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Cby Tom Mccarthy
Synopses & Reviews
C has been shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize.
The acclaimed author of Remainder, which Zadie Smith hailed as “one of the great English novels of the past ten years,”gives us his most spectacularly inventive novel yet.
Opening in England at the turn of the twentieth century, C is the story of a boy named Serge Carrefax, whose father spends his time experimenting with wireless communication while running a school for deaf children. Serge grows up amid the noise and silence with his brilliant but troubled older sister, Sophie: an intense sibling relationship that stays with him as he heads off into an equally troubled larger world.
After a fling with a nurse at a Bohemian spa, Serge serves in World War I as a radio operator for reconnaissance planes. When his plane is shot down, Serge is taken to a German prison camp, from which he escapes. Back in London, hes recruited for a mission to Cairo on behalf of the shadowy Empire Wireless Chain. All of which eventually carries Serge to a fitful—and perhaps fateful—climax at the bottom of an Egyptian tomb . . .
Only a writer like Tom McCarthy could pull off a story with this effortless historical breadth, psychological insight, and postmodern originality.
From the Hardcover edition.
Opening in England at the turn of the twentieth century, C is the story of Serge Carrefax, whose father experiments with wireless communication while running a school for deaf children. Serge grows up amid the noise and silence with his brilliant but troubled older sister, Sophie: an intense sibling relationship that haunts him as he heads off into an equally troubled larger world. As Serge goes from a Bohemian spa to the skies of World War I, and from a German prison camp into the tombs of Egypt, we follow his life through the tumultuous course of the nascent modern era. Tom McCarthy—acclaimed author of Remainder—has created a truly singular character, and a world that sparkles with historical breadth and postmodern originality.
About the Author
Tom McCarthy was born in 1969 and lives in London. He is known in the art world for the reports, manifestos, and media interventions he has made as General Secretary of the International Necronautical Society (INS), a semi-fictitious avant-garde network. His previous books are Remainder and Tintin and the Secret of Literature.
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Computers and Internet » Computer Languages » C
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Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z | <urn:uuid:0f3cd659-a959-4607-8868-2a740bb927bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.powells.com/biblio/73-9780307388216-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937639 | 616 | 1.5 | 2 |
Talking Ones Walk
One of the great gifts we can give to each other is the example of our own lives working.
Whether this is, as example, standing up to opposition and winning people who are opposed-due to preconception or false information-or whether it is owning up to acknowledging personal failings and flaws, or completing school...Whatever the commitment, it doesn't always have to be smooth sailing or a clean slate to exemplify that things are on track. It is the forward motion of things, the professionalism and integrity behind the process that counts, and, at all cost, being true to oneself, ones talents, abilities, and decisions, however big or small, and the genuine interest in truth for oneself and others. Surmising navigation adjustments, as one proceeds, is part of this process. Calls for a genuine and directly honest look at the speed of the "forward motion" in this whole process, and making adjustments along the way...But, however you view this, walking ones talk is enlightening to oneself and to others, as is talking ones walk.
Apropos the Prospect of Unconditional Love
I always come back to a feeling that "unconditional love" is a transformation of fear, of learning to understand that one need be the source of love, rather than waiting for this gift from another. It allows, even requires, personal boundaries-that is, a sense of personal worth and identity-, allowing acceptance without expectations, frills or snorkels. No conditions, just feeling, people, and acceptance of it, without prejudice.
Endings & Beginnings & Endings
There is no ending without a beginning. That endings and beginnings end and begin right up next to each other, proves that nothing ever ends without something else beginning, or vice verse...Allowing something to naturally run its course, and end without forcing a beginning, is against our breeding, somehow, in our culture. But empty spaces and forms can be so exciting. It goes against our training to let go, but the excitement of allowing an item to end and/or begin all by itself, without forcing it to do one or the other, has all the glow of the anticipation and excitement of a wrapped Christmas present. The new and the old will still rub shoulders, in the end, or is that the beginning...?!
A Matter of Waiting
It could be that wisdom is simply a matter of waiting...acquisition, processing, and waiting. Surely, if one can trust in a larger concept, that wisdom given us, however given us, ultimately is called upon when most needed. Trust!
Many things around us strengthen the life force in us. For each of us there are conditions, to which we respond, that are as unique as an individual fingerprint.
Many of us might study our own life force in the same way that a Gardner might study his rose bushes. A Gardner creates conditions that favor the outcome of creating roses on his bushes, but every Gardner knows that the life force flows through each rose bush in a slightly different way.
Our judgment or the judgment of other people can stifle our own life force, its spontaneity and its natural expression. Judgment is, alas, commonplace. It is as rare to find someone who loves us as we are as it is to find someone who loves themselves whole.
Love vs. Approval
Few perfectionists can tell the difference between love and approval. Perfectionism is so widespread in our global cultures that we have found it necessary to create another word for love. "Unconditional love" is our expression. And yet, all love is unconditional. Anything else is really just approval.
Allow Enough Time
Just as it is important for anyone endeavoring a creative change to allow enough time for the learning process-, as it is natural for things to become less proficient before becoming more proficient-, it is necessarily advised to keep ones goal focus also a priority. That is, the lessons being learned-through practice, or shadow boxing, or concentration, or experience, and later endeavor-are offering paths and bridges to the changes wanted,-requiring energy, discipline, patience, time, and focus...Start this whole process well enough in advance (months, sometimes years, in advance) of your completion deadline. It's all worth it and part of it, and will open telling intellectual and particularly intuitive doors, if commenced early enough. Keep going with self-enforced courage and a "tiger's" eye on your goal, and hold the faith. You are changing you and your universe!
Core of Grace
Each individual comes into this world with a core, which is totally unencumbered, free of regret, expectation, worry, fear...
This is a source, or an umbilical cord if you will, where each of us was first touched by an Infinite Power. It is often called the Soul and often the Center of Love. To be aware and know this core is to understand who we are, not by dress code and social status, but by feeling a certain association with the Infinite and by inhabiting this core.
To know this core through our lives is a constant endeavor. We all live in a certain unrest, and life's journey covers us over only to erode us back to the unflinchingly incorruptible core of grace. The catharsis is worth the journey.
Changing Your World
If you desire a change in your surrounding world of decorum, dress code, office politics, career aspirations-or whatever-, try setting an example in your own life. Change your own decorum, dress code, office politics, career aspirations. This has a lovely way of "kicking in" as trend setting and empowering to the world around you. As I change myself, so do I change my world.
A Karma Theory
The theory of karma suggests that life itself is in an essential nature, both educational and healing, that the innate and basic wholeness underlying the personality of each of us is evoked, clarified, and strengthened through the challenges and experiences of our lifetime. The life paths may be a kind of movement toward the soul. It could be, then, that the act of dying and death may be the final and most integrating of our life experiences.
It is possible to feel or know what another is thinking, though one cannot clearly sense energy through intense emotions.
Feeling the thoughts of another requires getting calm and letting your mind be as silent as possible. Imagining one is in the other's shoes is a good way to start the connection, though not exclusive. But, however the communication is spontaneously created, it is almost always certain that the underlying feeling one has, in thinking of the other party, is the same feeling the other party has when thinking of you. If one can trust this, an important and deep communing can be immediate.
Joy's Musical Note
Even in the midst of an extremely dark day's beginning, joy's musical note sounded as one moved through the day.
Joy has a wonderful way of easing itself into the picture, and this can be triggered by a seemingly insignificant circumstance: The cheery faces of friends with whom one, by chance, chats on a street corner at dawn. It's those little warm and fussy things that often make the most difference and open the positive floodgates, when most desired and needed.
Release the Anchor
In many ways one's past is an anchor, until one releases it and lets go of any negative beliefs or memories of it.
Keeping this in mind, if one wishes to be aware of the higher good happening in one's own life, one need be willing to let go of a limited perspective of it and enlarge one's vista. If you have no limits, surely the sky hasn't any!
Loving a person or people is a commitment to holding a high vision of them, even in times of change and growth, and/or discord...It's worth it, so are you, so are they, and so is the community of ultimate harmonic beauty!
Communication Brings Clarity
Careful communication brings clarity. Get clear on your purpose, intent and motivation.
Create the Future
Power comes from living in the present moment, where you can take action and create the future. Is is also wise, along the way, to remember that quantum leaps require apropos emotional changes.
One Great Gift
One of the greatest gifts you can give others is to be open to their love for you.
Open to the New
If you want something new, be willing to have it come from anywhere, any place, any person.
Thought, Action, Clarity
It is more valuable to think issues out than to act them out!
Finding the right action is easy, if one is willing to spend time thinking issues through, first. We are often drawn to unbridled action, making adjustments underway, in order to arrive at a solution earlier, when, in fact, thought before action is the time saver. Clarity then comes from a state of mental concentration and focus.
Exist in a feeling of Love
If one can exist in a feeling of love...if one can find in everything one does a depth of love-touch, word, eyes, thoughts, emotions-one can nourish and nurture oneself as well as the whole planet. | <urn:uuid:daa41202-a150-43ec-bbb2-c6b978b43770> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.janemarsh.com/2008_08_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950726 | 1,914 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Well, obviously like everything in poker, the answer is: "it depends".
Let's strip it down to its core: Pocket pairs are good because if you go against an opponent that doesn't have a pocket pair, he needs to hit the flop/turn/river somehow in order to have showdown value. You don't have to connect to the flop to do this, because you already have a pair.
This is actually the reason why pocket Aces are the best hand. In this case, your opponent has to connect to the board. But because there is no higher pair than Aces, he has to do it twice in order to win (with some exceptions obviously). This is unlikely to happen, especially in Texas Hold'em.
Small pocket pairs lose their value as their rank goes down. Let's take for example pocket sixes. Cards bigger than sixes are 7 and up, this means (14 - 7 + 1) x 4 = 32. There is a huge chance that one of those 32 cards will show up on the board. Now if we consider pocket threes, then there are 44 cards bigger than a 3.
What this means is that, unless you hit a set, the value of your hand will be low, especially if a multi-player hand.
In my opinion a good way to play these hands is to make a standard preflop raise and hope to hit a set on the flop. If you can see a free turn or river, go with it. But if at any time you start to encouter resistance (a.k.a. your opponent(s) bet or raise), GIVE IT UP. The odds of hitting a set are so low, that calling any bet would not make sense.
I usually never play 22-55 unless I'm deep enough (at least 40 BB). When it comes to 66-88, the value increases a bit so you can play the hand a little more often.
When it comes to pocket nines or above, things change significantly.
All this is obviously just a small part of the decision process. There are a lot more factors to consider. There are situations where it's a good idea to play pocket fours and other situations where folding Jacks makes a lot of sense... It depends on the action, how your opponent(s) play, is it tournament or cash, how deep everyone is and much more. | <urn:uuid:9217f74b-f404-480b-a267-42a156bc4ad3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://poker.stackexchange.com/questions/797/small-pairs-on-early-and-middle-positions/802 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963011 | 497 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Lasure’s passion to help students results in Kohl honorLaurie Lasure is a driven advocate for her students, providing them with every opportunity to develop the skills they need to function fully in society. Lasure’s passion to create unique opportunities for her students has earned her a 2012 Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Fellowship.
Laurie Lasure is a driven advocate for her students, providing them with every opportunity to develop the skills they need to function fully in society.
Lasure’s passion to create unique opportunities for her students has earned her a 2012 Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Fellowship.
Lasure was nominated for the Kohl honor as the Somerset School District Special Education Teacher of the Year. Lasure is one of 100 state teachers to receive a Kohl Foundation Fellowship. By receiving the Kohl honor, Lasure earns a $1,000 check for the school district. Lasure will be honored this Sunday at noon at the Menomonie Middle School, where winners from CESA districts, 4, 10, 11 and 12 will be honored. The event begins with a reception at noon and a luncheon at 12:30 p.m.
Lasure is in her 16th year as the speech and language pathologist at the middle school and high school in Somerset. Lasure is dedicated to patiently working with her students to help them develop their speech skills. Then she takes the students’ speech experience a step farther.
Lasure understands that students can be taught to learn skills in the comfortable setting of a classroom where they’ve developed a safe feeling. She also knows that the students need to be able to use their improved skills outside of the classroom setting. She has arranged a number of opportunities for her students to get experience speaking with people in the public.
“As a speech and language pathologist I work with students who have difficulty in areas of communication and am always looking for new and different opportunities for my students to improve their communication skills and learn to use their skills in real life situations,” Lasure said. “I feel it is important for my students to learn the value of volunteerism as they practice their communications skills.”
For several years, Lasure has arranged for her students visit residents of Countryside Apartments, a senior citizens residence. The students help some of the seniors at the apartment complex with a few chores as a companionship activity. This allows the students to get comfortable with the residents. They gradually began to converse and do activities with the residents, like playing games.
Frankie Arneson is one of the Countryside residents who has worked with the students to help them become more comfortable, so they can use their improved communication skills outside of their home and classroom.
“I have seen personal growth in the young people,” Arneson said. “(Lasure) helps kids see their strengths. She does amazing things. She looks at possibilities instead of limitations.”
Lasure has been a promoter of getting her students involved in as many regular education situations as possible. A project that she began at the middle school that has carried over to the high school is friendship groups. Lasure groups her students with students from the general population. Many of them develop friendships that carry through all their school years and into adult life. The peer mentors were asked to model good communication and friendship skills, for Lasure’s students.
Lasure and elementary speech and language pathologist Michelle Paulisich have also created a mentoring program among their students. The older students get to serve as mentors to the younger students. This gives the older students the experience of having someone look up to them and it provides role models for the younger students in the program.
Ricki Perzichilli, a Somerset High School senior, has been one of Lasure’s students since fifth grade. Perzichilli has been working in a new program Lasure has begun at Somerset, “Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension.”
The deep trust Perzichilli has for her teacher showed as the two talked about the progress Perzichilli has made since starting this program. Perzichilli recently took the WITC entrance test for the Certified Nursing Assistant program.
“I had to visualize some of the questions and it helped me dramatically. I passed the first time,” Perzichilli said.
As they continued to talk, Perzichilli told Lasure how her efforts have helped Perzichilli to change her view of her future.
“You gave me the confidence boost that I can make it in this world,” Perzichilli said.
Lasure said she has a new mission. Because there is a shortage of speech and language pathologists, she is searching for students who might be interested in a career in helping students in this occupation.
Lasure was nominated for the Teacher of the Year honor by Somerset Director of Pupil Services Darren Kern. Kern said he could only do justice to Lasure by talking about her separately as an educator and a person.
“She’s the consummate professional. She always puts others ahead of her own needs. She’s a wonderful resource to other staff members,” Kern said. “As a person, she’s one of the greatest people you’ll ever meet.” | <urn:uuid:e455160f-cc22-4f7c-98af-9ddb38eac6ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newrichmond-news.com/event/article/id/35611/publisher_ID/13/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973395 | 1,116 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Interpreters are extremely important in the judicial system, and they are increasingly in high demand. Costs for interpreter services continue to rise in courtrooms across the country, but technology is helping cut those costs while improving quality of life for the interpreters themselves.
Orange County is currently using a Cisco Connected Justice solution for Florida’s first high-tech interpreter system. The system instantly connects interpreters to 67 courtrooms through high definition, live, interactive video. From their desks, interpreters have the ability to control camera angles and audio levels in the courtroom, speak directly to any of the parties participating in a hearing and can appear in real-time on a monitor in the courtroom. Read More »
You probably saw the headlines about the devastating tornadoes that swept through the Dallas, Texas metropolitan area a few weeks ago. Our hearts go out to those who suffered damage.
As the Lancaster area of the storm-hit region undergoes its recovery, I recently read that at least its public school students have much to look forward to in the months ahead. Lancaster schools recently announced a plan to create a “STEM District”—a union of schools committed to systematically changing teaching practices to promote state-of-the-art education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects. It’s an exciting opportunity for the historically economically disadvantaged district to become a national model for teaching these critical topics. Read More »
Let’s take a quick trip down memory lane. As a child, did you dream of making it as a professional athlete? Or, perhaps, as you grew a little older and your own athletic prowess gave way to other skills, you wished to someday work among the sports stars you so loved and admired?
Thanks to the extensive education outreach programs provided by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, today’s youngsters who aspire to careers in professional football can learn how to make these dreams into realities. Using telepresence, the Hall of Fame reaches students in all 50 states with virtual fieldtrips to National Football League (NFL) offices and museum collections and archives. The in-person, real-time telepresence connections let participating students speak directly with NFL doctors, accountants, public relations leaders, sales staff, and more, enabling them to learn how these employees earned their positions and what it takes to succeed. The telepresence links also let the Hall of Fame use special document cameras and computers to bring some of its 15,000 football artifacts “directly” into classrooms. Read More »
What will our educational system look like in a decade? Will there even be physical classrooms? Will school have evolved into some sort of theme park full of interactive technologies and fun learning gadgets?
Technology will certainly play a part in creating the exciting atmospheres that educators seek to provide for their students. Educators and administrators have even taken the conversation about educating our youth to the next level by utilizing social media tools such as Twitter and Edmodo.com to communicate with each other for fresh ways to inspire youth to find their own education intriguing. | <urn:uuid:1ffa6f09-53f5-4fbb-b750-954b9c08dc74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cisco.com/tag/videoconferencing/page/4/?wpmp_switcher=desktop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945334 | 627 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Women Claiming the Power of Pregnancy
following excerpt from a conversaion at the National Abortion Federation (NAF) Annual Meeting illuminates
women's unique power regarding pregnancy.
of the Panel Discussion:
"What if abortion were solely a woman-defined
event outside the maelstrom of United States politics?"
Founder/President of Choices Women's Medical Center in Queens, New York:
the world; that's what I see my work as, changing the world from what is to what
"I just came back from Nepal where they are not shooting
doctors but they are putting women in prison for twenty years, sometimes chained
to a wall with their children, if they have abortions. My point is that we can't
exist outside the patriarchy, outside the political systems as they exist, so
we have to work to change them to reflect a more integrated world view. This world
view would not separate mind and body. In this world view women would be free
of violence, of coercion, and sexual pressure. This is one of the main platforms
from the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing: that women are free to live
and choose, free of violence and coercion."
"As abortion providers,
we must be very cognizant of our position in history. I consider Roe v Wade as
the medical equal rights amendment for women. There are so many firsts we are
on the cusp of: the first time women owned clinics, defined them as feminist,
hired physicians, placed them in an integrated, inter-disciplinary system. For
the first time counseling was done. Because of the context and the politics and
the emotionality, women wanted to talk about it. So we developed a philosophy
of, what I call, "patient power" where the woman and her doctor are
in an equal relationship."
"Now,we have to change the terms of
the debate. We must not accept the reality as it is constructed for us but we
have to change it as we know it authentically for ourselves."
over issues of life and death, are controlled by the establishment: (such as)
criminal justice, war. Who decides who goes to war? Who decides what's an honorable
reason to kill or be killed. Who decides when we have to act in self defense?
Well, abortion is very often an act of survival, and self defense, and power.
Women have that power."
"I think the issue is how each
woman reacts to abortion and how she defines it in her own life. The problem is
that this society does not value and validate women's lives so they don't value
and validate women's realities. So they feel free to make judgments about why
and when women can have an abortion."
"There are as many reasons
for, and definitions of the abortion experience as there are women who have them,
1.5 million women each year in the U.S. We have to validate each one of them."
to speak about how I have developed my own reality about abortion. I've had three
pregnancies in my life. The first pregnancy I chose to terminate by illegal abortion
which landed me in the hospital and included sexual assault by the doctor. The
second pregnancy I chose to terminate by legal abortion. I sometimes wonder if
I chose abortion as a way of recreating that experience as one I could own, although
at the same time, it was a choice I would have made regardless. The third I chose
to terminate in the birth of my son."
"I recall that moment when
I was 6 weeks pregnant and found out I was pregnant with that desired pregnancy.
It wasn't 6 weeks worth of substance in my uterus, it was a baby. I had a relationship
"There was a moment of cognitive dissonance, of feeling crazy,
about feeling so positive about this pregnancy and so clearly have made different
decisions before, decisions I have never regretted."
different wasn't what was inside of my uterus, it was what was inside of me, and
my relationship to myself, my relationship to my world."
heard a medical ethicist try to clarify this unclarifiable topic of trying to
be absolute in defining issues around life, and more crucially around personhood.
He suggested something then which has been exquisitely valuable for me in understanding.
He said that part of a woman's choice about what to do with her pregnancy includes
the right to bestow personhood to what it is she carries. A right that is uniquely
female. That moment, the bestowing of personhood, also carries with it a responsibility
for that child of choice."
National Abortion Federation (NAF) is the professional
association of abortion providers in the US and Canada. NAF's mission is to preserve
and enhance the quality and accessibility of abortion services.
Feminist Women's Health Center | <urn:uuid:2ec354fc-fc9f-483d-826d-146b50ae7d7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fwhc.org/health/power.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967675 | 1,027 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The former president of Columbia Studios, David Begelman had a checkered but colorful career that was sharply curtailed when he was implicated in the 1978 check-forging scandal that shook Hollywood to its core and inspired author/journalist David McClintick (who originally broke the story in The Wall Street Journal) to write the best-selling novel Indecent Exposure in 1982. In 1973, when Begelman left Creative Management Associates (CMA) and his business partner Freddie Fields to take over at the floundering Columbia Studios, he became among the first Tinseltown agents to cross-over and rise to the top of the studio system. He remained there until the scandal broke in 1978. A closer examination of Begleman's life before and after the scandal proves that he was no stranger to shady dealings. For example, though he claimed to be a 1947 Yale graduate and graduate of the Yale Law School, the prestigious institution has no record of Begelman's ever having been enrolled at either place. Still, he managed to find work with the Music Corporation of America (MCA). He remained there for over 11 years and rose to the position of vice president of special projects. He left in 1960 to co-found CMA with Fields. Their clients included Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand. After taking over the nearly bankrupt Columbia Studios in 1973 (Begelman was also appointed senior executive vice president of parent company Columbia Pictures Industries Inc.), Begelman saved Columbia by shamelessly recruiting big-name stars from his former CMA and General Artists Corp., a company he and CMA took over in 1968. With such stars at Columbia, he was able to dramatically change the company's image by producing such hits as Tommy (1975), Shampoo (1975), Murder by Death (1976), and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
With such successes, Begelman significantly reduced Columbia's debt and he was living a comfortable executive life. Trouble brewed when he forged an endorsement on a $10,000 studio check meant for actor Cliff Robertson. When Robertson found out that he was expected to pay taxes on money he'd never received, he confronted Begleman, who in turn blamed the act on a low-level worker. Unconvinced, Robertson started an investigation that would lead to a confession from Begelman and the admission that he had forged two other checks for the sum of $40,000. At first Begelman was suspended with full pay (he was at the time earning around $300,000 annually, a tidy sum in those days), and then was reinstated. The courts sentenced him to three years community service but then reduced it to one. Begelman spent the year producing a documentary about the dangers of taking Angel Dust, a powerful horse tranquilizer with mind-altering capabilities. In 1980, Begelman moved to become CEO and president of MGM. But once there, he generated such box-office flops as Pennies from Heaven and Whose Life Is It Anyway and was unable to repeat his success at Columbia. Only Poltergeist was a major hit. His apparent slump coupled with the publication of McClintick's damning book, led to Begelman's leaving MGM before his four-year contract expired. In 1982, he co-founded Sherwood Products and produced such films as Mr. Mom. He founded Gladden Entertainment in 1984 and had success with Weekend at Bernies (1989) and Mannequin (1987). But they were about the only hits his company produced, and by the mid '90s, Gladden was deeply indebted to various talent guilds and Begelman had to declare bankruptcy. Apparently undaunted, he turned around and co-founded Gladden Prods. In early August, 1997, David Begelman shot himself in the head while staying at L.A.'s Century Plaza Hotel Towers. All who knew and loved him were deeply shocked, for while Begelman had a tendency towards depression at times, he had seemed normal and untroubled at the time of his suicide. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi | <urn:uuid:3cf1d4bd-11c2-4960-8c13-01fef4b7ea8e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spill.hollywood.com/Actor/ActorDetails.aspx?Name=David%20Begelman&PersonId=167301 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980799 | 834 | 1.507813 | 2 |
David Cowan 4.29pm
Eurozone leaders have announced a new €109 billion bailout package for Greece, which includes restructuring Greece’s national debt and inflicts further cuts to public spending. Money markets have rallied but the fear is that this cannot last. Meanwhile, Westminster remains mesmerised by the hacking scandal.
Ireland and Portugal have already been bailed out. Greece has now been bailed out twice. Italy is teetering on the edge of collapse and Spain looks risky - bond markets remain turbulent. A new European rescue fund is reported to have $464 billion ready to defend these two countries should markets scramble. If any of these eurozone countries fall to an uncontrolled default then financial contagion could spread right across the continent, cause the eurozone’s collapse and unleash a new global recession.
I think that a default in one of these countries is now inevitable. Bailouts can only prolong the wait. This leaves only one viable option for the PIGS: a controlled default outside the eurozone. New currencies (or re-introduction of old ones) would allow exchange rates to fall to more realistic levels and permit an economic recovery based on increased exports. Once recovery was secured and necessary reforms were implemented in order to comply with the Stability and Growth Pact’s original 3 per cent cap on deficits, such nations could return. However, as President Sarkozy has said that the word ‘default’ (or defaut) is not in his vocabulary, this option appears to be off the table.
The Government seems to have a new EU policy, outlined by David Rennie in this week’s Economist:
Thanks to a great scoop by George Parker of the FT, it is clear the government now believes the following: (a) a big leap towards fiscal union is the only way of saving the single currency, (b) Britain has a strong interest in the survival of the single currency, (c) Britain must play no part in bailing out the single currency and will stand aloof from fiscal integration, thus (d) our national interest now lies in allowing Europe to divide into markedly different zones of integration, with us on the outside.
Whereas eurosceptics such as Bill Cash and Daniel Hannan are clamouring for a radical renegotiation of the UK’s membership of the EU, such changes are unlikely as long as the Conservatives govern in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. However, David Cameron does risk a Conservative backbench rebellion if he does not take some advantage of the situation, particularly when one considers that the 2010 intake of Tory MPs is the most rebellious since the Second World War.
The European Commission’s budget proposals - an unrealistic 100 billion euros increase - could offer the best opportunity for Mr Cameron. At a time of budget cuts across Europe, the Government must demand a 10 per cent cut to the EU budget over the next budgetary cycle (2014-20). In return, there should be negotiations about revenue raising powers for the EU. A VAT increase or new Tobin Tax should be ruled out in favour of options such as replacing the EU Emissions Trading Scheme and carbon price floor with an EU-wide Carbon Tax (see my previous post).
William Hague should also push for a Single Market Act. This could be the greatest supply side reform in EU history by significantly reducing regulations, regulatory bodies, quangos and unnecessary bureaucratic obstacles (see also Nik’s article in March about Tory Reform Group MPs demanding EU deregulation). We must help to liberalise the European economy to enable it to become more productive, dynamic and innovative.
David Cameron envisages an EU that allows the free movement of goods, capital, services and labour, and where there is multilateral co-operation over global trade, the promotion of human rights, international aid and tackling climate change. As the 2010 Conservative manifesto makes clear, this does not include oversight of social policy or the rule of law.
The eurozone crisis is both a huge threat to the UK economy and the greatest opportunity for genuine, lasting reform in Europe. Let’s hope that the Prime Minister and his Chancellor face down this threat and grasp the opportunity in front of them.
Follow David on Twitter @David_Cowan | <urn:uuid:af62eec8-5b64-44fa-8ee3-68d7ac4c9020> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://toryreformgroup.tumblr.com/post/7929431424/david-cowan-eurozone-crisis-threat-or-opportunity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936769 | 855 | 1.578125 | 2 |
How would you recommend I use your simulated GMAT exams?
Our practice tests are best used when the student treats our simulated test as if it were the real test and completes every part under realistic conditions with no breaks or distractions. Our tests are not designed for practicing specific question types or for drills. Instead, they offer students the opportunity to simulate the real test and practice handling the rigors of the test experience in combination with the challenges of the questions themselves. Tutors typically offer one or two of our GMAT Practice Tests to a student to find a baseline performance level, then they design a course of study for the student. Some offer another exam mid-way through the course, but others save the remaining tests until the end of the course. Your preference will depend on your current performance level and your goals. We typically recommend that you complete all the study and drills you intend to perform for GMAT Test preparation. Afterwards, schedule time to complete our exams as if they were the real thing. If you score in your desired range, you should feel confident that you have met your goal and sit for the real GMAT asap. If not, then address your weaknesses with more drilling or professional assistance. | <urn:uuid:bf5bda50-59b2-4f94-96cb-104a5d0f4789> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.catprep.com/gmat-support/kb/article/000025 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948669 | 242 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Bill Becker, who has run a years-long effort to shape a presidential plan on climate and energy, crafted an imagined followup speech and event for President Obama should he choose to dig in on the case for climate action, which he left out of his State of the Union message.
Here’s the core point of the speech, and a link to the rest:
In short, we stand at the crossroads of two futures here in the United States and worldwide. One road leads to increasing disruption and damage, and escalating economic and military insecurity. I would call this the “business as usual” road, except the emissions we’ve already put in the atmosphere guarantee that business as usual no longer is an option, whichever road we take.
The second road takes us to a clean energy economy, to greater economic security, to fewer international tensions and resource conflicts, and to new industries and jobs. It takes us to a new American century of leadership and prosperity, and to a future we will be proud to leave to our children.
We know that all countries, including ours, will have to adapt to the climate disruptions that are inevitable because of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. The issue today is whether we will trigger tipping points that cause climate change to accelerate beyond our control. The second road is still open, if we choose it quickly. And I emphasize again: The choice is not a partisan issue. As one observer has put it, there is no Right or Left at this crossroads. There is only backward or forward. [Read the rest at Climateprogress.org.]
I could quibble with some word choices. For instance, “quickly” too strongly implies that what is required is some discrete action, not a new relationship with energy and inquiry. And the overused “tipping points” meme is tough to justify in dealing with climate, to my mind, considering the multi-dimensional complexity and enduring uncertainties. (Don’t take my word for that; consult Gavin Schmidt, as well.)
But I think Becker’s approach is useful, and — as I said earlier this week — such a step is essential if Obama is serious about building the case for a sustained push to build an energy menu that works for the long haul.
Also, I just stumbled on a useful National Academies posting that essentially annotates the president’s Tuesday address with links to a variety of reports that are relevant to certain themes Obama touched on. Pass it around. | <urn:uuid:e943b08f-02e0-4e74-a3ae-a7fb3fb23087> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/28/obamas-climate-speech/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953623 | 513 | 1.640625 | 2 |
From: DINO The Life and Films of Dino De Laurentiis
by Tullio Kezich and Alessandra Levantesi,
translated from the Italian by James Marcus
(In an excerpt from Eli Wallach's autobiography, the American actor talked about meeting Federico Fellini and being offered a role in a movie to be produced by Dino De Laurentiis. Federico backed out of making the movie, which led to lawsuits by De Laurentiis because of the amount of pre-production money already spent. Here's what is said about that project in the official De Laurentiis' biography.)
Then, in January 1964, as Fellini was preparing to shoot JULIET OF THE SPIRITS, Dino learned that his old friend was squabbling with his erstwhile patron, producer Angelo Rizzoli. Could it be time for a rapproachement? After some amiable discussions, Dino and Fellini signed an unusual contract, dated February 13. According to this document, they would make JULIET OF THE SPIRITS together is Rizzoli declined it, or as an alternative, a film "of a modern kind, i.e. without any costumes." There was also an option for a second film. Alerted to the situation, Rizzoli grew alarmed and accused Federico of wanting to betray him "with that Neapolitan down there."
In the end, JULIET was the last project Fellini would direct for the elderly Angelo. That left the second film. The contract between the old friends had specified an appropriate title, WHAT MAD UNIVERSE, a science-fiction novel Fellini had asked Dino to option. By now, however, the director had something quite different in mind, which he didn't initially share with his partner. This was a short novel by Dino Buzzati called LO STRANO VIAGGIO (THE STRANGE VOYAGE), which he'd read in a magazine eighteen years before: the story of a young man who mysteriously finds himself in the afterworld.
Traveling up to Milan, Federico invited Buzzati to knock out the screenplay with him. And so IL VIAGGIO DI G. MASTORNA (THE VOYAGE OF G. MASTORNA) came into being - amidst many doubts on Dino's part. The producer was less than enthusiastic about filming the other-worldly travels of a dead man. Throughout 1965, while Buzzati moved forward with the script, Fellini and Dino's brothers, Luigi and Alfredo, scouted locations in Naples, Milan, and Cologne. In the new studio at Dinocitta - where the director felt uncomfortable from the very first day, calling it "a space station, in inaccessible outpost" - various sets began to tape shape. These included a scale model of the Cologne cathedral and the airplane in which the cellist Giuseppe Mastorna believes himself to be landing safely. (Instead, the plane crashes, and the protagonist crosses over to the kingdom of the dead.)
Other pieces of scenery were hammered together, among them a Neapolitan set at Vasca Navale, and Dino procured hundreds of costumes. But now Fellini revealed an alarming listlessness. The maestro was in fact experiencing the crsis that he'd depicted earlier in 8 1/2; he was a director about to embark on a film he no longer wanted to make. He had come to believe that MASTORNA was bringing him bad luck - that messing around with the afterlife was not a smart thing to do. On September 14, 1966, Fellini had the following message delivered to his producer: "I must tell you that I've been debating within myself for some time, and that I've finally come to a conclusion... I can't begin the film because, despite everything that's happened, I wouldn't be able to complete it.... I'm so sorry, caro Dino, to have arrived at this decision, but it's the only thing I can do."
A war between the two friends exploded, with the newspapers fanning the flames. Dino filed a claim for 1 billion lira in damages; the court granted him 350 million and a bailiff showed up at the villa Federico shared with Giulietta Masina to begin the seizure of property. Since the attached goods added up to a smaller sum than the grant by the court, Dino also asked for the seizure of any funds still owed to Fellini by Rizzoli.
The skirmish was interrupted by the official premiere of THE BIBLE at San Carlo di Napoli. Meanwhile Luigi and Alfredo De Laurentiis did everything they could do to broker a truce between the director and producer. Fellini had made the situation worse by declaring that he was ready to make the film for a different producer. In fact, he may already have been in the midst of secret negotiations, but the intermediaries kept trying to cobble something together.
Finally Dino and Federico agreed to meet one evening in January 1967, in the park surrounding the Villa Borghese in Rome. When the appointed time arrived, the producer joined the director and his lawyer in their car. The trio circled the park slowly, over and over, with Dino's car and driver following. After an hour, the first car came to a halt, the occupants climbed out, and the two enemies exchanged a peacemaking embrace. All around them, meanwhile, retainers from both sides, who had been squatting on the grass, leaped forward in jubilation.
Since Fellini no longer wanted to work at Dinocitta, preparations for the film recommenced in the old studios at Vasca Navale. There was some thought of signing up Mastroianni for the lead role, but he was unavailable in April or May, when the shoot was scheduled to begin. It was also too late to hire an American star, so Fellini settled on Ugo Tognazzi. On March 13 he sent Dino a cheerleading note: "I've decided to use Tognazzi. Godspeed and good luck to us all" The actor, who hadn't yet made his break into real stardom, was overjoyed at the news and ran off to telephone his father. But on the evening of April 10, at a decisively unfavorable juncture, the director was rushed to the hospital with severe chest pains.
Dino couldn't believe it. Suspecting Fellini of faking illness to get out of making the film, he sent down his own team of doctors to the Salvator Mundi Clinic. But when the physicians returned with a catastrophic diagnosis - possible cancer - De Laurentiis was unable to hold back his tears. Luckily the next day examinations put these fears to rest. Federico was suffering from pleurisy, an infalmmation of the membrane separating the lungs from the abdomen, with complications from anaphylactic shock. The doctors prescribed a long convalescence, which had just begun when Dino himself had to be rushed to the hospital after an attack of appendicitis.
Did all this put MASTORNA on hold? Of course not. The recuperating director soon received a visit from Paul Newman. He'd been sent by Dino, who hoped that the maestro would cast him as Mastorna in place of Tognazzi - who, unjustly dropped from the project, ended up suing everybody.
In May the convalescent Fellini told one interviewer regarding Dino, "There's no longer any acrimony between us. On the contrary, I believe that Dino has a great deal of regard for me." It wasn't clear, however,whether the director still wanted to make the film of if he intended to make it with somebody else. As pragmatic as ever - and perhaps equally disenchanted by a project that had brought him such grief - Dino ended the suspense by relieving the director of his obligations. In return, on August 21, Fellini signed a contract to make three films with De Laurentiis over the next five years. He would never make a single one.
By now, the padrone of Dinocitta had lost all hope of breaking even on the project. Another Neapolitan producer, Alberto Grimaldi, nonetheless expressed interest in acquiring the rights to MASTORNA and reimbursing all of Dino's expenses. On September 25 Grimaldi presented Dino with a check and brought the entire dispute to an end. Fellini recounts the grand finale in this way: "Dino fell to his knees, shouting, 'San Gennaro exists, he's right here in front of me, his name is Alberto Grimaldi!" Today Dino dismisses this little scene as more fruit of the director's imagination, but he does say, "Not even this new San Gennaro could pull off what would have been a real miracle: convincing Fellini to make the film."
(Fellini would make SATRYICON and CASANOVA for Grimaldi instead.) | <urn:uuid:d9e3bdb3-18b5-4d85-96d0-4e9e3e0e5624> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wconnolly.blogspot.com/2009/09/followup-on-eli-and-federico.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977304 | 1,840 | 1.546875 | 2 |
After a Boy Scout accused a Scout leader of making sexual advances while they were alone at a campground in 1979, Scout officials in Pittsburgh allowed the leader to resign and never contacted authorities.
A decade later, the head of the Boy Scouts in Philadelphia concluded he had no duty to contact authorities regarding sex-abuse allegations against a scoutmaster there because the alleged victim was not a Scout.
Those cases and hundreds more from Pennsylvania are among those described in secret files kept by the Boy Scouts of America between 1970 and 1991 and made public as evidence in a California sex-abuse lawsuit against the youth group.
Next month, a set of records from 1965 to 1985 are set to be released following an order by the Oregon Supreme Court in a similar case against the Boy Scouts of America that resulted in a $20 million verdict.
The Boy Scouts' so-called "perversion files" were a blacklist used to track individuals who had been barred from Scouting. In the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia cases, the list appears to have prevented the accused leaders from rejoining the Boy Scouts.
A review of more than 1,600 files by the Los Angeles Times shows that in many cases, Scout leaders who were blacklisted were allowed to rejoin the organization and were again accused of abuse. In most of the cases, the Scouts learned of the abuse after it had already been reported to authorities.
But in about 500 cases, Scout officials learned about allegations of abuse from parents, staff members or the boys themselves. In the majority of those cases, the Times investigation found, there is no record Scout officials reported the claimed abuse to authorities. In more than 100 cases, Scout officials actively worked to conceal the allegations.
Craig Poland, CEO of the Boy Scouts' Minsi Trails Council, which includes the Lehigh Valley, said he could not comment on any specific cases and that allegations of sexual abuse are filed centrally with the Boy Scouts in Texas.
In response to the report, the Boy Scouts of America issued a statement: "We regret there have been times when, despite the BSA's best efforts to protect children, Scouts were abused, and for that we are very sorry and extend our deepest sympathies to victims."
The Boy Scouts noted that the files concern decades-old allegations and that the organization has recently been recognized as a leader in protecting youth. It now requires its members to report even the suspicion of abuse to law enforcement, the statement says.
In the Pittsburgh case, a teenage Boy Scout accused a 31-year-old professional Scout leader in charge of a Scouting district southwest of Pittsburgh of making sexual advances.
The boy reported to his scoutmaster that the leader grabbed his buttocks and crotch and made sexually suggestive comments as the pair inspected a campground in May 1979.
When confronted by his superiors, the leader denied the boy's allegations, but said that he would resign from the Boy Scouts of America rather than contest the boy's claims and endure the negative publicity that would follow, according to the Boy Scouts' secret files.
A Boy Scout official reported that he contacted the boy's father after the leader volunteered to resign. The boy's father said he was satisfied that the organization had done everything that it could. The Scout official noted, however, that he reported the incident to the local Boy Scout council's insurance agent, the Boy Scouts' files say.
More than three years later, the accused leader inquired with the national Boy Scouts office in Irving, Texas, about a professional Scouting position. It is unclear from the file whether he was given a job.
But the file shows that in 1987, Scouting officials in Pittsburgh forwarded documents regarding the 1979 incident to the national Boy Scout office, resulting in the leader's addition to the blacklist.
The file also shows that his inclusion on the list resulted in the rejection of his application to register as a scoutmaster in Indianapolis in 1989.
The Morning Call is not identifying the leader because he was never charged with a crime. Pennsylvania and Indiana criminal court records do not indicate he was ever charged with other offenses.
Now living in Indiana and working for a nonprofit community foundation, the 63-year-old man said Tuesday he felt he had little hope of defending himself against allegations by the boy and that he felt physically threatened by the Scout's family.
"I resigned because I didn't have the wherewithal to fight it," the man said. "I would have had no backing. It would have been him against me. It wouldn't have been good for the Boy Scouts and it wouldn't have been good for me."
In the Philadelphia case, documents from the Boy Scouts' confidential files show a 14-year-old boy accused a 37-year-old scoutmaster from North Philadelphia of soliciting oral sex. | <urn:uuid:60fe8265-0e76-41e1-965e-8a3dbc057a1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.mcall.com/2012-09-19/news/mc-pa-boy-scout-sex-files-20120918_1_perversion-files-boy-scouts-scout-leader | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981022 | 963 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Landscaping your garden can make it more user friendly, interesting and add value to your property. The peace and serenity of a well designed and landscaped garden can provide a well needed oasis from the daily grind. Our gardener team will clear the garden site and then implement the final design that will fulfil all your garden landscaping requirements.
These ideas may include introducing walled areas, patios, or garden decking. You may wish us to erect pergolas to offer shade over a terraced area or turf some areas for the perfect lawn. We can also install water features, such as ponds and waterfalls. A large lawn area for example, or an undeveloped site that is in need of total clearance, can, with clever design, be compartmentalised into different rooms.
All of these garden services come under the heading of garden landscaping. We carry out much of our garden design and landscaping projects throughout Cheshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire, although we do go further afield.
We all appreciate watching our gardens grow, thrive and develop throughout the seasons, but as we know, this ongoing garden growth requires ongoing garden maintenance and care.
Our garden maintenance clients range from elderly people who can't maintain their gardens themselves, to families and busy professionals. Our clients want to enjoy well maintained gardens without the extra workload that this requires. This is where our garden maintenance services come in.
Garden maintenance could take the form of a one off garden tidy-up in preparation for winter, or, as we do for many of our customers, we can maintain your entire garden on a weekly or fortnightly basis, ensuring that your precious free time remains just that! We will form a bespoke garden maintenance program that suits you.
Trees are the most important natural resource in a garden. Trees not only add colour and interest to gardens all year round, but they are also vital for wildlife and the environment.
From time to time, specimen trees need attention to keep them balanced and healthy. We carry out major tree work, light pruning and crown lifting, as well as carrying out preventative measures to ensure the tree remains healthy and an asset to the garden.
Fruit trees are a great addition to any garden and can also be grown in pots. Fruit trees can help develop the interest of children in natural living things, as they can get enjoyment from seeing the fruits develop and ripen before eventually eating them. To get the best from your fruit trees, correct pruning at the right time is essential - we will happily come and assess your trees and advise you on the best course of action.
Professional Gardener in Cheshire (Congleton, Crewe, Knutsford, Macclesfield, Nantwich) and Staffordshire (Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Stafford, Stoke-on-Trent, Stone)
© 2013 J.H.P.S. Limited | Professional Garden Maintenance & Landscaping | <urn:uuid:efca4acd-3270-4710-90ac-b2df77badf24> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jhps-gardens.co.uk/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938359 | 606 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Elisabeth is Action Against Hunger's communications officer, reporting on our impact and current events around the world.
Crisis Mounts in DRC: 200,000 Displaced in Past 10 Days
Imagine fleeing violence in your home city and settling in a camp for displaced citizens. If that fate isn’t difficult enough, imagine the area around the camp then being seized by members of a rebel group, forcing you back, homeless, to your city of origin where there is no power and virtually no access to water. This scenario isn’t a bad dream. It’s the reality being faced by residents who originally hail from Goma, a city in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
In the past week, a rebel group known as M23 seized Goma, and a handful of nearby towns and has threatened to escalate its activites. M23’s pursuits have long plagued eastern DRC, with rebel-related violence displacing some 650,000 people earlier this year between April and October. But recent events have been catastrophic in scale, with another 200,000 people displaced in the past ten days alone.
When violence erupts, Action Against Hunger‘s first priority is to ensure the safety and welfare of our field staff, in addition to continuing our lifesaving programs where possible. While the current crisis is very much in flux, security concerns and travel restrictions place limits on many of our operations, but we are also hard at work assessing new needs and developing plans to respond as soon as the security climate allows it.
In recent months we have been providing emergency relief to more than 190,000 people displaced between DRC’s North Kivu (of which Goma is provincial capital) and South Kivu provinces. There is a critical need to expand our emergency programs from our bases in Shabunda, Minova, and Bunyakiri in response to the influx of newly displaced populations – from emergency water, sanitation and hygiene activities to ensuring adequate supplies of ready-to-use therapeutic food products like Plumpy’nut so we can manage malnutrition among the most vulnerable.
We need and profoundly appreciate your assistance in helping so many in DRC escape a tragic fate. According to a UN Situation Report, only 57% of the funds requested by the humanitarian community for relief efforts in DRC in 2012 have been raised – and that was before this current crisis came to be. Please help, and do stay tuned for more information in the coming weeks, outlining the specific nature of our response.
In the meantime, take a few minutes to inform yourself about the deep nature of the DRC crisis. The New York Times is providing outstanding coverage from expert Africa correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman, and his photographer colleague Jehad Nga has been taking moving photos (see a sample below). CNN has also published provocative commentary on the need for increased attention on this crisis, written by a DRC national.
About Elisabeth Anderson Rapport
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Facts about Hunger
925 million people suffer from hunger and malnutrition around the world.
Malnutrition affects 32.5% of children in developing countries.
1 out of every 6 infants are born with low birth weight due to undernutrition among pregnant women in developing countries.
1 out of every 3 people in developing countries are affected by vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Hunger is number one on the list of the world's top 10 health risks. It kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined. | <urn:uuid:a1798a6a-b013-49a6-8766-3425bb09d29e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.actionagainsthunger.org/blog/crisis-mounts-drc-200000-displaced-past-10-days | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945781 | 797 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Smartphone thefts skyrocket, officials on alert
(CBS News) - Americans love to use smartphones, and thieves love to steal them. Why? Because there's a growing black market for these expensive devices. But now, cellphone carriers and the government are fighting back.
In New York's subway system, handheld electronic devices like the iPhone make up half of all thefts. The rise of stolen cell phones has prompted the New York Police Department to put hundreds of additional transit cops underground where commuters are easy targets.
Cell phone theft in New York City jumped from eight percent of robberies 10 years ago to more than 40 percent today.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said, "iPhone and smart phones nowadays are like catnip for criminals. They've valuable, they're exposed. They're easy to steal."
Schumer and NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announced an agreement between the Federal Communications Commission and the nation's cellular providers to create a database that would be used to permanently disable stolen smartphones.
Schumer said, "We intend to make the black market for cell phones a black hole for would-be thieves and criminals."
If the unique identification number of a stolen phone is added to the national database, all major U.S. service providers would know not to activate the phone.
Kevin Mahaffey, founder of the San Francisco-based company Lookout, which created a free app to protect user data and locate lost phones, says even a disabled cell phone still has value.
"What it still does allow is for these devices to connect to the internet via WiFi or for it to be sold overseas in international markets," he said.
Schumer will introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to tamper with a cell phone's unique identification number, punishable by up to five years in prison.
In many ways, the U.S. is behind the curve as these types of databases are already used in Australia and many parts of Europe. In the U.S. this wouldn't take effect right away, but every cell phone would be registered within 18 months and most in six months.
To watch Seth Doane's full report and hear more about what consumers need to know, watch the video in the player above.
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- High-tech, high fitness: Can gadgets enhance your workout? | <urn:uuid:c95ffbfd-45b2-4da1-81a1-b6a4f51d2f2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57412271/smartphone-thefts-skyrocket-officials-on-alert/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931095 | 660 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Sir Elton John speaks at an Elton John AIDS Foundation benefit in 2010. The organization, which John founded in 1992, provides grants to support HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment programs.
Sir Elton John is constantly remembering his life as a drug addict, whether he wants to or not.
"I still dream, twice a week at least, that I've taken cocaine and I have it up my nose," John tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "And it's very vivid and it's very upsetting, but at least it's a wake-up call."
In his new memoir, Love Is the Cure, the singer-songwriter explains how he stopped using cocaine — and abusing drugs and alcohol — after he came to know Ryan White. White was an Indiana teenager who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. His case did much to build public support to battle the disease. When neighbors ostracized the White family, John helped them move. Then, months after White's death in 1990, the singer was forced to reconsider his own life.
"It got me to realize how out of whack my life was, because I was just in and out of a drug-fueled haze in the '80s. I did nothing to help people with AIDS," he says. "I was a gay man who really sat on the sidelines."
After seeking treatment for his addictions, he started the Elton John AIDS Foundation, which now gives grants to AIDS and HIV prevention and treatment programs. In the first of a two-part interview, John tells Inskeep about his experiences with addiction, his change of attitude toward AIDS and how he became an activist.
On his first encounter with cocaine in the '70s, when John's manager brought it into the recording studio
"I was so ignorant about drugs and so naive. I mean, my band was smoking marijuana for years; I didn't even know what a joint was. And I'd never seen a line of cocaine in my life, and I don't know whether it's bravado, or, 'OK, I'll join in,' but, [in] my stupidity, I had a line of coke and that started the whole process. ... I fired [my manager]. But it took me a long time to do it, because I was never a confrontational person, and it took me until the '90s to do that."
On what drugs did for him, and where they led him
"I was just genuinely shy. I'd always been a shy kid. And when I happened, when my success started, I was incredibly confident onstage because that's where I loved to be, but offstage there was no balance. I was the same little kid that went onstage, but onstage I had all the bravado and the chutzpah necessary to do a great show, but there was no balance in my life. I always said cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down, because the last two weeks of my use of cocaine I spent in a room in London, using it and not coming out for two weeks. And it completely shut me down. So, it started out by making me talk to everyone and then ended up by me isolating myself alone with it, which is the end of the world, really."
On realizing he needed help
"When I knew Ryan [White], I knew that my life was out of whack. I knew that I had to change. And after he died, I realized that I only had two choices: I was either going to die or I was going to live, and which one did I want to do? And then I said those words, 'I'll get help,' or, 'I need help. I'll get help.' And my life turned around. Ridiculous for a human being to take 16 years to say, 'I need help.' "
On choosing a song to play at Ryan White's memorial
"It's very hard to choose the appropriate song to sing at something like that. 'Skyline Pigeon' was on my very first album, called Empty Sky, and I chose it because I thought at that time it was the first really good song that we'd ever written. And it was a song about release and freedom, and death is [a] kind of release and freedom. It's a very pretty song, a very pretty lyric. And so I sang it then, and it seemed the most appropriate thing to sing and the lyrics seemed to go beautifully with the passage of crossing over to the other side, as it were."
On asking Florida not to cut funding for HIV and AIDS patients, and Florida Surgeon General Frank Farmer suggesting he play a benefit to help raise money
"[EJAF is] an AIDS organization, and whenever anybody's funding is cut — and it's usually cut, especially in this case in Florida, [for] the people that can afford it least ... then we're going to write a letter about it. And we wrote a letter to [Florida Gov. Rick Scott] himself. ...
"It's not my job to [fund a state's AIDS program]. It's the government's priority to do that. I can't do benefit concerts for Florida, for the people with AIDS in Florida. It's their responsibility; they need to do what's right. And cutting funding for the people that [can] least afford it is criminal."
On why funding for AIDS treatment is the government's responsibility
"We can solve this AIDS problem forever if the government gives the funding. If people are encouraged to come out and say they're HIV-positive and they're given their treatments, then obviously the people who are marginalized — like intravenous drug users, prisoners, people who are made to feel less-than — if they're given the support of the government and they're given the funding, then it's going to help solve the spread of AIDS and HIV in America. We have to try and get rid of this shortsightedness when it comes to HIV and the stigma around it." | <urn:uuid:ac5b36ee-5667-4e49-8c55-54703b191c48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/2012/07/17/156550286/from-addict-to-activist-how-elton-john-found-his-cure?ft=1&f=1033 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987896 | 1,256 | 1.757813 | 2 |
ACLU tells Senate: Stop Bush's abuse of 'state secrets'
Update: State Secrets bill passes Senate Judiciary Committee
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved a bill aimed at reigning in what critics see as President Bush's abuse of his state secrets privilege.
"Congress needs to ensure—and the American people need to feel confident—that the courts are adjudicating the privilege properly and not just giving the Executive a free pass," Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), the bill's primary sponsor, said in a press release. "This legislation is not just about safeguarding the rights of private parties, important as that is. It’s also about safeguarding the public interest, shared by all Americans, in having an executive branch that complies with the law and the Constitution and in preserving the integrity of our courts. No one in America should be above the law. That’s why this legislation is so critical and why it has such broad support."
The committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, also sponsored the bill, which is headed to the full Senate.
"While national security must be protected," he said, "there must also be meaningful oversight by the courts and Congress to ensure the Executive branch does not misuse the privilege.”
Civil liberties group says administration invokes privilege to prevent court oversight
The American Civil Liberties Union is pressing the Senate to rebuke the Bush administration's over-eager invocation of its state secrets privilege to block all manner of judicial oversight of its most controversial programs, including extraordinary rendition and warrantless wiretapping.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is meeting Thursday to finalize the State Secrets Protection Act sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA).
“The administration’s frequent and broad use of the state secrets privilege goes to the very root of its abuse of power,” Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, said in a news release. “The privilege has been misused and abused for long enough. Senator Kennedy’s legislation will allow for a court to review the government’s national security claims and will rightly reinstate the role of the judiciary.”
The ACLU is representing Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was kidnapped by the CIA as part of its rendition program, in a lawsuit against the government. El-Masri, whose kidnapping came as part of the CIA's extraordinary rendition program, is innocent, the ACLU says. He was transported to Afghanistan where he says he was beaten and tortured.
The Bush administration invoked state secrets to thwart El-Masri's lawsuit, so the ACLU earlier this month appealed to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an autonomous body of the Organization of American States of which the US is a member. It is headquartered in Washington.
The ACLU is also working with the Electronic Frontier Foundation with plaintiffs suing telecommunications companies alleging they violated privacy laws by facilitating President Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. The administration has invoked state secrets in those 40 or so lawsuits, as well.
Kennedy says his bill would regulate use of the state secrets privilege to protect legitimate classified information from being released while still ensuring that courts have a role in checking the executive branch, according to a press release.
The goal of our bill is to protect legitimate state secrets from disclosure, prevent misuse of the privilege, and allow litigants to have their day in court. Federal judges already handle sensitive information under the Classified Information Procedures Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. There is no reason they can’t do so in civil cases as well.
Our bill has already been endorsed by a number of legal groups and scholars. As a New York Times editorial stated, it will “give victims fair access to the courts and make it harder for the government to hide illegal or embarrassing conduct behind unsupported claims. . . . . Of course, legitimate secrets need to be protected, and the legislation contains safeguards to ensure that.” Similar editorials have been published by the San Francisco Chronicle, the Salt Lake Tribune, and numerous legal blogs.
In a letter (.pdf) to the Judiciary Committee, the ACLU argued that the administration's interpretation of state secrets was unconstitutional and at odds with the basic idea of separation of powers.
"By claiming powers that neither the legislature nor the judiciary can properly regulate, the Bush administration has endeavored to upend this delicate balance," ACLU lawyers wrote. "In Federalist No. 47 James Madison warned, 'The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.'" | <urn:uuid:4e2d2c2d-dc5f-4294-ade7-6d3d30233eda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rawstory.com/news/2008/ACLU_tells_Senate_Stop_Bushs_abuse_0424.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944301 | 986 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Although some claim the rapid adoption of tablets has ushered in a so-called post-PC era, one HP executive begs to differ.
"Look, it's just wrong. Just think of the decision when your child is going off to college," Bradley said. "What's a requirement? A PC. Or you run a business and need your employees to be productive. You need a PC. The size of the global PC business is huge, and I think some people are trying to be dramatic."
Bradley may have his dander up, but the PC market is clearly in trouble. During the second quarter, HP's own PC shipments fell 13 percent. Dell's dropped 10 percent. Citigroup semiconductor analyst Glen Yeung reported earlier this month that the third quarter could be the PC industry's worst ever.
"We were looking into the supply chain over the course of August, and really everywhere you looked, PC data points are bad. What we're ultimately going to end up with is the worst third quarter in the history of PCs this quarter, so obviously the outlook is pretty dire," Yeung said.
Meanwhile, tablet shipments are on the rise. Research firm IDC reported yesterday that it expects 117 million tablets to ship this year, up from its previous estimate of 107 million. In 2011, 70.9 million tablets shipped worldwide.
Yet IDC's own analysts aren't ready to declare the onset of a post-PC era, either. Bob O'Donnell, IDC's program vice president for clients and displays, told CNET in February that we're really in the "PC-plus era. People owning PCs plus other devices."
"Tablets will occupy a unique place," he said. "PCs will occupy a unique place. But and more with the ability to work together."
HP's Bradley doesn't dismiss the importance of tablets himself, though he'd clearly rather emphasize the importance of PCs. "There is a growing role for tablets, and we will absolutely be a significant force in that space," he told PC World. | <urn:uuid:21f2589c-8750-4406-82c5-4bb69bf78629> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57516827-92/hp-exec-were-in-the-post-pc-era-ha/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975484 | 418 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Issue 435 November 3, 2003
While Governor McGreevey’s anti-sprawl legislation appears in limbo, one smart growth bill (S. 2093) — which allows towns to consider traffic impacts of development — still has a chance for approval this year. It was approved by the Senate Community Affairs Committee last May, but has yet to be voted on by the full Senate or Assembly.
Since 1975, New Jersey law has prevented municipalities from considering the traffic that developments would cause on nearby roads. S. 2093 would allow cities and towns to adopt congestion standards in their master plans and judge new projects against them. If a proposed development exceeds the standards, the planning board could negotiate for impact fees and improvements, or ultimately deny the application.
The bill is sponsored by Senators Shirley Turner (D-15) and Leonard Lance (R-23), and Assembly members Reed Gusciora (D-15) and Jerry Green (D-22). It has wide bi-partisan report. Thirty legislators have co-sponsored the Senate bill and its companion in the Assembly. Officials from nine municipalities – including Asbury Park, Montgomery, and North Plainfield – testified in favor of the bill at the Senate hearing last spring. In addition, three of Governor McGreevey’s commissioners sent a letter supporting it to the committee chairs.
MTR #435 portable document format (PDF) file version
(requires Adobe Acrobat).
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Mobilizing the Region back issues | <urn:uuid:7fea9ebd-5a96-460f-a981-38a7bbc99271> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tstc.org/bulletin/20031103/mtr43503.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95269 | 314 | 1.679688 | 2 |
I first met Bill Ivey at the 2004 GIA conference in Cleveland where he gave a keynote address and rattled more than a few chains when he told a roomful of arts funders that the forty-year old intervention by the philanthropic community in the nonprofit arts system (which aimed to serve the public interest by capitalizing nonprofit arts institutions and, thereby, increasing the supply of artistic experiences in the U.S.) had been so wildly successful it had resulted in an overbuilt sector (evidenced by depressed wages, lack of capital, and defensive, conservative practices). He suggested that it might be time for us to “declare victory, and move on.”
Move on to what, exactly? In our recent conversation, Ivey remarked that the U.S. has never come to terms with American culture for what it really is: a grassroots vernacular “that embraces amateur as well as professional, rural as well as urban, and unschooled as well as schooled.” The concentration of public support and private philanthropy on the “fine arts” is not sustainable, he says, because it “flies in the face of American culture.” In his new book, Arts, Inc., Ivey proposes that if we want to achieve true cultural vibrancy we must “adopt a new, comprehensive approach to our arts system” that encompasses the nonprofit, commercial, and amateur arts organizations that support the creation, preservation, and distribution of arts and culture. Furthermore, we need to coordinate our interventions in these interrelated sectors in order to serve the public interest.
Ivey maintains that the health of the arts and culture system can be evaluated by looking at two processes: nurturing and gate-keeping. He framed this perspective in his 2004 GIA address by asking, “Do arts leadersthe heads of record labels, film studios, art galleries, and performing arts centerspossess the resources and the creative flexibility required to invest in the work of artists; to nurture new or established art of quality? And are the gates sufficiently open: are paths of distribution, wholesale and retail, sufficiently broad and clear to allow a diverse variety of art and artists to readily connect with audiences?”
Ivey posits that those of us who have cared about these functions (nurturing and gate-keeping) in the nonprofit sector have not been, generally speaking, equally interested in understanding them in the for-profit part of the system, in part because we make the assumption that work created and supported by nonprofits is inherently better than work created in the commercial entertainment industry. Furthermore, he says arts funders have shown little interest in the policies affecting for-profit arts industries (e.g., intellectual property, trade in arts products, media regulation, and mergers and acquisitions) and that we should, because their influence on cultural vibrancy and the nonprofit sector is significant.
A good example of this is included in a chapter by Ivey in the recently published Beyond Price: Value in Culture, Economics, and the Arts (Hutter and Throsby, 2008). In his essay, “Going to Extremes,” Ivey reminds those of us who are now dismayed by the state of classical recording in the U.S. that despite regular press attention to the disappearance of the U.S. classical record industry over several decades, neither the NEA nor culturally engaged foundations attempted to craft an intervention with unions and corporations capable of propping up the classical recording industry.
In Arts, Inc., Ivey argues that profound policy changes in our arts system have “elbowed culture away from the public interest over the past century.” Ivey assigns most of the blame to a pro-industry intellectual property regime and rampant deregulation. Arts, Inc. both documents how we got off track in the U.S. and lays out a bold vision for how things could be. He writes, “It is time to establish a new set of goals designed to reclaim art and culture for the American people; it is time to assert the rights of citizens to the multiple benefits of an arts system turned to public purposes.”
He proposes the following Cultural Bill of Rights, which he says we must be willing to assert if we are to provide every American with the benefits of a vibrant, expressive life:
Ivey suggests that pursuing and fulfilling these rights requires legislation and regulation aimed at a slew of disparate agencies responsible for overseeing the various industries and sectors that contribute to the cultural landscape in the U.S.think, the FCC and Copyright Officeand realigning them with the public interest. He further proposes that such an immense and complicated task may ultimately require a new government agencya cabinet-level department of cultural affairs that would interface with other major policy ministries (in the West Wing of the White House, not the East).
What about the policies of private foundations? Are we prepared to take action on these ideas? Ivey issued a challenge four years ago: he essentially asked us to broaden our definition of the arts and culture sector and change our practices accordingly. It appears most of us did not race back to our offices after the 2004 GIA conference to recommend a wholesale shift in funding. While there are exceptions, many of us are primarily funding nonprofit arts institutions and are not, for instance, getting involved with the current debate about net neutrality. Nor do many of us seem concerned about the chilling effect that Wal-Mart is having on the range and types of music currently being recorded and distributed in the U.S. (These are only two of many such concerns outlined in Arts, Inc.) And yet, Ivey would make the case that net neutrality, media ownership, and Wal-Mart may affect cultural vibrancy as much, or more, as whether or not we continue to sustain and increase the number of orchestras, theaters, or museums in the U.S.
So why haven't we “moved on”?
First, changing our priorities would not only require development of new programs and cultivation of new partners, but would also call into question the very foundation of our nonprofit arts and culture systema sector, Ivey says, that seems designed to separate “high” art from “low” art and provide subsidies to the “better” of the two. However, such an approach appears to be out of touch with “real” arts participation in U.S., much of which, particularly in ethnic communities, is grounded in informal art making. As the Irvine Foundation's Cultural Engagement in California's Inland Regions report states, “using a narrow definition of cultural engagementsuch as attendance at conventional arts programs in conventional facilitiesleaves out significant participation in non-conventional activities.” It also finds that “the home far exceeds theaters, museums and galleries as the most common setting for engaging in cultural activities including music, dance, visual arts and crafts.”
Ivey argues that the time has come for grantmakers to move away from the Western European hierarchy that we long ago adopted and that currently places (and this is my interpretation) Bach above Bjðrk and Bjðrk above Uncle Bob playing banjo in his barn.
Why? He asserts that when we face resistance to the idea of support for the arts it's often because our highest priorities are out of sync with those of everyday Americans. In his recent addressat a 2008 GIA pre-conference in Atlanta, Ivey declared “the nonprofit arts are a weak merit good supported by a thin epistemic norm.” Translation? While the fine arts have standing as “merit goods” favored by government policy, they primarily serve the socially, economically, or aesthetically elite with goods that are too often culturally and financially inaccessible to the vast majority of Americans. The result? The arts maintain a less than robust base of public support in this country. Too many people receive little or no tangible benefit from the current nonprofit arts system, thus whatever generalized good feelings citizens may have about the arts don't translate into sufficient “goodwill” when the arts must compete with education or the environmentwhen advocacy really counts.
Second, foundation leaders appear to be lacking a clear starting point for changing the forty-year old intervention model. So I asked Ivey, “If you were a program officer and had an arts program what would you do? How do we move forward?” To begin, he suggested that we map the cultural vitality of our communities, assessing points of strength and weakness, and then invest where we are weak. He acknowledges that such assessments are attempted periodically, but says that, too often, such studies are biased towards the nonprofit arts and culture sector. He says that alongside questions about how many dance and opera companies exist (and yes, he says, it is vitally important that we have such institutions in our communities), we should be asking how many independent bookstores are succeeding? How many venues exist for live music of all kinds? How many independent or foreign films play at the multiplex?
This “cultural assessments mapping” may very well lead us to see that Ivey was probably right in 2004 when he said that the nonprofit arts and culture sector is overbuilt and that some resources may need to be diverted from this sector to other destinations. Ivey suggested in our conversation that somewhere between the 7,700 cultural nonprofits that existed in 1965 and the 100,000 that exist today (a figure given by Americans for the Arts) we probably hit an optimum numbera point at which the mid-century goal of making the fine arts more widely available was achieved. Ivey commented that the fine arts are by no means disposable, but also said that by arguing they are the be-all and end-all, they have ended up being marginalized. Instead, he suggests, such arts institutions must see themselves as an important part of a spectrum of American art making.
When I finished reading Arts, Inc., I must admit that my initial response was, “It doesn't give much ink to orchestras, museums, dance companies, or regional theaters.” (Most of Ivey's examples seem to derive from the music industryno doubt because this is the field in which he worked for years.) However, upon further reflection I began to think that the relative lack of attention to the “high” arts may make the book all the more important for arts funders to read. By-and-large, we've been limiting our conversation to the needs and priorities of the organizations we fund; we've been walking around with only half the picture (if that) in our minds. Arts, Inc. fills big gaps in our view of the cultural landscape.
A lot of capital flowed into the nonprofit arts and culture sector the past thirty years. These last few months, as I watch the economic crisis worsen and observe its impact on all of us and the organizations we fund, I find myself asking, “Where did all the money go?” If arts organizations and their funders had to do it over again, these past few decades, would we make different choices? We're facing a world that is radically different from the one that W. McNeil Lowry at the Ford Foundation encountered in 1957. Does it make sense to stay the course?
Arts, Inc. is an insightful, engaging, and important new book and it has the potential, along with the aforementioned Irvine Foundation report and others like it, to help us reframe the discussion around the arts in America. Ivey's last comment to me was this, “Culture is the last undefined area of public policy. If foundations work together with government to help understand, research, and build a robust cultural policy, we could get it right. It doesn't have to be something monolithic. If we could embrace our diversity and the founding ethos of this country we could create something even healthier than what they have in other countries.” He paused and added, “We need to take a deep breath and begin the conversation.” | <urn:uuid:3b29df0d-8a03-4b4a-beee-2b0e75a2a046> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.giarts.org/article/new-conversation-about-culture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964066 | 2,470 | 1.585938 | 2 |
[img]ww2 2 (3)[/img]
The second line
One down, two more to go, and the second trench line already will prove a much more formidable task. This time there is not only more open ground to cover, the German defenders additionally have a couple of anti-tank guns at their disposal.
[img]ww2 2 (4)[/img]
They need to be dealt with first before the tanks can gain freedom to maneuver, which will be needed because the ground to cover is simply too wide and too open for the same frontal approach that worked with the first trench.
[img]ww2 2 (2)[/img]
Simply advancing infantry and tanks side by side and duelling with the anti-tank guns on the move does not yield the amount of suppressive fire needed for this approach, and rifles are not effective at this distance against an entrenched enemy.
[img]ww2 2 (1)[/img]
Therefore we order the infantry squads to cautiously and slowly advance in line, moving in short bursts, and firing back, while the tanks target the anti-tank guns from a fairly safe distance.
[img]ww2 2 (20)[/img]
With success! The three tanks with experienced crews take out the two German light anti-tank guns one by one. Keeping their front armor towards the enemy guns and usng the distance to their advantage as the guns were not able to more than scratch the armor at this range (this changes dramatically later in the war as heavy anti-tank guns such as the dreaded 88mm enter the scene on more frequently), the tanks win this brief duel. This teaches an important lesson - knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the
opposing armies for a given battle allows to make sound tactical decisions about the proper course of action. (Which is why TOW comes with an exhaustive interactive in-game encyclopedia, containing countless historical and technical facts about the equipment you will find in the game!)
[img]ww2 2 (21)[/img]
Resistance remains - although without the support of their guns, it will be much simpler to crush. The secret to clearing out a fortified position like this is to not fall into the trap of thinking of one's own tanks as immobile pillboxes only. Tanks have tracks - use them for maneuver!
[img]ww2 2 (22)[/img]
Using their newly gained freedom to maneuver after the two German guns are silenced, we order two of the tanks forward and keep one back for infantry support and overwatch.
[img]ww2 2 (5)[/img]
The attacking tanks will attempt to close the distance and flank the trench line from the left, while the infantry and one remaining tank will keep up the pressure from the front.
[img]ww2 2 (6)[/img]
Flanking is only useful when you continue applying frontal pressure, otherwise the enemy can easily shift his defenses and morph his flank into a new front.
[img]ww2 2 (23)[/img]
The infantry alone would not have the firepower at this distance to keep up enough frontal pressure, which is why the remaining tank plays an important role in this concept.
[img]ww2 2 (24)[/img]
With its MG and main gun it can keep up an accurate stream of fire, forcing the defenders to keep their heads down, thereby protecting the accompanying infantry.
[img]ww2 2 (7)[/img]
A pre-arranged artillery strike on the enemy positions supports the advance of the infantry, and gives the signal to start "leapfrogging" or "bounding overwatch" to advance towards the trenches.
[img]ww2 2 (8)[/img]
Despite the loss of its AT guns, the enemy is far from broken this time, and incoming fire from the intact machineguns and well aimed rifles causes the first wounded and casualties on the advancing infantry.
[img]ww2 2 (9)[/img]
Some of the soldiers seek cover close to the advancing tanks.
Page 3 of 6
Further Reading: Read and find more Guides content at our Guides reviews, guides and articles index page.
Do you get our RSS feed? Get It! | <urn:uuid:2fb14abf-a1f3-4267-8e55-28845aa6052e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tweaktown.com/gaming/2544/theatre_of_war_walkthrough_2/index3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945407 | 884 | 1.664063 | 2 |
We are being bombarded by advertisements about the presidential election. Citizen's United has insured that elections are a money fest, and if we follow that money, we might not see our best interests at the source.
President Obama has worked with Republicans in the House that I believe have no intention of compromise and want him (and the country) to fail. The goal is to make him look bad and to get their own elected.
President Clinton's surplus turned into a disastrous deficit under President Bush. This was brought on by two wars of choice and many other budget busters that were unanimously supported by born-again deficit hawks like Paul Ryan. They now say we can't afford our safety nets.
The tepid recovery has been great for corporations and mild for workers. Deregulation caused much of the Wall Street/Housing crash. Yet Republicans say it's what we need to improve things. Huh?
Obama wanted more government spending for jobs and infrastructure, modeled after the end of the Great Depression.
Republicans preach the gospel of trickle-down economics. But wait, the corporations aren't hiring and they're investing overseas. And some big boys are hiding their investments in the Cayman Islands, like at Bain Capital. | <urn:uuid:d6ebab42-579f-4379-aacb-12f78af65f65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2012/09/05/2675090/unhappy-corporations-fund-national.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975846 | 250 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Primary Puzzle Board
1 year & up. Match the shapes and colors! This fun manipulative helps children practice geometric recognition and counting as well as color and shape sorting skills. Color-coded shapes and base, along with easy-grasp handles, aid young children in successfully completing the puzzle while developing fine motor skills. Play surface is raised to accommodate floor or tabletop play. Safe non-toxic paints with a clear finish, smooth rounded corners and edges, and a sturdy construction guarantee years of creative learning and play. | <urn:uuid:3fa72d79-a1ec-4ffa-ad63-31a1f6cc3319> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kaplantoys.com/store/trans/productDetailForm.asp?CatID=16%7CKTPZ07%7C3&Page=1&Max=17&Seq=24%2E95&PID=91080 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945601 | 103 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Recap: Pygmalion by SanJuxtapoz // Friday, 14 Aug 2009
In Greek Mythology, Pygmalion was a legendary Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory, in which he fell madly in love. For this show, Sans work comments on humans love for the things we create, particularly money and weapons, with often destructive consequences.
Holy Nest 2
Holy Nest 5
Pygmalian 2 (detail)
Stolenspace storefront piece by San
Checking out San's Pygmalian show
Born Daniel Munoz Rodriquez, San is an internationally recognized and commissioned illustrator, painter, and street artist. Born in a small Spanish village near the Portuguese border, San currently works and resides in Madrid. His artwork is influenced by magical realism, graffiti, and the culinary arts. In a recent interview in Juxtapoz Magazine, he remarked, “I think today my work is a mixture of classical drawing and contemporary art languages. Nowadays, nature is the basis of my work.” San has shown his fine art internationally, as well as his street art in cities across Europe.
Photos (except for first, which is courtesy of StolenSpace) by Chris Osburn. | <urn:uuid:8e4186e8-dba3-4fa6-aacf-ca5fa9dd46db> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/recap-pygmalion-by-san | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952107 | 256 | 1.523438 | 2 |
It is always better to write a complaint letter if faced by any nuisance on behalf of a company, organization, institute etc. The key to writing an effective complaint letter is to keep it short and to the point and include the necessary documentation. Most businesses and organizations want to address and clear up complaints quickly in order to have satisfied customers or members so here are a few tips that would make your complaint letter effective.
- Address your complaint letter to the person in charge.
- Start your complaint letter by telling about your experience briefly using as many facts as possible. Facts allow the recipient of your letter to validate the legitimacy of your complaint. Include specific date, time and place, as well as the names of people you dealt with.
- Clearly explain the situation. The body of complaint letter should be like a story narrating all the events in sequence.
- Keep the letter brief, to the point and be honest. Do not exaggerate or change the facts.
- Maintain a respectful and positive tone because most probably your reader is a senior person. The management sympathizes with you and wants to fix the problem. Convey your message in a firm but polite manner.
- In some cases you can make your case strong by getting signatures from others too, i.e. other affected by the scenario.
- Include your contact information; name, email address, phone number so that the management can reach you.
- It’s wise to send copies of your complaint letter to parties involved. For example, in a case where you have been told to write to a Regional Manager of a program, it is often a good idea to make sure that someone in head office also gets a copy.
- Ask for compensation and suggest how you want the issue to be resolved. For example ask for concession or an apology etc.
- Toward the end of complaint letter, ask for an early response and mention that you can always go to other places for your business or vacation since your valuable time got wasted which you would like to avoid next time.
- Closing the Letter: In the end thank the reader and compliment about something you found appreciable. Be sure to keep a copy of the complaint letter with yourself. | <urn:uuid:4d894ea6-0022-487a-a64b-8cf8fc213f0e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.writeawriting.com/career/how-to-write-complaint-letter/ | 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 | 0.945368 | 451 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Update: Efforts to rebuild trust are clearly striking a chord with businesses by the look of this PR Week case study.
If business leaders breathed a sigh of relief that they weren’t politicians when the UK Parliamentary expenses scandal blew up, they should beware of feeling smug.
A recent poll by Ipsos Mori revealed the public’s distrust is not reserved for our political class, but business people too.
Net trust in business leaders – according to the poll – has fallen to its lowest level since the research began in 1983 and placed business fourth from bottom among 16 groups in terms of truthfulness.
In that context, it seems strange that the leading business organisations were unwilling to mount a defence of commerce and industry, with the Confederation of British Industry telling The Observer: ”We are just not going to comment on the survey” and the Institute of Directors not replying. Why the reluctance to fight business’ corner? After all, not everyone in business works in banking.
In last week’s conference staged by the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) entitled, “Emerging from recession”, the issue of trust was very much on the agenda, with the BBC’s director of communications, Ed Williams, running a session on rebuilding trust and posing the question: “How do we restore public confidence in organisations and rebuild reputations to emerge stronger in the future?”
Among the Tweets from the conference quoting Williams, helpfully supplied by Orchid Communications, the Mori poll’s point was reiterated: people trust companies a lot less than they did a year ago. And, thanks to David McNamara’s tweet, we learned what Ed Williams feels is the best strategy to deliver trust: ”openness”.
The credit crunch, the banking crisis, the fall of Lehmann Bros and Fred Goodwin’s pension package have done little to warm the cockles of the public’s heart towards business people. And that’s terribly sad, as those enterprises which go about their business providing employment, behaving ethically and responsibly, creating things of value for their customers and occupying a meaningful place in their communities have nothing to be ashamed of. Yet they are lumped in with the rest of them in a skip marked “untrustworthy”.
And that’s where business needs to come out fighting. If public opinion has decided business is unprincipled, it’s not going to change on its own; it needs to be persuaded otherwise. And that’s where openness comes in. It’s not about revealing your competitive advantage or the details of boardroom arguments, but being able to communicate effectively across the landscape of what you do and why it’s important. That means recognising it’s not always possible to tell a happy story each time your organisation speaks. In fact, it could include having to apologise when your business has messed up. But being proud and vocal about your achievements – while maintaining transparency about your shortcomings - is all part of building trust.
A more recent, and critical, development in this problem for business is the advent of social media: online, peer-to-peer sharing of knowledge, information and opinions about a myriad of subjects. And that could include your business. Chris Brogan, a veteran of using social media for business, warns how communications around a company are no longer within the organisation’s exclusive control. But social media presents an opportunity also, to show greater transparency and enhance reputation and trust.
“It’s natural for the public to be suspicious of large corporations and this can be a positive thing in ensuring that businesses are held accountable for their actions. However, I think a big problem is that business leaders equate to bankers in most people’s minds and this carries connotations of huge profits, big bonuses and inflated salaries. Actually, the vast majority of UK businesses are small to medium and are struggling in the current climate. These businesses play a huge part in driving us out of a recession and need all the support they can get. It’s the Chamber’s role to provide this support and to fight their corner by taking their concerns to the right people for action.”
Whether the present government succeeds in winning a further term in office, or not, it is right to ensure that public trust in politicians of any hue is clawed back by drawing a line under the expenses debacle. And even MPs unscathed by the scandal will have to justify their party political peers on the doorsteps come election time.
And the same goes for business. You might be doing great things and be great people; just don’t assume that anyone beyond the factory gates or the web portal believes you are. | <urn:uuid:440e2274-c985-43d7-ae7f-2b4a1c025865> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pr-media-blog.co.uk/tag/cbi/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954871 | 980 | 1.546875 | 2 |
The old saw about the only certainties in life being death and taxes isn't quite right: We'll also always be arguing about the taxation of death. Because of squabbling in the Senate over the estate tax -- one of the nation's most controversial levies -- taxes will rise for thousands of middle-class heirs while falling for a small number of the very wealthy.
The troubles began with reforms approved by the Republican-dominated Congress in 2001, which led to a gradual decrease in estate taxes. The current tax of 45% on estates worth more than $3.5 million (or, for couples, more than $7 million) is slated to expire in 2010. But it doesn't go away permanently. In 2011, without congressional action, it will revert to a rate not seen since the 1990s: 55% on estates worth more than $1 million.
The House passed a bill to avoid this mess by permanently extending the current rate, but unified Republican opposition in the Senate halted progress. GOP leaders, who want to eliminate or lower the tax burden, saw that as a victory. "I don't see a problem -- we aren't going to have an estate tax next year," said Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.). OK, then we'll explain it.
The estate tax might be gone in 2010, but its departure triggers a new tax, this one on capital gains. It applies to anyone who inherits more than $1.3 million in assets next year. Let's say Grandma dies and leaves you a home worth $1.5 million, and you decide to sell it. Normally you'd pay little or no capital gains tax on the sale, but the new provisions mean that you have to calculate capital gains based on the value of the home when Grandma and Grandpa bought it, not when you inherited it. That could prove hugely expensive. House officials estimate that extending the estate tax would have affected 6,000 people, but the new capital gains provisions will affect more than 70,000. And in general, those 70,000 will be far less wealthy than the heirs affected by a status quo estate tax.
The problems don't end there. Democrats say they plan to extend the current tax next year (thus undoing the capital gains hike) and make the changes retroactive to Jan. 1. That will probably lead to legal challenges. Meanwhile, the uncertainties are rendering responsible estate planning impossible.
Regardless of how you feel about the estate tax, this is terrible public policy and a disgraceful failure by the Senate, where the minority party's continual intransigence on what should be bipartisan issues is starting to produce the same kind of gridlock experienced by the California Legislature. Republicans who claim to have accomplished something by blocking an extension need to explain why raising taxes on the middle class while lowering them for the very rich is something to be proud of. | <urn:uuid:040ca469-8f23-4542-bca7-2d1dc3b02964> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/18/opinion/la-ed-estate18-2009dec18 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96169 | 585 | 1.789063 | 2 |
To Indrajit 1b the bold and brave
The giant king his mandate gave:
'O trained in warlike science, best
In arms of all our mightiest,
Whose valour in the conflict shown
To Asurs and to Gods is known,
The Kinkars whom I sent are slain,
And Jambumálí and his train;
The lords who led our giant bands
Have fallen by the monkey s hands;
With shattered cars the ground is spread,
And Aksha lies amid the dead.
Thou art my best and bravest: go,
Unmatched in power, and slay the foe.'
He heard the hest: he bent his head;
Athirst for battle forth he sped.
Four tigers fierce, of tawny hue,
With fearful teeth, his chariot drew.
Hanúmán heard his strong bow clang,
And swiftly from the earth he sprang,
While weak and ineffective fell
The archer's shafts though pointed well.
The Rákshas saw that naught might kill
The wondrous foe who mocked his skill,
And launched a magic shaft to throw
A binding spell about his foe.
Forth flew the shaft: the mystic charm
Stayed his swift feet and numbed his arm.
Through all his frame he felt the spell,
And motionless to earth he fell.
Nor would the reverent Vánar loose
The bonds that bound him as a noose.
He knew that Brahmá's self had charmed
The weapon that his might disarmed.
They saw him helpless on the ground,
And all the giants pressed around,
And bonds of hemp and bark were cast
About his limbs to hold him fast.
They drew the ropes round feet and wrists;
They beat him with their hands and fists.
And dragged him as they strained the cord
With shouts of triumph to their lord. 1
420:1b Conqueror of lndra, another of Rávan's sons. | <urn:uuid:0f61713d-1f8b-44ae-81b5-002949081c48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sacred-texts.com/hin/rama/ry386.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961874 | 431 | 1.65625 | 2 |
April 12 – St. Sabas the Goth
It seems that this fourth century saint was not very intelligent or brilliant and yet his testimony of strength and joy were more powerful than all his words. He was arrested as part of a persecution and the first time he was released because they thought it was not worth torturing a person who was not very bright. He was captured a second time and the executioners, angered by Sabas’ gentleness and joy, tortured him and left him for dead. A pious woman saved him, but for the third time he was captured and demanded that he worship idols. When St. Sabas refused, he was executed.
Do you think that you have to be extremely intelligent or have great talent to be called by God? What would be the only thing you would need? | <urn:uuid:b7b3dffe-e876-48ee-b8a2-d263f50f7777> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oyemagazine.org/articles/article-type/04/12/2012/april-12-%E2%80%93-st-sabas-goth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.995876 | 164 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Re: Closing Aged Accounts.. Yes It Is Ok
06-08-2007 04:30 PM
Jay1987 wrote:Curious.Did you find this out from personal experience, or did you read it somewhere?Let's just say it was a credible source.
Gee. I wonder who? LOL. Thanks there is a lot of confusion out there amongst some very knowledgeable people on this subject. So to break it down you just add up all the accounts both open and closed. For the sake of discussion we can use months since opened not years. Then divide it by the number of accounts and there is your average age. All accounts are weighted equally? Car loans credit cards mortgage etc etc. Correct?
Accounts are broken in to groups. Revolving, Installments, ect. The average age of accounts refers to revolving when discussing credit cards, charge cards and retail cards. Installments are graded differently and do not count against average revolving age. :-) | <urn:uuid:63324eb0-3866-4459-a4b0-057e69aeaca4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/forums/forumtopicprintpage/board-id/ficoscoring/message-id/4459/print-single-message/true/page/1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961862 | 196 | 1.664063 | 2 |
This again: yet another sleazy Islamic supremacist claims he was “misunderstood.” You would think that after awhile they’d be too embarrassed to bring out this tired, lame excuse yet again, but they seem to be immune from embarrassment.
And compounding the problem here is that his explanation hardly makes matters better. He is counting on his audience not knowing anything about Khaybar. Among jihadis the slogan is familiar: “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahoud, jaish Muhammad sa yaoud” — that is, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.”
Khaybar. As I explain in my book The Truth About Muhammad, Muhammad led a Muslim force against the Khaybar oasis, which was inhabited by Jews — many of whom he had previously exiled from Medina. When he did so, he was not responding to any provocation. One of the Muslims later remembered: “When the apostle raided a people he waited until the morning. If he heard a call to prayer he held back; if he did not hear it he attacked. We came to Khaybar by night, and the apostle passed the night there; and when morning came he did not hear the call to prayer, so he rode and we rode with him….We met the workers of Khaybar coming out in the morning with their spades and baskets. When they saw the apostle and the army they cried, ‘Muhammad with his force,’ and turned tail and fled. The apostle said, ‘Allah Akbar! Khaybar is destroyed. When we arrive in a people’s square it is a bad morning for those who have been warned.’”
The Muslim advance was inexorable. “The apostle,” according to Muhammad’s earliest biographer, Ibn Ishaq, “seized the property piece by piece and conquered the forts one by one as he came to them.” Another biographer of Muhammad, Ibn Sa’d, reports that the battle was fierce: the “polytheists…killed a large number of [Muhammad's] Companions and he also put to death a very large number of them….He killed ninety-three men of the Jews…” Muhammad and his men offered the fajr prayer, the Islamic dawn prayer, before it was light, and then entered Khaybar itself. The Muslims immediately set out to locate the inhabitants’ wealth. A Jewish leader of Khaybar, Kinana bin al-Rabi, was brought before Muhammad; Kinana was supposed to have been entrusted with the treasure of on of the Jewish tribes of Arabia, the Banu Nadir. Kinana denied knowing where this treasure was, but Muhammad pressed him: “Do you know that if we find you have it I shall kill you?” Kinana said yes, that he did know that.
Some of the treasure was found. To find the rest, Muhammad gave orders concerning Kinana: “Torture him until you extract what he has.” One of the Muslims built a fire on Kinana’s chest, but Kinana would not give up his secret. When he was at the point of death, one of the Muslims beheaded him. Kinana’s wife was taken as a war prize; Muhammad claimed her for himself and hastily arranged a wedding ceremony that night. He halted the Muslims’ caravan out of Khaybar later that night in order to consummate the marriage.
Muhammad agreed to let the people of Khaybar to go into exile, allowing them to keep as much of their property as they could carry. The Prophet of Islam, however, commanded them to leave behind all their gold and silver. He had intended to expel all of them, but some, who were farmers, begged him to allow them to let them stay if they gave him half their yield annually. Muhammad agreed: “I will allow you to continue here, so long as we would desire.” He warned them: “If we wish to expel you we will expel you.” They no longer had any rights that did not depend upon the good will and sufferance of Muhammad and the Muslims. And indeed, when the Muslims discovered some treasure that some of the Khaybar Jews had hidden, he ordered the women of the tribe enslaved and seized the perpetrators’ land. A hadith notes that “the Prophet had their warriors killed, their offspring and woman taken as captives.”
Thus when modern-day jihadists invoke Khaybar, as this hate mailer did indirectly by echoing the familiar chant about Muhammad’s Army, they are doing much more than just recalling the glory days of Islam and its prophet. They are recalling an aggressive, surprise raid by Muhammad which resulted in the final eradication of the once considerable Jewish presence in Arabia. To the jihadists, Khaybar means the destruction of the Jews and the seizure of their property by the Muslims.
That’s what Noor Rashid is now claiming that he did say. This is supposed to reassure us.
A student who spoke out in Arabic during protests against a speech by an Israeli minister at the Oxford Union has denied he called out the words: “Slaughter the Jews”.A statement issued by the office of Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, on Wednesday said that a student protester had uttered the words in question as Mr Ayalon faced protests over his appearance at the Union on Monday night.
But the Oxford Student newspaper yesterday quoted second year St Edmund Hall student Noor Rashid as saying he was in fact using the words of a classical Arabic chant commemorating a seventh-century battle between Arabs and Jews at Khayber, in the Arabian Peninsula.
The statement from Mr Ayalon’s office maintained that a student had called out “Itbah Al Yahud” which translates as a call to slaughter Jews.
But Mr Rashid said that he had in fact said: “Khaybar ya Yahod.” A Jewish Chronicle report yesterday said this referred to a seventh century attack by the Prophet Mohammed on the Jewish community in Khaybar in which the Jews were defeated and made to pay half their income to the Muslim victors.
Mr Rashid told Oxford Student: “My version went: ‘Khaybar, O Jews, we will win’. This is in classical, Qur’anic Arabic and I doubt that apart from picking up on the word ‘Jew’, that even the Arabic speakers in the room would have understood the phrase.
“As you can see, I made no reference to killing Jews.” he said, adding that ‘Jew’ and ‘Israel’ were interchangeable terms. Mr Rashid said the remark carried “absolutely no derogatory or secondary meanings.”
Mr Rashid told the paper he may have been misunderstood: “There was a great deal of confusion and several people were shouting at the same time so I do acknowledge that people may have misheard me and assume that I uttered something else – namely to ’slaughter the Jews’ which is something that I do not believe.
“I express the deepest regret if my remarks were misunderstood or misheard to mean anything that even comes close to encouraging the slaughter of innocents. I will be writing letters to all my Jewish friends to express my sincere apologies, and also to clarify my remarks.”… | <urn:uuid:898c3ff1-36a5-4ee6-9680-f53dd1616b3e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://frontpagemag.com/2010/robert-spencer/student-shouting-%E2%80%9Cslaughter-the-jews%E2%80%9D-at-israeli-official%E2%80%99s-speech-claims-he-was-misunderstood/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98094 | 1,568 | 1.515625 | 2 |
CES Keynote: Health Innovation Barriers Toppling
Information technology will close healthcare gap for poor and push other big changes, says Verizon CEO Lowell McAdams.
"Can you really use technology to motivate people to exercise? Eat their veggies? Take their meds?" Lowell asked. "…[W]hat makes this a transformational moment is the barriers to innovation in the industry are coming down," McAdams said. For example, Verizon now has a network that can handle bandwidth demand for sending MRIs and CAT scans over the Internet, he said. "We're working with [a company] to put a radiology platform in the cloud that takes two-dimensional images and enhances them. With 4D, we can see a heart beating, or track the growth of a tumor over time," said McAdams.
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He outlined several initiatives the company has underway, including gaining FDA clearance for its mHealth platform that will give patients and physicians tools to manage chronic diseases. A HIPAA-secure platform, he said, "is a secure way for doctors and insurance companies to exchange information and share medical records in a mobile environment," while a Verizon big data platform is helping the government "root out" fraud within healthcare.
[ To see how patient engagement can improve medical care, check out 5 Healthcare Tools To Boost Patient Involvement. ]
"In a report to Congress three weeks ago, HHS cited the fact that Verizon's system was up and running within 60 days," McAdams said. In the first year of running its big data platform, Verizon processed more than a billion claims and saved the government $3 for every $1 invested, he said. "In another case, we used our system to analyze 2.5 million claims in a single day and found more than 13,000 suspicious claims, representing more than $200 million in possible fraud," McAdams said.
Verizon also is working with the company HealthSpot, which launched at CES, to create virtual examining rooms. The rooms act as private kiosks that will be installed in big box stores or pharmacies and come equipped with telehealth platforms. "You can video conference with doctors, view medical records, and use tools that capture vitals, and do it all in real time," McAdams said.
McAdams said IT will close gaps in access to healthcare. "More than 50% of what government spends in diabetes and poor nutrition goes to under-served communities," he said. The Clinton Health Matters initiative, which launched in November, will help manage health in medically disadvantaged communities over the next three years, McAdams said.
The company's first project within the Clinton Health Matters initiative is in Coachella Valley, Calif., where 25% of adults and 70% of children are living in poverty. The company already has "people on the ground" in Coachella, McAdams said, to see how they can deploy solutions that address these disparities. "The objective is to turn these communities into working laboratories and creating healthcare solutions for the future," he said.
In closing, McAdams announced the Verizon Powerful Answers Awards for innovators and anticipates that this will drive social change. The company is looking to award $10 million total and a top award of $1 million to companies that develop innovative solutions in healthcare, education and more. "We'll also work with the winners to help bring their ideas to market and make sure we do the maximum amount of good," he said.
Clinical, patient engagement, and consumer apps promise to re-energize healthcare. Also in the new, all-digital Mobile Power issue of InformationWeek Healthcare: Comparative effectiveness research taps the IT toolbox to compare treatments to determine which ones are most effective. (Free registration required.) | <urn:uuid:1a503c3f-8c69-461d-9d9f-c3a84709f34a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.informationweek.com/healthcare/mobile-wireless/ces-keynote-health-innovation-barriers-t/240145935?cid=SBX_iwk_related_mostpopular_Wireless_security_mobility | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951582 | 825 | 1.789063 | 2 |
| APRIL 6, 2004|
Posted: April 14, 2004
Daniel Montalvo, TC Televisión
Eduardo De la Cruz, TC Televisión
Freddy Paredes, Teleamazonas
Robert Molina, Teleamazonas
Robert Tapia, Cablevisión
Carlos Torres, Cablevisión
Montalvo and De la Cruz, a reporter and cameraman, respectively, at TC Television; Paredes and Molina, a reporter and cameraman, respectively, at Teleamazonas; and Tapia and Torres, a cameraman and assistant, respectively, at Cablevisión, were taken hostage at a womenís prison in the capital, Quito, in the wake of protests by inmates in overcrowded prisons in five cities around the country to demand shorter sentences and better living conditions.
The journalists were trying to interview inmates at the prison when they were taken hostage.
The protests erupted on Sunday, April 4, two weeks after guards in Ecuadorís 34 prisons went on strike demanding improved working conditions and back pay. The Ecuadoran press reported than more than 100 visitors inside the womenís prison were also held captive, though it was unclear if some of them were there voluntarily or against their will.
After the news crews were taken hostage, am organizer of the protest said they would use the journalists as leverage so authorities would listen to their demands, the Associated Press reported. The inmates assigned the news crews three cells and allowed them to continue reporting without any threats.
On Thursday, April 8, Teleamazonas decided to stop broadcasting news from the prison until the stationís crew was released. Two days later, the inmates freed Paredes and Molinas. Torres was released on Monday, April 12, because of health problems, and the other were freed the next day, as tensions eased and inmates continued negotiations with authorities. | <urn:uuid:91e75fc7-6e85-4d5e-9482-7917195688f9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cpj.org/cases04/americas_cases04/ecuador.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942967 | 385 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Your DD214 and Veterans' Employment Opportunities
"Service members transitioning from the military today are some of the most educated, technically savvy, professionally qualified the armed forces have ever produced," says Willie Hensley, deputy assistant secretary for human resources management and labor relations for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Soldiers receive training in areas such as engineering, health care, information technology and security.
Generally, employers will ask those claiming prior military service to provide a copy of their discharge form, DD214. While most employers are not permitted to disqualify applicants for a less than honorable discharge, the DD214 will disclose all of the veteran's military schools and training, as well awards and commendations.
Employers and others needing proof of military service are expected to accept the information shown on documents issued by the military service department at the time a service member is separated. Employers can only verify military service through a DD214. For that reason, they will generally request an “undeleted certified copy.”
Certification is accomplished by the adding of a seal by the repository where your DD214 is located and from where it was retrieved. Of course through credit verification, address verification and reference checks employers can easily determine if a falsified or forged DD214 has been tendered. But overall, the DD214 itself is the main source of military service verification.
What is the difference between the long-form ("an undeleted Report of Separation") and short-form ("a deleted Form of Separation") DD214?
There are two versions of the DD Form 214, usually referred to simply as "short" (edited or deleted) copies and "long" (unedited or undeleted) copies. The edited or "short" copy omits a great deal of information, chiefly the characterization of service and reason for discharge, thus the unedited or undeleted copy is generally desired by employers
Service members receive two copies of the DD-214 when they are discharged - a short form and a long form. The long form includes the narrative reason for discharge, the discharge characterization, the three-letter or three-number discharge code corresponding to the reason for discharge, and a reenlistment code. This information is not included on the short form. Essentially, the DD214 long form specifies the person's reason for leaving and quality of service (the "grade" of discharge). Reasons for leaving include completion of term of service; homosexuality; medical disability; hardship; and conscientious objection. When people speak of "bad" and "good" discharges they are usually referring in general terms to the grade of discharge.
Many civilian employers are aware of the long form, including discharge code designations, and may ask for a copy during the hiring process. If applying for a government position, either municipal, state or federal, veterans should expect to be asked to provide a copy of their DD-214. Many state licensing authorities, such as nursing, medicine or bar examiners, may also ask for a copy when an applicant seeks a license to practice their profession.
There are five "grades" of discharge: Honorable; General (Under Honorable Conditions); Other Than Honorable; Bad Conduct; and Dishonorable. The first three are given without a judicial process; the last two are the outcome of conviction by trial ("courts martial").
However, employers may tend to disregard the distinction between the administrative discharge and discharges resulting from courts-martial. As a consequence, any discharge except an honorable one can be the ticket to a lifetime of rejected job applications. It can be argued that this situation is not accidental: the DOD has intentionally linked discharge status to future employment as an incentive to good behavior while in the service.
Even on an Honorable discharge, a "Spin Code" (SPN - Separation Program Number) can hurt a veteran's chance of being hired by a prospective employer. These spin codes were put on DD214s from the 1940's through the early 1970's. Veterans can request a new DD 214 with the spin codes removed (see below).
SPN codes are frequently assigned on the basis of subjective judgments which are difficult for the dischargee to challenge. Until recently, the codes had different meanings in each branch of service, and they have been changed several times, leaving them prone to misinterpretation by employers not possessing the proper key. Although employers are not supposed to know what the SPN codes mean, many have found out as a result of leaks from the agencies authorized to have them.
Examples of a few spin codes:
SPN 258 - Unfitness, multiple reasons
SPN 263 – Bed-wetter
SPN 41A - Apathy, lack of interest
SPN 41E – Obesity
SPN 46C - Apathy / Obesity
SPN 463 - Paranoid personality
(see a more thorough list of spin codes, courtesy Touchstone Research, HERE.)
(Your service branch will also indicate a reenlistment code on your DD214. This information, too, can help or hurt a veteran in their job search. See a list of Military Reenlistment Codes, courtesy Touchstone Research, HERE.)
In 1974, the DOD tried to stop unfair use of SPN codes by leaving them off its forms and offering anyone discharged prior to 1974 an opportunity to get a new form DD-214 without a SPN code. This solution has several defects. For one thing, not all pre-1974 dischargees know of the reissuance program. For another, a pre-1974 DD-214 without a SPN code may raise a canny employer's suspicion that the applicant had the SPN code removed because he has something to hide.
As of 1977, nearly 20 million veterans had a coded number.
For many reasons, your DD214 will affect your post-service employment. Veterans receiving “bad” discharges may very well encounter employment problems because many employers will request to see a copy of your DD214.
Chris S. asks, "Is there a way to up date my discharge from other than honorable conditions to honorable?"
All services will have a procedure for this, and I've attached a good article on the issue.
If you require counsel, you should Google
Discharge Review Board Attorney
And you'll find some additional references.
Here's the reference, Discharge Upgrade Memo. | <urn:uuid:af97ad5a-d7d1-4dc3-80b8-97c7b05823ea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dd214.us/dd214andjobs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937045 | 1,312 | 1.679688 | 2 |
At Araphaoe Douglas Mental Health Network, we're committed to creating a culture in which clients with emotional challenges and mental illness — including those with serious mental illness (SMI), also known as severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI) — can take an active part in their own recovery process. Our new comprehensive program is both rehabilitation- and recovery-focused.
Center Point, A good place to be.
Center Point is a restorative environment for people who have had their lives drastically disrupted by mental illness and need and want the support of others who believe that every individual can recover from the effects of their illness to lead a personally satisfying life. Center Point members are dedicated to one another’s success, no matter how long it takes or how difficult it is. The Program concept is organized around a belief in the potential for productive contributions from everyone, including clients struggling with the most severe effects of mental illness. It is a rehabilitative model of recovery that supports enhancement of meaningful life skills, employment and opportunities that encourage self determination and independence.
Health and Wellness
Taking care of physical and mental wellness is key in recovery from mental illness. Psycho-social groups, supportive therapy, case management, and medication services will be readily accessible to all members. These ancillary supports will assist people in learning core skills that will help them to successfully manage their mental illness, increase independence and improve integration into the community.
Opportunities to Work
Employment opportunities and support are central to the Center Point philosophy. Temporary Employment (TE) opportunities give members a chance to learn different skills and discover what they enjoy doing. Situational Assessments assist members in determining their strengths and abilities that help with more targeted job searching. Center Point offers support to members whom are employed, seeking employment and to volunteers. Center Point provides countless opportunities to learn and practice job skills.
Develop Relationships. Make Friends.
The development of a supportive community where members can be themselves, build friendships and have fun following a day of work is another essential component of this program. Center Point affords opportunity for members to participate in organizing and scheduling structured and un-structured social activities. The program provides evening, weekend, and holiday social and recreational programming Monday through Thursday from 3:00 p.m. until 6:00 p.m., and Saturdays 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m.
Who can join?
Any adult 18+ with a major Axis 1 Mental Illness; and actively receiving services within the Arapahoe/Douglas Mental Health Network.
For information about donating to the Center Pont Program, please contact the ADMHN development director at 303 793 9601. | <urn:uuid:1125e519-5003-4209-b22c-aa910de0deae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.admhn.org/Services/RehabilitationRecovery.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952103 | 550 | 1.640625 | 2 |
In any particular situation there's an interplay between the environment and your mind. What can be done (i.e. next actions) at any moment is determined by both of these.
For me, contexts clearly fall in the environment realm. They simply define the environment that you're in.
Sometimes, like you, I am in an environment where a lot of things can be done. When I'm at home I select: @Home, @Calls, @MacBook Air, @MacBook Air Wifi, @iPhone, @iPhone 4G, @iPhone Wifi, @iPad, @iPad Wifi, and @Pencil & Paper. Obviously, I have a ton of next actions under these. And that's exactly how it's supposed to be because that is the reality of the environment that I'm in. That's what Contexts are supposed to do. Contexts don't pick something for me to do, they only define the negative, they define what I can't do.
So where do "I" come in? What's the other side of this equation? Where's the "yang" to the "yin"? Where does the mind come in? It's not next actions, it's projects.
Project categorizations are mostly "mind" related. They're what things mean to me. They're things I want to achieve. They're the "wildly successful outcomes" we've already envisioned. It's very important to have a way to simply see all your projects (maybe just by area of focus) but uncluttered with all the actions associated with them. By browsing all your projects you can pretty quickly use your intuition to decide what to work on. Opening a program takes no effort for me if it's done AFTER I've scanned my projects and decided on what's most appropriate to do at that time.
So I think the problem is not we have a lot of things to do in our contexts, the problem is that we can't decide what do to by looking at next actions. We decide where we want to go by looking at outcomes, by looking at projects. Next actions are simply the dumb next physical action to do to reach that goal. No thinking done there, that should have already been done when we created the next action. | <urn:uuid:73f7f254-9ed4-4437-8eb7-17dd8eac84e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.davidco.com/forum/showthread.php?13676-Too-Few-Contexts&p=100248 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977957 | 468 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Storm chasers brave danger and debris as they try to capture photos of tornadoes' destructive power. Slideshow
U.N. chief Ban urges end to "dangerous escalation" in Gaza
UNITED NATIONS |
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday called on Israel and Hamas to "stop this dangerous escalation" in the Gaza Strip to avoid further bloodshed in Israel and the Palestinian territories, Ban's spokesman said.
"The Secretary-General is extremely concerned about the continued violence in Gaza and Israel, and deeply worried by the rising cost in terms of civilian lives," U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky said. "Rocket attacks are unacceptable and must stop at once. Israel must exercise maximum restraint."
Nesirky added that Ban "plans to visit the region shortly." U.N. diplomats have said that Ban will visit Israel and Egypt next week.
"A new cycle of bloodshed will make neither Israelis nor Palestinians more secure," Nesirky said. "Nor will bloodshed open the door to negotiations that could achieve the two-state solution necessary to end such violence permanently."
Israel began bombing Gaza on Wednesday with an attack that killed the Hamas military chief. It says its campaign is in response to Hamas missiles fired on its territory. Hamas stepped up rocket attacks in response.
(Reporting by Louis Charbonneau; Editing by Jackie Frank and Paul Simao)
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One of the greater pleasures in life are the small yet beautiful encounters had by one another; the impact that each individual can bestow upon each other is a powerful one indeed. Introduced to me last summer through the charming William Buckley, Rosa Kaftan is a divine combination of beauty, Kurdish panache, and English charm who has made quite an impact both as a friend and co-worker. Shortly after meeting our friendship became long distance and our few months apart felt more like several, long cold winters. However, in February she made her return to New York and came bearing a thoughtful gift, her favorite read The God of Small Things. Beautifully quailed by Indian author Arundhati Roy, the Man Booker Prize winning novel tells a breathtakingly bitter sweet tale.
Set in Ayemenem pronounced ‘Aymanam’ now part of Kottayam in the Kerala state of India, The God of Small Things is the story of two fraternal twins, Rahel and Estha and the poignant experiences they encounter told non linearly by way of time. Amid Roy’s poetic prose, is the hauntingly dark history of Ammu Ipe, mother to the twins, a battered divorcé raised in a troubled home who carries a heavy hearted past which inflicts upon her children’s up bringing.
While Rahel & Esta like many twins share almost everything; a passion for ‘The sound of music’, answering as one, and a dark secret that can seal there father’s fate. The narrative is colored by the characters of Baby Kochamma and Chakko which balances the grim betrayals of Pappachi and Velutha between Ammu’s immediate family.The purposely dark yet extravagant piece of literature conveys the little things that effect an individual’s life while touching on communism, the caste system, and the Keralite Syrian Christian way of life.
Fancying ourselves ‘The same yet different’, Rosa and I were both drawn to a particular exchange between Ammu and her daughter Rahel as she asks “D’ you know know what happens when you hurt people?” the frightened daughter Rahel replies in the smallest voice “What?” and her mother’s chilling response “When you hurt people, they begin to love you a little less. That’s what careless words do, they make people love you a little less.” Unsettling in every way, it’s needless to say the exchange between Ammu and her daughter will haunt our use of words forever.
I strongly suggest picking up a copy of Roy’s debut novel and as the book itself reads “It didn’t matter that the story had begun, because Kathakali discovered long ago that the secret of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings.” I think it is very safe to say, it is no secret that The God of Small Things is one such Great Story.
-R & RK
P.S. Thank you Rosie Cheeks it’s truly an honor to call you a friend. | <urn:uuid:44a94f93-7fd2-4520-a3cf-ef956fb18c82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://accordingtoroodles.com/tagged/Man-Booker-Prize | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96198 | 688 | 1.5625 | 2 |
It’s all in who you know. We’ve all heard that saying over…and over…and over again, but never is the importance of good networking skills more obvious than when you’re trying to drum up support for your non-profit.
Remember when I was talking about the reasons that businesses would decide to support your organization? Sure, there’s a little quid-pro-quo involved, but any business you’re going to talk to about being involved in your non-profit is going to enjoy the good feeling they get from giving back just as much as they are the tax breaks and positive PR your organization can give them. When you’re soliciting donations from individuals rather than corporations, however, you’re going to need to turn down the quid-pro-quo and approach it from a personal angle.
You’re going to have to sharpen your networking skills.
Make the Connection
Do you have any idea how many non-profit organizations are currently operating in the United States? As of the beginning of 2010 there were 1,515,746 non-profit and charity groups operating in the US, keeping in mind that since there are plenty of organizations that slip into a gray area when they’re being tallied up those numbers aren’t entirely set in stone. You’re going to be facing a huge amount of competition when it comes to generating support for your non-profit.
The best way to encourage individual donations is to connect with the individual, and that’s where your networking skills need to kick in. It’s your job to forge that personal connection with your donors. They need to know why your cause matters, what you’re doing to help and what their contribution is going to do. Connecting with them on an emotional level is going to be the difference between walking away with a long-term donor and a donation in hand and just walking away.
Of course, it’s one thing to know that you need to forge that emotional connection. It’s another thing entirely to actually make it happen. Relax. Take a deep breath. You’ve already got all the networking skills and tools you need. The fact that you’re working with the non-profit means you have compassion. The fact that you’re actively soliciting donations means you’ve got dedication. The fact that your organization trusts you enough to send you out as their representative means you’ve got passion. That passion, that sense of drive, is what’s going to bring your donors around to your side.
Everyone wants something to stir their blood. They want to feel like they’re a part of something, to know that the choices they make and the actions they take are going to change the world. They want to feel as though a part of them is going to live on long after they’re gone.
Forging the Right Links
Now that you’re all fired up and ready to take your newly empowered networking skills for a test drive, let’s back the car up just a little bit. It’s one thing to know you’re going to go out and connect with people that might one day help you save the world. That job gets a lot more overwhelming when you realize it takes more than 5 or 10 donations to keep a non-profit flowing smoothly. Can you really spend your entire day wheedling donations from each and every one of your potential donors?
Of course not. There just aren’t that many hours in a day. So, as unfair as it might be-and it really is unfair, when you get right down to it-you’re going to have to pick and choose which potential donors you’re going to wine and dine with your precious free time. I suggest taking a three pronged attack to networking from this point on:
1) Put all of that passion and fervor into creating some awesome promotional materials to draw in new donors. After all, who knows the beauty of your cause better than you do?
2) Mingle at every event you attend. Just a few minutes with each group of guests could secure thousands in donations for your organization and create a positive impression of your non-profit they’re not going to forget any time soon.
3) Take time to personally speak with potentially large donors. Let them feel personally welcomed, and encourage them to get involved. There’s a lot more that goes into keeping a non-profit running than money. Seeing your organization in action will not only help them feel more connected, it also gives them the chance to understand just how much good their donation can do.
Tags: fundraising, fundraising networking, networking, networking for non-profit, networking skills, non-profit, non-profit fundraising
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Woman Who Fed Bears Ordered Out of HouseOregonian News, Bear Hunting Magazine
The 61-year-old Karen Noyes was convicted of harassing wildlife and sentenced to three years probation. She often fed the black bears that came to her home near the Oregon coast. Then after doing this for a while, things got out of hand.
One hungry bear stormed a neighbor's barn and killed 60 turkeys. Another got stuck in a doggie door. The woman asked wildlife officers to help remove the bears, but it was too late.
Now the bears all being chased from the rural area near Yachats as authorities try to restore the peace.
Lincoln County Circuit Judge Thomas Branford also ordered Noyes to stay away from her home and a seven-mile stretch of Yachats River Road for three years, beginning Aug. 31.
When humans feed bears, wildlife experts say, the bears lose their fear of humans and can become nuisances. Branford called the behavior of Noyes stunning and offensive.
"I commend you for loving the animals," the judge said, but he added, "It's not enough to love. You have to love the right way and you still haven't. Bears are not your pets to do with as you please."
Noyes was cited for feeding the bears last year after calling the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife seeking assistance. Witnesses for the state testified that she had been warned to stop feeding the bears as early as 2003 but refused to listen.
Noyes insisted she had never been warned. "He is convinced I was. None of my neighbors ever warned me. Not once. That is the truth. He has his mind made up that what Fish and Game said was true."
During the trial, neighbors testified they have become frightened to walk outside their homes because her feeding had attracted so many animals. | <urn:uuid:bcce40fe-f1b1-4be5-91d8-9ef1f4545a4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bear-hunting.com/news.cfm?Action=News&NewsFlashID=691 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9815 | 384 | 1.585938 | 2 |
VATICAN CITY: Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected pope Wednesday, becoming the first pontiff from the Americas and the first from outside Europe in more than a millennium.
He chose the name Francis, associating himself with the humble 13th-century Italian preacher who lived a life of poverty.
Looking stunned, Francis shyly waved to the crowd of tens of thousands of people who gathered in St. Peter’s Square for the announcement, marveling that the cardinals needed to look to “the end of the earth” to find a bishop of Rome.
In choosing a 76-year-old pope, the cardinals clearly decided that they didn’t need a vigorous, young pope who would reign for decades but rather a seasoned, popular and humble pastor who would draw followers to the faith. The cardinal electors overcame deep divisions to select the 266th pontiff in a remarkably fast, five-ballot conclave.
Francis asked for prayers for himself, and for retired Pope Benedict XVI, whose surprising resignation paved the way for the conclave that brought the first Jesuit to the papacy. He also spoke by phone with Benedict after his election and plans to see him in the coming days, the Vatican said.
“Brothers and sisters, good evening,” Francis said to wild cheers in his first public remarks as pontiff. “You know that the work of the conclave is to give a bishop to Rome. It seems as if my brother cardinals went to find him from the end of the earth. Thank you for the welcome.”
After announcing “Habemus Papam” – “We have a pope!” – a cardinal standing on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica Wednesday revealed the identity of the new pontiff, using his Latin name, and announced he would be called Francis.
The longtime archbishop of Buenos Aires is the son of middle-class Italian immigrants and is known as a humble man who denied himself the luxuries that previous Buenos Aires cardinals enjoyed.
He often rode the bus to work, cooked his own meals and regularly visited the slums that ring Argentina’s capital. He considers social outreach, rather than doctrinal battles, to be the essential business of the church.
He showed that humility Wednesday, saying that before he blessed the crowd he wanted their prayers for him and bowed his head.
“Good night, and have a good rest,” he said before leaving the balcony.
In choosing to call himself Francis, the new pope was associating himself with the much-loved Italian saint associated with peace, poverty and simplicity. St. Francis founded the Franciscan order.
Francis will celebrate his first Mass as pope in the Sistine Chapel Thursday, and will be installed officially as pope Tuesday, according to Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi.
Tens of thousands of people who braved cold rain to watch the smokestack atop the Sistine Chapel jumped in joy when white smoke poured out a few minutes past 7 p.m., many shouting “Habemus Papam!” as the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica and churches across Rome pealed.
They cheered again when the doors to the loggia opened, and again when Bergoglio’s name was announced.
Elected on the fifth ballot, Francis was chosen in one of the fastest conclaves in years, remarkable given there was no clear front-runner going into the vote and that the church had been in turmoil following the upheaval unleashed by Benedict surprise resignation.
A winner must receive 77 votes, or two-thirds of the 115, to be named pope. Jubilant Argentines poured into churches to celebrate the surprise announcement that one of their own was the first Latin American pope, and many hoped he would bring change to a church in crisis.
People throughout the mainly Roman Catholic country rushed to churches, some crying and praying that the 76-year-old Jesuit could bolster faith in the Vatican after a series of scandals.
“I hope he changes all the luxury that exists in the Vatican, that he steers the church in a more humble direction, something closer to the Gospel,” said Jorge Andres Lobato, a 73-year-old retired state prosecutor.
Few Argentines thought Bergoglio, known for his ascetic lifestyle and dedication to the poor, would be chosen.
Within minutes, Twitter feeds went wild with the phrase “The hand of God, again,” in reference to football star Diego Maradona, one of Argentina’s best-known sons, who famously used the phrase after being accused of using his hand to score a goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. | <urn:uuid:29b6e332-c870-43a7-8f10-34fc08211c85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/International/2013/Mar-14/210028-francis-in-the-fishermans-shoes.ashx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973351 | 990 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Meet the Laments—the affably dysfunctional globetrotting family at the center of George Hagen’s exuberant debut novel.
Howard is an engineer who dreams of irrigating the Sahara and lives by the motto “Laments move!” His wife Julia is a fiery spirit who must balance her husband’s oddly peripatetic nature with unexpected aspirations of her own. And Will is the “waif with a paper-thin heart” who is given to Howard and Julia in return for their own child who has been lost in a bizarre maternity ward mishap. As Will makes his way from infancy to manhood in a family that careens from continent to continent, one wonders where the Laments will ever belong.
In Bahrain, Howard takes a job with an oil company and young Will makes his first friend. But in short order he is wrenched off to another land, his mother’s complicated friendship with the American siren Trixie Howitzer causing the family to bolt. In Northern Rhodesia, during its last days as a white colony, the twin enfants terribles Marcus and Julius are born, and Will falls for the gardener’s daughter, a girl so vain that she admires her image in the lid of a biscuit tin. But soon the family’s life is upturned again, thie time by their neighbor Major Buck Quinn, with his suburban tirades against black self-rule. Envisioning a more civilized life on “the sceptered isle,” the Laments board an ocean liner bound for England. Alas, poor Will is greeted by the tribal ferocity of his schoolmates and a society fixated on the Blitz. No sooner has he succumbed to British pop culture in the guise of mop-top Sally Byrd and her stacks of 45s, than the Laments uproot themselves once again, and it’s off to New Jersey, where life deals crisis and opportunity in equal measure.
Undeniably eccentric, the Laments are also universal. Every family moves on in life. Children grow up, things are left behind; there is always something to lament. Through the Lament’s restlessness, responses to adversity, and especially their unwieldy love for one another, George Hagen gives us a portrait of every family that is funny, tragic, and improbably true.
About the Author
GEORGE HAGEN had lived on three continents by the time he was twelve. The Laments is his first novel. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
Praise for The Laments…
“The Laments is a fine novel, about family, migration, identity, and the struggle to find and hold on to it. It is also hugely entertaining and very, very funny.”
—Roddy Doyle, author of The Barrytown Trilogy
“A vital international journey through the vicissitudes of family life. This story, centering on the timeless theme of a child swapped at birth, is immensely readable, funny, and touching—a complete joy.”
—Elizabeth Strout, author of Amy and Isabelle
“George Hagen’s highly entertaining debut novel features an irresistibly headstrong family, a global sweep, and not only a sense of loss and displacement that’s perfectly in tune with the world we live in but also a full measure of resilient humanity.”
—Gary Shteyngart, author of The Russian Debutante’s Handbook | <urn:uuid:1c82ebc0-37fa-4a21-a64d-236c261db338> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bookpassage.com/book/9780812972184 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955091 | 735 | 1.515625 | 2 |
A recent visit to the Art Gallery of NSW was, as always, an interesting few hours and a cause for reflection about how a number of themes come together in relation to change and the way we deal with it. Most importantly, it set me thinking about some leadership behaviours.
Words in an instantly recognisable typeface provide a glimpse of familiarity in a sea of change.
In this painting by Sali Herman, the Sydney Morning Herald masthead, from the 1940s, is juxtaposed with some freshly caught fish. Sixty or more years separate freshness which will surely fade fast from an icon which persists. Change happens yet we always have the possibility to retain vestiges of the past. This is how it should be.
In leadership, we must always remember that we are at any moment poised precariously between our past and our future. The immediate needs of a fresh catch, sit alongside the knowledge that there will be those trappings of our existence which will persist long past the time when some of the immediate intents of our endeavours have been consumed or rotted away.
Therefore, when reacting to emergent need, we should always try to retain a view which ‘looks both ways’ and which has a sense of desire to ensure that any icons which endure from this present do so because they represent a purpose which is still current and meaningful, years down the track.
Sometimes, the thought of the function and existence of the finished product leads us to forget, or discount the processes of creation.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge must have been a massive dominator of the Sydney skyline in the late 1920s: reaching out tentatively from both shores to finally nudge together way up above the ‘big smoke’ of the city and its bustling harbour. Huge tracts of housing at both its Southern and Northern ends bulldozed to provide the approaches, and tunnels bored within the sandstone waited to feel the rush of air and the trundle of trains and trams.
The leadership of this massive project must have needed a huge team to manage the complexities of building something on such a vast scale and to promote a shared belief in the value of the intended outcome and of the need for care and precision in the building. Huge arcs of steel, supported by cables anchored deep in the sandstone, eventually settling together, complete, high above the water.
It can be easy to think of great leadership as the qualities which enable a person to take large numbers with them as they move toward an objective which is seen to represent a national interest, or loyalty, or a grand endeavour.
Dominating one of the galleries at the NSW Art Gallery is a huge canvas by Edouard Detaille entitled ‘Vive l’empereur’ which depicts Hussars galloping in a full charge, bugles sounding, sabres swinging, toward the Russian lines in the battle of Friedland in 1806.
The notes posted beside this enormous painting point out that Detaille had set out to
“Recapture the appearance of the men of his period as they went to their death covered in gold braid.”
It is sobering to think through the psyche which led men to see themselves as taking part in a ritual of warriors, where manhood can be seen as a status symbolised by the willingness to rush headlong into battle for worthy causes: accepting the very real possibility of death as a consequence of honouring the traditions of gender, race, culture or religion. A faith in the ‘righteousness’ of the need to win a battle was enough to circumvent the natural shrinking from those things which would otherwise seek to overwhelm us.
We should choose very carefully when it comes to selecting any pursuit where the need to ‘win’ becomes a significant justification for asking others to follow into places where there is danger and the possibility of very real risk.
There are those who still speak of ‘leading by example,’ of ‘not expecting anyone to do that which you are not prepared to do yourself.’ There are certainly times where this may be necessary but, as with language, behaviour and leadership: there will be times where it is better to ‘lead from behind’
Nelson Mandela says: “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership. “
Mandela had spent long afternoons herding cattle. His mother owned some cattle of her own, but there was a collective herd belonging to the village that he and other boys would look after. He then explained to me the rudiments of herding cattle.
“You know, when you want to get the cattle to move in a certain direction, you stand at the back with a stick, and then you get a few of the cleverer cattle to go to the front and move in the direction that you want them to go. The rest of the cattle follow the few more-energetic cattle in the front, but you are really guiding them from the back.”
He paused. “That is how a leader should do his work.” (Richard Stengel)
Clearly, there are challenges to face when it comes to changing leadership style to suit the context. Our natural sense of who and what we are; of how we see ourselves from the inside out, will have an impact.
It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse. Adlai Stevenson
Drawing some of these threads together with, hopefully, some relevance for leaders in schools, maybe there are some key messages:
- Within what we do there are some things which, while pressing and immediate now will be gone in time. There are others which may seem now to only have a secondary function but which may still be there in decades to come: still recognisable and an icon of familiarity. Within our work, try to maintain an awareness of not only the rearview mirror, but also the vast horizon of possibility in front.
- We need to be clear about what we stand for and what it is that we believe would be a good possible future.
- Large products do not come about overnight, but can be years in the planning and construction. This requires leadership which builds teams and co-ordinates, provides feedback and in general keeps all committed to the intended outcomes. Our work in building something new may mean that we have to leave some things behind.
- Symbolic leadership, achieved with horn blasts and the smell of fear and the sound of thundering hooves, may be appropriate in certain circumstances, but must always be questionable when it is predicated on blind faith in ‘righteousness.’
- While it can be hugely difficult to let go and sit back, there is a massive satisfaction to be had from ‘leading from behind.’
Please feel free to click up the top where it says Comments and add your thoughts. | <urn:uuid:4d75e4a6-fa3f-48e2-b102-f1c84b38e100> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pryorcommitment.com/lips2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965399 | 1,449 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Senate advances PATRIOT Act extension
posted at 1:06 pm on May 26, 2011 by Tina Korbe
By a cloture vote of 79 to 18, the Senate today, as expected, moved a four-year extension of key provisions of the PATRIOT Act closer to a final vote.
The vote results come as no surprise, but they do continue a notable episode on the Senate floor. The sparring between Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has sparked interest in an issue that otherwise might have prompted little new discussion.
The disagreement between the two senators has been as much procedural as positional. Reid promised a full week of debate and an open amendment process, but later balked when time ran short. When Paul complained yesterday about his inability to offer amendments, Reid essentially accused him of single-handedly jeopardizing the nation’s security.
Paul shot back: “I’ve been accused of wanting to allow terrorists to have weapons to attack America … To be attacked of such a belief when I’m here to discuss and debate the constitutionality of the Patriot Act is offensive and I find it personally insulting.”
Now, Reid just might allow a vote on Paul’s most important amendment, after all:
Senate Democratic leadership seems poised to acquiesce to Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) demand that the chamber vote on an amendment that would restrict national security officials from examining gun dealer records in their efforts to track potential terrorists.
The Kentucky Republican had been insisting that such language at least receive a vote as an addition to the extension of the USA Patriot Act. As of Wednesday night, it appeared that he would be stymied.
By Thursday morning, however, the landscape had changed and multiple sources on the Hill confirmed to The Huffington Post that a vote on that amendment and one other would happen — likely as a means of expediting passage of the Patriot Act’s extension.
Lost in all of this are the implications of the actual extensions or the lack thereof. Unfortunately, the spat between the two senators has shifted the focus from the PATRIOT Act itself and onto personalities. But Paul, after all, is not the only person to have questioned the constitutionality of the PATRIOT Act. Plenty on the left have attacked the law, as well.
Now more than ever, though, the law is worth defending and extending, as Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Patriot Act co-author Nathan Sales wrote in a Politico op-ed today:
As Congress takes up legislation to reauthorize three expiring parts of the Patriot Act, it should take seriously the tea party’s commitment to constitutional fidelity.
Judged by that standard, Patriot passes with flying colors. It just lets counterterrorism agents use some of the same tools that regular cops have used for decades. These tools have exacting safeguards to protect civil liberties, and federal courts have consistently upheld their constitutionality.
The Senate has until midnight tonight to extend the PATRIOT Act — and squabbling shouldn’t stop it. The vast majority of the Senate is on the right side of the actual issue. Vote on Paul’s amendment or don’t, but definitely don’t slow down the extension or risk a lapse in the provisions (and many of Paul’s colleagues — even those sympathetic about Reid’s treatment of him — agree).
While Reid and Paul make drama, King and Sales put it all in perspective: “Osama bin Laden is dead, but Al Qaeda is still very much alive. This is no time to go wobbly in the war on terror.”
Breaking on Hot Air | <urn:uuid:3b5c3430-49c7-4103-9bd8-f65e0034fe52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/26/senate-advances-patriot-act-extension/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959494 | 769 | 1.515625 | 2 |
WMU Student Financial Aid Scholarship Guide - available WMU scholarships are categorized and listed with all details.
American Indian Graduate Center Scholars (AIGC) - This program was created to assist American Indian college graduates to continue their education at the masters, doctorate and professional degree level.
Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF) - This fund is the country’s largest non-profit organization devoted solely to providing scholarships for Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.
CollegeNet - search for scholarships based on keywords or your personal profile.
FAFSA on the Web - includes information to help you get ready to fill out your FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), allows you to fill out your FAFSA and submit it online, and allows you to follow-up on the FAFSA that you submitted (including checking the status and making corrections).
FASTWEB: "The Internet's Largest FREE Scholarship Search" - find college financial aid and conduct a free scholarship search with the scholarship search engine.
Federal Student Aid: Student Aid on the Web - get the facts on financial aid, how to maintain it, and what to do when school's over... if you are enrolled as a full-time or part-time student and need to find out more about your educational loans, you'll find all the information you need right here.
FinAid: "The SmartStudent Guide to Financial Aid" - this is a comprehensive free resource for objective and unbiased information, advice and tools about student financial aid, college scholarships and education loans.
Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) - In support of its mission to double the rate of Hispanics earning college degrees, HSF provides the Latino community with more college scholarships and educational outreach support than any other organization in the country.
Looking for Student Aid: Federal, State, and Other Sources of Information - includes information on federal, state, and other resources for student aid. Topics include how to begin to search for aid, scholarship search services, and helpful phone numbers. Included here are sources of information about student aid on the federal and state levels. Also mentioned are scholarship search services that provide computerized lists of sources of private and other financial aid.
Peterson's: Pay for School - look here to get an overview on how to pay for school and become an informed consumer.
The SallieMae Fund - apply online for federal and private student loans, consolidate student loans; financial aid and scholarship information for college, graduate school and continuing education.
United Negro College Fund (UNCF) - As the nation’s oldest and most successful minority higher education assistance organization, the United Negro College Fund’s mission is to provide financial support to its 39 member institutions and increase minority degree attainment by reducing financial barriers to college. | <urn:uuid:9a01dd12-b5d8-4f37-b9aa-d97c1e6c2b41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmich.edu/ssp/guides/paying.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930763 | 574 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The Benefits of the ORCID ID to Researchers
UKOLN staff have recently worked with Jisc in supporting the take-up of the Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) by the research community. A recent post which explains Why every researcher should sign up for their ORCID ID has been published on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog. The post describes how ORCID is a non-profit effort providing digital identifiers to the research community to ensure correct authorship data are available and more transparent. The post also summarises the benefits to researchers who acquire their ORCID ID. | <urn:uuid:488fdd36-9982-4703-8fe9-d932ef6983d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/news/get/2013/01/30/the-benefits-of-the-orcid-id-to-researchers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942825 | 126 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The idea that you don’t understand where music comes from, or that you think Classical music happens to be the province of dusty, white-wigged old farts, is nothing to do with what the music is, it’s a misapprehension on your part, it’s a failure of imagination, and worse than that it’s snobbery. It’s rank snobbery. You think you’re better than that ‘cause you’re young, you’re cool. Well, I’ve never heard more snobbery, in music, than amongst young people’s music. You know what it’s like when you’re fourteen, and you dare to have a party, and you put music on, and a fifteen-year-old says ‘You call THAT music? What shit is this?’, and the band you thought was cool, they’ve pointed out, ISN’T cool. That’s where the real snobbery in music lies. That’s where the terror lies, in thinking they have to conform to some idea of what is or what isn’t right.
Stephen Fry, arguing against the motion ‘This House believes that classical music is irrelevant to today’s youth’ | <urn:uuid:90be61d6-c801-46ae-8d63-efed15a8323f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sgtr.wordpress.com/2011/08/24/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937783 | 281 | 1.78125 | 2 |
LAFAYETTE, Ind., Feb. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The FDA has approved a clinical trial for MethLock, a catheter lock solution developed by Ash Access Technology, Inc., a Lafayette, Indiana company focused on vascular access medical solutions to prevent catheter-related bloodstream infections (CRBSI).
"The clinical trial is designed to study the safety and efficacy of MethLock as a catheter lock solution, compared with heparin, the industry standard," says Mr. Roland Winger, Clinical Trial Manager and Director, Engineering and Quality Assurance at Ash Access Technology. "The dominant catheter lock solution in the marketplace is currently heparin, which is primarily an anticoagulant. In contrast, MethLock is designed not only as an anticoagulant to minimize clotting, but also with an antibacterial function to minimize bacterial growth between uses of a central venous catheter for dialysis. The clinical trial is designed to prove the safety and efficacy of MethLock as a viable and preferable catheter lock solution."
The company reports that candidates for clinical trial sites will be finalized in the next few weeks, followed by enrollment of 400 patients slated to participate in the study. The clinical trial is expected to begin in March or April and last for 26 weeks, with a subsequent 26 week follow-up period for MethLock patients. STATKING Consulting, Inc., a Fairfield, Ohio company, specializing in data related services for clinical trials, will be retained as the Clinical Research Organization for this trial.
"This approval by the FDA to begin the clinical trial is an important step in bringing this product to the market," says Mr. Robert Truitt, President and CEO of Ash Access Technology, Inc. "We hope to eventually see MethLock contribute to reducing infections from CRBSI, which are responsible for thousands of deaths and cost the U.S. healthcare system in excess of $2.0B every year. Ash Access Technology is committed to saving lives and reducing healthcare expenses caused by CRBSI in both acute and chronic uses of central venous catheters. To that end, we have put tremendous resources behind MethLock as a key innovation that will bring our healthcare system -- and our company -- closer to that goal."
Ash Access Technology, Inc. is a company founded to develop vascular access technologies and methodologies to combat the deadly and expensive problem of catheter-related bloodstream infections. Dr. Stephen R. Ash, Chairman and Director, Research and Development, is a practicing Nephrologist with the Arnett Clinic in Lafayette, Indiana, and is a world-recognized researcher and patent holder in extracorporeal devices, sorbent chemistry, and vascular and peritoneal access devices. Ash Access Technology is located in Lafayette, Indiana in the INOK Business Center.
This press release contains forward-looking statements, which if not based on historical facts, involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from the results or events stated in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, certain events not within the Company's control.
Ash Access Technology, Inc. | <urn:uuid:e21e6fa8-d023-45ed-a60b-a57ede86ecdf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biospace.com/News/1-approves-clinical-trial-for-2s-methlocktm/15123020 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945886 | 639 | 1.648438 | 2 |
SACRAMENTO - Nearly half the state Assembly is switching to hybrids as their choice for state-leased vehicles - a marked change from the gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and luxury sedans long favored by lawmakers.
Of the 80 Assembly members, 39 drive hybrids, up from 27 last year. Of the 40 senators, 13 opted for hybrids, three more than last year.
Wheels: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, right, has two Hummers that use alternative fuels, and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, left, drives a hybrid.
MAX WHITTAKER, REUTERS
State lawmakers choose their official vehicles, which are subsidized by taxpayers.
Legislators have been criticized for backing clean air laws while driving higher polluting vehicles.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, D-Los Angeles, for instance, was driving a 2003 Ford Explorer last year as he pushed passage of AB32, the law to fight global warming. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has two Hummers converted to use alternative fuels, is seeking to tighten tailpipe emissions again this year.
"I do believe in the notion that you have to practice what you preach. In my case, the alternative is here," said Nuñez, who now squires a new Toyota Highlander Hybrid.
Some hybrids use as much or more gas as a standard vehicle.
The all-wheel-drive 2006 Chevrolet Silverado 1500 Hybrid assigned to freshman Assemblyman Anthony Adams, R-Hesperia, gets about 18 mpg in the city and 20 mpg on the highway.
"I don't fit into a small car. It's just not comfortable," said Adams, who weighs about 300 pounds. "Besides, in my district, I have mountain communities, desert communities and suburban communities, and a truck fits my needs better in reaching my constituents." | <urn:uuid:639c5ac5-6e0c-4df9-93e4-b17866ecd46b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocregister.com/articles/hybrids-189673-year-vehicles.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945603 | 376 | 1.539063 | 2 |
If you read Nathan’s “A Cloud to Call Your Own” blog, and you wanted to learn a little more about private clouds in general or SoftLayer Private Clouds specifically, this post is for you. We’re going take a little time to dive deeper into the technology behind SoftLayer Private Clouds, and in the process, I’ll talk a little about why particular platforms/hardware/configurations were chosen.
The Platform: Citrix CloudPlatform
There are several cloud infrastructure frameworks to choose from these days. We have surveyed a number of them and actively work with several of them. We are active members of the happenings around OpenStack and we have working implementations of vSphere, Nimula, Eucalyptus and other stacks in our data centers. So why CloudPlatform by Citrix?
First off, it’s one of the most mature of these options. It’s been around for several years and now has the substantial backing of Citrix. That backing includes investment, support organizations and the multitude of other products managed by Citrix. There are also some futuristic ideas we have regarding how to leverage products like CloudBridge and Netscaler with Private Clouds. Second, CloudPlatform operates in accordance with how we believe a private cloud should work: It’s simple, it doesn’t have a huge management infrastructure and we can charge for it by the CPU per month, just like all of our other products. Finally, CloudPlatform has made good inroads with enterprise customers. We love the idea that an enterprise ops team could leverage CloudPlatform as the management platform for both their on-premise and their off-premise private cloud.
So, we selected CloudPlatform for a multitude of reasons; not just one.
Another huge key was our ability to integrate CloudPlatform into the SoftLayer portals/mobile apps/API. Because many SoftLayer customers manage their environments exclusively through the SoftLayer API, we knew that a seamless integration there was an absolute necessity. With the help of the SoftLayer dev team and the CloudStack folks, we’ve been able to automate private clouds the same way we did for public cloud instances and dedicated servers.
When it came to choosing what hardware the private clouds would use, the decision was pretty simple. Given our need for automation, SoftLayer Private Clouds would need to be indistinguishable from a standard dedicated server or CloudLayer environment. We use the latest and greatest server hardware available on the market, and every month, you can see thousands of new SuperMicro boxes being delivered to our data centers around the world. Because we know we have a reliable, powerful and consistent hardware foundation on which we can build the private clouds product, it makes the integration of the system even easier.
When it comes to the specs of the hardware provided for a private cloud environment, we provide as much transparency and flexibility as we can for a customer to build exactly what he or she needs. Let’s look into what that means…
The Hardware Configurations
A CloudPlatform environment can be broken down into these components:
- A single management server (that can manage multiple zones across layer 2 networks)
- One or more zones
- One or more clusters in a zone
- One or more hosts in a cluster
- Storage shared by a cluster (which can be a single server)
A simple diagram of a two-zone private cloud might look like this:
We’ve set a standard “management server” configuration that we know will be able to accommodate all of your needs when it comes to running CloudPlatform, and how you build and configure the rest of your private cloud infrastructure is up to you. Whether you want simple dual proc, quad core Nehalem box with a lot of local disk space for a dev cloud or an environment made up of quad proc 10-core Westmeres with SSDs, you have the freedom to choose exactly what you want.
Oh, and everything can be online in two to four hours, and it’s offered on a month-to-month contract.
The Network Configuration
When it comes to where the hardware is provisioned, you have the ability to deploy zones in multiple geographies and manage them all through a single CloudPlatform management node. Given the way the SoftLayer three-tier network is built, the management node and host nodes do not even need to be accessible by our public network. You can choose to make accessible only the IPs used by the VMs you create. If your initial private cloud infrastructure is in Dallas and you want a node online in Singapore, you can just click a few buttons, and the new node will be provisioned and configured securely by CloudPlatform in a couple of hours.
Imagine how long it would have taken you to build this kind of infrastructure in the past:
It doesn’t take days or weeks now. It takes hours.
As you can see, when we approached the challenge of bringing private clouds to the SoftLayer platform, we had to innovate. In Texas, that would be roughly translated as “Go big or go home.” Given the response we’ve seen from customers and partners since the announcement of SoftLayer Private Clouds, we know the industry has taken notice.
Will all of our customers need their own private cloud infrastructure? Probably not. But will the customers who’ve been looking for this kind of functionality be ecstatic with the CloudPlatform environment on SoftLayer’s network? Absolutely. | <urn:uuid:73e632ba-6ded-4271-a6ef-0726d8f5803e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.softlayer.com/tag/zones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939644 | 1,131 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Thirty thousand more American troops are either in Afghanistan or on the way as part of the Obama administration effort to deal with the Taliban and al-Qaeda. On Monday, January 18, at least 20 armed gunmen attacked a score of government ministries and the heavily reinforced Serena Hotel which is home to many visitors from abroad. Early reports indicate at least five are dead and about 40 wounded as result of the assault which, most probably, left several of the attackers dead. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, when the Taliban or al-Qaeda launch attacks on Kabul. The main point about this assault is the revelation Afghanistan’s government still is unable to ensure safety and security in its own capital.
Reality is the Afghan surge is not working, and it is doubtful if it ever will as long as a corrupt, inefficient government is in power. Unless the United States makes clear to President Karzai he must go or he must appoint technocrats and experts to government positions, then America will depart. Pay now or pay later is the issue. At least paying now will be cheaper in human life. | <urn:uuid:7f5c771a-cac3-4ae4-a01e-8d15e0beff5b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theimpudentobserver.com/world-news/attacks-in-kabul-again/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962869 | 226 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Last Updated on Monday, 07 March 2011 01:48 Written by Administrator Thursday, 18 November 2010 00:17
A great number of conferences about “The Collapse of the Theory of Evolution and the Fact of Creation” were held in several cities of Germany in the year 2010, by using the works of Harun Yahya. The conference organized in the city of Ansbach of Germany on November 14th, 2010 included the following subjects, “Miracles of the Qur’an” and “The Prophet Jesus (pbuh) and Hazrat Mahdi (pbuh)”.
In the conference, it was pointed out that the Qur’an, which was revealed at a time when very little was known about astronomy, physics, and biology, contains information about many subjects such as the creation of the universe, formation of the human beings, the structure of the atmosphere and the balances in the world.
During the second part of the conference, it was pointed out that the Prophet Jesus (pbuh) did not die, rather he was taken to the Sight of Allah and that he will return to Earth in the End times that we are currently living in; the portents of this holy event as revealed in the hadiths of our Prophet (saas) were examined and it heralds that the coming of this time is God willing very soon.
Tel : +1 888 90 GLOBAL
Fax : +1 888 904-5622
Send e-mail to : | <urn:uuid:8d4b477e-a23c-45eb-8fca-919aefd730ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://harunyahyaconferences.com/component/content/article/36-headline/61-ansbach-conference | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973116 | 310 | 1.773438 | 2 |
As a teacher and a parent, I think I can read parent types really well. Some of you are far too obsessed with your child’s grades. Your child needs to be more obsessed than you are. Some of you don’t check enough. There needs to be a happy medium.
A few years back, a mom told me she checked her A student daughter’s grades every few hours. “What?” I said to her. I was shocked. Lady, have you heard the saying “A watched pot never boils?” That saying is true when it comes to checking your kids' grades online. Your child is an A student, not because you are obsessed with her getting A’s, it is because she is intrinsically motivated to do well. Believe me, I have had students whose parents check their grades constantly, yet the kid performs in the below average range because they refuse to hand in work.
Parents and kids, in the district where I work, can log into their grade report anytime they want and see into their teacher’s gradebook. Of course, they can only see their own grades, not those of the rest of the class. But sometimes grade checks can go overboard like the example above.
Recently I had a student approach me and admonish me for not putting in a grade for her late work two days after finally handing it to me. Her work was, according to my calculations, two weeks late.
This particular assignment was an in class assignment that she chose not to complete during class. According to my student, her mother nags her about it every day. My response was that late work goes to the bottom of my grading pile. It is the last thing I look at when I have the time. There are many teachers who won’t take late work. She is lucky that I do.
I don’t think parents realize that in the world of grade inflation, colleges really don’t factor in your straight A average in determining scholarship awards. My daughter had a 4.0 throughout high school, and it really didn’t help her earn scholarships; her ACT score was her moneymaker.
Colleges are much more interested in SAT or ACT exam grades, rather than an everyday grade for a worksheet. They want to know what you have learned in high school, not if your teacher gave you 10 points for completing a worksheet. Standardized test scores are much more likely to measure actual learning.
In suburbia, grade point average is a badge of honor….for the parents. “Hey look, I am a good parent! I made a kid without a learning disability, so I am worthy of your approval. He has a 4.0 thanks to my constant barrage of emails nagging the teachers to let my kid retake the test he didn’t study for the first time. Here is proof, he is on the honor roll with 95 percent of the student body.”
Parents need to foster intrinsic motivation. If your high school kid doesn’t have his motivation yet, let him/her deal with the consequences of relearning the material he did not learn the first time. Your child's grades are not a reflection of your parenting ability. Kids are bound to mess up, after all it is their job to make mistakes. Some kids need extra help. Let the teachers teach. No teachers are “out to get” their students by downgrading them on an assignment. It simply means they have not yet mastered the material for one reason or another, and they need to go through it again in another way. It not is a reflection on you as a parent.
I have chosen not to check my son’s grades this year. He is a senior, and he knows what he needs to do to be successful. I am showing him that he has earned my trust. He did have a period of time when he was struggling in a class and I did find it necessary to keep up with his class grade, but only weekly. Once he brought up his grade, and kept it up, I turned the responsibility right back over to him.
After all, I am not even going to be allowed to see his grades while he is in college unless he chooses to show them to me. It does not matter if I am paying his tuition, buying his food, or allowing him to sleep in my house during breaks. Once he starts college, he is considered a legal adult, and his grades are his responsibility. . He, legally, is not obliged to update me, though I certainly expect that he will. I am glad that I taught him that he is responsible for his own success, especially before it could have cost him thousands of dollars to find it out the hard way.
If your son/daughter is not responsible enough to keep up their grades during their final years of high school, perhaps they are not ready for a four year college experience. You are not a failure if your child does not choose the four year path. Perhaps junior college, technical college, or full-time work is the way to go so they have time to mature and accept responsibility for their own success. I have personally known many students who found a delayed appreciation of the value and cost of higher education once they matured and were responsible for their own success.
You are not your child’s choices. Their good choices and their poor choices are not a direct reflection on you. Hover if you want, but you are only causing yourself anxiety and stress. Sometimes you need to sit back and allow them to make mistakes. Your struggling student will learn his lessons, it may take years, but have faith. | <urn:uuid:8236ac79-8984-4194-9930-85b5efe79cd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ourchangingnestnowwhat.blogspot.com/2013/03/helicopter-parents-grade-over-checker.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987968 | 1,167 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Information for asylum seekers from Yemen
The security situation in Yemen in general has improved. Asylum seekers from Yemen with a final rejection are now obliged to return to their home country.
In April 2011, the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) decided that asylum seekers from Yemen, with rejected asylum applications, were not obliged to return to their home country until further notice. At the same time, UDI stopped processing those asylum applications from Yemen nationals which most likely would result in a rejection. As the security situation in Yemen has improved, we have decided that asylum seekers from Yemen with a final rejection now shall return to their home country.
Who does the decision account for?
If you are a Yemen national and have got – or from now on, get – a final rejection on your application for asylum, you are obliged to return to Yemen. <
You may apply for voluntary assisted return with support from International Organization for Migration (IOM). If you return voluntarily, you will get the opportunity to plan your journey home. You will also receive guidance and assistance from IOM, and you will receive up to 20 000 NOK in reintegration support. The economic support may help you to a fresh start in your home country.
More information about voluntary assisted return
If you have received a final rejection on your application and do not return voluntarily, you may be returned by the police.
UDI keep a close eye on the safety situation in Yemen. We make specific and individual considerations in each case on whether it is safe to return or not.
Information for asylum seekers from Yemen in arabic | <urn:uuid:54790b7f-459c-4ea7-bf04-6feec4d66343> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.udi.no/Norwegian-Directorate-of-Immigration/News/2012/Information-for-asylum-seekers-from-Yemen/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941212 | 324 | 1.75 | 2 |
humanguy wrote:Smilin' Tony! Murder any abortion doctors lately?
Since this has absolutely NOTHING to do with the discussion this is a PURE Ad-Hominem attack.
Hg you made your point when that was the topic of discussion, but this is inappropriate.
tonyenglish7 wrote:Of course evolution occurs. But does it explain the abiogenesis of life and the diversity of complex life?
Does the Bible explain how computers work? Don't be ridiculous. The theory of evolution is to explain the origin of the species and NOT to explain the origin of life itself.
Science doesn't even have a workable theory of abiogenesis yet. All it has at this point is a plausible suggestion and a VERY understandable lack of evidence that can only be expected. Scientists are left with working with the basic theory to try to piece together how such a thing could happen. Strides have definitely been made but it is clearly a long and complicated process that has to be worked out and that will take a considerable amount of time to do.
tonyenglish7 wrote:For the record, it has not been shown to be sufficient thus far.
What is not been shown sufficient for what?
tonyenglish7 wrote:Do you hold to punctuated equilibrium
Well let me begin by saying that puctuated equillibrium is a bit of an oversimplification. I would not say that there are no gradual changes or even that changes necessarily occur as rapidly as "punk-eek" suggests. A gradually changing evironment is a good example of where we would expect to see a gradual change in even a large stable population. But we should often expect a lot of evolution to occur in small populations on the brink of extinction where we would expect little or no fossil evidence. We should not assume that evolution is occurring in a universal manner over the whole population of a species when in fact that is NOT what the evidence suggests. On the contrary, the evidence tells us that evolution (especially that of man) is one full of many many dead end branches. Thus while the fossil evidence reports the large stable majority, it is the separated minority, leaving practically no fossil evidence, but living during the same period where a lot of the evolution is happening. In this way, a struggling minority can gain the evolutionary upper hand and then it is the previous majority types that are now struggling to compete so that their population begins to decline. And of course, competition is only one of the possible environmental causes for a population decline.
tonyenglish7 wrote:how do you explain the Cambrian explosion?
One of the things life evolves is the ability to evolve itself, and so when living things evolve something like DNA, the eukaryotic cell or multicellular organization then it is natural to expect the whole evolutionary process to accelerate. Furthermore there are all kinds of environmental and climatic changes that give reasons to expect changes in the rates of developments like that. | <urn:uuid:0d196ed2-ff18-4e14-9e35-cec3b0df6131> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.achristianandanatheist.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=31259 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958919 | 609 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Globe Metals & Mining (ASX: GBE) is an African-focused resource company, specialising in rare metals such as niobium, tantalum and rare earths, as well as other commodities including fluorite, uranium and zircon. Its main focus is the multi-commodity Kanyika Niobium Project in Malawi, Africa, which will commence production of ferro-niobium in 2014, a key additive in sophisticated steels.
Globe also has a number of other projects at an earlier stage of development: The Machinga REE Project in southern Malawi, and the Mt Muambe Flourite/HREE Project in Mozambique.
Globe Metals & Mining (ASX: GBE) continues to discover new zones of thick, high-grade fluorite at the Muambe Project in Mozambique.
The final assays from the 2011 drilling campaign have now been received, with the fluorite associated with previously reported rare earth element discoveries.
Highlights from reverse circulation drilling include; 49 metres at 17.5% CaF2, including 8 metres at 24.4% CaF2 from the surface, and ending in 13% CaF2; Zone BB), with 49 metres at 2.5% TREO, including 20 metres at 3.5% TREO from the surface; ending in 3.6% TREO.
Importantly for the potential of future discoveries, all zones of fluorite intersected remain open at depth and laterally.
Additional results include; 24 metres at 18.5% CaF2, including 4 metres at 27.4% CaF2 from the surface in Zone DD, and 24 metres at 15.6% CaF2 from the surface in Zone BB.
Globe Metals added that the style of fluorite mineralisation in Zones AA, CC and GG is pervasive and could result in similar grades as found at the Main Zone.
Michael Schultz, regional exploration manager for Africa, commented on the positive news for the company and said that the new discovery of thick, high-grade fluorite only complements the previously reported rare earth element results.
"Not restricted to either the fenite or carbonatite, the mineralisation in most cases is open at depth, leaving Globe well positioned to grow the known resources in the crater.
“In terms of fluorite exploration, we were targeting the carbonatite after identifying the mineralisation in outcrop. Even though the fluorite was visible in both outcrop and reverse circulation chips, we were expecting somewhat lower grades - so these results were a very pleasant surprise."
The outcome for Globe is that having completed the initial reverse circulation drilling program for 2012, the company now has the opportunity to advance both the rare earth elements and fluorite programs to new resources.
Mount Muambe maiden fluorite JORC resource
Just last month Globe Metals delivered to the market the maiden Inferred JORC Resource of 1.6 million tonnes at 19% fluorite, which equates to 310,000 tonnes of fluorite. The resource was defined from 71 holes for 5300 metres by the Quantitative Group.
The main mineralised lodes extend over 680 metres in strike length, up to 160 metres across strike and close to 30 metres vertically in places.
What is so important about this resource is the near surface position, while also being open along strike in both directions - adding the potential for resource growth in the future.
Adding further interest is that there is the possibility for rare earth element mineralisation within the fluorite resource area, which could form a valuable by-product.
Upcoming exploration news flow
New drilling results are forecast for delivery in late May to early June from the 2200 metre initial 2012 rare earth focused reverse circulation drilling program.
Proactive Investors is a market leader in the investment news space, providing ASX “Small and Mid-cap” company news, research reports, StockTube videos and One2One Investor Forums. | <urn:uuid:92282c72-5084-4a87-bb76-2f5e6635404a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/28224/globe-metals-mining-new-discovery-of-thick-high-grade-fluorite-at-mount-muambe-28224.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945678 | 831 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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We investigate the problem of access point selection in wireless LANs based on the IEEE 802.11 standard, when a station is within the vicinity of more than one access points. According to the proposed approach, the selection is based on the packet transmission delay for each access point that a station can associate to, which is related to the throughput that the station can achieve. Important features of the approach is that it considers the contention-based nature of IEEE 802.11's MAC layer, it can be applied to the 802.11e standard which can support different classes in terms of the minimum contention window, and it can be implemented solely at the wireless stations, which passively monitor the activity of each access point's channel, without requiring modifications to the access points. Experiments show that the proposed approach can achieve significantly higher throughput fairness compared to other approaches, without a significant decrease of the aggregate throughput.
Date of Conference: May 21 2007-Yearly 25 2007 | <urn:uuid:ff1b391c-9c4a-4860-8b3a-4075d08d51c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=4258564&contentType=Conference+Publications | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939581 | 196 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Obama says faith plays role in economic policies
From wire reports
Published: 02 February 2012 10:52 PM
Updated: 02 February 2012 10:53 PM
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama said Thursday that his Christian faith is a driving force behind his economic policies, from Wall Street reform to his calls for the wealthy to pay higher taxes.
Obama’s remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast were his most explicit account of how his religious beliefs factor into his political decision-making.
The comments came amid criticism from Catholic groups and some Republicans that he’s waging a war on religion after his decision to require church-affiliated institutions to cover free birth control for employees.
Speaking to more than 3,000 people at the annual breakfast, Obama said “faith and values” should play as much a role in tackling the nation’s challenges as sound decision-making and smart policies.
He said, for example, that his call for fairness in the tax code — a central tenet of his State of the Union address and his 2012 campaign — is both economically sound and consistent with Jesus’ teachings.
“For me as a Christian, it … coincides with Jesus’ teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.’ It mirrors the Islamic belief that those who’ve been blessed have an obligation to use those blessings to help others, or the Jewish doctrine of moderation and consideration for others,” the president said.
And Obama said he believed in a “biblical call” to care for the poor and to follow “the responsibility we’re given in Proverbs to ‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.’”
He also described his religious transformation Thursday, from growing up in a nonreligious home to finding Christ later in his life.
Obama recalled a visit a few years ago with Billy Graham when he felt compelled to pray for the aging evangelist.
The Associated Press
Did you see something wrong in this story, or something missing? Let us know. | <urn:uuid:7dcb9b87-80f9-42e3-9d1f-f738a7a58fd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/perry-watch/headlines/20120202-obama-says-faith-plays-role-in-economic-policies.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975906 | 436 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The two major battles of Simon de Montfort - Lewes & Evesham - provide a new take on a rarely covered period of English History. These battles took place in a unique period, before the longbow had pained predominance of the battlefield, when cavalry was still the most lethal weapon in the English arsenal.
The system provides a unique simulation of 13th century warfare. With only 12 pages of rules plus commentary, the game plays fast (less than two hours) and furiously. Each player much preplan the orders for his Battles with the use of Command Points. The system has built-in limitations on leaders and troops, fog of war, and the chaos of the medieval battlefield. More importantly, it does this by employing a simple, elegant mechanic, allowing players to focus on the game and not struggle with the rulebook.
Rules and commentary, 280 counters / markers, two 17x 22 maps, player aids, and dice. | <urn:uuid:c6a713a8-17ab-4268-a700-86a325b69c69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamersarmory.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=50&products_id=270 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958664 | 192 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Real World Security Practitioner (RWSP)
The RWSP is based on an individual's ability to handle and react to real-world security situations. Security within the RWSP is approached from both an offensive and defensive perspective. The RWSP is a peer reviewed certification that is composed of three (3) primary components:
1) The Real World Security: Attack, Defend, and Repel training course is an intensive, hands-on course for intermediate to advanced security professionals. Students are split into two (2) teams allowing for one (1) day focused on offensive aspects and one (1) day focused on defensive aspects. The simulations are real, but based on a fictional storyline. The training course allows for the practical demonstration of skills and allows the students of the course to review the participation, leadership, and contributions of each RWSP candidate students.
2) Knowledge Metric: Immediately following the completion of the Real World Security: Attack, Defend, and Repel course a knowledge metric (test) is given to those individuals wishing to become a candidate for the RWSP certification. After successfully passing the knowledge metric with a 70% or better, the individual becomes an RWSP candidate.
3)Peer Reviewed RWSP Project: This practical written project is an information security focused around a topic of interest to the RWSP candidate. Initially, RWSP candidates are given 60 days to complete the project based on a given collegiate writing standard, such as APA or MLA. In this format, papers are expected to cover the subject thoroughly and end up at approximately 15 pages.
Upon successfully completing all three RWSP requirements, RWSP certified personnel may choose to have their projects published on the rwsp.org website, have their name and certification number listed, and volunteer to peer-review future RWSP projects. | <urn:uuid:b03c8f0d-788e-4830-94c7-629d517640ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rwsp.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947954 | 372 | 1.734375 | 2 |
KSJS Turns 50
Three years ago, Nick Martinez walked past the on-air room of KSJS-FM (90.5), the student-run radio station at San Jose State University, and heard something strange.
"What the hell is that?" he asked.
"Oh, it's called dubstep," came the reply.
Now, some have argued that dubstep doesn't deserve to be called music, much less played on the radio, since it can sound like a remixed car accident to some ears. But according to Martinez, the station manager at KSJS, this is just the point of noncommercial student radio. "Our role [in San Jose] is to open listeners' ears to new music and new talent," he told me.
On Monday, Feb. 11, KSJS will celebrate its 50th year of broadcasting from the SJSU campus, and while one of its current roles is to expose a wider audience to new music, its primary role has never changed. The station was founded in 1963 by SJSU professor Clarence Flick as a pioneering 85-watt FM station designed to give students hands-on experience in radio broadcasting. At the time, only a quarter of the student population even had FM receivers, and the programming consisted of four hours of opera, classical music and news every evening. KSJS now broadcasts 24/7 at 1,500 watts and reaches almost 35,000 listeners per week.
Not to say that a college radio station always runs smoothly. Besides Martinez, an alumnus who worked at KSJS and was later hired to manage it, the entire leadership staff is made up of current students: students who get locked out of the building at 3am during their shows and then cut their arms opening the window trying to get back in; students who can't figure out the CD player and end up broadcasting dead air. "That's the point!" said Martinez. "Let's do the dead air! Let's do the mistakes!"
Some students come in with dreams of being a professional DJ only to find that they would rather discover new bands—or market them. They get involved on the production side or on the web team. But again, according to Martinez, that's just the point of noncommerical student radio, in terms of both music and experience: "KSJS is the place to experiment and see what you do like, and what you don't." | <urn:uuid:627cc1cc-33d6-4f37-bae5-178cff7ea1f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.metroactive.com/arts/KSJS-Turns-50.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979781 | 493 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Part of this constitutional policy for overseas learners who are studying in United Kingdom is to be able to produce the necessary documents that being required by the nation and the school that they want to enrolled upon. In that case, the overseas learners who want to purse a higher educational learning in the different public or private schools in United Kingdom must conform to the policy of the state and to its school policy. Just recently, another policy had been confirmed to the public especially for the international learners in the country. In which, the United Kingdom have already allowed the international students in the country to change their course program if needed especially to the case that they are advice to shift to other course program due to the low performance level that had been seen. As well, the overseas learners are given an opportunity to apply an appeal for extending the duration in staying the country in order to purse another course program. But this case can only be accepted for approval, if the learners can provide any documents and recommendation from their schools as a proof of its necessity. A failure of submitting the necessarily documents that would support the appeal of extending the duration of staying the country and changing another course program would mean a disregard of approving the intentional request.
Indeed, the educational system in United Kingdom does not only provide a good quality of educational services but as well have a well organized educational policy which can be benefited for both parties (learners, schools and the country itself) for its convenience.
For so long, the emirate of Dubai is quite known in their economic success and their competitiveness in developing their educational field system. It has been noted that there are around several public and private schools that already been established in the emirates of Dubai. The latest statistical record of the current learners who are enrolled to the different schools in Dubai is approximately 200,000 learners. Although, the learners in Dubai is quite small but the government are ensuring that this learners will get a good quality of education. As a result, they are about 25 curriculums that being implemented in order to ensure that caliber of the learners as they have finished the entire educational learning phase program such as elementary, high school and college level or even masters and doctorate degree programs. Dubai’s schools are also going global due to the fact that the Dubai International City had already houses 25 prestigious colleges and universities from American and European educational setting. With the tremendous development of educational system especially for career training, it encourages several learners from the neighboring counties or emirates to study in Dubai due to the quality of education that they can gained.
Indeed, it is quite clear that Dubai is improving and very much competitive to the innovation and modernization of the world. With the great success in educational global expansion in Dubai, all the more it makes Dubai to succeed in their economical status.
2. No proper developments of their skills – While in high schools students should be taught how to properly handle their skills by way of developing them until they are ready to pursue the same career in college. For example a student with great fascinations in art studies. His special skills in art should he developed while in high schools so that he would have enough knowledge about this matter and already knows what particular courses to take in college related to art education and how he would be able to successfully develop this into a career program to enjoy in life as professional artist.
Although there are some concerns that the country is facing right now, but still the governmental and educationalist have created some strategies in order to resolve these issue. The educational concerns here in England are like a domino effect which causes a lot of problems. Since, it just first started of the increase of tuition fees of the different private schools but that concerns give out an outcome for several learners to transfer to the state schools in high school, college or even in elementary. With that increase number of learners transferring to state school, it created great challenge for the different public or state school to improve their facilities, teacher’s manpower and educational system in order to cater the vast demand of their students. With these several interconnected concerns that had been happening in the field of education in the country, the government together with the different schools in the country especially the private schools have agreed to lowered down their tuition fees making it available for several middle class families in the society so that balance of the educational system in the country will be created between the public and private educational learning institutes.
The government in the country and as well, with the different educational learning institutes are very much hopeful that the country’s educational system will be stabilized and be back to its normal condition in order to ensure that everyone especially have not educationally left behind and been provided with the right amount of educational quality.
Join career guidance – Career guidance is one major activity for graduating high school students. In this way, high school administrators invite different colleges to promote their schools as well as the courses they offer. They would also give students some tips how to be able to effectively prepare students to college. Higher education is already a very important life in your life as students because your parents have to prepare finances to pay your tuition. In return your parents want you to study harder so that you won’t be wasting your time in college. Remember, every dime your parents pay for your tuition come from their savings from work. Therefore you should not disappoint them enrolling in degree courses you are not very interested.
Star planning for your career – Even when you are studying high schools you should start planning for your future career by discovering your potentials and start honing it. Just like when you play basketball in high school. You won’t exactly become the best player unless you train very hard and prepare to become one. Planning is very important in any endeavor you want to excel. If you want to become a very successful lawyer in the future you should train very hard in college by doing aggressive research and all other things related to honing your skills and increasing your level of confidence especially in public speaking. You cannot become the best lawyer in the country if you don’t focus your self in the career choice you have chosen.
Make a research on good career choice – You can start making researches on what possible careers will excel in the next five years. Others said this is the best way to keep updated with the developments in education. You should be able to do wise research because you need to be updated what will happen in the next five years. Whether information technology courses are still the best courses or not anymore, should be carefully studied.
Although, there are several children under the age of six who have succeeded in attaining the expectations of their mentors. But despite of these fact, the Early Education Advisory Group serve because only few children under the age of six who have potentials to perform effectively in their respective schools. If some children will not perform much in their educational learning, somehow it leads to the criticism of the teachers of not performing their jobs well. With these scenarios, the Early Education Advisory Group presented these ideas to the government in order to implement a policy not to allow students under the age of six to take a formal learning in order to protect their emotional welfare and exercise their rights as being children and at the same time to protect the good reputations of the teachers who will be educating the children in the country. Aside of the issue of the formal education of at an early age, the Early Education Advisory Group also have some discussions in regards to the teaching system of the country. The major that they have brought up to the government is the minimal emphasis in dealing out world issues or world updates. Since, they have believed that grade school and high school learners in the country must be updated to the world issues and events as part of their educational learning due to the fact that all individuals belong to the same world.
With the involvement of the Early Education Advisory Group, it gives a beneficial improvement of the educational system of the country. Since, the government and the different public and private schools have widely informed about the negative impact of some educational system that the country continually practiced.
In England, the different universities are the leading sources of good quality of educational training. As a result, there are several individuals who have aspired to be educational trained on the different prestigious universities in the country. Even the high school learners who came from the public schools or to the schools that are not well known are still aiming to be part of these prestigious universities. It’s a good thing also because the different prestigious universities or colleges in the country are discriminating the learners who came from the poor schools or lower class schools in the country. In which, they have given these types of school student to take the career entrance exam upon entering or enrolling to the prestigious universities here in England. If the students can pass the entrance exam they will be allowed to take their higher educational learning in this university institution. Aside of that also, there are some universities and colleges in the country who gives financial assistance for the deserving students who belong to the lower class of the society but really aspire to attain college education.
Indeed, the different universities here in England have created a tremendous impact in the field of educational learning system of the country. No wonder that even the foreign individuals have always prefers to study and get a college educational program here in England.
Just like the recent complaints and observation of some educational experts in which, some female teachers exercise their high pitch voice in teaching their learners especially on correcting them if their learners have done something wrong. But according to the education program experts such as Celia Lashlie, these high pitch voice of some female teachers won’t bring any good effects to their male students but rather damage its educational learning growth due to the fact that the young male individuals are just be easily be irritated on this aspects. As well, sometimes high pitch voices of female teachers can lead to damaging the ears of its listeners. Aside of that also, young male learners will not usually respond in their teachers correction by just raising their teachers voice. But rather it is quite effective and advisable for the female teachers to just raise their eyebrows in order to capture their attention or to make them follow. Sometimes, the domination of the female teachers in the different schools in the country especially here in England is also one of the causes of some behavioral concerns over the male learners.
The different education program experts in the country recommends of increasing the production of male teachers or professors in the country in order to have a gender balance in the field of education and as well, to cater the needs of the male learners. Aside of that also, the different educational learning experts are encouraging the female teachers to lowered down the pith of their voice especially upon given up lectures in order to give convenience to the part of the learners. | <urn:uuid:4920538a-8b12-435d-9b94-9bc9a93aa54a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schoolsworldwide.org/blog/index.php/2008/07/ | 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 | 0.976118 | 2,169 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Stuttgart – Mercedes Jellinek sitting in a Mercedes: it may not appear so at first, but this recently discovered photo is a mini-sensation as, before it was found, there were no known photos of the lady who gave her name to the brand sitting in the world-famous car.The newly-added original Mercedes Jellinek material in the Daimler archive comes from the estate of her son, Hans-Peter Schlosser, who bequeathed his mother’s personal photos and documents to his godchild living in Salzburg, since he had no children of his own. It includes three albums containing a total of around 300 photographs showing scenes from the previously little-known life of Mercedes Jellinek. The archive’s newly acquired treasures include childhood pictures of Mercedes Jellinek, who was born in Vienna on 16 September 1889, as well as photos from her time as a young adult in Nice – on a yacht named Mercedes, on horseback and reading a book in a lounge. There are also wedding photos from her first marriage with the Viennese Baron Karl Schlosser from 1909 and family scenes with her two children: Elfriede (born 20 June 1912) and Hans-Peter (born 3 May 1916). Although not all of the photos are inscribed or dated, they afford an insight into the private life of the Mercedes brand’s eponym – and into the life of a young, well-heeled lady at the dawn of the 20th century.
One of the newly acquired documents is a well-preserved birth certificate for “Mercedes Adrienne Ramona Manuela Jellinek”, on which the changing of the family name to “Jellinek-Mercedes” authorised on 24 June 1903 can also be seen. Incidentally, this document confirms that Mercedes was the name entered on her birth certificate, whereas it was previously widely believed that Mercedes was “just” her father Emil Jellinek’s pet name for her.
The marriage certificate for Mercedes Jellinek and Karl Freiherr von Schlosser is now also in the archive, as is her obituary notice; the lady who gave the Mercedes brand its name died before even reaching forty on 23 February 1929 in Vienna whilst married to her second husband Baron Rudolf Weigl – hence the entry “Mercedes Freifrau von Weigl, née Jellinek-Mercedes”.
Further newly acquired items from the estate include a passport from 1927, on which it can be seen that the Austrian citizen had chestnut-brown hair and green eyes – details that were not apparent on black-and-white photos, and of which the public at least was previously unaware.
The estate has therefore provided a mini-sensation in the shape of the ‘Mercedes in a Mercedes’ photo as well as a host of details which help to shed more light on the history of the world-famous brand’s eponym. After all had her father Emil Jellinek not been so besotted with his daughter, the Mercedes brand would presumably never have seen the light of day – and the “second coming” of the automobile could have been very different.
Background: Mercedes becomes a global brand with boundless charisma
When Gottlieb Daimler and Carl Benz invented the automobile independently of each other in 1886, excitement for this totally new kind of vehicle was initially somewhat muted in Germany. In Nice, however, well-known Austrian businessman Emil Jellinek was fascinated by the automobile right from the start. His first “big car”, which showed him the way from the three-wheeler to the four-wheeled automobile, was a Benz Viktoria .
The car buff, then in his early forties, became aware of the company Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG) in 1896 after reading a newspaper ad, whereupon he set off for Cannstatt in Germany to order two cars. Emil Jellinek was very demanding when it came to performance, electric ignition and many other aspects, always wanting the finest technology available at the time.
He was able to get all of this in Stuttgart. In 1897, the businessman started advertising Daimler cars to the highest echelons of society on the Côte d’Azur. Baron Rothschild and other high-profile personalities of the time bought the German cars from him. By the time Gottlieb Daimler died in 1900, Emil Jellinek had sold 34 cars in this way – no mean feat at that time.
On a personal level, too, the car inventor from Stuttgart and the sophisticated car salesman obviously hit it off, as Gottlieb Daimler invited Jellinek and daughter Mercedes to his villa in Taubenheimstrasse in Cannstatt many times. On these occasions, Jellinek introduced Mr Daimler to the idea of Daimler taking part in races and endurance tests with its own cars and under its own name. He finally convinced both him and the designer Wilhelm Maybach that the future of the automobile lay in speed and elegance. For him, speed was not about the attraction of being careless, rather the actual purpose of a motor vehicle: “If I can’t get any more from a car than I would get from a horse and carriage, I might as well stick with the horse!”
A Daimler “Phoenix” 28 hp was made specially for him so he could enter a race event in Nice in 1899. There are two versions of events: the first describes how Emil Jellinek named the car he was driving there after his then ten-year-old daughter Mercedes; the second states that he registered for the race under the pseudonym Mr “Mercedes” – apparently deception was fairly common among racing drivers at that time: Baron Henry de Rothschild, for example, starts as Dr. Pascal. Daimler factory driver Wilhelm Bauer wins on Jellinek’s “Phoenix” car the Nizza–Magagnosc–Nizza long-distance drive.
“We have entered the Mercedes era”
Towards the end of March 1900, catastrophe struck during Nice Speed Week: in the Nice–La Turbie hill climb, Wilhelm Bauer died after an accident in a Daimler “Phoenix” 23 hp registered as “Mercedes II”. Co-driver Hermann Braun, who had already rolled over in the second registered car “Mercedes I” in the Nice–Marseille race, once again escaped without injury. The initial reaction from Stuttgart was to blame the excessive engine power for the accident, and to stay away from all high-speed driving in future.
However, Emil Jellinek managed to convince Wilhelm Maybach – Gottlieb Daimler had passed away shortly before this in early March 1900 – that the car’s high centre of gravity was the reason behind the accident: “Victories make you world-famous. People buy the winning brand, and always will. It would be commercial suicide to stay away from racing,” argued Jellinek.
DMG yielded to Jellinek’s urgings and, in April 1900, decided to develop an all-new car with an all-new engine. Following Jellinek’s suggestion, the new model series was to appear under the name “Daimler-Mercedes”. The dealer pledged to take a complete series of 36 cars and ensure that the press in France, Germany, and Austria reported on the new vehicle.
The first new model, a Mercedes 35 hp racing car, was delivered to Jellinek on 22 December 1900. Developed by Wilhelm Maybach, it caused a sensation at the start of the century, as it was the world’s most sophisticated car to date.
At the Nice Speed Week towards the end of March 1901, the Mercedes cars showed what they were made of: achieving four first places and five second places, the Daimler cars were a class apart – in the distance race, on the hill climb and in the mile-long sprint. French manufacturer Panhard & Levassor, which had achieved first place in all the events the previous year, withdrew its vehicles before racing commenced, prompting the General Secretary of the French Automobile Association to deliver a memorable line: “We have entered the Mercedes era.” Up until then, the French were actually considered the better carmakers. By the end of 1901, however, American billionaires such as Rockefeller, Astor, Morgan, and Taylor had all bought powerful Mercedes 40 hp models.
The Mercedes-Benz Classic Archive and Collection
With age comes wisdom, and innovation is based on tradition: these values apply in particular to Mercedes-Benz Classic and its Archive and Collection departments. The archive, one of the largest economic archives in all of Europe, and most probably the most complete archive in the automotive industry, is a remembrance of a unique company, product and idea history, starting with the invention of the automobile in 1886. Its collections show the capability for visionary and constructive development as well as documenting a multi-facetted economic and social history.
Officially, the archive history begins 75 years ago with Administrative Instruction No. 1145 from the company then called Daimler-Benz Aktiengesellschaft (public limited company). It refers to a Management Board announcement on 9 December 1936, stating that engineer Max Rauck had been asked to “gather and inspect our historical written material and picture material, with the aim of creating and administering a historical archive.” Rauck had already spent almost two years in-house sorting out material suitable for archiving at the request of the Management Board.
But the search for evidence of the company’s history was and remains by no means easy. There are still a few surviving documents from Gottlieb Daimler’s time, but documents relating to Benz & Cie are extremely thin on the ground. One exception is the collection of patents from Daimler-Benz AG and its predecessor companies: the oldest patents from Daimler and Benz, which can almost be considered the automobile’s birth certificates, are now part of the archive.
The company archive contains documents and artefacts relating to the company’s employees and history, while the product archive documents the history of passenger cars and commercial vehicles since the invention of the automobile by Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler.
The media archive contains around 3 million photographs from the very early years of automotive engineering right up to the present day. Then there is the large reference library containing some 10,000 books and 220 magazine titles, with the focus on automotive technology and economics. In addition to numerous books dealing with the Mercedes-Benz brand, Daimler AG and the companies that preceded it, there are also extensive works about general aspects of automotive and technological history.
Over and above all of this, the Mercedes-Benz Classic vehicle collection forms the basis for all automotive activities linked with the unique tradition of Mercedes-Benz. An in-house vehicle collection has been kept since 1921, and it now contains more than 900 vehicles, of which around 160 are exhibited in the Mercedes‑Benz Museum.
To this day, the archive team is committed to the increasingly important task of gathering and filing sources from various forms of media. This challenge is also relevant on a productive level, as the users are given tools with which they can extrapolate archive content using several different forms of media. For want of direct descendants, the legacy of Mercedes Jellinek is therefore in precisely the right place – the memories of the entire “Mercedes family”. | <urn:uuid:6d997eb2-a431-46b9-851c-efd09075652a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.media.daimler.com/dcmedia/0-921-614814-1-1504693-1-0-0-0-0-0-11700-614216-0-1-0-0-0-0-0.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964521 | 2,455 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Last winter I participated in a challenge with some other bloggers to eat one meal each week made from local, seasonal ingredients called the Dark Days of Winter Challenge. (My posts are under the Dark Days Food label).
Some of us decided to breakout and continue with the challenge throughout the summer, and the Southern SOLE Food Challenge was born--"Southern" because we're mainly located in the southern part of the U.S., and "SOLE" meaning Sustainable, Organic, Local, and/or Ethical. My focus will be on local and seasonal food. Although some farmers don't have an official organic label, I know they're using sustainable methods. You can read more about this challenge and participants on my Food Challenges tab.
This challenge began last Friday, June 1, and goes through the end of October. Here's what my first locally-sourced meal looked like:
|omelet ingredients from farmers' market and my garden|
Asparagus is in season, so I picked up a bunch, as well as some other local ingredients, and made an omelet. The onion stems, rosemary, and purple pepper are all from my own garden. The asparagus, tomatoes, and eggs came from a farmers' market. As I learned from the Dark Days Challenge, some farmers' markets in my area allow for re-sellers and brokers, and I don't buy my food from those anymore. Farmers' market prices are usually higher, so why am I going to pay higher prices for food that doesn't even go directly to the farmers who made it? | <urn:uuid:2299f0cf-0375-4f9c-80d1-24b585269039> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bumblelush.blogspot.com/2012/06/last-winter-i-participated-in-challenge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973742 | 323 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A nightmare for "those on top," a hope for "those on the bottom," SYRIZA made a sensational debut on the political landscape of Europe in deep crisis. After quadrupling its electoral strength on May 6, SYRIZA now aims not only to become the largest party in Greece in the June 17 elections, but to be able to form a left-wing government which will repeal the austerity measures, repudiate the debt and chase the Troika out of the country. So it's no surprise if SYRIZA fascinates many outside Greece, and if almost everyone is asking about its origin and true nature, its goals and ambitions.
SYRIZA, however, is not exactly a newcomer to the European left. Born in 2004, the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) would have to attract the attention of political scientists and the international media, not least because from its beginning, it was a totally new and original type of political entity in the landscape of the Greek, European and even global left.
First, because of its composition. Formed the alliance of Synaspismos (Coalition) -- a left reformist party of vague Eurocommunist origin having members in Parliament -- with a dozen far left-wing organizations that cover almost the entire spectrum of Trotskyism, former -Maoism and "movementism," even at its birth the Coalition of the Radical Left was an exception to the rule that insisted -- and still insists -- that the more or less traditional parties to the left of social democracy never ally with the far-left organizations!
But SYRIZA's originality does not stop there. Having been conceived as an electoral and temporary alliance (it was founded just before the 2004 elections), SYRIZA has withstood the tests of time and managed to survive its ups and downs, its successes and above all to survive its crises and failures to become a shining example of a reality that the international radical left is still struggling to achieve: the coexistence of different sensitivities, tendencies and even organizations in the same political party of the radical left! Eight years after the birth of SYRIZA, the lesson can now be drawn: Yes, this coexistence is not only possible, but it is also fruitful and can even guarantee, in the long term, great success.
But, we wonder, how the dozen so disparate "components" of SYRIZA were able to first meet and then agree for a so long and so original organizational coexistence? The question is relevant and deserves a thorough and detailed response. No, the "miracle" of SYRIZA did not fall from heaven, and it is not just luck. It has matured at length and most importantly, it has germinated in the best possible conditions, in the social and anti-globalization movements over the last 15 years.
You could say it all started 15 years ago, in 1997, with the constitution of the Greek branch of the movement of European Marches against Unemployment. It was not only that it was the first step towards what we called a little later the alter-globalization movement of the Social Forums. Especially in Greece the European Marches had an even more important function, doing something that was previously unthinkable: unifying the left in action. Thus thanks to the European Marches, trade unions, social movements, parties and organizations of the Greek left (KKE included, at least for a while!), which had never met, or even that mutually ignored each other, came together to participate in a completely new European movement, alongside trade unions, social movements and political movements in other countries, hitherto completely unknown in Greece.
It is not therefore by chance that the first blow to the visceral sectarianism that has always characterized the Greek left gave rise to the same touching scenes of meetings, examples almost of psychodrama, between militants who previously did not recognize each other, and who suddenly discovered that the "other" was not so different from themselves. Clearly, this mixture took hold especially as Greek activists left the country and discovered a real European activism in flesh and bones, which previously they had not suspected existed.
Strengthened by this first coming together in action, which was all the more solid since it was done in a social movement of a new genre, most of the varied Greek political components of European Marches participated, in 1999, in a second original experience that aimed at deepening their need for unity. It was the Space for Joint Dialogue and Action, which, while advancing the necessary debate over policy and program, preparing the ground for the next unitary and movementist experience, that of the Social Forum, which was going to deeply affect the evolution of the Greek left.
Aided by the enormous popular success of the Social Forum, the step towards the formation of the Coalition of the Radical Left was taken almost spontaneously and with enthusiasm in 2003-2004. Activists of the components of SYRIZA who had met each other in struggles, and who had traveled and demonstrated together by the thousands in Amsterdam (1997), Cologne (1999), Nice (2000) and Genoa (2001), Florence (2002), Paris (2003) etc.., had had time to develop among themselves not only a political but also a human rapport before arriving at the foundation of their Coalition of the Radical Left. This coalition still was going against the grain of what was happening elsewhere in Europe, where such an alliance between a left reformist party and far-left-wing groups was simply unthinkable ...
However, after a rather successful birth, the successive adventures of SYRIZA were by no means always happy, and several times they were almost completely interrupted. Obviously, there have been many crises of confidence between SYRIZA's spine -- Synaspismos -- and its partners on the extreme left, something that was "logical." But as time went by, the homogenization of SYRIZA had the effect that the crises -- as well as the debates -- not only passed through almost the entire Coalition and its individual components, but it was most evident ... that the clashes raged inside Synaspismos itself, where its tendencies were undergoing permanent recomposition.
Finally, SYRIZA found some inner peace only after the departure in 2010 of the Social Democratic wing of Synaspismos (which gave birth to the Democratic Left) and the remoteness of its former president Alekos Alavanos who after having "introduced" his protégé Alexis Tsipras, became his sworn enemy. From that time on, the political line of the Coalition was clearer (and further left), while its young leader Alexis Tsipras set up his structure and accumulated the first successes that would give an ever more radical SYRIZA the necessary credibility to take advantage of the exceptional circumstances created by the debt crisis. SYRIZA was now ready to assume the role of the political group that could best embody the hopes and expectations of entire sections of Greek society in revolt against austerity policies, the Troika, the bourgeois parties and the capitalist system itself!
The lesson to draw from this almost exemplary story is obvious: after all, what's involved is an achievement that only unrepentant sectarian forces (and, glory to God, there are many such in Greece!) could deny. However, the history of SYRIZA is far from over, and the serious struggles have only just begun. In sum, the current balance can only be provisional. But woe to those who won't take part on the pretext of the grave mistakes and the "betrayal" by SYRIZA and who look forward to finally saying: "I told you so." No, even this provisional and incomplete assessment must be made because, in the (hard) times to come, we, from the radical left in Europe, cannot permit ourselves the luxury of failing to benefit from the experiences, successes and setbacks of others.
A political entity with a program permanently characterized by a ... soft fuzziness, the Coalition of the Radical Left has almost always swung between the reformist left and a serious anti-capitalism. Indeed, it may have drawn its strength from this eternal oscillation. Yet we must be clear: what was a plus in "normal" periods, could become a liability if not a boomerang in times of acute crisis and exacerbation of class confrontations. In simpler terms, SYRIZA, which has just brilliantly made its breakthrough, will find itself on the space of a few weeks (!) transformed from a small minority party in a minority Greek left, into the leading party with governmental pretensions. And all this not in any old country and any old historical period, but in the Greece that is the "laboratory" and test case for this austerity-driven Europe in the midst of a nervous breakdown ...
The upward climb is so steep it can make you dizzy. Having become in record time the nightmare of the big-shots and the hope of the little people and the voiceless in Greece and even throughout Europe, SYRIZA is now called on to take on gigantic and downright historic tasks for which it is neither politically nor organizationally prepared. So what is to be done? The answer should be clear and unequivocal: Simply help SYRIZA! In every way possible. And first of all, do not abandon it, either in Greece or in Europe. Simply put, while confronting the common enemy, do the opposite of those who fail to combine their criticisms SYRIZA with solidarity with and even support for SYRIZA as it confronts the common class enemy. Your support can be critical … but it should still be support! Not tomorrow, but today. For, beyond the tactical or other differences, the battle SYRIZA is currently waging is our battle; it's the battle for all of us. To abstain is equivalent to denying aide to a person in danger. Or rather to the populations of entire countries in danger! ... | <urn:uuid:5c662f30-4f95-44d3-9cc2-e734b83f4b44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tlaxcala-int.org/article.asp?reference=7388 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972274 | 2,012 | 1.71875 | 2 |
As the AP reported, “the attorney general said the Justice Department ‘will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right.’
” ‘We call those poll taxes … ,’ Holder added spontaneously, drawing applause as he moved away from the original text of his speech with a reference to a fee used in some Southern states after slavery’s abolition to disenfranchise black people.”
– Would voter I.D. laws discriminate against minorities?
– Is voter fraud a real problem or exaggerated?
– What, if anything, would be a fair compromise on this issue?
If you have a comment on this editorial topic, post it below now! | <urn:uuid:6e70de1b-1b72-4eb4-994d-56705d9ba69b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.beaumontenterprise.com/think/tag/united-states-department-of-justice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947362 | 147 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Location: Toledo, OH
Architect: Donald Ross
July 14, 2012
God measures men by what they are
Not by what they in wealth possess
This vibrant message chimes afar
The voice of Inverness
The above inscription resides on a grandfather clock presented by a group of golf professionals to Inverness Club at the 1931 U.S. Open. The incredible show of generosity resulted from something that happened at Inverness eleven years prior during the 1920 U.S. Open and forever changed the game of golf.
From the time golf began in the U.S. through 1920 professional golfers had been looked upon unfavorably . . . to be frank, they were not considered gentlemen. Because of this second class social status golf professionals had not been allowed inside the clubhouses at the golf clubs where they worked, visited or played in tournaments. In this day and age of superstar golfers like Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Rory McIlroy its pretty hard to fathom that anyone would look down their noses at them, but things were clearly different at the turn of the 20th century. So, at the 1920 U.S. Open Inverness Club decided to open its clubhouse to both the amateurs AND professionals that were competing in the championship. This was a groundbreaking act by Inverness and other clubs followed in suit which began the process of golf professionals receiving the same amount of respect as their amateur counterparts. The grandfather clock was a thank you gift to the club for breaking down that barrier from Walter Hagen and the other top professionals of the day.
After a great evening of food and drink at Corey’s house in Bloomfield Hills we set off for Inverness the next morning which is just about a 90 minute drive. Corey had friends at the club and was able to arrange an afternoon round for us at the Donald Ross layout that opened for play in 1919. In addition to its storied past with regards to professional golfers Inverness Club has a rich tournament history that includes four U.S. Opens, one U.S. Amateur, two U.S. Senior Opens and two P.G.A. Championships. With nine major championships it’s hard not to argue that the club holds a significant spot in American golf.
When we pulled into the club we self parked in the parking lot, carried our clubs over to the bag rack and found our way into the clubhouse to change shoes. I loved the lack of pomp and circumstance which gave the club a very great laid back and welcoming vibe. As we hit a few balls on the practice tee I noticed several members laughing and joking with each other and their wives which is something that I feel like I rarely see and added to the down home and unpretentious atmosphere. When it was our turn on the tee the caddiemaster gave us a wave and away we went. Note that the yardages below are from the Gold tees which are 6,790 yards and play to a par of 71.
Hole 1 – 389 yards – Par 4
The opening hole here is basically a shared fairway with the 10th hole that is divided by the huge bunker complex seen below on the left. A drive down the middle or right side will be much more favorable than something that goes left and finds the bunkers.
After the bunkers the fairway falls off and then rises back up to the hill to where the green is.
Hole 2 – 375 yards – Par 4
The fairway on this hole is pinched in by the two bunkers on either side. I elected to avoid the bunkers by hitting my tee shot WAY to the right.
Here is a look at the green from the middle of the fairway and short of the two bunkers.
And here is a little closer look.
Hole 3 – 177 yards – Par 3
Slicers beware on this hole. I had to hit a 5 iron to reach the green and with the lake on the right side I suspect that a great many penalty strokes have been doled out here.
Below is a little closer look at the hole.
Hole 4 – 439 yards – Par 4
I really liked this long par four despite the fact that I made double here. A long drive will reach the hill and potentially leave a downhill lie for the approach shot where the player who lays back will have a flat lie and a longer approach shot to a green with a significant false front.
Below is a view of the approach into the green.
Here is a little closer look at the false front.
And here is an even closer look at that false front. It is a very uphill chip for approach shots that come up short.
Hole 5 – 398 yards – Par 4
I also really liked this hole as I like trying to hit a draw off the tee. A cut will certainly work here but a draw is a better option for players who have that shot.
Below is a look at the approach into the green.
Hole 6 – 195 yards – Par 4
This one shot hole is lengthy, but there is no real penalty for being short with a nice area of fairway length grass in front.
Hole 7 – 453 yards – Par 4
Here was have another very good long par 4. The boldest line is to try to carry the creek on the right side where as the much safer play is to hit the left side of the fairway and deal with a long, uphill and slightly blind approach shot.
Below is a look to the green from the middle of the fairway.
Approach shots that come up short will have a significantly uphill pitch to reach the putting surface.
Hole 8 – 537 yards – Par 5
The first of only two par 5s on the course requires a well placed drive to have the best angle into the green for the second shot. The hole doglegs to the left so something down the left side will leave the shortest distance to the green, but if the drive does not carry far enough it can be blocked out by trees or find the bunker.
Here is a look into the green from the middle of the fairway where the hole starts to turn left.
Players who think they can reach this green in two had better be able to fly it on as the bunkers surrounding the front only allow a very narrow area for rolling onto the putting surface.
Below is a view of the green from the 9th tee.
Hole 9 – 418 yards – Par 4
Another stout par 4 closes out the first nine holes. This one moves to the right so a drive that favors the left of the fairway is the best approach from the tee.
And here is a view of the approach shot into the green. Its tough to make out the flag but it is just under the middle tree.
The green on this hole was an interesting one and unfortunately the photo below doesn’t really do it justice. The ball located at the back makes for a tricky putt to that hole location!
Hole 10 – 345 yards – Par 4
Starting off the second nine hole we come back to the teebox that we used for the 1st hole but tee off from the left side. Again, it is wise to avoid the bunkers, this time favoring the left side of the fairway.
I didn’t take my own advice and ended up hitting my drive to the right. Luckily I found grass and had a short iron into the green.
Here is a look at the 10th green taken from the 11th tee.
Hole 11 – 369 yards – Par 4
This shortish par 4 is best played with a drive down the middle, but longer hitters need to beware of the bunkers on either side that pinch the to a pretty narrow gap.
Here is a look at the approach. Note how narrow the fairway gets around those bunkers.
Hole 12 – 149 yards – Par 3
Playing to a par of 71 the course only has two par 5s, three par 3s and all the rest par 4s. This is the final of the par 3s. It’s a short shot, but the green is smallish and the bunkers surrounding it make for a tough par if you don’t hit the putting surface.
Hole 13 – 498 yards – Par 5
Here we have the second and last par 5. This one will be reachable in two for many players. The fairway runs downhill so a big drive is possible if the ball catches the hill and runs a little extra.
Below is a view from the middle of the fairway. Layup shots need to be sure to carry the creek that runs across the fairway at the bottom of the hill. The area of fairway grass on the opposite side of the creek is an excellent place to lay up to.
Hole 14 – 446 yards – Par 4
Here we begin a stretch of four long and tough par 4s. At 446 yards the best advice here is to hit it as far as possible.
Below is a look at the approach into the green. Note the lack of bunkers fronting the green which means that there is a chance for balls that come up short to still find their way onto the green.
Hole 15 – 436 yards – Par 4
I really liked this hole which is another long par 4. Drives that reach the hill and pick up some roll with help to shorten the approach into the green.
Here is a look at the approach shot into the green.
Hole 16 – 399 yards – Par 4
With this hole we get a break from the 400+ yard par 4s . . . by 1 yard. With trees on both sides of the fairway a drive down the middle will be a great start here.
Although it’s not in the landing area of the drive for most players, below is another example of how the fairway has been pinched to a very narrow width by bunkers.
Hole 17 – 438 yards – Par 4
Another excellent long par 4 closes out the series of four very tough holes. This one favors a draw off the tee and big hitters will carry the bunker on the left to have the shortest approach shot to the green.
Here we have a view of the approach shot from the right side of the hole. Even though it appears to play downhill I still hit the actual yardage for my approach shot.
Hole 18 – 329 yards – Par 4
The closing hole is what I would truly call a short par 4. Not drivable, the best play here is to leave the driver in the bag and hit a utility club about 200 yards and leave a wedge into the green. The mass of bunkers in front of the green should be enough of a warning to anyone not to get too carried away with their tee shot.
Here is a view of the approach into the green from about 100 yards out. Bob Tway won the 1986 P.G.A. Championship here with a remarkable hole out from the front bunker for birdie that yet again crushed Greg Norman in the final round of a major. I wish I had taken a picture of the green as it has a wicked slope that makes hitting the green far from an automatic two putt. It really makes Tway’s shot all the more amazing when you see the green in person.
After we finished our game we went into the clubhouse for a drink and to look around. We had a good time looking at all the old photos from the Inverness Invitational which was a fourball tournament started in 1935 that featured sixteen top professionals of the day competing in two-man teams in a round robin rotation. Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Jimmy Demaret and numerous other well known pros from the mid 1930s to the early 1950s were all there. Fred took particular pleasure in finding numerous photos of Lawson Little. In 1950 when the U.S. Open was held at Merion Lawson Little fired his caddie before the championship started and Fred’s father, who was 16 at the time, was the lucky kid who got picked to carry his bag. Unfortunately, he didn’t make the cut, but it was a once in a lifetime chance for a teenage caddie and Fred enjoyed seeing so many photos of the guy he grew up hearing stories about.
After we finished our drinks in the grill room we headed back out to the car to load up and make our way back to Michigan. Our day at Inverness really couldn’t have been any more enjoyable. The course is laid out over diverse terrain that makes for a good variety of holes that keep things interesting from start to finish. Over the years there has been some work done to the course by a number of noteable golf course architects. In the early 1920s A.W. Tillinghast made a few changes followed by George and Tom Fazio in 1978 and finally Arthur Hills in 1999. While it would be difficult to pick out which features were changed or added by each architect the astute eye can fairly easily identify the design elements that were not part of Donald Ross’ original design. In my opinion the changes came off very well and the course has acclimated well to the modern game as evidenced by the fact that the U.S. Senior Open was held there as recently as 2011. I found Inverness to be a fun, down to earth club with a great golf course that is a whole lot of fun to play. Count that as yet another great spot for Ohio golf. | <urn:uuid:c31fc184-c9e3-443f-8acb-f9142c9cb8ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theitinerantgolfer.com/inverness-club/ | 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 | 0.963731 | 2,819 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Most Active Stories
Fri September 1, 2006
Flood Waters Rise in Ernesto's Wake
By Megan V. Williams
Wilmington, NC – An unusually wet August in southeastern North Carolina means more of Ernesto's rain is swelling the region's rivers. Tributaries of the northeast Cape Fear are above their banks and the river is running several feet higher than normal.
Emergency services in Duplin county report evacuations in the town of Chinquapin. According to the Star News, there are swift water rescue teams evacuating low-lying residents in the Pender County town of Maple Hill.
And in Bladen County, where the Black River is expected to flood, Emergency Services director Mitchell Boyd is worried his residents may think the danger has passed.
That might be the concept of some of the people here, that you know, we got a lot of rain, but it's already gone away. Well, yeah, it's gone away, but the rain that the people got 20 miles upstream is coming down here, but it won't be here for two or three days.
Southeastern rivers affected by Ernesto are expected to crest late Saturday or early Sunday morning. | <urn:uuid:1dd68be7-0c19-4c04-80db-0b1081b1861b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://whqr.org/post/flood-waters-rise-ernestos-wake | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962827 | 241 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Attorney General Eric Holder's rejection last week of the idea of prosecuting journalists for publishing classified information sounded categorical and absolute. But was it?
Under questioning by Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Holder dismissed the notion of prosecuting reporters as, basically, nuts.
"You've got a long way to go to try to prosecute people—the press for the publication of that material," Holder declared. "This has...not fared well in American history."
(WATCH: Eric Holder gets grilled on the Hill)
While the Justice Department hasn't actually prosecuted journalists for obtaining or publishing classified information, it turns out it has used the prospect of such prosecution to persuade the courts to get evidence in such investigations. As the Washington Post first reported Sunday, prosecutors seeking a search warrant for Fox reporter James Rosen's e-mail account invoked his potential criminal liability as part of their arguments for the warrant in an investigation into alleged leaks by State Department contractor Stephen Kim about North Korean nuclear test plans.
"There is probable cause to believe that the Reporter [known from context to be Rosen] (along with Mr. Kim) has committed a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793 (d) either as Mr. Kim's co-conspirator and/or aider and abettor," FBI agent Reginald Reyes wrote in the May 28, 2010 search warrant application (posted here). "Because of the Reporter's own potential criminal liability in this matter, we believe that requesting the voluntary production of the materials from Reporter (sic) would be futile and would post a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation and of the evidence that we seek to obtain by the warrant."
The search warrant, granted by Federal Magistrate Alan Kay, spanned all Rosen's e-mails with Kim as well as two days of Rosen's e-mails in full (as detailed here). There appeared to be certain limits on what the feds could retain from those emails if they were entirely unrelated to the inquiry, or violations of the Espionage Act.
It appears the prosecutors' statements about Rosen having potentially committed a crime were aimed at allowing them to proceed through use of a search warrant rather than a grand jury subpoena or other means. Under the Privacy Protection Act of 1980, search warrants are only available to seize journalists' work products under certain circumstances, such as when the journalist himself or herself is suspected of committing certain crimes.
If Rosen were considered simply a bystander, prosecutors might have had to use a subpoena, which would likely have involved notice to Rosen and a chance for him to fight the subpoena in court.
"The whole reason that Congress passed the Privacy Protection Act was because a guy with a gun was going to take your stuff," said University of Minnesota media law professor Jane Kirtley. "It doesnt apply to subpoenas."
The paperwork in the Rosen search warrant may also offer clues about why the Associated Press was told after the fact about their telephone records being searched by the government. The fact that prosecutors cited Rosen's "potential criminal liability" as a reason not to ask him directly for access to the information and to assert that doing so "would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of the investigation" raises the possibility that they leveled a similar argument in the AP case, which relates to a leak about a CIA-related counterterrorism operation in Yemen.
It wouldn't be shocking if some of the legal rationale behind the two cases was similar: prosecutor Jonathan Malis, the deputy chief of the National Security unit in the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office, is assigned to both matters.
Normally such searches require the approval of the attorney general, pursuant to DOJ guidelines. In the AP case, Deputy Attorney General Jim Cole gave the approval. In the Rosen/Kim case, Holder presumably did.
It appears from the paperwork that Rosen was to be given notice of the search 30 days after it was ordered. The AP also learned of the search of their phone records after the fact.
Fox issued a statement Monday afternoon decrying the Justice Department's action.
"We are outraged to learn today that James Rosen was named a criminal co-conspirator for simply doing his job as a reporter. In fact, it is downright chilling. We will unequivocally defend his right to operate as a member of what up until now has always been a free press," Fox executive vice president of news Michael Clemente said, according to TVNewser.
On air, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume ridiculed portions of the search warrant affidavit where the government says use of flattery and pseudonyms are indicia of a crime.
"If that’s a crime, I don’t know what’s left of the protections of the First Amendment," Hume said on Fox Monday afternoon. "They allege the activity which we call cultivating sources and reporting the news was criminal."
A Justice Department official said Monday that Holder was not recused from the investigation which led to the Rosen e-mail search. DOJ guidelines normally require the attorney general's approval for attempts to obtain testimony or records from a journalist or to obtain a journalist's telephone records. It's unclear whether those provisions of the guidelines apply directly to subpoenas issued to an internet firm for e-mail records of a journalist.
Rosen's alleged source, Stephen Kim, was indicted in August 2010. However, a DOJ spokesperson suggested Monday there is no plan to prosecute Rosen.
"As the affidavit in support of the search warrant makes clear, there was probable cause to believe that the reporter had committed a crime. The federal magistrate judge who approved that search warrant agreed. However, saying that there is probable cause to believe that someone has committed a crime and charging the person with that crime are two different things," said the spokesperson, who asked not to be named. "Under federal prosecutor guidelines, prosecutors are required to consider a variety of factors before deciding whether and to what extent to bring charges. No reporter has been charged in this case. And, at this time, we do not anticipate bringing additional charges against anyone in this matter.”
The idea that journalists could be prosecuted for publishing leaked classified information is by no means unheard of. It sometimes works to the advantage of reporters, allowing them to invoke the Fifth Amendment in order to avoid testifying, as then-Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz did in 2008. A judge said New York Times Reporter James Risen might have criminal liability in connection with leaks he received and published about the CIA's efforts to target Iran's nuclear program, but prosecutors seeking to force his testimony obtained an order granting him immunity.
Many legislators have also suggested that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange be prosecuted for obtaining and publishing classified U.S. military reports and diplomatic cables. However, some figures, including Holder, have suggested that Assange should not be considered a journalist.
CORRECTION (Monday, 1:43 P.M.): The initial version of this post mistakenly referred to Rosen at a couple points as Risen.
UPDATE (Monday, 2:15 P.M.): This post has been updated with the comments from Fox.
UPDATE 2 (Monday, 6:22 P.M.): This post has been updated with comments regarding Holder not being recused from the investigation involving Rosen.
UPDATE 3 (Monday, 7:22 P.M.): This post has been updated with a DOJ spokesperson saying no further charges in the case are anticipated. | <urn:uuid:6c2259e0-b95d-4930-b937-f6b2082acce4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966935 | 1,510 | 1.5 | 2 |
Parent application of eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics seemed to be as effective as clinician application for reducing children's pain and distress during intravenous insertion
QUESTION: Is parent application of eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics (EMLA) as effective as clinician application for reducing children's pain and behavioural distress during intravenous (IV) insertion?
Randomised (unclear allocation concealment), blinded (clinician) trial.
41 children of 2 age groups (younger group 5–12 y, mean age 9 y and older group 13–18 y, mean age 15 y) who were scheduled for elective outpatient GI endoscopy with IV sedation. Children were excluded if they could not understand the visual analogue scale (VAS). Follow up was 88%.
After stratification by age group, children were allocated to parent (n=11 in the younger group, n=10 in the older group) or clinician (n=10 in both the younger and older groups) application of EMLA (2.5 g to the back of both the child's hands, with occlusive covering) ≥60 minutes before IV insertion.
Main outcome measures
Child reported pain from the IV insertion was measured on a 100 mm VAS (from no pain at all to the worst pain ever) and GI nurse observed child behavioural distress was measured on a 6 point scale (0=not at all distressed, 5=extremely distressed) at 3 time points: anticipatory (behaviour from treatment room entry until the tourniquet was placed), insertion (behaviour at the time of the needle stick), and recovery (behaviour from taping of the IV until sedative medications were given).
Child reported pain and GI nurse reported child behavioural distress (anticipatory, insertion, and recovery) ratings did not differ by age or intervention group and were low to moderate for all groups (table).
Parent application of eutectic mixture of local anaesthetics seemed to be as effective as clinician application for reducing pain and behavioural distress during intravenous insertion in both younger and older children who were scheduled for elective gastrointestinal endoscopy.
- David Anderson, Rcpn
The use of EMLA in children has been extensively reviewed in the literature and some researchers recommend that it should be applied before procedures by parents.1 Koh et al examined the effectiveness of parent application of EMLA in children and adolescents before IV insertion and found it to be as effective as clinician application. Strengths of this study are threefold: blinding of the GI nurse and anaesthesiologist by asking parents and children to avoid making statements about who applied the EMLA, equal distribution of younger and older children in both groups, and careful assessment of pain and distress.
A worrisome limitation of this study is the small sample size. When a study is designed to show equivalence between groups, the sample size must be large enough to avoid missing a clinically important difference. For example, median pain ratings in the younger age group were 5.0 in the parent applied group and 42.0 in the clinician applied group. On a 100 point pain scale, it is unlikely that a 37 point difference between groups would not be clinically significant and yet, the sample size of 10 per group was insufficient to find a statistically significant difference between these 2 medians. Differences between groups may have also been because of the fact that those in the parent application group were required to arrive 30 minutes before their scheduled procedure, whereas those in the clinician application group were required to arrive ≥60 minutes before the procedure. The longer waiting times may have influenced anxiety in younger children in the clinician application group. No information was given about the site of IV placement, cannula size, or number of insertion attempts (which has been shown to positively correlate with the VAS).2
Parent application of EMLA, as supported in this study, could result in less time spent by families in the clinical setting; however, before suggesting implementation of this intervention, this study should be replicated with a larger sample.
Source of funding: no external funding.
For correspondence: Dr J L Koh, Arkansas Children's Hospital, Pediatric Anesthesia and Pain Management, 800 Marshall St, Slot 203, Little Rock, AR 72202−3591, USA. Fax +1 501 320 2939. | <urn:uuid:9afd9ba6-7e32-43ff-b534-3b3ca3c78d2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ebn.bmj.com/content/3/1/11.full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958876 | 894 | 1.601563 | 2 |
- On 10 Apr 2012
White murder of blacks vs vice versa,
I think one needs a lot more information to come to a far conclusion. The link provided in the original post appears to only account for 6,284 murders. The other FBI page states an "estimated 14,748 persons were murdered nationwide in 2010". Some of the other FBI tables list a total of 12,996 murders.
Either way it seems as if thousands of murders are not listed in the link in the original post, therefore one can only spread misinformation when important facts are not made clear. | <urn:uuid:f52ec888-a3f8-4188-a055-917e5f4f7336> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://patrick.net/forum/comments.php?a=29136 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93671 | 116 | 1.523438 | 2 |
OPEN Gardens Australia is the second-largest scheme of its kind after Britain's National Garden Scheme, which also opens gardens to the public.
Like the NGS, which this year celebrates its 85th anniversary, its Australian contemporary is in celebratory mood, having reached a 25-year milestone.
The 2012-13 season of the Victorian division of Open Gardens Australia will be launched on Tuesday by the scheme's president, Tamie Fraser, at Rippon Lea Estate. The first garden to open tomorrow week will be Dame Elisabeth Murdoch's Cruden Farm, with its magnificent fields of daffodils.
Fraser, who has opened her Merricks garden a number of times and will open it for the last time in February, says owners who share their gardens with the public are very generous.
''It's such a privilege for people to go into someone else's private space and see what they have,'' she says. ''You do bare your soul when you open your garden to the public but you do get tremendous knowledge from people coming in to see your garden.''
The Frasers' hillside garden affords stunning views from the house and includes a section devoted to native trees, rose beds, hedges and perennials, including Malcolm Fraser's pride and joy, the camellia walk, which has been floriferous this year.
Other special events include the opening on September 16 of seven cottages at Bickleigh Vale Village in Mooroolbark, which were created by Edna Walling.
The annual plant fair will be held in March at Sir Roderick Carnegie's Woodend property Flint Hill, which features a large woodland garden with specimen trees underplanted with rhododendrons and azaleas, formal lawns and shrubberies.
Fraser says the plant fair is a popular event on the Open Gardens calendar, attracting 10,000 visitors when it was held at Thurulgoona, her property in Merricks.
In a first for the scheme, two twilight openings will be held on Australia Day: Bagnols, a French-inspired garden designed by Paul Bangay at Shoreham; and Rick Eckersley's Musk Cottage at Flinders, which will include musicians, wine and food.
Usually, the season ends on the Mother's Day weekend but this time it will continue through winter and include Gunyah, a large vegetable garden in Pascoe Vale, and Attila Kapitany's stunning display of architectural agaves, aloes and yuccas.
There will also be an Australian plants workshop and a ''conversation'' on Gardens and Gardening Today: Sustainability, Direction, Design, which will feature eight experts, including Carolyn Blackman, Phillip Johnson, Michael McCoy and Sharon Harris.
A tour of nine significant gardens in the Western District will be hosted by the organisation's chief executive, Richard Barley, and there is an opportunity to learn about palms from Jo Wilkins, a self-confessed ''palm-aholic''.
Open Gardens Australia grew from Victoria's open-garden scheme, established in 1987, to a national scheme in 2000. It was renamed last year to better reflect its role for the public.
Garden owners charge nominal fees to visit their gardens (the standard fee is $6), with 35 per cent returned to them or to a charity of their choice and 65 per cent to Open Gardens Australia, which receives no government money.
Each season, surplus funds are distributed to community garden projects under its Community Garden Grants Awards scheme. The recipients in the 2011-12 season were Buda house and garden at Castlemaine, to help with its garden restoration, and renewal works at the late Margot Knox's mosaic garden in Hawthorn.
■The new guide lists 500 gardens across the country and is available for $19 from opengarden.org.au.
DIG IT: OUT AND ABOUT
Greenlink indigenous plant nursery is holding its open day today from 9am-noon. 41 Wimmera Street, Box Hill North.
Camellias Victoria is holding a display of camellias, including plant sales, today (1-5pm) and tomorrow (10am-4.30pm). Mount Waverley Community Centre, 47 Miller Crescent. $5. Also this weekend at the centre is the Waverley Garden Club's 50th anniversary of its floral art group.
The 56th annual Leongatha Daffodil and Floral Show runs from Thursday to Saturday at Leongatha Memorial Hall, McCartin Street, with flowers, plants and refreshments. $5. Phone 5668 6334.
Thousands of orchids will be on display from Friday to Sunday at Springers Leisure Centre, 400 Cheltenham Road, Keysborough. 9am-5pm (Sunday until 4pm). Adults $6, concession $4. Phone 9786 1938.
On Tuesday, the Friends of Burnley Gardens will present a talk by Professor Mark Elgar about the sex lives of spiders and other interesting arachnid facts. Members $3, non-members $10. Quad 6, Burnley Gardens, 500 Yarra Boulevard, Richmond. 7pm for 7.30pm. Bookings essential, phone 9035 6861.
Japanese floral art (ikebana) will be exhibited from Wednesday to Saturday (10am-5pm) at Kazari Collector, 450 Malvern Road, Prahran.
Events to [email protected] two weeks in advance. | <urn:uuid:ba665bc6-420e-4ca8-a4d9-79af0fa1c784> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/231423/seasonal-delights/?cs=28 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938018 | 1,141 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Today, I participated in a Skype interview with Mrs. Karisa Bibayoff’s Natomas Charter School (Leading Edge Academy) 6th grade class in Sacramento, CA.
We discussed how archaeology works and the students asked some very thoughtful questions ranging from the importance of stratigraphy to whether I ever connected personally with the cultures I’m excavating, especially when handling domestic wares. Like I said, thoughtful stuff.
The technology worked perfectly, the students were wonderful, and I had a great time. (And I hope the kids learned some fun things!!) Hopefully, some young Sacramento sixth grader will grow up to be an archaeologist. (And attend the University of Iowa!)
Mrs. Bibayoff created a SlideRocket show based on what they saw on their end of the interview. The coolest part was the instant and collective, “Woooooaaaahhh! Cooool!” when I held up a bronze dagger. I showed them some pottery from Tel Azekah and a piece of marble from a Corinthian capital. And of course, they loved the replica of the burial “Mask of Agamemnon” (especially when I put it on. I’m guessing it looked less scary than my own face. ;-) Their response immediately took me back to the 6th grade when I first heard about the Space Shuttle and I was mesmerized.
Anywho, had to share, because teaching (especially young kids) is what being an educator is all about! Thanx again to Mrs. Bibayoff! | <urn:uuid:c295d7b5-452b-422d-8592-6100033a3f7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://robertcargill.com/2012/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963009 | 327 | 1.640625 | 2 |
from the mature-content dept
Smartphones have some big advantages: they offer considerable computing power in a highly-portable form, and are available at prices that allow a broad spectrum of users to get online easily. But as we reported last year, there's a big downside, too, one that's all-the-more dangerous for being invisible to most people: overblocking of sites caused by opt-out "child protection filters" applied by some mobile operators to their Internet feed.
Here's yet another worrying example of that problem, this time involving the UK operator 3UK, pointed out by Nick Rothwell. Pride's Purge is a Web site described by its creator Tom Pride as "an irreverent look at UK politics". As he recently discovered, it's also blocked by 3UK's child protection filter. He contacted the company on Twitter, pointing out that Pride's Purge was not a porn site or anything similar, and this is what it replied:
We don't just block adult websites, websites with mature content may also be censored.
So it now seems that there is a category of material called "mature content" that is distinct from "adult content", and that is also blocked by child protection filters, at least on 3UK's network. Worryingly, political satire seems to be regarded as an example of "mature content", and therefore unsuitable for children under 18. In fact, the censorship is even worse, as Pride explains:
it's not blocked for just the under-18s. It's blocked for anyone who hasn't proven to [3UK] they are over 18 -- and that means you will have to give your full identity to 3UK before they allow you to enter this site.
This very broad, default censorship is disturbing for at least two reasons. First, because many people will be unaware that this kind of "mature content" censorship is taking place at all, and therefore won't ask for it to be stopped. And secondly, even if they are aware, the fact that asking for the filter to be lifted could be seen as tantamount to wanting to access porn -- something that many will understandably be reluctant to have noted down on their Internet access record -- means that they will simply put up with a limited feed. And so the creeping, silent censorship of the mobile Internet not only continues, but probably gets worse in the absence of any significant pushback against it.
Which means 3UK now officially regard political satire as porn -- and are censoring it in exactly the same way. | <urn:uuid:822b03a4-3dd1-475f-8be2-eacc07760463> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techdirt.com/blog/blog.php/?tag=smartphones | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973954 | 521 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Bill Gates, U.S.
Donations: $28 billion Net worth: $66 billion Early on Gates dabbled in different areas, giving money to Harvard's computer science department, libraries, pilot high schools and local Seattle charities. His giving really took off in 1999, when he funded his family foundation with $16 billion in Microsoft stock. Since then, with further contributions from Gates and pal Warren Buffett, the foundation has become the preeminent philanthropic institution in the world. Among its main initiatives: It will spend $10 billion on vaccines within the decade, taking on diseases from malaria to meningitis. In the U.S., education--teacher training in particular--is its main project. In April his wife Melinda launched an effort to make contraceptives accessible worldwide, pledging $1.1 billion to the undertaking. | <urn:uuid:8b67ff66-a5d0-4a56-82a1-267ab7622cfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mkg45kekk/bill-gates-u-s/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952203 | 170 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Posts tagged with 'Android'
If you work in technology or digital marketing, you probably take it for granted that mobile apps are a mainstream phenomenon. But is that really the case? Sort of, according to a new Pew Internet telephone survey.
According to the survey, 35% of adults in the United States have applications on their phone. That's a fairly big number.
Apple may appear to be on top of the mobile world thanks to the iPhone
and iPad. But according to analysts at Gartner, Apple iOS market share
will peak at 17.1% in 2011 and drop to 14.9% by 2014.
At the same time, Android, which had just under 4% of
the mobile OS market in 2009, will rise significantly this year to become the
leading mobile operating system in North America. By 2014, Gartner
believes Android will be just about neck and neck globally with Nokia's
Symbian OS. Combined, Android and Symbian will have control of
approximately 60% of the mobile OS market in 2014, leaving Apple and iOS
in the dust.
When Apple released the iPad earlier this year, there was a lot of discussion and debate about the fate of tablet devices. Was there a need for them? Did consumers really want them? Where in the computing food chain might they fit in?
Months later, Apple has sold millions iPads, confirming at a minimum that there is a market for tablet devices. But it's still not clear what impact they'll have on computing over the long-term.
Everyone's talking mobile apps. GE is solidly committed to creating them, both for their B2B and consumer businesses. We sat down recently with the the team responsible for creating them: Andy Markowitz, director of global digital strategy; Dayan Anandappa, director of digital media technologies, and James Blomberg, director of new media & emerging technologies to learn more about the company's approach to app development and deployment, and to see some of their work.
Sales are a criterion when new apps are considered for development at GE, but utility matters just as much, as does speed-to-market. As far as GE is concerned, the time to develop apps for customers is now, before the wow factor wears off and while the company can still impress customers with an app's added value. Ease-of-use is also key. One app, geared to engineers in the field, is avilable on the iPhone, but also on the iPad. Why? "Because engineers wear gloves."
When Apple made it clear that apps created with Adobe's Flash Packager
for iPhone would not be permitted in the App Store, Steve Jobs had an
explanation: "We know from painful experience that letting a third
party layer of software come between the platform and the developer
ultimately results in sub-standard apps and hinders the enhancement and
progress of the platform."
Many, myself included, found Jobs' explanation to be somewhat
disingenuous. Tools that facilitate cross-platform development aren't necessarily responsible for bad code and poor software; bad development
practices and poorly-skilled developers almost always are.
In April, Apple CEO Steve Jobs explained in detail why consumers aren't
going to see Flash support on the iPhone and iPad. Long story short:
Adobe Flash "is no longer necessary." Although Apple's lack of support for Flash is often cited as an
iPhone/iPad drawback, Flash certainly isn't going to win a whole lot of
popularity contests either. But the question remains: is there a place
for Flash in the mobile market?
We may soon have an answer.
Can Microsoft still compete in the mobile arena? Windows Phone 7 might
be the company's last chance, as it's unlikely that Microsoft will ever
be able to catch up to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android if it
doesn't make a big splash now.
But if one report is accurate, Microsoft thinks it has what it takes to compete: a really big bank account.
By almost every reasonable measurement, Google's Android OS is giving Apple a reason to check the rear-view mirror. But for many developers, developing for Android is still somewhat unattractive because the common wisdom is that successful Android apps are likely to generate far less revenue than successful iPhone/iPad apps.
One of the possible reasons: paid Android apps are sold through Google Checkout, which Android critics argue offers a far less pleasant experience than the App Store purchasing experience offers iPhone and iPad owners.
Given all of drama over the recent tiff between Apple and Adobe, the
news that regulators in the United States are looking closely at Apple
shouldn't come as a surprise. Apple's behavior, legal or not, was bound
to attract the attention of antitrust regulators sooner or later.
While many Apple critics will welcome the news, I think Apple
supporters and detractors alike have good reason to send the same
message to the regulators: thanks, but no thanks.
Apple's iPhone may be known as The Jesus Phone, but Google's diversified approach to selling smartphones appears to be paying off. According to AdMob's March Mobile Metrics Report, Google's Android operating system is quickly picking up market share in the smartphone market. | <urn:uuid:e3e13930-2ea5-43a3-84c2-37356b26df3c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/tags/android?page=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950056 | 1,088 | 1.648438 | 2 |
As the parent of a college student we know you have a lot of questions about the resources available to you and your student. The following links contain answers and information about parents’ most frequently asked questions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: My student is struggling academically. What resources are available to help?
A: University College is a one-stop center dedicated to student success. They can help with advising, tutoring, counseling, supplemental instruction, and much more.
Q: Where can I find a
list of scholarships available to UT Arlington students?
Q: What is FERPA and
what does it mean for me?
A: The Family Educational Rights and Protection Act was designed to protect the confidentiality of students' educational records.
Q: My student is thinking about living on campus and/or
getting a meal plan. What do I need to know?
A: See the Apartment and Residence Life site for more information.
Q: Where can my student
purchase or rent textbooks and software?
Q: My student needs a
job or an internship. What resources are available to help?
A: Students seeking on-campus employment can view open positions on the SNAP job website. Students seeking off-campus employment or internships can utilize a variety of services offered by Career Services, and the HireaMaverick system.
Q: My student wants to
get involved on campus and doesn’t know what student organizations or
opportunities are available.
By getting involved on campus your student will have the opportunity to network with faculty and staff while making lasting friendships and memories. To help your student get involved on campus, encourage them to attend Activities Fair Day, which is a chance for student organizations, University departments, and local vendors to present information to the campus community. It's also a great time for students to learn more about involvement opportunities at UT Arlington. | <urn:uuid:44327664-5241-47e2-aa26-0e2764708239> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uta.edu/parents/resources/index.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947792 | 393 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Denim the all-American clothing that never goes out of style is also helping to fight breast cancer.
From Friday, Oct. 3 until Friday, Oct. 10, the Canterbury Animal Hospital in Delmar will donate $5 toward breast cancer research for every customer and client, two legs or four, who walks through the doors wearing denim.
According to veterinarian Tara Estra, she means any kind of denim clothing.
"During the week, every client that comes in wearing jeans or anything denim we're going to donate $5 to help fight breast cancer," Estra said. "If you come in with a denim bandana, we're going to donate that $5."
Located at 88 Delaware Ave., the Canterbury Animal Hospital is expanding upon the Lee National Denim Day, which bills itself as the largest single-day breast cancer fundraiser in the nation, on Oct. 3.
"We're going to expand it for the whole week," said Estra, who came up with the idea after reading about the Lee National Denim Day. Having a small staff at her office, Estra said she wanted to open up the fundraiser to her customers and local residents and, of course, their pets.
"We wanted to open it up to our community," Estra said. "I had seen an ad in Time magazine about the Lee Denim Day and all of the staff here has been touched in some way or form by breast cancer, so we went ahead and put this together."
October is national Breast Cancer Awareness Month and a month that focuses on the most common form of cancer in women, second only to skin cancer, and is the second leading cause of cancer death in women after lung cancer.
According to the American Cancer Society, about 182,460 women in the United States will be found to have invasive breast cancer in 2008. Statistics show that about one in eight women will have some type of invasive breast cancer in their lifetime and that the chance of dying from it is about one in 35. | <urn:uuid:208e1295-7fec-4ff4-b9e9-10bc6017fd1b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.spotlightnews.com/news/2008/oct/03/denim-that-makes-a-difference/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973331 | 408 | 1.625 | 2 |
7:150 walam-maa raja’A muusaa ilaa qawmihii gaDbaana asifan qaala bi’samaa khalaftumuuniy mim ba’Ådiy* a ‘Ajiltum amra rab-bikum* wa alqal alwaaHa wa akhadha bi ra’si akhiyhi yajur-ruhuu ilayh* qaalabna um-ma in-nal qawmastaD’Afuuniy wa kaaduu yaqtuluunaniy falaa tushmit biyal a’Ådaa-a wa laa taj’Alniy ma’Al qawmiZ Zaalimiyn
Click here to play the verse
Ahmed Raza Khan: Mohammed Aqib Qadri:
And when Moosa returned to his people, angry and upset, he said, "What an evil way you have handled affairs on my behalf, behind me; did you hasten upon the command of your Lord?" And he cast down the stone tablets, and catching hold of his brothers hair, began pulling him towards him; said Haroon said, "O the son of my mother! The people thought I was weak and would have probably killed me; so do not make my enemies laugh at me and do not identify me with the unjust."
When Moses came back to his people, angry and grieved, he said: "Evil it is that ye have done in my place in my absence: did ye make haste to bring on the judgment of your Lord?" He put down the tablets, seized his brother by (the hair of) his head, and dragged him to him. Aaron said: "Son of my mother! the people did indeed reckon me as naught, and went near to slaying me! Make not the enemies rejoice over my misfortune, nor count thou me amongst the people of sin."
And when Moses returned unto his people, angry and grieved, he said: Evil is that (course) which ye took after I had left you. Would ye hasten on the judgment of your Lord? And he cast down the tablets, and he seized his brother by the head, dragging him toward him. He said: Son of my mother! Lo! the folk did judge me weak and almost killed me. Oh, make not mine enemies to triumph over me and place me not among the evil-doers. | <urn:uuid:89d4ae98-5ae9-45be-81ef-31398ae1ae79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.multimediaquran.com/quran/007/007-150.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95743 | 527 | 1.53125 | 2 |
This Saturday, August 4, Hipolito Acosta will speak about his new book, The Shadow Catcher, at 2:00 pm in the Bradbury Room of the Waukegan Public Library. Released in April of this year, Acosta’s book portrays an extraordinary glimpse into the organized crime world of Mexico by a U.S. undercover agent. Filled with real stories from the trenches of the U.S.-Mexico border, The Shadow Catcher is the culmination of Acosta’s thirty years of work infiltrating Mexico’s crime cartels.
In his years working with the U.S. Government, Acosta was one of the most highly decorated officers in the history of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. The son of Mexican-American migrant workers, Acosta rose through the ranks from Border Patrol Agent to a key position in the Department of Homeland Security.
His domestic career included front line roles in the fight against alien smuggling in key positions such as Criminal Investigator in Chicago, Special Agent with the El Paso District & Border Patrol Sector, and Supervisory Special Agent in Brownsville, Texas. Heading a district that covered forty-two countries, Acosta oversaw high-profile investigations and successful undercover missions involving illegal operations in Central America, Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East.
He is the recipient of the Newton-Azrak Award—the highest honor given by the U.S. Border Patrol to individuals for bravery and heroism in the line of duty—and was appointed District Director, US Citizenship & Immigration Services in Houston under the Department of Homeland Security in January 2004, a position he held until his retirement on March 31, 2005. | <urn:uuid:19e145da-f3b1-4894-83ee-e1bfd9ca164a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://waukeganpl.org/print/news/former-ins-director-and-border-patrol-agent-speak-waukegan-public-library | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948914 | 342 | 1.523438 | 2 |
I like to stick it to The Man, The Man happens to be Liberal in NYC(power Structure).
Were they smart because they had beards?
Jobs clearly owes his use of beard to Ritchie.
My Fortran professor also had a beard. The man was already almost 75, and it was 1988.
It would appear that some languages are more beard-driven than others:
Al Gore used to have a beard
The Big Lebowski has one too
I wonder if Armchair Warrior has a beard.
Of course...all inventors are greedy. Edison was greedy. Salk was greedy. No one invents anything for the public good or for a new way of looking at or doing things. Maybe people have to stop worrying about what others are doing and worry more about themselves. And by the way....I own no Apple products. Android for me.
Greed is merely another way of stating "looking out for one's best interest".
It is a fundamental part of human nature.
...whether you have a beard or not.
der, Dennis M. Ritchie had a large obit in the NY Times, the day after he died (as listed above). His passing was posted almost immediately on Slashdot. His passing was noted, and mourned, by the people whose livelihood depended on the technologies that were spawned by his work at Bell Labs (most notably C programming language and UNIX).
Whether or not Jobs was greedy is another story.
Oops; der should read "dmr"
Yes, but it does shine a light on what we as a society respect and admire. The fact that this observation is redundant these days is sad for society in general and the jokes on this thread only emphasize it. Pathetic.
Droid here, but covet that damn Ipad2.
yes on the months that i don't go hangout. i sport a bread :p. well if you call it that. it's out of laziness than any style. but back in my school days i try to sport a goatee :p.
Cornel West has a beard too
Another bearded wizard falls:
John McCarthy, father of AI and Lisp
As a teen he taught himself higher math by studying textbooks from nearby CalTech. Upon acceptance there a year later as a *teenager* they let him skip the first two years of math coursework.
Did his Mathematics PHD at Princeton with John Nash. Went on to positions at Dartmouth (where he coined the term "Artifical Intelligence" in 1955) and then MIT.
There he invented the Lisp programming language -- which became central to AI work thereafter -- and helped found MIT's (DARPA-funded) Project MAC to explore and develop AI, operating systems and other thinking machines for more complex math calculations. While there he also proposed in 1961 the idea of computer timesharing, where blocks of computing time might be provided as a service like a utility. This became the de-facto standard for later VAX systems in academia and is exactly one of the things that Amazon sells today as part of its AWS cloud computing services, now used for everything from crunching utterly massive data sets to modeling complex particle physics and chemical compounds to converting reams of decades of old media into modern digital formats, you name it.
Then he left for Stanford in 1962 where he helped to establish the legendary Stanford AI Laboratory (SAIL, alumni of which went on to found many of the largest and most well-known Silicon Valley tech companies) and continued there all the way up through his retirement in 2000.
Put another way, Apple's new Siri and so much else in its operating systems owe so much to this guy, just as they do to Dennis Ritchie. Practically everything to the two of them combined.
But it'll be Steve Jobs' bio that flies off the shelves.
So, this is the guy I should blame for the VAX computer I struggled with in college? Damn Fortran 7.
May he RIP
Naw, just the concept of timesharing often used in VAX. Yeah, was on Unix and VAX systems myself.
As an interesting trivia note, he created Lisp just a year or two after Fortran was invented elsewhere. | <urn:uuid:b92da21d-96d0-483a-8e82-0e20c5726d76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://brooklynian.com/forum/the-lounge-random-stuff/who-is-this-guy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977511 | 878 | 1.742188 | 2 |
It really depends upon whether it is a "true" Cushings, with a confirmed tumor on the pituitary. Many of the Cushing's like symptoms that we see in horses are tied to nutritional deficiencies - studies have tied it to a lack of magnesium and other minerals. These deficiencies cause a cascading failure of the endocrine system. This can also result in laminitis, hormone imbalances, long hair, etc.
I always prefer to correct the diet for at least 4 months with a grass based forage, NO sweet feeds (if any grain I only use whole grains, preferably pelleted, preferably organic), free choice minerals and a chelated daily vitamin/mineral supplement. I support the endocrine system with additional bio-available iodine and trace minerals with blue green algae and perhaps Maca root.
The standard veterinary approach is a daily chemical called Pergolide, which affects the pituitary, thereby starving the tumor. Once a horse is started on this, shutting down the pituitary function will eventually cause a cascading failure of the endocrine system - thyroid, etc. Which then results in the horse being put on meds for Thyroid function.
This is why we don't use Pergolide unless A) the tumor has been confirmed through testing and B) we have already tried to rebalance the endocrine system nutritionally. We have had excellent success, even with confirmed tumors, with delaying the need for Pergolide for a year or two and delaying the endocrine failure while on the Pergolide.
that sounds great. thanks heaps for telling me. this mare is mainly on grass, hay in the winter, and she has a grain for older horses-extruded. i think she will need more supplements and i'll checkit out. again, many thanks. we are taking her for a blood test tomorrow. and from what i've read, i was wondering how all these horses had a pituitary turmor. it did seem off to me, with many being aged. the imbalance seems more correct.
Good catch Vicky - I really detest the Senior Feeds that are marketed to horse owners. They truly are chemically preserved agriwaste with little or no actual nutrition - simply empty calories. They acidify your horse and actually increase the amount of alkaline minerals he then needs (calcium, magnesium, potassium). I prefer to add calories with pelleted timothy or, when grain is needed, I feed Dynamite's PGR (whole, pelleted, tested-chemical-free grain ration). I feed cup of PGR where most people feed 1 - 3 lbs of sweet feed. We also feed every horse 4 free choice minerals and Dynamite's daily Vit/Min.
I don't have any familiarity with the Mitavite Gumnuts or the Protexin. We only worm with herbs and clays so never worry about colic. (Never have had any in our herd). I would take a look at the vitamins and salt and evaluate them for the form of minerals that they are providing. Same with the added magnesium - is it a truly available form such as an amino-acid chelate? Or just inorganic magnesium salt? If she is chubby that may be a clue to the balance of her endocrine system. Maybe some blue-green algae to support the thyroid?
Vickie- You need a definitive prognosis of Cushings or Insulin Resistance first. Even though the treatments are parallel in many ways there are different things to be aware of. My horse is Insulin Resistant (1 of 3 in the barn) and in our barn there is a Cushings horse. 2 are are senior and were not overfed mine I bought that way because she had foundered in the field at 12 yrs old, the Cushings is senior and it became apparent at 17 yrs old, with vision changes and pain. We feed almost the same things but there is a big difference between a Thyroid driven diet/exercise and an Insulin driven diet/exercise. There are some really good sites to visit and learn more about these things but you really need to know for sure what the problem is first. here is one site I visit often for tips. www.ecirhorse.com/
many thanks for that. as charlotte said she tested positive for cushing's but the vet was not knowledgeable about treatments. he did some extra blood work but left out the insulin test. he didn't even know the relationship... i have advised charlotte to ring up another vet who is more specialised. will let you know the details... | <urn:uuid:d1d52986-0b45-4003-a9a2-0d441c5eb2fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://barnmice.com/group/horsehealth/forum/topics/cushings-disease?commentId=1773158%3AComment%3A224907&xg_source=activity&groupId=1773158%3AGroup%3A115968 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963855 | 965 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Arrest of fifth-grader sets dangerous precedent
Re: "Cops capture Mister Small," Feb. 6
As a parent with two small school-age children, I am frightened and disturbed about the arrest and detention of a fifth-grader at Alexandria's Douglas MacArthur Elementary School because he brought a toy gun to school. I have learned that the boy has been suspended and that Superintendent Morton Sherman is considering expulsion.
The reaction by the school system and the police department was excessive and unacceptable. Nothing in the reports about this incident suggests that any common-sense approach to dealing with this matter was made.
Although this 10-year-old clearly violated school rules, which exist for the protection of students and teachers, he should receive an appropriate punishment such as writing letters of apology to his schoolmates, completing a community service project or helping to educate other students about safety. I would normally defer to school administrators on what would be an appropriate punishment, but based on their overreaction, it is clear their only solution is castigation.
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Besides the fact that this boy will likely carry the stigma of being a troublemaker for the rest of his life and his parents will be responsible for legal fees, Alexandria's school and public safety officials have set a dangerous precedent.
School safety is a serious issue, and I do not take the current discussion about violence, gun control or mental illness lightly. However, as a parent who faces the daily challenge of preventing my children from smuggling dolls, sporting equipment and action figures onto campus where they will undoubtedly become distractions, I am worried that one day a miniature toy sword, a bubble-maker or even a finger pointed to look like a pistol will be all that it takes to have our kids thrown into the slammer.
We must insist that school administrators have the courage and flexibility to deal with these issues more effectively, with an emphasis on common sense. Children make mistakes, and when they break the rules, they must be punished and held accountable. But there are better ways to teach this boy a lesson.
-- Charles Faulkner
Subsidized churches can't complain about regulation
Re: "Government shouldn't define 'church,' " Feb. 3
Unlike President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which puts the religious freedom and health of women first, Cal Thomas elevates some theological dogmas over the religious liberty and rights-of-conscience of the vast numbers of women of all faiths who are employed or served by church-related charities, hospitals and colleges.
Thomas conveniently overlooks the fact that these church-related charities, hospitals and colleges are generously subsidized by taxes extracted from Americans of all faiths.
The mantra of these church leaders seems to be: "Give us your tax dollars, but don't even think of linking them to any regulations."
-- Edd Doerr
President, Americans for Religious Liberty
Former Border Patrol officers have the right idea
Anybody who wants to see real, nonpolitically motivated, thorough, effective immigration reform, written without bias and on behalf of our nation's best interests by some of the same people who dedicated their professional lives to this issue and who know it best should go to the website of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (nafbpo.org).
Once there, go to the section titled "Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement and Reform." It speaks for itself and ought to be a model and inspiration for our nation's political leaders.
-- Glenn E. Guyant | <urn:uuid:e0f53323-d822-4744-b130-84f2917202b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/letters-for-feb.-10/article/2521017?custom_click=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956701 | 761 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Sweeping Changes in S.D. Criminal Code Signed Into Law
Today Governor Dennis Daugaard signed SB 70 into law. “The South Dakota Public Safety Improvement Act(Criminal Justice Reform legislation)” changes the way many non violent criminals will be punished/treated by state courts and corrections systems.
The legislation is a recognition of the reality that South Dakota’s philosophy of “lock the door, and throw away the key,” was getting too expensive. We have the highest number of people in our prison system per capita than any state in the nation.
The changed laws and philosophy will save all of us money, and help the criminal deal with the issues which caused them to get into trouble, alcohol, drugs, mental illness. Treatment programs will be funded by the state. More probation officers will be hired.
It has been years since our criminal statutes were updated. This piece of legislation sailed through both houses of the legislature. Governor Daugaard, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, David Gilbertson, and Attorney General Marty Jackley led and coordinated this effort, with a host of others providing the input to find solutions that will work.
Here is a suggestion for the Governor, use the same style, format, and tactics to tackle funding and quality of education. | <urn:uuid:c1e58d80-3123-44d4-abbe-6278d81cb5b9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://b1027.com/sweeping-changes-in-s-d-criminal-code-signed-into-law/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955036 | 266 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Even the most casual of television viewers have probably noticed the glut of negative ads related to the Senate race between Chris Murphy and Linda McMahon. It might seem like civility is a thing of the past, but that’s not necessarily true.
The Connecticut Mirror interviewed Susan Herbst, author of “Rude Democracy” and president of the University of Connecticut for some historical context.
While the Senate ads criticizing the character of the candidates might seem rude, they pale in comparison to one event Herbst called “rock-bottom.”
According to the Connecticut Mirror:
And as the politics of sectionalism in the 1850s drove the United States toward the Civil War, South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks viciously beat Massachusetts Sen. Charles Sumner with a cane on the Senate floor after the latter referred to Brooks' relative, Sen. Andrew Butler, as a pimp trying to introduce the whore of slavery to Kansas.
Rosa DeLuaro (D) is leading a discussion on Saturday in Hartford titled “Connecticut Women: Change You Want to See.” The talk begins at 9:30 a.m. in the Legislative Office Building.
Wayne Winsley (R) is calling for the suspension of state and federal gas taxes in order to keep fuel prices down. “Whether a person has a full-time job that they must commute to; or, a person is out of work but actively seeking a job; or, commuting to a part-time job; or, commuting to school; or, going to the grocery store to purchase food for their family – we need gasoline in the tank. That’s the reality,” Winsley said.
Candidate Steve Obsitnik criticizing the Democrats’ stances on Israel. Obsitnik called out opponent U.S. Rep. Jim Himes:
“Congressman Himes claims to be a friend of Israel, yet has been silent,” said Obsitnik. “He was silent when his party inexplicably dropped language from its official platform naming Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And he’s silent now as the Obama Administration ducks a meeting with Israeli officials as they ask for stronger action to avoid a nuclear Iran.”
Himes’ campaign website details the dangers facing Israel.
Part of securing a lasting and just peace throughout the region is the creation of a viable, autonomous Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. The two-state solution is the only viable long-term solution, most likely to lead to a sustainable atmosphere of peace in the Middle East.
I support all efforts to make the hostility Israel faces a thing of the past and share the vision of two states living side by side in peace.
Andrew Roraback is the target of a national organization’s ire. The Register Citizen reports that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spent $134,000 on negative ads targeting Roraback. The group has spent more than $2 million throughout the country in this election.
Recently the DCCC commissioned a poll showing Elizabeth Esty in the lead. A poll commissioned by Roraback’s campaign showed the Republican leading. | <urn:uuid:b42207a2-6775-48fa-9e40-a85085b2ec1f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://trumbull.patch.com/groups/politics-and-elections/p/campaign-notebook-how-negative-is-the-senate-race-b16edb09 | 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 | 0.942022 | 652 | 1.703125 | 2 |
July 6, 2009
"Billy" Eduard Albert Meier (February 3, 1937) is a citizen of Switzerland who claims to be a UFO contactee. He is also the source of many controversial UFO photographs, which he states are evidence of his encounters. Meier reports regular contact with extraterrestrials who impart spiritual and philosophical wisdom. He describes the Plejaren (aliens from the Pleiades) as humanoid. - Wikipedia
Side A: Billy Meier's story has prompted a great deal of research into his claims, both by skeptics and those within the UFO community who expected to confirm his reports. What was discovered is that the Billy Meier story actually represents the biggest UFO hoax in history. Upon close examination it was discovered that not one of his alleged photographs were original prints, but all had been airbrushed or otherwise altered.
Read More: Crystal Links (good job covering both sides)
Side B: Is "harder" evidence needed for you to accept the possibility of a real UFO contact. As an additional means to prove their existence, the Pleiadians gave Billy Meier several metal samples. One metal specimen was examined by Dr. Marcel Vogel, as research chemist at the IBM research laboratories in San Jose, California. His concluded that the metal specimen he examined "could not have been created on earth with any known technology." Learn the full details in the Metallurgical Analysis Document.
Read More: Steelmark | <urn:uuid:dfbe84c4-b000-49e0-af84-4cc63650491e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weetstraw.com/home/article/Billy-Meier/69 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971701 | 290 | 1.703125 | 2 |
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
Snow. We haven't had any yet, have you? I'm not sure I want the reality of snow just yet -- driving in it, shoveling it. But if I think of snow as "the poem of the air," then I'm just about overcome with anticipation.
Make your own snowflake at Make-a-Flake.
Check out all things snow at SnowCrystals.com.
Snowflake Bentley's website is here. The image I used is one he made. According to the website, "Wilson Bentley did not copyright his photographs and thus they are in the public domain and free to use for any purpose." You just can't sell them, or make them into something to sell. Thank you, Mr. Bentley.
The Poetry Friday round up is at Yat-Yee Chong. | <urn:uuid:5c565483-f1a3-43f3-ae2d-efe8ee0d7400> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://readingyear.blogspot.com/2008/11/snowflakes-by-henry-wadsworth.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951176 | 323 | 1.78125 | 2 |
I should be careful with my language here, but I have to say I often feel Koreans accept things that seem ridiculous to visitors to the country. Starting with an admittedly trivial subject, they lap up horrible stereotypes about Native speaker ESL teachers. More seriously, their opinions regarding the American military presence are easily swayed and they do not appear to want to test the things the media tells them. As a final example, did anyone question Dr Hwang Woo-suk's results?
I cannot say this is the reason, the cause, but it must be related in some way: dictionaries in Korea are missing some useful vocabulary.
Consider these pictures (The first is from Co-build, from the Bank of England):
Now a Korean-English dictionary.
All are missing 'gullible'. Even the Korean term ,"속다" is missing (and that word was dang hard to find to see if it was missing). I have started a petition on Facebook and, for those not so interested in Facebook, here is another petition site. Remember, we cannot teach critical thinking to Koreans until they understand what it means to be gullible. | <urn:uuid:d2a876dd-6742-4ada-b8d7-9eaab1040fee> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gangwon.blogspot.com/2008/03/what-are-they-hiding.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967742 | 234 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Some of the other veterinarians on this blog have eluded to the most common questions asked an emergency veterinarian. I would like to give you one of the most common answers that emergency veterinarians get when they ask, “What happened?” Most say “I don’t know.” (I must admit that when the patient is not critical, I think to myself, “How am I going to figure out what happened? I was not there.” I then remember, smiling, I think I went to school for this.) This leads to a series of questions in which I hope to build some understanding of the events that led this pet to our clinic.
For example, one night a 2-year-old black female Great Dane comes into the emergency clinic. The owner stated she was out chasing one of her other dogs. When she came home she found her front door open and her Great Dane in her kennel hiding/scared. As the owner looked her over she discovered a cut on her head and one on her left ear. The owner is unsure what happened to her in those 20 minutes while she was gone (she was fine/non-injured before she left). During my examination, I noticed that she had some abrasions along her inner thighs and she seemed to be taking deep breaths. She seemed fine otherwise. In listening to her lungs, they did not sound as if she had any problems/pathology. I suspected, given the history, that this Great Dane had been hit by a car. In making my recommendations to the owner, I always find it difficult to explain doing certain diagnostics, such as x-rays on the chest and bloodwork, when the patient does not seem all that bad. This owner allowed me to do the bloodwork and x-rays.
You can see the x-rays of the chest on the picture above. This patient had a pneumothorax with some lung contusions. A pneumothorax is simply air outside the lung and within the chest cavity. The medical definition of a pneumothorax is a potential medical emergency wherein air or gas is present in the pleural cavity. The pneumothorax is noted in the x-ray by the heart elevating some off the sternum (ventral chest). Since the Great Dane was stable and oxygenating well, we decided to observe. We will discuss thoracic trauma a little more next week. She stayed on intravenous fluids and was monitored closely. Within 24 hours, her x-rays looked like this:
You can see that the heart has lowered closer to the sternum (ventral chest). She was able to go home within 48 hours and did very well at home. | <urn:uuid:2972fb6d-858f-4570-a095-9badf04051cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mysanantonio.com/emergencyvets/2009/09/what-happened-i-am-not-sure/?gta=commentlistpos | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985759 | 559 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Big cities in France should be getting some pretty nice mobile broadband speeds pretty soon, thanks to some new developments by their mobile carrier SFR.
SFR today announced that they are upgrading their network to support 14.4 mbps data transfer rates. Which, in itself, is nothing too new or exciting these days. Especially with max speeds rarely attainable even in a moderately crowded neighborhoods.
But SFR doing a bit more.
The are two main reasons for why the actual data transfer rates you get on mobile network quite often fail to impress.
- Limited of radio equipment and spectrum capacity – the more people are using a particular cell, the more these resources have to be partitioned among them.
- Limited data backhaul capability from a cell tower. You have to get the data from the cell tower to the Net somehow. This is usually done through radio relays and/or by leasing data lines from fixed internet providers. Which is not very scalable and might become mighty expensive as the amounts of data increases.
Well, SFR decided to do something interesting about the second – backhaul – problem. Instead of relying on someone, they decided to build their own fiber network from the busiest spots.
During 2009-2010 SFR decided to connect 350 of it’s busiest sites via the new optical links, covering 66% of Paris, 50% of Marseille and 50% of Lyon.
Quite an interesting and unique move for a mobile operator. It may not be that significant for now. But it could give SFR a nice leg up against competitors as the demand for mobile data explodes during the next few years, and the radio networks get upgraded to support data transfer rates of 40 (HSPA+) to 100 mbps (LTE).
Why, one can dream that, without having to worry about the backhaul costs, SFR may even allow us unhindered and very affordable use of such services as Skype video calls and P2P on a mobile network…
If you liked the post, you might find these interesting too:
- AT&T to upgrade its 3G network to HSPA 7.2Mbps
- FCC Considers Banning Signal Boosters
- Ubiquam U520 from Skylink – where CDMA EV-DO and GSM GPRS merge
- Samsung U700 Thinnest 3G slider is coming to U.S. soon
- Verizon: Our 3G Network Can Handle Large Droid Demand | <urn:uuid:b92b4384-384b-454a-b160-191dbadcb096> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unwiredview.com/2009/07/01/sfr-combines-its-hspa-and-optical-fiber-networks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950488 | 501 | 1.625 | 2 |
Soybean markets dive on Wednesday
The autumn slowdown in U.S. corn exports and spillover losses from the soybean market depressed corn futures moderately Wednesday morning. The losses accelerated soon thereafter, when a Memphis-based consulting company released their updated forecasts for U.S. crop plantings for the 2012-13 crop year. They boosted their estimate of next year’s corn plantings to 99 million acres, thereby implying a huge domestic crop if normal weather conditions hold next year. The resulting drop sparked a nearby futures test of chart support just above the psychologically important $7.00/bushel level. Strong buying seemingly emerged in that area, but the course of recent events makes us wonder if the spring contracts will eventually fill the chart gap created as prices leapt higher around Independence Day. March corn ended the day 13 cents to $7.07/bushel, whereas the December 2013 contract fell just 5 1/2 cents to $6.17 1/2.
Having China cancel previously contracted purchases of 300,000 tonnes of soybeans Tuesday morning obviously did a number on CBOT soybean prices later in the day. And after showing signs of firmness in overnight activity, the decline resumed Wednesday morning. The downward momentum was apparently quite substantial, since news that a Memphis-based consulting company had lowered its forecast of 2013 U.S. soybean acreage by about 1.1 million acres did little to support the market. CBOT traders seemingly concentrated on the fact that the private forecast would still set a record for domestic soy plantings. January beans essentially duplicated the preceding drop by diving 28 cents to $14.38/bushel, while January soyoil fell 0.67 to 48.50 cents/pound and January meal slumped an additional $8.4 to $437.2/ton.
Tuesday night talk that Egypt would enter the international wheat markets as a major buyer was borne out by midmorning. The fact that they bought 180,000 tonnes of U.S. soft red winter wheat, as well as news of a large private sale to the big African nation, sent American wheat futures sharply higher. However, bulls proved unable to sustain the move. In general, futures markets unable to build upon such positive news are often seen as being vulnerable to a larger reversal. That may be one reason futures continued sliding despite news that a Memphis-based consulting company reduced its estimate of recent winter wheat plantings by approximately 300,000 acres. Traders may also have been anticipating a larger downward revision. One has to wonder if the wheat market is now vulnerable to a resumption of the drop suffered last week. March CBOT wheat settled 5 1/2 cents lower at $8.05 3/4 per bushel, while March KCBT fell 3 cents to $8.58 and March MGE futures dropped 7 cents to $8.95 1/2 per bushel. | <urn:uuid:506eb6c1-a4d5-4c82-a2a2-a032379e9a92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agprofessional.com/news/Soybean-markets-dive-on-Wednesday-184161531.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967726 | 588 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Why won’t the LPGA let a golfer play on the grounds s/he was not “born female”?
I thought gender was just a social construct? What difference could it possibly make that this athlete was born male? And why is this Old Girls’ Club so sexist?
“Back in 2008, Lana Lawless crushed the competition in a women’s long-drive golf world championship – smacking a drive 254 yards into a headwind.
She may have had some help from her chromosomes.
Until 2005, Lawless was a man – a retired police officer who went in for transgender surgery.
After her big win, Lawless was banned from Long Drivers of America. LDA adopted the LPGA’s rule that competitors must be born female.
Lawless is suing.
“It’s an issue of access and opportunity,” Lawless told the New York Times. “I’ve been shut out because of prejudice.””
Men and women have different body composition. A sex change only applies to your reproductive organs, which have no bearing on your golf ability. A woman with a man’s body composition has an advantage – different centre of gravity, strength, etc.
Powered by Yahoo! Answers | <urn:uuid:de6b6da1-b40b-406a-8500-35402e3cfa2e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britishgolf.co.uk/2011/06/golf-club-championship-rules/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952752 | 272 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Upstart Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain’s views on various topics have many on the left dumbfounded.
But his recent comments about racism and African Americans are sure to raise some eyebrows.
Cain said on Sunday that he doesn’t believe racism holds African Americans back.
“I don’t believe racism in this country today holds anybody back in a big way,” said, Cain, former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, during an interview on CNN. “Are there some elements of racism? Yes, it gets back to if we don’t grow this economy, that is a ripple effect for every economic level, and because blacks are more disproportionately unemployed, they get hit the worst when economic policies don’t work. That’s where it starts.”
Cain asserted that he firmly believes that “many” African Americans have a level playing field when it comes to economic issues and pointed to his own credentials to make his case. | <urn:uuid:5733237e-9341-414f-a677-1569a76d97fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsone.com/1575095/herman-cain-racism/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963187 | 207 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Not too long ago, I took possession of my immediate family’s collection of old baby books. The idea was that I’ll get everything from the baby books scanned and saved, before returning them to my siblings. That was a number of months ago and I still haven’t taken the time to digitize the books and archive the images.
I did spend a little time recently, however, just paging through my oldest brother’s baby book and absorbing all of the wonderful information that it contained. My brother Mike was born in 1956 and Mom diligently recorded many details about Mike’s birth and first few months. It was fascinating to see the variety of information recorded and to realize what a treasure trove these books are for family historians.
You can certainly still buy baby books today–sporting titles like “Baby’s First Year”, etc. But I get the sense that the heyday of detailed baby books was back in the 1940s and 1950s, with new Moms buying super detailed books and diligently filling in every page. When women started entering the workforce in the 1970s and 1980s, spending lots of time on baby books probably became much less common. It was probably only in the 1990s, with the renewed interest in scrapbooking, that creating a detailed account of your child’s first years probably started becoming common again.
I thought I would share some of the great images and content from my brother’s baby book. Click on any of the smaller images below to see the corresponding full-sized image.
Let’s start with the title page of the baby book:
I love the subtitle, which hints that this isn’t some artsy scrapbook, but a true scientific endeavor:
A baby record book including scientific charts which will prove of practical service to the mother and growing child.
Scientific charts?? Also notice mention of the “Chicago Lying-in Hospital”.
Next we have the “endorsements” page.
Some of what’s written here is also amazing. It seems like we weren’t allowed to keep scrapbooks as sentimental creations back in the 1950s, but somehow had to justify books like this as truly useful scientific records, to be used by attending physicians. Mothers would be gathering and keeping this information “for their own use in checking up on their methods and results”. Also note the goal, to keep “a simple, adequate, unsentimental record of the baby’s development”.
Unsentimental? Clearly, this is not your daughter’s lovely artistic scrapbook of the 1990s.
The next two images show the table of contents, which gives us an idea of the layout of the book.
Notice the detailed structure–so different from today’s idea of scrapbooking, which emphasizes open-ended creativity and originality.
Here’s one of the pages for recording some of the baby’s early behavior.
Of course some of this is sort of entertaining (e.g. Mike being labeled a “stinker” because he cried when he wanted to be held). But it also gives some real insight into the habits and culture surrounding a newborn in 1956. Going far beyond just a photo from the first days, we get a real sense of what life was like for mother and baby.
Here’s a footprint/handprint page.
It’s nice to have the little card listing details from the birth, in case this information isn’t recorded anywhere else.
Here’s a chart showing weight and height, up through Mike’s 6th year.
Wow–how many parents these days take the time to record height/weight data every month?
Here’s a page that had a few congratulatory cards pasted into it.
Next we have a page listing gifts received.
I find this pretty interesting. You get a sense of the relatives and friends who were part of my Mom’s social circle at the time. I’m especially intrigued by the appearance on this list of someone named “Fraulein Frickke”. Clearly, I need to ask my Mom about this person.
Then we have the following page, with photos of the homes where Mike lived for the first few years of his life.
This sort of information is a real gold mine for the family historian. It’s evidence that you can use in reconstructing information about where the family lived at a particular point in time. The polaroids automatically labeled with the date are especially helpful.
Here is Mike’s “physical and mental development”.
Again, this stuff is priceless. You really get a mental image of the person as a baby that goes far beyond a simple list of dates and places.
Here’s the “Talking” page.
And here is a summary of Mike’s 1st birthday celebration.
Again, this is great to use as a secondary source in your research, giving you some evidence about people who were associated with the family at this particular time. Note the comment about Daddy having to go to a ball game..
Here’s is the “Trips” page.
You can possibly use information like this to figure out the date/place of family photos that you might have in your collection. The page gives us some real specific data about some family trips.
Finally, here’s a “family album” page, with pictures of my Mom and her first husband.
Many of these baby books have plenty of space for photos. In the case of my brother, there weren’t that many photos in the book. But these two photos are ones that I don’t think I’ve found elsewhere in the family collection of photos.
Research Tool and Family Treasure
A well-stocked baby book is not only a family treasure, giving us glimpses into the early life of one of our relatives/ancestors. But clearly it can also prove to be a valuable research tool, providing additional data that we don’t find elsewhere. | <urn:uuid:e604adf2-b0cf-4764-8e9d-c4d63bb75c5e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sean.famthings.com/tag/1950s/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956314 | 1,288 | 1.8125 | 2 |
How dogs and cats think.
- Dog: These people feed me, pet me, love me, they must be God.
- Cat: These people feed me, pet me, love me, I must be a God.
This is so accurate.
She was told to scan the computer for virus.
My parents accused me of being a liar. I looked them in the face & said, “Tooth fairy, Santa, Easter bunny.” and walked away like a boss.
Laws of Work
- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
- No one is listening until you make a mistake.
- When you don’t know what to do, walk fast and look worried.
- Following the rules will not get the job done.
- Everything can be filed under “miscellaneous.”
Titanic 3D Honest Trailer | <urn:uuid:0118e884-48a7-46d2-9e84-f47dd9589f4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://yellowmeansgo.tumblr.com/tagged/funny | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940081 | 187 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Tallahassee, FL-December 7, 2012
Several Tallahassee Firefighters are being called heroes after being credited with saving a man's life.
Back in May, firefighters say they battled through intense heat and heavy smoke inside of a home on Cloudland Drive where a man was trapped inside.
"We crawled into him and we found him there barely trying to breath," says Tallahassee Firefighter, Nick Peppard.
The man firefighters are credited with saving is FAMU Professor Charles Smith.
Peppard says he and Captain Buddy Harvey brought the unconscious Smith outside to safety. Now the men and three other Tallahassee firefighters who were on scene that day are being honored for their heroics.
"And say to not only these gentlemen and the other ones who came in, and the future firefighters how blessed and fortunate that I feel and my father feel for being in a town that we have not only such trained professionals but compassionate professionals," says Shauna Smith, professor Smith's daughter.
Peppard and Harvey were both given the medal of bravery. It's the department's second highest honor. It's an honor that's been bestowed on just two others besides them.
"We're just doing that job that we signed up to do. It's a calling it's a profession, but this is what we train for," says Peppard.
The other firefighters honored at the ceremony were Mike Hadden, Lt. Blake Register and Brenden Rudy. They were honored with the Tallahassee Fire Department's Life Saving Award.
Smith suffered smoke damage to his lungs from the fire. But firefighters say they expect him to make a full recovery. | <urn:uuid:6a410a2a-b5f1-4ed6-ab64-87eb0dbb475f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/Firefighters-Honored-for-Saving-Mans-Life-182587941.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98307 | 342 | 1.773438 | 2 |
November 29, 2012
Claudio Bravo is a Chilean hyperrealist painter who came to Manila in the 1960′s to do portraits of characters of Philippine high society, and even today, I find his work timelessly inspiring. I had the honor of experiencing a private viewing at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila through the kindness of my dear friend Rajo Laurel, and viewing these portraits in an empty gallery at night was as close as I could get to having a conversation with the late artist.
Note the fine hair detail in Claudio Bravo’s portrait of Tessie Ojeda Luz.
In addition to the fascinatingly hyperrealistic manner by which he draws hair and makeup and other facial features (the full exquisiteness of this is best seen in person), Bravo had an interesting way of bringing his own touch to the pictures he paints. Long before these days of everybody being a stylist, Bravo was heavily involved in picking out the outfits, favoring looks in the vein of old Balenciaga and Halston. If he didn’t like any of the clothing options, he would drape a cloth over his subjects, or sketch them only to their bare shoulders. Back in the 60′s, a commissioned portrait was said to be the cost of two houses. If I had lived in that era, I only wish I had many houses to spare to have my picture painted by the legendary portrait artist.
Claudio Bravo paints the young tycoon Inigo Zobel and his mother Rocio Zobel Urquijo.
I fell in love with Inigo’s belt buckle initialed “IZ”, which I thought was vaguely Prada-esque. An Izzy could wear that too.
I could only dream of having my portrait be as handsome as this one of Antonio Roxas in a white turtleneck, accented with a slick-back and a skinny dog.
Even the headpiece on Bravo’s mysterious “Boy in a Turban” drawing is hauntingly current.
Rajo admires this portrait of Regina Dee looking effortlessly glamorous.
The long bob, top-lined eyes, and strapless top would look so fresh on a beautiful young woman today. (portrait of Maria Luisa Prieto Lovina)
The vivaciousness of his portrait of Elvira Manahan has made it one of his most popular pieces.
The most breathtaking of them all was the one of philanthropist and society dowager Imelda Cojuangco looking glorious in this confection of heavy purple silk. Legend has it that to the puzzlement of his subject, Bravo stopped painting the portrait at its current state, and declared with pride and contentment, “It is finished.” Over the years, it has become Mrs. Cojuangco’s most favorite portrait of herself.
Claudio Bravo’s portrait of Imelda Cojuangco, up close, alongside two other iconic portraits of his: Baby Fores, and former first lady Imelda Marcos. (via Mairey)
Special thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Manila for this wonderful experience. | <urn:uuid:d5780a94-3223-49a7-8afa-2d03b3952a60> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedandyproject.com/2012/11/claudio-bravo.html/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968446 | 651 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Updated: February 12, 2013 8:40 AM EST
Azerbaijan accused of intimidating writerBy AIDA SULTANOVA and PETER LEONARD
Human Rights Watch accused the government of Azerbaijan on Tuesday of intimidating a writer at the center of a public row over his depiction of violence between Azerbaijanis and Armenians.
The New York-based group said that foreign governments should urge oil-rich Azerbaijan to investigate what it described as threats against Akram Aylisli.
Aylisli's novel "Stone Dreams" is set in part during the wake of a bitter war in the 1990s between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The book makes allusions to instances of mob violence by Azerbaijanis against helpless Armenians. Many see the work as a condemnation of the Azerbaijani people.
The Azerbaijani government has long laid all the blame for the war on Armenia.
In a decree stripping the 75-year-old writer of state honors and his monthly $1,270 pension, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said that Aylisli was trying to cast Azerbaijanis in an inhumane light.
On Monday, outspoken pro-government lawmaker Hafiz Hajiyev told local media he is offering a $12,700 reward to anybody that would cut off Aylisli's ear.
Police spokesman Ehsan Zahid said the threat would be investigated, even though nobody has yet made a formal complaint to the authorities. "Nobody, regardless of their position in society, or their social, political, religious and ethnic identity, has any right to mete out their own justice," Zahid said.
People have protested outside Aylisli's home, and copies of his books have been burned. The writer's wife and son have both been dismissed from their jobs amid widespread public acrimony.
Human Rights Watch said Aylisli's son was compelled to resign his position as a senior official in the customs agency this month. His wife was likewise made to quit her job at a public library, said HRW.
"The Azerbaijani authorities have an obligation to protect Akram Aylisli," Hugh Williamson, the Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "Instead, they have led the effort to intimidate him, putting him at risk with a campaign of vicious smears and hostile rhetoric."
The war over Nagorno-Karabakh has left a legacy of deep-seated hatred between the former Soviet republics. Leaders frequently trade barbs, and minor cross-border clashes have resulted in many fatalities since the cease-fire was officially declared in 1994.
Last week, Aylisli told The Associated Press that he intended his novel to serve as a call to peace between the bitterly opposed countries and that he hoped an Armenian writer would write a similar work. "I didn't think it would be so politicized. I wanted to show that Azerbaijanis and Armenians are not enemies," he said.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry and the presidential administration didn't respond to telephone calls Tuesday seeking comment about the author's treatment.
Leonard reported from Almaty, Kazakhstan.
|Azerbaijan accused of intimidating writer " data-url="http://www.goerie.com/article/20131302120699" data-count="horizontal" data-via="goerie">Tweet| | <urn:uuid:f89a49d3-0a8b-46fa-85f4-a489608b949f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goerie.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130212/API/1302120699 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977523 | 711 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Connect to share and comment
Does the liberation of two captives signal the FARC is open to prisoner exchanges and eventual peace negotiations?
Some analysts say the rebel group needs to take convincing steps, such as liberating all political hostages, to show Colombians it is genuinely interested in eventual peace negotiations. “This would be well-received by Colombian society,” said Luis Eduardo Celis of Nuevo Arco Iris, a think tank that studies the conflict.
The FARC has said Calvo and Moncayo are the last hostages it will offer unilaterally. Cordoba has brokered the freedom of 12 former hostages since 2008. Some analysts say it is unrealistic to expect the FARC to let go of its most important bargaining tools unless the government makes promises in return.
But the government is resistant to go along with a prisoner exchange and refuses to return insurgents to a rebel force it is trying to destroy. Uribe has said he can’t accept an arrangement that would cede control to a terrorist group and go against the principles of his hard-line “democratic security policy,” a largely military approach to bringing security to various parts of the country.
Uribe’s critics accuse him of playing politics with hostages’ lives, and say humanitarian motivations should override political ones. “This [a prisoner exchange] is not a concession to the guerrilla. This is a concession to life and to liberty,” said Jara, the former hostage.
Uribe's comments following Calvo's release have many hoping the government will change its tune. Uribe said the government does not oppose a humanitarian agreement provided released guerrillas do not return to the FARC. "The president has always said he is open to conversation if there is good faith on both sides,” said Frank Pearl, the government’s representative in the liberation negotiations and high commissioner for peace.
An editorial published this week in Colombia’s newsweekly magazine Semana said the timing is right for Uribe to push for an agreement with the FARC before he leaves office in August, pointing out that exercising flexibility at the end of his term won’t jeopardize his hard-line reputation. “It could be an occasion to show that finally he not only has a strong hand, but a big heart,” wrote Semana.
Advocates for a humanitarian pact say time should not be wasted. “The next step has to be very fast to save the lives of those in the jungle,” said Jara. “Life itself cannot be politicized.” | <urn:uuid:dc43988a-389e-4c42-a67f-e25030c3b6d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/colombia/100331/hostage-release-moncayo?page=0,1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962283 | 534 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Tips for rsyncing MP3s from Linux to FAT32 USB external hard-drive
Posted by Larry Karnowski Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:22:00 GMT
Here are some important lessons I learned about accurately copying MP3s (or really any kind of file) from a Linux ext3 filesystem to an external USB hard-drive using FAT32.
When mounting the USB hard drive, be sure to use iocharset=utf8 in your mount options. (To be safest, I put this in my /etc/fstab so I won't forget it.) Otherwise you will have problems creating directories or files that have European or Asian characters in their names. I had some real problems with all the Mexican, Celtic, and Yako Kanno albums I own. Rsync will just flat out refuse to create them without this option. (And forget the Icelandic heavy metal. It's right out.)
Similarly, when mounting, you might want to include the "shortname=mixed" mount option too. Although I personally didn't have a big problem with this, several posts I read online mentioned that rsync might try to upload a file multiple times. The issue is that since FAT32 stores both a short-name (remember the 8.3 names?) and a long-name, the filesystem can get confused occasionally. Again, I didn't see this myself. I used the option, though, with no trouble.
Lastly, don't use the standard "rsync -a" (archive) flag. It tries to maintain user and group ownership, and FAT32 doesn't support either so you get a lot of "chown NO PERMISSION" errors, etc. Basically, you're making rsync do more work than it has to. Similarly, the "-a" option also tries to preserve symlinks which FAT32 doesn't support. I'm not really sure what would happen in that case, probably more warnings. Instead use "rsync -rt" to recurse through each subdirectory and to maintain the file's last modified time. That's about all FAT32 will let you do!
Hope this helps! Keep rockin'! | <urn:uuid:85199506-a291-478f-85c1-31436a8a5f2d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tech.hickorywind.org/articles/2008/07/20/tips-for-rsyncing-mp3s-from-linux-to-fat32-usb-external-hard-drive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951206 | 445 | 1.820313 | 2 |
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