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Man dies from transplanted, rabies-infected kidney
Published: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 9:30 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, March 15, 2013 at 8:37 p.m.
A Maryland man died from a transplanted, rabies-infected kidney from a donor who wasn't known to have the disease, and the rare death has prompted authorities to treat three others who got organs from the same donor, federal health officials said Friday.
The Maryland man, who died last month, received the kidney more than a year ago. The recipients of the donor's heart, liver and other kidney are getting anti-rabies shots, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday. Those patients live in Florida, Georgia and Illinois, the CDC said.
The donor, a 20-year-old North Carolina man, died in 2011 in Florida, where he was training to become an Air Force aviation mechanic, the Defense Department said.
The three other recipients have a strong chance of surviving since they haven't shown symptoms of the disease, said a rabies expert who successfully treated a teenage girl with rabies in 2004.
"They're getting a really excellent vaccine. This is the best we've got," said Dr. Rodney Willoughby of Milwaukee.
Public and military health officials said they're trying to identify people in all five states who were in close contact with the donor or the recipients. Those people might also need treatment, the CDC said. The CDC refused to disclose the identities of the donor and recipients.
In North Carolina, state health officials are recommending vaccine for at least one of the donor's relatives, the state's top public health veterinarian said Friday. Fewer than five family members from North Carolina visited the man while he was hospitalized in Florida, Dr. Carl Williams said. Local and state health departments have contacted them and are evaluating their risk.
"What generally happens in human rabies patients that are hospitalized is that there is a lot of close contact, not only from health care workers but from close family because the patient is going to die," Williams said. The disease could, in rare cases, be transmitted by saliva from a kiss on the lips or tears being wiped away by a visiting mother, Williams said.
Williams wouldn't describe where the donor lived before moving to Florida, saying even naming the county could identify the rabies victim. Rabies is common in wildlife statewide. How the donor may have gotten the raccoon rabies virus is under investigation, the CDC said.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago confirmed the Illinois transplant was performed there and that its doctors are administering the rabies treatment to that recipient. Illinois Department of Public Health spokeswoman Melaney Arnold said the patient has no rabies symptoms, but began treatment Thursday.
The Defense Department said the Maryland man who died was an Army veteran who had transplant surgery at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. He died in February, Defense Department spokeswoman Cynthia O. Smith said.
The CDC said there has been just one other reported instance of rabies transmission by transplanted solid organs, a 2004 case in which all four recipients died after receiving tissue from an infected donor. There have been at least eight instances of rabies transmission through transplanted corneas, CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said.
"Human rabies is very rare in the United States, and so, of course, when we're talking about organ transplantation, very, very rare," she said. Rabies is diagnosed as the cause of just one to three deaths per year in the United States, she said.
Rabies cannot be confirmed until after death, by examining the patient's brain tissue, health officials said. Because there is no rapid test, rabies testing is not routine in organ transplant situations, where every second counts, Reynolds said. Willoughby said such testing could be counterproductive: "To do it right away would probably mean that you throw away most of the organs while they're testing," he said.
The Maryland death was announced Tuesday by state health officials. State Public Health Veterinarian Katherine Feldman said the organ recipient had encephalitis, a brain inflammation that can be caused by rabies. Doctors suspected before he died that he had rabies, and they knew about his kidney transplant, but considered a rabies-infected kidney to be a remote possibility, Feldman said.
"This was a very long interval from transplant to onset and there was nothing that screamed, 'This patient is ill because of his renal transplant,'" Feldman said. The man had had no reported animal exposures, health officials said.
The Florida donor also had encephalitis, health officials said.
The CDC confirmed after the Maryland man's death that both he and the organ donor had died from the same type of raccoon rabies virus. This type of type of rabies virus can infect not only raccoons, but also other wild and domestic animals. In the United States, only one other person is reported to have died from a raccoon-type rabies virus, the CDC said.
That virus has a typical incubation period of one to three months, although there have been other cases of such long incubation periods, the CDC said.
The donor died at a Florida medical facility. At the time of the donor's death, rabies wasn't suspected as the cause and testing for rabies was not performed, the CDC said.
Florida Department of Health epidemiologist Carina Blackmore said investigators don't know how the donor contracted rabies.
"We are concerned that because of the time that has passed we may not ever know," she said. | <urn:uuid:482c23c7-5808-4ba8-a654-0da8122004a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20130315/ARTICLES/130319857/1042/rentals?Title=Man-dies-from-transplanted-rabies-infected-kidney- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980831 | 1,154 | 1.59375 | 2 |
An American by choice, Tom Lantos was born in Budapest, Hungary, on February 1, 1928.
He was 16 years old when Nazi Germany occupied his native country. As a teenager, he was a member of the anti-Nazi underground and later of the anti-Communist student movement. He is the only holocaust survivor ever to serve in the U.S. Congress. Tom was awarded an academic scholarship to study in the United States, and he arrived here in 1947. He received a B.A. and M.A. in Economics from the University of Washington in Seattle and later earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
For three decades prior to his service in Congress (1950-1980), Tom Lantos was a professor of economics, an international affairs analyst for public television, and a consultant to a number of businesses. He also served in senior advisory roles to members of the United States Senate.
As a Member of the House of Representatives, Tom Lantos has worked diligently to address quality of life issues in Bay Area communities. He has a strong record on environment protection and has fought for reform of our nation's energy policy. As a former Professor and Chairman of the Millbrae Board of Education, Tom has been a consistent supporter of public education. Tom led a major investigation of waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and he has been a leader in Congressional oversight over Federal government programs. As the Ranking Democratic member of the House International Relations Committee Tom Lantos is a strong voice for responsible international involvement, and advocate for participation in international organizations, and particularly for Human Rights. In 1983 he was the founder of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and he continues to serve as its Co-Chairman.
Tom and his wife Annette are the parents of two daughters - Annette and Katrina - and they have seventeen grandchildren. | <urn:uuid:b23435e8-9eb6-48d2-9df0-0f134f46509b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.traveltohungary.com/english/articles/article.php?id=128 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980022 | 394 | 1.78125 | 2 |
It was as crowded a news conference as I've seen in quite a while. Thursday morning, New York State Governor David A. Paterson announced that he would introduce a bill to grant same-sex couples marriage equality. Yes, I know that Paterson's star has fallen quite a bit in political circles, but I was once again struck by his humility, humor and grace in explaining why he was introducing the bill now and not at a later date. This man who came to be governor due to unforeseen and extraordinary circumstances. This man who was handed a dysfunctional legislature and has struggled to pull it together. And yet, a man who stood by principle and kept his word in introducing this bill.
As for the press conference, it was wondrous in more ways than one.
For one thing, people who just hours earlier were criticising the governor for his renewed push for marriage equality were standing next to him, and legislators who would not have been caught a LGBT rights event just five years ago, were elbowing each other to stand behind Paterson for the photo op.
For another, it was striking that here was the state's first African-American governor making such a bold push for marriage equality, when often minorities are the first to be blamed as not being gay-friendly or supportive of LGBT rights. It also didn't escape me that among the people standing behind him were the first person of Asian descent to be elected to the City Council. John C. Liu, former councilmember Bill Perkins; and Latino US Representative José E. Serrano. A powerful visual, for those attuned to these things, that minorities are not monolithically homophobic as they are sometimes painted to be.
I bring this up because it is at times like these when local media go ga-ga over the homophobic rantings of a certain Pentecostal minister (and State Senator) named Rubén Diaz, Sr. He certainly makes good copy and - unfortunately - he has managed to find himself in a position where his one vote could deny equal rights to hundreds of New Yorkers.
And, like clockwork, there he was on Thursday morning, holding an "emergency meeting" of the New York Hispanic Clergy Association (more like a "Look at me! Look at me!" meeting, if you ask me).
As widely reported, Diaz used the media attention to bash Paterson and say that he would be organizing a series of Sunday mass activities in the month of May leading to a rally of thousands in opposition of the marriage bill. He also said he'd be calling for Governor Paterson to step down (so much for separation of church and state).
Given the Pastor's penchant for running his mouth off, it's not surprising that plans for the rally seemed vague, at best. But he has pulled one such rally in the past when 5,000 people showed up outside the Bronx Courthouse building.
Still, I remain unconvinced that the Reverend reaches much more than a fringe element even in Latino communities and believe that money, time and effort countering his rants and rallies would be better spent highlighting the support of people like José E. Serrano and finding allies among Republican Senate members to counter the anti-gay votes of a few homophobic Democrats.
Having said that, it is clear that calls to his office from LGBT rights proponents in recent months have gotten under his skin. From an interview he did on Thursday with New York 1 Noticias:
DIAZ: By picketing my office, by calling my office, by sending investigators, by calling me 'homophobic', by calling me - eh - whatever you want, by calling me personal names, they will never get me to change my view. There is no way.By the way, the guy responding on behalf of the National Lesbian and Gay Task Force? My great friend, Pedro Julio Serrano. He rocks! I'll be writing a bit more about him in my following post.
The only way that they will be able to get homosexual marriage: That more Democratic senators reach the Senate, and then my vote will not be necessary - and Governor Paterson is not helping out in that respect.
- Dem NY State Senator Ruben Diaz organizing anti-gay marriage equality rally (April 19, 2009)
- Bronx Senator organizing protest of marriage bill (New York Times, April 16, 2009)
- Bronx Dem rallies ministers against gay marriage (WNYC, April 16, 2009)
- Gay marriage foe to call for Governor's ouster (The Advocate, April 17, 2009) | <urn:uuid:4363ad5e-ede4-4487-865a-ad14d7661653> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blabbeando.blogspot.com/2009/04/gov-paterson-announces-marriage.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979353 | 925 | 1.601563 | 2 |
- Act Now
- Open Internet
- Promoting Creativity
- Open & Accessible Technology
AT&T has clarified that its bad policy of restricting video chat apps is still in place. We've also found out that handset providers need to jump through hoops to avoid being blocked. But AT&T has promised to end these practices by the end of the year.
When I wrote about AT&T's blocking of Google Hangouts over cellular last week I admit I was confused. I didn't understand why AT&T would allow Hangouts on iOS but not Android. It really looked like some kind of oversight, because the Android app, just like the iOS app, was installed from an app store and not "pre-loaded," which is a distinction AT&T has made before. I also wondered if app developers had to somehow work some special magic to make their apps work on AT&T's network.
But, yesterday AT&T put out a statement that clarifies some things while confusing others. First, it really does appear that AT&T defines Hangouts for Android as "pre-loaded." Even though it hasn't actually been pre-loaded on any phones yet, an app by the OS developer appears to count.
Parts of the debate are still missing from the discussion of copyright reform in Congress, but we’re starting to fill in the gaps. This includes the need to look at individual artists, creators, and users instead of the intermediaries and big incumbents.
Yesterday, I briefly summarized some of the major themes coming from the witnesses in the House IP Subcommittee’s copyright reform hearing. Since the witnesses covered those same points in their oral testimony, I thought I’d devote this post to some of the themes that emerged from the other side of the room—from the representatives in their statements and questions.
Senators are challenged to think outside the industry talking points, to what consumers are saying loudly in their marketplace choices.
As a part of a series of hearings, the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on the “State of Video” communications Tuesday May 14, 2013.
Leaders from the cable, satellite, and broadcast TV industries joined PK’s own video & media policy guru, John Bergmayer on the panel and made one thing very clear: These industries are making a fine profit right now and are not interested in having the power of the Internet change that.
Hearings such as this, that have (somewhat) balanced witness panels are very helpful because they remind us that no matter how much we are told through advertising that what cable, satellite, and broadcast are giving us is what we want, these companies are in the business of protecting their business. The technology that can increase competition and lower the price of cable is already available in online video. Millions of viewers are making this choice to take advantage of online video options today.
Today’s witnesses for the copyright reform hearing in Congress will introduce ideas for improving America’s copyright system.
Today at 2:00 PM EST, the House Subcommittee on Intellectual Property is holding a hearing on potential copyright reform.
The structure of today’s hearing owes a lot to a multi-year project organized by Professor Pamela Samuelson called the Copyright Principles Project. Each of today’s five witnesses participated in the project, which was an attempt to bring together a number of stakeholders from different parts of the copyright debate.
If you've been reading our blog this week, yes it will, because it's another story about AT&T and restictions on the Open Internet. But it should also be familiar for another reason, because at first glance this is the same as what happened with Apple's Facetime video chat app last year—AT&T is deciding what apps its users can use on the data connections they pay for.
It's interesting how arbitrary this is. The iOS version the app has no such restrictions. This shows how odd it is that AT&T continues to maintain that there is some clear distinction between "pre-loaded" and downloaded apps, where it can block one kind but not the other. There is no way to characterize a downloaded Google app for an Apple device as pre-loaded, of course—but based on the statement AT&T has given out in response to questions about this, the company appears to have decided that a Google app for Android counts as "pre-loaded" even when you have to download and install it from an app store. In other words, when it plainly is not pre-loaded. That's wrong, but it's just the start of what's wrong here.
The way to lower prices for consumers and create a competitive video marketplace is to embrace online video as the future.
One of our Senior Staff Attorneys John Bergmayer testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, and the Internet on Tuesday. His testimony described why the online video marketplace could lower high cable bills for consumers, while still allowing service providers the opportunity to obtain adequate profits. Representatives from the cable, broadcast, and satellite industries also came to detail their problems with the video market. One theme that rang throughout the hearing was the negative impact sports blackouts and drawn out retransmission disputes have on the public.
|STAY CONNECTED, JOIN OUR MAILING LIST| | <urn:uuid:cd8c9ffd-a6e5-43a2-8d5f-1645ae0d3b6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publicknowledge.org/blog/rockstars-digital-age-another-reason-umg-emi- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963691 | 1,091 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The Associated Press today announced their newest AP Stylebook, this time focusing on social media guidelines. The “page turner” includes such changes as turning “Web site” to “website” and includes 41 additional definitions, use cases and rules.
What makes no sense from my point of view is turning “smartphone” into “smart phone” which from my 14 years experience in the cellular industry is just simply wrong. They’ve also hyphenated “e-reader” and they list “fan”, “friend” and “follow” as nouns and verbs.
Acronyms also make an appearance including ROFL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing), BRB (Be Right Back), G2G (Got To Go) and POS (Parent Over Shoulder) among several others.
As expected they’ve also included such favorites as “retweet”, “trending” and “unfriend” although “defriend” is also acceptable.
Taking a step away from new media, the AP also suggests that journalists confirm sources and information they find on blogs, through tweets and while using other forms of social media.
The official AP Styleguide is available for purchase today.
What do you think about the new guidelines? As a blogger, I’m most excited to see new emphasis placed on social media by the Associated Press, on the other hand, I’m really bugged by their decision to simply change how “Smartphone” is used. | <urn:uuid:58f892a1-2118-4dc5-a8ac-3f3391095f72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blogherald.com/2010/06/02/associated-press-social-media-relevancy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948722 | 339 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Say goodbye to odor problems, wet drainage fields, and backflow.
At Bio-Sol, we offer quality products that help you solve your septic system problems. Whether you have a septic tank or a sump (connected to drainage field, an absorbing well, a pumping station, a grease trap or any other type of tank) our enzymes are made for you! RC-4, Tela-Chem, Tela-MS7 will regenerate your septic system and save you a lot of money. Why spend on a new septic system when you can improve the performance of your current one at low cost. Our products have been certified by Environmental Choice Canada and therefore will bring no harm to you or the environment. They have all been tested to provide home, RV, and marine vehicle owners a biological and highly effective solution. Products like Tela-Blast and Septa-Flush have been specifically created for RV and marine septic tanks. How enzymes work is quite simple. For example, RC-4 is formulated form lipase, amylase, and protease. The same enzymes produced by your digestive system. When it is introduced in the septic system from the toilet, the enzymes digest the mud that has been accumulating for years and unclog the perforated pipes of the drainage field. This frees the system and the natural process of biodegradation is once again working. You can therefore empty your septic tank less frequently and extend the life of your drainage field. Many different types of soils exist though like sand, clay, dark or black earth, rock and gravel. Your environing soil has an important impact on your percolating potential. A clay soil will probably saturate more quickly. You might notice greener grass close to the drainage field or even backflow due to extensive use and worst, problems can get out of hand with inappropriate use. Detergents, cleaning products, hair, fibers, excrements, paper, soaps, oils and grease, fabric, bleach products combine to harm the good operation of your septic system. It is therefore important to make sure the bacteria that eat these organic matters be in sufficient quantity and powerful enough to do their work. Sometimes a little help is needed and this is where Bio-Sol comes in! Our company is a member of the Association des terrains de camping du Québec which elected us as Supplier of the Year 20011. Tela-Clean, Tela-Fresh, Grip-N-Lock, the Urinal Blocks and Toilet Bowl Enzymes are also available. We invite you to further explore our website for more details.
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Our products have received the Environmental Choice Canada accreditation. This means they have been tested and approved to guarantee you quality products without danger to you or the environment.
Bio-Sol is a standing member of the Association des Terrains de Camping du Québec and we supply many camping sites across Quebec which gave us the Supplier of the Year award for 2011! | <urn:uuid:3576ca05-dcf1-43b3-a186-709679ab1e07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bio-sol.qc.ca/en/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936605 | 619 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Russian Style Trooper HatsRussian Hats are ideal for cold weather. Our Russian Ushanka style hats are offered in Mouton Sheepskin, Shearling Sheepskin, Rabbit Fur and other warm exotic furs. They all feature a wide body, flat top, extra long ear flaps and a wide front brim. Russian Ushanka hats are also known as Russian Ear Flap Hats. The ear flaps can be worn down for extra warmth and style or tied up at the top of the crown when not needed. We also offer Russian Cossack Hats in Mouton Sheepskin, Mink and Sheared Beaver Fur.
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About our Trooper Hats
Russian fur flap hats are also known as Ushanka hats. A Ushanka is a Russian fur hat with ear flaps that can be tied up to the crown of the hat or tied at the chin to protect the ears from the cold. In the English-speaking world, it is sometimes referred to as a shapka. However, this usage is not accurate, but is rather a Russian language word meaning simply 'hat'. Ushanka literally translates as ear flaps hat.
Though Ushanka hats are a distinctly Russian hat, indeed, the stereotypical Russian is seen to wear one, the wearing of fur hats of similar design is common throughout China, North Korea, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. It is possible that Russians adopted this design from Mongols during the Middle Age Mongol invasion of Russia.
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Rabbit Full Fur Russian Ushanka Winter Hat - Gray
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Rabbit Full Fur Russian Ushanka Winter Hat - Black
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Rabbit Full Fur Russian Ushanka Winter Hat - Brown
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"great well made product.quality design and great fur patern. this company does it right. but.. of course made in China. I'm very happy its going to keep me so warm.i wanted to get the Coyote fur but it cost a alot more. 6 stars!" | <urn:uuid:eed03703-ccb1-4126-89c2-a3569ca281fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.winterstyle.com/russian-hats-c-42_45.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946286 | 703 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The son of a Derry hunger striker has voiced concerns over claims that the republican leadership could have allowed his father to die for political gain.
Michael Devine, whose father Mickey was the last of the 10 men to die in the 1981 protest, was speaking after publication of Blanketmen: An Untold Story of the H-block Hunger Strike.
The book's author, Richard O'Rawe, was a public relations officer for the hunger strikers in the Maze. Along with IRA prisoners' 'OC' Brendan Bik McFarlane, he was closely in-volved in the day-to-day events of the hunger strike.
Mr O'Rawe has claimed that the British government offered to meet four of the prisoners' five demands after the death of the fourth hunger striker, Derry man Patsy O'Hara.
But in a startling allegation denied by other republicans yesterday he said that while he and Mr McFarlane wanted to accept the deal, it was rejected by the IRA's army council.
Mr O'Rawe suggests one interpretation is that the six men who went on to die were sacrificed for political gain, to ensure Owen Carron's election to the Westminster seat left vacant by the death of Bobby Sands.
He writes: "If that were so, Joe [McDonnell] and the five other hunger strikers who died after him [Sands] were used as cannon fodder."
Mr Carron was elected to the Fermanagh/South Tyrone seat in August 1981.
Now a teacher in Co Leitrim, he refused to comment on Mr O'Rawe's book, as did Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams.
Michael Devine (31) last night said that if Mr O'Rawe's allegations were true, it could mean his father need not have died.
Stressing that he wished to find out more about the claims, he said: "My thoughts are that it may have been a PR exercise to gain support."
However, Mr McFarlane was among a number of republicans who denied the book's claims.
"It did not happen. No deal was offered to the hunger strikers whereby they could say it was acceptable," he said. | <urn:uuid:10d63873-493e-4ce5-95a9-e4754aeda650> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nuzhound.com/articles/irish_news/arts2005/mar1_was_fathers_death_PR_exercise.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986021 | 452 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Olfactory function after total laryngectomy in Swedish patients after rehabilitation with the Nasal Airflow-Inducing Maneuver
After a total laryngectomy the upper and lower airways are disconnected resulting in a wide range of adverse effects, e.g. deterioration of nasal functions in breathing, loss or decrease of normal sense of smell and taste, as well as loss of normal voice. Recently, a new method that can restore the sense of smell in laryngectomized patients has been developed, the Nasal Airflow-Inducing Maneuver (NAIM). The overall aims of this thesis were: 1) to describe the olfactory function in laryngectomized patients and to assess the results of repeated interventions with the NAIM; 2) to evaluate the long-term results 6 and 12 months after intervention; 3) to assess olfaction, health-related quality of life (HRQL) and communication 36 months after NAIM intervention; and 4) to use a clinical protocol to follow changes in the NAIM technique over time. The study population consisted of 24 laryngectomized patients. Olfaction acuity was examined with the Scandinavian Odor Identification Test (SOIT). The patients were categorized as smellers (normosmia or hyposmia) or non-smellers (anosmia) based on the SOIT results. Their self-estimation of smell, taste, health-related quality of life and communication were measured with validated questionnaires. According to SOIT, 18 of 24 patients (75%) had impaired sense of smell before NAIM rehabilitation and 72% improved their sense of smell after 3 NAIM rehabilitation sessions. Further improvement was also seen at the 6 and 12 month follow-up, i.e. 83% and 88% respectively, were categorized as smellers according to SOIT results. Three years after NAIM rehabilitation all patients still alive (n=18) were re-examined and as many as 78% were still smellers. In addition, the patients reported an overall good HRQL and no mental distress. According to a structured protocol it was possible to identify improvements in NAIM key variables associated with improvements of the sense of smell over time. It was concluded that olfactory impairment is common in laryngectomized patients, that NAIM is an effective method for restoring the sense of smell, and that the improvements endure in long-term. Consequently, olfactory rehabilitation according to the NAIM should be incorporated into routine rehabilitation programs for all laryngectomized patients. Furthermore, a protocol is a useful and reliable tool for evaluating use of the NAIM. Moreover, HRQL questionnaires should be complemented with more diagnose specific questionnaires when evaluating olfaction and communication in laryngectomized patients.
Source Type:Doctoral Dissertation
Keywords:MEDICINE; olfaction; total laryngectomy; Nasal Airflow-Inducing Maneuver; health-related quality of life
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Arcadian Networks has licensed 700-megahertz broadband spectrum across a 30-state stretch of the American heartland, and it wants utilities to know it's available for their use.
Sure, licensing all that spectrum is expensive. But with about $90 million raised since 2005 from investors including big backer Goldman Sachs, as well as Gilo Ventures and Clal Industries, the Valhalla, N.Y.-based company has some money to spend.
So far, Arcadian's major deployment is in Minnesota, where it has linked generation and transmission utility Great River Energy and about 16 smaller electricity co-ops.
In that instance, the utilities are leasing Arcadian's internet protocol (IP)-based network to link about 600 substations and 600,000 electrical meters, said Jake Rasweiler, vice president of engineering and network operations.
With the ability to connect disparate smart grid systems including smart meters, distribution automation equipment, transmission line monitors, security cameras and the like, "This is a living, breathing smart grid that proves interoperability," Rasweiler said this week at the GridWeek conference in Washington D.C.
Arcadian isn't disclosing the names of the other utilities it may be working with, citing non-disclosure agreements. But it is involved in five applications for Department of Energy smart grid stimulus grants totaling about $150 million.
Most haven't been disclosed, but one includes the $30 million proposal from San Diego Gas & Electric to build out a utility-wide communications network that could also involve WiMax networks (see Green Light post).
Taking a look at Arcadian's licensed spectrum territory, which roughly covers the middle of the country but excludes much of the west and east coasts, as well as the Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky and West Virginia, might provide some clues as to where it is joining in utility stimulus applications.
Arcadian has an interesting smart grid communications offering, lying somewhere in between telecoms like AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, which rent their networks to utilities, and networking technology providers like Silver Spring Networks, Trilliant and smart meter makers that sell gear and radios for utilities to operate, said Marcus Torchia, analyst with IDC company Energy Insights.
Arcadian, for its part, is willing to do both, Rasweiler said. Its technology does offer some advantages over unlicensed wireless mesh networks from potential competitors like Silver Spring, such as Arcadian's licensed spectrum, its ranges of 40 miles or so per tower, and its average speeds of 1 megabyte, Rasweiler said.
With the exception of Sensus, which uses licensed spectrum, the majority of smart meters in North America use unlicensed spectrum, typically in the 900-megahertz range. That's cheaper but can lead to more challenges with interference and reliability, backers of licensed spectrum say.
The issue of licensed-versus-unlicensed spectrum for smart grid has started to receive more attention since utility AEP and others have suggested that the Federal Communication Commission consider setting aside spectrum for utilities' future needs – a suggestion that, unsurprisingly, is being opposed by companies like SmartSynch that use public cellular networks to carry smart meter data (see Smart Grid News for an overview).
One potential challenge for Arcadian may be beating the prices that potential competitors can offer. Rasweiler didn't share figures on how much it might cost a utility to deploy and own its own Arcadian-based network, but said the costs for using a network could be compared to those now being offered by telecoms like AT&T and Verizon.
Industry watchers have noted that those telecoms have traditionally priced their services too high for most utilities, but have in the past year brought them down to attract more smart grid business.
One notable example is AT&T, which in March said it would partner with smart meter networking startup SmartSynch to expand to residential metering the connectivity the two had previously provided for commercial and industrial smart meters (see Your Electrical Meter Becomes a Cellphone).
But comparing Arcadian's offering on a per-meter basis isn't necessarily the most accurate measurement, Rasweiler noted, since it can also be used to support a host of previously described smart grid systems, as well as more prosaic functions like replacing the radios or cellular networks used to keep work crews in contact with main offices.
Torchia noted that Arcadian's IP-based architecture makes them interoperable with a wide range of technologies. Interoperability is something the federal government is going to demand out of smart grid deployments (see Smart Grid Standards Roadmap Unveiled).
On the matter of interoperability, Torchia added that there's something else to pay attention to with Arcadian – "I think they've gotten in bed with Cisco."
And Cisco has said it will be looking for IP-compatible partners for its big push into networking utility transmission and distribution grids (see Cisco Wants to be Everywhere in Smart Grid).
Of course, Cisco has many partners, and beyond the early-stage projects it's gotten into with utilities (such as a one-million smart meter deployment with Florida Power and Light involving Silver Spring and General Electric), it hasn't made clear just which companies it will be deploying with.
Marie Hatter, Cisco's vice president of marketing and smart grid, did say during an interview at the GridWeek conference that Cisco finds Arcadian's offering interesting, but didn't go farther than that.
Interact with smart grid industry visionaries from North American utilities, innovative hardware and software vendors and leading industry consortiums at The Networked Grid on November 4 in San Francisco.
Tags: arcadian networks, at&t, cisco, elster, general electric, goldman sachs, great river energy, itron, licensed spectrum, national institute of standards and technology, sensus, silver spring networks, skypilot, smartsynch, sprint | <urn:uuid:f1461060-daf0-4482-9494-95fe269eabef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/arcadians-utility-offering-licensed-spectrum-to-own-or-rent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95413 | 1,206 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Regarding Michael Robbins’s criticism of Robert Hass [September 2010] and the letters that followed [November 2010]: those on both sides of the debate seem to have difficulty keeping their focus on the language of the poems. “This isn’t poetry, it’s a list of stuff in Hass’s kitchen,” Robbins declares. “The Haiku masters . . . are behind simple but elegant passages like this,” John Matthias replies. One feels caught between two small boys arguing is too, is not. The danger is that both positions—perhaps all strong opinions about poetry—begin to seem arbitrary and subjective. Yet verifiable observations about poetry can be made:
On the oak table
filets of sole
stewing in the juice of tangerines,
slices of green pepper
on a bone-white dish.
Of this, one may say: it begins with a capital and ends with a period but is not a sentence. Lacking a predicate (the implied “are”), it isn’t a complete thought. Instead, as Robbins observes, it is a list. In a list, every item has equal weight. Because of this, a list lacks the focus of Haiku.
The passage is fairly representative of the “period style” of the seventies, with the omitted verb showing the influence of Gary Snyder, who often omits verbs and articles for the sake of compression (“Across rocks and meadows / Swarms of new flies”). Yet the fragment by Hass, compared to Snyder’s, is notably adjectival, while introducing the unwelcome but inevitable association “stewing in one’s own juices.” A peculiar weight falls on the final three syllables—“bone-white dish.” Thud, thud, thud. This sounds profound, like a gavel falling, but is it? If I were to tell you that the fragment was lifted from a restaurant review in Sunset magazine, could you believe it? Isn’t this an accurate description of the language? When Robbins says, “This isn’t poetry,” maybe he means: This is journalistic rather than poetic, descriptive rather than evocative. It’s not bad writing, but, like professional “food writing,” it ain’t poetry.
Maybe the real argument is between those who believe it is important to maintain such distinctions and those who don’t. In any case, there can be no question that the language of the passage lacks the concision and the resonance of Haiku.
It is especially important to stay focused on language as language when turning to the poems “In Weather,” in which Hass attempts to imagine sexually mutilating and dismembering his wife, and “Against Botticelli,” in which, assuming the third person, he reports as a fact the complete fulfillment of “the pale woman / he fucks in the ass.” Fucking a lady in the ass in private is one thing, but in public—even the public space of a poem—something else. Even granting, as the poet does, that this is not the stuff of romantic love, the reader may feel embarrassed for “the lady.” Sworn statements from Hass’s wife/wives would not eliminate the problem, as it exists in the language of the poems, and it is crucial to stay focused on the language in order to make clear that one’s objections are not to the subject matter.
Thom Gunn’s “Jack Straw’s Castle,” published six years before Hass’s “In Weather” (indeed, perhaps an inspiration for it), is a poem in which the poet confronts his own buried sado-masochistic impulses. The eleven sections constitute an elaborate imagining of the levels of human consciousness likened to rooms in a castle. Gunn’s poem is more formal than Hass’s. Its greater artifice seems to make possible a greater nakedness. Like “In Weather” and “Against Botticelli,” it is “confessional,” but unlike those poems, it takes full responsibility for what the poet finds on visiting his own imagination.
I am the man on the rack.
I am the man who puts the man on the rack.
I am the man who watches the man who puts the man on the rack.
Hass’s “In Weather,” by contrast, offers a confused sense of the poet’s culpability. By using the “confessional” occasion to depict the degradation of his wife, Hass commits an additional—in this case, gratuitous—violation of womankind to which he never confesses. “I tried to hate my wife’s cunt,/the sweet place where I rooted,” the speaker says, concluding, “It was easier than I might have supposed.” Here, at last, we seem close to the truth of the matter, yet the line is not convincing because the real work of imagining is never undertaken. What seems all too “easy” is the adjective “sweet” affixed to the “cunt” the poet then imagines mutilating. The scene itself is sketchy. Hass rather hastily conjures “cutting her apart, / bloody and exultant” but imagines it as if “in short experimental films.” By substituting films for real experience—and a generic kind of film, at that—Hass further evades the horror of his subject, even perhaps eliciting a chuckle from those familiar with amateur experimental films and their pretensions. With this, one would suppose (with a certain relief) that Hass has at least acknowledged his inability to participate in the mindset of the sadistic killer. Yet he concludes with the opposite claim. The monstrousness of the imagined act, coupled with the glibness of expression (“easier than I might have imagined”), supports Robbins’s claim that Hass is tone-deaf. Again, by claiming to confront what in fact it evades, Hass’s poem fails.
Those who participate in poetry writing workshops often advise that praise be offered in amounts sufficient to offset any criticism. They agree to this partly as a trade-off: in order to protect themselves when it is their turn to be “workshopped,” they strive to be “supportive” colleagues rather than severe critics. The idea of accuracy in poetic language may confuse them. They are not sure that there is any such thing. Is it any wonder that, with each passing year, respect accorded to the role of poet in the culture is diminished?
The lack of critical thinking that typifies the political rhetoric in our time is becoming so pervasive it is downright scary. Could we, as poets, change this by being more exact in our critical discernments? Le mot juste for which Flaubert searched may not really exist, but good writing makes us feel as if it does. | <urn:uuid:6e563e91-546c-4991-9f11-b8b24386f98d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/letter/240838 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962967 | 1,490 | 1.625 | 2 |
The military has been fighting the Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, for more than a month after the militants took advantage of a peace pact to conquer new areas.
In retaliation for the offensive, the Taliban have stepped up bomb attacks and are suspected of being behind a suicide blast at a mosque in the Upper Dir region, near Swat, that killed about 40 people on Friday.
Outraged by the attack, villagers formed a militia, known as a lashkar, of about 500 men and began fighting the militants on Saturday in an bid to force them out of their area.
A top government official in Upper Dir, Atif-ur-Rehman, said the militia fighters had pushed the Taliban out of three villages and surrounded them in another two.
About 150 militants are believed to be there putting up resistance. But the villagers are doing well, they're squeezing the militants, Rehman told Reuters by telephone.
The United States, which needs sustained Pakistani action to help defeat al Qaeda and to cut off militant support for the Afghan Taliban, has been heartened by the resolve the government and military are showing in the Swat offensive.
Alarmed by the prospect of nuclear-armed Pakistan drifting into chaos, the United States had criticized a February pact with the Taliban in the former tourist valley of Swat.
The Swat offensive also has broad public support in a country where many people have long been suspicious of the United States and government critics have decried fighting America's war.
The February pact aimed at placating the Taliban in Swat by introducing Islamic sharia law sailed through parliament with only one or two voices of dissent.
But much has changed since then.
A Taliban push into a district 100 km (60 miles) from Islamabad, a widely circulated video of Taliban flogging a teenaged girl and the Islamists' denunciation of the constitution as unIslamic have sharply shifted public opinion.
The villagers' action in Upper Dir is the latest in a series of instances of people turning on the Taliban. Rehman said security forces could help the militia if necessary.
We don't want to step in right now as they're fighting at close quarters and there is a chance of losses on the villagers' side if we use artillery, he said.
While the government retains public support for the offensive, it could lose it if the 2.5 million people displaced by fighting in the northwest languish in misery.
The government is organizing relief with the help of the United Nations and other agencies but aid officials say Pakistan faces a long-term humanitarian crisis.
The military says it has snuffed out organized resistance in Swat and it hopes people can begin returning home after the middle of this month. On Monday, the military relaxed a curfew in areas near Swat to allow people to flee or shop for supplies.
Meanwhile, cities are on alert for bomb attacks.
Police in Karachi said on Sunday they had arrested an associate of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Meshud and seized jackets to be used in suicide attacks. Police said the suspect had confessed to planning attacks.
(Additional reporting by Junaid Khan; Editing by Robert Birsel and Jeremy Laurence) | <urn:uuid:50b626f9-5a30-4ccc-9d8d-0684a526602e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ibtimes.com/angry-pakistani-villagers-fight-surround-taliban-276984 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965976 | 650 | 1.664063 | 2 |
When I was 47 I decided to change careers, go back to school, and temporarily walk away from all that was familiar in my living situation. Not only did I experience that heady mixture of excitement, anticipation and sheer terror, but I developed intense, nagging tendinitis in both wrists. Coincidence? I don’t think so. With 6 months of school for massage therapy in a new city looming ahead of me, and uncertainty about the security of the life I was leaving behind, my body voiced the fears my mind couldn’t express.
What would happen if I couldn’t finish the program? How could I start a new career and perhaps a new life at this age? What more graphic locale for these questions than in the hands of a future massage therapist.
Since then my work has taken me deep into the dance of the body/mind when it comes to health and disease. It is striking how the body will express itself – in a whisper at first, becoming more and more insistent until we have no choice but to listen.
Common usage language reflects our intuition about this. Consider:
“I can’t stomach that kind of behavior anymore ” – spoken by an individual experiencing stress-induced digestive problems.
” It feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders”- the speaker- conscientious and caring – trying to juggle the needs of her family and aging parents. Upper body tension so severe as to cause daily headaches.
“My heart is breaking I’m so disappointed” – The client is round-shouldered with sadness, breath collapsed, pain and spasm in the muscles in the chest and shoulder blades.
The list goes on, psychic and emotional energy finding a voice in the physical.
Lest we make a bad situation worse by “blaming” the sufferer for “causing” their problems we can get some understanding from the field of psychoneuroimmunology - PNI for short – and the research of neurobiologist such as David Felten of Indiana University of Medicine.
The short version of this long, complicated story is simply that science has identified the chemical links connecting mind and body - psyche and soma. Every thought that we think, every emotion that we feel, triggers the release of substances – helpful or destructive – which can create health or disease. We may pay more attention to the dramatic events – the deaths, divorces, job loss, etc. But, in the end it’s also the long-term, low-grade, seemingly unresolvable conflicts, and irritants that can wear us down, and make us ill.
Where problems arise is often the site of previous distress, the body memory putting new insults where the old once was. ..a “weak link” in the body’s defenses.
Symptoms can also have an element of energetic metaphor. A person feels “unsupported” may experience leg or foot discomfort. Inability to take action (arms) based on feelings or emotions (heart) may show up as deep-seated shoulder tension – one area being cut off from the other. In yoga we look at the energetic body through the framework of the Chakra system - Major and Minor centers throughout the body that focus and balance not only the physical, but also emotional, psychological and spiritual tasks.
To be more specific, the Root Chakra, located deep within the pelvis at the base of the spine, is connected with the most basic needs of life – Safety, security, having a place to live, food to eat, and so on. Is it any wonder that finding oneself suddenly, unexpectedly out of work can bring people to my massage practice with acute lower back pain?
Can positive thinking impact our physical health? Unquestionably!
As sure as a worries – unfounded or real – can unleash the stress demons on our body, releasing fear and making “Yea saying” a regular practice can keep life in perspective and the body in balance. Louise Hay, author and proponent of sending deliberate positive messages to ourselves – AKA – Affirmations would agree. Be mindful of the words we choose to say to ourselves in silence or out loud. They can have a profound impact on wellbeing.
So, you’ve probably guessed how the story at the beginning of this blog ended. I decided to change the message. I asked myself “What is the worst that could happen if I didn’t finish school?”. And so I did go. I did finish. The fear went away and so did the pain. I loved it then, and I love the work now. Most of all I love the mystery and the beauty that is the human body.
Peace, Judi England, RN, LMT, Kripalu Yoga Instructor – [email protected] – 9/28/2008
P.S.- In this time of great chaos and turmoil in our world it’s easy to believe that a single person isn’t important. Not true,my friend. So get out there – exercise your franchise, stand up and be counted, speak your mind, let your voice be heard – in other words -Register and Vote! Thanks. | <urn:uuid:1b395200-1110-4850-a6aa-fe23ea12df5f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.timesunion.com/holistichealth/healthy-monday-body-language/296/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940166 | 1,089 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The way William Tracy's attorney tells it, Tracy, with the support and praise of top school officials, oversaw an innovative, flexible program at Trenton's Daylight/Twilight school that helped high school dropouts find success.
That is, until questions were raised about the school's adherence to education rules -- at which time the district threw Tracy under the bus, his attorney said.
That story line was at the heart of closing arguments made yesterday by attorney Robert Schwartz in the tenure case filed against Tracy, the school's principal. The board of education suspended him with pay in September 2007 and is trying to dismiss him.
"I submit the board had an agenda," Schwartz said. "Let's go after Mr. Tracy and leave everyone else alone."
At a hearing at the state Office of Administrative Law in Hamilton, Schwartz repeatedly referred to an independent report commissioned by the district that praised the Daylight/Twilight school and recommended the expansion of the program to younger students.
The program, established in 1999 with Tracy as principal, had about 600 students age 16 and older at seven sites at the time he was suspended.
"The school was created for the specific purpose of taking these kids who failed, who had no future, and (tried) to give them another avenue," Schwartz said. "The substance of the report was that Daylight/Twilight was working."
Both sides agree that under Tracy's leadership, about half of the school's instructors were not certified in the subjects they were teaching.
Schwartz said Tracy, as well as then-superintendent James Lytle and other administrators, have testified they thought the state had granted the school special Option Two status. Schwartz said Option Two allowed Tracy to assign a teacher who had not yet received her math certification to teach math classes.
The independent report mentioned the teachers out of certification, Option Two status was clearly cited in the school handbook and other materials, and administrators never suggested there was a problem, Schwartz said.
"You would think they would pick up the phone .¤.¤. and say, what do you mean, Option Two? Why do you think you're Option Two?" he said.
The district later realized it did not have Option Two status at the time.
The board also alleged that under Tracy's leadership attendance policies were violated and a teacher lacking the right qualifications scored graduation exams.
"The principal is responsible for ensuring the school's success," board attorney Rocky Peterson said. "He's responsible for oversight of the whole school. He's responsible for these violations."
By allowing students with many absences to pass courses in violation of district policy, Tracy harmed the children and their future prospects, Peterson argued.
"All the good things in the program are negated if the students aren't going to class," he said.
As an explanation for the attendance issue, Schwartz said the Daylight/Twilight school ran on 10-week sessions rather than normal semesters.
A student with excessive absences would not receive credit for that session, but when a new session started the absence count was effectively set back to zero, and the student had a chance to retake and pass the class, he said.
The district's computers were not set up to account for Daylight/Twilight's schedule but instead added up all absences for the year, so that it seemed that some students who passed classes had too many absences, Schwartz argued.
Peterson responded that regardless of the session system, the school violated attendance policies.
At the end of the hearing, chief administrative law judge Laura Sanders said she would make an initial decision within 45 days. The attorneys may then file claims if they believe she cited the law or facts incorrectly in the decision.
Tracy could lose pay or his job. State Commissioner of Education Lucille E. Davy will make the final decision, Sanders said.
Contact reporter Meir Rinde at [email protected] or (609) 989-5717. | <urn:uuid:b5e6724b-01f0-4f50-b795-2166f2d54edf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2009/01/principal_depicted_as_scapegoa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978571 | 817 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Enfolding Perspectives: Photographic Collageby Simran Gleason
The Early WorkHere are some pictures I made when I first discovered the "medium" of photocollage. I found it very freeing and did a lot of experimenting (i.e. screwups!) while evolving the handling of space that I was really after.
Pigeon Point Lighthouse (gif 152K)
The first photocollage I ever did. On a bike trip to Pigeon Point (from Stanford). After months of struggling with the one-point perspective enforced by the box geometry of the camera, I saw some photocollages done by a friend who had just taken a seminar with David Hockney in Yosemite. I decided to try the technique myself.
Palace of the Fine Arts (gif 132K)
in San Francisco. taken using a single lens, pointed at various parts of the picture. You can see how fish-eye pictures originate.
Old Page Mill (Early Version) (gif 120K)
In this version I'm directly trying to emulate a Chinese painting with a foreground, middle ground, and distant ground rising successively higher, fading into a white background. Each level is enlarged bigger than a simple one-point perspective would dictate.
Old Page Mill (gif 184K)
View of Old Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, from the Stanford Hills.
In this version I made a much smoother transition from the wide-angle lens in the foreground to a longer lens at the horizon. This makes a more coherent space which looks more like a "standard" photograph than the early version, while still embodying the perspective transformations.
Church of the Nativity (gif 168K)
A tall, majestically-spired church in Menlo Park. Here, I guess, is a case where I took the perpective transformations a bit too far and ended up with this squat little dumpy building. Oh well. I guess, as William Blake? said: "You don't know how much is enough until you know how much is too much." [paraphrase?].
Roses (gif 200K)
Experiments with a macro lens. | <urn:uuid:f64cb2fa-274c-4101-a52c-293fa6c48f81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://art.net/studios/visual/Simran/EnfoldingPerspectives/ep-pictures-early.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950008 | 448 | 1.828125 | 2 |
TOPEKA - The top fire official in Kansas says residents should be careful about summer activities that involve fire because the state has been hit with conditions that could help fire spread rapidly.
Red flag warnings are out for northwest and north-central Kansas through Wednesday, meaning triple-digit temperatures, strong winds and low humidity pose a serious risk of fire across the region.
Terry Maple, acting Kansas Fire Marshal, said Tuesday that while Kansas doesn't have the deep forests of Colorado, where fires have burned thousands of acres, there is plenty of combustible material in Kansas. He says fires on rangeland, dry pastureland and areas with tall fescue grasses can burn quickly.
Maple encourages people to be responsible with fireworks and grilling, and any controlled outdoor burning, particularly with Independence Day coming up. | <urn:uuid:04ec8b06-6bfd-4b52-9197-9a9aba5004a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.knssradio.com/Kansas-Conditions-Pose-Fire-Risk/13557841 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945694 | 165 | 1.84375 | 2 |
It wasn't that long ago that 3D was seen as a cheap gimmick, and sure, the red-green glasses found in cereal boxes were fun, but who would have predicted the medium's recent rise in popularity?
Granted, the technology behind 3D media is now more advanced than simple anaglyph images, but the three-dimensional juggernaut is showing no signs of stopping - though it is perhaps slowing down.
In what we like to call the 'post-Avatar' world, the industry's biggest names have queued up to deliver 3D content and reap the perceived financial rewards. The majority of today's blockbuster movies are shown in 3D, some of the latest games consoles use three-dimensional tech, smartphones appear to be headed in the same direction, and, if you're a Sky subscriber, you can enjoy 3D content ranging from Kylie in concert to live Premier League football right in the comfort of your own home. Even the BBC has announced that its 2012 London Olympics coverage will "showcase 3D for the biggest moments."
3D is everywhere, but the success of the medium is anything but guaranteed. Despite an industry-wide move toward the third dimension, cinema attendance has continued to fall, and while analysts have predicted that close to half of all UK households will own a 3DTV set by 2015, consumer demand isn't anywhere near as strong in other regions. In France, pay TV giant Canal Plus closed its 3D channel last month, having amassed less than 20,000 3D subscribers in over a year.
The jury's still out on whether or not 3D technology is here to stay, but we want to know what you, the consumer, has to say. Do you actually enjoy the 3D experience? Whether it's at the cinema, in the home or on the go, share your thoughts in the HEXUS forums. | <urn:uuid:cf41efde-e63f-491f-a715-b594829ce9bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hexus.net/ce/features/audio-visual/35453-qotw-do-enjoy-3d-experience/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970438 | 384 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Pfizer Inc. announced that it will launch an innovative program to help eligible unemployed Americans and their families who have lost their health insurance maintain access to their Pfizer medicines at no cost.
The program, called MAINTAIN( Medicines Assistance for Those who are In Need) is designed to help recently unemployed Americans and their families who have lost their insurance and who are taking Pfizer medicines to continue treatment at no cost for up to one year. The program will be open for enrollment through December 31, 2009 and applies to eligible Americans who have become unemployed since January 1, 2009.
Eligibility requirements of the MAINTAIN program include:
· Loss of employment since January 1, 2009
· Prescribed and taking a Pfizer medicine at least 3 months prior to unemployment and enrolling in the program
· Lack of prescription drug coverage, and
· Can attest to financial hardship
Patients who qualify will receive their Pfizer medicines at no cost for up to 12 months or until they become re-insured (whichever occurs first). Over 70 Pfizer primary care medicines will be available through the program.
For further information please visit PfizerHelpfulAnswers.com or call 1-866-706-2400 | <urn:uuid:df8f8bb8-6701-4b22-af99-5ce5b59af468> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nysenate.gov/print/20469 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963387 | 250 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Thursday, August 2, 2012 | 12:03 PM
Germany has been home to many groundbreaking innovators -- Gottlieb Daimler, Werner von Siemens, and Heinz Nixdorf to name but a few. But those great entrepreneurs launched their business long before the Internet. As the Economist recently reported, Germany and the rest of Europe are struggling to breed digital entrepreneurs. “Most sources of capital will shun them,” the magazine wrote. “Regulations will shackle them. And when they fail, as most are sure to do, they will not be allowed just to dust themselves off and start all over again.”
Because we believe the Internet must help overcome these obstacles, we are launching a new competition for digital entrepreneurs. Its called the “Gruender-Garage.” Unlike many startup contests which focus exclusively on tech, Gruender Garage is aimed at early-stage entrepreneurs in any field. Having a great idea you can 'release early and iterate' will count for more than a polished business model when it comes to judging. Winners will be named in October, and Google will match successfully fundraised competition ideas until a prize pot of EUR 150,000 is depleted.
Our partners in this unique project include the Entrepreneurship Foundation and Indiegogo.
Berlin-based Entrepreneurship Foundation will run the contest’s initial learning phase. provide the online training materials. Its founder Professor Guenter Faltin is the author of the best-selling book “Head beats Capital” (Kopf schlägt Kapital), that gives advice to early-stage founders. He and his team organize an annual entrepreneurship summit in Berlin, where the winners of the Garage-contest will be announced.
After the learning phase, the contest will focus on funding. Candidates will seek their own capital through Indiegogo, the world's largest platform and pioneer in crowdfunding. Gruender-Garage represents Indiegogo's first localised platform developed for the European market.
Recession and the euro crisis means Germany and the rest of Europe need to encourage new business creation. As many big European companies shed staff, startups - born in a garage or somewhere else - can pick up much of the slack. | <urn:uuid:38ec3502-d0dd-4e4a-8158-0cc5672c278b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2012/08/stimulating-garage-style-innovation-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932036 | 464 | 1.789063 | 2 |
D'Angelo - Meaning of D'Angelo
D'Angelo is a variation of Dangelo (English).
D'Angelo is also a variation of Deangelo (English).
D'Angelo is an unusual baby boy name. It is not listed in the top 1000. In 2011, among the family of boy names directly linked to D'Angelo, Deangelo was the most popular.
Baby names that sound like D'Angelo include De Angelo, Deangelo (English), Deanjelo, DiAngelo, Diangelo, D'Anjelo, Dangelo (English), De'Angelo, De'Anjelo, Demichael, Denzial, Denziel, Donzello, Dumichel (French), Dangelo (English), Danglo, Danzel (English), Denzel (English), Denzell (English), and Denzelle.
† English pronunciation for D'Angelo: D as in "day (D.EY)" ; IY as in "eat (IY.T)" ; AE as in "at (AE.T)" ; N as in "knee (N.IY)" ; JH as in "joy (JH.OY)" ; AH as in "mud (M.AH.D)" ; L as in "lay (L.EY)" ; OW as in "oak (OW.K)" | <urn:uuid:9bf418d3-d0d0-4f78-bdf9-e433a10395e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.babynamespedia.com/meaning/D_0__2_39_1_Angelo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9391 | 283 | 1.664063 | 2 |
By Brendan Conway
A tough day for precious-metals investors just got tougher. The release of the January meeting minutes of the Federal Reserve’s policy committee show that — How about that! — members of the Fed share many of the same worries that drive investors to own gold.
Namely, that it could be hard to reel in all this liquidity, which itself may end up contributing to instability in financial markets. See the excerpt from Dow Jones Newswires below.
The irony for precious-metals investors is that this may mean the Fed will curb its expansionary monetary policy sooner than expected. So, traders are driving the price of gold and related assets even lower.
SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) is at session lows, falling 2.3%. iShares Silver Trust (SLV) isn’t getting a break either, off 3.5%. Market Vectors Gold Miners (GDX) is down 3.8% and Market Vectors Junior Gold Miners ETF (GDXJ) is down 4.1%.
DJ FOMC Minutes: Several Officials Say Fed Should Be Ready to Vary Pace of Asset Purchases
–FOMC Minutes: Pace of asset purchases could change with economic outlook, evaluation of purchases
–FOMC: One official wants to vary purchases “incrementally” from meeting to meeting
–FOMC: A number say Fed might taper, end purchases before job market substantially improved
By Victoria McGrane
Federal Reserve officials expressed growing unease with the central bank’s easy-money policies at its latest policy meeting and some suggested the Fed might need to pull them back before the job market is fully back to normal.
Minutes released Wednesday of the Fed’s Jan. 29-30 policy meeting showed that officials worried the central bank’s easy-money policies could lead to instability in financial markets and might be hard to pull back in the future. The Fed plans to evaluate how the programs are doing at its next meeting March 19 and 20.
Several officials said that the Fed should be prepared to vary the pace of its asset purchases, depending on how the economy performs and its analysis of the costs and benefits of the program, according to the minutes. Some Fed officials suggested the Fed may need to alter its stated course to continue the bond-buying programs until the job market improves “substantially,” a threshold it hasn’t defined.
“A number of participants stated that an ongoing evaluation of the efficacy, costs, and risks of asset purchases might well lead the Committee to taper or end its purchases before it judged that a substantial improvement in the outlook for the labor market had occurred,” the minutes stated. The minutes don’t identify participants by name, or specify how many officials expressed a particular view beyond terms such as “a few” or “several.” … | <urn:uuid:593c9695-8caa-4702-9f31-40ae8b475ced> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2013/02/20/gold-price-falls-near-1570-as-gasp-fed-discovers-its-own-policy-risks/?mod=BOL_mp_blogposts_view | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93742 | 605 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009 - 10:51
Today’s mail is among the most effective channels of communication in a crowded marketplace. As technology, commerce, and society evolve, so, too, must government and corporate business models. This is as true for the U.S. Postal Service as for any other enterprise. “The Postal Service is really no different than any other entity in this economy. It is a challenging time. As our postmaster general has indicated, unfortunately for us it is somewhat the perfect storm” says Tom Day, Senior Vice President, Intelligent Mail and Address Quality within the U.S. Postal Service. Facing already declining mail volumes and competition from the Internet, the USPS continues to strengthen its core operations and services, balancing an immediate need to reduce costs with a continuing commitment to innovative strategies. | <urn:uuid:ea407563-3938-4a72-b055-63adfe76a6bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessofgovernment.org/article/tom-day-leveraging-innovation-transform-united-states-postal-service | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954144 | 170 | 1.515625 | 2 |
"We have already finalised a draft and the bill should come in the next session," Law Minister M Veerappa Moily told .
He said that the bill envisages amendments to several related acts, including the Evidence Act and the onus would be on the accused to prove their innocence.
His comments came a day after the Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to centre and states government to file reports on the murders of young couples and asked them how they can stop such killings and what the government and the states have done in this regard.
Supreme court on Honour killing
The Supreme Court issued notices to the Centre and nine States on a PIL seeking directions to the Union government to make law to protect young couples from Honour killings.
A vacation bench comprising Justices R M Lodha and A K Patnaik issued notices on a petition filed by an NGO Shaktivahini alleging that young couples who dare to defy their families or Khap Panchayat in the matter of marriage are under constant threat from them. It noted the sudden rise in the incidents of honour killing at the instance of Khap Panchayats.
Among the states which have been directed to respond to the PIL are Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.
The apex court had earlier refused to entertain a petition seeking directions to the government to amend Hindu Marriage Act to declare same gotra marriage as illegal.
Kiran Bedi on honour killing
Veteran police administrator Kiran Bedi said there can be no excuse to sanction murder, whatever the cause, and active policing and serious penal sanctions is the only way to check this dishonourable practice. Besides, any law against honour killing will be effective only when there is a will on the part of the society itself.
The suspected honour killing of married couple Kuldeep Singh (26) and Monica (24) - allegedly by Monica's brother Ankit Nagar and his friend Mandeep Nagar - took a bloody turn early when the body of another woman, Shobha, was found in a car near the couple's rented house in Ashok Vihar close to the local police station. Shobha was Mandeep's sister.Whereas Shobha's uncle supports the killing by saying "This killing will teach a lesson to the society."
Honour killing in India
The latest victims of what caste councils (khap panchayats) call a justified act to protect family’s ‘maryada’ (honour). This councils are found in northern India, particularly in Haryana, Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, Rajasthan.
Every month one honour killing takes place in Punjab. As per data complied for the first time by the Crime wing of the Punjab Police, during the past two-and-a-half years — from 2008 till date — 34 honour killings have taken place in the state: 10 in 2008, 20 in 2009, four so far in 2010. Of the total 34 cases, 16 were reported from Tarn Taran district. Perhaps one of the most backward areas in Punjab in terms of literacy, Tarn Taran has witnessed the highest number of honour killings in the state.
Last month, a newly wed couple was attacked, the girl was killed and the boy grievously injured. The parents of the girl were the main suspects in the case. | <urn:uuid:15d70f29-1742-4feb-b3f3-af7b14c8c561> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://english.samaylive.com/nation/676466616.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963182 | 693 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Balerion wrote:Kreistor wrote:Ossomer is magically influenced, and not an example of Free Will. The magic could come from Croakamancy, but that would not permit any Turning. Since Ossomer does Turn, then the enslavement comes from Wanda's capacity for Thinkamancy, not Croakamancy. This has many repercussions for Decryption, but that is a different conversation.
Who cares what school it comes from?
Those that analyze the Arkentools, for one. Are their powers constant (ie. they have a set of powers that never change, regardless of who attunes) or relative (ie. somehow created in response to the will of the attuned user)? If the Arkenpliers merely amplifies Wanda's powers, then they would only create Decrypted in her hands. In another attuned user's hands, like say Ace, they might create legions of Power Armor for the troops.
Magic in Erfworld still is taking effect by physical manifestations of some kind. So regardless of the school, its effecting the loyalty stat would be my claim. And since that requires a lot less invention of new ways of magic working (ie how to make someone loyal to you and not turn), I think its a good assumption. And the first part of that statement? exactly what we are arguing about. My contention is that free will and magical influence (which is basically what the hidden stats are anyway) can coexist just fine. One is in control or the other; either the loyalty stat means you can't turn no matter how much you want to, or you get to make the choice. Which is in control fluctuates, and can be altered; and when the magic dominates, free will doesn't exist. But which rules is dependent on die rolls.
And how do you propose proving it? Like I said repeatedly: you can invent mathematical representations of anything, especially with limited data. In fact, that's a great part of science... coming up with mathematical models to simulate observed data... but that you can reduce some aspects of observed behavior to a set of rules does not prove that you discovered Rules behind the universe.
And that is why those that turn can be looked down on; they did not turn because they failed a roll. They turned because when they were given a moment of true free will, when the loyalty check failed, they used it to betray their side.
Can you prove it? Can Erfworlders? You have a proposal that may fit all data points, but is that proof enough to vilify someone so much that you ostracize them? Are you that certain that you're right?
That cultist example is a really poor analogy. Ossomer was not slowly brought out of brainwashing. He, in the space of seconds, went from "I can't turn" to turned. Because a person vanished from his hex. There is no comparison between the situations. I am going to keep pounding that line "I can't" as indicative of what his will wanted; something inhibited him from acting on what his will had decided.
I actually challenge you to find a real world example that functions the way i have described the loyalty stat.
Nothing starts and stops instantly in our universe: it's part of our reality. That is only possible in fiction or bad non-fiction. The closest you can get is the comedown from something like a mind-altering drug. Some can quit fairly quickly.
physics can tell me I can't read comics at work cause it decided i was too loyal to my boss if it was Erfworld physics. I don't get a chance to make a choice unless I fail that loyalty check; then free will is all mine, and I can read all the comics I want, if that is the decision I make.
Yeah, look up some of the date rape drugs. The whole point to them is to get you to do things you normally wouldn't, and then make you forget having done it. Quite insidious. Those leave the parallel of Loyalty, though, so I still prefer the brain washing example, despite that it doesn't act like a light switch when coming out of it, leaving aftereffects of bad judgement for decades. | <urn:uuid:1bd16f40-52d4-4d17-9924-92a7426b6079> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.erfworld.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=63803 | 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 | 0.97165 | 871 | 1.523438 | 2 |
A&W Paying Five Bucks To Some People To Put Ads In Their Beards (Offer Apparently Does Not Apply To Abraham Lincoln, Who Ironically Appears On Five Dollar Bills)
Business Insider reports that A&W is putting mini-advertisements in an unconventional location. For $5 a day, men can be paid to walk around with an advertisement in their beards! And that sounds like enough money to get something to eat at A&W (which you should make sure does not get stuck in your beard, because nobody is paying you to have Grandpa Burger bits stuck in your beard.)
3 More Things We’d Like To See Advertised In Someone’s Beard
1. Wizard-training schools. Who wouldn’t trust someone advertising wizardry on their beard? However, we’d expect more neon and dry ice in an ad on a Wizard’s beard, and less cardboard. Business cards would definitely not be a convincing form of advertising wizardry.
2. “If you lived here, you would be home right now.” (Only applies to insects commuting near the beard in rush hour traffic.)
3. Ads for cheap razors with a slogan, the “fifth best a man can get without paying $20 for one cartridge.”
CNN reports that Florida is being invaded by Giant African Land Snails, a breed of snail that has no natural predator, and loves to eat anything that grows in Florida.
3 Worse Outcomes Than Snails Eating Every Plant In Florida
1. The Snail from the upcoming Dreamworks Animation movie, Turbo, could begin racing all of the motorcycles on Daytona Beach during bike week. If a snail offers to wager you in a contest of speed, you’re totally getting hustled!
2. Panama City Beach Spring Break revellers could accidentally funnel the snails.
3. Snails, knowing they can impact the orange juice market, carry a suitcase with a fake report to drive the price of orange juice futures up, to fool the Duke brothers from Trading Places into buying worthless orange juice futures.
Earlier this week, we wrote that Swedish taxation authorities reportedly took 102 years to declare a missing lumberjack to be dead.
3 Philosophical Questions That Arise From This News Story
1. If a lumberjack disappears in a forest, and nobody is there to see him, is it really that surprising they can’t see him, since he “disappeared.”
2. If a lumberjack disappears in a forest, is he really a magician? What if he makes a bunch of trees fall silently with his magic, but has no audience to hear them fall because everybody is watching the Celebrity Apprentice on TV? How does that impact his magic and the entire field of philosophy?
3. If a magician disappears in a forest, is that magician Penn Teller, and does this mean he is going to lose on tonight’s season finale of the Celebrity Apprentice? And did he lose because country singer Trace Adkins fairly bested him, or because show host Donald Trump is hoping for more country voters in case he ever runs for election, and less Las Vegas magic voters? (Because getting those votes might require magic when Trump branded casinos dominate Atlantic City, not Vegas! Oh, and also Donald Trump has probably weakened his popularity in often Democratic Nevada with rants about college transcripts and birth certificates.)
Gawker Trying To Raise $200,000 To Buy Video Of Toronto Mayor Smoking Crack… Why Does Your Sandwich-Making How-To Video Only Have 3 Views On YouTube And No Offers To Buy It?
As we wrote yesterday, a report indicated Gawker had been shopped a video of Rob Ford, the Mayor of Toronto, Canada, allegedly smoking crack cocaine.
Gawker is currently asking readers to donate money to support buying this video to post it on its web site, as the video’s owners want $200,000. The good news: if Gawker raises the money, and the deal goes awry, they will donate the money to charity. Currently Gawker has raised $45,000.
3 Questions That Arise From This News Story
1. Why would a mayor allegedly smoke crack while someone is recording it? Oh, right, because their decision-making ability was allegedly impaired by allegedly being on crack.
2. Will someone publish this video, and the Mayor tell the alleged truth of what’s going on in it so we can stop the word “allegedly” from ruining the flow of our alleged jokes?
3. What will the owners of the video do with the $200,000 if they get it? Buy 200,000 ninety-nine cent breakfasts at IKEA? As furniture store food products remain a constant source of worthy news material for this web site, we have our fingers crossed!
Blast From the Past: Alleged Video Of Toronto Mayor Returns Relevance Of Phrase “Are You On Crack?!”
According to the Huffington Post, reports in the Toronto Star and Gawker indicate that sources at those media outlets have been offered a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford allegedly smoking a crack pipe.
3 Worse Things A Toronto Mayor Could Allegedly Be Caught Smoking In A Video
1. A crack pipe filled with crack and clippings from Toronto Star articles alleging he smoked from a crack pipe. Burning and smoking articles with bad publicity might seem like a good way to make the problem go away, if you were on crack, however in any other case it would be sadly ironic.
2. Money spent by the Toronto Blue Jays to try to buy a World Series team this year, that has so far lead to the worst team in the American League East. And crack. Because remember, this is an article about “worse” things he could be smoking than just crack!
3. A biography of former Washington, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry in a crack pipe with crack and broken glass. We haven’t read one and doubt the whole book would fit in a crack pipe. But we bet it would recommend against allegedly using cocaine-based products while in office. Either way: read biographies, don’t smoke them with crack, peeps!
Today, U.S. President Barack Obama held a press conference, in which a marine held an umbrella over his head. According to CNN, this is rarely done. Presumably because the President of the United States rarely speaks outside in the rain, because he can watch weather forecasts on CNN and stay inside when there’s a chance of rain, rather than get blown around in a hurricane like Anderson Cooper or former CNN reporter Ali Velshi.
3 Other People We’d Like To See Hold An Umbrella For The President
1. Jay-Z and Rihanna. Because if the image of the President with an umbrella is worthy of front page news on the Fox News site, then why not make it bigger news! The kind of big news like, “Ah, man, I just got this song unstuck from my head after five years and here it is on every cable news program!”
2. The Bee Girl from the Blind Melon Video. She’s good at dancing around to promises of no rain, and as we wrote last year, we hear she’s looking for work!
3. An Umbrella Salesman Selling “Made In America” Umbrellas To Protect The President From Polluted Rain Made In Southeast Asia.
That would be a rare sight indeed! Rarer than a new episode of the Office, as the final episode airs tonight on NBC. Farewell to the Office from Not The Worst News!
Today’s news tip came to us via email from blogger Indy Tony. You can check out his blog, “A Way With Words” here. Now, to the news! CBC news reports that a psychiatrist gave a presentation suggesting that people who post lots of photos of food on social media may have psychological issues such as obesity problems.
If this blog was a movie trailer, now would be the moment where the music stops playing as the record abruptly scratches.
Are we to understand that a doctor found a captive audience, including the news media, to make the obvious point that people who like food may take lots of pictures of food?
3 More Obvious Revelations About Your Friends’ Social Networking Habits
1. People who post photos of their pets really like their pets. Or have narcissistic pets who know how to use Flickr and post their own pictures. And of course, if you’re a cat that thinks you’re so smart because you how to use Flickr, you are going to be a total narcissist!
2. People who post photos of their babies love their babies. P.S. If you love your baby so much that you make it your profile pic, here’s some helpful info: when Facebook suspects that your Facebook friend is logging in from a suspicious account, such as a computer in a Jamaican hotel, Facebook will ask your friend to prove their identity by matching their randomly selected Facebook friends’ profile pictures to their friends’ names. It’s kind of like a game show! This is an especially difficult game to play in the middle of a Jamaican hotel when all that pops up is pictures of dopey babies, and you have to guess which one belongs to which person you were in elementary school with and which ones are newborns of your real friends. Stop the madness and use a photo of you holding your baby, please!
3. People who don’t post anything on Facebook, and act all too cool for Facebook will probably tell you your entire status update posting history when they’re drunk. Example of Something a Drunk Person Will Say To You In A Bar: “I saw on Facebook your cat died. I’m so sorry to hear about this because I know you posted adorable photos of your cat wearing baby clothes every day. But not so sorry to take five seconds to comment about it on Facebook, because that would make me look like an uncool person who reads Facebook, rather than a drunk cool person who reads Facebook!”
When people follow us, we try to follow back* and read their blogs. And today, we were quite pleased to see a news story from Ken Hegan, who reported for MSN that an American Airlines jet from LAX to JFK had to make an emergency landing… because a woman wouldn’t stop singing Whitney Houston songs. So check out the original link, because it features a passenger-shot video of the incident, with the woman singing “I Will Always Love You.”
3 Worse Artists A Passenger Could Imitate On A Plane, Forcing You To Waste Time During An Emergency Landing
1. Dolly Parton. Not only would you have to endure “I Will Always Love You,” which Parton actually wrote, but if the passenger was behaving this way due to too much alcohol before boarding the plane, you can certainly expect a request that you play the role of Kenny Rogers in a karaoke duet of “Islands In The Stream.” Not only would this be the wrong time for this sort of social behavior, singing about islands in streams is totally inappropriate when flying out of LAX over the Nevada desert!
2. Nickelback. There is never a right time for singing Nickelback, including at Nickelback concerts, even if you are on stage, and you’re Nickelback.
3. Don McLean. Singing his hit “American Pie,” which is about other great musicians dying in a plane crash is hardly going to be a crowd-pleaser on a flight. Especially if other drunken passengers join in singing hits from Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. And if some drunk teenager re-enacts the pie scene from the movie American Pie, in response, you have a reason for once to be happy your flight is not serving any dessert trays.
*If we didn’t follow you back, it’s because WordPress only shows the latest new followers, and we missed your follow notification, so blame the machines!
The Local reports that the Swedish National Tax Agency has declared a lumberjack who has been missing for 102 years to be dead. If alive, he would have been 139 years old, which would be older than the oldest person recorded in human history, who incidentally died at age 122.
Way to keep on top of things, Sweden!
3 More Things We Wonder If Sweden Will Declare To Be Dead
1. IKEA breakfast. Because now that McDonald’s may be moving into the all-day-breakfast market, people will no longer have to travel miles to pretend they want to buy furniture to get cheap eggs, that they ironically could have gotten for even less money if they splurged on a fridge from IKEA.
2. Jokes about IKEA on this web site! Although we’d wager furniture stores that sell food are more likely to recall the joke for being mislabelled as “elk meat” than actually declare the joke to be dead.
3. Disco. Sure, the rest of the world might have been saying “Disco’s Dead” around the 1980s, but we understand, Sweden, you had your major export ABBA to protect. It’s okay!
CNN reports that the Walt Disney Company ”filed an application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to secure the phrase ‘Día de los Muertos,’ or ‘Day of the Dead,’ across multiple platforms.”
More from the article, followed by original comedy:
“Día de los Muertos is a traditional holiday celebrated on November 1 and 2 in Mexico and across Latin America. People honor the lives of lost family members or friends by building altars, holding processions, decorating gravesites and placing offerings for loved ones.”
Following a backlash, Disney reportedly withdrew the application.
3 More Potentially Unpopular Things For A Family Entertainment Company To Try To Trademark
1. Mother’s Day. Sorry folks, we’re going to have to wish you a happy “Person-Who-Lugged-You-Around-For-Nine-Months-Prior-To-Birth” Day to avoid paying royalties.
2. The Word “Trademark.” Just try to write news stories like this ever again for free, CNN! And kids may find a movie about trademarks as magical as movies about death.
3. “Brunch.” Yeah, we’ve got more bad news, kids. Now that “Brunch” has been trademarked, you’re going to have to take out your mother for “Fast-Lunch” to celebrate ”Person-Who-Lugged-You-Around-For-Nine-Months-Prior-To-Birth” Day. And because the restauranteurs take the idea of “Fast-Lunch” literally, the whole meal has to last under ten minutes, nine minutes of which your mother will remind you is significantly less time than she spent in labor. | <urn:uuid:c3b1d368-80cc-4110-9d4d-9ea8d4748434> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nottheworstnews.com/author/nottheworstnews/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949341 | 3,191 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Welcome to the Human Resources website of the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, a state department with policy roles in the areas of early childhood development, compulsory education, vocational education and training, higher education and adult education.
The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is one of the biggest employers in Victoria with more than 60,000 people employed in more than 1800 work locations. To attract and retain the best possible staff, the Department promotes innovative and supportive human resources practices in its workplaces.
This site provides easy access to comprehensive human resources information and support services for managers, employees and other people interested in finding out about the Department's human resources policies and practices.
The options described below can be accessed from the navigation items on the top left of this page and are provided to give you quick and easy access to the information you require:
- The A-Z Topic Index lists the human resources topics covered by this site
- The Category Index collects together a range of topics associated with key human resources activities and subjects
- The Site Search, which will search the entire site
- The Advanced Search, which provides a wider range of search options
A Human Resources Service Catalogue has been created and is now available below. The principles behind this Service Catalogue are to provide school and corporate locations with a greater level of understanding of the range of high level HR services offered by areas such as Schools HR Services and VPS HR Services. The Service Catalogue also provides key contact points, measures and targets, and client responsibilities.
back to top | <urn:uuid:30cca2c1-6c42-443a-9cc1-fc135c660073> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.education.vic.gov.au/hrweb/Pages/default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938159 | 311 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Government concern over councils' parking charges plan
Published: 23rd Aug 2010 14:22:20
Charging motorists hundreds of pounds a year to park at work was not what the government meant when it told councils to find new income, sources insist.
A "handful" of councils in England are looking at introducing workplace parking levies, according to the Local Government Association.
The LGA said they were under pressure to find new sources of income.
But a spokesman for Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said they should look at other kinds of charges instead.
It follows a report in the Daily Telegraph, which claimed cash-strapped councils were turning to a scheme originally conceived to cut congestion and help the environment as a way of raising revenue.
The newspaper claimed this meant the government had abandoned its commitment to end the "war on the motorist".
DCLG sources said Mr Pickles had been referring to other kinds of discretionary charges when he told councils to find new revenue streams.
Workplace parking levies are one option being considered by a handful of councils”
These included charging other local authorities for building and cleaning services, charging insurers for annual tree inspections or providing MOT services for motorists.
Nottingham is so far the only local authority to announce plans to introduce workplace parking levies.
Under the scheme employers with more than 10 spaces will be charged £253 a year from 2012, with the bill set to rise to £350 within two years.
The money raised will fund part of the city's tram extension, refurbishment of its railway station and bus network - but it has come under fire from local employers and motorists.
According to the Telegraph, a number of local authorities are considering following Nottingham's lead - including Bristol, York, Devon, Leeds, Bournemouth, South Somerset and Wiltshire.
Hampshire County Council denied the paper's claim it was considering a "modest" version of the scheme.
Executive member for environment, Councillor Mel Kendal, said: "I would like to make it clear that the county council has no plans to implement these charges."
But Bristol City Council confirmed it was in the early stages of "exploring the potential for a workplace parking levy".
Gary Hopkins, cabinet member for strategic transport, waste and targeted improvement, said: "The potential benefits for transport from the money raised could mean lower bus fares, or even free bus fares in the city centre, discounted season tickets, and help attract other bus companies into the city bringing more competition.
"It could help pay for investment in smart cards, integrated ticketing, real-time bus information and local car clubs that can provide flexibility for those who need to use the car some of the time but want to keep costs down."
He said it could also help business by cutting traffic congestion, but added: "Of course I recognise that for some people getting around the city by car is a necessity so reducing congestion will help them, and not penalise them as a cordon charge would do."
LGA Vice Chairman Councillor David Sparks said councils were having to find new ways of funding services.
"Councils invest millions of pounds every year in improving roads and public transport and play a key role in cutting congestion and reducing harmful emissions.
"Workplace parking levies are one option being considered by a handful of councils at the moment as way of continuing to fund this."
The Department for Transport, which would have to approve any workplace parking schemes, said it had not been approached by any local authorities planning such a move.
A spokesman said: "It is for local authorities to consider what measures are appropriate for improving transport and tackling congestion in their area.
"However, local authorities would need to consult fully on any proposed workplace parking levy scheme and assess the impact on those affected."
Harvard CitationBBC News, 2010. Government concern over councils' parking charges plan. [Online] (Updated 23 Aug 2010)
Available at: http://www.manchesterwired.co.uk/news.php/84110-Government-concern-over-councils-parking-charges-plan [Accessed 21st May 2013]
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Ministers have been told they must go further with their overhaul of social care in England by merging its budget with the NHS.... | <urn:uuid:548f791b-86b4-4cba-b4c2-53cc9a96108d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.manchesterwired.co.uk/news.php/84110-Government-concern-over-councils-parking-charges-plan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964259 | 1,342 | 1.523438 | 2 |
From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.
Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn’t bother him. But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.
His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is—well, something quite different.
We all know a Liam. In fact, there may be a little of Liam in each of us. Which is why Anne Tyler’s lovely novel resonates so deeply.
About the Author
Anne Tyler was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1941 and grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is her eighteenth novel. Her eleventh, Breathing Lessons, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
Praise for Noah's Compass…
Praise for Anne Tyler’s Noah’s Compass
“Everyone loves Anne Tyler . . . and her 18th novel will doubtless supply another reason.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Noah’s Compass is immensely readable. It displays many of Tyler’s finest qualities: her sharp observation of humanity, her wry comedy; the luminous accuracy of her descriptions . . . Hers is a fine-grained art, whose comedy could easily coarsen into the self-consciously quirky. If it does not, this is because her surprises are rooted in character: it is human nature that she evidently finds infinitely fascinating and surprising, with its constantly unforeseeable capacity for change . . . [A] novel by Anne Tyler is cause for celebration.”
—Caroline Moore, The Sunday Telegraph
“Tyler reveals, with unobtrusive mastery, the disconcerting patchwork of comedy and pathos that marks all our lives.”
—Michael Dirda, The Wall Street Journal
“Dazzling . . . A beautifully subtle book, an elegant contemplation of what it means to be happy.”
—Elizabeth Day, The Observer, UK
“Fired from his job, Liam Pennywell moves into a small apartment and wakes up the next morning in the hospital with head injuries he can’t explain. What turns out to have been an attack by a thief leads to unexpected grace, as Liam is forced to engage more deeply with his family and with a woman who finds him irresistible.”
—Helen W. Mallon, Philadelphia Inquirer | <urn:uuid:9901aa43-22c9-43e5-9e83-64bfe7a75889> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780307272409 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9715 | 644 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Choosing the right tablet when doing your holiday shopping
Ever since Steve Jobs introduced the iPad to much fanfare and the product took off and started a whole new product category, the market has been flooded with competing products as the country has basically gone tablet crazy. Even young kids basically expect some sort of tablet these days, making things very tough on parents trying to monitor what they do online. People of all ages enjoy these devices as they can be used for so many different purposes, and computer companies like HP that didn’t come up with a good competing product are getting crushed as PC and laptop sales have struggled.
With all of this in mind, here’s a great article from the NY Times that lays out many of the different options. For starters, you should simply avoid the ultra-cheap knockoff options. It’s tempting to go that way, but in many ways you’ll be wasting money.
After that you really need to consider who will be using the tablet. Kids are obsessed with games and texting. Many women and adults like to read books. Others like to surf the web for funny videos, interact with others in social media, play casino games at sites like partycasino.com, or just read the sports page. Some on your gift list may not use computers much, so you sometimes need to think about how they would love to use these devices once you point out uses for them.
E-readers have become more popular and frankly more articles, so the article linked about deals with those options as well. Consider traditional e-readers versus the new color options. Then you have the most basic choice between Apple and Android. Microsoft has also entered the debate though it remains to be seen if they can get beyond a sliver of the market.
There are tons of choices, so do your research online before you hit the stores.
iPad wish list
With the buzz surrounding a new iPad, here’s the wish list from consumers.
A new iPad from Apple is expected in early March, and consumers are quite opinionated about improvements they’d like to see in one of the best-selling tech devices of the past few years.
We reached out to consumers for feedback. In a nutshell, they want a USB port to connect the iPad to other devices, faster processor, expanded memory, better resolution and a lower price.
The USB seems like something Steve Jobs would never agree to, but hopefully the new Apple will add this feature.
AT&T CEO remains realistic about the iPad
The iPad sparked a lot of unrealistic expectations. There were talks of revolutionary reading experiences and the saving grace of the publishing industry. AT&T
isn’t drinking the kool-aid, which actually gives the company a tiny measure of respect in my eyes. When asked about Apple’s tablet, CEO Randall Stephenson said he sees it as a “Wi-Fi driven product,” which is why AT&T won’t be offering any wireless contracts for the device.
“My expectation is that there’s not going to be a lot of people out there looking for another subscription,” said Stephenson. I couldn’t agree more. The last thing I want to worry about for the iPad is paying another $15 or $25 every month for a service I’ll rarely use. Hell, most early iPad adopters are likely going to be iPhone owners. What good would that contract do for them?
AT&T has enough trouble providing quality service to its iPhone users. Let’s get the company focused on that before we worry too much about tablet contracts, shall we?
Photo from fOTOGLIF
Posted in: Apple, Computers, Mobile
Tags: att, ipad, ipad 3g, ipad subscription, ipad wireless, islate, itablet, randall stephenson, tablet, tablet computers, tablet pc | <urn:uuid:15566675-dbfc-4e6d-a9ee-0fe4570002a1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gadgetteaser.com/tag/tablet-computers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950175 | 815 | 1.5 | 2 |
Standard Graphite Corp.(TSXV:SGH) announced the discovery of a new graphite trend on its Little-Byran property. The discovery was made as part of a ground prospecting and reconnaissance program.
As quoted in the press release:
During the months of April and May 2012, Standard mandated MPH Consulting Ltd. of Toronto, Ontario to conduct a preliminary prospecting and geological reconnaissance program over its Ontario properties, Black Donald and Little-Bryan. The objective was to sample and evaluate the known graphite occurrences, as well as locating outcrops along the conductive trends highlighted during the property-scale airborne geophysical surveys completed in January of 2012.
Standard Graphite, President and CEO, commented:
This new discovery at Little-Bryan confirms that we have selected the optimal approach to our exploration. The airborne TDEM survey proved its great effectiveness at tracing known mineralization and outlining new targets. With only 13 samples collected on the new North trend thus far, this leaves ample room along the five (5) kilometre trend for a potential high-grade discovery, while the South trend delivered some outstanding results with grades up to 9.81% Cg. | <urn:uuid:8246678a-eddd-408a-8901-16b228176384> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://resourceinvestingnews.com/39520-discovery-of-new-graphite-trend-at-standard-graphites-little-byran-project.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950446 | 241 | 1.71875 | 2 |
It is currently 11 a.m. Sunday, September 11, in Courmayeur, Italy. Church bells are chiming in the square where I just watched three very nervous friends start the 200-mile epic that is the Tor des Geants. I found an internet cafe, a couple hits of espresso and a few quiet moments to upload some pictures to my blog.
Beat and I flew into Zurich on Wednesday afternoon and drove through the northern Alps to Chamonix, France, then through a tunnel that cuts through the heart of Mont Blanc to Courmayeur, Italy. Jet lag had us up at 4:30 a.m. after a fitful night of sleep, so we wandered the deserted streets of town as the first hints of dawn rose over the mountains. I was in a bit of a stupor, sleep-deprived and confused, struggling to read storefront signs before I remembered I can not read Italian, and gazing up at the jagged pinnacles of Mont Blanc that towered more than 11,000 feet over my head.
We crossed town and started up the trail that serves as the race course for the Tor des Geants. We passed a group of trail signs that listed destinations in terms of how hours and minutes of hiking time it would take to reach them. I asked Beat why they didn't list actual distances. "Because that doesn't matter," he said. Sure enough, the trail shot toward the sky. Everything is so steep here that distance has been rendered meaningless — climbing and descending endless mountains is all there is. I tried to comprehend what this meant for 200 real miles.
As we crawled up the trail, dripping sweat in the cool morning air, we passed a number of stone huts in various states of use and decay. Having become accustomed to undeveloped wilderness in Alaska and Montana, it was strange to see so much humanity sprinkled throughout these rugged mountains. "What did people do with all of these structures?" I wondered aloud. "Did they actually live up here?" A few cows sauntered past, ringing those famous Alps cow bells. "People probably still live up here," Beat said.
We tried to nap in the afternoon, unsuccessfully, and then walked out the front door of our rented apartment toward Mont Cormet, Courmayeur's "house mountain" (our term) because of its proximity to town.
We started at 4,000 feet elevation and climbed to 8,500 feet in what was likely less than three miles — again, a meaningless measure of distance here in the Alps. Our total climbing on the day was close to 6,000 feet, and we weren't even actively seeking out a tough effort. It was just an exploration day, a rest day, our first day in Italy.
It was difficult to take it all in, to comprehend the scale of these massive mountains and the depth of the history and culture steeped within. I was grateful that I had more than a week in this place to try. | <urn:uuid:db39bf77-eb34-4630-a33f-2607557672ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/2011/09/italy-day-one.html?showComment=1315863930955 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974092 | 608 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In the Green Zone: Modular Construction
Once again, sustainable modular construction is being featured in the GreenZone area at Greenbuild 2012. For anyone who missed it last year, the GreenZone, which is spearheaded by Building Design + Construction and Professional Builder magazines, made its debut in Toronto with a prototype for a medical facility. This year in San Francisco, there are two structures available for tour: a net-zero, LEED-designed home and an innovative green classroom designed to meet rigorous indoor air quality requirements. Both prototypes mark the convergence of an outstanding project team, including Bogue Trondowski Architects, Method Homes, Portland State University, Blazer Industries, Pacific Construction Services and Oregon Solutions. (And, yes, we’re very proud to have two CertainTeed products — AirRenew Indoor Air Quality Gypsum Board and Sustainable Insulation — included as well!) If you are at the show, be certain to stop by the GreenZone located just outside of the North Hall. | <urn:uuid:7d9103c8-a86b-4308-bb21-90f8b32ed519> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.certainteed.com/2012/11/in-the-green-zone-modular-construction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940543 | 203 | 1.742188 | 2 |
"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me."
— Job 3:25
There are those who go about their daily activities and do not realize how much fear is involved in their lives. Most of the ones who are successful realize positive thoughts bring prosperity. Those who are not very successful do not realize how the negative thoughts and the negative actions they take affect the end results of what they are trying to accomplish.
The ones who recognize how the negative energy and thoughts affect the end results are the ones who practice the spiritual activities to overcome the thoughts of fear and replace those negative thoughts with positive thoughts.
The fear I am referring to is not the fear of being run over by a train but rather the fear brought on by thoughts of lack, the fear of not being good enough, the fear of not being pretty enough, the fear of not being tall enough, the fear of not having enough education, the fear of not being accepted by others, and the list goes on and on. It is those kinds of thoughts which can drag one down to a level where it makes it easier to quit than to try for a little longer and maybe things will get better... | <urn:uuid:61001255-361c-4490-830f-6b47009ece89> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maderatribune.com/columns/use-spiritual-tools-eliminate-fear | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977447 | 249 | 1.632813 | 2 |
It’s hard enough for a human pilot to take off from the cramped and pitching deck of a US Navy aircraft carrier. Today, for the first time in history, a Remotely Piloted Aircraft did it. You can bet that military leaders in Beijing and Tehran sat up and took note as the batwinged X-47B drone… Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: What does America need an army for, anyway? The question has bedeviled policymakers since the Founding Fathers, who wrote their distrust of large ground forces into the Constitution. The question returns as budgets come back down after every land war.
This time around, the Army leadership has not given the country a clear answer, which hobbles it in the current budget battles — and perhaps in the next shooting war as well. While the service itself struggles to define its future role, a new Army-sponsored report from the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies here is offering its own answers, answers that push not only civilian policymakers but the Army’s own leaders outside their comfort zone. Keep reading →
NATIONAL HARBOR: The Navy will send a prototype laser weapon to the troubled Persian Gulf for a roughly year-long test deployment starting “less than a year from now,” the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, announced today at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference.
The bad news is this isn’t some superweapon out of science fiction. The Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS) is a fairly modest death ray that, for now, can only kill small boats and drones. Unlike the lasers of Ronald Reagan’s Star Wars dreams, nuclear missiles aren’t on the menu. Keep reading →
How do you deter a nuclear power like North Korea when it looks as if they just won’t play by the rules of conventional deterrence?
What is the U.S. and allied nuclear and conventional responses to the threat of war on the Korean peninsula? In a world of dynamic learning, the North Koreans watched the NATO-Obama led operation in Libya. They concluded that nucs are very useful to keep the United States and its allies at bay. Keep reading →
[updated Tuesday, March 6 with Gen. Mattis's remarks to the House Armed Services Committee] CAPITOL HILL: The US should keep 13,600 troops in Afghanistan to advise and assist the Afghan forces after American combat brigades withdraw in 2014, about a quarter of the current troop level, said Central Command chief Gen. James Mattis, giving his personal recommendation — not the Administration’s final decision — after prodding from the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday. Rumored figures have been significantly lower. “We have to send a message of commitment,” declared Mattis, who will soon retire. But with the Navy halving its aircraft carrier presence in the Gulf and all the services cutting corners in expectation of a continued budget crunch, it’s getting harder to project resolve.
“A perceived lack of an enduring US commitment” is the biggest danger to American interests in the Central Command region, which sprawls from Egypt to Pakistan, Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. While the drawdown in Afghanistan unnerves some allies, he said, “our budget ambiguity right now is probably the single greatest factor. I’m asked about it everywhere I go in the region.”
“Already, sequestration is having an operational impact in the CENTCOM area” with the indefinite postponement of the aircraft carrier USS Truman’s deployment to keep an eye on Iran, lamented SASC’s chairman, Carl Levin. Facing a funding shortfall from both the automatic cuts known as sequestration and the Continuing Resolution now funding the federal government I the absence of proper 2013 appropriations, Navy will keep Truman stateside, albeit ready for rapid deployment in a crisis. Keep Reading →
Nuclear Weapons Critics Suffer Cold War Brain Freeze; Deterrence Works, Argues Top Air Force OfficialBy James Blackwell
Before his latest State of the Union speech, President Obama was widely reported to be ready to propose a significant reduction in nuclear weapons. Then North Korea conducted a nuclear test the day before the address. (The photo above shows Kim Jong-Un smiling after his country’s recent successful ballistic missile test.) In his speech, President Obama only committed the US government to work with Russia to “seek further reductions,” though the New York Times said before the speech that the administration aimed to cut as many as 700 of our 1,700 deployed nuclear weapons. One of America’s most highly regarded nuclear strategists argues below that nuclear deterrence works. James A. Blackwell, an Air Force official, posits that those who argue they are Cold War weapons of such tremendous power as to be unusable are demonstrably wrong. The Editor.
There is an unsettling paradox in much of the recent debate over nuclear weapons in this country. Some pundits, fixated on purging “Cold War thinking” from those of us with real-world responsibilities for nuclear deterrence, are themselves suffering from thoughts frozen in time. In the midst of this important debate, let me offer some examples of the new strategic concepts emerging from a new generation of deterrence thinkers.
The conventional wisdom is that a world with fewer nuclear weapons is inherently a better world. What we are discovering is that less is not less, less is different.
US policy has led in reducing nuclear weapons. At its peak in 1967, the US stockpile stood at a staggering 31,255 warheads. Just since 1991, we have disassembled more than 13,000 weapons, and in the past decade taken our stockpile – the total number of weapons — down from 10,526 in 2001 to 5,113 in 2010. Our nuclear weapons and delivery platforms now number an order of magnitude less than during the Cold War, and this policy continues — creating new conditions in the global nuclear balance.
In this new nuclear environment, potential adversaries are reaching conclusions we did not expect, and our allies and partners are more nervous about it than we want them to be. This new world of several contending nuclear powers behaves differently than the bi-polar world that preceded it.
Deterrence is no longer (if it ever really was) a rational actor systems model; it works as a mental model. It’s more like the “hot hand” rule in basketball – players do not keep mental statistics on who has the highest percentage shot for a particular game situation; instead they carry a moving mental image of who at that moment is on a streak and feed the ball to that player instinctively. The same kind of thing happens in crisis and conflict. Behavioral scientists call this “fast, frugal heuristics,” and are beginning to explore the empirical dimensions of this 21st century deterrence dynamic.
There are some surprising findings and insights.
First, just because no one has detonated a nuclear weapon in war since 1945, does not mean they are sitting idly by, with little purpose. Nuclear weapons are in fact “used” every day — not to win a war, but to deter any adversary from thinking they could get away with starting one. As budget pressures rise, many call for not spending more on weapons we cannot use in the kinds of conflicts most likely to occur – presumably counter-terrorism or conventional warfare. But a nuclear war is the conflict we need to make sure remains the least likely to happen.
Second, there is much new research on 21st century deterrence of rogue actors and terrorists. We now know that, during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was persuaded that if he were to order use of chemical weapons against US troops, the US would have responded with tactical nuclear weapons.
Hussein had extensive discussions with his generals – lectures really – and injected that assumption into all their war planning. Such thinking likely resides within the decision-making processes of other states that face a similar calculus. There is merit in reinforcing such fears among others who would harm their neighbors. It turns out that terrorists, even suicide bombers, harbor visceral fears of nuclear weapons, fears that can be exploited to deter them from acting should they ever get one.
Islamic terrorists adhere to the Koran’s proscriptions against poisoning the earth with radiological effects and creating mass casualties among the innocent. Cyber and psychological campaigns can broadcast messages across terrorists’ own social networks to convey this narrative challenge to terrorists’ intent. Terrorist cells also fear failure, so technical sabotage, misinformation and deception can magnify doubt about the prospects for a successful detonation.
Third, US nuclear weapons serve as a powerful instrument of nonproliferation. Post-Cold War experience reveals that others, from Saddam’s Iraq, to North Korea, Libya, Iran and others, pursue nuclear weapons as the centerpiece of an asymmetric counter to the United States’ conventional military superiority. As every other nuclear power except the U.S. modernizes their nuclear weapons, and as the number of nuclear armed states continues to grow, our allies and partners who rely on our extended deterrent are increasingly motivated to consider obtaining their own nuclear arsenal. We must actively pursue a flexible strategy that allays such concerns among allies.
Some assert that a reliable nuclear deterrent does not require the ability to retaliate immediately, only the assurance that U.S. nuclear forces would survive any attack.
Aside from the fact that none of America’s nuclear triad is on “hair-trigger” alert, the reality of fewer nuclear weapons is that we cannot rely solely on a super-survivable second strike nuclear force that deters only by threatening retaliation. Such a posture could readily be perceived as threatening our intent to strike first. We must have a resilient nuclear arsenal that deters a nuclear strike in the first place.
No president would want to ask the American people to ride out a first strike and then trust him to order a retaliatory strike on behalf of the remaining fraction of our population. What the president needs is a nuclear force that would lead no nuclear armed state, faction or terrorist to conclude that it has less to lose by striking us first, even with just one or a few nuclear weapons. We must not give anyone cause to contemplate such a move.
This is a very different form of deterrence than the Cold War. No longer can we rely on the mathematics and purely rational models of nuclear exchange developed in the 20th century. We must understand human perception and decision-making. For 21st century deterrence, the value of first-strike stability is now at least equally important as maintaining an assured retaliation capability. Those of us in the new generation of strategic thinkers have liberated our minds from Cold War thinking to make sure that today, nuclear weapons are never used.
James Blackwell is special advisor to the Air Force’s assistant Chief of Staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration.
ARMY WAR COLLEGE: For the last decade, the Army has emphasized “boots on the ground.” Large numbers of foot troops slogged through valley and village, field and town, to safeguard civilians and hunt insurgents. Now, as the largest service looks beyond Afghanistan, a classified wargame about a hypothetical Korean conflict shined a spotlight on high-speed, long-range assets such as air defense missiles, guided artillery, and the Army’s own fleet of boats.
“When you think about landing craft, like Saving Private Ryan, most of those reside in the Army, actually,” Maj. Gen. Bill Hix, director of concept development at the Army Capabilities Integration Center, said in a conversation with reporters here. Keep reading →
WASHINGTON: Long-awaited talks between the world’s six most powerful nations and Iran are set for February 26 in the mountain city of Almaty in Kazakhstan.
The question is, are the two sides ready to bridge the considerable rift dividing them and actually negotiate? This has not happened in a decade of diplomacy that started in 2003 amid fears Iran was secretly building nuclear weapons. Keep reading →
CAPITOL HILL: In one of the least salubrious displays of partisan rancor in a long time on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the defense policy panel sent Chuck Hagel’s nomination to the Senate floor on a straight party-line vote, 14-11.
In a hearing that, at times, had faint echoes of the infamous anti-Communist witch hunt hearings dominated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Democrats praised Hagel for his service in Vietnam while Republicans berated him as left of center, a possible friend of Iran, a possible enemy of Israel, and someone who just wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. Keep reading →
Sen. Levin praises #Hagel with vote soon for his support for Israel, stand on Iran. Sez #NorthKorean test etc bad time for no SecDef now @colinclarkaol | <urn:uuid:ea3bd1f1-4560-45f6-87cf-facbd9ac55ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://breakingdefense.com/tag/iran/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952065 | 2,663 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Simply put, it's the individuals on the team, the ratio of TypeEs on the team and the culture of the team. In a team where each person shares equal support for outrageous suggestions, equal weight in managing group process and executing the plan magic happens on an individual, team and company-wide level. For teams that follow a more traditional top down, authoritative approach, fear is the pervasive factor within the team. Fear constricts the creative process. Support of free range thinking and permission to make mistakes enhances it.
So where do TypeEs fit into all of this? They are naturally creative and curious. Place them in the wrong mix within a system that is authoritative and they become a major headache for all concerned, as they constantly push the boundaries of the restrictive culture.
Take the sixty second TypeE Quiz here to discover if you have a TypeE personality. Have your team members take it to see where all of you fall on the spectrum of TypeE Manager, Translator and Mystic or non-TypeE.
Place these same TypeEs in a balanced group of fellow TypeEs and in a team culture that supports out of the box thinking and a shared responsibility for problem solving and results and watch the magic happen. Creative solutions and ideas and ways to act on them are developed in record time. Enlightened action is the name of the game. However there must be the right mix of TypeEs for the magic to flow. The team must consist of all three TypeEs on the spectrum; Manager, Translator and Mystic plus regular folks to keep it all going once it’s up and running.
Creating a well oiled TypeE Team that thrives on challenges, enlightened solutions and practical applications while encouraging an "open" team culture is one of the best investments a company, project or entrepreneur can make in reaching a sustainable triple bottom line for their employees, business and the community they live and work in.
Bringing a balanced TypeE Team together is just the first step. Next they need to learn, develop and practice the open, supportive culture of communication, innovation and practical application. Once they begin to operate from a set of enlightened principles, the intuitive effects can be seen through quicker, more effective problem solving and creative output.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND the Entrepreneur’s Guide to Enlightenment™ at Miraval?
Whether you've got a brand new team, a seasoned team that needs a "reboot" or a good team that's ready to jump to the next level of development may be just what you need right now. It may be one of the best decisions you make all year as it shifts you, your team and your entreprenureal endevors from striving to thriving.
“I learned that it’s not about raising ‘’the bar” on expectations or performance (personally or in business), it’s about setting a different bar in a different place!” - Retreat Participant
Miraval Activities and Specialist Presentations have been fully integrated into the retreat facilitating the personal transformation element to entrepreneurial and Team Development. This structure is ideal in that it lends itself well to bringing your TypeE Entrepreneurial Team to work and create together while addressing individual opportunities for growth.
Ready to take your Team to a whole new level of enlightened communication, innovation and creativity? Please join us in October at Miraval to explore the possibilities.
Contact Miraval reservations at 800.232.3969 to reserve your place! | <urn:uuid:64fc510a-762f-469b-806b-a7ce60a80c9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.miravalresorts.com/blog/post.cfm/typee-personalities-and-team-magic-creating-an-enlightened-team | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935828 | 711 | 1.632813 | 2 |
|Britain Helped Gaddafi Regime Torture Enemies|
|Written by Brit|
|Tuesday, 25 October 2011 13:23|
As Muammar Gaddafi’s rotting, bullet-riddled corpse is buried in a secret location in the Libyan desert, conveniently preventing an independent autopsy and investigation into his murder, disturbing revelations have come to light concerning Britain’s role in the torture of the Colonel’s former enemies.
MI6 stands accused of complicity in the rendering of Libyan rebels, who in 2003 were plotting to depose Gaddafi – the term “rendering” of course being twisted newspeak for the Western intelligence services’ policy of abducting, imprisoning, and torturing suspected Islamic extremists. As reported in The Guardian, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, one-time leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) and current military rebel commander in Tripoli, was handed over to Gaddafi in 2004 following a tip-off from MI6:
“MI6 informed the CIA of his whereabouts after his associates told British diplomats in Malaysia he wanted to claim asylum in Britain. He was allowed to board a flight to London, then abducted when his aircraft landed at Bangkok. Belhaj claims he was suspended from a ceiling and tortured at Bangkok airport before spending six years in solitary confinement at Tripoli's notorious Abu Selim jail.”
Relations between Gaddafi and the West had improved significantly after Libya’s agreement to halt its nuclear weapons program in 2003, an agreement which was shortly followed by Tony Blair’s infamous oil deal in the desert. Britain designated Belhaj’s rebel LIFG a terrorist organisation in 2003, further helping the Colonel by rounding up his opponents and obligingly delivering them to Tripoli, to suffer the very human rights abuses recently cited as justification for Gaddafi’s removal. As well as being tortured and held for years in solitary confinement, Belhaj alleges that his pregnant wife was beaten by agents of the Libyan regime.
Belhaj’s anti-Gaddafi rebel associate Sami al-Saadi was also rendered and tortured with the apparent complicity of MI6. After living in exile in China and being led by MI5 to believe they had approved his moving to London, in March 2003 Saadi and his family travelled to Hong Kong. There they expected to be interviewed by British diplomats - instead, they were forced onto an Egyptian airliner and rendered to a prison in Tripoli. The Guardian details the abuses alleged by Saadi’s family, which included his wife Karima and their four young children aged between six and 12. Saadi’s wife and children were held for over two months, where they were interrogated in the knowledge that their father was being tortured nearby. Khadija, now 19, says:
"The British government speak of human rights and justice – why were they involved with Gaddafi?" she asked. "The British knew too well that we would be mistreated and could be killed. The people who put us through this should be held accountable. I want an apology: they stole my childhood."
Tony Blair had landed in Libya for his first meeting with Gaddafi two days before the Saadi family’s MI6-instigated abduction. Both Belhaj and Saadi have launched legal action against the British government and intelligence services. 30 such cases alleging complicity in rendition and torture have been launched against Britain, legal action which justice secretary Kenneth Clarke is trying to suppress by introducing legislation that will establish secret court hearings when the UK's intelligence agencies are sued.
In a further twist, it is alleged that the rendering of Belhaj, Saadi, and other anti-Gaddafi rebel leaders actually strengthened Al Qaeda, and aided groups attacking British forces in Iraq. British intelligence believe that by rendering and removing moderate elements of the rebel leadership, rank and file members were pushed into supporting broader and significantly more extreme anti-Western goals than those held by the LIFG. MI5 documents suggest that following the abduction and imprisonment of their leaders, the group adopted a much more radical position:
"The extremists are now in the ascendancy," the paper said, and they were "pushing the group towards a more pan-Islamic agenda inspired by AQ [al-Qaida]".
Their "broadened" goals, it continued, were now also the destabilisation of Arab governments that were not following sharia law and the liberation of Muslim territories occupied by the west.
In summary: due to their increasingly close relationship with Gaddafi in pursuit of lucrative Libyan oil contracts, the West aided in the rendition and torture of his enemies. Several years later however, when the West wanted to remove Gaddafi from power, the very men who had been rendered by MI6 as suspected Islamic extremists were instead courted as allies, and armed and supported. Gaddafi’s suppression of a rebel uprising in Benghazi, of which Britain several years ago would presumably have approved, instead became the excuse for NATO’s intervasion which has caused widespread death, destruction and instability in Libya.
Considering the West’s concern for human rights abuses (the reason given for military action in Libya), one wonders how NATO will be dealing with the newly empowered rebels, in light of allegations of atrocious war crimes having been committed. The corpses of 53 Gaddafi loyalists have just been discovered in a formerly rebel-held hotel in Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte - some injured and others with their hands tied behind their backs - prisoners of war seemingly executed by the supposed good guys, the victorious rebels. | <urn:uuid:88693936-0566-4923-8b9e-5e2977a9d3a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.resistradio.com/updates/britain-aided-torture-of-gaddafi-opponents | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980884 | 1,133 | 1.789063 | 2 |
|1.||Port Byron, NY|
Called PB for short, it is a small town in upstate NY which was once a stop along the Erie Canal. Is now known as the home for roofers, Garrigans, Helmers, Smiths, and other multiple intermarried families who can trace their roots back to one tree. One the corner of the one stoplight in town, a passerby can see some "pigeon people" sitting on the sidewalk watching cars go by throughout the year. It's also the corner which houses the most elite of town residents who's bottom floor is home to a new business every week. High school kids can be frequently seen wearing the lastest cut-off sleaves while they play basketball at the town "park" where they believe they are the next nba all-star or biggest drug dealer.
I was driving through Port Byron, NY and saw the pigeon people with their wife beaters on sitting on the sidewalk. | <urn:uuid:7b6adb3e-148b-4f92-b11d-6195d110ef7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Port%20Byron%2C%20NY&defid=4503760 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981286 | 199 | 1.585938 | 2 |
This is for a quilt project that is going to feature just one single very bold symbol on a relatively neutral background.
I am hoping for something that will be at a level of complexity a little less than this, the Arabic word for "peace"....
But a little more than this, the "thorn" letter of the Old English alphabet. This symbol, of unknown provenence, is about right in terms of complexity.
As is the Chinese word for "dragon." Except, I don't want the symbol to really MEAN anything. Or if it does mean something, it needs to be pretty abstruse in isolation.
Some other possibilities I'm thinking about include....
Some of the letters in the Glagolitsa alphabet:
Some Hebrew letters (although these might be too familiar):
Some words in Japanese script... Or Korean script (although these might be too, I don't know, "Orientalist").
I don't know. I'm hoping for ideas. Anybody have suggestions for me?
Not this one, though: | <urn:uuid:f3febd6d-a0ce-4400-9820-3a672758ec1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infinitearttournament.com/2007/10/looking-for-sign.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93952 | 220 | 1.695313 | 2 |
WHEELING - A special committee of county assessors recently helped the West Virginia Tax Department decide whether to set an assessed value on well pad sites on landowners' properties.
Ohio County Assessor Kathie Hoffman was one of five assessors on the committee, put together by the West Virginia Association of Assessors. She said state tax officials wanted the group to figure out how to determine the value of gas drilling well pad sites. Initially, she said, it was "strongly suggested" that a well pad site be "carved out" at 5 acres and that each acre be appraised at $5,000, making for a total appraisal of $25,000. In comparison, mineral rights owners currently pay about $25 per acre, she noted.
After about three months of meetings, however, Hoffman and her fellow assessors decided adding such a value wasn't fair, especially to farmers who are in a less expensive Class 2 category.
Photo by Jennifer Compston-Strough
A crew with subcontractor Midway prepares a Gulfport gas well pad to begin producing natural gas for market. A panel has determined such sites in West Virginia will have no assessed value.
A meeting was held recently in Upshur County with the assessor committee, state tax officials and representatives of some drilling companies. At that meeting, it was decided that no value would be placed on well pad sites.
"Our concern was for the people who do not own the mineral rights, they just own the surface rights ... Our concern as assessors was how to value that," Hoffman said, noting a total appraisal of $25,000 would change a farmer's land from Class 2 to a more expensive Class 3. Some may have lost their homestead exemption, she added.
Hoffman said she was concerned with this possible change in class, resulting in higher taxes, because the farmers aren't making any money off their land because in some cases it's unusable at the moment. For example, to reach well sites or pads, roads are being built across farmland, rendering it useless for cattle grazing or growing grass for haymaking. And not everyone who owns their surface rights also owns mineral rights. Only the mineral rights owners are able to sign gas drilling leases to make money.
"It was decided by the state that we are not going to cut out that 5 acres - the state took our advice ... and they decided they are not going to cut that off. It's a big relief to the farmers and others who own surface rights that they aren't going to have pay extra taxes on that in 2013. Some will see a bill for mineral rights, but not for surface rights. ... There will be a normal (property tax) bill but not an additional bill related to drilling sites."
John Miller, Ohio County extension agent, said he was pleased to learn that no value would be placed on landowners' well pad sites. Most landowners or farmers, he said, only received about $15,000 for the disturbance of their land by a drilling company.
"That would have been a hefty tax burden. I think they made the right decision," Miller said. "A value of $25,000 would have been a burden to those people."
Hoffman said if such a value was applied, it likely would have caused people "undue stress."
"It's bad enough they have to put up with these drilling sites and the noise and the dirt, and then to be charged taxes on top of that - that's like adding insult to injury and that's what we wanted to avoid," she said. "Those are the people we were really concerned about - the surface owners who didn't get anything at all ... and were going to have pay an increase in assessed values and taxes. That was a concern to all of us."
Hoffman noted for the moment there are about 28 wells in Ohio County, none of which are currently producing gas to take to market.
"Right now the value of the gas is like $2, not anywhere it had been before. ... It's not paying off, so they're not hooking them up and getting them running. They're really not producing because prices are too low - can't make a profit on it," Hoffman said. | <urn:uuid:61d7c7bf-ea76-447f-bcea-066a54f3b0d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/576281/No-Assessed-Value-Will-Be-Assigned-to-Well-Pad-Sites.html?nav=515 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986174 | 867 | 1.65625 | 2 |
2012 hasn't been a good year for coal stocks, and if the U.S. Energy Information Administration is right, the next eight years aren't shaping up to be any better. The EIA said in its recent Annual Energy Outlook report that 49 GW of coal generation capacity could be retired by 2020 -- that's a sixth of the nation's coal plants.
The level of retirements is only the reference case for the EIA's analysis and will be affected most heavily by the price of natural gas and economic growth. The worst-case scenario for coal is that gas remains at a low price and economic growth remains slow. Under those circumstances, as much as 70 GW could be retired.
Drivers of coal's demise
The EIA says that older, more inefficient plants in the eastern U.S. will be the first to go, pointing the finger of blame squarely at natural gas. Natural gas is hitting coal not only from an environmental-impact standpoint, but also on the marginal rate for power generation, and with the low price of natural gas, this makes coal power plants less profitable.
This is bad news for companies that supply coal to the nation's coal plants. Alpha Natural Resources (NYSE: ANR ) , Peabody Energy (NYSE: BTU ) , James River Coal (Nasdaq: JRCC ) , and Arch Coal (NYSE: ACI ) have already plunged this year, but the future trends aren't looking any better. They'll need to ration even more capacity to stay in business, and I wouldn't be surprised if losses continued to mount in coming years.
Foolish bottom line
Some investors think that when a stock is down, it will eventually bounce back. For coal, all of the evidence points not to a mere short-term plunge, but rather to a long-term decline in the industry. I still don't think coal stocks are good buys, no matter how far they've fallen, and more will end up in bankruptcy, just like Patriot Coal.
Investors should avoid coal stocks, but there are parts of the energy sector that are thriving. Find out which stock our analyst think is the only energy stock you need in our free report found here. | <urn:uuid:d2b91378-69a8-45ca-bf6f-cef6e73e426a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/08/01/the-challenges-for-coal-stocks-are-just-beginning.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961283 | 450 | 1.710938 | 2 |
CSB Services - Engagement, Assessment & Referral
The goal of the engagement, assessment and referral service area is to help people get appropriate treatment that meets their needs, and triage people for safety. People may be referred to CSB services, if appropriate, or to community resources outside the CSB.
Engagement, Assessment and Referral services include:
- CSB Entry & Referral Call Center (703-383-8500, TTY 711) – This is the starting point for accessing intellectual disability, mental health or substance abuse services through the CSB. Staff can take calls in English and Spanish and can access other languages when needed (learn more about the intake process for persons with intellectual disability). Women and girls who are pregnant and intravenous drug users have priority for substance use disorder services.
- Assessment and Referral Center – Provides comprehensive screening, assessment, referral and stabilization services for adults who have or believe they may have an addiction to alcohol or drugs, serious mental illness or a co-occurring disorder. Individuals receiving assessments may be referred for further services within the CSB or receive a referral to a private provider.
- Engagement Center – Offering services to people who are reluctant to enter CSB services but could benefit from medication-assisted treatment (for substance use disorders) and time-limited supportive counseling.
- Project for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) and Hypothermia Services – Provides outreach services to individuals who are homeless and unsheltered.
- Project Link – Provides support and services to pregnant and post-partum women and girls to help them stop using alcohol and/or other drugs. | <urn:uuid:b5d4bccd-cbcd-4254-a045-008030d89765> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/csb/services/assessment.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940026 | 336 | 1.539063 | 2 |
For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he argued that computers would soon rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our creations.
That merging is the essence of the Singularity, an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today - the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. In this new world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality. While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near maintains a radically optimistic view of the future course of human development. As such, it offers a view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.
©2008 Ray Kurzweil (P)2011 Tantor
"Startling in scope and bravado." (Janet Maslin, The New York Times)
There seems to be two types of people reading and rating this book, the true believers and the skeptics, but very little has been said on the overal enjoyment of the book. First this is a great concept, the idea that through the law of accelerating returns we are getting closer to a singularity, or a massive explosion in technological advancement that will literally combine humans and technology is truly amazing, and if your a tech buff that grew up dreaming of a holodeck this idea is right up your ally. Unfortunately the right person came up with the idea and the wrong person wrote about it. I think Ray is a fascinating human being and true genius, his career speaks for itself and his intelligent and quirky approach to life and health is a book in itself, but I found the book boring. Actually beyond boring because I am only a third of the way through and had to force myself to this point. I wanted to wait and finish before writing a review, but the umpteenth time he through out some computation or algorithmic equation I lost him, he's a scientist and I get it, but the read is a slow boring walk through mathematics which tries to prove ideas that are fascinating with literal repeated boring facts. I get it, if you tell me the rate on return of technology is increasing and technology is building on itself to make itself smarter I understand, to then go into equation after equation explaining why is just boring, save it for the Scientific American. It's if Ray wanted to prove to his skeptics on his ideas and wrote a Scientific Paper that he later edited for the layman for mass production. I will still read everything about Ray Kurzweil, I just don't know if I am going to read anything from Ray Kurzweil. Great guy, Great Idea, Boring Book.
I love learning about the universe and our place in it by listening to Audible.
I know not everyone will love the book, but I did and I know some others will too. Usually I don't like predictions about the future since the future is so hard to see accurately but I think Kurzweil does such an outstanding job. If statements like the universe will become self aware one day after man biologically merges with our thinking machines bother you, you probably shouldn't bother with this book, but if such statements excite you the book could be worth your trouble.
Listening to this book brought back memories of 5-6th grade reel-to-reel science/biology films; you know the ones that were impossible to stay awake through even if you were interested in the subject.The Narrators voice is extremely monotone and the book is written in almost a textbook manner.The Ideas and information are very interesting, but it's the worst audio book I have ever listened to.
This could be one of the most important books to be written in the first 10 years of the 21st millennium. It does get technical at times, however, the main points are SO important that it's not vital that one understand all the technical info. These theories give our race (the human race) new hope in many areas that I personally felt hopeless about before hearing the opinions and theories of Dr. Kurzweil. He may not be right about everything, but his track record has been excellent. This is not a "quack." They don't put quacks on the cover of 'TIME'! GET THIS ONE!
This book is super. While I think he gives the impression that everything that can happen that is beneficial to humanity will happen, which is proving to be incorrect six years after publication. He discusses a lot of fundemental questions, its not a science fiction novel full of action and adventure, but it is excellent heavy duty, educated, food, for thought if you want to think about the future and what it could, in theory be. Additional note, you do need an education to listen to this book and not have it go over your head. I have a third level education but I only just managed to understand it, I think I will listen to it twice.
Kurzweil repeatedly flogs the same minor points over and over about how powerful PCs will be in just a few years. I get that they will be 10 to the umpteenth times as powerful as the human brain. I don't need to hear it for what seems like to be every other paragraph in the book.
It was nice to see some hard numbers on the subject (though it would have been better to then moved on from those numbers, rather than constantly revisiting them).
Frankly, anyone could have done a better job than Mr. Wilson. He has a weird intonation to his voice as he reads the book, which is reminiscent of William Shatner at his worst, played at a very slow speed. I found that playing it at twice normal speed helped things immensely.
Each chapter begins with a future version of Kurzweil discussing with other supposed future individuals what life was like after the singularity occurs (in 2045). This reads more like a Mary Sue piece than anything else and does more harm than good to the work.
Spoiler alert! The future Kurzweil projects for humanity is that sometime between 2045 and 2100 we all turn into a cross between the Borg, a T1000 Terminator (minus the desire to kill all humans), and V'Ger from Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Kurzweil sees this as a positive, even though such a scenario involves government mandated brain scans (to make sure we're not developing WMDs, and Kurzweil assures us that the government will never ever abuse this power in the way Nixon did). Frankly, while I like the idea of near immortality, and many of the technological advances which seem likely, I think that if what Kurzweil projects comes to pass, the future will be incredibly bleak.
I've been waiting for an audio version of this book for years, and I was already a fan of the work itself. I'm just wondering why Stephen Hawking wasn't credited for doing the voice work.
Retired nightclub performer/computer technician, I now teach hula and ukulele to seniors, and record Hawaiian music for my halau!
Don't miss out on this book. It should start out with "Y'all ain't gonna believe this s _ _ _!"
What a wild and jaw-dropping read! Ray Kurzwell is a real visionary, and the array of subject matter contained in this book is awesome. I can hardly believe his ideas about the future of mankind and artifical intelligence. Though my back aches and my arthritis is killing me, Kurzwell makes me want to live another seventy-one years just to see if what he says turns out to be true. i can only hope that his vision of the future becomes reality so that my great-grandchildren can witness and benefit from the fantastic future outlined in his book.
Kurzwell's views on robotics and artificial intelligence, cloning, reverse-engineering the human brain (?), nanotechnology, world hunger, immortality, conquest of the Universe, treating diabetes successfully (to mention just a few topics) are logically presented, and carefully explained in layman's terms. I have listened to this book several (like seven or eight) times and it has not lost my interest yet. I love the book. I agree with the reviewer who states that it is a great introduction to the 21st century and the vast changes that are iminently possible for mankind. Wow.
The narrator is exactly as he should be. He speaks slowly enough for me to digest the material. His tone is pleasant, and he speaks as if he knows the material well. I am a stickler for narration. it's something that I often comment on, and frankly I was surprised that so many other reviewers panned his performance.
In a period of ever accelerating technological and cultural change, Ray Kurzweil provides a schematic structure that articulates the ideas that so many have intuitively sensed about the epochal impact of technology on the development of human knowledge and humanity itself. With almost mystical fervor, Kurzweil sets forth a vision of the future in which technology and humanity merge and the bounds of human knowledge explode as humanity is unbound from the limits of very slow biological information processing. The result will be a rise of intelligent machines which retain elements of humanity, and of humans who have enhanced and extended their abilities by taking advantage of technological augmentation of their minds.
The scope of Kurzweil's vision is breathtaking - be sure to go to Tantor's publisher site to download and view the figures and illustrations mentioned in the text.
The content of the book is breathtaking, and looks into an infinite future.
The narration is the polar opposite of the content. George K. Wilson's stilted style is almost ironically ill-suited to such a forward looking book. Imagine the work of a futurist as it might have been heard on a World War II-era radio. Wilson seems to be trying for the authoritative pronouncment of a Cronkite or a Murrow. Wilson's style of narration is wholly unsuited to the audiobook format generally and does particular violence to this book. Tantor Audio, what were you thinking?
The book content gets five stars, but the narration is so bad that this audiobook is almost unendurable.
The reader makes this unlistenable so I have no clue about the content. These words make me go over the 15 word minimum.
Report Inappropriate Content | <urn:uuid:59347434-9198-449e-9bf1-c80d75e82283> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=pd_sim_narr_2?asin=B004Z48FYU | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964115 | 2,258 | 1.648438 | 2 |
22 found dead after landslide in SW China
Updated: 2013-01-11 12:12
By Li Yingqing and Guo Anfei (Xinhua)
Twenty-two people have been confirmed dead after a landslide hit Gaopo village, Zhenxiong county of Zhaotong city, Southwest China’s Yunnan province, on Jan 11, 2013. [Photo/Xinhua]
Latest: The death toll of the landslide rose to 22.
KUNMING - Eighteen people have been confirmed dead, two others injured and dozens more remain buried after a landslide hit a mountainous region in Southwest China's Yunnan province on Friday, local authorities said.
As of 2 pm, rescuers had pulled 18 bodies from the mud-inundated debris in Gaopo Village, Zhenxiong County, some 550 km northeast of Yunnan's capital city of Kunming, according to the county's publicity department.
The landslide hit the village around 8:20 am, burying the homes of 16 families, a local government official surnamed Wang told Xinhua.
About 40 people are believed to have been buried in the landslide, according to an initial investigation.
Two injured people have been sent to a nearby hospital, but their conditions have not been publicized.
More than 700 rescuers have been sent to the scene, sources said.
A work team led by provincial governor Li Jiheng is on the way to the scene.
The provincial civil affairs department has allocated relief materials such as tents, quilts, food and water to the region, where temperatures are hovering around zero degrees Celsius.
Zhenxiong County is adjacent to Yiliang County, where 19 people, including 18 primary school students, were killed in a landslide in October.
In September, a series of earthquakes -- with the strongest measured at 5.7 magnitude -- struck the region, leaving at least 81 people dead in Yiliang. | <urn:uuid:3168eea6-ff79-4a92-baa3-c35e7db32995> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-01/11/content_16106028.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950624 | 405 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Thursday, 3 August 2006 12:00 AM
The most famous highway in the world, Route 66, has become known to a whole new generation thanks to its role as the backdrop to Disney's animated adventure Cars.
The animated film follows a rookie racecar's journey of discovery in the make believe town of Radiator Springs on Route 66. But whilst the town is made up, the road is real, and the longest remaining continuous stretch of the original Route 66 can be found in Arizona.
Whether you are looking for quirky places to explore, interesting characters, or just a nice long drive in the open air of the old west, a visit to the Grand Canyon State is the place to go for the ultimate road trip holiday.
There are 200 miles of the original Route 66 remaining in Arizona today, and holidaymakers can still follow the road's old route from Lupton in the east to Topock in the West, taking in lots of the scenery and visitor attractions on the way.
One of the first stops you can make if you are starting from the east is Holbrook, which is typical of the authentic and quirky Route 66 experience. The unusual Wigwam motel has cosy tepees for rooms, and makes an ideal place to spend the first night.
Travelling on from Holbrook, past Winslow, is one of the best preserved meteor impact sites on earth. Nearly a mile across, 570 feet deep and more than three miles in circumference, this giant crater was made 49,000 years ago by a nickel-iron meteor denser than any other material to be found on earth.
Continuing west, road trippers will reach Flagstaff, which has an authentic log cabin called the Museum Club. Built in 1931 to house Native American artefacts and a collection of genetically unique animals preserved through taxidermy, it later became a nightclub where musicians travelling Route 66 stopped to perform.
West of Flagstaff is Angel Delgadillo's barber shop. Known as the guardian angel of Route 66, Angel Delgadillo has operated a barber shop in the town of Seligman for nearly 50 years, but his most notable accomplishment was forming the Route 66 Association, which preserved the old route in western Arizona and prevented Seligman from falling off the map.
Visitors can still chat with Delgadillo at his barber shop and see the gift shop and museum. Hungry travellers can then grab bite to eat at the quirky Snowcap Drive-in, the perfect stop-off for nostalgia lovers with oddities such as doors with two door knobs, and a sign that reads, "sorry, we're open".
Passing through Peach Springs and Grand Canyon Caverns - limestone caverns deep below the earth's surface - the roadtrip holiday reaches Kingman, where the Route 66 Museum is based.
Housed inside what was originally an electric generating plant when it opened its doors in 1907, the Route 66 museum depicts the historical evolution of travel along the 35th parallel that became Route 66. Its brilliant murals, photos and life-size dioramas capture the spirit of each of the groups that have travelled the route.
Dinner at Mr.D'z in Kingman offers a traditional Route 66 experience to top off the road trip. They serve hamburgers, shakes and their own homemade root beer in a 1950s style diner with black and white checkerboard floors and a jukebox.
US specialist Bon Voyage offer a seven night Arizona 'Route 66' fly-drive package, including return flights with British Airways from London Heathrow to Phoenix and all-inclusive two-door compact car hire. Other cars available include a Cadillac, Hummer or Jaguar (supplements apply).
Prices start from £685 per person, based on two sharing and travelling in September 2006. For more information please see www.bon-voyage.co.uk
For further information on the Arizona you can visit www.arizonaguide.com"> | <urn:uuid:fde2e852-ed45-4a1b-9052-75b180292270> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelbite.co.uk/holiday-ideas/2006/8/3/disney-s-cars-inspires-ultimate-route-66-holi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947895 | 815 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Large Russian Santa - Hand Carved & Painted
If you collect Santas, this would be a great addition to your collection! FYI: This unique, one of a kind Santa is hand carved and hand painted in Russia. It is signed by the artist. The Feast of St. Nicholas on December 6th was observed in Russia for centuries and St. Nicholas was known as Father Christmas. After the communist revolution, the celebration of the feast was prohibited, and St. Nicholas was transformed into "Ded Moroz", or Grandfather Frost, the Russian Spirit of Winter who brings gifts to children on Christmas Day. These Santas embody the World-Wide Spirit of Santa Claus. This hand carved and hand painted piece is perfect for year-round enjoyment.
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Other items from Seaside Art Gallery you may be interested in: | <urn:uuid:6ed2c9af-ac4d-4a7b-a0af-42f42b3ca218> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rubylane.com/item/497632-906/Large-Russian-Santa-Hand-Carved | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934688 | 237 | 1.5 | 2 |
Here's a refreshing response to those many many pieces you've read about how democracy failed because the demonstrators of 15 February 2003 didn't win the day. William Brett writes that 'For some of us, Iraq was not the moment we lost faith in politics. It was the moment we understood what politics is for.' Again:
For [Laurie] Penny and [Owen] Jones, the failure of parliament to reflect the wishes of the anti-war protest was a failure of democracy. The manner in which dissent was ignored appears to them as a bitter betrayal. But for me, the debate - not just in parliament but also in the press, and in homes, shops and pubs – made things better. As we talked and talked about it - and remember that Iraq divided publics and parliaments all over the world - it became clear that there were no easy answers. Both available courses of action were fraught with danger and unintended consequences. It seemed that parliament was struggling to deal with this, just as I was.
Brett tells us he was 20 at the time. He was evidently more mature politically than a lot of ageing partisans of the 'we marched but they didn't listen' school of thought. (Via @JohnRentoul.) | <urn:uuid:1d9527f6-947f-4716-9075-efa54e5ce2e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2013/03/a-greater-maturity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990204 | 253 | 1.828125 | 2 |
An integrated organisation can deliver an integrated service. But an integrated service is unlikely to be able to deliver an integrated organisation.
That though is a distinction which is easily missed, not least in thinking about joining up government services, where the hoped for magic of an integrated web platform leading to seamless information and service delivery has unaccountably failed to happen for ten years or more. That’s not from lack of ambition or intention: part of the founding myth, first of UK Online and then of Directgov, was that seamless citizen-centred services would spring into being. But they didn’t. There are several important reasons for that. Some of them are to do with the maturity of technology, some to do with maturity of understanding of the place of web services as a dimension of overall service provision, but some are to do with a lack of alignment of roles, perceptions, and goals of the different organisations involved.
The founding myth had some substance. I remember the excitement of a workshop designing the ‘having a baby’ life episode (as they were then known) for UK Online, with people responsible for different parts of the overall service meeting each other for the very first time and seeing opportunities for more effective service design as a result. But for all their many virtues, neither UK Online nor Directgov ever did transcend the underlying structure of government on which they were built and even now it is all too easy to see departmental boundaries not far below the surface.
The difference with gov.uk is not that it’s a better website, though it is. The difference is not even that its first design principle makes an unambiguous commitment to start with real user needs, though the clarity and prominence of that principle is a wholly good thing. The difference is all of that put together with a level of focused determination and leadership direction which we have not seen before.
The question is whether that is enough. I am not sure that it is. Everything GDS does reinforces my confidence that we will have a more integrated digital platform leading to more seamless information and service delivery. There will be far greater homogeneity of how government appears to the outside world: the visual symbolism will carry a very strong message that all are parts of a very coherent and integrated whole. Government will look and feel like one thing rather than many. The circumstances in which it is important to understand which bit of government does what will be fewer. But underneath, different things will continue to happen in different ways, as a consequence of the underlying structures.
GDS is creating a representation of government and what it does. What it can’t do (and can’t be expected to do) is make the substance of government align with that representation. That matters for reasons which in effect are a slightly different version of Conway’s law: the perceived difference between a service and an interface is very strongly driven by organisational boundaries. That means that the experience of meeting needs is unlikely to be anywhere close to being as integrated as the experience of discovering information about how those needs can be met. At a more detailed level, it means that information held by or provided to different government service providers is unlikely to be managed (or manageable) in a way which supports the aggregation and integration of services.
Does any of that matter? I think it does, for two reasons. The first is to avoid the trap of assuming that because visual identity and information are much better integrated that the problem of joined up government has either been solved or gone away. The second is that if we do aspire to organising public service delivery around people and their needs, we need to get down to those deeper layers to make it happen.
To give one minor and largely inconsequential example from another sector, the smooth integration of Amazon’s website is second to none, especially bearing in mind that it is both its own shop window and a channel for the thousands of smaller providers in the Amazon market place. I can search and buy without particularly caring how Amazon – or anybody else – is organised, and without any notion of where the stuff I am buying actually is. But behind the scenes, the consequences of my order may well require activity to be fragmented and duplicated – and the effect on me may be that several parcels arrive on several vans at several times over several days. That’s no more than minor inconvenience and inefficiency. But if the supply side fragmentation covers tax and benefits, health and education, the consequences can be much more significant.
Of course, just integrating everything into a single monolith isn’t likely to be a good response to that problem. It would be nice to get a single parcel on a single day, but that would require the existence either of a single warehouse with absolutely everything in it, or some kind of aggregation hub where orders could be assembled. The drawbacks of either would be pretty substantial.
Back in the world of government, I feel no pressing need to renew my driving licence at my local hospital, and have no expectation that teachers should be able to process benefit claims. Here too, not everything which can be integrated should be. But the lessons of the having a baby life episode still apply: if we want people’s experience of a service to have a parallel level of integration to information about that service, we are going to have to look to the base as well as the superstructure. | <urn:uuid:e2dcd678-958b-4516-bcba-8c2113de8592> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://publicstrategist.com/2012/05/the-superstructure-cannot-determine-the-base/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968759 | 1,094 | 1.625 | 2 |
Editor's note: This is the second in a six-part series by The Washington Post taking a look at the major issues in the presidential campaign. The series will continue in the Sunday Business section and in BusinessMonday through Oct. 29. Oct. 21: foreign policy.
By DAN BALZ and ZACHARY A. GOLDFARB
WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney disagree on most issues, but their differences on the economy are particularly stark. Romney believes that the government is an impediment to economic growth and should mostly get out of the way. The president argues that the government plays a vital role in creating the foundation for a strong economy.
Jobs and the economy, by a huge margin, top the list of issues that will determine how people vote. It's not much of an overstatement to say that this is a one-issue election. As the latest Economist magazine put it, "Barack Obama won in 2008 largely because of the economy. He may lose this year for the same reason."
Friday's employment report gave Obama a shot of good news, with the jobless rate dropping below 8 percent after 42 consecutive months above. But the overall economy remains the president's biggest vulnerability. Obama's challenge is to convince voters that he is making progress, and that what Romney offers is a return to the policies that created today's problems. Romney's challenge is to convince voters not just that the president's policies have failed but also that he has the experience and the policies to do what Obama hasn't.
Because the recovery has been sluggish, Obama has been running against stiff head winds all year. But there are signs that voters are beginning to feel better about the future. They remain split, however, on which candidate they would trust more to fix the problems.
Here are Obama and Romney's positions on the economy, broken down by subject:
Obama has called for spending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to try to reduce the unemployment rate, which stands at 7.8 percent. He wants to offer tax credits to companies that hire more workers and give money to states and localities to hire more teachers and first responders. He also wants Congress to agree to legislation that would overhaul job training and unemployment programs that would better ease the jobless back into work - by continuing to pay unemployment benefits, for example, if workers get part-time jobs or apprenticeships.
To revive U.S. manufacturing and prevent jobs from leaving the country, Obama advocates tax breaks for companies that keep positions in the United States and penalties for firms that move work abroad. To make U.S. employees more competitive, he wants to create government-backed hubs that connect community colleges and businesses, making sure people are trained for open positions. Cumulatively, he says, these programs would create 1 million new factory jobs by the end of a second term.
Obama also wants to spend $210 billion over six years to rebuild the nation's roads, bridges and railroads. He says that money represents half of the money the government will save as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan winding down.
Romney wants to lower taxes and reduce regulation in hopes of giving the private sector more flexibility to spend, invest and hire. He doesn't like the idea of spending taxpayer money to stimulate hiring and has disparaged efforts to do so.
Romney would reduce individual tax rates by 20 percent and seek to offset the lost federal revenue by eliminating deductions, although he has not specified which ones.
He also wants to end capital gains taxes (paid when stocks and bonds are sold) for people making less than $200,000 and eliminate the tax that heirs pay on estates valued at more than $5 million.
Romney has proposed reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, a change that would bring corporate tax rates in the United States more in line with what they are abroad. As a result, he says, companies would be more likely to keep their operations here, saving U.S. jobs. He also would transition to a "territorial" tax system, so companies pay taxes where they operate rather than requiring that American firms operating abroad pay a tax on foreign profits in the United States.
Romney says his policies would create 12 million new jobs during his first term and lead to faster economic growth.
Faced with a national debt that exceeds $16 trillion, Obama has proposed a plan that would cut $5.3 trillion from the budget over a decade, roughly in line with what economists say is necessary.
The president proposes raising taxes on Americans who make more than $200,000 per year to the rates in effect during the Clinton era. That means 39.6 percent, compared with 35 percent now. He also wants to scale back deductions and loopholes that benefit the wealthy and specific industries, such as finance and energy.
Obama also would dramatically cut domestic spending, although he would exempt Medicare and Medicaid. Defense spending also would be reduced.
Finally, Obama says he would tackle health-care and retiree costs by modestly lowering spending on Medicare and Medicaid. He would not reduce benefits. He says some savings would grow out of his health-care legislation.
In the summer of 2011, Congress and Obama agreed on deep budget cuts that would result in big tax increases for most Americans as well as major military and domestic spending reductions, starting in 2013, if they didn't come up with a better plan. They haven't been able to agree on one. But many believe that after the election, they would find a way to avoid letting the country fall off a "fiscal cliff."
Romney, who believes Congress should delay the "fiscal cliff" and wait until next year to forge a new agreement, has ruled out raising taxes and cutting defense spending as ways to improve the nation's budget situation. Instead, he recommends cutting domestic spending and restructuring entitlements to generate savings.
Overall, Romney would seek to limit federal spending to 20 percent of all economic activity in a given year. It's 24 percent today. He says he would immediately cut domestic spending by 5 percent and seek to shrink the federal work force by 10 percent. Romney has not given a precise target for how much he would reduce the debt, but he has said he would seek to balance the budget in a decade or less.
Romney has pledged a comprehensive overhaul of entitlements. He promises that people in or near retirement wouldn't be affected.
For Medicare and Medicaid, he recommends moving away from unlimited forms of spending toward fixed grants.
On Social Security, Romney says he would consider raising the eligibility age or reducing benefits over time, but he has ruled out increasing Social Security taxes.
Obama has proposed building on measures he has already introduced to make it easier for underwater borrowers - those who owe more than their homes are worth - to refinance, taking advantage of low interest rates.
The administration is pressuring independent federal housing regulators to partly forgive the debts of some underwater homeowners. Regulators have declined, saying it would be too costly for taxpayers.
The president also wants to spend more money to rehabilitate communities hit hard by foreclosures - hiring workers to clean up neighborhoods and renovating dilapidated buildings.
While supporting a bigger role for the government in helping struggling homeowners, Obama also has suggested reducing its role in housing.
He wants to shutter Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants, and he hasn't said whether or how he would replace them. He has said he sees a future role for government in housing, particularly in helping lower- and middle-income people afford their first homes. Still, he has called for higher minimum down payments and other measures to reduce risk in mortgage lending, steps that would make it harder for some people to buy a home.
Romney says he wants to dramatically reduce the government's role in housing. He says that although the government can help those facing foreclosure, the housing market must be allowed to bottom out before it can experience renewed prosperity.
He has been critical of Obama's approach of providing taxpayer aid to homeowners and has preferred private-sector solutions, such as allowing a borrower who is facing loss of a home to reach an agreement with the lender. This would allow the borrower to give up ownership of the home without going through a foreclosure, which can damage a person's credit record. Romney wants to sell as quickly as possible the 200,000 foreclosed properties the government owns.
He also says he supports plans that would allow homeowners to refinance at low rates, but he has not offered his own proposal.
Romney wants to overhaul Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so that they no longer pose a risk for taxpayers, although he has not specified how. He also wants to reduce and simplify regulation overseeing the financial sector, which he says would make it easier for home buyers to receive bank loans.
Obama has pledged to continue to promote free trade and is developing a new wide-scale agreement for open trade with about a dozen countries, including Chile, Peru and Vietnam. At the same time, Obama argues that workers who might be displaced by free trade should receive job training and financial aid from the government.
While an advocate of open trade, Obama says it must benefit U.S. workers and businesses. He supports subsidizing sales of American goods overseas by offering low-interest-rate loans to foreign companies that buy U.S. products. The effort is part of a plan to double U.S. exports by 2014.
He has pledged to defend U.S. workers and businesses by filing cases with the World Trade Organization protesting unfair trade practices by China and other countries.
Obama also says his administration would put more pressure on China to allow its currency to appreciate, which would make U.S. goods and services cheaper for Chinese consumers and businesses. But he is not planning to declare China a currency manipulator, which could trigger tariffs on Chinese-made goods.
Romney is a strong supporter of free trade and has said he would seek more open-trade agreements than Obama, who has pursued fewer new pacts than his predecessor.
He argues that the president should have the power to send trade proposals to Congress for an up-or-down vote - making the approval process faster. He says trade agreements should be considered separately from whether aid should be offered to affected workers.
With China, however, Romney takes a harder line. He considers China a trading foe and says he would increase enforcement actions when authorities determine that the country is unfairly subsidizing its industries or taking other steps that inappropriately benefit its companies. He accuses the country of stealing U.S. technology and software.
He says that he would declare China a currency manipulator and would impose tariffs if it did not take responsive action.
Obama says he wants to relax regulations where possible to make it less costly for companies, particularly small businesses, to operate. He has focused in the past on reducing regulations for new and growing companies. He has created an office in the White House to further analyze proposed regulation to assess potential costs to business.
Obama plans to preserve the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which aims to prevent financial institutions from misleading consumers and taking excessive risks that can hurt the economy. The legislation was his primary way to toughen oversight of Wall Street after the financial crisis.
As federal agencies now seek to use the authorities granted to them under Dodd-Frank, Obama supports tight rules to govern the largest banks and regulation of previously untouched areas, such as hedge funds and exotic financial instruments known as derivatives. He also defends the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a new creation that polices lending to consumers.
Romney would seek to scale back regulations that he says impose undue burdens on companies. He says he would limit how much new regulations could cost companies in a range of areas, including how much industrial companies can pollute and what telecommunications companies can charge their customers.
Romney would eliminate the Dodd-Frank overhaul of financial regulation and replace it with a more "streamlined" version, although he hasn't said what he would eliminate in the legislation. Still, he has given hints.
Romney says he would take aim at how Dodd-Frank grants regulators the power to declare certain large banks and financial firms as "systematically important." He suggested that this provision makes these firms seem too big to fail.
However, he would retain some key parts of the law, including standards such as minimum down payments for most mortgages. He also supports limiting how much banks can borrow without holding money in reserve. | <urn:uuid:f683dfb3-03e8-4bb0-a6cd-37f6c1e7ddee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/10/campaign_issues_2012_obama_rom_1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977459 | 2,537 | 1.71875 | 2 |
(CNN) — Two more states have shifted to the toss-up column in the new CNN Electoral Map that charts the candidates’ strength leading up to the November election.
Minnesota – which had turned from toss-up to “leans Obama” in the last analysis – is back up for grabs, along with New Mexico, which had been classified “leans McCain.” The shift of both states gives the Arizona senator a net gain of five votes over his standing in the previous CNN Electoral Map – but his opponent still has 221 electoral votes — 32 more than McCain’s total of 189, and 49 shy of winning the presidency.
CNN made the change in New Mexico after new polling conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that demographic, a major voting bloc in the state, backs Obama’s candidacy by a margin of greater than 2 to 1, 66 percent to 23 percent. Minnesota’s move comes after a new Quinnipac survey finds Obama’s lead in that state has shrunk to a statistically insignificant 2-point margin, 46 percent to 44 percent.
Election: Check out CNN's new electoral map
This is only a CNN estimate, and is likely to change many more times before Election Day. | <urn:uuid:95c72620-d771-48e7-9567-7602f9b2db03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/07/24/cnns-electoral-map-both-lose-ground-%E2%80%93-but-mccain-gains-edge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962934 | 253 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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SOURCE Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
WASHINGTON, Feb. 25, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) turns 150 today.
"The OCC has a long heritage of public service, regulating and supervising national banks and now federal savings associations," said the 30th Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry. "I am especially proud to lead the agency as it achieves this milestone in its distinguished history."
President Abraham Lincoln founded the agency when he signed the National Currency Act on February 25, 1863, making the OCC the oldest regulatory agency of the U.S. government. The National Currency Act was revised in 1864 as the National Bank Act. Hugh McCulloch, the first Comptroller, held the office between 1863 and 1865.
Today, more than 3,800 OCC employees work from 93 locations across the country to ensure that the more than 1,800 national banks and federal savings associations operate in a safe and sound manner, provide fair access to financial services, treat customers fairly, and comply with applicable laws and regulations to meet the needs of the communities they serve. The banks and thrifts supervised by the OCC range in size from very small community banks with less than $100 million in assets to the nation's largest financial institutions with assets exceeding $1 trillion. More than 1,600 of the banks and thrifts that OCC supervises are small community banks with less than $1 billion in assets that play a vital role in meeting the financial needs of communities across the nation.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ("OCC") charters and oversees a nationwide system of national banks and federal savings associations and assures that these banking institutions are safe and sound, competitive, and capable of serving the banking needs of their customers in the best possible manner. OCC press releases and other information are available at http://www.occ.gov. To receive OCC press releases and issuances by e-mail, subscribe at http://www.occ.gov/subscribe/occ-email-list-service.html.
©2012 PR Newswire. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:5f6990bc-5267-4e55-9fee-7e52808d411e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abc3340.com/story/21334012/office-of-the-comptroller-of-the-currency-marks-sesquicentennial-year | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938833 | 497 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Brussels, 16 February 2006
Tomorrow, on the first anniversary of the coming into force of the Regulation on air passenger rights, the European Commission will meet with the National Enforcement Bodies to discuss implementation of this legislation in the Member States. The Regulation offers better protection to air passengers in case of denied boarding, cancellations and long delays.
“The protection of air passenger rights is to go hand in hand with increased mobility in Europe”, said Vice-President Jacques Barrot in charge of transport. “The National Enforcement Bodies have an important role to play to make sure that citizens can fully enjoy these rights”
Tomorrow’s meeting, the second since the entry into force of the Regulation, will enable National Enforcement Bodies to share experiences and to enhance coordination in order to ensure that passenger protection rules are applied all over Europe in a co-ordinated way. It will allow the Commission to get a better overview of problems encountered, and to propose improvements where necessary.
National Enforcement Bodies in the Member States are the first port of call for passengers who feel that their rights have not been respected. The Commission has already called upon the Member States to make sure that their National Enforcement Bodies come to a full dispute settlement between passengers and airlines. Avoiding long and costly legal proceedings for passengers is a key goal of the new rules. This implies that Enforcement Bodies have to be independent and have sufficient resources at their disposal. The Commission will address these issues again at tomorrow’s meeting.
Another point on the agenda will be the notion of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ which is often used by carriers when flights are disrupted. The existence of such circumstances can only be judged on a case by case basis by National Enforcement Bodies. While the right to a safe flight prevails in all circumstances, the notion of ‘extraordinary circumstances’ should not be used as a pretext for diminished consumer protection.
The Commission will this year prepare a full report for the European Parliament and the Council on the functioning of the Regulation, which could include proposals for complementary legislation if necessary. First indications have already shown that passengers have become more aware of this legislation and more assertive in claiming their rights, which is a positive effect of the new legislation.
One year of new Air Passenger Rights
21/12/2001 : The European Commission proposes the Regulation establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to air passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights (COM/2001/784). This Regulation repeals Regulation 295/91 establishing common rules for a denied-boarding compensation system in scheduled air transport.
18/12/2003: The European Parliament adopts with overwhelming majority (467 in favour, 4 against and 13 abstentions) the Commission’s proposal.
26/01/2004: The Council adopts the proposal (only UK and IRL vote against).
17/02/2004: Publication of the Regulation as Regulation [EC]261/2004.
24/09/2004: The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) and Hapag-Lloyd Express challenge the Regulation in the European Court of Justice.
16/12/2004: The Commission writes to all Member States requesting information on their progress in creating their National Enforcement Bodies and in incorporating sanction regimes in their national legislation. Both provisions need to be in place when the Regulation comes into force on 17/02/05.
26/01/2005: The Commission reminds Member States of its letter of 16/12/2004.
17/02/2005: Coming into force of the Regulation (IP/05/181).
09/03/2005 : The Commission writes to all Member States requesting the information notices for passengers of all air carriers under their licence (under the Regulation, airlines are obliged to inform their passengers of their rights).
19/05/2005: The Commission meets with the National Enforcement Bodies in Brussels as part of its monitoring activities to ensure proper implementation of the Regulation by the Member States.
06/07/2005: The Commission starts infringement procedures (letters of reasoned opinion) against Austria, Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta and Sweden for failure to incorporate sanction regimes in their national legislation. In the case of Luxemburg, also for failure to set up a National Enforcement Body (IP/05/858).
14/12/2005: The Commission refers Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden to the European Court of Justice and sends a letter of reasoned opinion to Slovakia for failure to incorporate sanction regimes in their national legislation (IP/05/1587).
10/01/2006: The European Court of Justice confirms validity of the Regulation in the case brought by IATA, ELFAA and Hapag-Lloyd Express (IP/06/12).
17/02/2006: First anniversary of the Regulation. The Commission invites the National Enforcement Bodies to Brussels for a second meeting on the implementation of the legislation.
1. Since 17 February 2005, Regulation [EC]261/2004 establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to air passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights has been in force in the EU. The legislation applies to all airlines leaving from the EU and to all airlines licensed by an EU Member State flying from outside the EU to the EU. It covers scheduled and domestic flights as well as charters.
2. The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the European Low Fares Airline Association (ELFAA) and Hapag-Lloyd Express challenged the Regulation before the European Court of Justice. On 10/01/2006 the Court confirmed the validity of the Regulation (IP/06/12).
3. Airlines are obliged to inform their passengers of their rights under this Regulation, which could include financial compensation, reimbursement or re-routing, meals and hotels as well as general assistance (see overview table attached to IP/05/181). Airlines are not obliged to pay compensation if they can prove that the cancellation is caused by extraordinary circumstances which could not have been avoided even if all reasonable measures had been taken (e.g. political instability, meteorological conditions, security risks, unexpected flight safety shortcomings, wild cat strikes) – safety remains the most important right of each passenger ! In these cases, the burden of proof lies with the airline, and passengers still have the right to information, assistance and re-routing.
4. National Enforcement Bodies in the Member States are the first port of call for passengers who feel that their rights have not been respected. Sanctions are to be imposed by Member States on airlines in breach of the Regulation. The Commission has no competence to intervene directly in disputes between citizens and private companies, but monitors airlines’ and Member States’ obligations towards passengers. The Commission will not refrain from using the legal instruments at its disposal to have them comply with the Regulation.
5. The Commission has called upon the Member States to make sure that their National Enforcement Bodies assume their role as described in article 16 of the Regulation and come to a full dispute settlement between passengers and airlines, since this can avoid long and costly legal proceedings. This implies that they have to be independent and have sufficient resources at their disposal. The Commission has already urged Member States to address these issues and this will be one of the points on the agenda of the second meeting with the National Enforcement Bodies which the Commission has called for 17/02/2006.
6. The Regulation was published one year before it came into force on 17/02/05) (so now two years ago) , which gave airlines and Member States the time to prepare and to put in place all necessary provisions. It is therefore unacceptable that some airlines and certain Member States fail to comply with these rules. The Commission will continue to remind Member States of their obligations under this Regulation and to make use of its legal instruments when necessary. This has already resulted in each Member State now having an Enforcement Body. Other procedures have been launched with regard to incorporation of sanctions into national legislation.
7. Although the National Enforcement Bodies are the first port of call for passengers who feel their rights have not been respected, the Commission receives every month about 500 direct complaints from passengers. These direct complaints show the following trends:
a) Passengers seem to be more aware of their rights:
In 2005, the Commission was contacted directly by passengers roughly 4 times more than in 2004. In addition, Europe Direct (the EU’s contact point for the public at large through email or a single free telephone number) received around 13.000 questions on these air passengers rights during 2005!
b) The legislation adopted in 1991 (Regulation 295/91), which covered denied boarding only, seems to have a dissuasive impact: In 2005, less than 10 % of passengers who contacted the Commission directly did so on denied boarding, against around 60% on cancellations and delays.
c) The remaining 30% concerns complaints about the National Enforcement Bodies, baggage handling, service by airlines and other issues.
8. The Commission will report to the European Parliament and the Council on
the functioning of the Regulation by 1 January 2007 and will propose, if
necessary, new legislative initiatives.
More information can be found at the following Website: | <urn:uuid:cb11b570-161c-4d36-b71f-a52574cdc8eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-06-177_bg.htm?locale=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946595 | 1,912 | 1.703125 | 2 |
I’m back for another edition of Friday Round-Up. Sorry for the brief hiatus; we were in full swing conference mode with the World Social Marketing Conference.
- Using Social Media to Save Women’s Lives. I love that these stories are increasingly being told. The Women’s Refugee Commission launched Mama: Together for Safe Births in Crises. To help health care professionals providing maternal health are in remote, unstable areas of the world, the program uses social media through a Facebook page and SMS program to connect these health care providers with resources and a community to help find solutions and save lives. Take a read through the actual post, the intricacies of the program are quite interesting.
- Lies, Damn Lies, and Pharma Social Media Statistics. In what has to be my favorite read this week, Jonathan Richman calls on all of us to look further into research, especially as it related to health and social media, before we tweet, message, blog, etc. I took his message to heart; this morning when reading a story that was reporting on the opinion of American parents, turns out the survey was completed by quite a small number of parents to have them represent all of the parents in America. So before you click the retweet button, take a further look at the information you’re sharing. PS. Make sure you read Richman’s post to the end, he teases some data from Pew’s The Social Life of Health Information, which I can’t wait to read through when it’s released later this month. [via Susannah Fox]
- From Smartphones to a Smarter World: The Impact of Mobile Tech. Raymond Schillinger provides a great write-up of the MobileCitizen Summit this past weekend in DC. The conference is more evidence of what is becoming increasingly clear: mobile is the platform of now it’s just a matter of getting everyone on board. [via Alexandra Bornkessel]
- CDC Flu App Challenge. Speaking of the increasing power of mobile, CDC has put out a challenge to find innovative uses of technology (mobile, web, etc.) for raising awareness of influenza and/or educate consumers on ways to prevent and treat the flu. The best part: there’s $35,000 up for grabs. [via CDC eHealth]
What have you been reading? Leave a note below or let me know on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:ac569377-8afb-4e70-b012-e856b13e2857> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://smexchange.ogilvypr.com/2011/04/friday-round-up-what-i%E2%80%99ve-been-reading/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931226 | 498 | 1.539063 | 2 |
North Korea's nuclear programme
Show us the money
After a brief period of amiability, North Korea spits out the dummy, throws a tantrum and toddles off
“A HEADACHE and a hard-to-understand group.” Thus South Korea's foreign minister, Song Min-soon, this week, on the topic of North Korea's delegation to six-country talks that resumed in Beijing on March 19th. Nothing new there, and his frustration was shared by officials from America, China, Japan and Russia, the other countries trying to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons programme. After signing a breakthrough agreement last month, the North Koreans are stalling again.
Meeting in Beijing for the first time since the agreement was signed on February 13th, the same officials started off in upbeat mood. America had just announced that one of the biggest obstacles to progress had been removed. It had agreed that $25m held at a bank in Macau, Banco Delta Asia, could be transferred to a North Korean account at the Bank of China. The funds had been frozen in 2005 because of American accusations that they were linked to illicit dealings. Now, the Americans said, North Korea had agreed to use them for humanitarian and educational purposes.
After last month's breakthrough, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, visited North Korea. He was the first official from the UN's nuclear watchdog to do so since North Korea expelled IAEA inspectors in 2003. In addition, North Korea's humourless chief negotiator in the Beijing talks, Kim Kye Gwan, had been given a hero's welcome in New York by serving and former American officials.
A rare reminder of the bad old days had been a meeting in Hanoi between North Korean and Japanese officials to discuss the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea in the 1970s and 80s. North Korea walked out of the talks, accusing the Japanese of insincerity. But optimists consoled themselves that at least the talks—the first between the two countries in a year—had begun. And, they recalled, negotiations over the abductions, a big political issue in Japan, have been even harder-going than the nuclear talks.
However, America's man at the talks, Christopher Hill, is beyond optimism. “If something can go wrong,” he said this week, “it often does go wrong.” By then North Korea was sulking again. The money from Banco Delta Asia had yet to be credited to its account. Chinese and American officials tried to persuade Mr Kim that this was merely a bureaucratic hitch and that he should get on with discussions about the nuclear problem. But Mr Kim refused to join the six-party talks until the money arrived. On March 22nd the North Korean delegation went home. The other parties hoped to reconvene when North Korea had calmed down.
The tiff was about a lot more than $25m. The North Koreans are sure to be angry that a senior American Treasury official, announcing the end of an investigation into the Macau bank, accused it of turning a “blind eye” to illicit activity by North Korean-related clients. American financial institutions were barred from dealing with the bank, which has collapsed as a result of the investigation. American sanctions against the bank will continue to scare other banks around the world away from doing business with North Korea.
This might deter North Korea from fulfilling its promises: to “shut down and seal” its nuclear facilities at Yongbyon; to invite IAEA inspectors to verify this by April 14th; and by the same date to produce a list of all its nuclear projects. But there are other reasons for compliance. As a member of Japan's delegation notes, after floods last year and severe cutbacks in food aid from the country's two biggest donors, China and South Korea, North Korea's perennial food shortages have been worsening in the past few months. This, he says, is making North Korea “desperate”. South Korea suspended its humanitarian aid in response to missile tests by North Korea last July. Despite an offer this week to restart shipments of fertiliser to the North this month, Seoul has indicated that aid will not be fully resumed without progress on the nuclear issue.
But North Korea has toughed out hard times before. Jean-Pierre de Margerie, the head of the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) in Pyongyang, says that “food crises” could emerge in parts of the country this year, particularly in the north-east where some 15% of the population live. However, he says the country is still “pretty far away” from the famine of the mid-1990s that killed hundreds of thousands of people. North Korea has shown no sign of eagerness for the WFP to expand its activities, which it was forced to curtail massively after North Korea announced in 2005 that it no longer needed international food aid. The WFP is now denied access to the hunger-stricken north-east.
Even if North Korea gets its frozen funds back soon, there are still plenty more hurdles on the way to fulfilling the first part of the February 13th accord—the sealing of the Yongbyon facilities—let alone the rest of the agreement, which calls for the complete “disablement” of all nuclear projects. The Americans say North Korea must account for the alleged uranium-enrichment programme that led to the current crisis. North Korea still denies it has one.
Honest accounting is hardly North Korea's strongpoint. This month the UN Development Programme suspended its operations in North Korea following allegations that North Korea was misusing funds provided by the agency. But it will also be difficult to prove that North Korea is definitely lying about the uranium. As a Japanese official says, “we can't prove it with PowerPoints”. Especially not, he might have added, to an empty chair. | <urn:uuid:cf25626b-7d1f-494e-9e31-9b794467f353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.economist.com/node/8895248 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971507 | 1,225 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It can be tricky to find that place of balance in life. Juggling work, family, community and personal needs isn’t easy, but I believe it is part of what makes life joyful and meaningful. I’ve certainly had my fair share of days when hours spent on the phone or behind the computer whizz by and I emerge from my home office to discover that somehow the sun has set and I forgot to have lunch again.
One important activity for me is yoga. It’s a great practice that brings mind, body and soul together in harmony. But I like to do hot yoga, which is essentially yoga done in a studio that’s about 120 degrees Fahrenheit and with a lot of humidity. So… it’s really hot! And sweaty (but I like to think of it as a good, clean sweat!)
As I balanced, stretched and roasted in my class, I came to see how many important principles I had the opportunity to practice in the yoga studio that apply to my life. Here are some hot yoga-inspired life tips that will help keep you flexible, connected and in the flow!
1. Keep A Soft Focus on Your Goal
An important part of keeping your balance in a yoga posture is picking a spot to look at and keeping your attention there while you move through the pose. This practice of controlling and directing your focus is called…drishti. The gaze you use is more of a soft focus, rather than staring intensely at the selected point. This way you stay anchored through the pose, and learn to tune out the distractions around you.
So, what are your goals – in your career, your family, your relationships, your health? Are you always staying present to your goals? Can you practice drishti to keep your focus and attention on your big goal and let the many distractions and information overload of the world around us simply fall away?
2. Look at Others to Learn, not to Compare
I sometimes like to take a silent class, so it’s important I look up at the instructor or my fellow students now and again to see what pose we are moving into next. I look at others to learn, but then I have to take that information and apply it in my own practice.
When I look to others to compare myself, that’s when I get wobbly. When my ego shows up to see whose leg is straighter or whose Falling Tree pose is more horizontal, my ability to stay in the pose suffers.
Let’s cut out the comparison racket. Self-mastery and doing our best on our own terms is what counts. To keep your balance and your momentum, focus your energy on your unique brilliance and gifts. Don’t lose precious energy and time by endlessly comparing yourself to others.
3. Keep Breathing
One of the best things about yoga class is the awareness you develop about your own breath. Particularly during the challenging poses, the instructor will remind us to keep breathing, deeply and regularly. It seems a simple enough act to do, but I am always amazed at how many times the instructor has made that invitation at the exact moment that I seem to have started holding my breath!
When the heat starts to get turned up in your life, are you remembering to breathe? Whenever I need a moment to regroup, I’ll take a few minutes to breathe deeply and allow my mind to become still. Deep, belly breathing is key to managing stress and bringing you back to center.
Success Strategist, coach and best-selling author, Carolyn B. Ellis, is the founder of ThrivePrinciples.com, empowering you to thrive no matter what your outside circumstances are. To get free tips on turning adversity into opportunity in order to improve your relationships, increase your self-confidence and reach your highest potential, visit www.ThrivePrinciples.com | <urn:uuid:62da1976-2dec-4a4e-a75e-8ee25c0033f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/life-balance-tips-from-a-yoga-class | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960177 | 797 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Tap water on the inpatient units of 5 East, 5 West, 5 North, and 6 North of Roswell Park Cancer Institute – as well as the ice from the machines on those units passes through a special filtration system to remove any bacteria or viruses from the water and is safe for you to consume while you are an inpatient.
Bottled Water can be safe if you choose a brand that has been treated with distillation, reverse osmosis or has been treated using an “Absolute” one-micrometer filter, which would reliably remove potentially harmful bacteria and viruses. With this criteria in mind, the following list of bottled waters are considered to be safe for you to drink:
- Acadia® (Purified drinking water or pure steam distilled water)
- Dannon® Natural Spring Water
- Deer Park®
- Great Bear®
- Ice Mountain®
- Poland Spring®
- Wegmans/Mayer Brothers®
Click here for updates on Boil Water Advisories for Erie County. | <urn:uuid:786f5691-8ce8-45e3-b72c-e62490093305> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.roswellpark.org/print/1356 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933993 | 213 | 1.8125 | 2 |
(Note: The current edit of this post fixes some of these issues.)
Clarity of objectives
It's unclear, exactly, what you want people to critique; the way the post is written implies that there will be text other than the question and the question's title, and that this text is what you want people to critique. The body of your question is laying the groundwork for why you're seeking a critique and the sorts of problems you're looking at - all this is good information - but there's an implication that the question is just background.
I'm harping on this point because it illustrates point of writing that far too many people ignore: Know your audience. On this site, people generally post a critique question with a specific question (in this case, is your text comprehensible), and format the post so there's either specific text they want a critique on, or a link to that text. A few minutes' research could have saved us this confusion. (But perhaps this is a lesson you needed to learn?)
Your original post was all one paragraph; the edit that John performed helped split the text up into three paragraphs, which helps readability. (Edit: Using a double return will give one paragraphs with white space in between them.)
Spending a little more time on organization (outlining what you meant to write, and in what order you will present the issues) will only help you do this upfront.
Organization is particularly important in academic writing.
Even if it does ramble a little, your writing is clear. However, there's a certain style in academic writing that you may want to learn to emulate; stylistic departures are not well tolerated in academic writing.
I suggest reading documents similar to the ones you'll be generating - journal articles, dissertations - to learn about this. Your advisor may be able to suggest a few for you to read. (Remember, the best kind of writing for you to produce is what your advisor thinks is good.)
Strunk and White is a good guide to simple, clear style. It's a short book, and well worth reading.
The Chicago Manual of Style is a large tome that very few people read cover to cover. Perhaps your advisor means for you to use it as a reference; it's a good one. | <urn:uuid:d40060a3-6bd0-4d25-9818-30517857e11d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/6278/is-the-following-piece-of-text-comprehensible-and-written-in-good-style/6280 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964188 | 471 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The academies would give people the confidence to intervene as figures suggested Britons were reluctant to become “have-a-go heroes” with the number of citizen’s arrests in the Metropolitan Police area halving in three years, the Policy Exchange said.
But rank-and-file officers warned there was a “fine line between encouraging involvement and advocating intervention”, saying that warranted officers “should remain the protective layer between citizens and danger”.
Paul McKeever, chairman of the Police Federation, said: “We have grave concerns about encouraging members of the public to take personal risks in circumstances where they may not have the support they need.”
A poll of almost 1,800 people found just one in four would intervene if a group of teenagers were drinking on a street near their home and verbally abusing passers-by.
And the number of citizen’s arrests in Britain’s biggest force area fell from 3,755 in 2009/10 to 1,816 in 2011/12.
But during last summer's riots "the public clearly showed their support for the many citizens who intervened to protect their communities, streets and places of worship", the report said.
Training members of the public in “how and when to intervene” in crime and anti-social behaviour and carrying out citizen’s arrests could be used “as a means through which to reduce police demand” at a time when force budgets are stretched, it added.
The academies could also help educate the public, offering the chance to ride along with response officers, spend a shift with officers and an insight into how criminal investigations work.
The report comes after Home Secretary Theresa May said "we need to generate an environment in which people are able to have the confidence to intervene".
Javed Khan, chief executive of Victim Support, said members of the public should never be seen as a replacement for community police officers.
But he added that giving people the confidence and skills to intervene if witnessing a crime was sensible. | <urn:uuid:4c9f35c7-24a3-469d-af91-cd4a456a251d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9737636/Police-academies-should-train-new-have-a-go-heroes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973464 | 419 | 1.828125 | 2 |
A Saudi-sponsored conference that will bring together Israeli and US rabbis with clerics from the strict Wahhabi sect of Islam — as well as global religious leaders of nearly every persuasion — is either a rare opportunity for dialogue or a cynical publicity stunt.
It all depends on who you ask.
And like any confab that includes Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and representatives of several other religions — there is no shortage of opinion.
The conference that opened in Madrid yesterday is the brainchild of Saudi King Abdullah, who has cast it as a way to ease tensions between Islam, Christianity and Judaism — part of an effort to reposition oil-rich Saudi Arabia as a force for moderation in the region.
“To have a dialogue, just to start talking to each other, is an accomplishment in itself,” said Saudi Ambassador to Spain Saud Bin Naif Bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud. “At this point in time the whole world needs to start talking to each other. This is what we hope we can achieve.”
Saudi Arabia has presented the conference as a strictly religious initiative. But it also has political implications, coming from a country that does not have diplomatic ties with Israel.
Abdullah has made headlines recently by reaching out to leaders of other faiths. In November, he met with Pope Benedict XVI, the first meeting ever between a pope and a reigning Saudi king.
At a gathering of Muslim scholars and clerics in Mecca last month, Abdullah said that Muslims must turn away from the dangers of extremism and present Islam’s “good message” to the world.
His efforts have generally been welcomed in Israel and by the Jewish community, as well as in the Arab world.
“The conference provides a rare opportunity for strengthening mutual respect between the followers of the three main religions,” said Monsignor Nabil Haddad, head of the Melkite Catholic community in Jordan and a participant at the conference.
Still, detractors say the Saudis are the last people who should be hosting a conference on religious tolerance. Wahhabism — the strain of Sunni Islam that is practiced in Saudi Arabia — is considered one of the religion’s most conservative and Saudi Arabia has sometimes strained ties with Islam’s other major branch, Shiism. Only one delegate from predominantly Shiite Iran was invited, and it was not clear whether he would attend.
Observers say the conference is being held in Spain in part because it would be politically unpalatable for Abdullah — the titular guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites — to allow Jewish and Christian leaders into the kingdom itself, a difficult starting point for religious harmony.
One of the conference’s biggest names is David Rosen, a prominent Israeli rabbi. The inclusion of an Israeli in a Saudi-sponsored gathering is big news, but Rosen is not listed as being from the Jewish state in the conference literature. He has dual citizenship, and is described as an American.
“Practically speaking, he is being invited as a foreigner and not as an Israeli,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said in dismissing the conference. “If they really wanted to make this significant, they should have invited real Israeli rabbis.”
Others in the Jewish state were even harsher. Mina Fenton, a spokeswoman at Jerusalem City Hall and member of Israel’s hawkish National Religious Party, said she doubted the Saudis’ motives. | <urn:uuid:11ad7c9f-db55-4cc5-bf97-6cc84f4ca5b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2008/07/17/2003417691/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963366 | 711 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The journey begins with speaking to the subconscious. Channel the energy and focus that you already have within. There are many things in life you can’t control. One thing you can control is what you choose to put into your mind, and what you choose to do with your brain, your most powerful organ.
Poor physical health often results from a lifetime of bad habits. Poor food choices, unhealthy preparation of food, lack of exercise and laziness are just a few bad habits that can lead to health problems. At any time you can choose to change these habits, but only after you take charge of your mind and give direction to your thoughts.
To tap into the healing power of mind means learning to practice visualization, because the
focuses on and responds to images. Visualization is really a form of
Begin by quieting your mind, and remember that the thoughts you are having have all been put in your mind by you. That means it is up to you to replace unhealthy, damaging thoughts.
Fill your mind and subconscious with positive pictures, pictures of health and abundance. Breathe rhythmically and focus.
This often quiets the mind and may result in relaxation and healing.
The mind is filled with images that you have put there. They may be images of loss and disappointment, sickness or fatigue, or they can be images of health, wellness and winning. The important thing to remember is that every thought that has reached your consciousness has come about because you have allowed it. If you want to change your life, begin with changing your thoughts.
The healing power of mind begins with respecting just how powerful the mind really is. You become what you think. Therefore if you are dwelling on bad times and loss, you are becoming a habitual loser. If you are dwelling on aches and pains, you are becoming sicker every day. Your mind has to be directed, like a naughty child, away from what you don’t want it to manifest.
Every thought and word that you think or say is a declaration of your reality. Your subconscious mind is paying attention, even when you aren’t. Many people have risen above extreme pain and illness just by taking charge of their mind. People are sometimes told there is no chance they will ever walk again, and they do. Others are told they can’t win an athletic competition so why bother competing – and they win. Many are told they have a terminal illness – and they recover. Coming out on top and defeating the odds begins with deciding that’s what you are going to do. It has everything to do with being in charge of your own mind. | <urn:uuid:5355c2a8-95a7-4e8e-8edf-d5995d43e700> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.selfesteem2go.com/the-healing-power-of-mind.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974444 | 539 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I was discussing one of the posts from Rachel Held Evans's Week of Mutuality series with some friends on Twitter yesterday, when someone mentioned that the debate surrounding gender and the church isn't one that we hear a lot about in the UK. If you look at it in terms of the way the issue is discussed in the USA, this is certainly true. As another friend on Twitter, one from America, once said to me, "Over here, the evangelical voice is king." And when she said "evangelical", she meant it in the American sense - that of the Christian Right. It's the culture that I'm currently seeing a lot of younger bloggers reject as they explore whether it's possible to form Christian communities and "do church" in a different way. Evangelical yet more accepting, more open to questioning, more open to people who don't "fit the mold". More accepting of science, more accepting of women in leadership, less centred on condemnation and less intertwined with right-wing politics.
To the majority of people in the UK, you mention "women and the church" and they'll think of the current debates about women bishops. Others will think back 20 years, to the debates about women being ordained. For a lot of people, the idea of churches where a woman can't even read aloud from the Bible, or where a woman working outside the home would be an abomination, is quite odd. The church telling husbands and wives what they should and shouldn't do at home would be weird. A couple of years ago, the fact that a Church of England curate gave a Valentine's Day sermon urging women to "remain silent" and "submit" caused such outrage that it became a national news story (sorry - it's a Daily Mail link). Of course, if you read the comments, you'll see the nation's supporters of male headship coming out of the woodwork, but as a rule, it's not something that a lot of people see as a Big Deal.
1. It may not be a Big Deal for the UK church, but what about our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Unfortunately, not everyone is happy for things to stay that way. By and large, parachurch organisations and ecumenical bodies in the UK have a reasonably positive attitude - on paper - towards women and what they are "permitted" to do. But in recent years, groups and individuals with a more conservative and restrictive viewpoint have been aiming to exert more influence - in universities, through books, through insisting women are excluded to accommodate them, through having a personality that appeals to a certain type of Christian (Mark Driscoll; young men - I'm looking at you). As the church realises the amazing impact that raising up women and encouraging them to serve in whatever ways they are truly gifted to do can have, they wish instead for the tide to turn. People do leave churches because they refuse to call a woman "Pastor". They do walk out of services because they won't take communion from a woman. Teenage girls do attend seminars at summer camps and get told that any ambition to "lead" means they have "Jezebel spirits". Women do leave the church because of what they've been told about their gender. It's not just America's problem.
I believe that much of what is taught in the name of "distinct roles" is nothing more than 20th century gender stereotyping at best (and incredibly, some prominent theologians happily admit this, saying it's necessary to instruct people how to "fit in" with society's expectations of their gender), highly damaging and potentially abusive patriarchy at worst. In terms of theology, it's often a case of desperately clutching at straws (check out Rachel's posts from good analysis of the theological issues at stake). You might think that's me being overly dramatic, and I'm not suggesting for one moment that I think the "Biblical Patriarchy" movement could make significant inroads in the UK (it couldn't - I don't think even the most earnest British Christian could cope with the realities of Vision Forum), but just because it's not happening here doesn't mean it shouldn't matter to us, as part of the Body of Christ. Some of the posts written as part of Mutuality2012 make that abundantly clear when they describe the way their authors have been treated and made to feel in the name of a "plain reading of scripture".
2. On paper, we're there (depending on the denomination). In reality...
I mentioned above that "on paper", things look pretty good for women in the UK church. This gets to make people feel quite good about the situation. We're really positive about equality! We have a woman speaker sometimes! Women are the backbone of the church! You know how it goes. But if having a woman speaker sometimes, or admitting that women do all the support work behind the scenes and always serve the refreshments and always look after the children allows people to sit back and wash their hands of the whole issue of gender and the church, that's not good enough. We have to support those women who want to lead churches. We have to praise those women who want to head up organisations. We have to affirm those women who don't want to stay in the background but stand at the front with pride.
And this won't happen simply through praise and affirmation. It's got to happen through good employment practices like encouraging and supporting women who are mothers and want to work in full-time ministry, or not requiring that clergy wives forego a career. We need to talk about the women of the Bible and their stories on a Sunday, in the main service - not just as a part of women's Bible studies or women's retreat days. Churches should be discouraging sexist attitudes and showing that men and women can be a lot of different things, outside of stereotypes and expectations. They should be doing more to support single women and divorced women and childfree women and women who are survivors. It's not about "political correctness" as some would probably claim - there's nothing suspect about making "equality" a priority. It's not some woolly liberal concept to be treated with suspicion and laughed off as nothing to get too involved in or too serious about; it is, in fact, Biblical.
3. When people care, great things happen.
I'm thinking of the important work done by the Sophia Network and Women and the Church. By Soul Survivor's Equal conferences. By organisations like Restored, fighting gender inequality and violence against women. By all the people who have ever helped a woman see that she is not limited by her gender but free to make waves. It's our duty to educate ourselves and set an example for others. It's as simple as that. | <urn:uuid:b3b03e68-3025-497c-a13f-0a4a0bbff6d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ontoberlin.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/why-should-uk-christians-care-about.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976078 | 1,380 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Originally Posted by Auryn
it would appear that my first attempt is going to be a 2 year game of waiting.
I live in south florida, and even with the AC on 70o- the average ambient temperature in the house is somewhere between 70-75o.
At least until november- in the winter it will get down in the 50s for a couple of months if we are lucky this year.
I want to try again- this time small batches.
Anyone have a recipe and yeast recommendation for my current temperatures?
I would like a sweet still mead, not too particular on alcohol content.
The trick isn't to make a batch with a gravity that reflects a certain %ABV, or even trying to create X amount of residual sugars.
Both those methods are actually, surprisingly difficult.
It's easiest (IMO) to just make a batch, using easily available ingredients, but also ingredients that will work well given the environment that the ferment is likely to be in.
So, given your location, the honey is your choice of variety, the water - well it would appear that it's best if it's "soft" water. Hard water, with higher levels of calcium and magnesium salts often can produce meads with flavour issues i.e. it can be harsh tasting (sorry, "harsh" isn't really a good descriptive). Those who go on about using bottled or "spring" water think of it as a "magic bullet". I say bollocks, because it still depends on where it was bottled or what kind of strata the spring runs through. It's considerably easier to use RO/reverse osmosis or distilled water. Then rather than hoping that the yeast will respond to the tiny, almost imperceptible amount of trace elements in the water some way, is better and more manageable/controllable if it's added i.e. use both a combined nutrient, but also fortify it with additional nitrogen - a combo often mentioned is FermaidK and DAP (di-ammonium phosphate). There's various recommendations as to quantity of both.
More importantly, your choice of yeast. Because some yeasts just don't like too much warmth, some will still work but produce fusels and/or off flavours etc etc.
I would suggest something like K1V-1116, because it's a very capable yeast, with low nutrient requirements, a very wide temperature range, is known to produce good results, easily available, etc etc.
A lot of people mention D47, which does make good batches, but it has a very narrow temperature range, which, if exceeded, will produce a lot of fusels, which can take a mega long time to age/mellow, if at all.
K1V has a temperature range of 10C to 35C (50 to 95F), so should work fine in the AC level you mention (some say it's better to keep to the lower end if possible, but I suspect it will do fine at about 70F/21C.
For a straight traditional, there's no real recipe. Just use enough honey to make a must that will give you a gravity reading of about 1.100 to 1.110 (yes you'll need a hydrometer if you haven't already got one). About 3 to 3.5lb of honey watered down to a gallon (or multiples thereof). Those gravity numbers will give between about 13.5 to just under 15% ABV if fermented to 1.000
Now as for wanting a sweet mead, you do the ferment in the "normal" way, let it finish, then it can be racked off the main sediment (a.k.a. gross lees), then stabilised with sulphite and sorbate (as per the pack instructions) and then you can use small amounts of honey (I like to make a 50/50 honey water syrup - it mixes in very easily so you don't need to stir the hell out of the batch), each time a small amount is added and stirred in, you take a gravity reading and then a small taste, repeating the process as necessary to achieve the level of sweetness you like.
When the batch is initially off the sediment, it may indeed taste hideous. That's not unusual for young meads. The additional sugars in the honey used for back sweetening will help mask that.
Equally, if you back sweetened to a level you like, but then allow the batch to finish clearing and age it, only to find that it's recovered some of the honey characteristics lost during the ferment, and seems even sweeter than you remember, you can add some acid. I found that the recommendation from Ashton & Duncans now out of print book "Making Mead", which is a mix of 2 parts malic to 1 part tartaric. Again, add little bits at a time, tasting after each addition, so as not to over do it.
I'm only alluding to a basic traditional type, because there's a plethora of methods to use fruit, as well as all the different types of fruit you could use, some work better than others, but as the fruit we enjoy is relative to our personal preference, it would be foolish for me to say X is good, because you might not be able to get it, or you don't like it....... | <urn:uuid:a904a6cf-b329-40ef-83ce-30b8b76ba14c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/warm-temperature-sweet-recipe-348460/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962806 | 1,110 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Traveling on the road and finding certain places has become easier with the new GPS systems. There are many places that a person may have wanted to go to but is not able to find it without asking a lot of people on the way which is such a hassle. Different systèmes GPS can be installed in a car. It may be the perfect gift for parents who always lose their way to your house. It can also be given to a loved one who is just starting to know the streets or needs to go to different places because of work. It will help them find their way easily and conveniently.
Archive for March, 2011
The right accessories can either enhance or kill a look specially for special occasions when jewelry gets bigger and other accessories like bag and footwear become smaller. Although most women would want to add glitz in their outfit, it is best to find earrings, a necklace and a bracelet that compliment each other without being a matching set. Ketchikan jewelry offers a great selection of fine jewelry that indeed add a special dazzle to a woman’s wardrobe.
The food pyramid is recommended by nutritionists as the foundation of good eating and shows how much of each type of food we should eat to stay healthy. While eating healthy foods benefits people, not everyone’s nutritional needs are identical. As we age, our bodies and metabolism change. A good addition to the food pyramid is vitamin and mineral supplements that can help provide more of the lacking nutrients in our body.
One risk that physically active people and also older people face is joint pains. As the intensity of sport and exercise have increased, more people are finding the benefits of Isotonix Prime Joint Formula as a great defense. Stress fractures, kneecap pain and foot problems that are common to most athletes are being prevented. Market America’s Isotonix is the world’s most advanced nutraceuticals. These supplements are delivered in an isotonic solution which allows the body to obtain maximum absorption of nutrients naturally.
Isotonix OPC-3 supplement provides exceptional nutrients and a powerful antioxidant as it neutralizes free radicals that can be harmful for the human body. Antioxidants help protect against cellular damage to give you younger-looking skin, and prevent the risk of heart disease and cancer.
As the body ages, it becomes less able to absorb vitamin B12 and must undergo chemical changes in order to be used by the body. Activated B-Complex makes the perfect nutritional partner for optimal essential B-vitamins source. This is essential for people at the onset of aging helping them keep an active mind and remain in peak physical and mental health.
Keeping a healthy lifestyle is what most of us would like to do. Unfortunately, the way things are going today, keeping a healthy diet is not as easy especially when we’re used to so many things that is easily accessible. We go to work everyday and encounter fast food and burger joints. On busy days, we just go to a fast food chain and order our favorite meal. It’s easy, fast and delicious but it is not necessarily healthy in the long run.
When we’re so used to what we eat everyday, it becomes harder to start a new diet. We can always visit a doctor for the right diet and exercise but it is still up to us if we follow it or not. It is all up to how much self-control we are going to exercise. With the right motivation, we might be able to follow the right diet program to keep us fit and healthy. For those of us who are not able to follow a diet program, we may try vitamins and supplements to get the necessary nutrients that are lacking in the food we take. It will help in achieving a bit of that balanced diet but it is still better to consult a doctor on what to take and what other options we have in achieving the proper diet.
As summer approaches, our skin faces more challenges because of the increased levels of UV light and pollution. Many people know the benefit of slathering on an SPF moisturizer before going outdoors as it protects the skin from harmful elements like sun damage. On the other hand, you can maximize your skin care technique by being defensive against the sun. Sunscreen helps prevent wrinkles and blotches and even protect the skin from cancer and other skin diseases.
Summer is the best time to start using travel size sunblock because it is during this time that skin is exposed to intense heat. Skin deteriorates during this season because it lacks hydration and suffers under the harmful UVA and UVB rays of the sun. There are specialty sunscreens formulated for kids that are gentle and best for active kids whether they are heading for the beach or pool, day camps, school, or a family outdoor activity. Hypoallergenic sunscreens are best for people with sensitive skin preventing rashes or break outs that occur in other regular sunscreens. For people who are always on the go, there are natural sunscreen face stick that are so convenient as it comes in easy to use stick dispenser. There is always hope for our skin to be in its optimal condition. With the perfect summer skin care system, you are indeed on your way to making yourself enjoy and glow in the sun.
Treatment of physical injuries like anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) may or may not involve surgery, depending on its severity. The proper treatment can be discussed with the health care provider. Whether a patient may or may not need a surgery, the pain and swelling can be reduced with proper rest, elevation, and through cryotherapy or ice therapy. There are devices used for this procedure that can help the patient reduce stress on the affected area, helping it to heal. However, without proper knowledge and procedure given to the patient on using the device, this could actually result in damaging nerves of the affected area. A cold therapy lawsuit can help the patient claim the necessary actions that he can do for his benefit. Patients who suffer from injuries related to using this devices can take legal counsel from O’Hanlon, McCollom & Demerath – Personal Injury Lawyers – 808 West Avenue, Austin, TX. 78701 – 512-494-9949
The kitchen, bathroom and toilet all have faucets. It’s something that is always used for cleaning and sanitizing. The faucet has gone through different changes and have different designs for easier use. It also has better quality and can make the bathroom or toilet sink look better. Kohler faucets can be a better change in the bathroom or kitchen. It can make the use of the faucet more comfortable aside from contributing to the design of the whole room.
The business attire for men usually include the tie. It’s one accessory that is designed for men. It is used for formal occasions that may also require a coat. The ties for men have different colors and designs to make the whole outfit more presentable or to add a little color to it. There are silk ties that are more comfortable and even kids ties for events where little boys are also invited.
We never really know what could happen in the future. The only thing we could do is to try to be ready with what may happen and keep some savings for ourselves. Another thing is insurance which is also what social security does. The problem is when something happens, it’s not easy to claim insurance or benefits especially if an accident has caused immobility for some time. In these cases representation would be helpful in claiming social security disability benefits. With people who know the process, it would be easy to get the benefits needed instead of waiting in line with a broken ankle or some other kind of disability. | <urn:uuid:d569da58-9520-4721-8be1-a927c5ba9644> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ateneodelajuventud.com/2011/03/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954273 | 1,579 | 1.546875 | 2 |
His name appears in almost every book written about Groucho Marx, so much so, he has been given the appropriate appellation by members of the Marx family: Wesso. But Paul Wesolowski is of no relation to the famous clan. He’s a man in his 40s who lives outside Philadelphia and, several times a month, works with children who suffer from emotional problems as the result of abuse or neglect--hardly the stuff of which laughter is made. He knows Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo only from a black-and-white distance--from th... More >>>
The tragic clown: Several new books about Groucho Marx tell a familiar story about the man and his cigar. | <urn:uuid:3da0f7a9-4555-4aeb-8f2f-47300955969b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.westword.com/photoGallery/index/214523/0/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957948 | 152 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Oh, we long for the days before products liability suits took away our lawn darts and all the rest of our fun. Professor Bill Childs, professor at Western New England School of Law and author of TortsProf Blog, has this post, about receiving as a gift from a student a “Golfing Gizmo.”
[It's a] device from the 1960s and 1970s that is the subject of the Hauter v. Zogarts case (534 P.2d 377 (Cal. 1975)) in David Owen et al.’s Products Liability and Safety casebook and possibly others. And they even found the same model and manual as is in the case, including the almost-blank-verse notation on the front: “COMPLETELY SAFE BALL WILL NOT HIT THE PLAYER.”
The device was such that you drove a golf ball attached to a cord, which of course made the golf ball come back at you. If it came back to the left, you had a slice; to the right, you had a hook. If your shot was perfect, you got zinged in the head and won a lawsuit. Perfectly safe. The Golfing Gizmo in All Its Glory [TortsProf Blog]
Apparently the one guy that counts was satisfied with Alberto Gonzales’ testimony before Congress last week. From the New York Times:
President Bush said Monday that the Congressional testimony of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales last week, roundly panned by members of both parties, had “increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.”
Speaking during a short question-and-answer session in the Oval Office, Mr. Bush said of Mr. Gonzales’s performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, “The attorney general went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer.”
Really, Prez? Because what we saw in the hearings was someone who either has the memory of a raisin or is a liar on the scale of James Frey. Either way, these are not characteristics of the ideal head of the Department of Justice.
Is the President showing the same kind of support that he showed for Donald Rumsfeld right before he was sent packing? There are some important differences, of course, in the two cases. Rumsfeld’s performance was directly related to the war in Iraq, which many perceived to be the driving issue in the November election that handed Congress to the Democrats; Gonzales, on the other hand, seems to mostly have a terrible memory and bad sense of PR when it comes to handling a situation in which many feel that nothing wrong was actually done. Also, and perhaps more importantly, there is now not very much time left in the Bush Administration; there may not therefore be the political will to force him out, replace him, and then have to replace the replacement within a fairly short period of time.
Still, not getting rid of him and making the above comments are two different things. So I say again, really President Bush?
It appears that the salary wars have made their way to London. With London salaries rising into the neighborhood of £65,000, and with the current exchange rate over two $/£, the gap between New York and London salaries is narrowing considerably. This from the London Times Online:
City sources said newly-qualified lawyers at A&O would be offered salaries of £65,200 – above its magic circle and other UK rivals.
The latest pay rise pushes Allen & Overy into the territory of US law firms that typically offer between 20 and 40 per cent more than UK firms in an attempt to lure away skilled lawyers.
Chris Hickey, a legal recruiter at Robert Walters, predicted that several large US firms, whose London offices are enjoying a significant boom on the back of strong private equity and mergers and acquisitions markets, would also be forced to revise their salaries upwards.
With, as the article points out, U.S. firms typically paying 20-40% more than UK firms in London, the U.S. firms may soon be paying their associates in London more than their associates in New York. This will in turn likely force the NY salaries even higher. Could we soon hit $200,000 for first year associates?
Time for another installment in ATL’s ongoing obsession with law students/lawyers posing nude for Playboy. This time it’s Kristine Lefebvre, a loser from The Apprentice: Los Angeles.
From AP via CNN:
Lefebvre will appear on the cover of the June issue of the magazine and is featured in nude photographs inside, her publicist, Howard Bragman, said Friday.
An attorney, Lefebvre had previously negotiated Playboy appearance deals for clients including Pamela Anderson and Deborah Gibson, Bragman said.
Lefebvre, 37, is a cancer survivor who wanted to use the magazine opportunity to send a message of support to others with the disease, he said. She’s married to prominent Los Angeles chef Ludovic Lefebvre.
The message she’s sending to cancer survivors? You don’t have to let cancer keep you from getting naked for money.
Incidentally, the season finale of The Apprentice: LA was Sunday, and the candidate hired by the Don is also an attorney, Stefani Schaeffer (at right).
Wow! No offense to Lefebvre, but we think the wrong apprentice is posing for Playboy. Ex-’Apprentice’ contestant poses for Playboy [Associated Press] Stefani Schaeffer bio [The Apprentice]
What’s that you say? You’re a major international political figure, and you’re embroiled in a scandal that could cost your job? What should you do? Why, hire a rock star lawyer of course!
Paul Wolfowitz has done just that, hiring Robert Bennett to represent him in his fight to save his job as president of the World Bank. Bennett, who represented Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, is a partner at Skadden Arps.
From the New York Times:
Robert S. Bennett, the lawyer selected by Mr. Wolfowitz, said in an interview that before the bank’s board acted on charges of ethical lapses, he and Mr. Wolfowitz wanted more time to prepare a case showing that the bank president had acted properly on all matters that the board is investigating.
“I am very worried about the rush to judgment,” Mr. Bennett said. “We just had a wonderful example of that in the Duke lacrosse case. I have reviewed the essential documents, and I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Mr. Wolfowitz exercised good faith and that everything he did was in the best interests of the bank.”
Interesting that Wolfowitz would choose an attorney known for representing Clinton. Then again, the allegations do involve a female staffer, so maybe Bennett’s experience with Clinton makes him the perfect choice.
Still, though, is there much Bennett can do for Wolfowitz? What exactly is Wolfowitz’s recourse if the Bank fires him unfairly? Isn’t Bennett basically being hired as a PR guy on this one? Which is not to say that attorneys acting as PR reps is anything new, but it usually takes place within the context of criminal or civil litigation.
Anyway, we’re kind of rooting for the Wolfman. I mean, what’s the point of a job like president of the World Bank if you can’t give you preferential treatment to your girlfriend?
Wow, that’s quite a ways to go just to get your way on a motion to suppress. A 57-year-old Douglas County, Colorado judge and a 29-year-old female prosecutor in the same county have admitted to having sex on multiple occasions in the courthouse. From the Rocky Mountain News (via How Appealing):
As rumors of their romance became fodder for courthouse gossip, the complaint said, [Judge Grafton Minot] Biddle encouraged [prosecutor Laurie] Steinman to permanently delete messages they exchanged using their e-mail accounts at work.
“If people read this stuff, we’re dead,” Biddle told Steinman, according to the complaint.
The pair is accused of other ethical lapses, including Steinman prosecuting two cases in Biddle’s court without disclosing their relationship. Biddle gave Steinman feedback following one of the trials, which ended in an acquittal, the complaint said.
The judge resigned, the prosecutor was fired, and both face disciplinary action from the Bar. Here’s hoping that was some good, worth-losing-my-career-over lovemaking.
We’re coming to you this morning from about three hours east of LEWW, in Athens, Georgia, home of the University of Georgia (my two-time alma mater), R.E.M., and well, to be honest, not much else that anyone except us cares about. We, like Laurie, are both honored to be filling in and not prone to referring to ourselves in the first-person singular.
Regular readers will recognize us as 1/2 of the MD team, along with B Clerker. Here’s our self-introduction from October of last year, when we started helping out with MD, for those of you who missed it and/or those of you who, like Loyola 2L, are concerned about our legal credentials. (For the record, UGA Law is tied with 7 schools for 36th in the latest USNWR rankings. Come on, USNWR, an 8-way tie? Make a decision! We need to know whether we can look down on Hastings graduates!)
At any rate, we’re no David Lat and we know it, but we will nevertheless do our best to entertain and inform in his absence. So keep the tips coming, keep reading, criticize us freely if you think we suck (I’m sure you won’t have any problem with that), and remember, no matter what you think of us, Lat will be back next week (and so will we, with MD).
We’ve got to dash up to DC for a couple of days to attend to our real job, so another guest blogger will be taking the controls now. We’ll return on Thursday. But we can’t leave without directing your attention to our Lawyer of the Day, Kenneth Heller.
The Village Voice has a long piece on Heller’s colorful career, tagging him “New York’s Most Obnoxious Lawyer”:
Heller was disbarred for basically “being an asshole,” as one adversary puts it. And in [the legal] profession, the rival adds, “that takes some doing.”
Told last week that people have described him as an “asshole,” Heller says, “Who said that? He may be queer. Tell that person, ‘Heller says you may be queer.’ “
It gets even better, we promise. Don’t miss the part where he sues his ex-girlfriend’s sister for returning a box of candy!
(Thanks to How Appealing for the link.)
“Survivor” champ and YLS grad Yul Kwon made a triumphant return to his law school alma mater last week. In a speech entitled “How I Survived Survivor and Other Professional Challenges,” Kwon, who was introduced by YLS Dean Harold Koh, spoke about breaking down negative stereotypes about Asian Americans.
At this point in his speech, Kwon suddenly went off-script and tried to bestow his wisdom on the crowd of predominantly law students.
“Make the best of it,’ he said. “Think outside the box.”
Profound. We can only hope that when he worked for McKinsey, his paying clients got a little more than that kind of “wisdom.”
Speaking of stereotypes, someone did research on how much money men of various races need to make if they’re trying to attract a woman of a different race:
For equal success with a white woman [relative to a white man], an African-American needs to earn an additional $154,000; a Hispanic man needs $77,000; an Asian needs $247,000.
For equal success with an Asian woman [relative to an Asian man], an African-American needs no additional income; a white man needs $24,000 less than average; a Hispanic man needs $28,000 more than average.
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: [email protected].
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
The traditional job application and interview process can be impersonal, and applicants often struggle to present themselves as more than just the sum of their GPAs, alma maters, and previous work history. ATL has partnered with ViewYou to help job seekers overcome this challenge. ViewYou NOW Profiles offer a unique way for job seekers to make a personal, memorable connection with prospective employers: introduction videos. These videos allow job candidates to display their personalities, interpersonal skills, and professional interests, creating an eDossier to brand themselves to potential employers all over the world. Check it out today! | <urn:uuid:c83d54d5-e960-42d3-9e1b-1f789fae10e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abovethelaw.com/2007/04/page/5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967142 | 3,690 | 1.507813 | 2 |
RBI was spotted selling dollars via state-run banks to prevent a sharper fall in the rupee in thin trading conditions, five dealers said on Friday.
The partially convertible rupee was on course to post its biggest daily fall in two weeks tracking weaker global risk assets. However, the central bank sold dollars via state-run banks starting at 55.62 rupees, helping the rupee recover to 55.38/39, traders said.
The pair had closed at 54.94/95 per dollar on Thursday.
"The market has been very illiquid today and even small flows were causing big moves, so the fall was really not justified. So it was only sensible for the RBI to come in," a senior dealer with a private bank said. | <urn:uuid:bf81b8d1-6190-4b04-b8fe-f088bea73492> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sify.com/finance/rbi-seen-selling-dollars-via-state-banks-traders-news-bank-mhgru8hgfaa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985639 | 154 | 1.515625 | 2 |
TAMPA — Delta fliers at Tampa International Airport can already enjoy the convenience of using the Transportation Security Administration's prescreening program. By agreeing to undergo background checks in advance, select fliers can get through Airside E security without taking anything off, or opening their laptops, or even taking liquids out of their carry-ons.
But it turns out that the TSA has been even more accommodating than that.
Since November, the federal agency has been using a new pilot program in Tampa called "managed inclusion" to get those fliers who have not been prescreened through security faster. The agency's goal: to get more people to use the underutilized prescreening lines.
TSA officers have already been trained in "behavior detection," a controversial method in which security officers are trained to ferret out security risks by engaging passengers in conversation or by identifying suspicious behaviors. A government report said there is no scientific consensus about the behavior detection methods used by the agency.
Now officers are using that training to enhance convenience. They're identifying passengers who exhibit little or no signs of risk or suspicious behaviors. Officers can then usher those fortunate passengers into the more brisk prescreening lines.
"We have been evolving as an agency and looking for ways to move into risk-based security," said agency spokeswoman Sari Koshetz. "This is an example of risk-based security, and we are happy to be testing it in Indianapolis and Tampa."
Delta is the second-largest carrier at Tampa International and handles almost 250,000 passengers a year. Prescreening is expected to be expanded to Tampa's other domestic carriers, but no timetable has been made public.
The prescreening lines are more convenient — passengers don't have to remove the liquids from their carry-on — but passengers still have to go through security. They still go through metal detectors or advanced imaging scanners, and their bags go through X-ray machines.
"This is definitely a way to improve customer service and get people through security faster," said airport spokeswoman Janet Zink. "We're really glad that the TSA chose us as one of their pilot airports."
But "managed inclusion" wouldn't be possible if it weren't for the prescreening program in the first place, which gives qualified fliers the chance to enter an expedited security line.
It's known as the precheck program. It's for domestic flights only, and only U.S. citizens are eligible.
Fliers can apply to join the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Trusted Traveler programs through www.globalentry.gov. They'll undergo a background check and an interview. If they pass, it costs $100 to enroll in the program for five years. But if they're frequent fliers, then the airlines can invite select passengers to enroll in the program at no cost.
Once a flier is eligible, their information is inserted into the barcode of the boarding pass. But their bags will be subject to the usual screening and random checks. And prescreened fliers aren't automatically sent through the expedited security lines.
Whether or not fliers qualify for the program, TSA officers still decide on the spot who gets into the prescreening lines. | <urn:uuid:7d11405a-aa42-46b4-b188-7927dc91c7ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/airlines/new-tsa-program-makes-fast-security-lines-at-tampa-international-even/1269571 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958669 | 662 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
|"A man born out of due season, an anachronism, a throwback to the Tartars of the steppes, a fierce elemental force of a man. With his military genius and his ruthless determination, in a different age he might well have been a Genghis Khan, conquering empires."|
Every time I post a story about a Turkish hero kicking ass for the crescent moon, I can generally come into the office Monday expecting a series of emails from my legions of faithful Turkish readers reminding me, "Yes, this guy is very cool, but you're still missing the biggest badass in our country's history so WTF is up with that shit."
"The biggest badass in Turkish history" no small claim for a land that produced a few centuries of uber-powerful, harem-packing sultans who commanded vast amounts of wealth and flexed nuts over even more massive swaths of land, yet it still appears that despite the excellent pedigree of ass-whomping awesomeness going down in Anatolia, one man stands alone as the unequivocal national hero Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. An, asskicking whirlwind of leadership who is almost universally beloved by his people and respected by his enemies. A guy who made a name for himself by crushing his battle opponents' balls with over-the-top displays of hardcore bayonet-to-face destruction on the battlefield, yet still somehow found a way to end up being honored by the United Nations for promoting "world peace, international understanding, and respect for human rights." A man so unapproachably hardcore that it's actually illegal to publicly insult him in his home country, assuming the locals don't kick your ass into a paste and you somehow survive to see your trial.
The Legend of Ataturk starts in 1881, with the birth of a kid named Mustafa. Perhaps somewhat ironically, the future "Father of All Turks" was born in present-day Thessaloniki, Greece, though, in his defense, it was called Salonica at the time, which is a much more Turkish-sounding name. As They Might Be Giants may have previously informed you, the Greeks and the Turks generally preferred to change the names of cities they captured as a way of taunting their defeated enemies and making life difficult for everybody else, and Salonica-Thessaloniki was not exempt from that time-honored tradition of nomenclaturial confusion. Mustafa went to military school in Istanbul (not Constantinople), graduating as a Lieutenant in 1905, and subsequently unsheathed on the enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Everyone knew Mustafa was going to be pretty big-time the guy was such a baller in school that his instructors nicknamed him Kemal, which is the Turkish word for "perfection". It's not every day you get a bitchin' nickname like that, and the young military officer was obviously cool with it if everybody wanted to go around calling him "Mustafa Perfection" all the time. He joined the Young Turks a revolutionary progressive political party that became well-known in history for deposing the Ottoman Sultan in 1908, instituting a parliamentarian constitution to Turkey, and lending its name to a top-25 Rod Stewart song from the 80s. His association with the Turks nearly got Kemal dishonorably discharged and summarily executed for treason, but for some reason this didn't happen.
Lookin' pimp in the desert.
Overthrowing an autocratic dictator and replacing him with democratically-elected officials is pretty sweet and all, but it was going to take more than a bi-cameral legislature to dispel the notion that the Ottoman Empire was pretty crappy compared to what it used to be. Lovingly known to the Western powers as "The sick man of Europe" because its military defense capabilities marginally resembled a really bored guy with mononucleosis, the Ottoman Empire found itself continually under attack from powerful outside forces, and it came down to guys like Captain Mustafa Kemal to stand up to powerful modernized armies looking to gank land and wealth away from his rapidly-crumbling empire. Captain Perfect first earned a name for himself as a no-bullshit face-wrecker in Libya in 1911, when he led 200 men on a balls-out charge against 2,000 unprepared Italian soldiers outside Tobruk and not only drove the enemy out of their trenches, but captured a bunch of their shit and made them look like bitches in the process. He later played a supporting role in the Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913, constantly fighting off massively superior forces of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbians trying to throw the Turks out of Eastern Europe.
The culmination of Ataturk's military career, however, is the incredibly over-the-top display of toughness he demonstrated on the shores of Gallipoli during World War I, when 16 divisions of British, French, ANZAC, and other Allied troops attempted an invasion of the Dardanelles and ran faces-first into Mustafa Kemal's titanium-plated nutsack of destruction. Kemal was just a Colonel of a reserve infantry division at the time, stationed at a critical choke point in the Bosporus that, if it fell into enemy hands, would have single-handedly dealt the Ottoman Empire a ball-punch from which it could not possibly have recovered. With the entire hopes and military capability of the Empire on his shoulders, Ataturk threw down with the most hardcore warriors in the world and demonstrated what a little bit of determination, a defensible set of trenches, and a whole lot of bullets could accomplish.
"I am not ordering you to attack, I am ordering you to die.
Until we die, we can win the time for the arrival of new troops and commanders".
Kemal was on the front lines when this veritable fuck-ton of Aussies, New Zealanders, and Brits came around looking to cripple Turkey in one fell swoop, and he sure as hell wasn't about to let that shit go down on his watch. Without any authority to do so, Kemal took command of the entire defending force in the region and sent them charging to the front lines with orders to hold their positions from this European Zerg Rush at all costs. Tenaciously digging in to fortified terrain, and personally leading counter-attacks to re-take lost territory, this guy basically personally went up and down the shore stuffing himself into the middle of everything even remotely resembling a gunfight. Sure, he was facing an all-star lineup of hardcore asskickers Australian, New Zealand, and Gurkha infantry, as well as coastal bombardments by the fearsome British Navy but Ataturk didn't give a fuck. When the Sari Bair ridge was captured by badass Gurkhas after intense hand-to-kukri fighting, Kemal organized a group of men and re-captured the critical high grounds with a balls-out suicide charge. When he came across a platoon of retreating Turks complaining about not having bullets with which to kill anyone, he told his men to sack up, fix bayonets, hold their position, and shank anything bigger than a swamp rat that came within stabbing range. The actions of this one lowly Colonel almost single-handedly prevented what could have been an overwhelming Allied victory in the opening hours of the amphibious assault, and then, over the next ten months of intense fighting, he tenaciously held the line against a couple hundred thousand determined Allied soldiers. His completely reckless, balls-out attitude towards command (his command HQ was 300 yards from the battlefront) inspired the men to fight for their country, and Gallipoli ended up being a tremendous victory for the Ottomans.
As if that wasn't impressive enough, after Gallipoli, Colonel Kamal was transferred to the Caucasus, where he fought a defensive war against the Russians through the frigid mountains, and then to mix it up he went to Syria and held off Lawrence of Arabia's Arab Revolt among the burning sands. The guy didn't give a crap you just pointed him in the direction of hard-charging invaders, and he was going to morph his troops into a giant spike wall ready to impale anything that came its way.
Kemal's victories weren't enough to save the declining Empire from defeat, however, and despite Kemal's best efforts to kill everyone in the world, the Istanbul government finally capitulated to the British and French. The Western powers, pissed off about the whole "world war" thing, placed a super-harsh, Treaty of Versailles-style series of punishments on the Turks, forcing them to pay tribute, redrawing country boundaries, and carving up their land among the western powers.
Once again, Kemal had to put his sack down and tell the West to go fuck a donkey. This badass military commander didn't bust people up and down the Gallipoli shores just to sit back and let a bunch of goddamned Europeans take over his peoples' lands, and he immediately rejected the terms of the surrender, left Istanbul in a boat in the middle of the night, crossed the Black Sea, established a new governmental capital at Ankara, and declared open revolt against the foreign powers occupying his homeland. For the next two years, this tenacious, no-bullshit asskicker he battled the combined forces of France, Britain, and Greece, halting their offensive on his new capital, crushing them in battle, throwing them back to the Mediterranean, chasing the reinstated Sultan out of Istanbul for the second time, and finally establishing Turkish independence from foreign rule. Suck on that, trolls.
All this assbeatery won Kemal quite a bit of street cred among the Turks (being your peoples' version of George Washington will do that to a guy), and in 1923 he was elected the first President of a Democratic Turkey. He abolished the Sultanate forever, set up a secular, non-religious-affiliated democracy, and brought 300 years of modernization to his country in the span of about 10 years. He made sweeping legal changes, instituted mandatory education, and abolished laws that denied freedom and equality to women. Fuck, the dude even changed the script to the Latin alphabet and updated the calendar to the shit the rest of the world was using.
Despite wrecking asses in combat at every possible juncture, Kemal was actually totally chill once he came to power. He went out of his way to reach out and establish peace, good relations, and trade with former enemies such as Greece, Australia, and Russia people he was ordering his men to stab in the eyes with bayonets not ten years earlier were now extending their hands in friendship. He mediated international disputes, worked for peace, established goodwill among his neighbors, and was so fucking bitchin' that they even built a monument to the guy in the capital of Australia, and in 1981 the United Nations declared "The Ataturk Year in the World" to celebrate the centennial of his birth. Despite all this goodwill busting out of every orifice of the world, it's pretty obvious that nobody loved the guy quite as much as the Turks
the government formally bestowed the title "Ataturk" on him, meaning "Father of the Turks", and the Turks loved the dude so much they elected him president 15 years in a row, only failing to elect him a 16th time on account of the fact that he was deceased. From what I understand, even to this day pretty much everything in the country is named after him.
|"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours... You the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."|
All About Turkey
Australian War Memorial
Blumberg, Arnold. Great Leaders, Great Tyrants?. Greenwood, 1995.
Goldschmidt, Arthur and Lawrence Davidson. A Concise History of the Middle East. Westview, 2006.
Haythornthwaite, Philip J. Gallipoli 1915. Osprey, 1991.
Sandler, Stanley. Ground Warfare. ABC-CLIO, 2002.
The Complete List
About the Author | <urn:uuid:849bfe53-e5aa-4da3-a111-11a4d97bcb67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.badassoftheweek.com/ataturk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971147 | 2,575 | 1.8125 | 2 |
I was thinking about Sonia when I read this morning's selection from Proverbs:
Sonia was recently diagnosed with cancer; she may not live to see 50.
- The prospect of the righteous is joy,
- but the hopes of the wicked come to nothing.Proverbs 10.28
This does not seem fair to me: one woman throws her life away, another has it taken from her. Yet "the prospect of the righteous is joy"?
On one hand, I don't get it. On the other hand, when I think about the rotten mother -- sorry, but she is a rotten mother -- who locked her kid up and did drugs and had sex with bad men, surely this bad mother's hopes will come to nothing unless something changes.
And Sonia's prospect of joy? Any joy will be tempered with the knowledge of a looming catastrophe, because although there are palliatives, there is no cure. Yeah, I know that we're all dying, and any of us could die any minute (all it takes is one stray truck), but Sonia has a weight that most of us don't have to carry.
May Sonia find joy in the coming days. May the rotten mother come to herself and not discard the rest of her life. And may you and I rejoice in every blessing. Sometimes we have to look for it, but the prospect of the righteous truly is joy.
(minor corrections 3/11) | <urn:uuid:b97655ae-1b27-4cb8-91cc-868fafaa2d67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://collinpark.blogspot.com/2007/03/prospect-of-righteous.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972203 | 294 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Your CV is an important sales document and is your first, and sometimes only, chance to make a good impression, so it is essential to make it stand out.
A CV needs to grab the reader's attention quickly by providing relevant information to interest them enough to invite you for an interview. The reality is that you have less than 30 seconds to make an impression with your CV.
The style and tone of CV required will vary slightly by profession, e.g. a CV for a design job would need a portfolio section, but here are some general rules:
There is no one set format for the perfect CV, but you should generally keep it to a maximum of two sides of A4 paper in a legible font size (around size 11 for text, larger for headings) and type (Arial, Verdana, Times New Roman). It should always be concise, neat and up-to-date.
Short bullet point sections work well to get the key information across quickly; you can expand on details when you get to interview stage. Generally speaking, your work experience in the sector should be near the top, although if you are newly qualified you may want to place more emphasis on your key skills and education.
Here are some simple guidelines that should be followed to ensure that your CV is presentable and markets you to a prospective employer most accurately.
Your CV should include the following basic information:
It is essential that you include your name, address, contact telephone number and email address.
This should be short and snappy (3 or 4 lines) and it is a really good opportunity to sell yourself. You can include your professional status with career highlights, skills, strengths and career ambitions.
List in chronological order your work experience, with current/most recent position first and in the most detail. Include a brief description of any other roles and bullet point your key responsibilities/achievements.
Education & qualifications
List the most recent qualifications first and only list relevant education (no school qualifications unless you have just graduated).
Interests & achievements
Include a brief list of your main hobbies and interests to show that you are an interesting and likeable person. However, this is not essential so if space is an issue leave it out.
Do not give details -simply state 'available on request'.
- Be honest
- Include your key achievements
- Spell check and proof read.
- Under / over sell yourself
- Leave gaps in your work history
- Exceed 3 pages. | <urn:uuid:ae3cd943-54cf-463b-89d0-0cc1c1669b0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capitaresourcing.co.uk/cv-guidance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933601 | 514 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The Independent Alligator in Gainesville has an interesting story about University of Florida students objecting to the FDA’s longstanding ban on blood donations by sexually active gay men, “Community reacts to ban on blood donations from gay men."
Along with the article, The Alligator also has an editorial, “Bad Blood: FDA should not restrict gay men from donating.” From the editorial:
Ultimately, these regulations represent yet another facet of life that is unequal for gay people. The guidelines may have been enacted with the health of all Americans in mind, but the fact that they were enacted in a time of panic and bigotry is undeniable.
If a ban like this were placed on virtually any other group, there would be widespread anger and protest, but because of the long-standing stigma — perpetuated by the ban itself — it goes largely unchallenged.
We believe that it’s time to stop perpetuating this false stereotype and accept the gracious blood donations of any and all healthy donors.
Lifesaving does not have a sexual preference.” | <urn:uuid:ad6c8246-9b3d-4dc4-93fa-7be018ec3943> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2009/11/independent-alligator-editorial-fda-should-not-restrict-gay-men-from-donating-blood.html | 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 | 0.948061 | 220 | 1.664063 | 2 |
(CNN) - Florida Gov. Rick Scott said in a statement Wednesday he was closely tracking Tropical Storm Isaac, currently rotating its way toward the Southeast coast of the United States – and possibly Tampa, where the Republican National Convention is being held next week.
“Although Tropical Storm Isaac is still far from Florida’s shores, we are closely tracking the potential for the storm to impact part or all of the state, including the Tampa Bay region during the Republican National Convention. Florida’s state emergency management team and local emergency teams have been working closely with convention officials and have been planning for this event for more than a year, and the possibility of a hurricane hitting the convention has been part of that planning process.
“I am confident in our preparation, and the decision process in place to ensure the safety of both our residents and visitors during the convention.
“As Florida’s governor, I’m urging everyone across the state to monitor the storm track, and use the next several days to prepare for a potential storm. As we know, storms this far from land are still unpredictable and everyone should be vigilant and prepared.” | <urn:uuid:6a8df02f-1bed-4d13-952c-8f92d4a5b7d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/22/florida-governor-closely-tracking-tropical-storm-isaac/ | 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 | 0.964254 | 235 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Freelancing isn't something you should just jump into, but it makes sense for a good number of workers. If you're looking into, or getting started with, working on your own, here are 10 resources we think every freelancer can learn from.
10. Make your schedule family-friendly
If you're going to have to entirely ignore your kids and family when you're working at home, you might as well head into the office. Career columnist and Wall Street Journal writer Alexandra Levit offered up six tips for working parents to spend more time parenting. They were aimed at anyone with a job, but freelancers certainly have an easier time of shifting their schedules back and ahead, taking web meetings instead of traveling for in-person summits, and involving their children in their work. Photo by Amit Chattopadhyay.
9. Do it without quitting your day job
Why freelance on the side instead of full time? The taxes are a lot more simple, the income a bit more stable, and, best of all, your day-to-day job provides you with countless opportunities to meet and greet future clients and referral helpers. That's assuming your side gig is kosher with your boss, of course, but if you want to test the waters of selling yourself on the freelance market, do it without quitting your job.
8. Use discounts to get paid on time
Becoming your own Accounts Payable department is new to most freelancers, and not very fun. If you run into clients who are hesitant to pay on time, or leave you on the hook waiting for their next order, try offering a discount or repeat business incentives, as suggested by Web Worker Daily. Give clients a 5 percent discount if they pay within, say, 24 or 48 hours of invoice shipment, or whatever you consider prompt—the cash value is almost certainly worth the time you'll spend tracking it down and worrying. If clients make you wait forever for their next order, offer a coupon or discount after receiving payment on a gig, giving them a small bit off if they place another order within a certain time frame. It's easy for small businesses to lose track of freelance people, but they tend to pay attention to dollars and cents. (Original post)
7. Track your work and generate invoices simultaneously
The web is full of freelancers and contractors, and many of them have created better systems for tracking time and sending bills. There are too many free or "freemium" services to try and compile into one list, but, hey, let's throw out a few. MakeSomeTime is simple, CurdBee handles everything up to the Google Checkout/PayPal payment screen for clients, FreshBooks covers a lot of different aspects of billing, Toggl is a great second-by-second live tracker, and BlinkSale has been generating crisp-looking invoices for years. Any of them are worth checking out, and probably fit the bill better than a gigundo spreadsheet. (Original post)
6. Know what you can write off
If you're starting to get actual, notable income from your freelance work, the first thing you should do is find someone who knows how to handle the taxes of independent contractors. Gina proved the value of a good accountant in her human versus TurboTax.com showdown, but noted that an experienced filer could probably make due with the tax software solution. The Freelance Switch blog also offers 10 easy-to-miss freelancer deductions, like coffeeshop meetings, unpaid invoices, and gig hunting expenses, that any independent worker would do well to look into. (Original post)
5. Find more work
Cold calling is not fun, and if you think it might be, watch Glengarry Glen Ross again. A good lead comes from knowing where people are looking. FreelanceSwitch has compiled a monster list of freelance job sites, though some of them are going to be hired-gun-type, low-paying grunt work. On the other hand, a 10-minute call to your clients can get you all kinds of results you weren't even looking for. (Original post)
4. Track your pitches with a custom spreadsheet
Who should you call with a reminder that you're available, and who needs a quick follow-up on a pitch? Those are questions you should have answers for. Web Worker Daily's Celine Rogue explains how to set up a spreadsheet with drop-down choosers, collated data, and other tools to become a great pitch, client, and job tracker. Half of life is just showing up, after all, and some extra percentage is knowing exactly where and when to be present with an offer. (Original post)
3. Get into the estimated tax groove
If you don't cover the tax burden throughout the year of not having an employer to deduct social security, unemployment, and other taxes for you, the month of April will truly be the cruelest. Read how our own self-employed readers set aside money for estimated tax payments four times each year (or in other installments), and read how Gina automates her finances to always have the money on hand, even when her income is very variable.
2. Learn your legalese
Besides having to learn the basics of contracts and work rules, freelancers should try to grab the basics of selling and regulating resalable (and different) stock work, as well as know how to stand their ground on copyright, fair use, and Creative Commons. It is, in short, not enough to simply create cool things—you have to know how to shepherd them through the cloudy worlds of commerce and the web these days. Photo by MikeBlogs. (Original posts: legal resources, stock work).
1. Determine your hourly rate
Not every contract will rely on hourly rates, but you'd best be prepared to offer a price if someone asks. The general advice is to aim slightly higher than you figure you should really charge, because you will always, always aim low when you're determining the time and administrative costs of getting the job done. If you want a more concrete number to base your rate on, try FreelanceSwitch's hourly rate calculator, which takes your office and supply costs, experience, and other factors into account. (Original post)
If you're an established freelancer, what apps, tools, or advice did you find truly helpful when starting out? If you're still green at working for yourself, what do you need the most help with? Swap the tips and stories in the comments. | <urn:uuid:a0be4d78-9dd4-46d1-b30e-c00830966f62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lifehacker.com/5460247/top-10-tips-and-tools-for-freelancers?tag=Salary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961679 | 1,344 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Who else thinks the President’s speech didn’t include any plans to create the 29 million full-time jobs for the dis-employed? Please raise your hand!
About jobs he said:
”We can help big factories and small businesses double their exports, and if we choose this path, we can create a million new manufacturing jobs in the next four years.”
”If you choose this path, we can cut our oil imports in half by 2020 and support more than 600,000 new jobs in natural gas alone.”
And, except to say he wants time to finish the job, that’s it! Over the next 4 years the economy will probably need another 4 million jobs just to employ new entrants into the job market, and not even to reduce that 29 million dis-employment figure. So he needs 33 million new full-time jobs to get to full employment, and he’s talking about 1.6 million in his acceptance speech. What planet is he living on?
Maybe, like Herbert Hoover, if he keeps saying prosperity is just around the corner, and does almost nothing to make it happen, then he thinks his beloved private sector will quit generating profits from financial manipulation and start creating jobs at a living wage. I think we’ve seen this movie; and it doesn’t end happily for working Americans.
The President had a lot more to say about deficits, then about jobs; showing that he lives in a fantasy world of faux problems:
”You can choose a future where we reduce our deficit without sticking it to the middle class. Independent experts say that my plan would cut our deficits by $4 trillion. And last summer, I worked with Republicans in Congress to cut billions in spending because those of us who believe government can be a force for good should work harder than anyone to reform it, so that it’s leaner, and more efficient, and more responsive to the American people.”
But why reduce our deficit at all? Have we got an inflation problem? Does either the level of our debt at $16 T, or our debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 100 percent either impair our ability to deficit spend in the future, or to pay off the debt without either taxing or borrowing? The answers to these questions are: There’s no reason to do it; No, and No! Here’s more from O:
“I want to reform the tax code so that it’s simple, fair, and asks the wealthiest households to pay higher taxes on incomes over $250,000, the same rate we had when Bill Clinton was president; the same rate we had when our economy created nearly 23 million new jobs, the biggest surplus in history, and a whole lot of millionaires to boot.
I love higher taxes on the wealthy, as much as the next person. I wouldn’t mind going back to the marginal tax rates of World War II and the inheritance tax rates of Harry Truman’s times. But does anyone really think that the same tax rates we had under Bill Clinton really caused the 23 million new jobs during his Administration; so that if we want to have that kind of job growth again, we really must have Clinton’s tax rates? Give me a break!
We know that the prosperity of the 1990s was primarily fueled by debt bubbles, and had little to do with Clinton’s higher tax rates. In fact, his surpluses, coupled with the Internet bust, produced the recession he bequeathed to Bush 43, a recession that was ameliorated, but never really ended for most working people by Bush’s deficit spending.
“Now, I’m still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt commission. No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. I want to get this done, and we can get it done. But when Governor Romney and his friends in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficits by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy, well, what’d Bill Clinton call it? You do the arithmetic, you do the math.”
The problem, Mr. President, is that there’s more than arithmetic involved here, which is why the Bill Clinton/Jack Lew surpluses produced that recession at the end of their term, the one that played a part in Al Gore’s defeat. The economy is dynamic. If you try to cut deficit spending or run surpluses by raising taxes and cutting Government spending, then you had better estimate what impact that’s going to have on non-Government, including private, savings and investment, and the trade balance; because cutting deficit spending can lead to a net reduction or elimination in net savings and investment, as well as a reduction in the trade deficit.
Then the President told us what he wouldn’t do to cut the deficit:
“I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.
“I refuse to ask middle class families to give up their deductions for owning a home or raising their kids just to pay for another millionaire’s tax cut.
“I refuse to ask students to pay more for college; or kick children out of Head Start programs, to eliminate health insurance for millions of Americans who are poor, and elderly, or disabled, all so those with the most can pay less.
“I’m not going along with that.
“And I will — I will never turn Medicare into a voucher.
“No American should ever have to spend their golden years at the mercy of insurance companies. They should retire with the care and the dignity they have earned. Yes, we will reform and strengthen Medicare for the long haul, but we’ll do it by reducing the cost of health care, not by asking seniors to pay thousands of dollars more. And we will keep the promise of Social Security by taking the responsible steps to strengthen it, not by turning it over to Wall Street.”
I’m glad for all these refusals and lines in the sand. He’s told us what he won’t do to make things even easier for the wealthy; but as Digby says, that doesn’t mean he won’t trade some or all of these things, for tax hikes on the wealthy. Tax hikes on the rich will please people wanting greater fairness; but that will be cold comfort for people whose safety net benefits are traded away for a smidgeon of greater fairness.
There’s also another thing he hasn’t told us. Maybe someone will make him do it in the debates. And that is what he plans to do to solve that 29 million jobs problem. That question is a really interesting one considering that he plans for the US Government to average $400 Billion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years. That is really, really a bad idea, because in doing that he’s pretty much condemning the US to a stagnant economy with perpetually high unemployment for the next 10 years, giving us a 14 year period of high unemployment, Obama’s “new normal” legacy to future generations.
Why do I say that? Well let’s look at some basic macroeconomics from Bill Mitchell:
”The basic income-expenditure model in macroeconomics can be viewed in (at least) two ways: (a) from the perspective of the sources of spending; and (b) from the perspective of the uses of the income produced. Bringing these two perspectives (of the same thing) together generates the sectoral balances.
“From the sources perspective we write:
GDP = C + I + G + (X – M)
which says that total national income (GDP) is the sum of total final consumption spending (C), total private investment (I), total government spending (G) and net exports (X – M).”
That is, X is exports and M is imports. So, if X is greater than M, we have what is colloquially called a “trade surplus”; but if M is greater than X then we have a “trade deficit,” which is what the United States has enjoyed for many years. I say enjoyed, because people in other nations send us goods, real wealth, and we send them electronic bits of information called US Dollar electronic credits. Seems like we’d have the better of that kind of deal, if we had sense enough to employ the people put out of work by our persistent trade deficit on things that are valuable for people living here in the United States.
However, that aside, we should note that the US seems to be running a trade deficit of 4% of GDP right now. We’ll see shortly the importance of this number. Bill continues:
“From the uses perspective, national income (GDP) can be used for:
GDP = C + S + T
which says that GDP (income) ultimately comes back to households who consume (C), save (S) or pay taxes (T) with it once all the distributions are made.
Equating these two perspectives we get:
C + S + T = GDP = C + I + G + (X – M)
So after simplification (but obeying the equation) we get the sectoral balances view of the national accounts.
(I – S) + (G – T) + (X – M) = 0
That is, the three balances have to sum to zero.”
So, we have an investment/savings balance, a Government spending/tax balance, and a foreign trade (exports/imports) balance. The sum of these balances must equal zero, and this is true by definition alone. It is what economists call “an accounting identity.” Are accounting identities always “true”?
They are always “true” in the sense that they are logically valid. But reasoning from them can result in false conclusions, because 1) the wrong data is correlated to the one or more of the terms of the identity, or 2) further reasoning about the causal relations among the terms in an identity may give false conclusions, and/or 3) reasoning about the dynamics relating the terms in an identity over time may be in error.
If we want the private sector to collectively save, then S must be greater than I, and we must have an investment/savings balance deficit, or, in other words the private sector as a whole must be accumulating nominal financial wealth within some time period.
If we want to import more than we export, then M must be greater than X, and we must have a “trade deficit”, which means that US entities as a whole must be accumulating more goods and services from abroad and must be sending more dollars into accounts at the Federal Reserve owned by foreign entities than they are receiving from them in return for our own exports.
Notice here, that the USD provided to foreign nations when we run a trade deficit, go into their accounts at the Federal Reserve. They never do leave this country. So, don’t listen to people who constantly tell you that our trading dollars are going overseas. They’re not. They’re in our own central bank.
Lastly, according to the model, if we want the private sector to collectively save, and if we want it to collectively spend more on foreign goods and services than it receives in nominal financial wealth for our goods and services, then the Government sector will have to spend more than it taxes. That is, it will have to run a deficit in the Government balance to accommodate the savings and import desires of the private sector by replacing the leakage in aggregate demand that savings and more imports than export represent. But just how much of a deficit will the Government sector need to make sure that the balance called for in the model happens without decreasing savings or reducing the size of our trade deficit?
Well, I said earlier that we’re running roughly a 4% of GDP trade deficit in the US. We also know that the private sector needs to save to repair household balance sheets after the disaster of the financial crisis of 2008, coupled with the housing crash. Let’s say that US private savings desires are currently 6% of GDP, a reasonable estimate given behavior over the past few years.
Then, we’re saying that we want (I – S) to be – 6% of GDP and (X-M ) to be – 4% of GDP, which implies that we also want (G – T), the Government balance to be positive and equal to 10% of GDP. In other words, we’re saying that the Government ought to be running a budget deficit of $1.6 Trillion this fiscal year, which judging from how things are going is approximately $400 Billion more than we will actually be spending.
So, it should be clear that the Federal Government, far from running too large a deficit, is now running a deficit that is $400 Billion smaller than it should be to accommodate the desires of the private sector to import and save, and to replace the aggregate demand lost to savings and more imports than exports. Do you suppose this shortfall in the Government deficit spending we need could have anything to do with our stubbornly high unemployment rates?
Now, let’s say the Obama Administration compromises on a deficit reduction bill specifying $4 Trillion in Government deficit spending reductions over 10 years phased something like this: 8%; 8%, 6%, 6%, 6%, 4%, 4%, 3%, 3% and 2%, where the percents refer to the deficit spending levels as a percent of GDP. Then, there will be increasingly less space for private savings and imports.
No doubt the President would like to see a shrinking percentage of GDP spent on imports over the next decade because that means that the budget deficit can be smaller if private savings stay the same. But, it’s pretty clear that in the next two years, we won’t be able to shrink the trade deficit by even 1% of GDP or roughly $160 – $170 B annually.
So, that means that if we follow the plan for deficits I just stated, then the savings desires of the private sector can’t be accommodated at 6%, and household balance sheets won’t continue to build. As, deficits move down to 6% in 2015 – 17, imports will be squeezed further, as will savings. By the second half of the decade, both imports and savings will be subjected to very high downward pressure.
The result will be that our trading partners will resist efforts to re-balance trade. They will lower prices of their goods and services in an effort to maintain the balance. We, in turn, will also have to lower costs, and that probably means lower wages – a race to the bottom to continue to increase our levels of exports. That will feed back to domestic private savings, and also to aggregate demand here, which will both decrease; though maybe not by as much as demand will increase from the decrease in imports. Causality moves in conflicting directions and without rigorous modeling we can say what the overall increase in demand outcome will be.
In addition, the decreased space for savings will result in people seeking to save more and in increased economic conflict in the private sector with people and classes fighting over a shrinking pie. In the US currently, political power is arranged in such a way that an increasingly small group is able to direct nominal financial income its way by using the political system to its advantage.
So, austerity will mean that a very few wealthy people will grab the shrinking pie of savings, and more people will be faced with the choice of maintaining their consumption levels by going into debt, or maintaining their rate of savings by cutting back on consumption. This developing situation will be unsustainable; and the second half of the decade, after a period of a stagnating economy, will surely see a deepening depression, and a strengthened economic and political oligarchy.
That’s the scenario if things go smoothly with austerity policies being planned by the elite led by Peter G. Peterson and the President of the United States. However, it is likely that things will not go according to plan and that the politicians will not be able to maintain the deficit targets in any long-term deficit reduction plan. The reason is that if demand flags because people try to buck the program by imposing strict spending discipline on themselves, or if foreign demand for our exports flags so that export industries must cut employees, causing a weakening of demand here; then rising unemployment here will impact the automatic stabilizers like unemployment insurance food stamp benefits, and Medicaid, driving up deficits beyond the levels in the deficit reduction plan.
The experience of Europe tells us that ideological neo-liberal austerians will not then admit that they were wrong about austerity and the possibility of implementing a deficit reduction plan successfully. But that, instead, they will double-down on it, shrinking aggregate demand even more, and driving the economy down even further, as they have in every European nation where austerity is being tried.
What if the President, or Mr. Romney succeeds in making the “grand bargain” to raise a few taxes, and cut 3 times as much spending, including entitlements in the process of passing a long-term deficit reduction plan, and what happens if in the first three years the plan fails to meet its targets and also creates a new recession in our fragile economy?
Will the austerians then admit they were wrong and start paying attention to the sectoral balances and people’s needs? Or will political necessity prevent them from admitting error and force them to double- down on austerity because that is the only viable political choice? We know what they will do, because no politician ever admits they were wrong, until perhaps they’re thrown out of office, and not very frequently even then.
Look at Obama himself, it was apparent by the Fall of 2009, that his ARRA was too small to do the job of creating a full recovery. Did he and the Democrats admit it? Did they pull out all the stops to pass a jobs bills in the rest of 2009 and take care of their unfinished business? Or did they double-down on insisting that the stimulus worked, and move on increasingly to a health care bill that bailed out the insurance companies, and burned all their political capital, that coupled with the tepid recovery, lost them the election of 2010?
I think we know what will happen if President O wins on his “austerity grand bargain.” First, it will never succeed because it is inconsistent with what the sectoral balances tell us. And, second, when it doesn’t he will double-down and then plunge us into a worse recession than ever, and in 2016 an impoverished population will face at least four more years of looting by the 1%, and increasing poverty from the other corporatist party of the emerging plutocracy.
So, Mr. President, and Paul Krugman, don’t tell me we’re going to have both an economic recovery and a forced move towards a lower deficit over the next four years, because the sectoral financial balances model says, that without a new credit bubble, that will lead to an expansion of aggregate demand coming from rapidly increasing private debt, that will eventually burst and give us a new great financial crisis:
It just ain’t gonna happen.
(Cross-posted from New Economic Perspectives.) | <urn:uuid:feb72b8e-89a9-4561-bd03-106cd7dd6bf7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://my.firedoglake.com/letsgetitdone/tag/grand-bargain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961253 | 4,057 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Thursday, February 21, 2013, 03:59 pm
Google steps further into the hardware fray, announces touchscreen Chromebook PixelGoogle on Thursday took another step beyond its search engine beginnings, launching a new, Chrome OS-powered notebook that manages to step on both Microsoft's and Apple's turf.
The Chromebook Pixel was initially thought to be an elaborate hoax when a supposed promotional video showing off the device hit the Internet earlier in February. Yet Thursday brought a surprise announcement from the search giant that the first Google-designed and built notebook was in fact real and launching this year.
The Pixel will run Chrome OS, Google's own lightweight, browser-based operating system. The use of Chrome which Google is expected to begin converging with its Android mobile OS will mean a heavy focus on cloud storage and cloud services for Pixel owners, as the OS runs web apps almost exclusively. Reporting further on Google's announcement, Engadget confirmed that all Chromebook Pixels will ship with Quickoffice already installed. They will also have the ability to open and edit office documents natively within the Chrome browser.
The Pixel sports a 12.9-inch LCD display with touchscreen capability, putting it into competition with Microsoft and its partners' touch-centric Windows 8 devices. At the same time, that touch display sports what Google says is the "highest pixel density... of any laptop screen on the market today." With 4.3 million pixels in total, the 2560x1700 display on Google's new notebook has a pixel density of 239ppi. By comparison, Apple's 15-inch and 13-inch Retina MacBook Pros have 220ppi and 227ppi densities, respectively.
The new notebook has two USB 2.0 ports, a Mini DisplayPort, and an SD card reader. Inside, the Pixel has a a 1.8GHz Intel Core i5 processor, Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity, and a 59WHr battery, which Google says will power the device for five hours.
The Chromebook Pixel will come in two builds: one with a 32GB SSD and another with a 64GB SSD. The 32GB model will have Wi-Fi connectivity only, while the 64GB model will have Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity. Purchase of either model will include 1TB of Google Drive cloud storage for three years. The 32GB unit will retail for $1,299, while the 64GB model will sell for $1,449.
The Chromebook Pixel is just the latest step by Google in what appears to be a larger quest to establish itself as a hardware company, in addition to its search engine, mobile OS, and Internet service provision activities. Google has already purchased Motorola, which it will use to attack the hardware segment from the mobile end, and the Pixel appears to attack it from the traditional computing end.
Recent days have also seen the reemergence of rumors that Google is preparing to open its own line of retail outlets, where customers could try out products such as the Chromebook Pixel before buying. Google would join, of course, Apple, but also Microsoft and Google partner/rival Samsung in relying on its own retail outlets to move its wares.
On Topic: General
- Apple invention adjusts audio based on a display's orientation, user positioning
- Apple investigating advanced AirPlay system with device-specific UIs
- Twitter unveils two-factor authentication, updates Mac app with Notification Center support
- OtterBox buys rival case maker LifeProof, drops ongoing patent suit
- Corning touts Gorilla Glass 3's advantages over sapphire in side-by-side tests | <urn:uuid:bb5238d1-8fa4-4c2c-af02-0970d750704d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/02/21/google-steps-further-into-the-hardware-fray-announces-touchscreen-chromebook-pixel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930033 | 730 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Pope Benedict XVI's Homily at Close of Year of the Eucharist
"We Must Start Again From the Eucharist"
October 23, 2005
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 23, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Here is the homily Benedict XVI delivered in Italian, Polish, Ukrainian and Spanish during the Mass that closed the Synod on the Eucharist and the Year of the Eucharist, and in which he canonized five new saints.
* * *
Venerated Brothers in the Episcopate and in the Priesthood!
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
On this 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, our Eucharistic celebration is enriched for various reasons that impel us to give thanks to God. Concurrently, the Year of the Eucharist and the Ordinary Assembly of the Synod of Bishops have come to an end, dedicated to this Eucharistic mystery in the life and mission of the Church, while, shortly, five blessed will be proclaimed saints: the Bishop Jozef Bilczewski, the priests Gaetano Catanoso, Zygmunt Gorazdowski and Alberto Hurtado Cruchaga, and the religious Capuchin Felice of Nicosia.
Today is also World Mission Sunday, a yearly appointment that reawakens the impulse for the mission in the ecclesial community. With joy, I greet all those present, first the synodal fathers, and then the pilgrims who have come from various nations, together with their pastors, to celebrate the new saints. Today's liturgy invites us to the contemplation of the Eucharist as the source of holiness and spiritual nourishment for our mission in the world: This supreme "gift and mystery" manifests and communicates the fullness of God's love to us.
The word of the Lord, echoed just now in the Gospel, reminded us that all of divine law is summarized in love. The dual commandment to love God and neighbor encloses the two aspects of a sole dynamism of the heart and of life. Jesus thus achieves the ancient revelation, not in adding an unedited commandment, but by realizing in himself and in his own salvific action the living synthesis of the two great words of the old covenant: "You will love your God the Lord with all your heart ..." and "you will love your neighbor as yourself" (cf. Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18).
In the Eucharist, we contemplate the sacrament of this living synthesis of the law: Christ gives us, with himself, the full realization of the love for God and the love for our brothers. And this love of his, he communicates to us when we are nourished by his Body and his Blood. This is when what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in today's reading is achieved: "You broke with the worship of false gods and became the servants of the living and true God" (1 Thessalonians 1:9). This conversion is the beginning of the path of holiness that the Christian is called to achieve in his own existence.
The saint is he who is so fascinated by the beauty of God and by his perfect truth to be progressively transformed by it. Because of this beauty and truth, he is ready to renounce everything, even himself. The love of God is enough, which he experiences in the humble and disinterested service to the neighbor, especially to those who cannot give back in return.
How providential, in this perspective, is the fact that today the Church points out to all its members five new saints who, nourished by Christ the living bread, were converted to love and modeled their whole existence to this! In different situations and with different charisms, they loved the Lord with all their heart and the neighbor as themselves to thus become "an example to all believers" (1 Thessalonians 1:6-7).
St. Jozef Bilczewski was a man of prayer. The holy Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, meditation, the rosary and the other pious practices formed part of his daily life. A particularly long time was dedicated to Eucharistic adoration. Even St. Zygmunt Gorazdowski became famous for the devotion founded on the celebration and adoration of the Eucharist. Living Christ's offering urged him toward the sick, the poor and the needy.
The deep knowledge of theology, faith and Eucharistic devotion of Jozef Bilczewski made him an example for priests and a witness for all the faithful. Zygmunt Gorazdowski, in founding the Association of Priests, the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph and other charitable institutions, always let himself be guided by the spirit of communion, which is fully revealed in the Eucharist.
"You must love the Lord your God with all your heart. You must love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-39). This was the program of life of St. Alberto Hurtado, who wished to identify himself with the Lord and love the poor with his same love. The formation received in the Society of Jesus, consolidated by prayer and adoration of the Eucharist, allowed him to be conquered by Christ, being the true contemplative in action. In love and in the total commitment to God's will, he found the strength for the apostolate.
He founded The Home of Christ for the most needy and for those without a roof, offering them a family atmosphere full of human warmth. In his priestly ministry, he emphasized simplicity and availability toward others, being the living image of the teacher, "docile and humble of heart." At the end of his days, amid the strong pains from his illness, he still had the strength to repeat: "Content, Lord, content," thus expressing the joy with which he always lived.
St. Gaetano Catanoso was a worshipper and apostle of the Holy Face of Christ. "The Holy Face," he said, "is my life. He is my strength." With joyful intuition he fostered this devotion to Eucharistic piety. He would express himself with these words: "If we wish to adore the Real Face of Jesus ... we can find it in the divine Eucharist where, with the body and blood of Jesus Christ, the face of our Lord is hidden under the white veil of the Host."
Daily Mass and frequent adoration of the Sacrament of the Altar were the soul of his priesthood: With ardent and untiring pastoral charity he dedicated himself to preaching, to catechesis, to the ministry of confession, to the poor, to the sick, to the care of priestly vocations. To the Veronican Sisters of the Holy Face, which he founded, he transmitted the spirit of charity, of humility and of sacrifice, which enlivened his entire existence.
St. Felice of Nicosia loved to repeat during all joyous or sad circumstances: "Be it for the love of God." Thus we can well understand how intense and concrete in him was the experience of the love of God revealed to men in Christ. This humble Capuchin Friar, illustrious son of the land of Sicily, austere and penitent, faithful to the most genuine expressions of the Franciscan tradition, was gradually modeled and transformed by the love of God, lived and realized in the love for the neighbor. Father Felice helps us to discover the value of the little things that make our lives more precious, and he teaches us to grasp the meaning of family and of service to the brothers, showing that true and lasting joy, which every human being's heart desires, is the fruit of love.
Dear and venerated synodal fathers, for three weeks we lived together in a climate of renewed Eucharistic fervor. Now I would like, with you and in the name of the entire episcopacy, to send a fraternal greeting to the bishops of the Church in China.
With deep sadness we felt the lack of their representatives. I would like to assure all the Chinese priests that we are close with prayer to them and to their priests and faithful. The suffering path of the communities, entrusted to their pastoral care, is present in our hearts: This will not remain fruitless, because it is a participation in the paschal mystery, to the glory of the Father.
The synodal work allowed us to deepen the salient aspects of this mystery, given to the Church from the beginning. Contemplation of the Eucharist must urge all members of the Church, in the first place the priests, ministers of the Eucharist, to revive their commitment of faith. The celibacy that the priests received as a precious gift and the sign of the undivided love toward God and the neighbor is founded upon the Eucharistic mystery, celebrated and adored.
Eucharistic spirituality must also be the interior motor of any activity for the lay persons, and no dichotomy is admissible between faith and life in their mission of spreading the spirit of Christianity in the world.
While the Year of the Eucharist is coming to an end, how can we not give thanks to God for the many gifts given to the Church during this time? And how can we not take up, once again, the invitation by the beloved Pope John Paul II to "start again from Christ"? Just as the disciples of Emmaus who, with hearts warmed by the words of the Risen One and illuminated by his living presence, recognized in the breaking of the bread, without pause returned to Jerusalem and proclaimed Christ's resurrection, we too must take up the path again, animated by the fervent desire to give witness to the mystery of this love that gives hope to the world.
In this Eucharistic perspective, today's World Mission Sunday is well situated, to which the venerated Servant of God John Paul II gave as a theme for reflection: "Mission: Bread broken for the life of the world."
The ecclesial community, when celebrating the Eucharist, especially on the Lord's Day, is always more conscious that the sacrifice of Christ is "for many" (Matthew 26:28) and the Eucharist urges the Christian to be the "broken bread" for others, to commit oneself for a more just and more brotherly world. Even today, faced with the crowds, Christ continues to exhort his disciples: "Give them something to eat yourselves" (Matthew 14:16) and, in his name, the missionaries proclaim and witness the Gospel, at times even to the sacrifice of life.
Dear friends, we must start again from the Eucharist. May Mary help us, a Eucharistic woman, to be in love with it, help us to "remain" in the love of Christ, to be intimately renewed by him. Docile to the action of the Spirit and attentive to man's needs, the Church then will be a greater beacon of light, of true joy and hope, achieving fully her mission as the "sign and instrument of the unity of the whole human race" ("Lumen Gentium," No. 1).
[Original text: multilingual. Translation issued by the General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops. Slightly adapted here.]
Feast of Faith - The Transforming Power of the Eucharist
Pope John Paul II, decreed 2005 a special "year of the Eucharist." Make the most of this opportunity with "The Feast of Faith," an enlightening, four-part adult faith formation series on the history and theology of the Roman Catholic Mass. The Feast of Faith is guaranteed to answer the question "What is the Eucharist?" and unlock the life-changing power of the Blessed Sacrament in your life and in the lives of those you teach. Be sure to order the Feast of Faith Workbook, full of engaging activities on the Holy Eucharist, so you can get the most out of this amazing Series dedicated in honor of John Paul II, the Pope of the Eucharist! The series contains four lesson plans on the Sacrament of the Eucharist:
Lesson One – Sacrifice – how the Mass is a true sacrifice, the “re-presentation” of Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.
Lesson Two – Real Presence – The uniqueness of the presence of Jesus’ body and blood under the forms of bread and wine is contrasted with the other ways he is present in the world. Out need to be properly prepared to receive Jesus in the Eucharist is discussed in…
Lesson Three – Preparation – to get more out of the Mass, we need to bring more to it-- more faith, more appetite, more repentance, and more forgiveness. Finally…
Lesson Four – Adoration – puts personal prayer together with Sacrament of the Eucharist, explaining the meaning and purpose of Eucharistic adoration and offering practical ways we can spend fruitful time before our Eucharistic Lord.
A must-have series for teen religion, RCIA and Parish Adult Faith Formation programs!
Feast of Faith DVD - $49.95 Feast of Faith – CD - $19.95
Feast of Faith – Audio Tape - $19.95 Feast of Faith Workbook - $6.95 | <urn:uuid:218f3b5d-0878-4bc9-ad2c-016adef06cf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/778/Homily_Closing_the_Year_of_the_Eucharist_Benedict_XVI.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952387 | 2,757 | 1.78125 | 2 |
What began as a medically based alternative for men seeking help for urologic issues including erectile dysfunction (ED), impotence or prostate issues, the Men’s Health Program at El Camino Hospital Los Gatos has now become the area’s comprehensive, multispecialty destination for men’s health. “We are a one-stop resource for men who seek good, sound medical information as well as treatment,” says Edward Karpman, MD, who founded the program with fellow urologist Patrick Wherry, MD.
“At the Men’s Health Program, physicians evaluate patients for underlying conditions, which may have gone undiagnosed or untreated,” adds Dr. Karpman. ”They can then be referred to a network of specialists for further evaluation or treatment, if necessary. With the program located on the hospital campus, patients don’t have to travel somewhere else for lab tests, X-rays or procedures.”
One common urologic issue, ED, is often a forerunner of heart disease. “Many large studies have demonstrated a strong link between erectile dysfunction and coronary artery disease, especially in men under age 60,” says cardiologist Neal Scott, MD. His colleague, fellow cardiologist Ramtin Agah, MD, agrees. “In many patients, the first presentation for vascular disease can be ED, which is why appropriate screening in patients with risk factors for vascular disease is key in any treatment strategy.”
For more information about Men’s Health Program services, please call 408-866-7331 or visit www.elcamino hospital.org/menshealth. | <urn:uuid:385290f9-3e37-4531-b809-6604ecb917f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.elcaminohospital.org/About_El_Camino_Hospital/Newsroom/Health_Beat_Magazine/itemId/8160/One-Stop-Resource-Men%E2%80%99s-Health-Program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937899 | 350 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Questions? E-mail me: [email protected]
by Budd's homebrew buddipole and AK0M's big 40M coil, I set off to fashion
my own version. I guess I had one overriding goal: make it as cheap as
Well, I succeeded in making this version for 12 bux and a few junk drawer parts and to my surprise it worked first time!
One way I saved $ and space was to use vertical wire tails instead of the telescoping ends.
is my version of AK0M's 40M tapped coil. These are, of course, what took
up 90% of the manufacture and assembly time for an otherwise very simple
The coils are single integral units with the 1/2" PVC running through it and some ABS 1-1/2" breakouts for bushings. Since I had some scrap 1-1/2" PVC already I dug out my Handbook and modified the winding to match AK0M's coil.
I found it relatively easy to find taps to tune new bands. It should be easy to mark them for later reference.
of my goals was NOT to make something that I would walk around with, I was
after more of a campground antenna for my K1. Thus, I didn't bother to
make a second joint in the arms and the arms are longer overall than
Budd's original design. Adding another joint would be trivial however.
I used a cross joint in the center so that I could add more pipe on top for different mounting situations. Each dipole leg terminates in a ring connector and is bolted to the arm. The bolts extend for attaching a balun (glad I had a spare handy). | <urn:uuid:9c67c564-db1a-459b-96fc-104b67998b21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomochka.com/na7u/buddipole/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960706 | 354 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Indulgence Divine: where history meets modernity
Indulgence Divine might sound odd as a name for a property but it’s a name that, unlike others, has a deep meaning. Since the house is located very close to the Inquisitor’s Palace, the owners were influenced by this fact and they decided to choose a name that is ambivalent, meaning that indulgence can be interpreted either as a satisfaction, fulfillment through something beautiful, either as a grant of remission sold by the Church to the faithful back in earlier times. They added the word Divide because that’s how the owner’s consider their home to be: a slice of Heaven.
Indulgence Divine is actually just a part of the original building that also incorporated the neighbour’s house and the shop beneath. The house dates back to the time of the Knights of St. John which is impressing. At one time the house went through a restauration process meant to transform it into a cafe. Unfortunately the work has been poorly conducted and some changes had to be made to bring it to the present stage.
The owners have also made some changes meant to make the house look more contemporary but still preserving some of the original designs. The furniture has been carefully chosen so that it would combine the two styles: modern and historic. This is definitely an unique property and the owners seem very proud to be able to enjoy it.Listed on wb. | <urn:uuid:83e7d928-c5f7-461b-bad6-e611406de42f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.homedit.com/indulgence-divine-where-history-meets-modernity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978707 | 294 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The WNT gene family consists of structurally related genes which encode secreted signaling proteins. These proteins have been implicated in oncogenesis and in several developmental processes, including regulation of cell fate and patterning during embryogenesis. This gene is a member of the WNT gene family. It encodes a protein which shows 98% amino acid identity to mouse Wnt3 protein, and 84% to human WNT3A protein, another WNT gene product. The mouse studies show the requirement of Wnt3 in primary axis formation in the mouse. Studies of the gene expression suggest that this gene may play a key role in some cases of human breast, rectal, lung, and gastric cancer through activation of the WNT-beta-catenin-TCF signaling pathway. This gene is clustered with WNT15, another family member, in the chromosome 17q21 region. [provided by RefSeq, Jul 2008].
Hedgehog signaling pathway
Wnt Signaling Pathway
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* OriGene provides validated application data and protocol, with money back guarantee.
HEK293T cells were transfected with the pCMV6-ENTRY control (Left lane) or pCMV6-ENTRY WNT3 (RC211115, Right lane) cDNA for 48 hrs and lysed. Equivalent amounts of cell lysates (5 ug per lane) were separated by SDS-PAGE and immunoblotted with anti-WNT3. | <urn:uuid:85214a19-b89b-4684-8a25-ef8a591e1b0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.origene.com/antibody/TA801892.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939659 | 313 | 1.835938 | 2 |
In the stunt known as a Long Fall, the stunt man will always fall backwards because the safest way to land on the airbag is on his back. The classic effect is achieved by filming the falling stunt man falling from above as he drops into the distance, smashing onto some surface that looks solid. Often this shot is followed by a closeup of the actor lying on the damaged surface, occasionally the roof of a car
. Falling backwards also makes it easier to shoot back at whatever knocked you over the edge, though this is often accomplished by catching the stunt man (or even occasionally the actor) on a cord which is digitally removed in editing.
This trope has seen so much use that it may have become a Dead Horse Trope
. Digital editing makes all sorts of falls possible now and few viewers are stunned by the long fall.
As a Death Trope, all Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.
- The canonical example of this is Burt Reynold's movie Hooper, in which he plays a stunt man (almost a lampshade hanging), but examples abound from adventure films going back to the early 1970's.
- The Poseidon Adventure had a clichéd example of that (repeated endlessly in the trailers) during the rollover sequence when a man falls from the "floor" to fall into a stained glass "ceiling." The air bag lay just underneath the sugar glass.
- Turk 182 has the canonical example of the car-roof fall during the opening sequence.
- Crank: In the end, Jason Statham's character falls from a helicopter and in an odd Double Subversion lands on a car on his side, then bounces off and falls on his stomach.
- Almost every adventure film created between 1970-1990.
- A zombie in Zombieland is kicked off the tower drop ride during the climax and is shown flailing and splattering on the ground. The DVD extras include a section on how the stunt was performed, showing the original footage of the stuntman swinging back on a rope and how the digital effect was made and added into the fall.
- Doctor Who, "Logopolis".
- Locke's paralyzing fall in the Lost episode "The Man From Tallahassee."
- In the season 5 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike is thrown off the top of a rickety structure to fall about five stories. They don't actually show the fall from top to bottom—but, as James Marsters notes, the final shot of his stunt double doing a face plant for the final six feet was real. | <urn:uuid:443a3264-bf1f-4cd2-8c8e-f026193bfa33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButterSideDown | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954183 | 531 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Two recent events have rocked the publishing world. First, The New York Times, which many regard as the newspaper of record in the U.S., said it would abandon the practice of providing free online content and start charging regular readers beginning in 2011. And second, Apple’s much-hyped tablet — the iPad — made its appearance. What implications will the Times’ decision have for newspaper publishers and other providers of free online content? How will the iPad re-define what a book means, as well as how it is produced, marketed and delivered? Peter S. Fader, a marketing professor at Wharton and co-director of the Wharton Interactive Media Initiative, and Stephen J. Kobrin, a management professor at Wharton and editor of Wharton School Publishing, weigh in on how these developments could reshape publishing. | <urn:uuid:2932bbd7-056f-4192-b58c-441cf9ae5166> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tlt.fandm.edu/tag/apple-ipad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950435 | 170 | 1.734375 | 2 |
December 20, 2010
2010 was another strong visitation year at Cumberland Island National Seashore. Overall park visits increased 18% in 2010 by 11,771 visitors to 91,453 as compared to 77,588 in 2009. Total park visitation includes visitors to the seashore's mainland facilities in Saint Marys including both the visitor center and museum.
August 14, 2010
Cumberland Island National Seashore is seeking one teacher to fill a teacher-ranger position this summer, and officials are seeking candidates now.
September 9, 2008
Release of the Draft Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Park’s North End Access and Transportation Management Plan. The National Park Service (NPS) developed the plan as required by Public Law 108-447, enacted by Congress in December 2004. The draft document evaluates several alternative courses of action and potential environmental impacts.
August 20, 2008
The park will be closed on Thursday, August 21st and Friday, August 22nd due to the approaching Tropical Storm Fay. The park will reopen on Saturday, August 23rd.
June 26, 2008
Two wildires were caused by lightning strikes on the north end of Cumberland Island on Sunday, June 22nd. The South Cut Fire has increased to an estimated 500 acres.
April 4, 2008
The park has received 2008 funding to perform cyclic maintenance on the Main Road and other key routes on the island.
May 9, 2007
Plum Orchard Mansion will be closed to the public until further notice.
May 8, 2007
Entrance fee increases to $7.00 per person as of January 1, 2008.
May 1, 2007
Finding of No Significant Impact for the planned stabilization of the Dungeness Mansion ruins.
Did You Know?
The War of 1812 ended when the Treaty of Ghent was signed December 1814, but Gen. George Cockburn occupied Cumberland Island from Jan-March 1815 offering freedom to 1,500 enslaved African Americans who escape to Cumberland Island. | <urn:uuid:26a9036f-b843-42b0-b7ad-44c303fa8f1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nps.gov/cuis/parknews/newsarchive.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943627 | 413 | 1.84375 | 2 |
What are some of the important upcoming fitness trends? What does the latest research indicate is the “best” way to get and stay healthy? Can someone really give you a cold or are you taking the cold from them? And what do menopause and HIIT have in common?
Exercise, Food, Weight Loss & Menopause (and Water for People): Notes From the IDEA Personal Trainer Institute:
What do the Natural Products Expo and Thailand have in common? Delicious food, of course! Do you want some recipes? You do, oh yes, you do.
To start on the road to a healthier you, discover the 5 nutrition mistakes you need to avoid in order to reclaim your health and body! No more diets, just a healthier, happier you!
Natural Products Expo West is the leading trade show in the natural, organic and healthy products industry. That means food, skin care, drinks, supplements, ingredients and way, way, way more. We were two of over 60,000 attendees visiting over 3,000 exhibitors. We thought you’d like to see a few pictures from the event.
Bonnie Raitt was right when she sang Have a Heart. You probably have a heart, but is it a strong one? And do you also have great circulation and flexible arteries? Having a strong circulatory system and being flexible should be on the top of your “gotta have” list if you want to live a full, healthy life.
An excellent way to start your day is with a healthy breakfast smoothie. If done right, it’s a blended concoction that is nutritious and delicious! This recipe is full of foods recommended for increasing your brain power. I’m making no promises that you’ll get smarter, but it’s nice to start your day with the potential to boost your brain!
BlogTour to Cologne and Amsterdam begins on Sunday, and Alexandra is going to learn about the latest home design trends, especially the Miele steam oven. While there, she’ll also dust off her medieval history degree and tour Cologne Cathedral. Then she’ll mangle her knowledge of the Dutch language with a stop in Amsterdam.
Would you be excited if you won a blood test and follow-up consultation with a specialist? Alexandra was. Seventy percent of the data needed for an accurate health diagnosis is in your blood. Your blood can tell you what to do and eat to make yourself as healthy as possible.
To bread or not to bread. That is the question. A lot of good information exists (and not so good) about whether or not wheat is the angel or devil in your diet. Is the wheat of today really so different from what our grandparents ate?
You’ve been diligent all year about exercising and eating healthfully. And now the holidays are creeping up faster than your heart rate monitor. How do you stay trimmer than a decorated tree and less stuffed than a turkey come Thanksgiving? Follow our 7 Healthful Tips to Avoid the Thanksgiving Food Trap. | <urn:uuid:b4f3a70b-e35f-481a-9b8e-420f64e8c767> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://funandfit.org/category/i-want-to-eat-better/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933272 | 629 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Mexico's Pena Nieto is sworn in as president
Nieto, outgoing President Calderon held symbolic ceremony just after midnight
Enrique Pena Nieto was sworn in as Mexico's new president Saturday, returning his party to power and promising to change the country's fight against organized crime.
Pena Nieto belongs to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years before losing the presidency in 2000.
"We are a nation that is going at two different speeds. There's a Mexico of progress and development. But there's another, too, that lives in the past and in poverty," he said during his inaugural address at the National Palace in Mexico City.
"Mexico has not achieved the advances its people demand and deserve," he said.
Pena Nieto, 46, promised to create economic opportunities and reduce violence. Peace, he said, would be his government's first goal.
More than 60,000 people lost their lives in drug-related violence during the six-year term of his predecessor, Felipe Calderon.
Without jobs and social programs, Pena Nieto has said, millions of people will turn to crime.
Pena Nieto said earlier this week that his security strategy will focus on reducing the drug-related violence, though he provided few specifics about how he would stem the violence or what aspects of Calderon's strategy he will change.
The two men took part in handover ceremonies.
Exactly as scheduled, at 12:01 a.m. local time, Calderon and Pena Nieto walked down the escalators to a patio in the National Palace.
In a ceremony lasting about five minutes, Calderon received the national flag from a military school cadet and immediately handed it to Pena Nieto. The act symbolized the transfer of command of the security forces.
Afterward, both men greeted members of the new Cabinet, then the outgoing Cabinet members.
Minutes later, in a separate ceremony, Pena Nieto conducted the oath of office of the new Security Cabinet, comprised of Miguel Angel Osorio Chong as the head of the Ministry of the Interior, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda as head of the Ministry of National Defense and Vidal Soberon Sanz as Secretary of the Navy.
Pena Nieto said the new government had taken office "from the first minute of this day."
"A governmental transition has been completed in an orderly, legal and transparent fashion," he said.
"This process has helped to preserve the political stability, economic and social development of the nation. Mexico has shown democratic maturity and institutional strength," he said. "In accordance with Article 83 of the constitution, today I begin to exercise the honorable position of president of the United States of Mexico."
As Pena Nieto was being sworn in, his opponents clashed with police outside Congress. Video showed protesters hurling rocks at metal barriers, as police fired back with tear gas.
Pena Nieto won 38% of the vote in July, besting his closest competitor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who garnered some 32% of the vote and refused to accept the result.
Pena Nieto and Calderon took to social media to commemorate the transition.
"My term ends, but not my commitment to Mexico, which I will continue fighting until the last of my days," Calderon tweeted.
Another of his tweets read: "The handover of the national flag for the change of guard from the president to the president-elect symbolizes the transfer of command."
Calderon is headed next to Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school announced this week that Calderon will spend the next year as a global public leaders fellow at the school.
Pena Nieto tweeted: "Starting today, I begin to occupy the post of Constitutional President of the United Mexican States. I am confident in my team and I recognize their track record, which supports its commitment to Mexico."
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:be618a33-3eab-48cf-b7f9-77a10288e002> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktvz.com/news/Mexico-s-Pena-Nieto-is-sworn-in-as-president/-/413192/17619070/-/view/print/-/s7h9t6/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967589 | 838 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Every night, as a safety precaution, I turn on the front porch light. It illuminates the path to my front door as well as part of my driveway and I feel protected. What I don't see is how many times at night strangers are wandering onto my property and evaluating the accessibility of my front door or the vehicle parked in the driveway. One night, my son's truck, parked in the driveway, was broken into while the street light and my front porch light illuminated the area. I thought those were enough deterrents, along with locked doors, to discourage the criminal, but I was wrong. I started thinking about how I could monitor what is going on outside my front door before I opened it whether it was night or day.
I started by looking in the internet and found a product that not only monitors the area approaching my driveway and front door, but alerts me with an e-mail or text message whenever it detects movement of someone approaching. The Sony Fixed IP Network Camera, model #SNC-M1 priced at $119.99 seems to be a good choice at a reasonable price. It is a video surveillance camera with a built in microphone for 2-way communication. "Popular Science" noted that this type of home security camera is designed for the beginner,"…you don't have to be a security pro to install [it]", and it is "…everything you need to know to watch your world."(Wallach) I especially like the motion detector feature with the automatic alert. It also has night vision capabilities built in which greatly improve the visibility and clarity of images captured in low light conditions. Terence Raim, an experienced helicopter pilot working in night rescue for AirEvac is certified on the use of night vision goggles. He agrees that the advances in new technology are greatly aiding his particular industry by making it possible for pilots to land rescue helicopters in areas previously inaccessible at night do to dangerous terrain or unseen obstacles. This same technology is incorporated into the Sony model marketed toward home security and appeals to "… every homeowners need for security and peace of mind." (Popular Science, pg 82)
I found this product in several places; on line at www.4discountcameras.com and at www.shopnerd.com, in the "Circuit City" ad, in Popular Science magazine and discussed in Rotor & Wing magazine as a type of law enforcement equipment. The articles all were marketed toward home and property owners as a method of protecting their own valuables. It was suggested as an enhancement of home monitoring systems that may already be in place and even takes motion detection to another level by alerting the homeowner with an e-mail to their PC whenever any activity is found. The features that appeal to me are the "…JPEG data compression for smooth, clear images up to 30 frames per second" and "…two-way audio, smart motion detector and email alarm notification."(Persinos)
This item falls under the category of home surveillance and protection. Many law enforcement agencies suggest that homeowners and property owners take a more active role in protecting their valuable property and ensuring the safety and security of their loved ones. After all, DPS can't be everywhere and that is why criminals can take advantage of an opportunity. Even traffic control in Scottsdale is taking advantage of surveillance cameras in their every day operations, as reported in The Arizona Republic. (6 Mar 2006) Traffic flow can be redirected and emergency services dispatched in an instant based on the information detected by the "pan, tilt, zoom" capabilities of the cameras. A similar type of video surveillance camera geared toward private individuals gives the homeowner another level of protection in the form of detection and may even give them enough time to alert the authorities to apprehend the criminal. In a friendlier note, this product even allows me to view and communicate with invited guests and package delivery personnel that I am expecting.
One issue brought up by all the discreet monitoring going on in public and in private, is invasion of privacy. Is it voyeurism or self protection? As mentioned in the article "Dangerous Liasons","Anonymous watching [as] a way to take control…" ( Cooper and Marcus) Should someone approaching your front door have more right to privacy than you, the homeowner, whose private property they are entering? If the surveillance camera is in plain sight isn't it reasonable to expect that they are knowingly giving up their right to privacy as long as you are using the image only for the intent of protecting yourself, your family and your property? In the news article, "Close Watch" (www.cbsnews.com) the discussion revolves around whether anyone, when in public can expect to remain anonymous while knowing their image can be captured by surveillance cameras at any time. I guess it comes down to behavior and intent. If you are in a public place or entering private property you only have something to fear if you are acting inappropriately or have criminal intentions.
I totally agree with being pro-active in protecting my family, myself and my property, and the features in the product I found even allow me to see and communicate with visitors ringing my doorbell. I think this is an excellent idea and a step up in the home monitoring product line. Anyone who has a home alarm really needs to look into adding this onto their existing system or for those just starting out. I am definitely adding this Sony SNC-M1 Camera to my home security system. I may end up installing cameras at my front and back doors as well as the garage and rear gate. The possibilities are as varied as my imagination and important to my peace of mind.
CBS News, "Close Watch" 22 Apr 2002
Cooper, Al and I. David Marcus. "Dangerous Liasons." _CIO Magazine_ 1 April 2001.http://www.cio.com.archive/040101/diff.html
Ferraresi, Michael. "Cameras monitor traffic flow." _The Arizona Republic_ 6 March 2006: pgs B1-B2
Persinos, John. "Law enforcement equipment buyers guide." _Rotor & Wing_ August 2001. Vol. 35 No. 8, pg 28
Raim, Terence. Helicopter Pilot, AirEvac. Personal interview. 29 March 2006
"Wallach, Paul. "Watch your front door from anywhere." _Popular Science_ April 2006. Pgs . 82 & 84
Karen A. Garbacz
Karen A. Garbacz | <urn:uuid:0fdbade4-a6e0-45d7-b131-732df3b03b37> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gccaz.edu/webscribe/Medallion102/index.cfm?id=8979 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956813 | 1,330 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Clive Thompson on the Importance of Fan Fiction
- 6:30 AM
So, you know Gravitation, the manga about musician Shuichi Shindou and his band, Bad Luck, and how he’s trying to become Japan’s next musical sensation while winning the heart of Yuki?/p>
Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either. But a lot of young people have, and they’re deeply, deeply into it. Indeed, they’re so swept up that they’re writing their own stories set in the Gravitation universe. If you go to FanFiction.net — a popular archive of fan-authored stories — Gravitation is one of the bigger categories, with 5,810 stories, clocking in at about 5 million words.
And those devotees are not alone. Fan fiction has boomed in the past decade, as young people (and many adults) have swarmed online to share what-if tales set in their favorite movies, books, animation, and videogames. Hunger Games fanfic? 10,692 stories. Teen Titans? 26,594 stories. Shakespeare fan fiction? Oh, yes way: 1,747 stories.
You could, as many do, cluck disapprovingly at this activity. Haven’t these folks got anything better to do with their time?
To which I reply: No, they don’t. Because they’re creating paracosms — an activity that, research is showing, builds creative skills that pay off in real life.
Paracosms are the fantasy worlds that many dreamy, imaginative kids like to invent when they’re young. Some of history’s most creative adults had engaged in “worldplay” as children. The Brontë siblings, in one famous example, concocted paracosms so elaborate that they documented them with meticulous maps, drawings, and hundreds of pages of encyclopedic writing.
It now appears that, like the Brontës, kids who engage in paracosmic play are more likely to be creative as adults. In 2002 researchers Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein conducted an elegant study. They polled recipients of MacArthur genius grants — which reward those who’ve been particularly creative in areas as diverse as law, chemistry, and architecture — to see if they’d created paracosms as children. Amazingly, the MacArthur fellows were twice as likely as “normal” nongeniuses to have done so. Some fields were particularly rife with worldplayers: Fully 46 percent of the recipients polled in the social sciences had created paracosms in their youth.
Why would worldplay make you more creative in your career? Probably because, as the Root-Bernsteins point out, it requires practical creativity. Fleshing out a universe demands not just imagination but an attention to detail, consistency, rule sets, and logic. You have to grapple with constraints — just as when you’re problem-solving at work.
This is why I’m so bullish about our teeming world of participatory fan culture. We live in a golden age of paracosmic play. As fandom scholars like blogger and USC professor Henry Jenkins have documented, today’s young people routinely build off their favorite cultural universes — writing new stories, creating game mods, shooting fan videos. It’s not sui generis creativity — they’re working with preexisting worlds — but it exercises the same creative muscles. I suspect society will reap the benefits in decades to come.
Mind you, we have to stop denigrating it. “Serious” adults have long pooh-poohed paracosmic play, which is partly why, as studies show, many kids abandon it as teenagers. “Whenever you have someone engaging in make-believe worlds, our society really frowns on it,” Michele Root-Bernstein says.
Instead, she argues, we should nurture worldplay at schools and at home. “If children are going to play a computer game,” she says, “turn it off after a while and encourage them to continue it.” And why stop at kids? We should also encourage the many adults who enjoy worldplay.
The future belongs to those who can imagine it. | <urn:uuid:89908d01-beb3-4c1c-8839-25fa7b791b2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/05/st_thompson_fanfiction/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wired%2Findex+%28Wired%3A+Top+Stories%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952582 | 911 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Whether you like checklists or not, there’s no denying the impact they can have on ensuring things get done right the first time, every time.
In a recently published book, “The Checklist Manifesto,” this impact was shown for the healthcare industry. For example, roughly 100,000 people in the U.S. die each year in surgery due to a “complication.” Driven by this unfortunate statistic, a researcher from John Hopkins developed a short checklist that was implemented in ICUs throughout Michigan.
The results were amazing: The checklist reduced infections by two-thirds, saving 1,500 lives, and 80 percent of hospital staff said they wanted to continue to use the checklist. The remaining 20 percent were asked, “If you had an operation, would you want the checklist to be used?” Ninety-three percent said “yes.”
Checklists also have great value for the home building, remodeling, and trade contracting industries. They form the basis for data collection, such as construction defects, and allow companies to audit and evaluate how their processes function.
The chart above shows the cost difference of catching a mistake early on — during the design stage, for instance — compared to having it become a full-blown construction defect that needs repair and may result in legal action. If a checklist could help avoid these dramatic costs, isn’t it worth the effort?
When formulating checklists, make sure to involve the people who will be using them to get complete buy-in. For instance, have your trade partners participate in the creation and testing of checklists.
Also, don’t forget to use the data and communicate the findings with all key stakeholders on a regular basis. Not doing so will almost guarantee users will either lose interest in the process or simply check all the right boxes just to get the work done.
Use the data to identify issues that are recurring in your processes and then address those issues by finding and eliminating the root cause.
Finally, track how much time and money are saved by using the checklist. For example, are there less return visits to job sites? Tracking and communicating the bottom-line impacts will create buy-in and lead to success with checklists.
The True Value of the NHQA Feedback Report | <urn:uuid:7fca81c4-266e-4272-9dd9-c4a45f7c0354> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.housingzone.com/blog/value-checklists | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952683 | 476 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Hello Kitty Profile
Hello Kitty first appeared on Japanese kids' stationery in the '70s, but she's pawed her way to fame among Hollywood celebs with a line that includes everything from pajamas to bubble gum! Get the goods on everyone's favorite kitten, Hello Kitty!
Hello Kitty - The Man Behind the Cat
Sanrio is a Japanese company that's famous for its cute and adorable cartoon characters like Cinnamoroll and Keroppi - but Hello Kitty is the most popular and successful. She was created by designer Ikuko Shimizu in 1974, and named after one of Alice's cats in the book, Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll. Since British culture was popular with Japanese girls at the time of Hello Kitty's creation, she was made into an English cat!
Hello Kitty - Fun Facts
- Hello Kitty's full name is Kitty White.
- Hello Kitty is in the third grade, but she was introduced to the world on November 1, 1974 - that makes her 30 years old!
- Hello Kitty lives in London, England.
- Hello Kitty is as tall as five apples and weighs as much as three apples.
- Hello Kitty has a twin sister, Mimmy, who is also her best friend. You can tell them apart cuz they wear ribbons on different ears.
- Hello Kitty wants to be a poet or pianist when she grows up.
- Hello Kitty's hobbies include listening to music, traveling, reading, eating yummy cookies and making new friends - as Hello Kitty says, you can never have too many friends!
Hello Kitty - The Kitty Collection
The cartoon character first appeared on wallets and stationery, but has clawed her way up to the top of the fashion world. From jewelry and purses to clothing and boy-short underwear, Hello Kitty has come a long way from her retro beginnings. And now, the cute cat can be found on cell phones! Gwen Stefani and Outkast's Big Boi were the first to scoop up the special edition Hello Kitty phone. Check it out at the Sanrio store!
Hello Kitty - Kitty Sightings
Hello Kitty isn't just popular with tweens, but also with celebs! Stars like Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera and Destiny's Child are into the Kitty craze. But Mariah Carey may be Hello Kitty's biggest fan - she owns the hair dryer, the toaster and the boom box!
- Take a look at all the Hello Kitty merchandise at the official Sanrio website! | <urn:uuid:762134b5-03fe-47ea-b5b9-b13f6cd7b919> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kidzworld.com/article/6062-hello-kitty-profile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962627 | 528 | 1.601563 | 2 |
They will spring your traps with impunity and lie in wait just to show you who's in charge.
The cat is not grasping the new rule. Henry said he was tired of shooing him, yelling, waving his hands, and making dramatic assertions that he is in charge and the sofa must be respected. Still, he comes home to the sight of the cat curled up on the sofa, opening one insolent eye at the sound of the door, then closing it again. I was surprised when Henry told me he had resorted to setting mousetraps on the sofa to discourage the cat. Not the metal ones—plastic ones, but mousetraps nonetheless. The cat is fine, don’t worry. He has learned to nudge each mouse trap with his paw until it snaps shut, then he pushes it off onto the floor, and when he has cleared a space, he curls up and waits for Henry to come home so he can pretend to be asleep. The power struggle continues. Maybe it’s just a difference of vision about the purpose of a sofa, maybe it’s more personal than that. I don’t know.
I find parallels with my life as a parish minister. Sometimes people get so intent on their particular idea of how things should be that they set up long lists of rules. Getting more adamant than they ought to when they talk about it, they often are willing to hurt someone else just to get things to the way they “should” be, which feels like much the same thing as setting mousetraps all over the new sofa.
It could be about what kind of music is appropriate for worship services. Maybe there’s a new Sunday school building, and people complain about children being all over it making messes. Maybe it’s a new carpet or a new organ, or maybe it’s a book discussion group or a camping program. Maybe one person implies that the lady who disagrees with her about how the church library should be set up is a control freak and always needs to get her own way. Maybe the lady hints that the first person is of low character and if it were up to her she would watch out that books don’t start to disappear. You know how it goes.
In any organization there are tasks that need to be accomplished, dreams being brought to fruition, challenges being met, relationships being forged and then tested. It’s a spiritual exercise to balance getting the jobs done with keeping the relationships sweet and strong.
We try to do a good job of balancing kindness with responsibility. Sometimes we forget, and we get too structured or too loose. Martin Luther used to say that humanity was like a drunk trying to climb up on his donkey to ride. First he falls off one side, and then he climbs back up and falls off the other.
In a family, at work, at church, we all have ideas about how things should be. Are you a sofa-with-cats person or do you come down strongly in the cat-free-sofa party? I don’t think the chaos cats care: They just want to remind you that trying to control what cannot be controlled is a shortcut to insanity. The chaos cats are wily; it is likely that they will spring your traps with impunity and lie in wait just to show you who’s in charge, one yellow eye open to see if you’ll get it this time.
Comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:c741d022-7cb5-4185-9fb9-558f1704954e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://uuworld.org/life/articles/175337.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971221 | 721 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Coroner: Lake Mead swimmer died of natural causes
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Medical examiners in Las Vegas have determined that a 74-year-old swimmer whose body was found in Lake Mead died of natural causes.
An aide to Clark County Coroner Michael Murphy said Wednesday that an autopsy determined that Dwight Ernest Tarter of Boulder City died of conditions including an irregular heartbeat and hardened arteries.
National Park Service rangers and Boulder City police searched Monday for Tarter after he failed to return home from a swim in the Colorado River reservoir behind Hoover Dam.
Tarter's body was found Tuesday floating offshore near the Lake Mead Marina. | <urn:uuid:689f1ade-3b1e-4ea5-9465-3a2ed306e5d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/167104065.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962251 | 134 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Know Your Customer
Part of this evolution relates to how much banks know about their customers. Traditional banks have tried to adopt a customer-centric retail model for a long time, with varying results.
The Kansas City Fed's Weiner believes banks and nonbanks are on somewhat equal footing regarding customer knowledge. "For any business, in the end, customer satisfaction matters," he explains. "But some of the newer [financial services] entrants aren't really from consumer backgrounds at all. They're made up of technology people who see an industry where they can provide more expertise."
Metavante's Shannon, however, believes banks have the upper hand. "Yes, [retailer nonbanks] have strong selling skills," he comments. "But a bank that's constantly looking at customer attrition, strategy and data, and trying to anticipate their needs has the leg up on the competition because they have the relationships and know so much about them. A retailer may have a little bit of information based on a credit card, but it's not much" compared to what banks have.
In addition, banks are learning how to be more customer-oriented from people with first-hand experience. "A lot of business heads in banks are coming from the retail industry," explains SAP's McAllister. "They realize they have to sell. ... And banks are getting marketing-oriented, despite their old infrastructure and legacy systems."
Capco's Dener firmly believes banks need to get their acts together when it comes to knowing their customers. "[Retailer nonbanks] have way more customers than banks do, and they have more knowledge of them than the banks," he opines. "The most sophisticated segmentators focus on customer intimacy as an advantage. I'd be shocked if they didn't exploit this in financial services. It's a natural for them as retailers. Most banks are still trying to figure out what language their customers want at ATMs."
But don't be too critical of traditional banks, says Woodforest's Manning. "Part of the problem with customer knowledge comes from the diverse systems banks have," he explains. "Nonbanks are a little better at knowing their customers, [but] banks are moving to this model. ... We can get more information from our data because it is more electronically readable than ever before."
Manning says debit card information, for example, is easy for banks to track because of the format in which the data is presented. Much can be learned about patrons' financial lives by examining this information. However, "Retailers always know what their customers are buying. They want to turn their inventory," he says. "We're not turning inventory in banking. There's a different focus, and retailers are going to have to adapt somewhat to that also if they want to make certain inroads into financial services."
When all is said and done, most believe banks and nonbanks will continue to coexist and cooperate. "A lot of nonbanks go to banks to get into the payments system," says Manning. "Even if they issue cards, somewhere they are working with a bank." For example, PayPal uses Wells Fargo (San Francisco) as its processing partner in the United States and has relationships overseas with JPMorgan Chase (New York) and HSBC (London).
However, the competition will still be there, stresses TowerGroup's Khirallah. "Nonbanks are going to try for a bigger piece of the pie," she says. "They are competing with a limited product setwhat they see as the sure winners. They'll steal some business from banks, but this will make traditional banks more aggressive about serving their customersit forces them out of complacency.
"It's going to be Darwinian," Capco's Dener remarks of the competition among traditional banks and nonbanks. "Competition is not a genteel thingit's messy," he adds. "The whole idea that everyone will coexist peacefully is baloneyit's all win or lose in competition." | <urn:uuid:ea18399e-bbd5-4b8b-ae75-0f73687d89a8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.banktech.com/management-strategies/sleeping-with-the-enemy/181400616?pgno=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975896 | 812 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Sewer bills don’t reflect use
If Fairhope wants to do something for its residents, all they have to do is look at their water bills. All year, we use 3,000 gallons of water. Last year, we used 10,000 gallons. Where did that extra 7,000 go? It didn’t go down to the sewer. It was used to keep the lawn green, to keep the vegetables growing and the flowers blooming. If Fairhope wants to do something for homeowners, they can average the sewer bill to what people pay during wet months when you have a sewer bill higher than the water bill but the water isn’t going into the sewer.
Enjoys Fairhope story time
Storytime at the Fairhope Farmer’s Market on Thursday at 4 p.m. It’s so fun and an asset to our community. I’m sad to see such a small turnout. As a parent, I’d like to encourage more involvement in all the free activities our community offers. If we don’t use it, we lose it.
Birds belong in parks
In reference to the people complaining about the birds in the park: It’s called nature. We like parks. If you put up a sign saying “No birds allowed,” do you think that will work? I don’t think so. It’s nature. Birds are part of God’s world. They will be where they want to be. You can’t keep them out.
Savings buying swamp
The commissioners spend over $3,000 an acre for swampland without an appraisal. They better wake up. There are budget cuts in every other area and then they waste money in this direction.
Resident reached conclusion
Thanks to the Orange Beach council for the continuation of their inadequacy involving spending $100,000 to have crash test surveys done by such competent personnel who found that nothing is conclusive but there are many inconclusions to be considered. Fortunately, we voters can be very conclusive in 2012.
Basket theft ridiculous
I’m trying to recycle and I’m on my fourth set of three baskets. Somebody keeps stealing my baskets and now they’ve stooped so low they’ve actually dumped out my recycling to steal my baskets. Is this happening to other people? This just ticks me off. I don’t live in a neighborhood. I live right on a busy road by Walmart, so these people are having to make a special stop to steal my basket. One time they even drove halfway down my driveway and stole them out of my driveway. It is getting ridiculous.
Misses traditional church
Could someone please let me know where you can find a church to go where you can hear a sermon preached from the Bible and have organ and piano music? Thanks so much for your help.
Alien bill not enough
This new illegal alien deal doesn’t go far enough. I don’t want any of my tax dollars spent to educate them, give them free medical care and prenatal care and we need to do away with this anchor baby thing too and make it retroactive back to the year 2000.
Another source for corn
I had to laugh at everyone calling in to tell about their favorite place to get sweet corn, Allegri’s, Krupinski’s and Byrd’s. So I just had to add one more family farm that’s been around for 30 years and that’s the Cassebaum farm on county road 91 south in Lillian. They grow all kinds of vegetables, have real good silver king corn and now have good cantaloupes.
American-made too costly
I’d really like to buy American-made all the time, but I’d also like to know why is it that American-made is always so much more expensive than things that are imported? Those imported items have to come from a long ways away. The things we make here in the U.S. don’t have to come from overseas. So why is American-made almost always so much more expensive? If we could drop our prices down we could compete with those overseas. | <urn:uuid:b21b414d-11ba-45de-adc9-ed36996e2216> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.al.com/press-register-commentary/2011/06/post_376.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960916 | 885 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Most Active Stories
All Tech Considered
Tue June 5, 2012
Apple To Google Maps: We Have Our Own App For That
Originally published on Tue June 5, 2012 6:25 pm
There's been speculation for months that Apple will try to elbow Google's popular Maps app aside on the iPhone and unveil its own map app, and some of the best evidence yet comes from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.
The paper looked into the reasons for the impending switch and the broader implications it would have for the smartphone market.
The speculation began last month when the website 9to5Mac cited "trusted sources" in reporting that Apple will replace Google Maps as the default map app in iOS6, the next version of its mobile operating system.
"The application design is said to be fairly similar to the current Google Maps program on the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch, but it is described as a much cleaner, faster, and more reliable experience," the website said.
Google Maps has been a mainstay of the iPhone since 2007, but the Journal says Apple's replacement plan was hatched years ago and accelerated when phones powered by Google's Android operating system overtook Apple in shipments. So Apple bought three companies, Placebase, C3 Technologies and Poly 9, which it used to create a mapping database.
The Journal reports that Apple could preview the new software as soon as next week at its annual developer conference in San Francisco. It cited "one person familiar with the plans."
In its May report, 9to5Mac said the Apple maps app will have a new 3-D tool.
"This 3D mode is said to essentially be technology straight from C3 Technologies: beautiful, realistic graphics based on de-classified missile target algorithms," the report said.
Jessica Vascellaro, one of the reporters who wrote the Journal story, told NPR's Audie Cornish that while Google will lose some revenue from the move, what's at stake goes beyond mapping applications.
"There's sort of a bigger pile of money at stake when you look at the broader smartphone battle and what phones people are buying," she said. "Because people today whether they're buying iPhones or phones that run Google's Android software, they want the coolest hardware but also, you know, the coolest apps. And if Google or Apple has a better map app, they're hoping that [they are] pulling users toward buying their phones and being sort of on their software platform.
"So it's really a broader battle about the billions of billions of dollars at stake in the smartphone industry."
The Journal's Vascellaro said the app will also turn your phone into an in-car GPS device, a feature already available in Android-powered phones.
"But I think where Apple is really going to try and differentiate is on sort of the vividness of the imagery and really 3-D imagery that pops on your screen, which is something we're not totally used to yet on mobile," she said. | <urn:uuid:3fbe031e-c8d3-4737-b75a-5f5789e7408d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ksut.org/post/apple-google-maps-we-have-our-own-app | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961661 | 610 | 1.601563 | 2 |
|Please use me!|
The other day, I was eating at the new Blanc Burgers + Bottles on the Country Club Plaza and saw a waiter commit one of the most foolish follies in the service business. Two men were sitting at a deuce, and the server didn't write down their appetizer order. And when he brought out their starter, it wasn't the Peppadew Poppers that they had ordered but the fried cheese curds instead.
There was a moment of awkward silence as the two young men stared at the basket of cheese curds and then -- to save further embarrassment -- begrudgingly agreed to eat the wrong starter. The server seemed relieved, although he did, to his credit, offer to replace the dish with what they had actually ordered.
Hey, as a waiter I made a half dozen variations on that same mistake myself -- until I finally learned the invaluable lesson: Always write down every order. And to this day, I'm wary of servers who don't write down everything. Invariably something goes wrong, like the time a vegetarian friend was served a dish that she hadn't ordered and, of course, contained meat. She sat without food for 30 minutes while the rest of us ate before our dinners got cold.
Such mistakes are so easy to avoid -- that's what makes them so unforgivable. | <urn:uuid:cadbd268-4b05-4010-8612-53a844bb7788> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pitch.com/fatcity/archives/2010/04/02/things-we-hate-servers-not-writing-down-orders | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976977 | 278 | 1.703125 | 2 |
This book is a complete full color catalog of the Third Annual Intercollegiate Metals Exhibition hosted by Arizona State University in 2008.
The ASU Metalworking Department was proud to host the 3rd Annual Intercollegiate Metals Exhibition, held October 6th-16th, 2008. The Exhibition consisted of eight universities from across the nation, incorporating work from undergraduate and graduate students, as well as faculty members from the participating departments. Each institution was responsible for jurying the work to represent their program. The exhibition was a great opportunity to educate, inspire and develop public and academic awareness in the field of metalworking as well as encourage interaction among metalworking departments on a national scale. It showcased a wonderfully diverse cross-section of what is happening in metals studios across the country.
Participating institutions included:
Arizona State University
Bowling Green State University
Cranbrook Academy of Art
Indiana University at Bloomington
Kent State University
Rhode Island School of Design
San Diego State University
University of North Texas | <urn:uuid:95f02feb-e2a0-4f3a-95af-a0f25448840c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blurb.com/b/457682-third-annual-intercollegiate-metals-exhibition-cata?alt=Third+Annual+Intercollegiate+Metals+Exhibition+Catalog+2008%2C+as+listed+under+Fine+Art | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962869 | 208 | 1.53125 | 2 |
As we expected, the number of new jobless benefit claims jumped from the low level reported in the previous week. Let's show where things stand now, then get to some analysis - our chart below shows where we are with respect to the most recently established trend for new jobless claims:
Now for analysis! The LA Times' Jim Puzzanghera reports:
The number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first-time increased to 368,000 in the week ending Saturday, up from the previous week's level of 330,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That figure was the lowest in five years.
Economists had speculated the sharp drop earlier in January could have been related to the difficulties of making seasonal adjustments after the holidays and at the start of a new year. Last week's increase could be offsetting overstated decreases.
Ah yes. The difficulties of making seasonal adjustments related to the timing of the Christmas and New Years' holidays. Because some speculating economists just never know what days of the week those events might fall upon from year to year, which in their minds means the data jocks at the BLS who have actually worked out the seasonal adjustment factors using years of data can't possibly account for these seemingly random events on the calendar.
But what level of jobless claims did the speculating economists expect? Reuters captures their expectations:
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits bounced off five-year lows last week, pulling them back to levels consistent with modest job growth.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The prior week's claims figure was unrevised.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected claims to increase to 350,000.
So they were off, but then those speculating economists blamed those pesky seasonal adjustments again:
Claims have been very volatile this month, dropping sharply in the week ended January 12 and maintaining the trend in the following week. That was largely because the model used by the department to smooth out the seasonal variations has been unusually generous during the first three weeks of January.
The volatility in the so-called seasonal factors has to do with the timing of holidays and when the weekends. The January calendar this year is aligned to 2008 and claims have generally followed a similar pattern.
Now, that's something we can check! First, we used Zeller's Algorithm to find the preceding two years in which Christmas fell on a Tuesday, just as it did in 2012, which of course is followed by New Years Day, again on a Tuesday, just a week later. Then we looked up the seasonal adjustment factors for the first four weeks of January that the BLS reported it used in each of those years. Our results are summarized in the table below:
|Recent Seasonal Adjustment Factors for Years Where January 1 Falls on a Tuesday|
|Data for Week Ending||2002||2008||2013|
Here, a seasonal adjustment factor of 100 would indicate that no adjustment for seasonality is made with the raw numbers of initial unemployment insurance claims filed that week. But what's important to recognize here is that the bigger the number, the bigger the size of the seasonal adjustment.
Looking at the data listed in our table above, we find that the seasonal adjustment factors for both 2002 and 2008, the two most recent years in which both Christmas Day and New Years Day fell on Tuesdays before they repeated that feat now in 2013, were far more generous in the size of their adjustments than were the adjustments made for 2013's raw figures.
It looks like some speculating economists aren't getting either their calendars or their facts straight!
Now, let's directly compare the factors for 2008 with 2013. Here, we find that the seasonal adjustment factors for the first, second and fourth weeks of January would be more generous in lowering the number of seasonally-adjusted claims reported in 2008 as compared to 2013. Only the data for the third week of January in 2013 would be more generously adjusted than the same data would have been in 2008.
Let's next see how that played out with respect to each week's news of the reported number of new jobless claims in both 2008 and 2013:
|Initially Reported Change in New Jobless Claims and News Headlines for 2008 and 2013|
|Data for Week Ending||2008||2013|
|5 January||-15,000: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Fell 15,000 to 322,000||+4,000: Jobless Claims in U.S. Unexpectedly Increased Last Week|
|12 January||-21,000: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Decline||-37,000: Jobless Claims in U.S. Fell to Lowest Level in Five Years|
|19 January||-1,000: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Dropped 1,000 Last Week||-5000: Jobless Claims in U.S. Decrease, Prolonging Seasonal Swings|
|26 January||+69,000: U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 375,000 Last Week||+38,000: Jobless Claims in U.S. Rose 38,000 Last Week to 368,000|
In January 2008, the U.S. economy had begun falling into recession after the nation's economic expansion peaked in December 2007. As you might expect, the number of new jobless claims being filed in those early weeks of January 2008 reflected that strength, with the number decreasing in those weeks. Typically, it takes two to three weeks, a full payroll cycle, for a change in economic circumstances to show up in the new jobless claims data, so that's why the first indication that the U.S. was really falling into recession during this time didn't show up in the new jobless claims data until the fourth week of January 2008.
Flashing forward to 2013, we find that 2012 ended on a similar strong note. Here, oil and gasoline prices in the U.S. fell in the last weeks of December to be below $3.25 nationally, and in many regions of the country, retail prices at the pump dropped to or below $3.00 per gallon, which would be a key psychological threshold for U.S. consumers. When prices drop to that level, especially after having been elevated above that level for a prolonged period of time, the psychological effect combined with lower gasoline prices would provide a boost to the economy, as consumers now have both more money to spend on other things along with greater confidence. One full payroll cycle or 2-3 weeks later, that combination of positive factors shows up in much lower numbers of layoffs that are sustained over at least two weeks, until something changes.
And there the similarity between 2008 and 2013 ends, because on 1 January 2013, President Obama's stimulus Social Security tax cut expired, reducing the take home pay of all working Americans by a full two percent of their income, just as he desired.
What would that sudden reduction of 2% of their income mean in terms of gasoline prices for the typical American household?
Here, we turned to the 2011 Consumer Expenditure Survey, which tells us that an average American household with wage and salary income $49,805 in 2011, which we note is nearly equal to 2011's median household income of $50,054, spent $2,655 for gasoline and motor oil for transportation.
At 2011's average price of gasoline of $3.52 per gallon (or $3.65 in 2012 U.S. dollars), that works out to be just over 754 gallons of gasoline consumed in 2011. Since the average price of gasoline in 2012 was $3.63 per gallon, we can safely assume that U.S. households consumed a similar amount of gasoline in 2012 as they did in 2011.
Now, here's where it gets interesting. For a typical American household, President Obama's desired 2% Social Security tax increase would reduce their take home pay by nearly $1000. If we add that figure to the $2,655 that the typical American household spent on gasoline and motor oil in 2011 (and 2012), assuming they consumed the same 754 gallons of fuel, the effect on the economy would be the same as if the cost of gasoline at the pump suddenly spiked upward to $4.84 per gallon.
That's quite a lot higher than the $4.00 per gallon level that gasoline prices spiked higher to hit and surpass in April 2008, which is the event that firmly pushed the United States economy into recession, which then led to the failure of two-thirds of the nation's automotive industry at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009.
At this point, we've only seen about half the initial impact of that change, as the new jobless claims numbers for the week ending 26 January 2013 are just reflecting the period into the second week of January. Given the delay in when most companies would be adjusting their paycheck tax withholding related to the fiscal cliff debate at the beginning of the year, the effect of President Obama's desired 2% tax hike on all wage and salary-earning Americans will continue to play out over the next several weeks.
So you can expect the number of new jobless claims to increase in the weeks ahead. At least you can't say that the numbers are unexpected! | <urn:uuid:416c996a-577a-44be-98bf-aeaa5b07944e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/politicalcalculations/2013/02/04/new-jobless-claims-totally-expected-and-what-to-expect-next-n1504354/print | 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 | 0.965431 | 1,921 | 1.59375 | 2 |
In his recent commentary, Dan Blask argues that the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s role in supporting the arts, humanities, and the interpretative sciences should go beyond funding organizations and individuals. He rightfully insists that the MCC is also about encouraging thoughtful conversation among artists, historians, and their audiences, and that the MCC has gone online in that effort via its informative blog ArtSake.
He asks a good question-- “what are the arts and humanities if not dialogue?” He is right, but I wish to point out, in a friendly way, the intellectual limitations in his approach to public dialogue. And to suggest that these boundaries undercut the admirable efforts of the MCC to generate a conversation that takes the arts and humanities seriously.
Back in 2007, I began The Arts Fuse, an online magazine dedicated to covering the arts in Massachusetts and New England. The non-profit publication reflects my lifelong interest in critiquing the arts as a means of paying homage to their essential value. It was also propelled by my belief that professional cultural coverage, especially criticism, was in trouble. Traumatized by economic and technological changes, major print newspapers and magazines continue to cut back on their column inches dedicated to cultural news and views. Billions of blogs offer quantity but not necessarily quality of opinion and information.
The Arts Fuse is an experiment: are there ways to combine a traditional approach to evaluating the arts (provoking and educating rather than simply advertising) with the interactive strengths of the Web? That notion of creating community offers exciting opportunities for innovative forms of cultural dialogue. If the public’s only encounter with arts criticism comes via Tweets or YouTube videos, is it any wonder that it can’t articulate or appreciate the value of the arts and humanities? (Thus the understandable though self-defeating recourse of arguing that the arts are valuable because of their economic benefits.) Here is where I find Dan’s approach on ArtSake -- having artists share their experiences of creating new work--limited. My version of his initial question is: what are the arts and humanities if not dialogue that stimulates critical thinking?
According to Dan, ArtSake focuses on “artists’ voices – on dialogue about new art.” This approach is admirable, though many artists proffer conversations about their creative process on their own blogs or sites. ArtSake adds the MCC’s official stamp of approval on particular efforts. But what if approval becomes part of the conversation? Audiences, readers, artists, scholars, and grant organizations make critical judgments about the arts and humanities all the time. Online dialogue should go beyond artists illuminating their trials and tribulations. It has to stimulate exchanges about the success of the work--including discussions about what success means--and if it was worth doing in the first place. Evaluation is an inevitable part of serious cultural dialogue--attempts to minimize judgment end up pushing exchanges about the arts into the realm of polite publicity.
The Massachusetts legislature hosts contentious debates among its representatives about controversial social and political issues. Why shouldn’t the MCC offer a civilized and curated space online for debates, criticism, and commentary about the state’s arts and humanities? In truth, a model for significant public discourse about cultural issues is desperately needed. Take a look at the online comments following arts stories and reviews on the sites of major newspapers. Many of the reactions are rude and crude--there is no vocabulary for aesthetic assessment or instructive disagreement.
My attempt to create a space for a lively exchange of views about the arts is the Judicial Review, an online project that was funded by MassHumanities. A panel made of critics, academics, and audience members weigh in on a cultural issue or event. The artist responds to the reactions, with readers becoming part of the confab. Topics for Judicial Reviews range from the aesthetics of food to the Museum of Fine Art’s New Art of the Americas Wing. One of the most popular Judicial Reviews is dedicated to Gish Jen’s novel World and Town, which is set in New England and deals with the Cambodian community.
Dan is kind enough to notice The Arts Fuse and its efforts to provide high quality criticism and commentary on the arts. I am proud of what we have accomplished on a fraying shoestring of a budget--the magazine has over 30 writers commenting on the performing arts, books, movies, the visual arts, music, and video games. Greg Cook’s New England Journal of Aesthetic Research, another first rate resource, is mentioned. But isn’t that list of online magazines dedicated to the arts in the state underpopulated?
Dan goes on to argue that the MCC shouldn’t deal with issues of artistic assessment because “it seemed to us those grounds were already covered.” This is flattering, but it ignores reality--there are continents of virgin critical territory. Economic self-interest drives universities, grant organizations, institutions, and artists to fund ways to get the word out about the arts and humanities. Resources for online publications that publish editorially vetted, independent cultural critiques, which might rile some in the cultural community, are extremely scarce, though a few states and arts funders realize that support for the arts and humanities calls for hosting places on the Web where artists, critics, and readers share their reactions and judgments.
Dan acknowledges the precariousness of the state’s online arts criticism when he mentions the “late, lamented Big RED and Shiny,” a valuable magazine that is no more. As of yet, there have been no replacements. Expanding the ways we think and talk about the arts and humanities is an important task-- the public and the MCC should not take the existence of arts criticism for granted. | <urn:uuid:329332a2-64bc-459e-a486-2ae09ca1f3e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article_print.cfm?aid=13351 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952473 | 1,180 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The U.S. has not declared war since World War II. If the president knows that an attack on our shores is imminent, he'd be hard-pressed to argue convincingly that a guy in a truck in a desert 10,000 miles from here -- no matter his intentions -- poses a threat to the U.S. so imminent and certain that he needs to be killed on the spot in order to save the lives of Americans who would surely die during the time it would take to declare war on the country that harbors him, or during the time it would take to arrest him. Under no circumstances may he use civilian agents for non-judicial killing. Surely, CIA agents can use deadly force to protect themselves, but they may not use it offensively. Federal laws against murder apply to the president and to all federal agents and personnel, wherever they go on the planet.
Since 9/11, the United States government has set up national security systems that function not under the Constitution, not under the Geneva Conventions, not under the rule of law, not under the rules of war, not under federal law, but under a new secret system crafted by the Bush administration and personally directed by Obama, the same Obama who condemned these rules as senator and then extended them as president. In the name of fighting demons in pick-up trucks and wars that Congress has never declared, the government shreds our rights, taps our cellphones, reads our emails, kills innocents abroad, strip searches 87-year-old grandmothers in wheelchairs and 3-year-old babies in their mothers' arms, and offers secrecy when the law requires accountability.
Obama has argued that his careful consideration of each person he orders killed and the narrow use of deadly force are an adequate and constitutional substitute for due process. The Constitution provides for no such thing. He has also argued that the use of drones to do his killing is humane since they are "surgical" and only kill their targets. We know that is incorrect. And he has argued that these killings are consistent with our values. What is he talking about? The essence of our values is the rule of law, not the rule of presidents. | <urn:uuid:e42898e2-b073-4963-80f5-a5fad05010a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/judgeandrewnapolitano/2012/05/31/the_secret_kill_list/page/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973058 | 442 | 1.53125 | 2 |
News & Announcements
ECU's mission is to foster a learning environment in which students,
faculty, staff and community interact to educate students for life
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Amy Ford
East Central University
Communications and Marketing
580-559-5650 405-812-1428 (cell)
ECU PLANS MEETING ABOUT EARNING SOCIAL WORK DEGREE
An informational meeting for persons interested in pursuing the bachelor of social work degree from East Central University is set for July 7 [TUESDAY] at 5:30 p.m. at the Eastern Oklahoma State College McAlester campus. The program offers special opportunities for students interested in working in child welfare or with older adults.
ECU will offer three beginning-level courses for the BSW degree this fall at McAlester. The courses will be taught onsite.
"Intro to Social Work and Social Welfare" (SOWK 2273) will meet Tuesdays from 4:25 p.m. until 7 p.m. "Human Behavior and Social Environment" (HURES 2083) is scheduled for Thursdays from 7:05 p.m. until 9:40 p.m. The third course, "Field Work Studies in Social Work" (SOWK 2511), is scheduled by arrangement and must be taken concurrently with "Intro to Social Work and Social Welfare."
ECU's social work program is one of only six accredited BSW programs in Oklahoma and the only one in the southeast quadrant of the state, said Dr. Carol Bridges, director of the social work program.
"Our primary objective is to prepare students to enter generalist social work practice at the beginning professional level following graduation," she said. "There is a need for degreed social workers in southeast Oklahoma and the social work program seeks to meet this need through its degree program in McAlester."
Program prerequisites are an introductory sociology course, a general psychology course and a human biology course (general biology). Students should also have completed "Freshman Composition I and II" with a grade of "C" or better.
"Most of the students who have completed the social work program at McAlester have been EOSC graduates," Bridges said. "Students planning to enter the program in the fall should either hold an associate of arts or science degree or lack only a few hours toward the associate's."
More information about the meeting is available from Bridges at 580-559-5405, or Kendra Burnside, ECU academic adviser at McAlester, at 918-302-3614.
# # # | <urn:uuid:684e366f-0005-4a5a-80a7-a9085d08fb1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ecok.edu/News/social_work_degree_june_2009.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941876 | 546 | 1.625 | 2 |
Palin Breaks With McCain On Gay Marriage Ban
From CBS News' Scott Conroy:
(COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO.) - In an interview with CBN's David Brody, Sarah Palin signaled her support for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, a position that John McCain once described as "antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans."
"I am, in my own, state, I have voted along with the vast majority of Alaskans who had the opportunity to vote to amend our Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman. I wish on a federal level that that's where we would go because I don't support gay marriage," Palin said.
"I'm not going to be out there judging individuals, sitting in a seat of judgment telling what they can and can't do, should and should not do, but I certainly can express my own opinion here and take actions that I believe would be best for traditional marriage and that's casting my votes and speaking up for traditional marriage that, that instrument that it's the foundation of our society is that strong family and that's based on that traditional definition of marriage, so I do support that."
When the federal marriage amendment was being debated in 2004, John McCain broke from his party's leadership and took to the Senate floor to denounce it in notably stark language.
"The constitutional amendment we're debating today strikes me as antithetical in every way to the core philosophy of Republicans," McCain said. "It usurps from the states a fundamental authority they have always possessed and imposes a federal remedy for a problem that most states do not believe confronts them."
Gay marriage isn't the only issue on which Palin and McCain have expressed differences of opinion. They have also diverged on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, global warming, cross-border raids into Pakistan, and whether abortion should be permitted in cases of rape and incest.
In a joint interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, McCain portrayed their differences of opinion on ANWR in a positive light.
"Did you expect two mavericks to agree on—to agree on everything?" he asked.
Though she has criticized Obama for his position on late-term abortion, Palin has lately kept the focus on the Democrat's tax plan, which she has said contains elements of socialism. Look for her to continue to hammer the Democrats on the economy as she campaigns across Colorado on Monday.
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