared with their subsequent life histories. Facial attractiveness did not relate to number of children or grandchildren. It also did not relate to age of marriage or husband's education. It did relate to number of marriages and husband's height. BMI at age 18 did not relate significantly to any of the outcome variables. These results suggest that although more attractive women may have married higher quality (taller) husbands and may in ancestral population have achieved greater reproductive success this way, there is no evidence in a modern, European Catholic society for their having greater reproductive success. | <urn:uuid:8a807503-e654-47e4-9d85-abd966a76181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/09/female-attractiveness-not-linked-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970081 | 201 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Freshman Rep. Jared Huffman weighed in on the budget debate in Washington, D.C., this week by proposing an amendment, albeit unsuccessful, to Republican Congressman Paul Ryan's budget resolution.
The proposed amendment, Huffman's first as a congressman, would have ensured funding for clean energy research and development, while eliminating tax subsidies for oil companies and special depreciation for corporate jets.
"Clean energy programs spur innovation, they save money for businesses and consumers, and they create jobs. To win the future, we must make these forward-looking programs a priority," said Huffman, D-San Rafael. "We can't continue to pad the profits of big oil companies with billions in wasteful taxpayer subsidies."
Huffman warned that if the government fails to support the growth of the clean energy economy, "we will be ceding the field to our international competitors."
Huffman's amendment would have guaranteed a funding level of $2.1 billion for investments in clean energy technologies through the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.
Huffman noted that the Schatz Energy Research Center at Humboldt State University received Department of Energy funding to build and demonstrate a clean, renewable transportation system for the Coachella Valley region of Southern California. This project led to an accelerated effort by major vehicle
Huffman's amendment was defeated Wednesday on a party-line vote of 17-22.
During the deliberations in the Budget Committee, Huffman co-sponsored three other amendments:
Medicare — Opposing changes in law that would eliminate the Medicare guarantee of a specific set of health benefits, increase costs for seniors by converting Medicare into a voucher or premium support program, or weaken the traditional Medicare program;
Education — Reversing cuts to federal K-12 education funding;
Secure Rural Schools — Setting a level of funding in the budget to allow reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act, which compensates states and counties with federal lands in their districts that were once timber producers.
Contact Richard Halstead via e-mail at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:67bcc66a-ca5b-4842-99d2-3f7b8c869965> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marinij.com/sanrafael/ci_22791399/during-budget-debate-congressman-huffman-advocates-spending-clean | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948736 | 444 | 1.835938 | 2 |
- Created on Tuesday, 17 July 2012
- Written by QHN Staff
- Hits: 479
July 2012 - According to an article published at ESPN.com, "A spirit of optimism is sweeping through the horse racing community, which bodes well for the future of horse racing, because despite a volatile global economy, even though buyers are becoming more discerning about which horses they do buy that doesn't mean they're not prepared to spend more money to get the horses they want.
"If the Fasig-Tipton yearling sales are any indication of an economic upswing then horse racing enthusiasts had better saddle up for a thrilling ride."
The article goes on to site figures from the Fasig-Tipton Kentucky July North American yearling sale, adding, "Clearly trainers are more confident about investing their money in yearlings, and investing more in quality rather than quantity." | <urn:uuid:2194634b-f363-40b0-bcc9-0a95e74299fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quarterhorsenews.com/index.php/cutting/cutting-events/11495-hunter-hightower-wins-national-high-school-boys-cutting-title-sadee-smith-top-girls-cutter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964744 | 183 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Got Used Bookstore manager Ben Lambert opened a package last November expecting to see the shipment of 1,000 blue exam books he'd ordered.
But the books he found inside were a distinct shade of light green, sporting the words "100% Recycled Paper" across their covers.
Although Lambert was surprised by the mistake at first, he decided to run with the idea.
"I had this product I needed to sell, and they're literally the same thing," Lambert said. "And we do have a lot of environmentally conscious people at Penn State."
The time-honored blue exam book, beloved by professors and bemoaned by students, is literally going green. The aptly named Green Book, manufactured by Roaring Spring Paper Products since last year, is the same size as its blue counterpart but made with 100 percent recycled paper and 30 percent post-consumer waste.
Got Used Bookstore, 206 E. College Ave., has sold about 500 Green Books since late November, Lambert said, and offers it for 22 cents each -- three cents less than its blue counterpart.
"Because Blue Books are the established form of test-taking at Penn State, you kind of have to incentivize people if they're going to change," Lambert said.
Eco-Action President Brittany Harris (senior-biological anthropology) said only recycled-paper exam books should be offered to students.
"Call them whatever you like. There's really no reason why they couldn't be all recycled paper," she said.
Despite the lower cost of Green Books at Got Used Bookstore, Roaring Spring General Manager Jim Lucey said the company sells the green exam books for about 10 percent more than the blue exam books. He added that recycled paper costs about 20 percent more than regular paper.
Got Used Bookstore is currently the only State College bookstore that offers the Green Book. The Penn State Bookstore is "looking into" carrying Green Books, Penn State Bookstore employee Amy Horst said.
Roaring Spring produces "millions" of exam books, Lucey said, and about 10 percent are made of recycled paper.
"We started producing them in response to the demand that we saw from the collegiate community to get into more sustainable and recyclable products," Lucey said.
"Overall, the entire offering of expanded recycled products has been extremely well received in the college bookstore community."
Some students and professors have responded positively to the environmentally friendly books.
"Most professors supply Blue Books from the department," Penn State philosophy professor William Behun said, adding he hadn't heard about the new Green Books but would "absolutely" consider using them.
"I would like the option at least -- the departments should supply more environmentally friendly products," he said.
However, Josh Salvi (junior-bioengineering) said while he thinks the Green Book is a good idea, he is "a little iffy" about using one for exams this semester.
"I mean, we use the blue books, so the green one might be a little intimidating at first," he said.
Lambert said he has met Penn State alumni from "as far back as the 1970s" who remember using exam books when they were students.
"The blue books obviously sell better," he said. "They've been a staple at Penn State for a very long time." | <urn:uuid:1a5d8864-0936-410d-8e06-0387ed215f0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2008/05/05/green_exam_books_offer_student.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974235 | 692 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Abortion The decision to have an abortion is a safe and sensible one for an unwanted pregnancy. The right for a woman to have this procedure should remain legal. She may not be ready for the responsibility of a child, cannot afford to raise a baby at the time, or have been a victim of rape. Whatever her reason may be, it is probably valid in her eyes and she has the right to choose a legal abortion. If a woman should decide to have this procedure, she should not delay her decision since an abortion is least complicated when performed early in her pregnancy. Family planning centers, such as Planned Parenthood, have trained counselors who can answer questions she may have, and support her in any way necessary. She should seriously consider having the abortion in your first or second trimester since an abortion is safest at this time. There are people everywhere who believe that abortion is wrong. Sometimes women can’t even go to the clinic for a check-up with out having to be escorted to the door because of the crazy protestors in the streets. I think it’s ridiculous for a woman to have to be escorted to the doors at her doctors’ office. I feel that it is a woman’s decision if she wants an abortion or not. I un
In many cases those precautions are not taken, leading to unwanted pregnancies"tm. Counselors and nurses will be there to assist you if needed. A dilation and evacuation (DE) is performed in the early second trimester, between fourteen and eighteen weeks of pregnancy. What kind of life would that child live The mother might not even have enough money to buy food, diapers, or other baby supplies. As well as by the gentle scraping of the uterine walls. The mother might neglect the child of all these things. The contents of the uterus are removed by the suction. Yes, that"tms great, but what if they are the mothers who can"tmt afford the child, or aren"tmt emotionally or financially ready for it. This procedure is safely performed by inserting a small plastic tube, about the size of a drinking straw, which is then attached to a suction machine. As a result of the mother"tms decision to keep the baby, the child may suffer from neglect due to a lack or attention, support, or emotional and physical comfort. The child would grow up being unhappy, receiving no love from the mother, or possibly even be ignored or abandoned. After the suction is complete, the doctor may gently scrape the uterine walls to make sure the abortion is complete (Costa). The first part of the DE consists of dilators being inserted to gradually stretch the opening of the cervix. This dilation is done up to a day before the actual procedure (Costa). If she had to actually give birth to that child, it could cause emotional problems since looking at his or her face would remind her of the person that attacked her everyday for the rest of her life.
Some topics in this essay:
Planned Parenthood, Encyclopedia Vacuum, , decision abortion, abortion trimester, tube size drinking, size drinking straw, abortion safe sensible, plastic tube size, suction machine, carrying child, trimester abortion, plastic tube, uterine walls, birth child, vacuum aspiration, performed trimester,
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| | | | | | <urn:uuid:393628bc-cfb8-4b09-85cc-ba1f5339ca59> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/97765.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960938 | 794 | 1.523438 | 2 |
By Rabble Rouser Reverend Amy on May 11, 2010 at 11:30 AM in Bailouts, Christopher Dodd, Congress (House & Senate), Current Affairs, Democrats, Economy, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Governance, Housing & Housing Crisis, Mortgage Crisis, National Debt, Tim Geithner, treasury department, U.S. Treasury
And Fannie Mae are not included in the big Financial Reform Bill? I am just curious since they helped create this economic situation in which we find ourselves, and have drained billions of dollars from the coffers over the past couple of years. Now they want MORE.
Oh, yeah – Freddie Mac is asking for TEN Billion Dollars. I reckon they just want to add it to their tab:
ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe reports:
Government-backed mortgage giant Freddie Mac today asked for $10.6 billion in additional federal aid after reporting a loss of $8 billion in the first three months of this year.
To date Freddie Mac has been provided with around $51 billion in government funds. The new aid would bring the total assistance to the lender to over $61 billion.
Late last year the Treasury Department essentially agreed to provide a blank check to Freddie Mac and fellow government-backed lender Fannie Mae when the agency controversially removed the cap on federal support for the lenders.
A “blank check”? That is what Geithner wants to give Freddie and Fannie? I reckon that’s what happens when you have someone in charge who can’t even fill out his own tax forms properly (or, as I like to say, a Tax cheat). Some folks aren’t happy about it, though:
Republicans have blasted the administration for that move, as well as for not putting forth a plan to overhaul the government-sponsored enterprises. Thus far the administration’s only action has been the April 14 release of a series of questions for public comment on what to do with the mortgage giants.
In addition, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner has acknowledged that the government expects to suffer “very substantial losses” on its investments in the lenders, with recent estimates ranging around a minimum of $85 billion.
Well, that’s just jake – “a minimum of $85 billion.” That’s our money, folks.
And let’s not leave Fannie Mae out of this mix. Oh, no – now Fannie is asking for some more cash, too, a cool for $8.4 Billion more?:
Fannie Mae requested another $8.4 billion from the federal government on Monday, saying that it expects its deficits to continue due to trends in the housing and financial markets.
The government-controlled mortgage giant said it lost $13.1 billion applicable to common shareholders in the first quarter of 2010. In the year-earlier quarter, Fannie suffered a $23.2 billion loss, but an accounting change makes comparing the year-over-year losses difficult.
Fannie’s request for more federal funds comes just four days after Fannie’s twin Freddie Mac also asked for a handout – to the tune of $10.6 billion – after posting an $8 billion quarterly loss.
In using Fannie (FNM, Fortune 500) and Freddie (FRE, Fortune 500) to prop up the mortgage market, the government in December lifted a $200 billion limit on their bailouts, essentially giving the twin housing lenders a blank check. Fannie Mae has already received $76.2 billion from the federal government and Freddie has gotten $50.7 billion.
“In the first quarter, we continued to serve as a leading source of liquidity to the mortgage market, and we made solid progress in our ongoing efforts to keep people in their homes,” Fannie Mae President and CEO Mike Williams, said in a press release.
Just to recap, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were largely responsible for bringing down the housing market (click HERE to read the rest of the article).
Yes, indeedy, so no doubt the new Finance Reform Bill begins with Fannie and Freddie, right? Oh, so wrong. Chris Dodd, who benefited mightily from Fannie Mae and Countrywide says, “Nooooooooo.” Dodd thinks it should wait:
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) said Friday that legislation to address troubled mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have to come after the current financial-reform effort.
Fannie and Freddie, which are known as “government-sponsored enterprises” (GSEs), have been a lightning rod for criticism of Democrats during the financial reform debate.
Dodd, who is chairman of the Banking Committee and has led the effort to craft a financial regulatory reform bill, said that there was not enough room in the legislation for rules covering Fannie and Freddie.
“Fannie and Freddie and the whole GSE system and it’s a great question and a legitimate one in desperate need of reform,” he said on CNBC. “But candidly there’s only so much I could only take on with this bill, and so that comes up. But not in this round. It’s in the next wave here we have to deal with GSEs.”
Well, sure, that makes sense, right? If you live in Upside-Down World, anyway (click HERE to read the rest). What a glaring, blatant, prop-up for those two entities that have done SO much to destroy the housing market. Unbelievable.
Frankly, I think this is a dereliction of duty on behalf of our Congress people. They refuse to hold accountable the very companies who wreaked havoc with our economy. They are in collusion with them. Even worse, they continue to throw money down the money hole.
I have used this video before, but it seems mighty timely given the requests of Fannie and Freddie (Onion video alert):
If only this were a joke… | <urn:uuid:5213aef4-bdeb-49e6-b72b-1344683bd059> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/45659/tell-me-again-why-freddie-mac/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954061 | 1,254 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Brookline Veneers by Dr. Peter Juriansz, DMD
What Are Veneers?
Veneers adhere to the front of your natural tooth to improve its appearance. Veneers are very thin porcelain laminates that resist staining from drinking coffee or smoking. These laminates are bonded to the front of your teeth in order to improve their appearance and repair damaged areas. Dr. Juriansz uses veneers to correct uneven surfaces, chips, discoloration, oddly shaped teeth, crooked or unevenly spaced teeth. We prefer individually customized veneers rather than pressed monochromatic veneers.
You can expect your veneers to have more color stability and be more durable than bonding. Veneers are also highly resistant to stains from tea, coffee or even smoking.
How Do Veneers Work?
Because a small amount of your tooth enamel will likely have to be removed in order to accommodate your veneers, the procedure is usually irreversible. Typically you will have at least two appointments with Dr. Juriansz to complete your veneer procedure. The first is for preparation, the second for bonding. In some cases when the teeth are small, no preparation of the teeth may be needed.
Your tooth preparation visit with last about 1-2 hours. During this time, your teeth will be lightly buffed to make room for the thickness that the veneer will add to your teeth. In most cases, about 1/2mm of each tooth will be removed; local anesthesia can eliminate any potential discomfort during this process. After the buffing, staff will take a mold of your teeth, which is then sent to a laboratory to create the veneers. Your veneers will be made by a dental lab technician who will work from the model provided by Brookline Village Dental. We use talented and experienced ceramists for our veneer work.
Once the veneers are ready, you can come in to be fitted. This visit will also take about 1-2 hours. During this time, Dr. Juriansz will bond the veneers to your natural teeth after he ensures a proper fit and color match. Dr. Juriansz will use water or glycerine on your teeth to check the fit of the veneers as well as to check the shade and color. While your veneers are resting on your teeth, Dr. Juriansz can adjust the color with various shades of cement so that it will match the color of your natural teeth.
Then Dr. Juriansz will apply the veneer to each tooth. First your tooth will be cleansed with a chemical that will allow the veneer to bond with your tooth. Next, Dr. Juriansz will sandwich a special cement between the veneer and your tooth, then use a painless light beam to harden the cement. | <urn:uuid:7bd0cf86-4ac0-40ed-b21d-89ed0747534f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklinevillagedental.com/brookline-veneers/ | 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 | 0.937546 | 599 | 1.648438 | 2 |
If you've got $10,000 (about £8,500) to spare and know someone with an extremely large bookshelf, you may be in for some interesting holiday shopping this December on Amazon's US website.
The online retailer plans to sell a massive 100-page book printed on 7x5ft pages, according to Michael Hawley, a director of special projects at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) who is publishing the book as a fund-raising exercise for a non-profit company he founded called Friendly Planet.
Hawley has led MIT research projects exploring the ways that digital technology can affect everyday objects such as coffee makers, refrigerators and even fruits and vegetables.
The book, which will be called Growing up in Bhutan, will be published using HP's DesignJet 5500, a large format printer sometimes used for fine art projects. It will feature photographs of the country and people of Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan nation of 600,000 that is best known by many for waiting until 1999 to officially adopt television.
Each book will be made from four 100ft long rolls of 5ft wide paper, which are then folded like an accordion. Tabs will be inserted into the rolls at 7ft intervals and those tabs will then be stitched into the book's binding. Just printing the images on the four rolls of paper will take about 25 hours, according to Hawley.
Although the book is more of a novelty than a practical offering, Hawley hopes to raise around $4m for his charity. | <urn:uuid:281ca57f-f8b0-47c7-8b22-546656610a08> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/desktop-pc/3539/reading-material-for-giants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951358 | 314 | 1.726563 | 2 |
PROVINCETOWN – The Coast Guard does not typically raise a sunken vessel to recover a body believed to be trapped inside, according to the agency’s investigator in charge of the Twin Lights, the Provincetown scallop boat that sank Nov. 18 two miles north of Provincetown.
Under federal law, the Coast Guard must investigate marine casualties on commercial fishing vessels. But, Coast Guard investigator Lt. Kelli Dougherty said Wednesday that the money, equipment or people with skills needed to recover a body from a sunken vessel will generally be organized through family members, friends, insurance proceeds and other sources. That type of recovery would then be aided as much as possible by government agencies, such as the Coast Guard and state police, Dougherty said.
“A lot of time there’s a joint effort there,” she said.
On Tuesday, a dozen searchers, including Dougherty, used a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, to scan the outside of the 40-foot fiberglass Twin Lights. The video camera on the ROV did not reveal whether the body of Capt. Jean Frottier, 69, of Wellfleet was inside the pilothouse because the windows were obscured, the waters were murky and the currents strong.
The vessel capsized before noon as Frottier tried to untangle his scallop dredge from another fisherman’s gear in the water. The lobster boat Glutton rescued crew member Eric Rego but was unable to reach the pilothouse because of the angle of the boat in the water and other dangers, according to Glutton Capt. Beau Gribbin.
The Twin Lights was one of about 54 commercial fishing vessels regularly docked at MacMillan Pier. | <urn:uuid:109fca78-6145-478e-82e2-1efd4d1bf6a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121128/NEWS11/121129742/-1/special01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954483 | 361 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Shutterbugs Emerge From Summer School Class
Winnetka students showcase their photos as new superintendent is welcomed to District 36.
Summer school isn’t always about math problems and essays. Adventures in Learning, the Winnetka school district’s summer camp, showed just how creative students can be with a digital photography exhibit titled "A New Perspective," on July 20.
Students eagerly pointed out to their parents which photos were their contribution to the display from the five-week course, which is among a variety of activities for the program's participating pre-kindergarteners through eighth graders.
“The best part of the course this that now kids are excited to walk around with their cameras,” photography teacher Judith Campbell said. “Because it’s digital, kids were encouraged to take around 80 shots a day.”
After children sifted through their photographs, they learned to edit them using Apple's iPhoto software.
“These kids really see things differently. They’re attracted to nature and things we don’t normally expect them to be so interesting,” Campbell said.
A particularly interesting shot featured a half empty plastic water bottle with condensation inside. The item was found in the middle of a field.
The exhibit was coupled with a meet-and-greet session for the Winnetka Public Schools District 36’s new superintendent, Thomas Hagerman.
“It has been exciting to work with the Adventures programs. There are such great classes and talented teachers here this summer,” Hagerman said about the exhibit.
“The photos are just amazing. There’s a level of sophistication in the photos," he added. "These kids are really drawn to color and great at editing.”
The Adventures in Learning program started at the Crow Island school more than 50 years ago, and has expanded to include more than 85 different classes for District 36 students. This year, it ran from June 20 to July 22 with a record enrollment of more than 500 students. The photo class is taught four periods a day and is one of the most popular programs, according to Marcia Sutter of District 36's communication and community relations office.
“It’s been a great way to introduce myself to the district. I meet the students here and their parents when they come to pick their kids up,” Hagerman said.
"Like" us on Facebook to receive news and participate in the conversation on Winnetka, Glencoe and Northfield. | <urn:uuid:cd55d4d6-d0b4-4191-99ed-9146646549ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://winnetka.patch.com/articles/shutterbugs-emerge-from-summer-school-class | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96883 | 525 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Before returning to D.C. this fall, I lived — and became a bike advocate — in Atlanta. Late last month, I Megabus-ed 12 hours south to help the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition and Red, Bike and Green-Atlanta (a chapter I helped to co-found) gather support for dedicated bike lanes in one of the oldest African American neighborhoods in the country: Sweet Auburn Avenue.
Atlanta recently broke ground on a Street Car Project that will increase connectivity between downtown and the King National Historic site, a top tourist attraction. While city officials are pushing the project forward, there remains some concern that shuttling tourists from downtown to the historic site would preclude those tourist from spending their dollars with local businesses along the route. Also, as a city crippled by subpar transit, the Street Car provides little benefit to local citizens. So, in order to garner more support for the project the city initially promised to put in bike lanes along the street car route.
After this proposal won the support of local residents and cycling groups the city came back with another proposal that would maintain full bike lanes on one street and leave the other with interrupted bike lanes that are less safe. Well, the street that would be shortchanged is Auburn Avenue.
The mostly black neighborhood has struggled in recent years, while seeing a parallel street become a major bike thoroughfare that has blossomed economically — proving yet again that bikes mean business. Red, Bike and Green — a group focused on encouraging more blacks to bike in their communities — partnered with ABC and SOPO Bicycle Co-Op to host a bicycle tour of Sweet Auburn showcasing this incredible historical gem and gather the support of the community to advocate for complete bike lanes along the street.
Before the tour though, it was time to get some signatures on our Letter of Support from local businesses and residents. Red, Bike and Green- Atlanta Co-Founder, Zahra Alabanza and I set out walking up and down Auburn Ave for the rest of the afternoon. Auburn Ave is lined with some of the oldest black businesses and buildings in the nation but is in the top 10 most endangered historic places in the country, as well.
The street is no stranger to bike activism either, after a 1890 ordinance segregated the original Street Cars in Atlanta, a group of black citizens and Auburn Ave business owners led a boycott to appeal the law. What was their preferred mode of travel? Bicycles.
Then it was time for the fun part. After gathering more than 40 our new closest friends we headed out from Troy Davis Park to begin Tour de Sweet Auburn: A Community Bike Tour of the Sweet Auburn District.
The tour took us to several major historical spots along Auburn Ave. including Dr. Martin Luther King’s birth home; the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Coalition (group founded in part by Dr. King); the oldest black barbershop in America; the Peacock nightclub, which, at one point, was the sole venue where black acts could perform; and some major black historical churches Big Bethel, Old Wheat Street and Ebenezer. Zahra provided some history about the area while Atlanta Bicycle Coalition ED Rebecca Serna pointed out the parts of Auburn that would have gotten bike lanes in the original proposal and explained the importance of connectivity to the rest of the city.
After all that riding and learning it was time to refuel and talk about what we’d seen. As part of our outreach efforts a local restaurant welcomed us to dine with them at a nice discount. Oh and DINE we did at Mangoes Caribbean Restaurant! After devouring a delicious dinner it was off to more merriment at the historic Pal’s Lounge. The owner at Pal’s not only committed to having a bike rack installed when he saw all the bikers swarming into his spot, but he also had a drink ready for us in anticipation. If you visit Atlanta and end up at Pal’s make sure you order “The Spoke” and tell them RBG sent you.
Of course, the Sweet Auburn Ride was just my first stop back in Atlanta. Stay tuned for my next post about the Georgia-lina Bike Summit!
Hamzat SaniHamzat joined the League in September 2012 after working with the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition. Before working in biking, Hamzat worked with Martin Luther King Jr.’s son as a Program Associate at The King Center in Atlanta. A founder of the Red, Bike and Green chapter in Atlanta, Hamzat sees biking as a hub for change on the communal level.
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As you may remember from the post on making Theory of Computation (ToC) more lively, I taught ToC for the first time last year at UKZN, where it also was a new core course in the CS degree programme, i.e., the students and the system also had to get used to ToC. As usual, anything can be improved upon (if you think not: look harder; they always can, at least in theory). To commence with that in a solid way, we’ve decided first to collect some data to go beyond the familiar anecdotes.
Internationally, many stories make the rounds through the grapevine about ToC. Those stories revolve around, among others, it being a difficult subject for the students, low pass rates, the course being threatened from being removed from a the programme, and textbooks becoming out of print (e.g., Pearson does not want to make reprints of Hopcropft, Mottwani & Ullman’s book unless they get single orders for more than 300 books, according to their rep for SA).
While the individual stories are true, how prevalent are they really? How widespread are ‘low pass rates’, and when is it ‘low’? What are the enrollment numbers elsewhere? Do they have problems in the university system? It being a new course in the programme here as a result of merging a 16 credit Formal Languages & Automata Theory and a 16 credit Algorithms & Complexity, what topics are really essential in a ToC course? Should it be a core course, and if so, in which year of the programme?
These are some of the questions we were curious about as to what the answers would be. To find out, there’s a (still ongoing) survey of ToC syllabi at the various universities around the world and an opinion-survey to obtain data that cannot be found by just looking at syllabi, but concern the context around ToC, like enrollment numbers, pass rates, whether it should be in the programme vs. actually in the programme, and so on. The opinion-survey was open from 16 March to 1 April (accessible here), and I’ve put the preliminary results online, as promised in the announcement. (A paper summarizing the results and integrating it with the results of the syllabi-survey is in the pipeline, but somehow it struck a chord, and relatively many survey respondents wanted to know the results and all the details can’t go in the page-limited paper anyway).
In total, there were 77 people—mainly academics—who completed the survey, mostly from outside SA and covering all continents of the world. There’s the survey setup, results in digested format, discussion, and conclusions, as well as the raw data with aggregated numbers by question answer, and the list of ToC topics ordered by being essential. In short: The survey responses show an overwhelming agreement that ToC should be taught and a majority prefers to have it in the 2nd or 3rd year in an undergraduate programme. It is taught at most of the institutions that the respondents are affiliated with, and the course is mostly solidly in the programme as a core course. About half of the respondents note there are issues with the course, for various reasons, including, but not limited to, low pass rates and low enrollment. Roughly half observe first-time pass rates below 60%, and for only 20% the pass rate exceeds 80%. Whilst noting that several respondent spread ToC content over more than one course or integrate it with other courses, there is agreement on the typical topics that are considered as essential to ToC, covering regular and context-free languages (and grammars), automata (at least DFA, NFA, epsilon-NFA), Turing machines, undecidability, computability and complexity, where the subtopics covered vary a bit.
Several respondents also gave additional feedback and opinion via email. In case you would like so, too, drop me a line, or add it in the comments section here on the blog. | <urn:uuid:91334181-2bca-48d8-b060-e1a412367450> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://keet.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/preliminary-results-of-the-theory-of-computation-survey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963127 | 853 | 1.515625 | 2 |
VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI bestowed his final Sunday blessing of his pontificate on a cheering crowd in St. Peters Square, explaining that his waning years and energy have made him better suited to the life of private prayer he soon will spend in a secluded monastery than as leader of the Roman Catholic Church.
On Thursday evening, the 85-year-old German-born theologian will become the first pope to have resigned from the papacy in 600 years.
Sundays noon appearance from his studio window overlooking the vast square was his next-to-last appointment with the public of his nearly eight-year papacy.
Tens of thousands of faithful and other admirers have already asked the Vatican for seats in the square for his last general audience Wednesday.
Benedict told an estimated 100,000 pilgrims, tourists and Romans in the square on Sunday that God had called him to dedicate himself even more to prayer and meditation, which he will do in a monastery being renovated for him on the grounds behind Vatican Citys ancient walls.
But this doesnt mean abandoning the church, he said.
On the contrary, if God asks me, this is because I can continue to serve it (the church) with the same dedication and the same love which I have tried to do so until now, but in a way more suitable to my age and to my strength. | <urn:uuid:d1f324ff-5e18-4853-a3f7-91e6708eb380> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jg.net/article/20130225/NEWS04/302259927/1006/NEWS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984353 | 279 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Best Known For
Phil Spector is best known for writing several No. 1 hit songs, and for being convicted of the murder of Lana Clarkson.
Phil Spector - Family Issues (2:11)
In 2009, Phil Spector was convicted of the murder of actress Lana Clarkson, and received a 19-year prison sentence.
Phil Spector's many personal issues had taken a large toll on his then wife, Ronnie Spector, and their three children.
After his career had taken a downturn, Phil Spector got the chance to produce the Beatles final album, "Let It Be" and turned his career around.
Sonny Bono got his start in the music industry as Phil Spector's right hand man in the studio.
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Phil Spector was born in New York City on December 26, 1940. Spector got his first hit song while still in high school with a group called The Teddy Bears. Spector went on to write and produce multiple number one songs in the US and UK, also developing the "Wall of Sound" technique. In 2009, Spector was convicted of the murder of Lana Clarkson, and received a 19-year prison sentence.
"The gun went off accidentally."
Phil Spector was born Harvey Philip Spector on December 26, 1940, in New York City. When Spector was 9 years old, his father committed suicide. His grieving family moved to Los Angeles in 1953.
Spector attended Fairfax High School, where he learned how to play the guitar and started writing songs. During his time at Fairfax, he met fellow students Marshall Leib, Harvey Goldstein and Annette Kleinbard. Together they formed the music group The Teddy Bears, and had a No.1 hit in the United States and the United Kingdom with "To Know Him Is To Love Him." The title of the song was taken from the inscription on Spector's father's grave.
The Teddy Bears seemed destined for fame, but their next single, "I Don't Need You Anymore" only reached No. 91 on the charts. Proceeding singles proved to be even less successful, and the band split up in 1959.
After the group went their separate ways, Spector drifted around a little, then returned to Los Angeles and re-entered the record business to concentrate on producing.
With the help of independent producers, Lester Sill and Lee Hazlewood, Spector went to New York and worked with hit-makers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. He became a staff producer for Dune Records, where he produced a string of hits and became an industry sensation. In 1961, Spector and Still formed their own label, Philles Records. The partners signed on the group The Crystals, whose first single, "There's No Other (Like My Baby)" made it to No. 20 on the Billboard chart. Their next release, "Uptown," hit No. 13.
By the age of 21, Spector was a millionaire who was responsible for producing 20 consecutive smash hits. During this time, he started to work on his "Wall of Sound" technique in earnest. The "Wall" approach to production involved a process of overdubbing scores of musicians to make a full sound. The effect created a "roar," which Spector described as the "Wagnerian approach to rock 'n' roll." This style served to make Spector even more famous in the music industry, and many iconic artists would begin imitating this technique in future years, including The Beach Boys and Bruce Springsteen.
But life wasn't unfolding exactly as Spector had hoped. In 1966, he produced Ike and Tina Turner's single "River Deep, Mountain High." Spector considered it his greatest production to date. While it placed at No. 3 on the U.K. pop charts, it peaked at No. 88 in the U.S. Embittered, Spector went into seclusion for two years, during which time there were reports of strange, near-psychotic behavior. He did very little for the rest of the '60s.
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It's not just crazy loners who commit heinous crimes; many times, it's stars who are the most brazen killers, believing their notoriety and fortunes will get them off the hook for their violent behavior. Producer Phil Spector was one of the biggest names in the music industry in the 1960s before he was found guilty for murdering actress Lana Clarkson. O.J. Simpson was a star running-back before he stood trial for the murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. Follow the rise and fall of these individuals and many more, who were famous—long before they became infamous.
Fatally Famous 16 people in this group
Ugly Inside and Out 10 people in this group
The Chaplin. The Fu Manchu. The Van Dyke. The Garlbaldi. These beards, and other creative variations on chin whiskers, have become such a striking reflection of their wearers' personalities that it becomes hard to know whether the people made the facial hair famous, or the other way around. We do know this much is certain: the only rivals to these fabulous beards are the men sporting them.
Fantastic Facial Hair 70 people in this group | <urn:uuid:e6171922-9942-40ae-83ac-9d1aa20093a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biography.com/people/phil-spector-9489973 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97939 | 1,145 | 1.546875 | 2 |
2012 Scolnick Prize Lecture: Roger Nicoll, MD
April 19, 2012
Dr. Roger Nicoll of the University of California, San Francisco was awarded the 2012 Scolnick Prize in Neuroscience for his pioneering work on synaptic plasticity, the process by which the brain's connections are modified in response to experience (click here to read the full announcement). On April 19, 2012, he delivered the Scolnick Prize lecture, entitled "Deconstructing and reconstructing an excitatory synapse."
The Scolnick Prize is awarded annually by the McGovern Institute to recognize outstanding advances in the field of neuroscience. The prize is named in honor of Dr. Edward M. Scolnick, who stepped down as President of Merck Research Laboratories in December 2002 after holding Merck's top research post for 17 years. Dr Scolnick is now at the Broad Institute, where he established the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research. He also serves as a member of the McGovern Institute’s governing board. The prize, which is endowed through a gift from Merck to the McGovern Institute, consists of a $70,000 award, plus an inscribed gift.
The winner is selected by a committee appointed by the director of the McGovern Institute. The current members are: Robert Desimone (McGovern Institute; chair); Joseph Coyle (McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School), H. Robert Horvitz (McGovern Institute); Nancy Kanwisher (McGovern Institute); Solomon Snyder (Johns Hopkins University); and Larry Squire (University of California, San Diego).
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