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Tuesday, 18 October 2011
Heads up Mum
This poster was designed by husband and wife team Britt and Wayne Hanson who together write the blog Fantastic Family Fun. Wayne was knocked off his bike by a van and wearing a helmet saved his life so the couple are understandably passionate and spreading the pro helmet word. The couple have noticed they often see adults carrying children on their bike and whilst the wee ones are safely helmeted up, the adult is not.
So why is this? I think sometime as parents we are so consumed with our child's well-being and all the associated bits and bobs that we spend less time thinking of our own. But of course the safety of our own heads is just as important to our little ones.... | <urn:uuid:56395c38-7575-4705-8272-af1d50b2eb39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://londoncyclechic.blogspot.com/2011/10/heads-up-mum.html?showComment=1319254496461 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986551 | 149 | 1.554688 | 2 |
‘Super-DMCA’ fears suppress security research
'Everything I do is illegal'
Steganography and honeypot expert Niels Provos may risk four years in prison by completing his Ph.D., writes Kevin Poulsen, of SecurityFocus.
A University of Michigan graduate student noted for his research into steganography and honeypots -- techniques for concealing messages and detecting hackers, respectively -- says he's been forced to move his research papers and software offshore and prohibit U.S. residents from accessing it, in response to a controversial new state law that makes it a felony to possess software capable of concealing the existence or source of any electronic communication.
"Concealing the existence of communication is my dissertation, and concealing the source of communication takes place in honey nets," says Niels Provos. "So I decided to be proactive about it and move it to another location, and for now just deny anybody from the states to download any of my software."
At issue are the so-called "Super-DMCA" bills under consideration in seven states, which have already become law in six others. Similar in some ways to the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act -- which made it a crime to distribute software that cracks copy protection schemes -- the state measures appear to target those who would steal pay-per-view cable television shows or defraud broadband providers. Though the bills vary in language and scope, they are patterned after model legislation pushed by the Motion Picture Association of America along with the Broadband and Internet Security Taskforce, the latter a consortium of cable companies and premium channels.
The Super DMCA began quietly passing state legislatures two years ago, but did not come to public attention until last month, when the broad language in some versions of the bill immediately sparked anger from technologists and public interest groups.
The , which took effect on March 31st, typifies the legislation: Among other things, residents of the Great Lakes State can no longer knowingly "assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise" any device or software that conceals "the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service." It's also a crime to provide written instructions on creating such a device or program. Violators face up to four years in prison.
Taken literally, the law is bad news for businesses like Anonymizer.com and Hushmail -- both services cater to privacy-conscious Internet users determined to conceal their place of origin from marketers, or to communicate anonymously. Critics say it would also ban firewalls and NAT boxes, dealing a blow to Internet security. "This statute essentially criminalizes the mere possession of technology," says Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the legislation.
From Michigan to the Netherlands
Provos says the Michigan law also makes most of his academic career a crime. Provos is an expert on steganography, the science of concealing secret messages in seemingly innocuous content. He's developed software to detect some types of stego in image files, but he's also worked the other side, developing improved methods for preventing a message from being detected. He also wrote "HoneyD," a free program that simulates a network of computers, with the aim of luring in and detecting hackers. The deceptive software arguably conceals the source of a communication.
"It's very difficult, reading the law, it makes basically everything that I do illegal," says Provos.
So last week Provos took his research papers and software off of his home page, and relocated them to a server in the Netherlands. To play it safe, he also erected a barrier of sorts to U.S. visitors: to access the new page, a user has to answer three questions affirming that they are not in the United States, or another country with similar laws. He hopes it's enough to give him legal cover. "I'm not really sure how this works. If I give access to people in the U.S. and I live in Michigan, could that be construed as a problem?," he says. "And there are a lot of other states that have passed their own laws."
Provos says the offshore site is a temporary measure while he awaits an opinion from the University of Michigan's legal department. Meanwhile, he's urging colleagues in the security community to contact his state's legislators and fill them in on the unintended consequences of the Super-DMCA. But he insists the whole thing isn't a protest or a publicity stunt. Though nobody has yet been prosecuted under the law, Provos, a German national, says his concern is genuine. "As a foreigner I have to be very careful... I'd rather follow the law to the letter than be negatively surprised later."
The EFF's von Lohmann says he's worried that Provos may not have gone far enough. "If he's still in Michigan... Sure, he has a questionnaire, but maybe that's not enough," he says. "I don't know. This is all untested territory."
In response to the early criticism, the industry groups pushing for the law released a new version of their model legislation on April 1st that, among other things, adds an "intent to defraud" to the language -- significantly narrowing the scope of the law. "That doesn't really fix all the problems because it's unclear to me what intent to defraud means in this context," says von Lohmann. In any event, unless lawmakers revisit their efforts, the new draft comes too late for Michigan residents, and those in other states where an old version of the bill has already become the law of the land. | <urn:uuid:5c16d6dc-f984-4ab6-89bb-dfc2b0ab4b01> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/04/14/superdmca_fears_suppress_security_research/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966834 | 1,167 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Back in the 1990s, I saw a movie, set in a big city, that focused on a small group of people who wore very distinctive uniforms. This group wasn’t carrying out its mission very well. The members of the group were portrayed in the film stereotypically. One was gullible. One prayed too much. One was really, really dumb. But then they were saved when someone came from completely outside the group, someone totally unexpected. She got everyone working together. And the group was suddenly successful. The actress who portrayed that woman was Whoopi Goldberg.
And the film was? No, it wasn’t “Sister Act.”
It was “Eddie.” The city was New York. The group was the New York Knicks, a team that was constantly losing until one day a fan named Eddie (Goldberg), through a fluke, became their coach. She turned the Knicks into a winning team.
I bring up “Eddie” because it has something to do, I think, with the disrespect that modern society -- whether Hollywood or the Vatican -- accords to nuns. Women religious, who have devoted their lives to the service of others in the service of God, have a right to feel frustrated and angry at the way they are portrayed by the Catholic church hierarchy and mainstream media.
It is as if the bishops, movie producers and many other opinion leaders have gone out of their way to misunderstand the work that sisters do, to willfully misunderstand them as people. It’s almost as if there is a conspiracy to belittle these women, to label them either as uppity or dotty, to laugh at them and slap them down.
This is rooted in the status of nuns as outsiders. As Americans, we live in a culture that makes fun of everyone. We say with pride that nothing is sacred. Exhibit A: “Eddie.”
When they are winning, we will worship at the altar of sports teams like the Knicks. But, if the Knicks have a bad season or two -- or even a bad game -- we will boo them and ride them and deride them.
As a culture, we like to cut our heroes down to size. It’s an aspect of jealousy, for sure, and a socially acceptable meanness. We are unsettled by these heroes, whether basketball players or movie stars or politicians -- by their otherness. So we like to see them unsettled.
Still, they are doing what we do every day, trying to use their skills to gain status and make money.
The otherness is much stronger for women who are using their skills in ways that aren’t aimed at bringing in a lot of dough or accolades. Sisters, for modern-day Americans, seem really odd.
Our society gives a lot of lip service to the idea of God, to the sacredness of a human being, to truth. But how much faith do we really have? How comfortable are we, as a society, with ideals, visions, dreams?
Not much, if our treatment of nuns in modern media is any measure.
In movies, plays, ads and songs, sisters -- always in the religious habit that most real-life nuns set aside decades ago -- are shown as clucking hens, sometimes loveable, more often just plain stupid. They are outside the world, needing to be saved from the harsh realities of life. Like by a Las Vegas showgirl. Exhibit B: “Sister Act.”
The movie defines a nun on the basis of her habit, so distinctive, so otherworldly, so un-normal. And that’s how American society sees sisters. They’re not after the good life. They’re not looking for wealth and comfort, the American dream. Instead, they work to improve the lives of the poor and oppressed. In a nation with a long history of violence and the largest military in the world, they work for peace.
They’re seen as good-hearted, perhaps, but childlike. Asexual naifs. Talk about not fitting in.
That’s why the American culture goes to such great efforts to misunderstand nuns. It’s because women religious are a challenge to the status quo. Nuns are countercultural. Their lives of service are a challenge to American materialism and consumerism. Their chastity is a challenge to the American mechanistic view of sex.
They are the butts of Hollywood humor because they are dangerous. We make fun of what threatens us. This is how this nation has dealt with communists, anarchists, hippies, Native Americans and African-Americans. To blunt their challenge, sisters are reduced to punch lines.
Humor hasn’t been the method of the Vatican, though. Rome’s weapon has been a club -- a bureaucratic club to crack down on sisters for failing to toe the line that male hierarchs have laid down. For listening to the Spirit and following that inspiration, for being creative, for coloring outside the lines.
Sisters are a challenge to the male power structure in the Catholic church because they’re not male.
Recent popes and prelates have made so much of the maleness of the clergy, arguing against female priests with great vehemence and theological legerdemain, that, of course, women religious are a challenge.
They do God’s work without being male. So, unless they are knocked down and forced into some sort of male-defined orthodoxy, their work raises an unanswerable question: If women, as nuns, can do God’s work, why can’t women do God’s work as priests?
Nuns are a danger to the Vatican. That’s why they’re under attack.
Still, if it weren’t so hurtful and so downright mean, sisters might take all this attention from Hollywood and the Vatican as a compliment. It is rare that the purveyors of mass culture and the male-appointed male custodians of the Mass join together for any reason. Yet, both are frightened by women religious. So, nuns today find themselves undergoing a daily martyrdom of ridicule and discipline.
Over the centuries, saints have often been seen as threats, and have often paid with their lives. Consider Thomas à Becket and Joan of Arc and Thomas More. And Edith Stein, a Carmelite nun slain in the Holocaust. And Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, women religious who, with laywoman Jean Donovan, were murdered in 1980 while doing missionary work in Central America. Most saints, though, don’t pay with their lives. Instead, they find themselves to one extent or another fighting off attacks by secular society and the church establishment.
This sort of slow, day-by-day-by-day martyrdom is a grinding thing. Its aim is to grind the subjects down into submission. I don’t think today’s women religious will be ground down. They may have to give way here and there. They may, at times, have to wear the sackcloth of “orthodoxy.”
With an average age of more than 70, they will certainly have to rethink what they do and how they do it. But it’s better for them, listening to the Spirit, to reassess and refocus their mission for the 21st century than for church disciplinarians to impose a vision by fiat.
These are tough times for nuns. Yet, however battered they are by Hollywood and the Vatican, I can’t see them closing their ears to the Spirit. They will continue to listen and respond to God’s call. Of that, I’m sure.
They will endure.
[Patrick T. Reardon is the nephew of Dominican Sr. Julia Reardon, who died at the age of 93 last November.]
NCR will be reporting on the LCWR assembly all week. Previous reports:
- Outside LCWR meeting, victims allege abuse by sisters , Aug. 9
- Keynote: LCWR 'seed bed' for 21st century , Aug. 8
- LCWR 'gathers collective wisdom' of members to discern next steps , Aug. 8
- LCWR past presidents reflect on Vatican mandate , Aug. 7
- LCWR to determine course at next week's annual meeting , July 31
For related commentary see:
- The Vatican, LCWR, and Definitions of Dialogue By Kevin Aschenbrenner
- What LCWR teaches us about church leadership By Jamie L. Manson
- Are these sisters dangerous women? By Patrick T. Reardon
- The Second Vatican Council has already made us free By Robert Blair Kaiser | <urn:uuid:e57f9e0f-2133-478e-8ee7-540efe177565> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ncronline.org/print/news/are-these-sisters-dangerous-women | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965878 | 1,827 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Today I found myself thinking about life as I made my coffee. Perhaps in response to the death in our family earlier this week.
But also because I’d been lazy the day before and not cleaned my milk steaming wand thingiemajig and had to do it before I made today’s coffee.
Which got me to thinking about how life really can be likened to a cup of coffee. Way more than it can a box of chocolates!
Now before you all tell me I’ve finally lost it, let me explain..
You cannot make a good coffee without the right equipment. Same goes for being equipped to handle life when you think about it.
Even if you are fortunate enough to have the best beans, an expensive / fantastic machine and other necessary coffee making paraphernalia but you don’t know how to use it – you will still not be able to make a good coffee. Education, understanding and / or learning how to do things (then applying those learnings!) .. life isn’t likely to go well if you don’t get a handle on the important things.
Well done you, so you’ve mastered how to use all the equipment, you’ve found the perfect beans after many trials of the myriad brands out there. But you don’t bother to maintain the coffee machine. This will result in a poor quality coffee, eventually. Oh sure, you may get away with it for some time.. but eventually that lack of care will come back to bite you. And generally it’ll be when you’re in most need of your fix, that’s just the rules!
Just like our bodies, the equipment required to enable us to live. Let it fall into a state of disrepair and see how UN-fun life can become. And oftentimes life will seem to get us while we’re down, making that lack of health even more difficult to deal with.
Every morning when I make my coffee there are a couple of things I do, they’re kinda silly but I do ‘em none-the-less!
1. I gaze contentedly into the mug as I wait for the extraction to take place. In just under 30 seconds I can tell if my coffee is perfect or not. And when it is perfect, that moment is something tragically cool. Yes. I’m an addict
2. When I’ve heated the milk and stretched the proteins JUST so, pouring the silky-smooth bubble-free liquid into the coffee, I always take a second to stare at it as I anticipate how good it will be to sit down and drink it!
My morning coffee isn’t just about having a coffee. It’s a ritual, no two ways about it!
However, if you were to be too fixated on admiring your lovely coffee every day such that you don’t dive into it while it’s in optimal condition (ie perfect for consumption!) then you will find you’ve left it too late and the coffee will not be as good as it was. At the same time, you do want to be sure to savour the coffee and get the most out of it having put all that effort into making your coffee just the way you like it.
Knowing when to act, when to admire your handiwork and when to dive on in and keep going – all handy skills in life.
And sometimes - for no particular reason – I make a bad coffee. I’ve had this coffee machine for 7 or so years now and in that time I’ve made a minimum of one coffee a day. Which works out to around 3000 cups of coffee. Allowing a few extras for visitors .. And I can totally tell at a glance if the coffee is any good.
I can also tell by the smell, it’s over extracted and also – hard to explain but it’s kinda.. watery. The crema is all wrong and at this point I have to man up and throw it out – even tho it seems wasteful to do so. Even though I may be down to the last few beans. Even though I may be desperately wanting a coffee. Or in a hurry.
I have to choose. Throw it out / dispose of it. Or have a bad coffee experience?
Just like life. Sometimes we have to choose to stop something, because we aren’t going to enjoy it or it’s going wrong. That is one of the hardest things to do, I know!
So now can you see why I think life is MUCH more like a cup of coffee than it is a box of chocolates? | <urn:uuid:07d02969-6d74-4742-ae09-949ede18d26b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://joanspiller.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/mama-was-wrong-life-is-more-like-a-cup-of-coffee/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9591 | 979 | 1.554688 | 2 |
I did a bit more research on my 3rd great-grandmother Susan William Lee (Martin) Kennedy. Now that’s a mouthful! I was rechecking GenealogyBank, to check the dates on a couple of mentions, and I found a new interest of Mrs. Kennedy’s: she was the president of the Old Ladies Home Society of Texas, based in Houston. This organization was established in the early 1900′s to help elderly women who were low-income or indigent.
This from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, dated 25 May 1904:
I may have figured out why I can’t find her in the 1900 or 1910 censuses. She was traveling all over Texas raising money for the Old Ladies Home! I found articles about Mrs. Kennedy and the Old Ladies Home in the Dallas Morning News, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the San Antonio Daily Messenger. Places mentioned (besides the homes of the various newspapers) include Corsicana, Mineral Wells, Austin, Denton and Houston. In fact, the more that I research into her life, I see it may be time for a timeline!
Did I mention what a wonderful resource GenealogyBank is?
I have also added a To-do page to this site, to remind me of documents or images I need, plans for research trips, etc. | <urn:uuid:cdb38d4b-d092-49d7-acf2-7edd42fbb5c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ruthsgenealogy.com/2008/04/22/finishing-up-with-mrs-kennedy/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=57db9114c5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950621 | 281 | 1.65625 | 2 |
(KCEN) -- China is strongly denying one of it's military units has anything to do with a series of hacking attacks around the world.
A report by a Virginia-based U.S. computer security company identified a Shanghai military unit as the most likely driver behind the hacking.
According to the report, the unit in Shanghai stole hundreds of terabytes of data from more than 140 organizations dating back to 2006.
The report says most of the targeted organizations were in the U.S., while others were in Canada and the UK.
A spokesman for China's foreign ministry said the continuous criticism based on what he called, "rudimentary data," is irresponsible and unprofessional. | <urn:uuid:0a0a0cde-5b67-4d01-a7de-69df540250e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcentv.com/story/21288993/china-denying-involvement-in-hacking-attacks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980091 | 140 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Prior to the first Obama-Romney debate, some critics blasted polls as Democratic-leaning.
The more accurate statement: Polls reflect the people more willing to answer pollsters at the time of the poll. And now, it seems Republicans are the more motivated interviewees.
Before the debate
Before the debate, Democratic voters were motivated. After the conventions, President Obama’s lead had been growing slowly but steadily. A September poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press showed Obama with a 51-43 lead over Romney.
A look at the poll’s sample shows a greater number of Democratic voters responding:
Soon after, Republican candidate Mitt Romney committed several gaffes (e.g. his reaction to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and the “47 percent” comment), and it seemed Obama’s lead was growing. Some Republicans even came out publicly with their frustrations with Romney’s campaign.
After the debate
But then came the first debate, which, by most accounts, Romney won handily. Republicans and conservatives were energized by his feisty, focused performance.
And, it seems, they became more willing to answer pollsters’ questions.
The latest Pew poll released Oct. 8 showed Romney above Obama among likely voters, with a 49-45 advantage.
Unlike earlier polls, Pew captured marginally more Republican voters than Democrats:
Does that mean the poll is “biased”? Pollsters say no because you are grabbing a random sample of the entire U.S. population, which gives everyone an equal shot at participating. Polls are a moving target, something that the sage Nate Silver reminds of consistently in his must-read FiveThirtyEight blog; it’s best to look at a collection of polls and make sense of the aggregated data.
One concrete conclusion we can draw: The race is extremely tight, and at this stage, it’s impossible to know how many of those who say they support Obama or Romney today actually come out to vote for those candidates on Election Day. | <urn:uuid:011673ad-7d9f-4165-b612-038e51a32eec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://grovesprof.wordpress.com/2012/10/13/interpreting-polls-motivated-interviewees-motivated-voters/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968826 | 432 | 1.671875 | 2 |
At Primal, Morris develops methods for learning the timing skill RJJ exhibits in the clip, which has several components. This post will describe one drill which helps develop timing, that is the ability to see the opponents’ strikes/kicks/shoots etc coming and get your response in before it arrives. In essence it’s a drill to learn cues by attending to them with peripheral vision. As such a person should avoid staring at the shoulder during a jab feed, with central vision, or tunneling as Steve calls it. Rather the trick is to look at the eyes/face and to let the peripheral vision, which is set up to respond to movement, do its job.
Firstly, it’s important to note that the drill is NOT a fight. It’s easy to get drawn into a bit of competitive ‘argy bargy’, but the idea is to strip the fight down to a level where all anxiety of being hit is removed so that both participants can get to grips with learning the cues preceding their opponents strikes. That is, in order to be able to beat your opponent to the punch, you have to see his/her shot coming. To facilitate this ability, your training partner is required to feed you a cue, on Sunday we started off with a jab, which is thrown in a biomechanically correct manner but the strike is not finished, Steve described it as hitting skin deep. The drill should be considered a flow drill.
The feeder provides a jab which can be exaggerated to ensure that the cue is obvious. The receiver then works off the jab, evading, covering, covering and striking, making angles etc. , the idea is to experiment to see what you can work into the ‘interval of time’, it can be anything. Because the drill is ‘slow’ it’s easy to become floppy or sloppy as the receiver, it’s essential that you do not. You need to stay alert and sharp, and reflect this in your responses to the feed. It’s quite a subtle thing, but brings the drill alive.
The feeder can then start experimenting with how the jab is fed, and use other feeds to develop the drill, including kicks. Any kind of strike can be fed, so that the cue preceding it can be learned, as long as the basic rules are applied; slow exaggerated feed, skin deep power, correct biomechanics, alert responses, flowing
action, peripheral vision. It’s a method that begins to give the participants an appreciation of the interval of time.
The drill can then progress across all the ranges of the fight, so that hand fighting, clinching, throws etc. can all be included. As the range closes the cues become rather more kinaesthetic than visual, but the premise is consistent. It is up to the fighters to go through their repertoire of their abilities so that nothing is excluded. For the sake of continuity of the flow drill, rather than performing a throw every time it’s useful to do a ‘touch drill’ within the main drill and only complete the
throw occasionally. That means that the position for the throw or takedown is assumed and the required body part is ‘captured’ or simply touched as appropriate, it saves getting up all the time.
Once a chance to have a go at the various distances has been achieved, the whole thing is put back together, so the feeder feeds anything and the receiver responds as appropriate. At this stage it is then possible to increase the volume somewhat to begin testing the cue responses under a little more pressure. This part must still be regulated as it should not become a fight thereby preventing any anxiety of being hit and/or tunnel vision creeping in. Steve gets us to do this in short duration bursts, something along the lines of; flow-flow-flow-volume up, flow-flow-flow-volume up, etc.
It’s a great drill which brings results.
Originally posted 2009-08-07 08:00:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter | <urn:uuid:b5937c89-646f-43dd-b545-e07dfd95fc58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epicmartialartsblog.com/speed-2-timing-part-two/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960315 | 843 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The purpose of this retrospective study was to analyze the functional and radiographic results of cementless, modular total hip arthroplasty combined with subtrochanteric osteotomy for the treatment of patients who had had Crowe Group-IV developmental dysplasia of the hip as a child.Methods:
Twenty-five consecutive patients (thirty-three hips) who had previously had Crowe Group-IV developmental dysplasia of the hip were treated with a modular cementless prosthesis at a mean age of sixty years. The mean follow-up period was eight years (range, five to eleven years). The acetabular cup was placed in the position of the anatomical hip center in every patient. Subtrochanteric femoral shortening osteotomy was performed with use of a step-cut design.Results:
The mean Merle d'Aubigné and Postel hip score improved from 9 to 16 points (out of a maximum of 18 points). The mean limb-length discrepancy in seventeen patients with unilateral involvement was reduced from 5.1 cm (range, 3.7 to 6.5 cm) to 2.8 cm (range, 1.4 to 4.6 cm). Two patients had a positive Trendelenburg sign, and three had a slight limp at the time of the latest follow-up. No cases of nonunion or nerve palsy were encountered. Postoperative dislocations occurred in two hips. One hip showed progressive radiolucent lines around the proximal femoral sleeve within two years after the surgery, and this was followed by progressive stem subsidence. Only one femoral stem was revised.Conclusions:
Cementless, modular total hip arthroplasty combined with subtrochanteric osteotomy for the treatment of patients with prior Crowe Group-IV developmental dysplasia of the hip resulted in satisfactory outcomes. Hips with poor bone quality and a developmentally short femoral neck present technical challenges with regard to achieving sufficient rotatory stability, following osteotomy, for osseointegration of the modular implants.Level of Evidence:
Therapeutic Level IV. See Instructions to Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. | <urn:uuid:b99a6fbb-0c1d-45de-b4b2-50313fdbe715> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jbjs.org/article.aspx?articleid=6244 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940726 | 448 | 1.5625 | 2 |
With the latest round of surprisingly dismal manufacturing data, there is no longer much doubt that China’s economy is sputtering, with tepid domestic demand unable to counteract weakness abroad. The question is what Beijing will be able to do about it.
HSBC’s flash PMI index fell to 49.6 in May, the lowest since September, falling short of analyst expectations that it would be unchanged from April’s 50.4 level. A number above 50 indicates growth; a number below it indicates contraction.
“A sequential slowdown is likely in the middle of 2Q, casting downside risk to China’s fragile growth recovery,” said Hongbin Qu, HSBC’s chief China economist. He said that labor market weakness in particular called for more aggressive steps by the government and argued that “Beijing still has fiscal ammunition to do so.”
But policymakers’ options to stimulate the economy are looking pretty limited. Consumer demand is weak, and China already has more factories than it needs. As Quartz’s Gwynn Guilford wrote earlier this month, “It might work as a short-term fix, but investment is very clearly the last thing China needs in the longer run.” Boosting investment will only inflate the country’s real estate bubble further and add to the scary quantities of sketchy debt being held by lenders.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said earlier this month, “If we want to achieve this year’s growth targets, the room for stimulus and direct government investment is not large—we need to rely on market mechanisms.”
Those market mechanisms don’t seem to be working in China’s favor. | <urn:uuid:d67c03dd-442b-45f8-8fa8-aeb737e2af4b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://qz.com/?.tsrc=samsungwn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954535 | 357 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Monarchies are not ruled by polls. A King is not elected. Polls do not really concern them. Numbers can be manipulated to get the desired result. A case in point is the poll conducted by Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet and published Wednesday. 'Six out of ten Swedes want King to abdicate' reported media outlets the world over.
True or false?
Sixty percent of the 1,000 Swedes interviewed by SIFO in December indicated they would like to see the King hand over the crown to his eldest daughter Crown Princess Victoria. Six out of ten indeed. But, wait. That is only part of the story. No less than 23 percent want him to do so in ten years time, another 20 percent in five years, leaving only a meagre 17 percent for him to do so this year. Hardly alarming.
Which also means that the largest number of Swedes (32 percent) want him to continue indefinitedly.. Quite different from the headlines.
© RB Hans Jacobs; Photo by © RPE | <urn:uuid:dd104540-e37e-47b2-9e69-937d046e01e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gpdhome.typepad.com/royalblognl_news_summary/2013/01/king-carl-xvi-gustaf-strange-poll-result.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972533 | 219 | 1.570313 | 2 |
|Date||22 September 2008|
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High-level plenary meeting on the theme "Africa's development needs: state of implementation of various commitments, challenges and the way forward"
Agenda item 57 (continued)
New Partnership for Africa's Development: progress in implementation and international support
(a) New Partnership for Africa's Development: progress in implementation and international support
Draft resolution (A/63/L.1)
The Assembly will now take a decision on draft resolution A/63/L.1, entitled "Political declaration on Africa's development needs". May I take it that the Assembly wishes to adopt draft resolution A/63/L.1?
I now call on the President of the United Republic of Tanzania and Chairman of the African Union, His Excellency Mr. Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete.
This has been a great day for Africa. The adoption of the political declaration is yet another strong signal of the United Nations commitment to Africa's future and of the international community's partnership with Africa.
I welcome the strong statements of support for Africa made at the opening plenary meeting, as well as the refreshing and frank discussions in the round tables on Africa's challenges, the state of implementation of various commitments and, especially, the way forward. I was also happy with the fact that there were 15 side events on topics ranging from women and development to the food crisis, energy and the challenge of governance. The side events witnessed a remarkable assembly of expertise on Africa-African and non-African alike. The outcome of those discussions certainly enriched the political declaration that we adopted here a few minutes ago.
I also welcome the press conference alongside Mr. Donald Kaberuka, President of the African Development Bank. We had a chance to engage the United Nations press corps.
It has been a successful day for Africa. There has been a lot of talk in the past about Africa's development; today, I was encouraged by the tremendous resolve to act. Let us go forth with renewed momentum so that, when we look back on this day, we can testify that we were there when history was made -- indeed, when the world awoke to its moral and shared responsibility towards Africa.
Statement by the President
I wish from the outset to express my gratitude to my facilitators, the Permanent Representatives of Angola and the Netherlands, for conducting the intergovernmental consultations on the declaration we have just adopted.
We have come to the end of our day of dynamic deliberations on Africa's special development needs. Now comes the hard part: keeping the promises. Let us not repeat history by breaking them. Let us rise to the occasion and make poverty history instead.
The declaration we have just adopted, by consensus, contains an agenda for action: urgent action. Eradicating poverty, particularly in Africa is the greatest global challenge facing the world today. Our declaration says that it is a global challenge that must be addressed, by and large, by the only truly global institution: the United Nations. That is why the declaration states that a stronger Africa requires a stronger United Nations.
The declaration and our exchange today have strengthened my conviction that we have chosen the right priorities for this session of the General Assembly: Africa's priorities are the Assembly's priorities. Apart from the great global challenge of poverty, the food crisis is prominently featured, along with its potentially ruinous impact on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. Also key is Africa's vulnerability to the effects of climate change and the need for new and additional resources to deal with them. Moreover, Africa's own commitments to the water and sanitation goals are highlighted in the declaration, along with the need to place women's empowerment at the heart of development policies.
The democratization of the United Nations, the key objective of the General Assembly, resonates in this document as well: we read about "the need to enhance the voice and participation of developing countries in policymaking in the areas of trade, money and finance" (para. 19). While this high-level meeting itself reinforces international democratization by raising the profile of the world's most representative organ -- the General Assembly -- we need to ensure that each single voice counts and that the Assembly can make the difference.
It is high time for the General Assembly to take back from the Group of Eight (G8) and the Bretton Woods institutions the initiative in the development debate in general and with regard to Africa in particular: no barricades, no barbed wire, no tear gas. We need to move the debate from seclusion to inclusion: that is what development is all about and that is what only this Assembly can offer.
The General Assembly is the body where the African continent constitutes the largest group and where the African voice is heard at its loudest and clearest. But we are not listening to that voice nearly enough: according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), less than half of all aid is directed towards the national priorities of developing country Governments. Many here have denounced the fall in official development assistance (ODA), including the portion allocated to agriculture, a priority of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) from the start, which stands now at only 7 per cent of overall development assistance. That, coupled with the agricultural subsidies granted by developed countries, portrays a catastrophic scenario, which must be addressed if we are to defeat the ongoing food crisis.
Railroading African Governments by ignoring NEPAD's priorities will not get the continent on track for attaining the Millennium Development Goals. Rallying around African priorities instead will go a long way, and the Assembly can lead the way. That is what we have seen today.
I will not try to summarize today's rich discussion. Let me briefly highlight some common threads. There is a sense of emergency, and concrete actions must follow suit. Africa's future ultimately lies in the hands of Africans themselves: development starts at home. But it is clear that Africa's efforts must be complemented with a substantial change in international economic and trade policies. In that regard, debt relief must be tackled more aggressively so as to free the necessary funds for social investment instead of paying what has become an ad vitam aeternam debt. There is also a huge expectation that donor countries will ultimately abide by their pledges and fulfil their commitments to double ODA by 2010.
Home-grown political and economic reforms, including those focused on strengthening democracy and human rights and creating a healthy private sector, need to be complemented with resources from the outside: Africa lacks the resources to pull itself out of the poverty trap alone.
International aid is not just a matter of the heart. It is also a matter of the head, a matter of real and concrete political will. An African renaissance is in the common interest. If we are to bring about that renaissance, we need to look beyond aid alone: development, security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing -- they form a trinity. Hence the imperious necessity to concentrate our efforts on the social development of Africa: the sine qua non condition for peace, security and respect for all human rights.
Many participants pointed out that today's meeting is the first in a series of three this autumn. Today is about Africa, about the place on which we need to concentrate our development efforts. The second meeting, this Thursday, 25 September, is about the Millennium Development Goals and the themes that require more attention. And finally, the upcoming Financing for Development Review Conference to take place in November in Doha will be about how to muster the financial resources and the political resolve to keep our promises. We must closely monitor whether commitments are indeed being turned into concrete actions. I am pleased that the declaration sets the basis for such a monitoring mechanism.
Before I close, I want to pay tribute to President Thabo Mbeki. During his presidency of the rainbow nation, spanning nearly a decade, he, along other African leaders, championed the vision of NEPAD we still pursue today. When the affluent listen to Africa and partner with it, that vision is within reach. To quote NEPAD's founding document: "In fulfilling its promise, this agenda must give hope to the emaciated African child that the twenty-first century is indeed Africa's century" (A/57/304, annex, para. 207).
As was highlighted this morning, today's mantra should be "implementation": implementation of all the commitments to our African brothers and sisters. After speeches of solemnity comes the test of solidarity.
The Assembly has thus concluded its high-level plenary meeting on the theme "Africa's development needs: state of implementation of various commitments, challenges and the way forward". The Assembly has also thus concluded this stage of its consideration of sub-item (a) of agenda item 57. | <urn:uuid:9e68861b-2f2a-4a5c-80c1-4b1b001b698a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.undemocracy.com/generalassembly_63/meeting_4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939867 | 1,929 | 1.507813 | 2 |
BUZZARDS BAY – A 93-foot tugboat ran aground overnight near the west end of the Cape Cod Canal, spilling about 300 gallons of hydraulic oil, according to the vessel's owners.
The tugboat Justice hit the bottom near Stony Point, off Wareham, around midnight, Coast Guard Petty Officer Adam Stanton said.
The westbound tug, owned by Staten Island-based Reinauer Transportation Cos., was not pulling a vessel at the time of the accident, Stanton said.
However, the tug was with another boat at the time it went aground, said Ross Ruddell, public affairs specialist with the 1st Coast Guard District in Boston. Ruddell did not know the name of the other vessel.
The canal was closed to marine traffic for the morning, but had reopened by 1 p.m., according to Joseph Ferson, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection.
A statement posted on Reinauer's website said the tug lost its lower starboard drive unit, and the unit leaked 300 gallons of the 625 gallons of hydraulic oil contained within it.
The company said the crewman responsible for steering the tug was immediately administered alcohol and drug tests. The alcohol test was negative; the independent lab processing the drug test will have results in a few days, according to the statement.
The company said it is cooperating with the Coast Guard and working with an environmental company to clean up the hydraulic oil.
Ruddell said that Reinauer will be responsible for the cost of the cleanup, as well as any fines or penalties should they be levied. The Coast Guard and the Massachusetts Environmental Police are investigating, Ruddell said.
“Environmental safety is of the utmost importance to Reinauer – and care of the environment is paramount,” Bert Reinauer, vice president, said in the statement. “As soon as we learned about the accident, our emergency team rushed to the scene with our environmental cleanup crew to contain and clean up the spill.”
The cause of the accident is under investigation, Stanton said.
It's a small amount of fuel compared to the thousands of gallons that spilled in 2003 when the Tank Barge Bouchard No. 120. struck rocks and spilled 98,000 gallons of heavy oil into Buzzards Bay.
But even a small spill can harm shorebirds, said Brendan Annett, vice president of watershed protection for the Buzzards Bay Coalition, a nonprofit that protects the bay.
Waterfowl are particularly vulnerable right now, he said. Birds are migrating back from their winter grounds, while sea ducks, for example, are preparing to leave for the summer, he said.
No reports of oiled birds have been reported, but it is early in the cleanup, Ferson said.
The Justice was heading through the canal after leaving Boston, according to Moses Calouro, of Maritime Information Systems Inc., which develops Web-based software applications for the maritime industry and also tracks vessels equipped with automatic identification system transponders.
The tug is scheduled to undergo repairs at Senesco Drydock, according to the company's statement. Reinauer has already located the detached drive unit, used in steering the tug, and was sending a diver to prepare the unit to be removed from the bay with a crane barge on Thursday, the company statement said.
“We are very sorry this accident occurred, and we take responsibility for our actions,” Reinauer said in the statement, “and we are devoting all our resources and working with the U.S. Coast Guard's investigation.”
Annett said the accident underscores the need for laws, such as the Massachusetts Oil Spill Prevention Act of 2004, which requires tugboat escorts for single- and double-hulled oil barges.
“This shows that accidents do happen,” Annett said. “I'm awfully glad that this wasn't an oil barge.” | <urn:uuid:6ef841c1-951d-4119-8759-84fa3c4891c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130321/NEWS11/130329950/-1/rss04 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96007 | 809 | 1.5 | 2 |
WASHINGTON -- In its final weeks before leaving office, the Bush administration took a series of little-noticed steps to allow the petroleum industry to avoid hundreds of millions of dollars in additional royalty and interest payments to the government.
At the same time, Bush administration officials lowered the government fees for some ranchers who graze livestock on federal lands.
The actions were taken in late December and January as outgoing administration officials prepared to relinquish control to the Democrats. They are only now coming to light as Clinton administration appointees sort through the issues before their departments.
Yesterday, Mr. Clinton's interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, issued an order rescinding one of the oil and gas decisions, which had forestalled government efforts to collect certain royalty payments. He said that the government claim for the money was fully consistent with "existing departmental regulations and practice."
The Bush administration actions dealt with issues that in some cases had been under review by federal agencies for years. Several involved large sums for the parties involved.
Officials who served the Bush administration say that all the cases had been thoroughly considered at the appropriate levels and were ready for resolution.
Nevertheless, some acknowledge that they were conscious of their expiring authority and wanted to make sure the final decisions carried their stamp rather than their successors'.
"There was a group of people who basically felt that Republicans should stop governing after the election and I happen to dispute that notion," said John E. Schrote, a former Department of Interior assistant secretary who was involved in many of the actions.
Indeed, he said, "I did particularly take a look at policies and things we could accomplish before we left office and I set out to get those things done."
Cabinet members are seeking to determine which, if any, should be rescinded and how difficult that might be to do.
Also receiving new scrutiny is an action taken in October, four days before the election that allowed businessmen in Arizona to delay the first installment payment on a $2.3 billion debt to the federal government for a massive water project. | <urn:uuid:3771c033-2218-4486-a38f-b909c0baa568> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1993-02-11/news/1993042227_1_bush-administration-government-payments | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98265 | 416 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Last week I flew from Toronto to New York, and when I handed my passport and customs form to the immigration officer, a big beefy guy with a blond crewcut, he asked, "I see you're an American citizen. Why do you live in Israel?" My mouth dropped. I couldn't even begin to answer, and was moved to smile as I contemplated the impossibility of explaining to him what I can hardly explain to myself and briefly, yet. My smile did not cut it, and while I was searching for something to say, he continued, "You don't like it in the United States?" "No, that's not it, I do like the United States, it's just " By then he had stamped my passport and handed it back to me without expression. What was he thinking? Does he ask this often? What answers does he get?
I guess I could have quoted him this midrash, from Sifrei, Re'eh:
It happened that Rabbi Judah ben Baterah and Rabbi Matyah ben Charash and Rabbi Chaninah ben Achi and Rabbi Joshua ben Yonatan were traveling abroad When they remembered the land of Israel, they lifted up their eyes and their tears flowed, and they tore their clothes, and read this verse: " When you have occupied [the land] and settled in it, take care to observe all the laws and rules that I have set before you this day." [Deuteronomy 11:31-32]. And they returned home, and said: "Dwelling in the land of Israel outweighs all of the commandments in the Torah."
Why do I live in Israel? Because no matter how emancipated we are in Chicago, no matter how rich a Jewish life we live in Toronto, no matter what wonderful traditions of social involvement we maintain in the North American Diaspora, it is still the next best thing to being there there in the Promised Land, there in the only place where all the laws and rules are relevant. Note that the four rabbis in the midrash did not weep because they had been exiled, because they were persecuted or rootless. They were only on a business trip or maybe even a vacation cruise. They wept when they realized how much of the Torah they were setting aside by absenting themselves from Eretz Yisrael. In voluntarily leaving the land, even temporarily, they were abandoning dozens of "mitzvah opportunities."
Of course, the first thing that comes to mind when we think of "land-dependent mitzvot" is the whole complex of laws surrounding the Temple and the sacrifices. However, even in the absence of the Temple and sovereignty, there are many mitzvot that are only relevant within the borders of Eretz Yisrael: primarily agricultural laws such as tithing, and the sabbatical year. Traditionally, that's the understanding of what the rabbis were crying over.
For me, the midrash can also be understood in a less literal way. As a Jew in America, I am responsible for my own behavior as a Jew, for my own mitzvot, within a larger context that sees that responsibility as my own individual concern. As a Jew in a Jewish state, I am responsible for the behavior of the whole state according to Jewish values, within a larger context that sees the state as representing Judaism and the Jewish people hence, the image of the state sanctifies or profanes God's name, whether we like it or not. Why were those four rabbis crying on their vacation? it's those of us who live here, with this unbearable responsibility, who should be crying. | <urn:uuid:3ff94a11-69f4-4db7-aa88-5f676434cbb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://urj.org/learning/teacheducate/publications/galilee/?syspage=article&item_id=2546 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980328 | 751 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Whether you take it as a single shot or a double, a great Barista want’s to know the details on what’s happening with the espresso machine. [Tobi] was happily generating the morning cup when he realized that the needle-thermometer on his machine wasn’t working any longer. Instead of shelling out a lot of money for a direct replacement, he built his own display and controller for this espresso machine (translated).
He had a few goals with this hack. Obviously he needed to replace the temperature meter, but he also wanted a colorful display and some timing options. He was able to get his hands on a nice little OLED display that would fit in the vacated opening and it only cost a few bucks. He’s got his own mini-mill which came in handy when fabricating a board to host the ATmega16 which drives add-on, but he also used it to make a bracket for the screen replacement.
Now his machine is fixed, looks a bit more modern, and it has more features which are shown off in the video after the break. If you’re looking to add some custom circuitry to your coffee ritual you may also take some inspiration from this similar espresso machine hack. | <urn:uuid:ef3109c9-a375-4be2-b321-ace6419880b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hackaday.com/2012/01/23/espresso-upgrade-gives-you-more-data-with-your-caffeine/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=104f7cb3e5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975485 | 255 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Beacon Awards salute trailblazers
Frank Robinson among honorees at second-annual awards
As it did a year ago, Major League Baseball will salute a man on Friday who blazed trails for others of color in a sport that helped reshape American society.
In Memphis, Tenn., baseball, its legends and its fans will pay homage to Hall of Fame outfielder Frank Robinson for his contributions to the sport.
Robinson will be one of three honorees during the second annual Beacon Awards.
Henry Aaron, Minnie Minoso, Joe Morgan and Joseph Lowery, the latter of whom co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957 with the Rev. Martin Luther King, will headline a star-studded lineup of dignitaries at an awards dinner during which Robinson, actress/writer/social activist Ruby Dee and the late publishing tycoon John H. Johnson will receive Beacon Awards.
The Beacon Awards, which Commissioner Bud Selig established last year, honor people who have made significant contributions to civil rights and to the betterment of baseball. They are part of a week-long celebration of baseball and its ties to the civil rights movement.
As part of the celebration, baseball will hold its second annual Civil Rights Game, sponsored by AutoZone, on Saturday. The Chicago White Sox will take on the New York Mets in an exhibition game at 5 p.m. ET in the Triple-A home of the Memphis Redbirds. ESPN and MLB.TV will broadcast the game live, with pregame shows beginning at 4 p.m. ET.
Proceeds from all Civil Rights Game events go to charities, which include the National Civil Rights Museum, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation, the MLB Urban Youth Foundation and Realizing the Dream, an organization dedicated to continuing the legacy and work of the King family.
During his career, Robinson contributed as much as anyone else to these causes. His playing days produced elite numbers, and in 1974, he broke one of the remaining barriers for black men in baseball: managing a team.
The Cleveland Indians hired the tough-minded Robinson, after giving consideration for the job to Larry Doby, to take over a storied franchise that had long played a role in bringing diversity to the game.
"If I had one wish in the world today," Robinson said on the day his hiring was made official, "it would be that Jackie Robinson was here to see this happen."
But what Frank Robinson did was keep the trailblazing spirit of Jackie Robinson alive, even though baseball and society had made great strides since the summer of 1947, when Robinson first played for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Frank Robinson never did see his job as a manager as anything more than what others who held the job had done.
Groundbreaking, yes. Robinson understood the historical aspect of the job, but he was also mindful of what it meant to baseball fans.
"People come out to see the players," he once said on the CBS show "Face the Nation." "When do you see a manager anyway? When he's out on the field arguing with the umpires, making a fool of himself and you know you can't win, and when he brings out the lineup card."
Even after his managing days ended, Frank Robinson remained a leading figure in baseball's effort to diversify the game. He held administrative positions with Major League teams and in the Commissioner's Office.
His contribution to the game featured the same drive to improve it that the late Buck O'Neil, the first winner of the Beacon of Life Award, displayed.
And much like O'Neil, Robinson has spent a lion's share of his life as an ambassador for the game.
At the awards dinner on Friday, Dee will receive the MLB Beacon of Change Award for championing civil rights. Presented last year to filmmaker Spike Lee, the award is given to a person who inspires innovative social thought through his or her creative works.
As for Johnson, he will receive the MLB Beacon of Hope Award posthumously for using his enormous resources to nurture future journalists when he endowed the John H. Johnson School of Communications at Howard University.
Considered a trailblazer in the publishing industry, Johnson founded Ebony and Jet magazines, two publications that chronicled the history of black people and put a spotlight on their culture.
The inaugural Beacon of Hope went to Vera Clemente, widow of Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, for her dedication to local youth through the development and operation of Ciudad Deportiva in her native Puerto Rico.
The Beacon of Hope is given to a person who invests in his or her country's future through helping youth.
Justice B. Hill is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | <urn:uuid:94c1c920-8f6e-45c6-9411-f9b618c67d6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://chicago.whitesox.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080325&content_id=2456264&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb | 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 | 0.970221 | 992 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Google recently announced the release of the Knowledge Graph, a new feature designed to “help you discover new information quickly and easily” by providing informative answers to informational queries directly in the SERP. In other words, for search queries that are typically answered by a high-ranking, ever-present Wikipedia page, some of that top-level information can now be found on the results page itself, so you don’t necessarily have to click through to another site. For example, if you google “Mae West,” you see some basic information (date of birth and death, height, name of spouse, and some of her more well-known movies, as well as related figures) to the right of the organic search results (click to enlarge):
Yesterday, I was talking to Larry about different types of search queries and which ones are likely to serve up the most ads. Informational or question queries, like “who is Thomas Edison” or “area of a circle,” are the least likely to match any paid ads, because they’re not commercial in nature (compare to a high-intent commercial query like “dell flat-screen monitor”). There are generally no sponsored results for these queries because they have little to no value to businesses or Google.
So Google doesn’t stand to make any revenue for these types of queries. But someone at Google was thinking, what do we stand to gain here? That’s when I had my epiphany: By placing highly relevant and trustworthy information to the right of the organic search results, Google is training the eye to “see” that part of the screen. If savvy users trust that area less, because they know it’s full of paid ads, this may subtly persuade them to start paying attention to that area of the screen.
Eye tracking studies have shown that most people (70-80%) don’t look at the right-hand side of the screen, where a lot of the sponsored results show up. This image is via Search Engine Land:
Google has responded to this by giving the sponsored ads more and more territory on the SERP – more and bigger ads at the top, extensions in the middle of the page and so on. The Knowledge Graph may be just another strategy – and a totally different kind of strategy – to take back that space and change how people think about it. As you can see, it’s the same real estate that is devoted to Product Listing Ads on more transactional queries (click to enlarge):
And they both have pretty pictures!
What do you think? Does my conspiracy theory hold any water, or is Google just genuinely trying to help? | <urn:uuid:86856c04-daf2-44f3-b37a-1271da4aabea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2012/07/12/google-knowledge-graph-conspiracy-theory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951813 | 560 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Three followers of notorious cult leader Charles Manson have been housed at California Men’s Colony, Charles “Tex” Watson, Bobby Beausoleil and Bruce Davis.
The Manson Family, as the members were described, were involved in at least nine Southern California murders in 1969.
Bruce Davis, now 67, was convicted for involvement in the murders of musician Gary Hinman and ranch hand Donald “Shorty” Shea.
Davis was not charged with being involved in the seven Tate-LaBianca murders.
Thirty-eight years after being convicted and 26 parole hearings later, Davis has a parole recommendation.
It is the first step in an up to five month process that also requires final approval by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other parole board members.
Few Manson Family members have been paroled.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, an associate of Charles Manson, was paroled in 2009 after her 1975 attempt to assassinate then-president Gerald Ford.
Steve Grogan was paroled in 1985 after leading authorities to the grave of Donald “Shorty” Shea.
For many years Davis denied that he had been directly responsible for the killings though his palm print was found on a footlocker owned by Shea.
Davis attorney Michael Beckman told the Associated Press his client acknowledged for the first time that he shared responsibility for the Hinman/Shea murders.
“He said, ‘I was as responsible as everyone there,’ ” Beckman said.
Ten years ago I was in the room when the parole board denied parole for Davis at his 20th hearing. The board took their task seriously as did the subject. Here is the story published then in the Tribune. Patrick S. Pemberton has written other stories from other Davis hearings and he may have a blog post soon on the subject.
MANSON FOLLOWER DENIED PAROLE
CMC INMATE DAVIS SERVING TIME FOR TWO MURDERS
July 19, 2000
by Patrick S. Pemberton
After years of unanimous rejections, a former member of the Manson clan came within one vote of a parole recommendation Tuesday.
In a hearing at the California Men’s Colony, a three-member parole board voted 2-1 to keep Bruce Davis in prison. The board also agreed to reconsider his parole next year. Although it marked the 20th time Davis has been denied parole, his attorney said the hearing represents significant progress for the man who was convicted of two murders in 1972.
“It’s been a long, long time,” George Denny said afterward. “And I think, finally, the message is getting through: Bruce is ready for parole.”
All of Davis’ previous hearings resulted in unanimous decisions denying parole.
The prosecutor who handled the case 28 years ago said Davis needs to be reminded of his crimes daily.
“The only way he’s going to be forced to remember these awful crimes every day is through his incarceration,” Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Anthony Manzella told the board.
While one commissioner felt Davis had served his time, the two who voted against parole indicated that Davis was almost ready for release.
The shift in opinion represents just one step toward freedom, though. Even if parole was recommended, it would have to be reviewed by the Board of Prison Terms and Gov. Gray Davis, who has said he opposes releasing convicted murderers from prison.
Charles Manson and his “family” terrorized Southern California in 1969 during a murder spree that claimed at least eight victims, including actress Sharon Tate. Several members of the clan are now serving life sentences. Charles Manson, who is imprisoned at Corcoran, is set to appear for a parole hearing in 2002.
Davis was convicted of killing musician Gary Hinman and stagehand Donald “Shorty” Shea, who were both stabbed to death in the summer of 1969.
During his parole hearing, the 57-year-old, gray-haired inmate appeared calm, sitting with his legs crossed and hands folded. Originally from Louisiana and Tennessee, he still spoke with a Southern accent as he recalled first meeting Manson in California.
Davis, whose father was an abusive alcoholic, found Manson engaging.
“I had adopted Charlie as my dad,” he said.
Even after the group began committing crimes, he said he was dependent on them and could not break his ties. “The sex and the drugs made it easy to accept.”
Nearly three decades later, he said he feels remorse for the victims. While he denied actually killing the men, he said he regrets he was even involved.
“When I look at it now, I can’t believe I did it,” he said. “But I did. I was there, and I knew better.”
Davis said he remembered seeing a suspicious Manson on a porch, telling fellow members that Shea would have to die.
“Manson says, ‘We’re going to kill Shorty because he’s a snitch.’ ”
Although Manson wanted Davis to decapitate Shea, Davis told him he couldn’t do it.
“He said, ‘Well you gotta do something.’ ” So, Davis said, he sliced Shea’s shoulder with a knife. Other members, he said, then buried the body, which wasn’t found until 10 years later.
Hinman, he said, was murdered because the clan thought he had money. Davis remembered seeing Manson cut Hinman’s face and ear with a knife but said he was not present when Hinman was killed.
Manzella said Davis held Hinman at gunpoint as Manson performed the torture.
Davis has been working on his doctorate, and if released, he said, he has two job offers waiting in Southern California. His thick file included letters of support from more than 40 people, including a judge and a former Long Beach newspaper editor whose stepson once served time with Davis.
After the hearing, the inmate’s wife, Beth Davis of Grover Beach, expressed mixed feelings about the decision.
“My initial reaction was disappointment,” said Beth Davis, a 47-year-old flight attendant who met her future spouse while working with the prison ministry in 1984. “But I’m encouraged at many of the positive aspects of the hearing.”
The couple, who have been married for 15 years, have a 6-year-old daughter.
Beth Davis said her husband finds it difficult to believe he was involved in the murders.
“It’s almost like he’s looking at another person and saying, ‘How can that person have been so deceived and so foolish?’ ”
Davis has a good disciplinary record the past 18 years, and he has participated in therapy programs. He said he became a Christian while at Folsom prison in 1974.
His attorney, Denny, said he and Davis prayed together before the hearing. “But the Manson family mystique still hangs over him.”
Denny, who defended Davis during his trial, now lives in Texas but pays his California Bar Association dues just so he can continue to volunteer his time on the Davis case. Denny’s lips trembled and tears came to his eyes when he said he felt led to continue representing Davis.
While Denny thinks his client is no longer a threat to the community, Manzella said there are other factors to consider.
“Punishment is just as important a consideration,” he said. “And, Mr. Davis, you have not been punished enough.” | <urn:uuid:1348e886-98fd-4362-94bc-80b02a5a265e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sloblogs.thetribunenews.com/slovault/2010/01/bruce-davis-former-manson-family-member-on-path-to-parole/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982721 | 1,615 | 1.53125 | 2 |
A very quick read (120 pages) about the Queen of England who discovers a love of reading when she wanders into a bookmobile. She reads widely and indiscriminately with the help of a young palace employee. She finds that she is changed by what she reads, as well as by the process of reading.
The Queen as a character is immensely likeable and honest, yet the author gives insight into the very real class and status differences she has always had to live with. One (as the Queen refers to herself) gives an insider view of what life as a monarch may be like.
The act of reading as subversive and suspect is also explored – very interesting for those who love reading, books and libraries. Though the style is light and funny, there are many poignant moments, and a surprise ending as well. Highly recommended. | <urn:uuid:37be8cda-508e-4f6c-8851-cc4df41f7e41> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.davenportlibrary.com/reference/the-uncommon-reader-by-alan-bennett/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987082 | 169 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Despite what African-American Republican the Rev. C.L. Bryant wants you to believe.
(The Root) -- I genuinely try to listen to black Republicans when they're explaining why blacks should want to be a part of the Grand Old Party. The problem with that is then I end up hearing things like this.
The Rev. C.L. Bryant:
Yes, indeed I do. in fact, there is a culture of dependency that has been groomed by the Democrat Party over a period of 50 years. A distortion of history even over that 50-year period of time. Many black people have forgotten that it was Democrats who stood in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block black students from going there. It was Democrats who Eisenhower had to send the National Guard out to Arkansas in order that the Little Rock Nine could go to school in Little Rock. And the history of black people in this country, even the political history, those who were first elected to Congress and to Senate were all Republicans. And the first Democrat elected to the Senate in the United States was Carol Moseley Braun, and the second one was Barack Obama. The history of the Republican Party has always been that of freedom for all people ...
Bryant, a former president of the Garland, Texas, chapter of the NAACP, speaks with such confidence, doesn't he? He doesn't even hint at the idea that maybe he's overstepping or greatly generalizing. He effortlessly throws out the tired narrative of "It's the Democratic Party that's actually racist!" And while no one argues that the examples he has given were factual, his viewpoint is so heavily skewed and obviously framed that I'm not even sure how he can sit there so calmly serving up this nonsense.
First of all, the Republican Party wasn't "pro-Negro" while Democrats hunted us with pitchforks. No one was "for" blacks. Neither political party was so loving and caring -- nor did they simply want what was best for the black community. Black Democrats aren't confused on that particular fact.
But what's missing from this lovely framing of history in order to make a flawed point is that it cherry-picks history, and things have changed a great deal. What about the Lily-White Movement? What about the Southern strategy? What about the Republican primaries just early this year? What about Mitt Romney at the NAACP conference?
I'm not someone who is against conservative ideology for the sake of being against it. I, and I'm sure many other blacks, can even agree with aspects of the conservative viewpoint. But contrary to the incredibly insulting premise that blacks voted against their interest by overwhelmingly supporting Barack Obama, many voted for who they thought would be best for them and their country.
Can anyone reasonably make the argument that the Republican Party showed itself to be a better alternative to President Obama? We should have voted for the dude who said "If they want free stuff, vote for the other guy"? The guy making Birther jokes? We were "emotional" because we rejected the party that even now says it doesn't care where new revenue comes from as it actively tries to make sure that revenue doesn't come from the top 2 percent?
And that's what's wrong with many black Republicans. They speak to the rest of the community as if they're so much smarter than we are. As if we lack the ability to make decisions and not be tricked by the Democrats. Democrats didn't demonize Republicans. Republicans just kept opening their mouths.
We haven't been tricked. We've been observant. | <urn:uuid:647f9d76-6d0b-40f5-93ff-2aa3048e17e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theroot.com/print/68329 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983939 | 732 | 1.53125 | 2 |
January 30, 2012
International student panel to discuss education systems Feb. 9
The Education Graduate Student Organization is presenting a panel from 3-5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9, in 021 Bluemont Hall. Graduate students from China, South Africa, India, Egypt, and Malaysia will talk briefly about educational systems in their country. Two American graduate students will speak very briefly on educational systems in the United States.
We hope to have a lively discussion comparing and contrasting educational systems and specifically, schooling. For instance, who sponsors or pays for schooling? Are there educational tracks that separate and sort students? Does everyone have a chance to go to a college of their choice? What are the requirements for graduation from secondary education? What are the requirements for entrance into postsecondary education? These and other questions will be considered in a friendly, respectful environment of inquiry. Faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend. | <urn:uuid:22040952-d282-44ee-8464-31cdc0e43ccd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.k-state.edu/today/announcement.php?id=2005&category=events&referredBy=K-State%20Today%20Archive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96051 | 187 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The goal of every job search has one major objective: get interviews . It really is all about the interviews. Never forget that. Some people enjoy networking, going to lunch and getting to know new people or doing detailed analysis on the health of a company or industry. However, nothing really matters until you are sitting face to face with someone in an interview. Also, your follow up strategy is just as important. Once your done reading this post, read my post on thank you letters as well.
Once you get to the interview, you need to make sure that you are "at your best." You definitely want to put your best foot forward when you finally get an interview. That being said, I am still amazed at the number of simple mistakes that candidates make when they are in the interview process. I came up with what I believe are the Top 10 Fatal Mistakes Made in an Interview.
I went through these recently with the students in the Job Search Mastermind program and I thought it would be helpful to share here as well. Of course, we cover a lot more information on the interview process in the program, but if you will commit these 10 mistakes to memory you will significantly benefit in your job search.
#10: Providing Too Much Information
Some candidates mistakenly believe that the more information they can give the better off the interview process will go. They believe that if they say enough, something will sound good and resonate with the interviewer. However, the opposite is true. Remember, that the interviewer is still trying to figure out what you are all about. Any negative information that you might give is double the weight of good information.
More often then not, providing too much information happens for two reasons:
1. Too Nervous – When people are nervous they can have a tendency to ramble and say too much. You want to make sure that you harness that energy and point it in the right direction. Take a deep breath and try to focus you answer to the question. Think about giving your answers in a form of a paragraph. Do not give a sentence answer as that is too short and be sure not to tell a short story or a novel as that is too much information.
2. Too Out-Going – Some people have bigger then life personalities and that is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, people with enthusiasm and energy have more successful interviews. However, you need to be able to harness this energy and use it to benefit you. You need to have intuition and see that the person that is interviewing you is in fact "on the same page with you." If they are easy going and laid back do not intimidate them by talking too much and giving out way more information then they are asking for.
Measure yourself and be sure that you are not providing too much information. Remember my tip: Give your answer out in a short paragraph. A sentence answer is too short and a short story is way too long. | <urn:uuid:c91cefab-1c96-4969-85b3-4cdea9248cf4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cpacareercoach.com/top-10-fatal-mistakes-in-a-job-interview-10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973679 | 597 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Quotes of the Day for 19 July 2009 – George McGovern
George Stanley McGovern was born at Avon, South Dakota on this day in 1922 and grew up in nearby Mitchell. He graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University, took private flying lessons to overcome his fear of heights, then joined the Civilian Pilot Training Program before enlisting in the Army Air Force. He flew 35 missions over enemy territory in his B-24 bomber, named Dakota Queen. After the war he went to seminary, was ordained as a Methodist minister, but left the ministry to take a PhD in history at Northwest University at Evanston, Illinois. He was an active supporter of Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party in 1948, became a Democrat after hearing Adlai Stevenson in 1952. He served two terms in the House, served as director of the Food for Peace program, then won a Senate seat in 1962 which he held for three terms. He ran for president on an anti-war platform against Richard Nixon in 1972, losing in the most lopsided electoral defeat in modern history. Since leaving the Senate in 1980 he has taught istory and campaigned for international food programs.
You will find an expanded profile, photo, additional biographical links, and all quotes from this author on the author's Notable Quotable page.
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.
No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public.
It is simply untrue that all our institutions are evil,... that all politicians are mere opportunists, that all aspects of university life are corrupt. Having discovered an illness, it's not terribly useful to prescribe death as a cure.
Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.
The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plane.
You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.
- George Stanley McGovern
Do you see an error on this page? A typo, a character that is messed up, a misattribution? Please let us know! | <urn:uuid:9c58c3fa-29dc-420c-827d-6720986c81be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.qotd.org/archive/daily.html?date=2009-07-19 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966397 | 475 | 1.546875 | 2 |
To see in the Chinese New Year, me and Phil went to see a traditional Chinese music concert at the Midland Arts Centre (MAC) yesterday evening. The Jasmine Moon Ensemble played a selection of folk songs from across China, as well as more modern songs in the traditional style and a handful of film scores. They also played a piece based on the soundtrack to a propaganda cartoon from the 1960s, called Heroic Little Sisters of the Grassland, which was a particular favourite of mine. The cartoon itself is available on YouTube, the link below is to the dramatic climax where the sisters manage to brave a storm to rescue their collective farm’s flock of sheep:
The ensemble play piano, Guzheng, and a selection of Chinese woodwind instruments. One of the Chinese wind instruments, the húlúsī, was particularly unusual, with a gourd at the top of the instrument. To my (untrained) ears it had a nice folky sound and, of course, it has a nice folky look too:)
The Guzheng (古箏) is also a very traditional instrument. It is a large stringed instrument and, to me, looked abominably difficult to play. But then, to me, any instrument would be!
I’d definitely recommend seeing the Jasmine Moon Ensemble in action if you get chance. If you can’t see them in person you can watch them online (minus the Guzheng) below: | <urn:uuid:5cf00b45-ea92-4a77-a165-21a3f9a64f6e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://englishgirlathome.com/2012/01/23/%E6%98%A5%E8%8A%82%E5%BF%AB%E4%B9%90-seeing-in-the-chinese-new-year-with-the-jasmine-moon-ensemble/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960317 | 309 | 1.570313 | 2 |
TENNESSEE TAX-EXEMPT GOODS
Back-to-school items are exempt from state and local sales tax starting today through Sunday. Those items include:
• Clothing items under $100, including belts, hats, neckties, jeans, shoes and underwear. Accessories, protective and sports equipment are still taxed.
• School and art supplies under $100, including calculators, book bags, notebooks, drawing pads and clay. School computer supplies such are still taxed
• Computers under $1,500. Computer parts, software and storage media are still taxed
Source: Tennessee Department of Revenue
GEORGIA SALES TAX HOLIDAY
Georgia's sales tax holiday on back-to-school goods is scheduled for next Friday and Saturday.
Source: Georgia Department of Revenue
There's no snow on the ground, lights on the trees or a fat bearded man sitting in the mall, but at Hamilton Place's Mac Authority store, tax free weekend may as well be the end of December.
"This is our Christmas. It's bigger than Black Friday for us, too," assistant store manager John Whitely said as he prepared his store for the flood of customers he's expecting this weekend. "It's fantastic. We're really excited."
Whitely said the store had a line out the door as customers came in to order their new computers, one product eligible for a nearly 10 percent savings today through Sunday as Tennessee halts sales tax collection. The store finished Thursday well past its previous pre-sales record.
Whitely said his store's tax free Weekend sales numbers are unrivaled the rest of the year. Tennessee's three-day tax break on clothing, computers and school supplies, which will be repeated in Georgia next weekend, should bump sales at plenty of stores across the state.
But a recent report by the nonpartisan tax research group Tax Foundation suggests tax holidays have little benefit for states, businesses or individuals.
"These holidays are often pushed as a way to reduce cost for consumers or a way to stimulate the economy to get more spending," said Joseph Henchman, the foundation's vice president of state projects. "The evidence shows they don't really do any of those things."
Rather than inspire people to buy, Henchman said savvy shoppers simply wait to make purchases they would have made anyway. The tax break does help shoppers save money, he said, but not necessarily the low-income families who need help the most during the back-to-school shopping season.
Since adopting the holiday in 2006, the annual shopping weekend averages between $8 million and $10 million in tax savings for shoppers and lost revenue for the state.
"The real question is, is that the best use for that $8 million to $10 million?" Henchman asked. "Is there a better way to provide tax relief?"
Retailers certainly aren't complaining. Hamilton Place mall will open an hour early and stay open an hour late all weekend to accommodate retailers excited for a break from the typically slow summer retail season.
"This is a big stimulus for them, no question," said Jim Brown, state director for the National Federation of Independent Business.
Many customers go to stores for the tax-free items, but end up making several other purchases. At Mac Authority, about half the customers purchase taxable accessories and software.
Businesses near tax-exempt retailers also see benefits. The Hamilton Place Red Robin restaurant typically gets a 20 percent bump in customers on Tax Free Weekend.
"It has a huge impact," said Vince Seery, the chain's regional director. "They don't get 10 percent off the burgers, but they're out shopping and they get an appetite."
Victoria Cuervo and her son will be among those shoppers this weekend. The duo need some new clothes and school supplies, and Cuervo expects the tax break to save her about $50.
She's excited for the trip, and said she likely wouldn't buy most of what she'll be getting if it wasn't for help from the tax incentive.
"You've just got to take everything you can get," she said. | <urn:uuid:b0ce3682-49c8-4159-b544-38a853ffb605> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://timesfreepress.com/news/2012/aug/03/tax-holiday-time-weekend-spurs-local-back-to-schoo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971002 | 851 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
The Glass Castle (edition 2005)
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 074324754X, Paperback)Jeannette Walls's father always called her "Mountain Goat" and there's perhaps no more apt nickname for a girl who navigated a sheer and towering cliff of childhood both daily and stoically. In The Glass Castle, Walls chronicles her upbringing at the hands of eccentric, nomadic parents--Rose Mary, her frustrated-artist mother, and Rex, her brilliant, alcoholic father. To call the elder Walls's childrearing style laissez faire would be putting it mildly. As Rose Mary and Rex, motivated by whims and paranoia, uprooted their kids time and again, the youngsters (Walls, her brother and two sisters) were left largely to their own devices. But while Rex and Rose Mary firmly believed children learned best from their own mistakes, they themselves never seemed to do so, repeating the same disastrous patterns that eventually landed them on the streets. Walls describes in fascinating detail what it was to be a child in this family, from the embarrassing (wearing shoes held together with safety pins; using markers to color her skin in an effort to camouflage holes in her pants) to the horrific (being told, after a creepy uncle pleasured himself in close proximity, that sexual assault is a crime of perception; and being pimped by her father at a bar). Though Walls has well earned the right to complain, at no point does she play the victim. In fact, Walls' removed, nonjudgmental stance is initially startling, since many of the circumstances she describes could be categorized as abusive (and unquestioningly neglectful). But on the contrary, Walls respects her parents' knack for making hardships feel like adventures, and her love for them--despite their overwhelming self-absorption--resonates from cover to cover. --Brangien Davis
(retrieved from Amazon Mon, 17 Jan 2011 13:14:29 -0500)
In the tradition of Mary Karr's "The Liars' Club" and Rick Bragg's "All Over But the Shouting," Jeannette Walls has written a stunning and life-affirming memoir about surviving a willfully impoverished, eccentric and severely misguided family. The child of an alcoholic father and an eccentric artist mother discusses her family's nomadic upbringing, during which she and her siblings fended for themselves while their parents outmaneuvered bill collectors and the authorities.
(summary from another edition)
Is this you?
Become a LibraryThing Author. | <urn:uuid:9c7f1b26-9d18-4243-a8d7-39d81e4ead8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.librarything.com/work/7903/92698403 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955041 | 534 | 1.5 | 2 |
During deliberations over the Foreign Ministry’s budget at Parliament’s Planning and Budget Commission early Friday morning, Davutoğlu responded to questions from deputies as he was criticized for addressing Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani as “Kak Massoud” -- a respectful but affectionate title in Kurdish – during Barzani’s official visit to Ankara in June.
Saying that his family’s origins are from a Turkmen tribe, Davutoğlu said Turkmens show courtesy towards their guests in every situation. “Kurdish is one of the languages for which we should have respect, and it is also a language that is used by a considerable part of our people. I addressed Massoud Barzani as ‘Kak.’ This means ‘mister.’ This respect is part of our culture. My duty is not to create enemies for Turkey, but to create friends,” Davutoğlu explained.
In June, Barzani, the president of Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government, paid his first visit to Turkey as regional president. Barzani had last visited Turkey in April 2004, when he held the rotating presidency of the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council. “I have observed from Kak Massoud both a hospitality -- which reflects a rooted family tradition -- and a strong political will on the issue of building a joint future with Turkey,” Davutoğlu had said at a joint press conference with Barzani during the visit, referring to the way he had been treated by Barzani during his visit to Arbil in late October.
During deliberations at the parliamentary commission, several deputies from opposition parties delivered speeches, mostly criticizing the government’s foreign policy moves. Mustafa Özyürek, the İstanbul deputy of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), stated that Davutoğlu had represented the nation in an “assertive” way, displaying Turkey as “a country that maintains world order.” “Being assertive is good, but one should also be realistic,” Özyürek said.
The foreign minister disagreed with Özyürek’s argument. “Nations living in this geography have to be assertive; otherwise, they cannot maintain their existence,” Davutoğlu said, adding that was why Turkey had to be assertive, too.
While setting targets in foreign policy, the government is assertive, yet while implementing these policies on the ground, the government is realistic, Davutoğlu responded. “If we said something assertive and didn’t follow up, then you are right. But if we yielded results, this should be appreciated. Realism exists on the ground and assertiveness exists in mentality,” Davutoğlu said.
The minister also responded to criticism that the government’s foreign policy has been inspired by an ideology of “neo-Ottomanism,” suggesting that the conservative Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government takes its inspiration from Ottoman-era policies. “We are a nation-state that is respectful of international law,” Davutoğlu said, noting that Turkey is also respectful of the territorial integrity of other states and expects the same kind of respect.
“There is no small or big state for us. We don’t have any intention of playing the role of ‘big brother’ for anyone, either. Our regional perspective is a perspective aimed at integration. However, we don’t make concessions on our rights or borders as a nation-state. We are determined to live in peace with all other nation-states,” he said. | <urn:uuid:9873f785-ec49-40cd-a79c-2785bb0b39b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.todayszaman.com/news-227095-foreign-minister-davutoglu-urges-respect-for-kurdish-language.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 | 0.973272 | 777 | 1.5625 | 2 |
After her neighbor noticed that Sıhıkaan was in physical pain, she called the emergency services. When a medical team arrived they found that she had already lost her vital functions.
The funeral was held on Tuesday. Hüsnü Tuğrul, the head of the Justice and Development Party's (AK Party) Salihli branch, attended the funeral. Sıhıkaan's body was buried in the Asri Cemetery in Manisa.
Ergün Kerey (24), Sıhıkaan's great-grandchild, said: “She would tell us about events of a hundred years ago in such a way that would make us feel like we were living them. The doctors performed a cranial CT scan and were shocked by what they discovered. The doctors told us that her brain had functioned like that of an 18-year-old girl.”
Sıhıkaan was born in Turkistan in 1890, but immigrated to Pakistan some time later. She moved from Pakistan to India, where she lost her husband and five children to an epidemic illness. In 1953 she immigrated to Turkey's Manisa.
She became a Turkish citizen in 2011 and, with her date of birth now official, became eligible to hold the title of “world's oldest person,” which was formerly held by US citizen Eunice Sanborn, who died at the age of 115 on Jan. 15, 2011. | <urn:uuid:346a102d-5bfd-44c4-bbcf-ab0ea124e902> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?newsId=258267 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993437 | 303 | 1.617188 | 2 |
HYDE PARK ON HUDSON
I enjoy watching stories of historic figures when they are not mired by political ideologies and agendas. “Hyde Park on Hudson” is such a film. It details the events surrounding a weekend in Hyde Park in which the King and Queen of England visit President Franklin Roosevelt. The movie does not dwell on the horrific domestic policies which FDR instigated, ushering in one of America’s most progressive, socialist culture alterations. Instead, it centers on the cultural disparities of America and England and the clashes perceived when those differences are augmented in a public affair. Like “The King’s Speech”, which dealt with a speech impediment during a crucial time for England, “Hyde Park on Hudson” leaves the political arena to historians and concentrates, instead on the coming together of two nations, and FDR’s philandering ways.
There is an excellent cast in “Hyde Park on Hudson”. Bill Murray, in one of his most subdued performances, plays FDR. His counterparts from across the pond are Samuel West and Olivia Colman as the King and Queen of England, respectively. Laura Linney is FDR’s neighbor and cousin, Daisy. Linney offers a strong, solid performance, yet she strangely, is being ignored for end of year awards consideration. Rounding the cast are Olivia Williams as Eleanor Roosevelt, Elizabeth Marvel as FDR’s secretary Missy and Elizabeth Wilson as his mother Sara.
KEY SCENES TO LOOK FOR:
- THE MEETING BETWEEN THE KING AND FDR
- THE KING & QUEEN’S PILLOW TALK
Lol Crawley provides crisp, clear images with busy, yet marvelous framing. The film not only tells a good story, it looks good as well. Nicolas Gaster edits the film to a very comfortable 90 minute length. Often, movies like this tend to border on epic proportions; some misguided mantra that historical films must be historic in length. Thankfully, Gaster does not fall into that foible.
While “Hyde Park on Hudson” is a pleasing view, this film conjures several intriguing points. First, a major subplot is the carousing of the president. Why are films about Democratic presidents always lusty, bawdy tales? FDR, though stricken with polio, appears to have the sexual appetite of a satyr. Everyone acknowledges Bill Clinton too often makes Hugh Hefner appear a slouch; and of course, no one can forget Jimmy Carter “lusting in his heart”. You never see a movie about the wayward encounters of Bush, or Reagan, or even Ford. It’s always the Democrats who seem to have difficulty keeping things zipped. Perhaps this is one of the better reasons to join the Democrat Party; they may really mean ‘party’!
The other curious item is the timing of the film and its subject matter. Since his campaign for the 2008 election, Bronco Bama has had the media machine comparing him to two specific past presidents, Lincoln and FDR. Time Magazine, America’s version of the Socialist Manifesto, even featured a drawing of Obama in a classic FDR pose, complete with cigarette and holder. Now, two political films dominating end of the year awards consideration deal with Lincoln and FDR. Coincidence? Remember, for those of you more sports minded, it was one year after he intoned his desire to see his home team win the championship that the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup. Guess that was a coincidence, too; and I’m just a conspiracy nut. Right.
“Hyde Park on Hudson” is worth a view. It looks great, and the cast balances drama and comedy exceptionally well. Unless you’re a history buff, “Hyde Park on Hudson” may not be worth the price of a theatre ticket (some $20 in areas), but it will play well for VOD or video rental.
THE GRADE FOR “Hyde Park on Hudson” = C
Fiore Mastracci is Pittsburgh’s premiere film critic and charter member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association. His show, OUTTAKES, is nearing its 500th episode. Edited segments of the show can be found online at: www.youtube.com/user/RIGHTCRITIC | <urn:uuid:6609420c-dd63-4756-9bcd-15a29220c65f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/review/progressive-presidents-can-t-hide-hyde-park?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943027 | 905 | 1.679688 | 2 |
WASHINGTON – The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today announced an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act investment to help bridge the technological divide, boost economic growth, create jobs, and improve education and public safety in portions of Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The $28.6 million grant will increase broadband access and adoption by funding the build-out and deployment of more than 680 miles of a new fiber-optic network in 35 communities. The project intends to directly connect more than 70 community anchor institutions to the broadband network, including city halls, police stations, fire stations, libraries, schools, and a hospital.
With this grant, Allegiance Communications plans to deploy broadband technology to an estimated 12,700 households and 230 businesses in the four-state region. It will be the first time wireline broadband service faster than dial-up is offered in most of the affected communities. Allegiance also plans to upgrade communications for public safety organizations to improve storm warning systems and first responder efforts.
NTIA's Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), funded by the Recovery Act, provides grants to support the deployment of broadband infrastructure, enhance and expand public computer centers, and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service.
"Broadband plays a critical role in helping communities achieve durable, sustainable economic growth," Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information and NTIA Administrator Lawrence E. Strickling said. "Like the grant announced today, the strongest proposals we have received are the ones that have taken a truly comprehensive view of the communities to be served and have engaged as many key members of the communities as possible in developing the projects."
NTIA received more than 1,800 applications proposing projects totaling nearly $19 billion during the first BTOP funding round and has just received a second round of BTOP applications requesting $11 billion in funding.
The Recovery Act provided a total of $7.2 billion to NTIA and the Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to fund projects that will expand access to and adoption of broadband services. Of that funding, NTIA will utilize $4.7 billion for grants to deploy broadband infrastructure in the United States, expand public computer center capacity, and encourage sustainable adoption of broadband service. NTIA will announce all grant awards by September 30, 2010. | <urn:uuid:174e33de-3ba5-4dd3-bb77-13d1f9c73c19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ntia.doc.gov/print/press-release/2010/commerce-announces-recovery-act-investment-expand-broadband-internet-access-and-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935684 | 470 | 1.570313 | 2 |
05/13/2013 1:27:19 PMOnly 1 to 2 months ago the spring calving cows were calving, the temperatures were colder and the calving pastures were covered with muck and manure. ... Full story.
04/05/2013 9:08:20 AMBull 50 just bought himself a one-way ticket to town. For bulls, there are only two pens. One is the pen for breeding bulls, while the other bulls go to the "for beef market" pen. ... Full story.
04/01/2013 1:03:03 PMOklahoma State University animal scientists evaluated weaning dates of 158 Angus fall-calving cows over a 4 year period. ... Full story.
03/30/2013 7:15:00 AMCalving season is upon us and how do your cows look? Are they are on the thin side or in good body condition? Has the winter been tough on them? Has your pre-calving nutrition program been adequate? ... Full story.
03/20/2013 11:05:54 AMMany producers in Wisconsin are in the midst of or finishing up their calving season and preparing for breeding. ... Full story.
03/18/2013 4:09:03 PMCows in many Midwestern herds are calving in marginal body condition. Short hay and standing forage supplies as well as expensive supplemental feeds, are partially to blame. ... Full story.
03/11/2013 2:45:00 PMAlthough the spring calving season may still be ongoing, the next breeding season is only a few weeks away. Now is the time to schedule the old and new bulls for their pre-breeding soundness examination. ... Full story.
10/31/2012 2:33:03 PMMaybe you are looking for a bull to breed heifers. Whatever your reason, if you are in the market for a bull this year, let me encourage you to buy all the bull you can now. ... Full story.
10/30/2012 2:49:20 PMWith national beef cattle inventory at lows not seen since the 1950s, the time could be right for producers of Brahman-influenced cattle to adopt a fixed-time artificial insemination method which could add thousands of dollars in net value to a calf crop. ... Full story.
10/26/2012 9:28:20 AMWhat association are you using to manage the genes in your cow-calf system? Where do we start as we come to understand the modern world of genetics? ... Full story.
10/23/2012 9:26:49 AMThe Wyoming Premium Heifer program will hold its first annual sales for bred and replacement heifers in November 2012 and January 2013. ... Full story.
10/22/2012 12:46:22 PMBefore the fall breeding season begins, a few simple management procedures involving the bulls can increase the likelihood of a high pregnancy percentage among the cows. ... Full story.
ASK THE EXPERT
10/19/2012We’re buying young cow from drought stricken ranches and moving them to ours. Do we co-mingle or segregate for how long? Full story.
FOLLOW MORE COWS NOW | <urn:uuid:aafc3199-ded1-4a02-b062-511b1c0d60ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cattlenetwork.com/more-cows-now/news/genetics/ | 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 | 0.935733 | 669 | 1.75 | 2 |
Chapter One: The Light in the Forest
Long before I learned of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, before it was even written, a twelve-year-old girl named Wilanne Belden walked two miles once a week to the library in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, to check out the maximum quantity of five books. It was the Depression, and buying any book was a luxury. The deal Wilanne's parents struck with her was that if she checked out the same title from the library three times, and read it from cover to cover each time, she could have a copy of her own.
This arrangement worked well enough until Wilanne discovered what would become her favorite book, J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit (then in its first edition, before even Tolkien himself knew the significance of Bilbo Baggins's magic ring). The Hobbit is long for a children's book, and by the time she had read it three times, it had gone out of stock in bookstores. Buying a copy was no longer an option. So Wilanne decided to make her own, checking the book out of the library over and over again, typing up a couple dozen pages at a time using two fingers on the family's manual typewriter. She got as far as page 107 before the book returned to the stores.
There is no reader more devoted than a bookish child who has found the story that suits her perfectly. Thirty years later, Wilanne would turn me into one of those children when she handed me a slim hardcover bound in gray fabric with the image of a little stag stamped on the front, and said, "I think you'll like this one." It was her copy; she'd had the book for a while, but I was the first of her second-grade students that she'd tried it on. "You were a child who needed to read C. S. Lewis," she said firmly when, not long ago, I asked her why.
"How did you know? How can you tell something like that?"
"I can't explain. It's just one of those things that happens."
Even today, this intuition strikes me as slightly supernatural, in the same way that Narnia seemed to emerge, by some miracle, out of my own unspoken self. "When you brought the book back," Wilanne remembered as we sat in her cozy apartment, surrounded by books, knitting, and cats, "You told me, and this I have always remembered, that you didn't know that there were other people who had the kind of imagination that you did."
Wilanne and I were not, I think, unhappy children. I grew up in a comfortable American home, in a big, intact family, with a lawyer father and a homemaker mom, and she still remembers feeling fortunate that her father had a steady job when so many others didn't. But we were neither of us, I suspect, entirely satisfied with that.
"You were automatically one of my kids," Wilanne said when I asked her what she remembered about first meeting me forty years ago. By this, she means one of those children "interested in the imagination and in the relationship between the real and the unreal. They are entirely capable of telling the difference between truth and falsehood, but they prefer the falsehood occasionally." Nothing exciting had ever happened to me, was how I saw it, and I was convinced that nothing exciting ever could, as long as I was stuck in a world of station wagons and jump rope, backyard swim classes and spelling tests. Then Mrs. Belden handed me a book.
I've read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so often since then that I no longer have a distinct recollection of the first time. What was it like to be genuinely surprised when Lucy Pevensie's fingertips brushed against branches instead of fur coats as she first walked through the wardrobe and into the snowy woods? That sensation is lost to me. What remains is a dim recollection of how life was shaped before I knew about Narnia, and a more distinct sense of what it was like afterward. I had found a new world, which at the same time felt like a place I'd always known existed. It wouldn't have occurred to me to be wistful about the fact that I'd never read this perfect book for the first time again. All I wanted was more.
Do the children who prefer books set in the real, ordinary, workaday world ever read as obsessively as those who would much rather be transported into other worlds entirely? Once I began to confer with other people who had loved the Chronicles as children, I kept hearing stories, like my own, of countless, intoxicated rereadings. "I would read other books, of course," wrote the novelist Neil Gaiman, "but in my heart I knew that I read them only because there wasn't an infinite number of Narnia books." Later, when I had the chance to talk with him about the Chronicles in person, he told me, "The weird thing about the Narnia books for me was that mostly they seemed true. There was a level on which I was absolutely willing at age six, age seven, to accept them as a profound and real truth. Unquestioned, there was definitely a Narnia. This stuff had happened. These were reports from a real place."
Most of us persuaded our parents to buy us boxed sets of all seven Chronicles, but I also saved up my allowance and occasional small cash gifts from relatives to buy a hardcover copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, one of the few times in my life I've ever succumbed to the collector's impulse. If I hadn't been able to obtain a copy of the book, I have no doubt that I, too, would have resorted to typing up one of my own. This was not about obtaining a possession, but about securing a portal. I was not yet capable of thinking about it in this way, but I'd been enthralled by the most elementary of readerly metaphors: A little girl opens the hinged door of some commonplace piece of household furniture and steps through it into another world. I opened the hinged cover of a book and did the same.
Excerpted from "The Magician's Book" by Laura Miller. Copyright © 2008 by Laura Miller. Reprinted with permission by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:c5e1ab20-be0d-43d5-86bd-bbe56d533fe7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122850430890083419.html?mod=googlenews_wsj | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990009 | 1,330 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Ruling against the RealNetworks in the trial of sooo last century, a federal judge said that it was illegal to sell or make DVD copying software under the DMCA. But what about actually ripping DVDs yourself?
When it comes to making personal copies, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel left that totally gray—that is, she chose not to rock the boat on whether or not making personal copies actually falls under the "fair use" doctrine of the DMCA. Lots of "mays" and "whiles" in there:
"So while it may well be fair use for an individual consumer to store a backup copy of a personally owned DVD on that individual's computer, a federal law has nonetheless made it illegal to manufacture or traffic in a device or tool that permits a consumer to make such copies."
So DVD ripping is kind of like laws about pot in some places: It's sorta legal to possess in certain circumstances, but not kosher to sell it. Thanks for clearing that up, judge. | <urn:uuid:058cedbb-14db-46c6-abd1-2c1fd6b146ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gizmodo.com/5335665/apparently-dvd-copying-software-is-illegal?tag=fairuse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950468 | 208 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Published Date: 2012-08-05 13:10:11
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Ebola hemorrhagic fever - Tanzania: (KA) susp.
Archive Number: 20120805.1229334
EBOLA HEMORRHAGIC FEVER - TANZANIA: (KAGERA) SUSPECTED
A ProMED-mail post
ProMED-mail is a program of the
International Society for Infectious Diseases
Date: Sun 5 Aug 2012
Source: IPPMedia, source The Guardian on Sunday [edited]
Ebola fear hits Kagera
A team of medical experts from Dar es Salaam was yesterday dispatched to the Kagera region [Tanzania] to further examine 2 patients believed to be suffering from Ebola hemorrhagic fever. But as the team of medical experts was sent to Kagera region, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare [of Tanzania] subsequently confirmed the outbreak of the deadly fever in the western part of the country. Confirming the reports, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Seif Seleman Rashid, also said that a team of medical experts was still diagnosing a patient in efforts to establish the symptoms.
In the meantime, reports from Nyakahanga designated hospital in Karagwe district, Kagera region indicate that there were 2 patients including a child, suspected to be suffering from the deadly fever that has rocked neighbouring Uganda. According to one of the doctors who diagnosed the patient at Karagwe's Nyakahanga hospital, preliminary findings show that the victim might have contacted the Ebola virus. However, the doctor, who requested anonymity, told the Guardian on Sunday that 'further medical examination' would be conducted to gather more evidence about the possible outbreak of Ebola, adding that the patient had since been quarantined pending final results.
According to the doctor, the 'Ebola patient' was brought to the hospital on Friday morning [3 Aug 2012] and, upon diagnosis, it was established that the patient had suffered from Ebola [virus infection]. The patient, who is a 6-year-old child, was brought to the Mulongo hospital by his mother from a village close to the Uganda-Tanzania boarder after the child developed severe symptoms.
"We are doing further medical examination on a patient ... we will tell the general public once it is confirmed that we are dealing with Ebola virus infections," the doctor said, adding that currently the patient alleged to have been infected was admitted in a separate room and now lives in isolation from other patients at the hospital. He said preliminary check-ups found out that the diagnosis had all signs showed clear symptoms of Ebola -- after which he ordered the patient to be admitted for closer monitoring locally, and further medical examination by medical experts from the ministry headquarters.
He added that the patient had since been placed in a special intensive care room which is out of bounds for all other people -- apart from his mother who is taking care of the patient. However, he said, this was a medical rule aimed at avoiding quick spread of the deadly disease
Another patient also believed to have crossed the border from Uganda was admitted at the hospital as well, but medical investigations of his deteriorating health conditions were still not completed by Saturday evening [4 Aug 2012]. As a precaution, the doctor said his hospital team and the district health workers had since started warning people in surrounding villages to take immediate measures whenever they come across such patients. He has also warned the people living closer to the border with Uganda to be careful not to come into contact with any person whom they see vomiting or bleeding -- clear signs of someone suffering from Ebola.
On Wednesday this week, Dr. Mwinyi told visibly alarmed legislators in Dodoma that a team of medical experts had been dispatched to the border with Uganda, fully equipped with protective gear and medical supplies. The minister advised the general public especially those living in the northern regions of Kagera, Mara, Mwanza and Kigoma -- some of which share border crossings with Uganda -- to take precautions because the disease was highly contagious.
Earlier, the World Health Organization (WHO) had alerted Tanzania on the Ebola threat, prompting the ministry to issue a press statement elaborating that Ebola (Ebola HF) was a severe, often-fatal disease in humans and nonhuman primates (monkeys, gorillas, and chimpanzees) that has appeared sporadically since its initial recognition in 1976. The disease is caused by infection with Ebola virus, named after a river in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), where it was first recognised. The virus is one of two members of a family of RNA viruses called the Filoviridae; there are five identified subtypes of the Ebola virus -- four of which have been known to cause disease in humans: Ebola-Zaire, Ebola-Sudan, Ebola-Ivory Coast and Ebola-Bundibugyo. The fifth, Ebola-Reston, has caused disease in nonhuman primates, but not in humans.
(By Emmanuel Onyango)
ProMEd-mail Rapporteur Kunihiko Iizuka
[Confirmation of the diagnosis of Ebola hemorrhagic fever by laboratory testing is awaited.
Kagera Region is located in the northwestern corner of Tanzania, previously known as West Lake Region before June 1979. Bukoba, Kagera Region's capital, is a fast growing town situated on the shore of Lake Victoria. The region neighbours Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi and lies across the lake from Kenya.
The interactive HealthMap of the Kagera Region of Tanzania can be accessed at: http://healthmap.org/r/2*Ka. - Mod.CP] | <urn:uuid:b8afeb73-c4dc-4832-bf25-3bd3ba2f83fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.promedmail.org/direct.php?id=20120805.1229334 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963515 | 1,183 | 1.5625 | 2 |
1825 K Street, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20006
202-955-5665 (tel) | 202-955-5606 (fax) | www.ourfuture.org
With the submission today of the President’s proposed budget for next year (FY 2012), Washington descends further into the furious debate about less. How much less will government do? The president pledges to freeze domestic spending for five years, reducing it to a portion of the economy not seen since Eisenhower, while investing in areas like infrastructure vital to growth.
“More big spending,” cry Republican leaders, promising to slash non-security spending by over 15% in the remaining seven months of this fiscal year.
“Broken promise,” cries Michelle Bachman and the Tea Party right. Now driving the House caucus, they roll their leaders, forcing agreement on a full $100 billion cut -- more than one fifth of the total annually appropriated domestic budget in less than seven months – requiring nearly 22% cuts across the board.
But since many agencies like the FBI will be protected, and personnel costs are difficult to cut quickly, the result becomes open season on programs conservatives don’t like -- AmericaCorps, national service, will be zeroed out; community development block grants eviscerated; poor students will lose $800 or 15% on their Pell grants, poor women, infants and children will lose support, poor schools will lose thousands of teachers, everything from Head Start to food safety inspections will suffer.
All of this takes place in atmosphere of hype and hysteria, with politicians resorting to the age-old tactic of scaring the hell out of the American people to achieve their ends. The choices we make in budgets are moral choices. As the Bible puts it, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” But they also should involve common sense, much of which is scrapped in the current debate.
So what follows is a citizens’ guide to common sense about deficits and the debate, a handbook to help sort out who is making sense and who is not.
1. Don’t amputate on a patient still struggling to recover from a stroke
Or it’s still jobs and the economy, Sherlock. The economy is still struggling to revive from the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Nearly 25 million people are still in need of full time work.
The current halting growth is not gaining much ground. As Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke noted, . we have gained over a million jobs since Obama and the Fed saved the economy from free fall, but that’s barely enough to cover the new entrants to the workforce. We’ve not begun to catch up on the 8 and 3/4 million jobs lost in the calamity. (That’s one reason why an alarmed Federal Reserve is engaged in qualitative easing, an extraordinary action reflecting the Board’s fear that the recovery could falter, and the economy plunge into deflation or another recession, and why Bernanke, a former Bush economic advisor, warns against raising taxes or cutting spending immediately).
Cutting spending costs jobs. Teachers, police, FBI agents, social workers, food and drug inspectors, AmericaCorps kids get laid off. That costs the Federal government money. Spending on the unemployed rises -- unemployment insurance, food stamps and the like -- while tax revenues decrease.
Republicans intone the ditty that “government can’t create jobs,” although defense workers, post office employees, cops, teachers and other government employees can’t figure out what they mean. They also seem oblivious to the notion that cutting spending cuts jobs, glibly asserting that slashing spending will create jobs. The only conceivable way that would be true is if spending cuts would reduce the deficit and lower interest rates. But interest rates are already effectively below zero (that’s what the Federal Reserve’s qualitative easing means). And businesses are already sitting on trillions waiting for demand to pick up. Even if spending cuts lift the gloom in country club chatter, it is hard to imagine why that would make CEOs hire more people. In January, we lost a net of 12,000 public employee jobs . That number will go up dramatically as states and localities continue to face dire budget deficits, and if Republicans in fact roll back federal spending.
Yet every budget projection – including those of Republicans – assumes that growth will continue and that unemployment will decrease slowly. If the Congress did nothing, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as agreed, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline , growth alone brings the deficit down from the current alarming 9.8% of GDP to a quite manageable average 3.1% of GDP from 2014-2021. (If Republicans succeed in making the Bush tax cuts permanent, it cuts revenue by nearly two percent with a corresponding increase in annual deficits).
None of the amputations under discussion has a comparable effect on the deficit. So if you care about people, you’ll focus first on jobs and growth. If you care about the economy, you’ll focus first on jobs and growth. And if you really care about deficits, you will focus first on deficits and growth. No one in the rabid Republican caucus seems to have realized this simple reality.
2. Don't fall for the hype: The budget deficit isn’t our most debilitating deficit
The budget deficit – nearly 10%of GDP this year – is serous and unsustainable. But it is inflated by the recession which lowered tax revenues and raised spending dramatically. Continued growth will bring it down. The US isn’t, contrary to conservative rants, about to become Greece, a fact reflected in the price of our bonds which conservatives assume reflects perfect knowledge about the economy (except when they disagree with it).
The budget deficit, in fact, isn’t our most destructive deficit. The investment deficit – as President Obama has noted – saps our ability to compete globally. It also kills people and threatens lives – as those who perished when the bridge in Minnesota collapsed found out. Every year, 19 million Americans become ill from drinking contaminated water ; millions have been exposed to cancer producing contamination. As residents in New Orleans discovered, extreme weather will make investments in core infrastructure – from dikes, to bridges, to tunnels – even more essential.
Our trade deficit is back over $1 billion a day, with the deficit with China is setting new records. This deficit has risen when the budget was in surplus, as it was under Clinton, or in deficit under Bush. It only fell when the economy plunged into recession. A broad international consensus agrees that these extreme imbalances are destabilizing, and unsustainable. As the president has argued, redressing this deficit requires, among other things, greater investment in areas vital to our future, as well as a trade and industrial policy that makes sense.
The initial Republican leadership plan called for slashing spending on transportation and HUD by 25% for the remainder of the year. The ultras’ plan cuts even deeper. It also slashes spending on research and development, on schools, on education and training, on fast trains and new energy. As Senator Harry Reid noted, you’ll lose weight if you cut off your legs and arms, but no one rational would recommend it.
3. If you are going to cut, cut the fat first, not the muscle and bone
Thus far the entire debate about spending cuts has focused on the forlorn less than 15% of the budget that is annually appropriated domestic spending. Republicans vow that increasing taxes is off the table. Defense spending continues to go up. The big stuff- - Medicare and Medicaid for example – isn’t in the discussion yet.
The result is deep cuts slashing muscle and bone and vital organs mostly from programs for the poor, rather than from poor programs. This is truly perverse. Why not focus on cutting fat?
For example, we spend about as much the rest of the world combined on our military. The Pentagon and its contracting process is a mess; its records so fouled up that not one branch of the services can be audited, much less pass one. It is the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, bar none.
Pentagon spending is now over 40 % higher in inflation adjusted dollars than it was under Reagan at the height of the Cold War. The US polices the world, but as former Chief of Staff Colin Powell once stated, is “running out of enemies.” We’re down to hunting a few hundred al Qaeda zealots with drones, fighting an endless war with a corrupt ally in Afghanistan, and chasing agile Somali pirates. Even China has only begun even to build a blue water navy.
The president has announced a five year freeze on domestic spending, exempting the Pentagon. Republicans want to slash the domestic spending budget starting this year, while adding $8 billion to the security budget (the military and homeland security). But any common sense budget cut would start with the Pentagon. .
4. Get the money back from where the money went
George Bush inherited a budget that was in surplus. He then squandered that surplus on tax cuts, skewed to the already rich, two wars, and a prescription drug benefit, sculpted by the drug lobby that did nothing to control prescription drug prices.
We now suffer a concentration of wealth and income not seen since the eve of the Great Depression. During the years of the Bush “recovery,” the top 1% captured fully 2/3 of the rewards of growth. They now capture nearly ¼ of the nation’s annual income. They control more wealth than 90% of Americans.
In 1980 under Reagan, the top tax rate was 60% ; it is now 35%. The tax rate on capital gains or income from investment was 28%; it is now 20%. Meanwhile the marginal tax rate on a medium income family of four was 20% from 1955 to 1975 and has averaged 30% since 1986.
The result, as Warren Buffett has famously noted, is that the wealthiest Americans pay a lower tax rate than their secretaries.
Any sensible program for deficit reduction must include increases taxes on the wealthy to make moral or practical sense. Instead, of course, the Republicans extracted a deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 a year for two more years, at the cost of about $40 billion a year, which will far exceed what they end up cutting from public schools, health research, food and safety, workplace safety and environmental protection this year.
5. Tax bad practrices, don't cut good programs
Excessive financial leverage and gambling of Wall Street drove the economy off the cliff. The national debt held by the public went from $6 trillion and 40% of GDP in 2009 before the collapse to $9 trillion and 62% of GDP by the end of 2010. Wall Street excess blew up the economy and ran up the debt. The big banks then got bailed out by taxpayers, and now are back paying out multi-million dollar bonuses. You’d think maybe taxing them for the pain they caused would make sense.
The gambling is back, driving by computerized trading. The average stock is held 22 seconds; the average foreign currency position for 30 seconds.
This isn’t investing; it’s gambling – and we need less of it. So let’s put a small tax – less than one half of one cent – on every transaction. It would over $ 100billion a year, and put a little drag on computer driven financial casino.
6. Take on the powerful, not the poor
Each year, the president has called for rolling back lavish subsides to big Oil, the drug companies, the health insurance companies and Agribusiness. Each year, he has been stymied in Congress, opposed by Republicans and conservative Democrats catering to powerful lobbies. Want to tell if Republicans are focused on cutting poor programs or cutting programs for the poor? Check to see how the subsidies for these predator interests fare in the process.
7. Focus on the disease, not the symptoms
Once the debate starts in full, you are going to hear a lot of alarm about America’s “entitlement crisis.” Forget it. We don’t have an entitlement crisis. We have a broken health care system. The blood curdling projections of long term, rising deficits and debt come entirely from rising health care costs. These are expressed in the budget largely by Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s Administration. But those are the merely the budgetary symptoms. The crippling disease in a broken health care system, dominated by powerful corporate complexes – the drug industry, the insurance companies, the hospitals – that have succeeded in having the US pay two and one half times more per capita on health care than the average of other industrial countries with worse results.
Turning Medicare into a voucher or Medicaid into a limited block grant will reduce the budget symptoms, by passing more costs on the elderly, the disabled and the poor. But it won’t stop the hemorraghaing that will continue to bleed business, states and localities and families.
So here’s a common sense guide. If the debate is focused on putting a lid on Medicare and Medicaid spending, you are about to get shafted. If it is focused on empowering Medicare to negotiate bulk discounts on drugs, or a public option to compete with health insurance companies, or mandates to require insurance companies to spend more on health care and less on administration, then small sensible steps are underway.
8. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
Social Security is lumped in as part of the faux “entitlements crisis.” The clownish Alan Simpson, unfortunate co-chair of the President’s deficit commission, the relentless billionaire Pete Peterson, and many more in the beltway establishment keep issuing alarms about Social Security. Don’t fall for it. Social Security is not part of the deficit problem; and not be part of the solution.
Social Security is in surplus. According to the CBO , it will remain in surplus throughout the decade. Both parties promise that any reforms to Social Security won’t kick in until those currently aged 50 or 55 retire, so Social Security isn’t part of the deficit solution either.
Over the long term, divorced from the hysteria about deficit reduction, Social Security will need minor adjustments to insure that it continues to pay out its promised benefits in full. It also should increase, not decrease, its benefits for more vulnerable retirees, for widows, for those over 80 among others. How much will be required will depend, in part, on whether the economy grows and whether workers’ wages rise or continue to stagnate. Much of the reform can be achieved simply by lifting the cap on the payroll tax so that Paris Hilton pays the same percentage on her income as Wall Mart employees. If they are talking about cutting Social Security benefits or lifting the retirement age, you can be certain that while Wall Street got the gold, you are getting the shaft. | <urn:uuid:a0eeba7f-e38c-4f13-a657-dd0821b995b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ourfuture.org/print/66276 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948776 | 3,130 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The dictionary officially defines an underdog as:
underdog |ˈəndərˌdôg; -ˌdäg|
a competitor thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest
a person who has little status in society.
(Both seem very fitting)
There are two places I like my team to be. 1. I love it when they are dominate and they start the season with no doubt about going to the playoffs. Then they get there and you hold your breath the whole way to see if they can make that season the truly special kind. 2. I love to be the underdog with tons of potential. Each game starts and its a chance to hear the frustration of the opposing teams announcers at how they lost to a team like this.
I realized last night as I was watching this team that I had so much frustration and anger for this team and I didn't like it. I don't like making only smart A comments throughout the game. All that emotion came from expecting the first kind of season and not being willing to accept that it was the second kind of season. It is my deep love for this team that breeds my deep contempt. But I don't want to live the rest of this season in frustration and anger. Baseball is too much fun for that. I am switching my mindset. I am rooting for the underdog. When you root for the underdog, you don't expect them to win. But when you root for the underdog every victory is a sweet taste in your mouth that can hold you over until the next great upset.
Charles Colton said, "The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the darkest storm." I know that at the end of this season we will know the true nature of everyone on this team and there is no greater knowledge needed to begin again. | <urn:uuid:de5e1281-0b8e-4112-babd-1237b48db509> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azsnakepit.com/2009/5/13/874596/we-are-now-the-underdogs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971862 | 387 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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An addiction is a compulsion or need that controls your life. If you decide you are on the path to addiction to work, you can take action to change your behavior and find caring people to help you.
Perhaps you put in long hours at work to get ahead. Many do. But if you’re working more and more, and taking less time for other activities, it can lead to stress and anxiety and threaten your relationships. Read the following statements and check “yes” or “no.” Answering “yes” to three or more questions may be a signal that work is taking over your life.
Do you feel your work must be “perfect”?
Do you often work evenings and weekends?
Do you put off taking leisure time?
When you’re not at work, do you talk about it and think about it?
Do you plan vacations that you later cancel because of work?
Do you take work with you, even when you’re on vacation?
Does work keep you from spending time with family and friends?
Do you prefer working to socializing?
Do you feel proud that you don’t take vacations?
Have family and friends begun to complain that they don’t see enough of you?
Do you feel that you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in?
Do you find you get “burned out” at work—tired, unable to concentrate, anxious, and irritable?
Do you prefer work to being home? | <urn:uuid:98ad25f8-b084-4343-939c-854b1dbab0d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.einstein.edu/einsteinhealthtopic/?languagecode=es&healthTopicId=-1&healthTopicName=HealthSheets&articleId=84303&articleTypeId=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962785 | 350 | 1.679688 | 2 |
In just 12 years, Medicare will be broke. So, the question remaining is not whether Medicare will be reformed, but how.
During the first two presidential debates, neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney denied that Medicare's upside-down accounting has put the program on a path toward bankruptcy, but, not surprisingly, each had a very different vision on how we keep our promise to America's seniors. And the differences in those visions matter.
Through his health care reform legislation, Obama cut $716 billion from Medicare's bottom line to use in other programs, and put in place a board of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats that will insert the federal government between doctors and patients. During the first presidential debate, Obama explained the board like this, "When Gov. Romney talks about this ... unelected board that we've created, what this is, is a group of health care experts, doctors, et cetera, to figure out, how can we reduce the cost of care in the system overall?"
The president's top-down plan empowers the Independent Payment Advisory Board to tinker with reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals -- to pay physicians less and less in order to stick to an arbitrary schedule of spending cuts. If you don't think that will affect your care, you're wrong. If reimbursement rates are reduced even further below market value, as many as 15 percent of hospitals could close, according to Medicare's own actuaries. Up to 40 percent of doctors, according to some estimates, may stop seeing Medicare patients completely rather than take the massive pay cuts that will be imposed by federal bureaucrats.
By cutting reimbursements without putting strategies in place that reduce the underlying cost of health care, IPAB will limit the availability of care and effectively ration services for millions of America's most vulnerable patients.
On Medicare, the choice this November couldn't be starker. Mitt Romney has promised to repeal Obama's Medicare plans on Day 1 and replace them with a program that encourages competition between the private sector and government. Romney explained during the debate, "What I do to make sure that we can keep Medicare in place for [people who are young] is to allow them either to choose the current Medicare program or a private plan. Their choice."
Under Romney's plan, Medicare would not change for anyone who is currently 55 years of age or older. For those who are not yet 55, Romney has proposed a premium support program that puts the choice of health care coverage in the hands of seniors, not the government. If Medicare is the best option, future seniors will still have access to the program, but if there is a more affordable or higher quality plan in the private sector, older Americans will have the choice to leave traditional Medicare and pocket any savings.
Whereas President Obama's top-down approach only lowers the amount the federal government will pay for services, Romney's proposal introduces competition into Medicare in order to drive down the cost of health insurance and provide an incentive to improve and innovate current plans for seniors.
Medicare's unfunded liabilities are not sustainable. On average, couples that retired in 2011 paid $150,000 in Medicare taxes throughout their working lives, but over the coming years, will receive more than $350,000 in benefits. On Medicare, voters have a very clear choice this November, and with just 12 years before the program goes broke, this election will determine the future of America's greatest promise to seniors.
Music legend Pat Boone is the national spokesman for the 60 Plus Association, of which Jim Martin is the founder and chairman. | <urn:uuid:e3121beb-8a27-4cd9-86af-6b5c7fe059d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonexaminer.com/twelve-years-left-clock-runs-down-on-saving-medicare/article/2511321?custom_click=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951025 | 719 | 1.78125 | 2 |
In Washington, it is well understood that policy is politics. Changing the world, or even just the law, is not a revolution; it is a slow and painful process of negotiation and compromise. No plan, no matter how perfect its architects imagine it to be, escapes Congress unscathed; no reform ever emerges clean and pure. Interest groups will demand and extract concessions. Constituents must be appeased. Coalitions must remain intact. Appearances must be preserved. Inevitably, the legislative process takes its toll.
But it is easy to forget that policy is also personality. It is convenient to speak of any presidential administration as a single entity with a single purpose. The truth is far more complex. And because the federal government concentrates a relatively large amount of power in the hands of a relatively small number of people, the particular interests and predilections of those individuals can have an outsized impact on the nation’s priorities and how they are implemented.
In The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery, Noam Scheiber, a senior editor at the venerable liberal journal The New Republic, presents a reminder that the senior officials who drive the policymaking process are also people with unique and often clashing personalities. But there is one trait that connects them all: an unshakable belief that there is no economic problem, large or small, they cannot solve through technocratic meddling.
Scheiber’s overview of the Obama years focuses on economic policy: the crash, the stimulus, the fights over health care reform and financial regulation, and the ongoing battles over debt and deficit reduction. These policy issues are relayed largely as debates among a cast that consists primarily of Obama’s top economic advisers, the big swinging wonks of Washington. In crisp prose, Scheiber sketches their motives, backgrounds, and habits of mind. This book is about what makes them tick—and, implicitly, what makes the economy tick.
The major players are all professional Democrats and liberals of one stripe or another. Scheiber’s detailed, thoroughly reported account describes their efforts at responding to the faltering economy while pursuing the rest of Obama’s ambitious agenda. In the process, Scheiber takes as a given his protagonists’ centrality to the success or failure of the economy.
It is an assumption that his subjects share. Their endless infighting and many personal differences are what drive the book and furnish its occasional bursts of dramatic urgency. But they are united in a conviction that the system is broken—and that only they know how to fix it.
That (over)confidence comes from the top, with President Barack Obama setting the tone. From the outset, Obama viewed himself as a post-partisan problem solver, a man whose ultimate allegiance was to pragmatism rather than party politics. As Scheiber tells it, while in the Senate, Obama “preferred to operate as a party of one.”
But Obama was not exactly a man without a team. He was loyal to the cult of policy smarts. He may have even been its high priest. As Scheiber reports, outside analysts reporting to the president were advised to highlight their expert credentials so he would know he wasn’t talking to cranks and dummies. Obama also wanted his inner circle to credit his own abilities: The president, Scheiber writes, “craved intellectual affirmation” and often badgered his lieutenants into acknowledging when his own ideas were perceived to have succeeded. Obama “had a habit of prompting his aides to acknowledge his wisdom and foresight,” Scheiber writes. The president would sometimes wonder aloud, “Whose idea was that?” when he deserved credit.
Obama’s world-historic political ambitions crossbred with his intellectual pretensions, and what emerged was a man who saw himself as a technocratic national savior. He would lose interest in his advisers’ proposals, according to Scheiber, if they did not sound sufficiently visionary. Told early on by a top adviser that his chief accomplishment as president would be preventing another Great Depression, Obama reportedly replied, “That’s not enough for me.”
Scheiber seems to believe this response reflects Obama’s unusual determination, but he does not downplay the president’s outsized self-perception or his unrelenting certainty. “There was a strain of messianism in Barack Obama,” Scheiber writes, “a determination to change the course of history.”
Every messiah needs disciples. Obama’s economic team included a hometown favorite, University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee, and a Washington rookie, Berkeley economist Christina Romer. But for the most part, he formed his economic team from the ashes of the most recent Democratic administration, packing it with associates and protégés of Bill Clinton’s treasury secretary, Robert Rubin. Chief among these were Harvard economist Lawrence Summers, who became the director of the President’s National Economic Council, and Timothy Geithner, a pedigreed finance bureaucrat who was installed as treasury secretary. Acting as a political filter on the policy team’s recommendations was Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, a brash Democratic fixer recruited from the ranks of House leaders.
These disciples all shared the president’s technocratic vision. But unlike the president, they were responsible for figuring out the practical details of how it would get done. How big would the stimulus be? How would the banks be bailed out, and what sort of losses would their shareholders take? Would there be any relief for underwater homeowners, and if so how much? Would deficits be prioritized? What would the president do about entitlement reform? To what extent would an overhaul of the health care system displace an emphasis on jobs and economic growth? Scheiber dissects the White House’s internal conflicts on these and other issues, keeping a close eye on the play-by-play of who supported what plan and why. Each of the participants gets a moment in the spotlight, a canned back story, and a handful of revealing anecdotes.
Sometimes the arguments hinge on wonky debates about the merits and effectiveness of some particular policy. But often they are driven by personality conflicts and petty squabbles. Scheiber portrays the Obama team as more cliquish than a middle school, fraught with seating-chart slights and tennis-camp snubs, where policy is frequently determined by meaningless personal byplay. When the stimulus package is being put together, Rahm Emanuel’s brother, Ezekiel, who worked as a White House health care adviser, sees an early list of spending options and expresses dismay that it lacks a wow factor; he laments that there’s nothing as exciting as, say, a bullet train between New York and Washington, D.C. None of the economists on the team thinks such trains make effective stimulus, but when the bill passes, it includes $8 billion in funding for high-speed rail. Obama, meanwhile, is reported to have pushed Christina Romer to check and recheck numbers on potential jobs from clean energy, despite being repeatedly informed that public subsidies for the sector would produce minimal employment gains. The numbers side with Romer: According to Department of Energy data, $38.6 billion in federally guaranteed green energy loans have produced just 3,545 permanent jobs.
Yet their own daily experience with the arbitrary and irrational nature of the policymaking process does nothing to convince the assembled experts of their own fallibility. They accept such absurdities as the price of the process. Each of the episodes that Scheiber relates takes a similar shape: An economic problem arises or is identified. The Obama team decides to solve it. Players go back and forth over various mechanisms they believe might address the issues. Something is done, or nothing is done, but few of the problems ever really go away. The stimulus does not lift the economy out of a recession; financial regulation leaves the overall structure of the financial sector essentially the same; millions of homeowners still owe more than their homes are worth. Yet when the next problem appears on the horizon, the debates begin again. | <urn:uuid:659ba23d-1d10-4013-97e8-1a5cc30be155> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.com/archives/2012/05/09/the-technocratic-mind | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965673 | 1,674 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The 2012-2013 Common Reading Experience selection subcommittee has narrowed its list of nominations to six finalists. The final selection is expected to be made by early March and the committee will choose from the following titles:
Ten Letters: The Stories Americans Tell Their President by Eli Saslow
In this inspiring and powerful look at the issues facing Americans today, reporter Eli Saslow creates vivid portraits of the lives of ten citizens who corresponded with President Obama. Their letters, and the president’s handwritten responses, tell of the personal struggles behind everything from healthcare to immigration to war.
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir by Neil White
Neil White wanted only the best for those he loved and was willing to go to any lengths to provide it—which is how he ended up in a federal prison in rural Louisiana, serving eighteen months for bank fraud. But it was no ordinary prison. The beautiful, isolated colony in Carville, Louisiana, was also home to the last people in the continental United States disfigured by leprosy—a small circle of outcasts who had forged a tenacious, clandestine community, a fortress to repel the cruelty of the outside world.
Outcasts United: An American Town, a Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference by Warren St. John
Clarkston, Georgia, was a typical Southern town until it was designated a refugee settlement center in the 1990s, becoming the first American home for scores of families in flight from the world’s war zones—from Liberia and Sudan to Iraq and Afghanistan. Suddenly Clarkston’s streets were filled with women wearing the hijab, the smells of cumin and curry, and kids of all colors playing soccer in any open space they could find.
The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields and the Dinner Table by Tracie McMillan
When award-winning (and working-class) journalist Tracie McMillan saw foodies swooning over $9 organic tomatoes, she couldn’t help but wonder: What about the rest of us? Why do working Americans eat the way we do? And what can we do to change it? To find out, McMillan went undercover in three jobs that feed America, living and eating off her wages in each.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to their dramatic conclusion, this unforgettable family-motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce-pulls itself up to face another day. A big-hearted novel about familial love and community against all odds, and a wrenching look at the lonesome, brutal, and restrictive realities of rural poverty, Salvage the Bones is muscled with poetry, revelatory, and real.
The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig M. Mullaney
In this surprise bestseller, West Point grad, Rhodes scholar, Airborne Ranger, and U. S. Army Captain Craig Mullaney recounts his unparalleled education and the hard lessons that only war can teach. | <urn:uuid:0ab2d298-58b1-42b0-ad85-fe5fd46ffd72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.olemiss.edu/common-reading-experience-committee-narrows-book-list/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946516 | 652 | 1.632813 | 2 |
David Ogilvy is a legend in the advertising world, despite having first retired some 30 year ago and not having published a book in nearly 25. His works are required reading for advertising students today and his philosophy of creating ads that generate sales made millions for his clients. He had a characteristic style or writing and design that remains instantly recognizable to those who’ve studied him, even today.
Though Ogivly died in 1999, just as the Web was beginning to take off, many of his lessons and ideas remain just as valid today as they did half a century ago. Last year I wrote an article entitled “7 Blogging Tips from David Ogilvy” that focused on applying some of Ogilvy’s techniques to blog writing. Ttoday however, I’m going to focus on how his design tips can help you choose a good look for your blog.
Ogilvy had a very famous and classic layout that focused on combining visuals with easy-to-read text. It’s a simple layout that draws the reader’s eye and lures them into the content. It’s a design that at least some elements easily apply to blogs, including the ones below.
1. Clean Layout
Ogilvy’s layouts were very clean. A visual element at the top, a strong headline and text below. The eye had a set course to follow and nothing in the ads was allowed to take away from the focus on the content.
Blog design can learn from this too. The WTF Blot Clutter series on the site contains some excellent examples of things that could distract your readers from your content, thus making it less likely to be read.
Be smart about what you put around your content and make sure it is worthwhile before adding something that could be a diversion. Is it something that’s useful and warrants a potential distraction, or just “fun” and “interesting”.
2. No Reverse Type
David Ogilvy repeatedly found that reverse type (white text on a black background) is harder to read and that having black text on a white background. Though the rule was written for the print world, where Ogily did the majority of his work, it seems to function well on the Web.
Though some environments that people are going to look at for long times at a stretch, such as programming and Web development applications, are easier to view in reverse type as it can reduce eye strain, most people find it easier to read regular type on the Web.
The exception, of course, is if your readers are used to reverse type. At that point, it most likely is better to use it. However, always make sure that your text and background are of a high contrast (no gray on white, for example) to one another for easier reading.
3. Visual Before Text
Ogilvy’s advertisements had a visual element to draw the eye of the reader to the ad and to lure them into the text. To aid in this, the visual element, the largest one at least, was placed BEFORE the text, so the ad could create a trail for the eye to follow, visual, text and then the call to action.
The idea is simple, get people to look at the text with a good visual, hook people into the text with great writing and then walk them through with subheads and compelling copy until they read the call to action.
Remember, with blogs, you aren’t just designing for the Web but also for RSS. Feeds need a strong visual center as well to help them stand out from the hundreds of other feeds your readers likely subscribe to.
4. Font Play
When it comes to choosing fonts for your site, it is more important to use what your readers are familiar with than follow any specific rule. Some readers find serif fonts easier, others find sans-serif fonts easier to read.
It seems to largely be based upon a digital divide, those who are more used to printed works are fans of serif fonts while those who are more used to reading materials on the Web prefer sans-serif.
The important thing, however, is to NOT use a font that is outside of the norm. Fonts that are too new and too unique are difficult to read and will turn readers away. This also means keeping your font size within the normal range too, usually between 10 and 12 pt.
5. Narrow Columns, Small Paragraphs and Subheads
Your writing has a direct bearing on your design so you have to write for the eye as well as for the ear. Use shorter paragraphs and regular subheads to give your readers breaks and make long copy seem shorter.
Also, make sure that your main column is narrow enough to be easily read. Ogivly used a newspaper layout with multiple columns per page. This is not something most blogs can use, but with monitors approaching 2000 pixels wide and beyond, place some controls on how wide your main column can be so that the reader can easily get to the next line.
Granted, there are many elements of Ogilvy’s design that don’t translate well into the Web. For example, drop caps, a staple of his ads, are all but gone from both the print and Web world, making them more of a distraction than a benefit.
However, much of it, if not most of it, does still apply very strongly and it is well worth studying. Because David Ogilvy’s design style was clean, simple and effective, not to mention ideal for layouts with a lot of words.
Though you don’t want to make your site look like a giant ad, using some of advertising’s design tricks can help make your site easier to read and more effective for your reader. It’s only logical that the industry that is expert and motivating people to buy products might hold clues on how to motivate people to do other things, whether it’s subscribe, take some kind of political action or simply come back.
As such, it’s worth understanding how advertising works and, to that end, I can not recommend David Ogilvy’s last book highly enough. | <urn:uuid:698b5bf8-d7a0-4210-a057-b92ecf32d0e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.blogherald.com/2009/08/17/5-ogilvy-tips-for-blog-design/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964566 | 1,283 | 1.5625 | 2 |
City Gate Ramat Gan
Structure in general
- The building appeared in a TV advertisment for Israel Lottery on December 2002.
- The original plan for Israel's tallest tower called for a 199m tower, however, due to high demand for offices and apartments before construction had even begun, the building's height was increased.
- Holds the title of Highest Occupied Floor in Israel.
- First tower in Israel to exceed 50 floors.
- The second official name, Moshe Aviv Tower, is after the tower's developer and owner, the late Moshe Aviv, who had died unexpectedly during the tower's construction.
- The construction period was extremely short, achieving a sequence of five stories per month with only one shift of 40 workers.
- Rate of concrete placement per month was 3,000 m³ (105,930 ft³).
- On a typical floor there are 42 windows.
- The top 16 stories feature the largest panoramic windows in the tower.
- One of the platforms inside the core is extremely large and was the biggest platform ever made by PERI GmbH Formwork and Scaffolding (in coordination with their Israeli branch), at the time.
- Total weight of the tower is 160,000 tons.
- Total length of the water pipes inside the tower is 15 km. Cumulative length of the air-conditioning pipes is 40 km.
- At more than 6 meters a second, the tower's elevators are some of the fastest in the country.
- Cost of a residential square meter in the tower is US$3,000 on average before required tax.
- Maximum sway at the top of the tower during an earthquake is 40 cm in each direction.
- Most expensive single tower ever built in the country.
- Typical floor size within the tower is 1,440 m².
- There is an approved plan for a similar tower of the same height, called Elite Residences. It is planned to be built across Jabutinski Road, on the current lot of Elite Factory.
- Inspired by the famous Westendstraße 1 in Frankfurt.
- A swimming pool and fitness club are situated on the tower's carpark annex roof.
- Despite its central location and remarkable height, the top floors are not accessible to the public and do not include an observation floor or a restaurant.
- First-ever high-rise to mix office and residential usage in Israel.
- Though accessed from the same entrance hall, separated lobbies and elevators serve the office and residential sections.
- A synagogue on the 3rd floor serves the tower's residents, tenants, and others.
- Tallest tower in Israel, overtook Azrieli Center Circular Tower.
- City Gate Ramat Gan is Aviv and Ocif Companies' flagship project and their most ambitious endeavor to date.
- Tallest tower, by number of floors (68), in the Middle East and Europe, at completion.
- On Monday, September 27th, 2004, as part of the annual, global City in Pink lighting campaign for the breast cancer struggle, the building was lit completely in bright pink light. Other buildings in Israel to be lit in previous years, were Shalom Mayer Tower in 2003, and Azrieli Center towers in 2002.
- Has the largest car park facility in Israel for a single tower, with 10 parking levels; some are underground, some are overground.
- The tower consists of 63,000 m² of office space, 17,000 m² of residential space and 1,200 m² of commercial space.
- There are 98 apartments in the tower, sited on the top 11 floors. The highest round floor is a 690 m² penthouse, which is one of the most expensive flats in the country.
- The rooftop of the cylinder part serves as a helipad, making it the third skyscraper in Israel (and the first outside Tel Aviv), with a rooftop helipad. The fourth is Matcal Tower.
- Click here to begin the timeline of Shalom Mayer Tower
- Click here to begin the timeline of Shimshon Tower
Do you need more information about this building and its related companies?More Information
Also recorded for this building:
Owner, Developer, Construction company, Tenant, Check engineering, Facade supplier, Elevator supplier, Interior designer, Formwork supplier, Structural engineering, Facade maintenance system supplier, Acoustics consultant, Internal wall supplier, Steel supplier
Features & Amenities
- One of the city's famous buildings
- Doorman is available
- Exercise facility is available
- Floodlighting at night
- Handicapped accessible
- Helipad is available
- Internal safety rooms available
- Public parking is available
- Swimming pool is available | <urn:uuid:b7cbd226-0445-4370-8e33-e3d04fe3bde8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.emporis.com/building/citygateramatgan-ramatgan-israel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935137 | 996 | 1.820313 | 2 |
“We were happy to work on this bill. It was the right thing to do and now the Utah Navajos can continue their education and complete badly needed housing projects for another two years,” said David Hinkins (R) Orangeville, sponsor of the bill.
“As a former education administrator, it’s satisfying to see our efforts resulting in meeting some of the educational needs of our Navajo constituents” said Christine Watkins (D) Price, who managed the bill in the House of Representatives.
The State of Utah-Navajo Trust Fund (UNTF) administered these programs until 2008, when the UNTF was dissolved.
A transition organization – the Navajo Royalties Holding Fund (UNRHF) – was established to administer the fund until a new trustee is designated by the U.S. Congress.
The UNRHF was scheduled to wind down college financial aid to new college students by June, 2010, but now the UNRHF will continue to serve Utah Navajo students for the next two years or until a new trustee takes over, whichever comes first.
“This is good news,” said Marilyn Holiday, Education Specialist with UNRHF. She added “A lot of the mothers of students were worried that their high school sophomores and juniors would not get this assistance but now they can, at least for another two years.”
UNRHF had advised parents that high school seniors graduating during the spring of 2010 should get into college right away so that they can become eligible for the UNRHF college financial aid cut-off date of June 30, 2010.
Now, however, new students intending to use UNRHF college financial aid monies can enter college during fall semester, and not need to rush into college during the summer.
“Nizhoni!” (meaning “good” or “excellent” in Navajo) says Ed Tapaha with a big smile on his face. “Now they can take a breather from school during the summer before they buckle down for college in the fall.”
Mr. Tapaha is a former UNTF Dineh Committee member, works for San Juan County as the Navajo Liaison, and is the current Chair of the Native American Scholarship Committee at the Utah State University-College of Eastern Utah..
SB 237 also authorizes the unspent balances of housing and community development grants previously approved by the former UNTF Board of Trustees to continue to be used for the originally-approved projects. Authority to expend these funds expired in January, but SB 237 extended the expiration date to January 1, 2012.
“We worked hard to get this legislation through,” said Kenneth Maryboy, San Juan County Commssioner, and Davis Filfred, both also serving as delegates on the Navajo Nation Council, “because not everyone was able to finish their projects by the January deadline. We weren’t asking for additional new monies, but just to use up what was already approved. It would have been a shame if the Utah Navajos couldn’t use up what was already approved to them.”
Herman Farley, Red Mesa Chapter President, added his appreciation, “I thank all the Utah Navajo Chapters, our Council Delegates, the Navajo Utah Commission, David Hinkins and Christine Watkins, the Governor, and the state legislature to make this happen.” | <urn:uuid:c6750418-455d-4cdd-a732-0bc0b0d10458> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sjrnews.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Legislature+passes+2-year+extension+of+trust+fund+programs%20&id=6974685&instance=news_roundup | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973555 | 711 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Published Wed, Dec 12, 2012 10:37 am Dateline
Nearly 15,000 miles of natural gas pipeline stretch across West Virginia, and as Sissonville residents now know, accidents can happen.
Federal regulators say there have been 20 significant incidents involving deaths, injuries or major property damage in West Virginia in the last decade.
The worst was in April 2006, when four men at a Canaan Valley construction site were killed in a blast later blamed on a cracked pipe.
Four homes were destroyed Tuesday and a section of Interstate 77 was cooked when a 20-inch Columbia Gas transmission line exploded and triggered a massive fire.
No one was killed. The cause is under investigation. | <urn:uuid:bc24522c-e514-404b-bcf6-1a20b1fefcc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://woub.org/2012/12/12/gas-pipeline-safety-under-scrutiny-after-explosion | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962781 | 138 | 1.742188 | 2 |
PHOENIX -- As we head into this year's monsoon season, many Arizonans can't help but wonder if we're in for a repeat of last year's dry and dusty summer.
We didn't get much rain in the 2011 monsoon and we had several major dust storms, including a mile-high wall of dust that pushed through the Valley on July 5.
That storm was caused by a thunderstorm that collapsed over the parched desert just north of Tucson. The outflow picked up dust that moved north toward Phoenix, packing 60 mph winds.
The evening commute came to a halt as the dust turned daylight to dark, and even planes trying to leave Sky Harbor International Airport were grounded. | <urn:uuid:c3b266cb-a8b9-4bc4-afd3-b6a757dc8b34> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.azfamily.com/weather/severe-weather/Monsoon-Special-2012-Dust-storm-leaves-its-mark-153696695.html?ref=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982258 | 145 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The power of one in the fight against the sports concussion crisis
Chris Nowinski is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Sports Legacy Institute (SLI), a non-profit organization dedicated to solve the sports concussion crisis. He also serves as a Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy(BU CSTE) at Boston University School of Medicine. Mr. Nowinski also serves on the National Football League Players Association Mackey/White TBI Research Committee and on the board of directors of the Brain Injury Association of America.
A former Harvard football player and WWE professional wrestler, he was forced to retire from a series of concussions in 2003. He debuted on WWE’s flagship program Monday Night RAW in 2002, when he was named “Newcomer of the Year” by RAW Magazine, and was the youngest male Hardcore Champion in WWE history.
Diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome, Chris began a quest to better understand this condition. It wasn’t until he visited his 8th doctor, the renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Robert Cantu, that Chris was first exposed to medical research that told him concussions and brain trauma were misunderstood in the sports world. Chris connected that this lack of awareness among athletes, coaches, and even medical professionals cost him his career, and threatened the health and well-being of athletes of all ages. This led him to write the critically acclaimed book Head Games: Football’s Concussion Crisis, published in 2006, in an effort to educate parents, coaches, medical professionals, and children about this serious public health issue.” | <urn:uuid:2a3ccff1-8e72-4035-b95b-688505db79d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shapiroberezins.com/2012/10/05/how-to-increase-public-awareness-to-solve-the-sports-concussion-crisis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973984 | 334 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Welcome to Estuary Energy
Estuary Energy Limited (EEL) was formed in 2009 to build and operate wind farms on the heavily industrialised regions of south east England, an area with some of the strongest most predictable winds within the southern UK. The company bases itself in the area.
The areas targeted are largely a mix of marshland and heavy industry, comprising of power stations, shipping ports, overhead cables, rail and road infrastructure. The sites are also adjacent to some highly sensitive areas for birdlife, and development must only proceed after consideration of their environmental impact. | <urn:uuid:b501b453-2a0c-4ccb-b45c-2e7083f89272> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.estuaryenergy.com/index.html | 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 | 0.95658 | 115 | 1.648438 | 2 |
I'm not talking about the subject of their post "$350 billion for 350 ppm" although even Sir Nicholas Stern would beg to differ (and he's still lowballing). From:
Sir Nicholas Stern: Cost of Carbon Biz Has Doubed to 2% of World Economy
World GDP estimates:
No it hasn't.
Sir Nick was low balling the cost of his proposals last year.
On May 31, 2007 we wrote:...we're starting to get to the real number and we should be able to keep it all under a third-of-a-trillion dollars per year for the U.S. contribution (before adding in direct costs like putting vodka in your tank but that's okay, the Stern number of 1% of World Gross Product should be 2% minimum so we've got incorrect estimates piling on incorrect estimates anyway).
I don't know why he was having fun with numbers but he was. If a humble blogger can work the abacus I'm pretty sure Stern knew.
If he didn't, here's a headline from the Times of India, September 25, 2007:Cost of dealing with climate change: 2% of GDP
By either measure the cost is over a Tril., with the bulk expected to come from the people in the Western countries.
GDP (purchasing power parity ):
GWP (gross world product): $65.61 trillion (2007 est.)
GDP (official exchange rate):
GWP (gross world product): $54.62 trillion (2007 est.)
No, the bit I'm talking about is this:
"...The above was written by Ross Gelbpsan, “a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and a leading voice in the struggle for a clean energy future. His books on global warming include The Heat is On and Boiling Point.”..."
Good grief. A couple dozen keystrokes gets you to:
Your search yielded no results
- Check if your spelling is correct.
- Remove quotes around phrases to match each word individually: "blue smurf" will match less than blue smurf.
- Consider loosening your query with OR: blue smurf will match less than blue OR smurf. | <urn:uuid:e636cbd4-4e22-4831-9bb9-85ff4a85fa50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://climateerinvest.blogspot.com/2008/08/not-after-gutenberg-nooooo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93091 | 458 | 1.507813 | 2 |
By Arthur Weinreb Thursday, February 4, 2010
Earlier this week it was revealed that Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams was going to the United States for heart surgery. Like most Canadian politicians, Williams is a big proponent of Canada’s socialized health care system.
The premier’s office has been tight lipped about exactly what is wrong with Williams and has only said that whatever treatment that he needs is not available in his home province.
Apparently his doctors advised him to head south of the border for a necessary operation. The medical establishment is furious, arguing that even if what the premier requires is not available in Newfoundland and Labrador, treatment is surely available somewhere else in Canada. And it probably is.
Danny Williams is not the first high profile Canadian politician to champion Canada’s healthcare system and then go to the U.S. when he’s the one who needs medical attention. And unless Barack Obama completely restructures the American system, he won’t be the last. When King Hussein of Jordan died and leaders around the world flew to Amman to pay their respects, then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was one of the few not to attend. Chrétien was “skiing in British Columbia” and just had no way to get to Jordan. The region where the former PM was “skiing” was close to where the upcoming Winter Olympics are being held. But the Prime Minister of Canada, with his staff and private jets just couldn’t figure out how to get out of B.C. and go over to Jordan. Later on it was revealed that Chrétien hadn’t been skiing at all; he had been at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. But Danny boy made a big mistake; you’re not supposed to let anyone know where you are when you leave the country for medical reasons. Whatever can be said about Williams, one thing is clear; he’s no Jean Chrétien.
Canada has at least achieved one of the pillars of its healthcare system – equal access. As the head of a Canadian province, Danny Williams has no greater access to the system than a homeless person does. The problem of course is that we are not supposed to have a two-tiered healthcare system. But we do have one as long as people like Williams have enough money to leave the country and pay for medical treatment outside of Canada. Williams’ money is the real reason that many people are upset. The Toronto Star best expressed this outrage among medicare defenders in their headline, “‘Danny Millions’ Williams heads south for heart surgery”. The premier is resented because the former millionaire businessman can afford to go to the United States and pay for treatment while other Canadians can’t afford it. Williams should do the patriotic thing and sacrifice his life on a waiting list.
Canada’s one-tier healthcare system has always been a sham. Government run healthcare only covers services in a province that the provincial government deems medically necessary. When a province wants to cut expenditures, as Ontario did a couple of years ago, they simply delist certain procedures. What was medically necessary one day becomes medically unnecessary the next, forcing people to pay for treatment. The governments that praise the so-called one tier system don’t see anything wrong with that.
Canada is huge geographically but most of its 33 million people live in the south. Canada’s three major cities, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are less than a two hour drive from the American border. Canadians who can afford it and want better or at least quicker medical treatment often go to the United States. This only becomes a problem when a high profile person like Danny Williams lets it leak out that he’s having surgery in the United States.
Williams’ southern excursion is especially newsworthy in the United States where opponents of Obamacare have been handed another argument against those who favour a Canadian-style healthcare system. But in Canada, despite the whining and complaining, what Danny Williams did was not unique or extraordinary; we just prefer to keep the practice hidden.
Click to view image: 'a3d02de48683-canadacare.jpg'
|Liveleak on Facebook| | <urn:uuid:e82c758a-8d9c-4608-8a22-e94b1ac9e042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5b4_1265392948 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967157 | 871 | 1.796875 | 2 |
I watched John Carpenter’s 1981 ‘Escape From New York’ last week for the first time in many years, possibly since the early 80′s. When I saw it as a kid, I thought it was the coolest: a whole city abandoned and converted into a prison, oddball criminals carving out a post-apocalyptic world in the ruins. The landmarks I knew only through movies and TV shows: the World Trade Center, Grand Central Station, Radio City Music Hall, Central Park, transformed into a wrestling arena, a gangster headquarters, a den of rape, violence, horror. New York was synonymous with crime then, with whole neighborhoods abandoned and put to the torch, so it wasn’t such a stretch to believe that it would be rendered uninhabitable by all but the worst criminals. But even then, it wasn’t really a frightening film: the characters weren’t quite real, and the dystopian Manhattan felt more like a video game.
The plot: Snake Plisken (Kurt Russell) is a former war hero turned fugitive about to be shipped to Manhattan after attempting to rob the Federal Reserve. The year is 1997, 10 years after Manattan was declared a maximum security prison (following a 400% spike in crime across the US). In Manhattan: “There are no guards inside the prison, only prisoners, and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple: once you go in, you don’t come out.” The President’s plane has been hijacked by lefty terrorists (remember them?), and the President has escaped in a pod. Snake is recruited to get him out.
The film starts off strong, with shots of a darkened Manhattan across the water, then Snake Plisken (Kurt Russell) soaring in on the power glider, swooping silently over the abandoned streets, up to the top of the silent Twin Towers. That moment of tension is intense: looking down on those familiar streets, wondering what lives there. There’s even a hint of menace when a solitary figure runs across the background, as Snake descends by foot through the Tower after catching a service elevator to the 50th floor. On ground level, he wanders, gun aloft, past boarded up warehouse buildings in what should be Tribeca, to the site of the crashed plane, still smoldering in the middle of what could be Delancey.
From there, the film descends rapidly into farce. In a theatre, Snake witnesses a musical, performed by prisoners in raggedy drag, and meets ‘Cabby’ (played by Ernest Borgnine). It is unclear whether Cabby is a criminal, or somehow left over from New York’s other life. Soon, Snake is caught in an attack by the ‘crazies’, cannibals who live in the subways and come above ground once a month to ‘feed’. In the back of a ‘Chock Full O’ Nuts’, he meets a woman prisoner with surprisingly well-coifed 80′s hair (all the ‘prisoners’ seem to have great hair – even in the Apocalypse, New York remains fashion conscious), but the first very faint hints of romance disappear abruptly when the girl is kidnapped and presumably eaten by the crazies. Snake runs for his life, saved by Cabby in a 70′s style yellow cab, complete with heavy grilles over the windows, who tells him, with remarkable understatement: “This is a rough neighborhood, Snake, you don’t want to be caught down here. I just came down ’cause I wanted to catch the show!”
From there, Snake has to rescue the President from the “A-Number-One, Duke of New York” (played with impressive gravitas by Isaac Hayes). He meets his old friend and nemesis, Brain (Harry Dean Stanton), whose girlfriend also has a perfect 80′s perm, in the basement of the New York Public Library, sets out to rescue the President from one of the abandoned railway cars in Grand Central Station, battle a monster cage fight in what looks like the Great Hall of the Met, before dashing over the 69th street bridge with Brain, Cabby and the President, the Duke giving chase.
The main character of course is the city, yet Manhattan remains curiously out of focus. After I’d watched the film again, I read that it was actually filmed in East St. Louis, which had recently been leveled by a fire, and this explains why a lot of the backdrops are never quite recognizable. The film could have been menacing, but no characters are developed enough, and of course everyone has that great hair, as if the inmates managed to maintain hair salons, even amidst the worst depravity. Even the graffiti is curiously family friendly (“BRICKS”, “Don’t fool with Nico Hext!”) As a period piece, it’s pretty rich: the inmates affect many fashions: Early 80′s New Wave clubber, biker, psycho, drugged-out hippy, black and Puerto Rican street dude. Some of the hippies even wear outsized, purple plastic sunglass rims. Casting this thing must have been a blast.
‘Escape’ has much in common with ‘The Warriors’, including the time period, the vision of a post-Apocalyptic New York, and some memorable scenes. But the Warriors is far more compelling – even realistic. Kurt Russell’s ‘Snake’ is so flat, uninteresting – we are never told why a war hero became a fugitive worthy of being shipped to the worst prison in the nation, and Snake goes through no change of character, no moment of vulnerability even. As soon as I’d watched the film, I’d pretty much forgotten it.
Maybe not that vision of a great city abandoned. Somehow, even if it was out of focus, that still rings true. I wonder how many people who’d lived in New York in the golden mid-century era, felt something similar when they came back after the great hollowing out of the 70′s and 80′s. Having been to Detroit, and coming from a town that has more or less been abandoned, I can recognize that it happens.
But who would have guessed that Manhattan would indeed become a gated community – but for the rich? It’s almost like ‘Escape’ in reverse. | <urn:uuid:b2247b28-dde9-4c7c-b0e1-39c46ee50470> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cityofstrangers.net/new-york-past/escape-from-new-york/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957102 | 1,363 | 1.523438 | 2 |
President Obama to Participate in Televised Town Hall on Education
06:05 PM EDT
As part of his ongoing effort to improve education for all Americans, President Obama will participate in a Univision-hosted town hall with students, parents and teachers on March 28 to discuss education and Hispanic educational attainment. The town hall is part of Univision's "Es el Momento" (The Moment is Now) initiative focused on creating a college-bound culture in the Hispanic community.
Do you have questions about better preparing students for college and 21st century careers? Or thoughts on how to increase parental enagement in education? Now's your chance. In advance of the town hall, you're invited to submit education-related questions here. Questions must be submitted by Sunday, March 27.
Then tune in to watch a live video stream from the event in either English or Spanish at EsElMomento.com, starting at 7:00 PM EDT on Monday, March 28. | <urn:uuid:99985e69-7d48-40d3-86a5-c54297105635> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/03/18/president-obama-participate-televised-town-hall-education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955093 | 199 | 1.75 | 2 |
In politics, when the going gets tough, the tough have to get very, very smart.
After days of bad news, bumbles and bobbles, Barack Obama
got smart last week. In fact, he got downright brilliant.
Bypassing the sucking, hopeless, sinkhole that is the U.S. Congress, Obama announced a new immigration policy
, one that invokes an old, and therefore legal, power: He is taking “deferred action” on whether to proceed against hundreds of thousands of people who came to this country illegally.
It is not permanent. He, or any other president, can revoke it. And therein lies part of the brilliance.
Obama is saying to young immigrants who are in school, have graduated from high school or served in the U.S. military and have not gotten in trouble with the law: OK, you can stay. For now.
Further, you can travel on the passport of your country of origin (Mexico or China, for instance) and be allowed back into the United States.
And you will be given a card called an Employment Authorization Document that will allow you to legally get a job.
But what the president did not do is also important. Nobody will be handed a permanent resident card, commonly called a green card. Nobody is being promised citizenship or is being put on a path to citizenship.
And, importantly, you have to come “out of the shadows” and apply for your EAD card. You must register. The card will bear your photograph and fingerprint and a number that allows you to be tracked. You also have to pay your taxes.
So far, Hispanic and civil rights groups have hailed this as a good deal. It is not the DREAM Act, which would have put people on track for a green card and eventual citizenship. But versions of the DREAM Act have been kicking around for years, and in 2010 the Republicans in the Senate blocked it.
Obama has now done an end run around Congress, and Republicans are howling that the White House has acted politically. Wow. I’ll bet there’s gambling in Casablanca, too.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a Cuban-American, has been talking about introducing his own semi-DREAM Act for a while. Rubio appears to be on a shortlist as a running mate for Mitt Romney, who may see Rubio as a way to attract Hispanic voters.
Only 3.5 percent of the Hispanics in this country have a Cuban heritage, while 63 percent have a Mexican heritage. But Rubio could have gotten significant Hispanic support for the Republican ticket by introducing an immigration bill. And if he had introduced his bill, how could the Democrats have voted against it?
But Rubio dithered. He never introduced
an immigration bill. And while Rubio was talking, Obama was taking action. Rubio is now shocked, dismayed and embarrassed.
As Rubio told “ABC World News” on Friday, “The White House never called us about this, no one reached out to us and told us this was on its way.”
I doubt this was received with anything but laughter at the White House.
But stealing a march on Rubio was only half the strategy. Obama also caught Mitt Romney flat-footed. When Bob Schieffer asked Romney on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday whether he, as president, would repeal what Obama had done, Romney had no answer.
Romney would say only that he would “look at that setting as we reach it.”
And with that, the Obama trap snapped shut. The choice for Hispanic voters is now simple: Vote for Obama and you are guaranteed a humane immigration policy for your children, relatives, friends, neighbors and fellow Hispanics for the next four years.
Vote for Romney and you get the uncertainty of which “setting” he chooses to take.
“This is a stroke of political genius,” Bruce Morrison told me. A former Democratic congressman from Connecticut, Morrison was chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee, a member of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform and House author of the Immigration Act of 1990. He’s now an immigration attorney and lobbies on a wide variety of immigration issues.
“Obama has taken Rubio’s idea and put it into action,” Morrison said. “He has given these people a work permit, the ability to remain in this country, but no permanent status.” Their legal status can be terminated at any time. “But it won’t be terminated by Obama,” Morrison said.
But won’t American citizens resent new competition at a time when jobs are scarce? Couldn’t there be a voter backlash?
“The answer to that is that workers who have legal status are not nearly as much a problem as people without legal status who take any jobs under any conditions,” Morrison said. “And these people are not being handed a job; they are getting the opportunity for a job. A lot currently are paying taxes, but now all of them will pay taxes.”
Morrison also believes, as Obama claims, this will improve national security.
“They now go on a list of who is in this country,” Morrison said. “It never made sense to have millions of unrecognized people, which created a pool within which the truly dangerous can hide.”
So do a checklist on the new Obama policy:
Good for a limited number of hardworking, honest immigrants? Check.
Good for America because it will bring in more taxes? Check.
Good for America because it will increase security? Check.
Good for Obama politically? Check.
Good because it shows that a do-nothing Congress is a Congress that this nation can do without? Hooray! | <urn:uuid:6c9dc51a-4fdc-4856-801e-0ee92d96ed56> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthread.php?149393-A-brilliant-political-stroke | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972617 | 1,216 | 1.765625 | 2 |
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|Yield x Warheads||1,000 x 8|
|Area of Effect||m|
The Wasp light swarm missile is arguably the best missile for destroying light fighters, interceptors and scouts. This is due to the fact that it is powerful for its price, takes up very little storage and is exceptionally fast, in addition to being compatible with many, many ships.
Encyclopedia Entry
The Wasp Class Missile is a very powerful but light missile. The wasp missile is the first choice of small fighter craft. It is fast, accurate and very deadly. It's lethal reputation has even led it to be fitted to some destroyers. If fired in masses, the high speed makes it nearly impossible for a weapon system to defend against all incoming missiles.
The Wasp is one of the older missiles in the X-Universe, however, its deployment in swarms is relatively new. Because it is compatible with most Commonwealth ships and is so good at destroying the small, annoying targets that heavier missiles can't catch, it is a big hit with users and quite possibly the second-most commonly employed missile after the Mosquito. It can also be used in conjunction with anti-shield weapons like the Pulsed Beam Emitter against larger targets; 8,000 hull damage will put a dent in even M3 and M6 class vessels and having multiple warheads helps defeat enemy missile defenses. | <urn:uuid:c5ddbbb6-5704-41a3-8db4-4cb329b00d74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.x3wiki.com/index.php/Wasp_Missile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946659 | 295 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Paterno statue removed from Penn State campus
By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) — The statue of the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno has been removed from outside the campus’ stadium, CNN affiliate WTAJ said.
The 900-pound bronze statue is being stored in a “secure location,” according to a statement from Penn State President Rodney Erickson. The tribute to Paterno had become an object of contention after the child rape scandal involving former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Paterno’s statue and legacy came under fire after the release of the Freeh Report, the scathing investigation led by former FBI Director Louis Freeh.
The report found several Penn State officials concealed evidence that Sandusky had sexually abused minors. Freeh concluded that Paterno could have prevented further sexual abuse had he taken action. Sandusky was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse involving 10 victims.
“I now believe that, contrary to its original intention, coach Paterno’s statue has become a source of division and an obstacle to healing in our university and beyond,” Erickson said.
“I believe that, were it to remain, the statue will be a recurring wound to the multitude of individuals across the nation and beyond who have been the victims of child abuse,” he added.
On Sunday, Penn State employees began placing fencing around the statue, as well as a tarp. Local and university police were at the scene, and some students have gathered near the football field, Beaver Stadium.
Another tribute to Paterno — the university library that bears his name — will remain as it is, Erickson said.
“The library remains a tribute to Joe and Sue Paterno’s commitment to Penn State’s student body and academic success, and it highlights the positive impacts coach Paterno had on the university,” he wrote.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) called Paterno “a powerful man who acted selfishly” who “deserves no public honors whatsoever.”
“We’re glad the statue is gone but that’s just a tiny step forward,” SNAP spokesman David Clohessy said in a statement. “We as a society must learn that a good way to deter child sex cover-ups is to punish, not praise, those who instigate such cover-ups.”
The NCAA, which oversees college sports, announced on its Twitter feed that it plans to hold a press conference regarding Penn State at 9 a.m. Monday.
CNN’s Susan Candiotti and Ross Levitt contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:1aa8ade3-cbf3-4302-85f4-4c2b701e1702> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wtvr.com/2012/07/22/paterno-statue-removed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970609 | 566 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Once you've registered, your class schedule is not set in stone. You can make changes for quite some time. What should you think about when considering adding or dropping courses?
- If you're dropping a course and adding a course, be sure to submit both changes simultaneously. Why? Because if for some reason you can't add the course, the computer won't drop you from your course, either — because no part of the transaction will occur unless all the requests are ok. This can save you if you are trying to get the one space in a popular course. If the space has disappeared, you won't lose the course you wanted it to replace.
- If dropping a course will take you below 12 credits, consider whether you need to have full-time student status. Typical reasons you may need to be full-time: for financial aid, if you are an international student, and to remain on your parents' insurance.
- You can't drop only part of a Freshman Interest Group (FIG).
- To drop a whole FIG, just drop the GEN ST 199 course and submit. The whole FIG will be dropped.
- Courses move very quickly at the UW. Even missing the first few class meetings may put you far behind your classmates. If you plan to add a course after the quarter has begun, consider attending the course even before you're officially registered for it. If that's not feasible, ask your classmates and/or instructor for any material you missed from the first few days.
- Aside from the issue of falling behind, there are a number of restrictions on dropping and adding after the first week of the quarter (see below).
Alternatives to Dropping
Before dropping a course you are having trouble in, consider your options. Talk with the instructor and/or TA about the problems you are having. If there is one, use the UW's study centers and/or writing centers. Take advantage of other campus resources listed in the Help! section of this website. Also, consider the following alternatives:
Satisfactory/Not Satisfactory (S/NS) grading
You can change any course (except a Credit/No Credit course) to S/NS grading through the seventh week of the quarter. S/NS courses can’t be used toward any graduation requirement except general electives, so think carefully!
If you’re unable to complete the work required for a course before the end of the quarter, you can request an “incomplete” from the instructor. If s/he agrees, you will get extra time to finish the work.
If it is too late to drop a course (i.e., after the seventh week of the quarter) AND you have experienced a documented hardship (e.g., injury, death in the family), you can petition for a Hardship Withdrawal. The process takes several weeks, and, if approved, will result in “HW” being entered instead of a grade. You may request a Hardship Withdrawal for one or more courses, and can even submit retroactive requests for courses taken in previous quarters.
Withdrawal from All Courses
If none of the above options work in your situation, you can withdraw from ALL your courses right up through the last day of instruction. You won’t receive credit for any courses taken in the quarter, and “W”s will be entered instead of grades. No explanation or documentation is required. If it’s before the end of the seventh week of the quarter, just drop all your courses. After that you have to do it in person at 225 Schmitz Hall. There is no charge for withdrawing if you do it in person at Schmitz Hall.
Dropping and Adding through the First Week (days 1-7) of the Quarter
From the time you are first eligible to register through the first week of the quarter you can make as many changes as you want to your schedule. During this time, there are no penalties or fees for making changes. Also, the changes do not appear on your transcript.
Dropping and Adding After the First Week of the Quarter
After the first week of the quarter it is still possible to make changes to your registration, but any change should be carefully considered. Restrictions are discussed below:
Weeks 2 and 3 (days 8-21): Late Add Period
All courses added during this time require an entry code. Faculty are usually reluctant to allow a student to add a course after the first week of the quarter. A $20 fee is charged, covering all registration transactions made on a single day.
Week 2 (days 8-14): Unrestricted Drop Period
Courses dropped during this week do not appear on your transcript, but are subject to the $20 change-of-registration fee and possible tuition forfeiture.
Weeks 3 - 7 (day 15-end of week 7): Late Course Drop Period
Students may drop one course each academic year (Autumn through Summer quarters) after the 14th calendar day of the quarter. The course is recorded on your transcript, along with a “W” and a number indicating the week you dropped the course. A $20 change-of-registration fee is charged, and there may be some tuition forfeiture (see below).
Weeks 8 - 10
After week 7 you can’t drop an individual course, but you’re allowed to drop ALL your courses for the quarter through the last day of instruction.
Fees and Tuition Forfeiture
$20 Change of Registration Fee
There is a $20 fee for any change in your class schedule (including changing back and forth to S/NS grading) made after the first week of the quarter. The fee is not $20 per transaction but rather $20 per day, so after the first week of the quarter try to make all your changes on the same day.
Your tuition is based on the number of credits you are registered for at the end of the first calendar week of the quarter, plus any courses you add after that date. If you drop one or more courses after the first week of the quarter, you may receive a partial tuition refund.
If you stay within the 10-18 credit range, there will be no change in your tuition. If you drop a course and your credit total falls below 10 credits, you will be refunded half the difference in tuition, through the 30th calendar day of the quarter. The other half of the difference is forfeit. If you drop a course after the 30th calendar day of the quarter there is no tuition refund, and all the tuition difference (if any) is forfeit.
For example, if you are registered for 13 credits you will be charged full-time tuition. If you drop a 5-credit course in the second week of the quarter, you will be refunded half of the difference between full-time tuition and the tuition charge for 8 credits. The other half of the difference is forfeit.
The deadline dates for full and partial tuition refunds are in the Academic Calendar. | <urn:uuid:58275c20-37b6-4d5f-b13f-f803976876cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/registration/ayr.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936079 | 1,458 | 1.664063 | 2 |
This is a wierd computer! One of the very early Kaypro II Z-80 based CP/M computers made by Non Linear Systems. Notice the brightness control on the front panel, and the vertical attitude of the disk drives. There is no prop on the front, so the computer rests on the keyboard when in use. It boots up ok, but the display flickers a bit, and is off to the left.
The back is quite different from later production Kaypros. The power cord is fixed, the power switch is small, the fuse holder is vulnerable.
The insides. Chips on the board are mostly all dated from about the second quarter of 1982, the tube is from July 1982. Drive B has some 1983 chips, it was probably replaced. Lots of wasted space in these things, but at least they aren't very heavy for their size.
This is a more normal Kaypro II. Brightness control on the back, horizontal drives, and the display works fine.Still no prop, the keyboard serves the purpose. This one still has it's cardboard floppy drive shipping inserts!
The power cord is still fixed, but it's ready to be removable. The power switch is big, but the fuseholder is still not flush like the later ones.
The very rare original Kaypro II introductory brochure! Here I have both sides of it shown next to each other. Larger size scans here, in four parts:
I really like the "9" MONSTER MONITOR" bit, a direct jab at Osborne's 5 inch screen. I suppose the Z-80 is powerful compared to an 8008. Portability is iffy compared to todays laptops...but in 1982 it was a true statement. The bundled software was a big selling point.
By the mid 1980s, demand for 8 bit CP/M machines had died down considerably, as businesses moved to the evolving 16 bit MS-DOS IBM standard. The Kaypro 1 was the dying gasp of the famous series of luggable CP/M computers. Oddly, instead of the number one being the first in the series, it was the last! This One seems to have been assembled in 1986 or 1987, judging by the date codes on the parts. But there is a wide variety of dates, from 1983 on up to 1987. Apparently there was a lot of excess stock on hand at Kaypro!
This machine uses two half height DSDD drives, and the newer style of board with room for the modem and real time clock (these were stuffed on the 2X, and probably on the 4), as well as three ports on the rear. It also has the header installed for a hard drive (as used on the Kaypro 10), unlike most of these boards. This one has the 2.2G ROM, and boots on both 2.2F and 2.2G. The paint scheme is rather odd, with the early light gray and blue colors, but with a new design, and the dark gray keyboard top with light gray bottom.
Compared to the early models shown above, this one has the flush fuseholder, removeable power cord (although this particular unit is missing the original angled plug cord). The corporate name was changed to Kaypro Corporation, as a separate entity from Non Linear Systems, sometime in 1983 (my September 1983 Kaypro II Users Guide has the new name). Look also at the New2 pics above for a more readable image. | <urn:uuid:d7dca23a-5884-404d-9723-6e53acd4ca6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.selectric.org/kaypro/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965766 | 708 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Judy teaches us a volleyball move that will help us stay fit.
Read the full transcript »
Hi everyone, I am Judy and welcome back to energy blast. We are going to have a great time exercising together so get up off that couch, and come on and join us. Drop your hands to get ready. Today’s move is athletic and it is called the volley ball bump. Hands in position. Bring them together, we are going to bump to the side, here we go and bump, spar it down low and high. Down up. Good. Keep it going. Down up. Remember when you exercise, it is important to get outside and get some fresh air with your friends. So remember everyday, try after school, looking good. Bumping that volley ball, it is going to the sky. You are going to be ready for PE for sure. Bump up, looking good. Use those legs. Nice and strong. Great job. I can tell you have nailed it. | <urn:uuid:1f29ee13-3e3c-4512-bcf0-a35bbe9391c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.healthline.com/hlvideo-5min/volleyball-bump-18631189 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969633 | 204 | 1.84375 | 2 |
|By Business Wire||
|November 23, 2012 03:00 AM EST||
A recycle program for Eonsmoke batteries and electric cigarette cartridges has begun as of November 2012 as the company takes steps to become more environmentally responsible. Customers of the brand can now send in batteries and cartridges to corporate headquarters or trade them in at their local retailers for coupons or product credits.
Electronic cigarettes are electronic gadgets that dispense a vapor instead of smoke which still carries nicotine and allows the average smoker their pleasure. Smokeless cigarettes have been introduced in the last decade and many brands are now spearheading their expansion into convenience stores and national chains all over North America.
“The company already trades in broken batteries with the 1 year warranty program we offer. Now with the new program we can offer our customers even better service,” Said Igor Gogus, Senior Vice President of Eonsmoke, LLC. “The fact that we’re taking action to make sure electronic cigarettes don’t pollute the planet is why I work so passionately with this company.”
Eonsmoke announced through an internal memo to its distributors that it will recycle all of its batteries and cartridges through a manufacturing contract with its suppliers. The factories will reuse certain approved materials for the electronic cigarette components which will go through a rigorous process to be remolded and sold as brand new products.
“It is important for us to become socially responsible going forward as we expand and build scale. Eonsmoke electric cigarette batteries and cartridges can now be recycled and re-used so there is less garbage in the landfills all over earth,” said Dharmendra John Singh, an Executive Vice President of Eonsmoke, LLC. “It’s vital for Eonsmoke to be the most socially and environmentally accountable e-cig brand in the tobacco industry.”
About Eonsmoke, LLC.
Eonsmoke, LLC designs, markets, and distributes electronic cigarettes & accessories. The company’s trademarked electric cigarettes are electronic devices that vaporize a liquid solution. The company offers its products, e-cigarettes & accessories under the Eonsmoke, Spirit Vapor, and Miami Cigs brand names. Eonsmoke LLC sells its e-cigarettes and other products through distributors and wholesalers, as well as directly to consumers through its Websites. The company is based in Garfield, New Jersey. Visit http://www.eonsmoke.com | <urn:uuid:8d995357-2eb6-47b6-8059-bd4056442532> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sys-con.com/node/2457099 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935853 | 513 | 1.679688 | 2 |
From its rich history to the present day, the Shaolin Kung Fu and Tai Chi taught at the Chinese Shaolin Centers have evolved into a comprehensive system of martial arts that is truly unique. Shaolin is not a single style with a single application made for a single type of individual, but stresses diversity, flexibility and depth. It is strength, self-defense, confidence and athletic ability meshed among many styles.
Originally conceived by the Buddhist Monks in the Honan Province of Northern China, Shaolin Kung Fu was developed as a way to discipline the mind and body, encompassing a wide range of styles and techniques. Our Kung Fu curriculum encompasses an amazing variety of styles, such as Classical Hua Fist, the famous Shaolin 5-Animals, Drunken Immortals, Preying Mantis and many more.
Tai Chi is the most famous of all the internal arts from China and is possibly the most practiced martial art in the world. Made popular in the West primarily for its health benefits, Tai Chi practitioners were often feared for their tremendous fighting skills. The Internal Arts Program at the Chinese Shaolin Centers begins by teaching our students Yang Tai Chi and continues their education with Bagua, Xing Yi, and more.
Encompassing the curriculum found in our adult program, the CSC Youth Program helps develop the minds and bodies of children ages 5 to 11. Taught at a pace more suited for children, the classes are fun, well-structured and promote discipline. The students in our Youth Program are continually challenged and are never bored with their martial arts development.
With several schools around Metro Atlanta, and affiliate programs in other states, the Chinese Shaolin Centers form a community dedicated to passing on the tradition of the ways of Shaolin (Shaolin-Tao). We are committed to life-long fitness, self-defense and mental well-being. We have well-structured classes that are both energetic and safe, taught by certified instructors. Our curriculum allows every student the opportunity to apply their strengths and challenge their weaknesses. We offer a journey of personal growth and development that teaches you to comprehend the difference between intellectual knowledge and internalized understanding. We invite you to come join us and see how our training can make a difference in your life.
What's Going On At CSC
March 2013 has proved to be a very busy and productive month for the Chinese Shaolin Centers. Four students in our youth program have earned Jr. Black Belts. Associate Master Diana Rixom March 8, 2103 conducted Formal Testing for students testing up to the ranks Probationary Black Belt/Sash and on March 15, 2013 Master Reid conducted Formal Testing for students testing in the Black Belt/Sash Ranks. Master Reid also taught 3 classes as part of Shaolin Student Appreciation Day on March 16, 2013. Ground Locking was taught in the morning, Tai Chi 24 Form Applications were taught at mid-day and Shaolin Leopard Fist was taught in the afternoon. The CSC-Marietta on Saturday March 23, 2013 celebrated with a huge turn out on its 20 Year Anniversary Photo Day. Fantastic month for the Chinese Shaolin Centers | <urn:uuid:6653694a-1d7f-45cb-ab62-229f4ef24fc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shaolincenter.com/?view=featured | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960689 | 644 | 1.664063 | 2 |
BOSTON — BOSTON (AP) - Gov. Deval Patrick is touting a "major milestone" in the state's use of federal stimulus dollars - the weatherizing of 10,000 homes in Massachusetts.
Patrick said the initiative has not only saved money and energy for thousands of families but has also helped create much needed jobs as the state works to climb out of the recent recession.
Administration officials said that as of the end of July, the federal stimulus funded program has provided work for 129 private sector weatherization contractors and 21 special purpose electrical and heating contractors.
Nearly 3,000 individuals have received a stimulus-funded paycheck.
The money set aside for the weatherization program is a fraction of the $7.4 billion Massachusetts has received in stimulus dollars since President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009. | <urn:uuid:40ae1aad-da0d-4750-ade2-3502754e85cb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/aug/16/stimulus-funds-help-weatherize-10000-mass-homes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954086 | 172 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Fort Lauderdale — Inside a dimly lit auditorium Friday, drummers opened up the stage for local high school students to shout and whisper their feelings about war and HIV, sexual passion and parents, freedom and self-esteem.
Youngsters who will represent Fort Lauderdale at the national Brave New Voices National Youth Poetry Festival and Slam in New York later this month also shared the reasons they turn to poetry -- or, as they put it, "spit fire."
Using their hands, feet, hips and voices during a trip fund-raiser at ArtServe, members of the "Spitt Fi'ya Poetry" team gave a preview of works they will perform at the prestigious competition April 25 to 30, saying:
"I spit fire 'coz I'm too poor to afford anger management courses
I spit fire because sometimes I feel like it's the only way anyone will listen to what I have to say
I spit fire 'coz you're ugly and I'm forced to hawk and release the ultimate form of beauty: knowledge"
The students need to raise $8,500 to cover expenses for the trip to the Big Apple, supporters say. Since qualifying in March, about $5,000 has been raised for the team of nine students from Piper, Coral Springs and South Broward high schools through raffles, candy sales and Friday's slam. About 300 teens nationwide will compete in the increasingly popular theatrical genre at the Apollo Theatre and other venues.
"I have confidence that the people in this community will step up for the youth," said Terese "Chunky" Hill, a poet whose company, Spitt Fi'Ya Productions, worked with teachers from the three high schools to organize the team. "We've got to take them where they need to go. These kids have a lot to say."
ArtServe's audience of about 70 got to hear the teens' lengthy verses, punctuated at times by yells into the mic, stomps and lurches.
Susan Delaney, of Tamarac, had never seen a slam before and was impressed. "It was so unique," said Delaney, 62. "It sounds to me like it was coming from their hearts."
Since being chosen from a pool of 60 Broward County young poets, the finalists have been putting the finishing touches on their pieces at school, in the mirror at home, and at each other's homes during the weekends.
"It's a thrill," said Chloe Gonzalez, 15, a freshman at Piper High in Sunrise. "When you get on stage and you get an audience, you feel like you're in control."
"To get your message out there in front of hundreds and hundreds of people -- it's awesome," said Gonzalez, of Sunrise, whose poem about accepting herself as a fat person struck a chord in Delaney.
Eight other students, parents and coaches will travel by their own means to support the team at the ninth annual youth slam, where 42 teams from the United States and the United Kingdom will compete. Workshops, performances at city colleges and parks and visits to historic sites such as the Nuyorican Poets Cafe are on the calendar.
The Spitt Fi'ya Poetry team includes Piper High students Anna Parkes, Chloe Gonzalez, Adina Patruscanu and Cierra Robinson; Coral Spring students Gemma Solomon, Chad Blum and Angela Previdella; and South Broward students Jon Kowalsky and Dallas Strickland.
The next fund-raiser will be from 1 to 4 pm. April 15 at the Dan Pearl Library, 10500 W. Oakland Park Blvd., Sunrise, FL 33351. Admission is $5. For more information, call 954-325-6100.
Macollvie Jean-Franois may be reached at [email protected] or 954-356-4694.
HOW TO HELP
Donations are being accepted to help the 2006 Spitt Fi'Ya Poetry Slam team at Washington Mutual under account number 3090974805.
For more information, contact teachers Charlene West at 305-467-6923
or Ches Kanno at 954-261-1232. | <urn:uuid:2c952d84-eb03-42cd-8267-c1fc3e7dc61a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2006-04-02/news/0604010148_1_nuyorican-poets-cafe-high-schools-school-students | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95832 | 871 | 1.710938 | 2 |
While you may associate a visit to Kaua`i with beaches, snorkeling and surfing, consider a new adventure with your kids.
A farm tour at Kaua`i Kunana Dairy is a unique experience – sample goat cheese, interact with the goats, check out their honey bees, taste fruit from their exotic trees and more. Both you and your kids may learn something new about the simple ways the Wooton family is making their farm sustainable.
“I can’t say enough wonderful things about it,” wrote Tracey on her blog. “The tour was done by a second generation farmer who both worked on the farm, and was a walking encyclopedia about all the plants and animals on the farm.”
“We learned about the goats and the process of milking them and making cheese. My sons got to feed the mama goats and play with the baby goats. They were in absolute heaven.”
Kaua`i Kunana Dairy was started in 1979. Located on Kauai’s spectacular north shore, the farm house was built by co-owner Bob Wooton in 1999. Licensed to sell cheese, the Wootons started with a milking herd of 12 goats. Today, almost 13 years later, Kaua`i Kunana Dairy has a milking herd of 30 does with a full herd of over 60 goats.
Tracey loved what the farm tour taught her kids. “I really wanted them to experience farm life – and to know where food comes from. Plus, I wanted them to see live chickens and goats – to interact with them and to have empathy for everything they do for us – as well as the delicious eggs, milk, and cheese they provide. – and to know where food comes from.”
Enjoy Kauai’s north shore beaches, but why not add something completely different on your Kauai vacation? The Dairy offers 2-3 hour tours on Mondays and Thursday, by reservation only. Tours are $35/adult and kids under 12 are free. | <urn:uuid:940b6698-684d-4fdd-84a9-a95d388291a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hcr.com/blog/goats-kauais-north-shore | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977283 | 424 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The FBI took -- and mysteriously returned -- their server. Here's their story
Ever wonder what it's like to have FBI agents knock on your door? Or to have them walk into your business unannounced and walk away with your computer? Jamie McClelland and Alfredo Lopez can tell you.
Their recent run-in with the men in black – the result of a spate of email bomb threats to the University of Pittsburgh -- offers a rare glimpse into the collision between free speech rights and the benefits of anonymity on one side with the needs of law enforcement to act quickly in the face of real threats on the other.
Their tale ends with an odd twist: FBI agents, caught on video, returning the server only four days after it was seized from a co-location facility in New York City. At the moment, no one knows why the FBI would take that unusual step. FBI Special Agent Bill Crowley said the agency wouldn't comment on either the seizure or the return of the server.
Federal investigators and local officials in Pittsburgh were scrambling last month as bomb threats targeting the University of Pittsburgh piled up. Within days, 46 such threats were logged, causing massive disruption as students and teachers were continually evacuated from building after building. Parents and school officials pressured law enforcement to solve the case. For some reason, the FBI thought a server in a small facility in New York City might contain a crucial clue.McClelland and Lopez run a progressive Internet organization called MayFirst/PeopleLink, which helps democracy-seeking groups around the world use the Web to organize. Together with sister organization RiseUp, MayFirst/PeopleLink offers email services, mailing list support and other Web tools. But their services make a promise that's critical to people fighting oppressive regimes: All data is encrypted, guaranteeing total anonymity to those who need it.
McClelland was on a conference call in MayFirst/PeopleLink's Brooklyn office -- which is in the same building where Lopez and his wife live -- on April 11 when he saw two men in suits standing at the door.
"I thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I joked with people on the call that it was the FBI," he said. Moments later, it was no joke.
The agents flashed their badges and asked if they could come in; McClelland refused. They asked if they could step into the vestibule. He refused again.
"I had had some rudimentary training,” he said. “It certainly had occurred to us that we might some day get a visit from the FBI given the nature of what we do. But this wasn't what I expected. I was surprised at how easy it was to say ‘no’ to them...There was no intimidation, none of that. The agent appeared more nervous than me, and I was pretty nervous."
Standing outside, the agents then showed printouts of a few emails with full headers to him, saying they were related to the Pittsburgh bomb threats. At that point, McClelland hadn’t heard about the threats, so he said he didn't know anything about them. They asked if he knew anything about ECN.org, a server which appeared in the e-mail headers. Again, he said “no,” truthfully.
"I asked if I could have copies of the emails. The agents said “no.” But I then asked if I could get pen and paper and write down details of what we were looking at. They let me do that," McClelland said. "I then asked them if they thought our server was compromised. But they couldn’t tell me anything. So I asked for their business card and told them we would research it."
The agents left, but McClelland’s day had only just begun. What was ECN.org? Why did the agents show up unannounced? And most important, what would happen next? He was sure that wasn't the end of it.
"When you are visited by the FBI, even when it goes relatively easy like it did, your entire life gets put on hold as you deal with all the implications," he said. McClelland called Lopez and other leadership team members, and then called the Electronic Frontier Foundation for legal help.
“There were three hours of calls to run through things and make sure we had everything covered," he said.Initially, Lopez and McClelland assumed that one of their members had been hacked, and the account used for illegal purposes. Simply patching whatever security hole existed could end the problem. But a visit to ECN.org indicated there was a much more complex issue.
ECN stands for the European Counter Network, an independent Internet service provider in Europe. It shares much the same mission as MayFirst/PeopleLink. On ECN.org, the provider offers anonymous email services through a service called "Mixmaster." Using Mixmaster, email users can achieve nearly undefeatable anonymity -- multiple servers pass messages from one to the other, each time stripping out header information and replacing it with false data, making it nearly impossible for investigators to "trace" the message to the original sender.
ECN had subcontracted space on RiseUp's New York City server; RiseUp had in turn subcontracted that space from MayFirst/PeopleLink. It now appeared that the FBI believed someone connected to the Pittsburgh bomb threats had used ECN's anonymous email capabilities, which led to FBI agents knocking on the door at Alfredo Lopez's home office.
"If you had asked me before this happened if one of our members ran an anonymous remailer, I would have said, 'probably,' " said McClelland. "That's exactly the kind of thing we want to support and we want to protect."
When correctly configured, anonymous remailers leave no trace at all. There are no log files to check, no other server "fingerprints." After making sure the server was running properly, McClelland called the FBI agent on the business card and told him all he knew about ECN, which essentially was nothing.
"We told him we suspected there was an anonymous remailer, there's nothing else we can tell you," he said. "We decided that was our best strategy ... to minimize disruption to our members. We didn't want to risk going to the next level of escalation."
The strategy failed. The next day, MayFirst/People Link received a subpoena demanding that the organization answer a series of questions about its server. With help from the EFF lawyer, they sent the responses on Monday, April 16.
"At that point, we thought everything was OK, that we were done, and ready to move on," he said.
Then on Wednesday, April 18, at around 6 p.m., things took a turn for the worse.
"I got a call from a tech who said, 'Jamie, the server isn't responding.' So he went to look for it in the rack and found that it was gone," McClelland said.
Later, Lopez and McClelland would learn that the FBI had produced a search warrant when it showed up at the XO Communications Manhattan server farm, where the MayFirst/PeopleLink server was housed, which gave agents the right to take the box. But at the time, they could only guess what happened.
"We filled out a help ticket that said, 'Our server is missing.' We've never done that before," McClelland said. "I can't emphasize enough that we received no communication from the FBI. From a human point of view, that is atrocious. But from a legal point of view, they don't have to do any more."
The impact was immediate, and devastating, for both MayFirst/PeopleLink and RiseUp. Hundreds of mailing lists, websites and email accounts were immediately knocked offline.
“The FBI is using a sledgehammer approach, shutting down service to hundreds of users due to the actions of one anonymous person,” Devin Theriot-Orr, a spokesperson for RiseUp, said in a statement at the time. “This is particularly misguided because there is unlikely to be any information on the server regarding the source of the threatening emails.”
While Lopez was scrambling to find a way to get the organizations back online, a camera with motion detection capabilities was installed at the server facility by an assistant.
"We thought it was a little like shutting the barn door after the horse ran out, but we did it anyway," he said McClelland said.
Generally, when FBI agents seize computers as part of an investigation, they're not returned for months, or even years. But within a week, a worker in the server room noticed that the motion detector camera had been activated on April 23. When he looked at the video, the tale took an even more unusual turn.
The video shows two men in suits -- apparently FBI agents -- placing the server back in its rack. But the box isn't merely dropped off. The two appear to be plugging it in, and then watching the machine for a few minutes, perhaps looking to see if it is operating correctly.
Why would they do that? The FBI refused to answer a question about that.
But Lopez has a theory. There's only one way to defeat most anonymous email services: to compromise the computer that processes the emails with special software -- a virus -- that could defeat the anonymizing software.
"There was not even a scintilla of expectation that this server would return to our rack. It's the most amazing thing," Lopez said. "It's possible they put device on it or a virus or Trojan of some kind."
MayFirst/PeopleLink later posted the FBI agent video online. The agency hasn't commented on it.
The server has not been returned to service; the organization is currently auditing the machine to see if it has been tampered with.
"I can tell you that's the burning question in my mind. We are planning on doing a full diagnostic on server to see if we detect anything on server," McClelland said.
But even if it hasn't been tampered with, Lopez said he's outraged that U.S. federal agents would compromise Internet access for global groups fighting for democratic rights while hunting for evidence that doesn’t exist.
"Look at the atrocity of them going in and taking a computer ... and disrupting all this information, and potentially getting all this information from hundreds of people not even accused of a crime," Lopez said. "This is serious … for people all over the world who depend on this stuff for their day to day work. To have it taken away by some other government, it's really unfair to them in every conceivable way."
The MixMaster service was uninterrupted by the server seizure; anonymous messages were simply routed through other servers.
MayFirst/PeopleLink and RiseUp both told their members that no identities were compromised during the FBI seizure -- all data on the server is encrypted and there's no reason to believe the encryption was compromised. Still, U.S. government action against anonymous Web services could have a dangerous chilling effect, fretted Lopez.
"In some parts of the world, privacy and anonymity are a matter of life or death," he said. "These services are used for important work, and in many countries, they are the only way to communicate without putting yourself in serious danger."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation issued a statement last week accusing the FBI of "overreaching."
"The fact that the FBI's investigation led them to an anonymous remailer should have been the end of the story. It should have been obvious that digging deeper wouldn't lead to helpful information because anonymous remailers don't always leave paper trails," wrote Hanni Fakhoury. "So enough is enough. The government's ability to search a person and their property -- and in this case, shut down speech -- is an extraordinary power that can easily be abused. Law enforcement needs to do its research before resorting to an extremely intrusive search warrant that intrudes on innocent people's privacy, causes significant disruption to harmless activity, and silences speech. And as we've argued before, search warrants for electronic devices shouldn't be limitless."
Lopez, who has two children in their 30s, said he understands why parents in Pittsburgh were concerned for their children's safety during the repeated bomb scares. But he warned that repression often begins with "people who mean well."
"These people making the threats, these are jerks, nobody wants to protect them," he said. "But what do you give up when you give up freedom in exchange for the illusory feeling of security? You can't trample people's rights because when you do, the terrorists have won."
The Pittsburgh bomb threats stopped on April 21. No bombs were found. There have been arrests in connection with the incidents, but authorities are still investigating. | <urn:uuid:65cb4006-3ea3-40bb-8859-f836a492b515> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://2scottmontgomery.blogspot.com/2012/06/msnbcthe-fbi-took-and-mysteriously.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981982 | 2,680 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The Department of Defense unveiled today a new design for DefenseLINK, the official Department of Defense web site on the World Wide Web.
"This redesign focuses on enhancing our content, as well as making the site easier to use," said Capt. Jim Knotts, DefenseLINK project manager. "Based on extensive research, DefenseLINK now offers more information for many groups of users with different information needs, especially DoD members and their families."
The index, or "home" page , is much more dynamic, changing as often as every 20 minutes as information is added to the site. The "home" page also provides quick access to information about key leaders, including the secretary of Defense , deputy secretary of Defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff .
The NEWS section now includes radio news, speeches by key DoD leaders, a free subscription service to receive DoD news by electronic mail , and Armed Forces Information Service produced news articles in addition to the traditional news releases. Also, the normally-scheduled Tuesday and Thursday DoD news briefings are now available live and on-demand from DefenseLINK.
Research showed that DefenseLINK users wanted more photos of military activities, so there is a brand news section called MULTIMEDIA where visitors can find photos of recent military operations, military-related graphics, streaming audio clips and QuickTime video clips.
The PUBLICATIONS section has been reorganized to categorize the major DoD reports and studies so they are easier to find.
The QUESTIONS section also has been reorganized and many of the pages re-written to be easier to understand. The " Contact Us " page now includes more ways to contact the Department of Defense, including an online form, an email link, a postal mail address and a phone number.
- Functionally, the new design allows the pages to download quicker, standardizes the navigation throughout the site, and puts "last updated" dates and a link to the "Contact Us"
- information on almost all pages.
Finally, there is a new Site Map feature to allow visitors quickly to see the entire site at a glance and find the information they need.
More enhancements are planned in the coming months, such as the addition of video news and the ability to mail electronically news articles directly from the site.
DefenseLINK first went online in October 1994 as a cooperative effort between the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs and the Defense Technical Information Center . The site receives nearly one-half million "hits" per month. | <urn:uuid:3415e758-3a62-4de4-aee0-42b79c45fca0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defense.gov/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=1782 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937938 | 519 | 1.5625 | 2 |
01 November 2010 15:26 [Source: ICIS news]
Participants from the gasoil and fuel oil markets in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands said water levels had been declining since early October.
The water level near Cologne, Germany, which was 3m one month ago, had since fallen to below 2m.
Freight rates have nearly doubled since early October, from around €3-4/tonne ($4.17-5.56/tonne) to more than €6/tonne. This is because barges are being forced to carry lighter loads as a result of the lower water levels.
The area around Frankfurt, Germany, had not been significantly affected, according to the sources, but there were said to be greater difficulties further south around the Mannheim region.
It was said that sellers at many ports along the Rhine were attempting to ensure that deliveries were dispatched as efficiently as possible in case the situation worsens.
Any threat to supply would drive up the cost of products as well as freight charges, sources said.
Despite the difficulties, diminished water levels on the Rhine are a regular occurrence and the current situation was not thought to be serious.
Market participants contacted were not aware of vessels ever having been fully stranded. Lightening barges by transferring material to other vessels helps to avoid this.
Rain was not expected in the affected regions for the next few days.
($1 = €0.72)
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|ICIS Global Petrochemical Index (IPEX). Download the free tabular data and a chart of the historical index| | <urn:uuid:550cc1fc-0439-4669-b751-9c378d281a20> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.icis.com/Articles/2010/11/01/9406378/refined-product+freight+rates+rise+as+rhine+water+level.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974725 | 435 | 1.5625 | 2 |
One of the dirty little secrets in public education is that enrollment drives course offerings. If school boards don't close schools as the population moves, students left behind get educated on a shoestring.
There is no choir, band or foreign language at Humes Middle, the hulking shell of a school in North Memphis with an even bigger legacy.
With just 190 students in seventh and eighth grades, 83 percent of the school is empty. It is no longer economically feasible to offer honors classes and art. There are no math and science electives. Fewer than 16 percent of students can do math at grade level. And in reading, four-fifths of students are behind.
Across town at White Station Middle, students have a choice of seven languages, band, choir, orchestra and honors classes, a taxpayer-funded inequity.
Memphis City Schools Supt. Kriner Cash is recommending that Humes close and start over next fall as Memphis Academy of Musical Arts & Sciences, an optional 6-12 school for students interested in the music industry.
He is also asking the school board to close five elementary schools — all of them under-enrolled, but none as sparsely populated as Humes.
"I'm happy about the performing arts school," said Dr. Jyothi Pinnaka, a kidney transplant surgeon at Methodist Transplant Institute. "We will get a better education for our kids."
Pinnaka, like other parents waiting to pick students up after school Tuesday, is worried about the quality at Humes. "I think a music school would be better for my daughter. She is an honors student. I want what is best for her," said parent Retha Bennett.
The whole character of the community changed. When people moved back in, it was a lot of single people.
Robert Lipscomb, head of Memphis Housing and Community Development
The problem for both is they are zoned to Humes. "They should be able to go to another school. They make it next to impossible," Pinnaka said. "It's not easy to get permission to get out of here."
Sixth- and seventh-graders zoned to attend Humes next year would be expected to attend the Science and Arts Academy that Gestalt Community Schools, a charter school, runs at Gordon Elementary.
"We have not yet discussed with MCS what Humes' 8th graders' options will be next year," Achievement School District spokesman Jeremy Jones said in an email.
"ASD eligible students can apply (if required) to attend Humes' proposed art program just like any other Memphis student. We encourage students to attend high-quality schools that best meet their needs," he said.
Humes, on the National Register of Historic Places for famous graduate Elvis Presley, is the face of an exodus in North Memphis running its course since the '80s when International Harvester, Kimberly-Clark and Firestone left town.
"The whole character of the community changed," said Robert Lipscomb, head of Memphis Housing and Community Development. "When people moved back in, it was a lot of single people."
Like Elvis, Humes once served students who lived in densely populated public housing development. By 1999, fewer than half of the 450 units at Hurt Village were occupied; at Lauderdale Courts, the fraction was much smaller.
As early as last spring, Cash anticipated Humes would be closed or repurposed. The sixth grade was moved to Gordon this fall, taking 140 students.
A year ago, Humes it had 379 students, according to the state report card. On the 40th day of school this fall, enrollment had dropped to 177. At Manassas High, where 80 percent of Humes' students attend high school, principal James Griffin sees the ongoing damage.
"Humes hasn't had a band in some years, or choir and any of those kinds of things. The learning gap is extremely difficult," he says, wondering why no one considered opening a music academy at Manassas, which produced Isaac Hayes and Jimmie Lunceford.
"You can trace back to where the fault line is. We talk about what is going on at home, but I also like to say if we'd get our house together first, we should be able to see one year's growth in every child," Griffin said.
"It's an equity issue. It's definitely an equity issue." | <urn:uuid:577ca104-ad2e-4b11-8e4e-6c6d3093af4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/nov/27/elvis-alma-mater-faces-closure-humes-middle-has/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974684 | 916 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Firstly apologies if this is a silly question, but I am quite new to C programming.
All the C I've done has been on Ubuntu, and I'm now attempting to compile a C program on Windows (in console mode) which will connect to a MySQL database. The program works ok but it needs libmysql.dll, so if I were to run the program on another machine I'd need to take that file also.
Considering my program is about 10k it seems ridiculous to carry over a 2 meg library file just so it will run. This is by no means a criticism of Windows as of course Linux has it's libraries too. But my question is:
Is there a way to embed or include the DLL (or it's useful components) into my program at compilation time so I only have one file to distribute?
Thanks for any advice | <urn:uuid:1d901fbc-7db5-4f00-81ea-194151c39787> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cboard.cprogramming.com/c-programming/138941-dlls.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973615 | 176 | 1.804688 | 2 |
This year is already proving that it will be an exciting one for news. Take the U.S. elections, for starters. The presidential election, as it's been said by at least one GOP nominee, represents a battle for nothing less than America’s soul.
As for Latin America, what should we expect to make headlines?
Before ticking off possible headlines, it’s important to note the substantial—and frustrating—distinction between what should be covered and what will likely be covered. There are so many issues that never make it to (online) print or broadcast, given the tough competition for airtime and eyeballs.
Here are my top-10 most anticipated stories:
10) Health of Hugo Chávez: There will be many reports well-timed with Venezuela’s election cycle—Venezuelans go to the polls in October—that cite “well-placed, unnamed” sources claiming President Hugo Chávez is healthier than ever after his surgery last summer in Cuba to remove a cancerous abscess. These reports will appear within days of other stories that cite other unnamed sources professing to know the awful truth of just how horribly sick Chávez is and how he is trying to hide his fatal illness. Both stories will include hypotheticals (and wishful thinking) on the future direction of chavismo and bolivarianismo when Chávez ultimately leaves power, one way or another.
9) Fidel “Is He Dead Yet” Castro: News organizations have had Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro’s obituary ready to print for years now.
8) Summit of the Americas…Again: This year the summit is in Cartagena, Colombia, in April. Like last time, it is likely to generate broad, searching headlines coupled with fantastic photos. If it wasn’t a great occasion for photos, there wouldn’t be much reason to cover it. (At the 2009 summit, the iconic photo was the handshake of Chávez and U.S. President Barack Obama.)
These summits rarely close with anything more than vague statements and lofty promises. Despite the lack of real news, the summit does provide an excuse for big picture analysis and hand-wringing assessments of the waning influence of the United States in the region. “Has the US lost its regional swagger, and how do we get our groove back?” In this election year, such exercises are sure to include analysis of the Obama administration’s initiatives, or lack thereof, in the region. But, the region need not worry if the U.S. has been otherwise distracted: China and Iran have been taking up our slack.
7) Latin America Avoids Global Economic Meltdown: At least, let’s hope that will be the headline this year. We can expect numerous stories about the region’s economies, and whether various Latin American countries can avoid getting struck by financial crisis. Chile, Peru and Colombia are expected to attract foreign investors with their pro-business reforms, and laudatory storylines will follow. News pieces will reflect hope that other nations such as Brazil and Argentina will be inspired by their successes. Although Brazil may not be the big economic story in 2012, President Dilma Rousseff will continue to be a voice—and media darling—for emerging markets in the southern hemisphere, much like her predecessor, Lula da Silva.
6) Energy Resources, Exploration and Development: The axed Keystone XL pipeline project from Canada to Texas has already made plenty of news in 2012, but this won’t be the last story about the hemisphere’s energy sector. At this point, the Keystone outcome serves as a bellwether of how China will step in to seize the opportunities that the U.S. passes up. This will be the underlying message, and concern, in future news reports on energy development and energy markets.
5) Venezuela’s October Presidential Election: Chávez will likely win, giving himself another six years in the office he has held since 1999. While it is hard to believe that the vote will be clean and fair, it will be interesting to learn the margin of Chávez’ loss and how well the opposition does in unifying against him. Most recently, with Leopoldo López bowing out of the race in order to support rival Henrique Capriles, the usually fragmented opposition looks stronger than in recent years.
4) Mexico’s July Presidential Election: Enrique Peña Nieto, the former governor of the State of Mexico and current PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, or Institutional Revolutionary Party) candidate, will likely win. In doing so, PRI will return to the presidency after having held it for 71 years before President Felipe Calderón’s PAN (Partido Acción Nacional, or National Action Party) won it in 2000.
This election is widely viewed as a referendum on Calderón’s war on the narco-criminal cartels. What happens in this election—and potentially with a new party in charge—matters very much for the United States and U.S. policymakers. Amid concerns of the cartels’ influence in elections and governance overall, news analysis will likely check democratic progress in Mexico. While it’ll be easy to go overboard with criticism, such analysis should not forget how many advances this country has made in the last 15 years.
3) Drugs, Immigration and Border Security in the U.S.: In an election year, the national storyline here will be looking at which candidate promises to do what and what the Obama administration has tried to achieve. A new factor to this news story is the budget-tightening mood on Capitol Hill; even more salient will be the bureaucratic and congressional machinations in getting federal funding for these cross-agency and cross-department border programs.
2) Iran in Latin America: This topic deserves some old-fashioned gumshoe reporting, and an objective look at what various experts are asserting. Just how concerned should Americans be about Iran’s interest, and growing influence, in the hemisphere? What are the security risks? What are Iran’s real intentions in pursuing deeper relations with Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Ecuador? Is it something more nefarious than building a club for unpopular tyrants? The potential for mayhem and tragedy is a real nightmare; we need good information to ensure it doesn’t become a reality.
1) Pope Benedict XVI Visits Cuba: In this much-anticipated papal visit in March, the U.S. media has an opportunity to fairly portray Cuba as a police state in which human rights abuses are routine and in which neighbors spy on each other. It’s a fair criticism—and concern—that American news groups overwhelmingly depict Cuba as a quaint and exotic country of old Fords, delicious rum, great music and sumptuous cigars while skimming over the atrocious human rights violations. Typically in such broadcasts, an expert provides a breathy, brief caveat about Fidel and Raúl Castro ruling the country with an iron fist—and then we’re back to sunny Old Havana streets shots. But, perhaps since the pope’s visit comes on the heels of dissenter Wilmar Villar’s death, news organizations will tell a more accurate story about Cuba, and highlight the grave need to make more progress on human rights before enjoying a fat cigar.
This all said, it is overly ambitious to predict the ten stories about Latin America that will make big headlines in the United States. In the last two years, news organizations have cut back on foreign coverage. Furthermore, even in the best of times, Latin America was never a high priority, or of high interest, for most national news groups since the end of the Cold War. Instead, it is probably more realistic to expect half, or maybe just two, of these storylines will get prominent news coverage, as they are competing against presidential politics, economic meltdowns, a bellicose Iran, and, of course, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s personal dramas.
*Liz Harper is a contributing blogger to AQ Online based in Washington DC. | <urn:uuid:64ca096d-950d-4f10-8bc1-056182b4e207> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://americasquarterly.org/node/3313 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939345 | 1,691 | 1.75 | 2 |
Barbie® embodies all our hopes and dreams.
She can be anything. No matter, being a small girl or a
big girl. We all like to dream...
By 1958 Mattel had become a leading maker of action toys
for boys and saw Lili as a perfect way to even the market
and collect more parents' money. After buying all rights
to Lili and various studies of the market, they transformed
blonde sexpot Lili into brunette Barbie, the paradigm for
little girls. In a study where 100 mothers and daughters
were shown the Barbie separately, nearly all the mothers
said that the Barbie Dolls were too mature looking and didn't
want their children playing with them (let alone buying
them). Nearly all of the girls in the study said that they
loved the doll and wanted to own one.
So Barbie was put on the market and set several sales records
still unparalleled. The Mattel people attribute the success
to (great marketing and) the need of little girls to play
with a symbol of themselves in the future, and not just
with baby dolls, which train them to be mothers. Barbie
allows children to dream about becoming teenagers and going
out and wearing stylish clothing. They marketed her as the
super model who has everything that little girls should
want: fame, wealth, attention. Successful gimmick, obviously. | <urn:uuid:f7839c8f-3b95-4eca-9a38-65f5d8e9a532> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.afunk.com/other/barbie/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963514 | 287 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Seeking truth and justice from government is not a radical act and is usually understood as a common good with benefit to all. The strange question is, "Why would anyone oppose honesty from unelected city officials?" Why would George Kennedy in his Sept. 4 article violate his journalistic ethics, attack the messenger and hide from his readers the historic and moral truth? He had the documents. Two city managers violated the city charter requirements that they defend contracts, franchises, ordinances, resolutions, codes and policies. At its very core, this is about punishing free speech in the council chamber. It is actually worse than that because the speaker is dead and the punishment fell on the innocent descendants.
LETTER: Documents show truth about city's dirty laundry
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If you'd like to read more about the value of being a member, read this column from the Missourian's executive editor, Tom Warhover. | <urn:uuid:b429ffb9-ed5b-469c-98a1-20f898beb1fe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.columbiamissourian.com/a/118229/letter-documents-show-truth-about-citys-dirty-laundry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95648 | 270 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Are you looking for a way to make journaling easier and more fun? Well, I (Katie) have a great idea for you. Have you heard of memes? Sometimes they are called “quizzes” or “prompts” in the scrapbooking world. Basically, they are sets of questions or ideas that you can copy and paste to your own blog (or scrapbook page!) and fill in your own personalized responses. They are a great way to come up with some journaling and you can even have friends and family members fill out their own copies for more material to use!
Here are some of our favorite resources for Memes, Quizzes, and Prompts:
- 119 Prompts for your Journal Jar – TONS of ideas here!
- Creative Writing Prompt – Point your cursor to a number to see the prompt, then write your story.
- The Daily Meme – The posts on this site are often thought-provoking topics to get you writing.
- Daily Writing Prompts from Dee Phipps – A different idea each day.
- Ella Publishing Quick and Creative Quizzes ($5.99 pdf idea book)
- Journaling Prompts – Click on the little start to read each individual prompt.
- Other blogs and facebook. Just keep your eye out for these types of posts and use them for yourself.
I also have a category on my own blog just for quizzes and memes. I love to add images and photos to mine. It makes it super easy to turn it into a scrapbook page later! Want to see how I turned this blog meme about Growing up in the 80’s into a scrapbook page?
Background template by Scrapping with Liz, Solid papers by Suzy Q Scraps, Button by Natalie Braxton, Frames by Two Shutter Sisters, Font is CK Jot.
I only included the relevant statements on my scrapbook page. The journaling is the focus of the page and all I had to do was copy and paste it from my blog. I added my photos around it and kept them small since many were images from the web, Those usually print up just fine if you keep them small in size.
This is a scrapbook page that has very meaningful information about me and documents an interesting time in my history. Best of all, it was fun and easy to do! I hope you will give this type of journaling a try! | <urn:uuid:101f61a6-a4de-4e38-9895-34ef30e2e915> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thedailydigi.com/memes-quizzes-help-you-cheat-on-scrapbook-journaling/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952976 | 508 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Carter B. Horsley
With its very tall gables,
this 32-story condominium apartment tower would seem more at home
near the peaks of the Dakota apartment building on Central Park
West at 72nd Street than in the middle of a fairly bland stretch
along Third Avenue in the 70s.
It replaced a two-story building that ran between 77th and 78th
Streets along the avenue and hid a spacious private garden enclave
that had been known as "The Cottages" that was designed by E. H.
Faile in 1937.
his May 10, 1987 "Streetscapes" column in The New York Times,
Christopher Gray provides the following fine commentary about the
effect of the Depression on holding properties until the time was ripe
Goelets, a New York merchant family dating back to the Federal era, had
such a problem with a row of eight 70-year-old tenements on the west
side of Third Avenue between 77th and 78th Streets In 1936, new
multiple-dwelling regulations required substantial upgrading, and
according to the Real Estate Record and Guide in 1938, the cost was not
worth the result. The Goelets evicted their tenants and
reimproved the property with a novel scheme, using a lot running almost
150 feet deep. They built a two-story apartment/store building
with a tennis/badminton complex behind Access to the apartments
above the stores was not from Third Avenue, with its noisy, blighting
el, but from 78th Street, where a walk leads to stairs to the eight
apartments. The cottages are of ingenious design, with
glass-block windows on Third Avenue to seal out the rattle of the el,
which was not demolished until 1956. Their front doors are at the
second-floor level, where a setback creates a strip of tiny,
20-foot-deep, turfed front yards. Designed by Edward H. Failel,
an engineer who also designed the Goelet Building at 49th Street and
Fifth Avenue, the cottage complex really has two fronts. The
stores on Third Avenue are of plain brick with simple show windows,
albeit with very soft purple art-lgass transos and big circular
marquees at the cross-street corners. The garden side is
basically Regency in theme, with white painted brick (now weathered
bare), Chippendale-style ironwork and brick quoining. The
apartments are all one-bedroom units, although the corner ones have
tiny square sunrooms. There is a protected feeling here, not as
grand as the gardens of Sutton Place but just as serene and removed.
This delightful amenity is not hidden from the passers-by behind
brick walls - the usual model in New York - but only lightly screened
by an iron fence. It is a gracious touch in a city where public
and private rarely mix."
Mr. Gray noted that the Goelets
eventually sold off a 100-foot-square plot on 77th Street to Sidney and
Arthur Diamond who in 1941 built the 11-sotry apartment house at 177
East 77th Street and eventually bought the entire Cottages site.
In 1961, the Diamonds filed plans for a 20-story building to
cover the Cottages site and did not carry it out, Mr. Gray added.
The Cottages, which contained
stores on the first floor and eight one-bedroom apartments on
the second floor with glass-block windows facing the avenue, were
undistinguished architecturally, but the charm of the garden and
the anachronism of such underdevelopment in such a prime area
of the Upper East Side led to one of the city's more heated landmark
controversies in the 1990s.
"A gatehouse on Seventy-Eighth Street marked the building's
entrance and opened onto an 11,000-square-foot garden that originally
contained two tennis courts and two badminton courts, which were
eliminated with the construction of the apartment house at 177
East 77th Street in 1941," noted Robert A. M. Stern, David
Fishman and Jacob Tilove in their wonderful book, "New York
2000, Architecture and Urbanism Between The Bicentennial And The
Millennium" (The Monacelli Press, 2006.)
"In contrast to the Modernism
of the glass and brick Third Avenue-facing facade, the garden
front, with its flights of stairs leading to the raised terrace,
had overtones of the late Georgian and Regency styles," the
A local coalition rallied to
have the enclave declared a landmark but eventually the site was
not so designated and five of the eight residents accepted a settlement
to move and the building was topped out in the summer of
The design for the site incorporates
part of the Cottages at the northwest corner at 77th Street, but
the main portion of the development is on the northern end of
the site, which give the apartments considerable "light and
The tower has a very handsome, six-story base on its north end
of rose-colored brick and pre-cast stone that simulates limestone,
the same material as used on the tower. The base is very attractive
with large, arched windows on the second floor and a two-story
pre-cast stone lower section at the south with pilasters and a
top floor with pre-cast stone window reveals.
The tower has chamfered corners
with bay windows and curved brick spandrels and some curved balconies.
The corner bay windows detract somewhat from the otherwise excellent
sense of pre-war solidity, but they are also very desirable for
their dramatic views.
Hartman-Cox Architects of Washington is the architectural firm
and Schuman Lichtenstein Clamon Efron are the designers of the
apartments, which have 9-foot-high ceilings and washers and dryers.
The building has a new private garden designed by Thomas Balsey
Associates and some landscaped rooftop and terrace areas in the
base including a pergola.
The developer of the building, which has 77 apartments, is RFR/Davis,
a venture of Davis & Partners and RFR Holdings, developers
previously of rental projects.
Most of the apartments have
two or more bedrooms, foyers, formal dining rooms and marble baths
and there are 36 storage rooms and 36 wine cellars available for
purchase in the building. Some apartments have fireplaces. The
building has a 25-car garage.
It also features the Empire Club, designed by Birch Coffey Design
Associates and accessed by a grand staircase from the building's
marble lobby. The club has a fitness center, a children's playhouse,
a cinema room and a private dining room with adjoining terrace
and a sundeck on the third floor.
While Manhattan is sorely needs as many tennis and badminton courts
as possible, the loss of The Cottages was not the end of the world
for the Upper East Side and the new, setback tower's Post-Modern
modeling is generally cheery and warm.
There is excellent cross-town bus service one block to the north
and a local subway station is at 77th Street and Lexington Avenue,
where Lenox Hill Hospital is located. This neighborhood has many
pleasant restaurants, although there are no nearby parks. | <urn:uuid:1dc09a0b-2210-40e2-96c1-297916cbf9a0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecityreview.com/ues/thirdave/78e188.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949364 | 1,583 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Inauguration 2013: There's an app for that
The 57th Presidential Inauguration is here and for the first time, there is an official app for that.
The PIC— the Presidential Inaugural Committee—released an app called Inauguration 2013 let’s you do things like livestream the ceremony and map out the day.
For folks at the ceremony, the app will show you where to find the nearest viewing screens, the nearest bathrooms and even the nearest first aid centers.
Another cool feature on the app is showing a map of the parade. For Inauguration 2009, they ran into a bit of trouble with some crowds that were stuck and could not see the event that they showed up for. This app aims to fix that.
For those of you not in D.C. for the Inauguration, the app lets you livestream the ceremony and check out pictures and updates.
Would you like to contribute to this story? Join the discussion.
RecommendedRecent Facebook Activity
Only On 7
"Katie" weekdays at 4pm on ABC7 followed by Leon Harris and Alison Starling on ABC7 News at 5. Click here to find out more about "Katie!" | <urn:uuid:6661f146-71ef-45ad-b307-ca67129e5fd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wjla.com/articles/2013/01/inauguration-2013-there-s-an-app-for-that-84289.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933487 | 249 | 1.5625 | 2 |
I had the privilege and opportunity this week to hear from my sister, Kentauride, who sent me a paper which she wrote for school regarding the shift in American constitutional law. Several portions remain with me, and I wish to share them with you now, with a small portion of commentary for reflection. If you do not enjoy this, well, I am not forcing you to read this blog.
“The central government’s powers are no longer ‘few and defined’ but, as the state government’s powers were intended to be, ‘numerous and indefinite.’ A Constitution of Powers has replaced a Constitution of Rights, both state and private."
It is true that the federal government has become too broad in its power, and so many of us see that. But how many of us think about the "numerous and indefinite" powers which are supposed to be granted to the states, as John Whitehead argues (whom Kentauride is analyzing)? Currently, my state congress is attempting to subliminally pass a bill which would legalize civil unions, even though the citizens voted against a referendum similar to this bill with approximately 78.3% opposed. Why? Because the states can do so much within their states.
"Much of what is taught in law school today is directly opposed to the teachings of the Bible. Basically, it is a humanistic system in need of a Christian orientation."
Kentauride is right: this is the core of the problem. Enough said.
"Vocal Christian law students should be effective witnesses of the truth impacting the systems of law and civil government. Christians must be prepared to enter the humanistic schools of law and thrust Christian ideas into the system."
Read "me" under "Christian law students" et al. If your calling is law, politics, or anything which might involve anything regarding governance, you need to read this realistically: are you and I willing to do this? Are we willing to give it all we have, every day, even now, to serve our King and country? One last thought:
"When the courts make the law and decide an issue, Christian values and parental rights are in danger. Formulating the law themselves, the Supreme Court becomes the Constitution."
Unfortunately, this is also true: the Supreme Court becomes the Constitution when the "Evolving Document" theory is supported. But our attacks also come from beyond our borders. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in conjunction with the Attorney General, is working on US ratification of the UNCRC, or UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. If this passes, all US state and federal laws will be trumped by this convention, not treaty. It will become the Supreme Law of the Land, on the same ground as the Constitution itself.
Where do we turn? What do we do?
"If My people, which are called by My Name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." -- 2 Chronicles 7:14
Friends, cry out to our God, for only He can save us. Then pick up the sword in this political battle, and do whatever He guides your hands to do.
"Will they follow me?" -- King Peter
"To the death." -- Oreius | <urn:uuid:ee258045-c2d3-4afb-90cc-4f4297ad252d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://narnianinsurgency.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964558 | 697 | 1.5 | 2 |
Bonner General Hospital is an American Heart Association training site for anyone wishing to obtain either a First Aid/CPR Card or a CPR-Only Card. The hospital also offers Pediatric First Aid training as well as Healthcare Provider CPR training.
First Aid/CPR classes are offered on the third Saturday of each month (excluding holidays) from 8:45 a.m. until 2:00 p.m. CPR-only classes begin at 8:45 a.m.
Healthcare Provider CPR
Healthcare provider classes are ideal for dental hygienists, family practice nurses and CNAs as well as healthcare college students.
This class is held every third Wednesday of the month at the Brown House basement from 8:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. for BGH staff as well as community healthcare providers. There is an exam that must be successfully completed at the end of the class. BLS for Healthcare Provider manuals can be purchased for $16.
Outside Healthcare providers are welcome to attend but must have a current HCP Card. The cost is $45.00. Please call the Education Department for class availability at 265-3321.
Pediatric First Aid
Pediatric first aid classes are designed for day care providers and staff.
Pediatric Healthcare provider classes are ideal for dental hygienists, family practice nurses and CNAs as well as healthcare college students. Pediatric First Aid classes are offered on the third Saturday of each month (excluding holidays) from 8:45 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
Heartsaver First Aid with CPR & AED (include book) $67.00
Heartsaver Pediatric First Aid with AED (include book) $67.00
Heartsaver First Aid with CPR & AED (no book) $50.00
(must already have a book/access to one)
Heartsaver CPR & AED with book $47.00
Heartsaver First Aid/CPR book $17.00
Heartsaver Cards $7.00
Attendees must enroll in the class and purchase (and review) their Heartsaver book prior to the class. Books are available from the hospital switchboard.
If you have any questions, please call the hospital at 263-1441 or Carla Bertsch in the Education Department at 263-1441 ext. 3321. | <urn:uuid:0289ec90-b534-4efd-8c6c-2323297640d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bonnergeneral.org/physicians-a-services/wellness-support/community-cpr-first-aid | 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 | 0.951287 | 496 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Francine Reed (b. 1947)
Reed's career was cemented on the foundation of a musically rich family. (Her sister Margo Reed became a noted jazz singer.) Influenced by a gospel-singing father, she sang at church services and charity events during her youth. As an adult Reed relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, and began singing at nightclubs.
While in Phoenix, Reed set the standard by which other local talent was judged. She often performed as the opening act for such headliners as Miles Davis, Etta James, Smokey Robinson, and the Crusaders. Widely known for her powerful voice and commanding stage presence, she sang an eclectic repertoire of jazz, blues, and rhythm and blues.
Making the acquaintance of Texas musician Lyle Lovett, who was virtually unknown at the time, in a Phoenix nightspot proved beneficial for Reed. In 1985 she began touring as a background vocalist and occasional duettist for Lovett, whose records would soon receive Grammy Awards and enjoy gold and platinum sales. Reed's tenure with Lovett included duet appearances on many television shows, including The Late Show with David Letterman and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
In addition to singing with Lovett, Reed performed on Willie Nelson's acclaimed album Milk Cow Blues (2000), lending her soulful voice to the title track as well as to the song "Funny How Time Slips Away." She has contributed vocals to other musicians' recordings as well, including those of Delbert McClinton and Roy Orbison.
Reed's fame can likely be attributed to a particular song rather than to any of her records. Her trademark performance is of the classic blues song "Wild Women (Don't Get the Blues)," which was written in 1924 by Georgia-born blues legend Ida Cox. Reed's first album, as well as her 2001 release, I Got a Right . . . to Some of My Best, and Lovett's Live in Texas (1999), all feature a recording of the song.
Atlanta magazine devoted its June 2003 issue to the city's music scene, and an accompanying limited edition CD contains Reed's version of "Wild Women." In the liner notes the magazine proclaims Reed to be "probably the most beloved singer in the city."
A frequent performer at Atlanta clubs, including the blues oasis Blind Willie's, Reed was also a perennial favorite at the city's Midtown Music Festival, which began in 1994.
Greg Freeman, Southern Edition
A project of the Georgia Humanities Council, in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, the University System of Georgia/GALILEO, and the Office of the Governor. | <urn:uuid:493a19a4-9fd5-47e3-aab7-f95a5f2e6155> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-3179 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9734 | 544 | 1.539063 | 2 |
For some families, busing is the only way kids can get to and from school. It's also expensive. The Lansing School District is spending about $5 million this school year on general education busing. District administrators are thinking about changing that.
"We need to be able to use those limited resources for student instruction, so we're looking at lots of different areas to see if we can make cost savings," said Sam Sinicropi, Lansing School District Assistant Superintendent for Operations.
They're considering outsourcing the general education transportation services. With a vote from the school board, Lansing School District is now a part of the Ingham Intermediate School District Transportation Consortium. That gives them the option to use the group's contractor - Dean Transportation.
Even with potential cost savings, some parents are reluctant to go down that route.
"We need to make sure that we're not spiting ourselves by costing others a job when they take good care of our kids that are already on the buses now," said Lansing parent Debora Dawsey.
According to the Ingham ISD, the group not only offers competitive pricing, but also provides flexibility, which is an attractive option for some.
"I think Dean would be able to do a very good job and be able to meet the needs which are constantly changing right now," said Lansing parent Tyson Cowles.
For now, nothing is set in stone. The district will look into the cost with a deadline to decide by February 1, 2013. | <urn:uuid:4260d44c-2632-445f-92bb-016db3a3cc58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilx.com/news/localnews/headlines/Lansing-May-Privatize-Busing-172923711.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974263 | 305 | 1.578125 | 2 |
How to Remove a Circular-Saw-Blade Knockout Easilycomments (1) September 28th, 2012
Video Length: 1:21
Produced by: John Ross and Chuck Miller
Grab a few common items from around the shop to make this job a snap.
To remove the knockout from a typical circular-saw blade, you could whale on it with your framing hammer and hope you don't bend the blade and have to buy a new one, but there's a better way.
Glenn Hollowell from Cordova, Alaska, discovered that a 1/2-in. machine-bolt head or nut makes a great punch to take that knockout out.
Here's how it works: Your typical saw blade has a diamond-shaped knockout in it that needs to be removed to fit on the arbor of a lot of different kinds of circular saws. People use a screwdriver or the claws of a framing hammer, or they just hit it with a hammer to try to get that knockout out of there. What Glenn does is he places the saw blade over some kind of a recess; I'm going to use a little piece of 3-in. pipe here. And then he takes a 1/2-in. hex-head nut, which has angles on it that very closely parallel those of the diamond-shaped knockout. He centers the nut over the hole, and then he grabs his framing hammer and [bang!].
Glenn, that works great. Thanks for sending that tip in.
posted in: circular saw
Painter Jim Lacey shares some tips for caulking and painting fiber-cement siding. read more
If you have a tip that you would like to share, visit our new Readers Quick Tips blog to post text, photos, and links to videos. Or, send us an email at: [email protected]
About this Blog
Have your ever been frustrated building something and mumbled to yourself, "There's got to be a better way."
Well, thanks to the contributions of our great Tipsters, and the talent of Fine Homebuilding Special Issues editor, Chuck Miller, help has arrived.
Each week, Chuck demonstrates a tip sent in by readers like you or something he learned on a jobsite.
So enjoy, and don't forget to come back each week for a new tip. | <urn:uuid:55b9b133-4417-4b90-9730-5f2927e1f647> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.finehomebuilding.com/item/25310/how-to-remove-a-circular-saw-blade-knockout-easily | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949724 | 487 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Skip to comments.Democratic reform irreversible in China--Chen tells Council on Foreign Relations
Posted on 05/31/2012 2:51:43 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist whose flight to the US embassy in Beijing sparked a major diplomatic incident, said Thursday that democratic change in China is slow, but irreversible.
"I'm very optimistic," Chen said. "Nobody can stop the process of history, whether it's the central government, whether the central government wants to move forward or backwards."
In his first major public appearance since being allowed to leave China, Chen told the Council on Foreign Relations that the Internet age meant the communist state machine had already lost much of its grip.
"Chinese society has gotten to the era where if you don't want something known, you better not do it. People are using all kinds of means to disseminate information. Can you do cover-ups? No. That possibility is diminishing," he said.
But activists at home and Western powers watching from the outside should not force China, he said.
"Many people, they want to move that mountain in one week. That's not realistic. We have to move it bit by bit and move it by ourselves."
According to Chen, the central government in Beijing is moving in the right direction, but local authorities, such as the officials who harassed him and he says are still persecuting his family, are acting lawlessly.
"The central government is letting me come to the US to study. That is unprecedented, regardless of what they did in the past. As long as they move in the right direction, we should affirm it, rather than... (be) challenging everything," he said.
The central government is ready to reform, "but I think local authorities are very backward and it's going to take time to change them," he said. If local authorities are not forced to respect China's laws, then the central powers will "lose control," he warned.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Democracy? Fat chance with about 800 million citizens still waiting for a piece of the prosperity. Easy pickins for another Mao.
Yeah, it’s inevitable in North Korea too.....
Here is the thing, Christianity is having great growth in China. Not by traditional western missionaries so much, but more as self-sustaining in-home Bible centered churches like the Book of Acts.
God’s Word sets people free.
The Chi-Coms will see that it is hard to fight against God.
sounds familiar..prior to tienenman square...don’t count any chickens just yet
Capitalism? It's called NEP. Lenin created it a hundred years ago. You'll know for sure that it is Deng's version of Lenin's NEP when all foreign assets are seized and the "useful idiots" are put on a slow boat to America penniless.
Laws? Great laws. Even better than ours in some cases, I've heard -- but there is NO intent or staff to enforce those kind of laws. Theirs is not a nation of laws.
Yes, the Chi-Coms, among many other peoples, will see that they have lost the fight against God in the end.
We all know the stories about rampant abuse of copyright and all the forgeries and fakes coming out of China. A couple friends of mine teach in China - English, Accounting, etc. The students are egregious and sometimes open cheats. They don’t care about being caught and parents are actually proud that they do what it takes to get the grades to get the jobs.
A society of lies is China. That’s their culture. How do you form anything but a dictatorship based on such a culture? You certainly won’t get anything like American liberty there.
Every Great Leap Forward was a contemporaneous event for me. The Leaps always landed on millions of citizens killing them all.
You are probably familiar with how the GRE was suspended in China and elsewhere.. graduate schools here were warned to be suspicious of the scores and not to depend entirely upon the scores. That was five or six years ago.
Amen and amen.
Let us never forget China’s been calling itself a “democracy” ever since Mao took over.
Not until Shanghai looks like Osaka in September 1945.
He is charmingly naive. As soon as the rulers’ power is threatened, the whip will crack, and hard.
It is a culture where face is more important than truth.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. | <urn:uuid:e2d8f8bd-9b9e-4053-b9e1-61d805d9ee69> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://freerepublic.com/focus/news/2890039/posts?page=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967401 | 1,005 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Third-place candidate Henri Konan Bédié threw his support behind Alassane Ouattara in Sunday's Ivory Coast election, but how many from Mr. Bédié's Baoulé ethnic group actually voted for a Muslim northerner?
Yamoussoukro and Abidjan, Ivory Coast
Voting along ethnic lines is still a reality in the fledgling democracies of West Africa.
A glance at the results of the recent election in Guinea shows that the phenomenon is alive and strong. There, Alpha Condé, who received a mere 18 percent in the first round of voting, was able to pick up the “anyone but a Peul” vote, and rode a wave of discontent against the country's majority ethnicity into the presidency earlier this month.
In neighboring Ivory Coast, sitting president Laurent Gbagbo says he's putting an end to this kind of thinking. But his strategy of unifying Ivorians against a “foreign” adversary brings forth nationalistic passions that are often trained on recent immigrants from poorer nations to the north -- as well as lifelong citizens from the country's mainly Muslim north.
Mr. Gbagbo's opponent in Sunday's presidential election, Alassane Ouattara, has been disqualified from running on two previous occasions after having his Ivorian nationality called into question. But, he too, claims to rise above petty tribal politics. He ran on his record as an jet-setting economist with the International Monetary Fund; the man who can secure the financing needed to rebuild the country after it's civil war and ensuing political crisis.
After the first round of voting, Gbagbo's people proudly pointed to a map of the country in which regions in the south, east, and west all voted for Gbagbo, supposedly proving that he's truly a candidate who rises above the tribalism and regional popularity of his adversaries. Attracting this broad appeal is actually Gbagbo's only option, as he belongs to a minority ethnicity, the Bété, who cannot propel him to victory on their own. | <urn:uuid:4fe86b55-5231-40a9-9322-4c2664314d8c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2010/1128/How-ethnicity-colors-the-Ivory-Coast-election | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973418 | 423 | 1.539063 | 2 |
West Virginia taxpayers got off the federal government's hook relatively easily when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services uncovered mismanagement of an important Medicaid program. That is not likely to happen again, so the state needs to correct glaring flaws identified by Washington.
An audit by the DHHS inspector general's office found major problems with a Medicaid program that helps elderly and disabled West Virginians stay in their homes instead of being shipped off to more expensive facilities such as nursing homes.
We have championed that program for years. It is good for senior citizens and the disabled who prefer to live at home. It also is good for taxpayers because providing home health care and living assistance often is cheaper than paying for nursing homes.
Though Medicaid is a state program, most of the money for it comes from Washington. That gives the DHHS power to set the rules and to conduct audits.
DHHS auditors looked at the Mountain State program's records for a two-year period and ruled the federal government had paid for between $360,000 and $3 million worth of home health care services improperly. In 10 percent of cases investigated, the state was paying for services that had not been documented. Auditors found some companies had billed the state for services the firms' own records did not show had been provided.
This time around, someone in Washington apparently took pity on West Virginia. Instead of demanding repayment of the entire $3 million, the DHHS is insisting on only $360,539.
That is still a lot of money but, again, it could have been much worse.
West Virginia's Medicaid program is handled by the state Department of Health and Human Resources. But the state agency has contracted with the Bureau of Senior Services to manage the in-home care program.
Clearly, the bureau is doing a lousy job. Required oversight simply is not being provided.
That needs to change immediately. Otherwise, officials at the federal level will lose patience and, the next time an audit turns up deficiencies, the bill may be much higher.
The Bureau of Senior Services is a state cabinet-level agency, reporting directly to Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin. He should insist on documented improvements in performance - or new staff members capable of providing it. | <urn:uuid:9ef9c2a4-d083-4023-8e35-1cc4621bcd58> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://journal-news.net/page/content.detail/id/586933/Accountability.html?nav=5003 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96884 | 457 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The state Supreme Court last week called into question numerous foreclosures in this state, and opened the door for lawsuits by homeowners given the boot. Just how many foreclosures are we talking about? "Hundreds if not thousands," says Melissa Huelsman, a lawyer representing one of the plaintiffs in the case.
The case concerns that nebulous entity, the Mortgage Electronic Registration System, known more commonly as MERS. What is known about the Virginia-based company is that it started as a way for lenders to get around costly and time-consuming local deed-recording procedures. MERS, acting on behalf of lenders, instead registered deeds electronically through a centralized system. But MERS' involvement didn't stop there. Somehow, the company also came to be listed as the "beneficiary" of deeds in many states, including Washington. And when it came time to foreclose, MERS often initiated the action.
As the court opined last week, this handoff to MERS "has caused great concern about possible errors in foreclosures, misrepresentation, and fraud. Under the MERS system, questions of authority and accountability arise, and determining who has authority to negotiate loan modifications and who is accountable for misrepresentation and fraud becomes extraordinarily difficult."
Indeed, with MERS as a proxy for lenders, and mortgages being sold and resold, homeowners might not even know who holds their loan. So who do they call to plead for time, check facts or ask for a new loan?
The court, however, didn't need to delve too deeply into those issues in this case, which involves two homeowners facing foreclosures initiated by MERS. The federal judge in the cases asked the Supreme Court for its reading on state law regarding MERS. While courts in some states, like California, have upheld MERS' role, Washington's Supremes say our law is straightforward: "If MERS does not hold the note, it is not a beneficiary."
Huelsman says the ruling has implications for more than MERS foreclosures. The court is saying that anybody other than the note holder cannot foreclose, she says. And that applies to so-called "servicers"—usually banks that collect mortgage payments on behalf of the note holders, and often handle foreclosures too.
Letting servicers handle foreclosures is a bad idea, Huelsman asserts, because many of them "don't want to modify people's loans because they make less money [in fees]."
Huelsman points to another aspect of the ruling that she finds highly significant. It opens the door for homeowners who have faced MERS foreclosures to sue under the state Consumer Protection Act. "Characterizing MERS as the beneficiary has the capacity to deceive," the justices opined, adding that homeowners would have to prove they were damaged.
Attorney and fellow foreclosure fighter David Leen calls this "the biggest part" of the ruling, in part because under the Consumer Protection Act wronged parties can sue for considerable amounts.
Leen and Huelsman both say they need time to digest the ruling before deciding whether to launch into new litigation. Asked whether the ruling would set off a flood of lawsuits, Huelsman said, however: "It's certainly a possibility." | <urn:uuid:e3406e94-42b7-430e-8496-0a6b5d13c46d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seattleweekly.com/2012-08-22/news/a-question-of-authority-and-accountability/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971559 | 668 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The events across Ireland heard vociferous calls for changes to the state's termination laws.
At a rally outside the Dail in Dublin, participants held placards declaring "Never Again" while the crowds repeatedly chanted "shame" and "the world is watching".
Mrs Halappanavar, 31, died from septicaemia on October 28 in Galway University Hospital. She was found to be miscarrying at 17 weeks after going to hospital with back pain a week earlier.
Her husband Praveen has claimed she asked several times over a three-day period for the pregnancy to be terminated but was refused.
Her death has prompted a public outcry and heaped pressure on the coalition Government to legislate for abortion.
The Health Services Executive (HSE) is holding an inquiry into the tragedy.
In a separate move, Health Minister James Reilly is to bring a report to the Cabinet next week by an expert group on abortion which was set up to help the Government respond to a European Court of Human Rights call for reform of Ireland's complex pregnancy termination laws.
Gardai have said they are assisting the Coroner's investigation into Mrs Halappanavar's death.
In Dublin thousands marched from the Garden of Remembrance to the home of the Dail at Leinster House. A vigil also took place in Eyre Square in Galway as well as in other towns across the country. | <urn:uuid:5c59c758-3ab8-4e64-984d-88c1c6dde0d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/358836/Vigils-held-for-abortion-case-woman | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97054 | 291 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Reconciling In Christ
As a community of the people of God, we are called to minister to all people in our world, knowing that the world is often an unloving place. Our world is a place of alienation and brokenness. Christ calls us to reconciliation and wholeness. We are challenged by the Gospel to be agents of healing within our society.
We affirm with the apostle Paul that in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female" (Galatians 3:28). Christ has made us one. We acknowledge this reconciliation extends to people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.
Because gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons and their families are often scorned by society and alienated from the Church, we wish to make known our caring and concern. It is for this purpose that we affirm the following: that people of all sexual orientations and gender identities share the worth that comes from being unique individuals created by God; | <urn:uuid:9c892197-95c4-4766-aed0-fc8166935b6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.firsttrinitydc.org/welcome/reconciling-in-christ/?view=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964499 | 208 | 1.554688 | 2 |
2011-09-25, 10:39 PM
My son is enrolled in a programming course. We have been trying to install the C# portion of Microsoft's Visual Studio without much success. VS 2008 is a free download from MS. We are trying to install on a Win7 x32 o/s.
The install file downloads ok. Near the beginning of the installation, the install stops, indicating that an older version of Visual Studio is already on the computer (???) - an error message indicates VS Service Pack 1 needs to be installed. Fine. I try to download and install the SP. I get another error message that indicates that VS 2008 needs to be installed first (!!!). I'm stuck in an infinite loop!
I've tried to delete and reinstall without any luck. I don't see any reference to a previous install. Do I somehow need to delete registry references?
This has been one of the more frustrating installs that I've been faced with.
2011-09-26, 01:27 AM
Download and install Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1. You probably have some form of SQL Server on there or another MS product that installed VS 2005 components.
2011-09-27, 09:13 AM
Not that this specifically addresses your issue, but why not install the Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition instead of the 2008 Express Edition anyway? It may skirt your problem. I would recommend grabbing the all-in-one ISO and either burning it to disc or mounting it in a virtual drive.
Alternatively, does your son get an MSDN AA subscription through his school as part of his enrolment in their programming stream? I did back when I was in school and he would have the license for the full version if so. I would use that over the Express Edition.
PS: I can honestly say I've never had a problem with any of their installers though in 14 years of using Visual Studio so it's too bad your son is already having them.
2011-09-27, 09:45 AM
I agree with you - the VS 2010 install worked perfectly. However, the school only supports the 2008 version; considering it's a free installation I don't understand, but I don't make the rules!:confused:
We are going to try the VS 2005 sp1 install and see what that does for us.
2011-09-27, 10:54 AM
That's too bad. I hope the 2005 SP1 patch works for you. I would talk to the professor though about using 2010 in class. For my final term project in college I talked my professor into letting me using a different language and database server than his outline called for. It makes no sense to have today's youth learning on outdated software when current options are equally available.
2011-09-28, 09:26 AM
Unfortunately, the 2005 SP1 patch did not work. I had my son search the registry for any previous VS install references and found nothing. I told him to push back to the professor to see if any alternative could be suggested.
2011-09-28, 09:28 AM
What is the exact error message you get when installing VS 2008?
2011-09-28, 11:25 AM
Setup has detected that this computer does not meet the requirements to install this software. These requirements must be met before you can install Microsoft Visual C# 2008 Express Edition with SP1 - ENU.
Requirements and Software Prerequisites
Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1
An earlier version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 has been detected on the system that must be updated to SP1 before installation can proceed. Please update all other versions of Visual Studio 2008 to SP1 level by visiting Microsoft Update, and then install Visual Studio 2008 Express SP1.
Windows Update has been run - everything is current. I find no previous installations of VS on the computer.
2011-09-28, 11:44 AM
Googling gets me: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1152074/how-do-i-install-visual-c-express-it-says-i-have-old-version-of-visual-studio
2011-09-28, 01:48 PM
That looks promising! I'm going to see my son tomorrow - will give the suggestions in the link a try and will let you know how it goes.
2011-10-12, 01:25 PM
Sorry for the slow reaction to your suggestions...
Attempted the registry fix - the entry indicated in the link does not appear in my registry. I tried the MS Uninstaller utility - no luck. I thought it might have something to do with compatibility - ran setup file as XP SP2 program - same result. Ran CCleaner to see if the registry fix could be found that way - nope.
My kid (and I) have resigned to the fact that VS 2008 may not be able to be installed in a Win7 environment. He is going to use the college desktops in the lab and hope to have access to these machines after hours. Crazy!
2011-10-12, 01:37 PM
If you have Windows 7 Professional then you can set up an XP Virtual Machine and install VS in there.
2011-10-17, 10:16 AM
Success! Works inside XP virtual machine - thanks! | <urn:uuid:b4a1c7fc-e840-4ecc-911f-b5b630b8bd11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/archive/index.php/t-145985.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931247 | 1,104 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Phantom (3.5e Equipment)
From D&D Wiki
This elegant, gold-decorated, ranged weapon seems to lack a proper string, and yet is as curved as it would be were one fixed to it.
Ranged weapons with the Phantom property use no ammunition. When the owner of a bow with this property attempts to use it in battle, a faint pink glow appears in the shape of both the invisible string and a shimmering arrow of pink light. This glowing arrow can be fired normally, and deals damage as a normal arrow of its size. The arrow disappears after it hits or misses its target. Crossbows endowed with this ability shoot glowing bolts of green light, and also have phantom green strings. They automatically create another bolt, but the wielder still needs to "reload" the crossbow for this bolt to appear. Repeating crossbows gain no advantage from this enhancement, though the bolts they fire will glow green until impact. Firearms and slings blessed with this property shoot glowing blue bullets of their size, and firearms also have blue muzzle flashes. These firearms still have to have their mechanisms cycled, but this takes less time than normal - firearms that reload as full-round actions instead reload as move actions, and firearms that reload as move actions instead reload as free actions. This weapon enhancement cannot be placed upon single-use ranged weapons, such as throwing daggers or javelins. | <urn:uuid:78830910-6d74-4936-a264-5e1f0a82833c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Phantom_(DnD_Equipment) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95885 | 290 | 1.625 | 2 |
The Shikoku 88 Temple Pilgrimage Experience, #84 Yashima and #85 Yakuri by Jeremy Lanig
In the early morning of Nov. 28, the third secretary from the Kenya embassy, Ms. Dorothy Nthiwa and 16 foreign residents of Kagawa journeyed to two temples on the Shikoku 88 temple pilgrimage. We went to Yashima Temple and Yakuri Temple. The weather was perfect for the 14 km hike up Yashima plateau and the Gokenzan Mountain. We were in nature surrounded by beautiful fall colors of red, orange, and yellow as the leaves were changing.
At Yashima Temple, we learned about the history of the temple and the Genpei battle that occurred on Yashima. After that, we took a break to write poetry and enjoy the view of Takamatsu and the Seto inland sea. After enjoying a delicious lunch at Yamadaya Udon restaurant, we went to Yakuri Temple. There we learned about the history of the famous monk, Kukai, his adventures to China, and the creation of the pilgrimage.
Everyone was tired after a full day of hiking and learning about the 88 temple pilgrimage and history of the area. We also learned that the pilgrimage could become a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I hope that it does become a World Heritage Site so that people from all around the world can know about Shikoku's old and rich history and culture.
This location at Yakuri has soil from all 88 temples for people that cannot make the pilgrimage.
The fall colors were stunning.
The participants had many great experiences throughout the day.
Here we are taking a break to enjoy amazake (sweet rice drink). | <urn:uuid:a27fcb55-962f-4104-b2e2-c8df4165cf11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.i-pal.or.jp/blog/2009/12/the-shikoku-88-temple-pilgrimage-experience-84-yashima-and-85-yakuri-by-jeremy-lanig.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965996 | 348 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Twitter was designed as a method of delivering short, spontaneous messages to a group of friends. It worked beautifully with mobile because it allowed you to express your thoughts while things were happening.
“I just saw Brad Pitt at Starbucks.”
“These lunch truck tacos are incredible!”
And not long after, we had the ability to take and share pictures of Brad and the incredible tacos to back up on our story. Now, thanks to the rise in smartphones and tablets and the forethought of social network app makers, mobile is becoming an even bigger factor in the social media game.
As you can see from this eMarketer chart, social media users are slowly cutting down their dependence on the PC in favor of the mobile phone and tablet. There’s even been an increase in Internet-enabled TV, game console and ereader use – devices that aren’t well suited to updating Facebook.
In the past year, daily social mobile usage climbed from 54% to 60%. Clearly, consumers are ready to cut the cord.
The downside for marketers is that the social landscape will become more limited. On the PC, you might see 25 items in your newsfeed but on an iPhone you might only see half of that before you have to scroll. And we know how people hate to scroll. If users check in and post more often, that means that posts are going to get pushed off the page at a faster rate. All of this equals less opportunities to get your message across in each session.
On the upside, there’s less clutter on mobile devices so your post doesn’t have to compete with flashing ads and a sidebar full of links.
Before you send out another update, spend some time using Twitter, Facebook or other social networks on your smartphone or tablet. Take note of your own behavior. Do you scroll? Do you click? What kinds of posts catch your eye. Be especially aware of how your hand naturally moves across the device. There’s a big difference between using a mouse and using a touch-screen and there are certain behaviors that we do instinctively. Just think about side scrolling on the tablet vs up and down scrolling on a PC. That’s just the start of what makes the two environments different.
Going forward, you can’t assume that what works on the web will work on mobile. Test, track and figure it out before social gets so mobile it takes off without you. | <urn:uuid:0de2a3b1-b4cf-44a2-a648-c2d67333dd6a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.frenzyad.com/2013/01/09/social-gets-more-mobile-in-2013/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941948 | 503 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Organized crime describes the unlawful activities of a highly structured group of people that is centrally controlled. Although the phrase often conjures up images of mafias and street gangs, organized crime encompasses a vast number of criminal activities, including many white collar criminal offenses. If you are under investigation or are facing charges for organized criminal activities or racketeering, contact America's Criminal Defense Group. Our law firm is dedicated to the presumption of innocence and we will fight to protect your rights with honor and integrity.
Organized crime is any criminal operation carried out by a highly ordered group of people. Participating in illegal activities for financial profit as part of an organized crime faction is called racketeering. Since the passage of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in 1970, organized crime, or racketeering, is charged as a felony. Our criminal defense law firm provides skilled white collar crime defense and we have experience defending clients in many states. Because organized crime involves such a broad range of offenses, it is important to seek knowledgeable legal counsel to protect your rights.
Organized crimes can range from alcohol and drug-related crimes, sex crimes, theft, murder, gambling, and kidnapping for ransom to less obvious offenses such as money laundering, extortion, insurance fraud, and terrorism. Organized crime operates on a hierarchical structure that serves to protect those in power from engaging directly in criminal activities and being discovered by law enforcement agencies.
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Organized crime characterizes any crime committed for the benefit of a structured, illegitimate association. The offenses associated with organized crime are all very different, but there are some generalizations about these illegal institutions that can be made:
Most organized crime groups operate behind the guise of legitimate businesses. Sometimes racketeering involves bribing or otherwise manipulating officials or owners of genuine businesses in order to run the racket undetected. Racketeering is charged as a felony with serious consequences. Contact our criminal defense law firm to discuss your particular case.
[ back to top ] | <urn:uuid:93999d7f-323c-4c86-bc25-44da17619bf5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americascriminaldefense.com/html/organized-crime.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953121 | 408 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Horan S, et al. (2006) Transcriptional response to nitrosative stress in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Yeast 23(7):519-35
Abstract: Nitric oxide and NO-derived species (RNS) are defence molecules with broad antimicrobial activity. Microorganisms have developed strategies to sense RNS and counteract their damaging effects. We used Saccharomyces cerevisiae, harbouring a deletion of YHB1 that encodes the main NO scavenger enzyme, to study consequences of RNS exposure on whole-genome transcriptional response. The expression of > 700 genes was altered on RNS treatment. No major role for ROS-scavenging enzymes was found, and the respiratory chain, the main site of ROS production, had only minor involvement in the RNS-induced stress. The changes were generally transient and also found after treatment with the respiratory inhibitor myxothiazol. However, 117 genes showed a persistent response that was not observed after myxothiazol treatment. Of these, genes of the glutathione and DNA repair systems, iron homeostasis and transport were found to be upregulated. Severe repression of genes of respiratory chain enzymes was observed. Many of these genes are known to be regulated by the transcription factor Hap1p, suggesting that RNS might interfere with Hap1p activity. We showed also that Msn2/4p and Yap1p, key regulators of the response to general stress and oxidative stress, respectively, played a role in mediating the RNS-induced response. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
|Status: Published||Type: Journal Article||PubMed ID: 16710843|
Topics addressed in this paper
Number of different genes curated to this paper: 4
- To find other papers on a gene and topic, click on the colored ball in the appropriate box.
- displays other papers with information about that topic for that gene.
- displays other papers in SGD that are associated with that topic.
The topic is addressed in these papers but does not describe a specific gene or chromosomal feature.
- To go to the Locus page for a gene, click on the gene name. | <urn:uuid:37c7aaae-15e7-4637-be84-bb156555921a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.yeastgenome.org/cgi-bin/reference/reference.pl?dbid=S000115825 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933538 | 461 | 1.703125 | 2 |
05 April, 2005
Greek Economy and Finance Minister George Alogoskoufis on Monday announced a new generation of privatizations, envisaging the joint participation of both the public and private sectors in the construction of infrastructure projects "which the public sector cannot fund nor can manage by itself".
Addressing a seminar on competitiveness, organized by Development ministry, the Greek minister said that a new draft legislation on this new generation of privatization would be unveiled in the next few days. Alogoskoufis also defined six points as the cause of low economic competitiveness in the country.
First, a failure of economic policy, second, an old-fashioned and slow-moving legislative framework on labor market, third, an ineffective, slow-moving and bureaucratic public sector, fourth, a vague law framework on the use of land, fifth, corruption and breach of competition rules in public sector assignments and sixth, lack of long-term planning.
Addressing the seminar, Development Minister Dimitris Sioufas stressed that Greece ranked low on its competitiveness and noted that the government was working to restore the truth and improve economic performance.
Lack of transparency, bureaucracy, corruption and hurdles in creating new enterprises were undermining competitiveness, the Greek minister said, adding that Greek enterprises could start submitting their investment plans for support from a new development law from Tuesday.
Bank of Greece governor Nikos Garganas noted that the present situation could not be maintained for long, adding that past years' high growth rates were attributed to domestic demand a trend that was not sustainable in the long-term.
The central banker predicted that economic growth rate would slow in 2005 and noted that growth prospects were not clear in the medium-term. Garganas said that prices were rising faster in Greece, compared with other EU countries, noting that countries with high price levels could face low employment and growth levels.
The Greek central banker urged for socially-costly structural reforms, saying these reforms were necessary to protecting large sections of the society. "It is wrong to call such measures as austerity measures," Garganas said.
PASOK party deputy Mrs Anna Diamantopoulou, addressing the seminar, said steps were made in the last few years with the aim to improve the country's economic competitiveness, but not with the necessary speed because of lack of necessary consensus. Diamantopoulou urged the government to present specific proposals towards this direction and urged that 40 percent of a Fourth Community Support Framework should be earmarked for education, and training of human resources.
A survey presented during the seminar showed that Greece was at the bottom of a world list of competitiveness. Another survey by professor Spyros Makridakis showed that an 1.0 percent improvement of the Greek economy's world competitiveness index could lead to a 6.1 percent rise in per capita income in the country.
Source: Athens News Agency | <urn:uuid:960bd5e2-1c40-4c90-b5e8-ddffe6ff5944> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greekembassy.org/embassy/content/en/Article.aspx?office=3&folder=822&article=14932 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965594 | 579 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Microsoft Unveils Google Docs Killer: Office 14
Microsoft has been hinting for some time at plans to not just rival but outdo Google Docs, and today we finally got a glimpse of what the company has in mind. Surprise: They're turning to an old dog that's going to learn some impressive-looking new tricks-Microsoft Office.
In demos at the very end of a long Professional Developers Conference keynote that also marked the public debut of Windows 7, a Microsoft Office team member showed how web versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote that will be bundled with the next release of Office will allow people to seamlessly collaborate on documents that can reside online or on PCs. (Microsoft later posted a news release about its plans to create "lightweight" versions of Office apps for the Web.)
In one of the demos, the keynote audience saw two people modifying a One Note document-one from within a desktop version of OneNote and another working on the browser-based version of the note-taking application. And in another, we watched a full-featured spreadsheet being modified in similar fashion, in close to real time (there was a slight lag).
The Webification of Office promises functionality that goes beyond what Microsoft already offers as Google alternatives in its existing Windows Live program-in fact, Microsoft says it will deliver the Office apps via Office Live. The beauty of this approach (and why it might actually succeed in winning converts from Google Docs) is that Microsoft starts the Web competition with a big advantage in terms of formats: Office documents remain the lingua franca of business communication.
The demos suggest that the problem of offline access would go away, since documents would be automatically synced (via Live Mesh technology). What remains to be seen is what you'd need to do to avail yourself of Web-desktop synchronicity-would you have to sign up for some kind of Microsoft collaboration service, or pay for storage space that Google now gives away for free?
We don't yet know when Microsoft plans to release the next version of Office (although if past history is any indication, it shouldn't be too long after Windows 7, which is still officially slated to debut in early 2010). But Microsoft has said it will be working on extending anytime-anywhere functionality to mobile devices (presumably Windows Mobile devices). In his remarks during both today's and yesterday's keynotes, Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie said over and over again that Microsoft intends to bring customers the benefits of the desktop, the Web, and mobility in the years to come. | <urn:uuid:5f1fcd1b-9a5c-40f8-ab63-96475c68160d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcworld.com/article/152952/Office_14_Gets_Webby.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93844 | 524 | 1.648438 | 2 |
It's a typical old medieval...
It's a typical old medieval city. As you know cities in medieval ages were being founded in the following way - some central object, castle, the main square for trading, narrow streets for trading also and a wall around the city. When city used to spread in all directions around they had to move the wall further, so Paris is one the type of the city who has changed this wall at least three times! :) Therefore all the objects in it are not in one main direction but everywhere around, very noticeable from the Eiffel Tower. So get ready to walk if you want to see everything! Impossible to see in one day.. I'll come back there for sure! Loved bridges, Notre Dam cathedral, Louvre and fountains there (salvation on a hot summer day). What surprised me - Eiffel Tower at night. Before going to Paris I was thinking 'why all the fuss about that thing, some iron construction, sure big, sure nice..but..' shortly- it wasn't something fascinating for me. After I got there I realized the beauty of it, it was different than I expected, and the most surprising effect was at night.. That's what I call magical.. We were sitting on the grass in a Mars field, tasting wine, and next to us there was a enormously beautiful, delicately made peace of gold emitting golden light.
Have a "glace"
Otherwise known as ice cream:)
Here the ordering options are made clear! This small shop was on rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter.
The best "glace" in Paris is considered to be Berthillon on Ile St. Louis.
Le Jardin du Luxembourg
Luxemburg is a marvelous garden of 22 hectares. Adjoining in the Palace of the Senate, constructed for Marie of Médicis, this garden to the French harmonizes between lines and perspectives. Centered on the central basin, he/it spreads until the Fountain of the observatory of Davioud. Since Louis - Philippe, numerous sculptures decorate the garden, most beautiful being the monument in Delacroix by Dalou. To see the fountain of Médicis of 1624, of Florentine style, also. Romantic, quiet and hilly to some places, this beautiful garden is the place ideal for the lovers, the children and the aged people. He/it is planted of various gases of which of beautiful plane trees of Orient and the walnut-trees of Caucasus. Numerous floral decorations are dispersed on the circular lawns. The palace is surrounded in summer with palms and massifs of rosebushes. Finally, a beautiful basin is placed in the center of the garden. The garden of Luxemburg offers numerous activities of leisures: playgrounds of ball and long palm, of croquet, merry-go-round of hobby-horses, swings, karting, theater of puppets, renting of boats, lands of tennis, sulky and cars to pedals, walk to back of donkeys and ponies, ferries to sand and playful spaces reserved to the children with a big variety of games. You will be able to find many kiosks of toys and sweet, of the barrooms, lounge of tea and a day care. Also signal that a space of chess games, ladies and bridge is present. The fact to observe the players (accustomed of the places) provokes a real pleasure. It makes us think about the old Paris where the inhabitants of the district met in the public places to play or to discuss of the whole days. The garden of Luxemburg is one of the more beautiful and romantic parklands of Paris.
Paris is full of street musicians. This guy is one of the very few "traditional" ones, without background music played from a battery powered device.
There are also some who just play for the fun, like the drummers we saw in Jardin du Trocadero one night.
Le Corbusier - Modernist Architect
The Swiss-born artist, Le Corbusier (1887 - 1965) was one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Through his writing and his buildings, he is the main player in the Modernist story. His designs were built world-wide. Check out the Villa La Roche a reinforced concrete structure built in 1924 at Auteuil.
His radical ideas were given full expression in his 1923 book Vers Une Architecture ("Towards a New Architecture"), which is still the best-selling architecture book of all time.
"A house", Le Corbusier wrote, "is a machine for living in."
Le Corbusier Foundation maintains two of his pioneering structures (circa 1923) plus a library devoted to his works, life and achievements at Auteuil, in s.w. Paris (a couple of blocks west of Radio France). You may need to consult a map to find it but is well worth the visit. A real eye opener re modern architecture. See the web site for visiting times:
Villas La Roche-Jeanneret
Address : 8-10, square du Docteur Blanche 75016 Paris
approx lat long: 48º51'07.67"N; 02º15'54.41"E
Metro : line 9 (Jasmin) / liges 9 and 10 (Michel-Ange - Auteuil)
Bus : line 52 (La Fontaine - Mozart) / Line P.C. : (Suchet - Raffet
I've posted under this heading because I can find no other reference to the museum on this site. | <urn:uuid:abe10a25-5c52-4848-ab7d-8db414d6c34a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.virtualtourist.com/hotels/Europe/France/Ile_de_France/Paris-99080/Hotels_and_Accommodations-Paris-Timhotel_Nation-BR-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940934 | 1,173 | 1.820313 | 2 |
We will see quickly why the Republicans were salivating to have the sequestration cuts go into effect. They now have their own budget in the House and Paul Ryan, the Republican budgeteer, has brought out the big guns.
The primary target is the Affordable Care Act, "Obamacare." If this were repealed, 30 million Americans would again be without health insurance. Hospital emergency rooms would again find themselves providing primary care for uninsured patients, sending hospital costs upward. This is just one area of health care that would suffer.
And this is just one of the targets of Mr. Ryan. There are more.
Yes, the Republican budget will give us a smaller government. But when all is said and done, let us see how many citizens would be penalized — certainly not those sitting in Congress. | <urn:uuid:3999bf91-723a-45ae-9626-554f79b278e1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/GOP-budget-aims-at-Obamacare-4368000.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978982 | 162 | 1.5 | 2 |
Study Projects More Than 55,000 Open Seats Available
For Immediate Release Monday, March 15, 1999
Contact: Vice President of Communications Joseph G. Lehman at (989) 631-0900
MIDLAND-Overcrowded conditions in Michigan public schools could be eased without building more classrooms, according to a study released today by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Analysis of survey data by the Midland-based research and educational institute suggests that Michigan's 1,058 privately funded schools could absorb more than 55,000 additional students, or 3.3 percent of the state's total public school population, without exceeding 1998-99 classroom space.
The Michigan study mirrors results of a 1997 U. S. Department of Education national assessment that found private schools could accommodate as much as four percent of public school population in 22 urban communities. Many Michigan public schools report overcrowded conditions.
Innovative programs that would allow public schools to take advantage of unused private school capacity may be more practical than raising tax money to build new schools or classrooms, said study author and Mackinac Center Assistant Director of Education Policy Matthew J. Brouillette.
The study also shows that Michigan private schools as a whole have sufficient capacity to participate in school choice programs, including the Universal Tuition Tax Credit proposed by the Center in November 1997.
Under the tax credit plan, no public funds would be used to pay for a student's choice of a school outside the assigned district. Rather, any person or business paying a child's private or public school tuition could reduce his or her state tax liability by an amount not to exceed the cost of tuition or half of the approximately $6,000 per pupil now spent by the state in the public system.
Center researchers project the plan would provide incentives for 33,000 students to migrate from public to nonpublic schools in the first year, well below the 55,000 private school seats available. School Choice YES!, a Midland group, is promoting a 2000 ballot initiative that would amend the state constitution and implement the Center's plan.
The projected number of unused private school seats is based on written and phone surveys of 342, or 32 percent of, Michigan private schools. Fifty-five percent of the schools responded that they would be willing and able to expand to meet future demand and only eight percent said they would not do so.
The projected numbers of open seats in private schools in select Michigan communities are as follows:
Grand Rapids 7,189
Dearborn Heights 435
Traverse City 275
The complete ten-page study, Unused Capacity in Privately Funded Michigan Schools, is available at no charge via the Internet at www.mackinac.org, or for $5 by calling (989) 631-0900. There is no charge for educators and journalists. | <urn:uuid:75fa0652-c000-44fa-8ddd-fb189af3e0b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=1644 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951143 | 580 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Q: I quit drinking soda (I had been drinking 4-5 20-oz bottles per day), and now I weigh 208 pounds. But my weight has remained the same for two weeks now. Why does the scale stay the same when my clothes are getting looser. I'm frustrated!
A: Hi Donna,
First off, congratulations on making great strides to better your health! Cutting out soft drinks and other sugary beverages (even juice) is a great first step. This smart diet move often brings about immediate results, as you have clearly seen.
To progress further, you are going to need to do a few more things.
First, if you are not regularly exercising, it’s time to start. Dieting doesn’t do much for metabolism and often leads to stalled weight loss, which may be what you are experiencing.
Beyond dropping the calorie-containing drinks, you’ll need to make some other dietary changes. Here are a few tips:
1. Eat 5-6 small meals spaced throughout the day.
2. Eat most of your carbohydrates early in the day and decrease carbohydrate intake as the day goes on.
3. Make breakfast your largest meal, and dinner your smallest.
4. Eat protein with every meal.
Add these tricks to your weight-loss plan and you’ll see even more progress!
To your fat-loss success,Joel Marion
To learn more about Joel’s body-coaching program, visit TheBodyTransformationInsider.com.
Got a diet question? Ask Joel Marion
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Yoga for Back Pain
Pets HelpYour Heart
Are YouMoney Smart? | <urn:uuid:b1e45d6d-ca60-4501-a5e7-9f2b6cbe1cb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lifescript.com/food/healthy_eating_guides/dinner/tips/qa_help_my_weight_has_plateaued.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932052 | 421 | 1.578125 | 2 |
This Christmas: $475 for presents
Most shoppers still plan to buy their gifts in brick-and-mortar shops. Photo: Edwina Pickles
Australians are expected to spend $16.2 billion over the festive season, giving local businesses a reason to feel optimistic as consumer confidence remains subdued.
Much of that will likely be spent on gifts with people on average budgeting $475 for presents, a Commonwealth Bank survey of more than 1000 Australians shows. That means an equivalent of $7.8 billion going inside the wrapping paper.
Contrary to complaints that internet shopping is destroying local retailers, those surveyed said they planned to buy most of their Christmas gifts (70 per cent) from bricks-and-mortar stores.
Those surveyed planned to buy just 30 per cent of their Christmas gifts online. Boxing Day sales were expected to account for a further $2.2 billion worth of spending, the survey showed.
Commonwealth Bank executive general manager Local BusinessBanking Adam Bennett said the research showed businesses had an opportunity to perform well over the festive season.
‘‘We know that the unpredictable nature of the current economic climate means many businesses are still adverse to taking unnecessary risk, but our research shows that many businesses should be actively looking to take advantage of the millions of Aussies who plan to open their wallets this Christmas,’’ he said.
A further $3.7 billion is planned for vacations over the holiday season and $1.6 billion on entertaining friends and family.
Extra food and drink will also add to the Christmas budget with a total of $554 million for additional stores to consume inside the home and $359 million for supplies for outside of the home.
Poll: How much are you likely to spend on presents this Christmas?
- Less than $100.
- I'll spend between $100 and $500.
- Somewhere between $500 and $1000.
- My bill is likely to top $1000,
Total votes: 1596.
You will need Cookies enabled to use our Voting Feature.
Poll closed 28 Nov, 2012
These polls are not scientific and reflect the opinion only of visitors who have chosen to participate. | <urn:uuid:c77a1223-14a5-4526-b6f9-5e296b0f3162> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theage.com.au/business/this-christmas-475-for-presents-20121126-2a34c.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954537 | 449 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Just as in the offline world, friendships online need to develop naturally. The good thing is that it's easier to find people who have the exact same interests as you online rather than in person, because groups tend to be more focused. For example, simply joining a forum for Schnauzer owners will put you in touch with several other people who own the same dog as you. If you already have something like that in common, chances are you'll be able to bond much more quickly.
Meeting Friends in an Online Group
Online friends can be found in any Internet group that shares your interests and hobbies. Do an Internet search for the name of your hobby, say "knitting groups" for example, and see what comes up. Another option is to locate a group on Yahoo or Google. You can start by going through the categories (for example, health, arts and entertainment, etc.) or do a more advanced search for the name of your hobby in the group search function.
When joining a group, be sure to introduce yourself. Then, read through some of the past posts to get a feel for the people involved in the group and how they communicate. For example, do they ask each other questions, post about personal issues, offer criticism or comfort? Each group, even those located in the virtual world, has its own "personality" and if you want to fit in you've got to understand how it operates.
Finding Friends Through Facebook
Facebook has made it easy to locate groups of interest. Some of these are centered around celebrities and are an extension of fan clubs. Others are hobbyists who share common interests, like skateboarding, cooking, or even TV shows. Do a search on Facebook under the search term of your choice, or look through the recommendations the site provides for you specifically along the right side of your home page. There, Facebook lists ads from pages that are looking for more people. The ads are targeted to things you've "liked" or commented on.
Meet Online Friends Through Blogs and Websites
If there is a blog or website you enjoy reading, become a regular commenter. Be sure to add to the conversation with thoughtful remarks and not just "nice post" or your comment may get sent to junk mail. You'll soon see others that also regularly comment, and the two of you may strike up a conversation with each other or even with the blog owner.
A site like About.com has several categories of interest, and many of them also have forums (including here at Friendship!) Post a question or comment there and get involved in the conversation. You'll soon find other passionate individuals who share your interests, which is the first step to an online friendship. | <urn:uuid:971d5ae9-1967-4375-b994-c9acfbff337b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://friendship.about.com/od/Meeting-New-Friends/a/How-To-Find-More-Online-Friends.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961729 | 550 | 1.71875 | 2 |
RICHMOND, Ky. — Two questions on the current version of the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey pertain to laundry services, and the industry can expect changes in future revisions, says Linda Fairbanks, executive director of academic affairs for the Association for Linen Management.
In a recent webinar, Fairbanks detailed the survey tool and how it has impacted how a hospital improves patient care and how patients assess a hospital stay.
“HCAHPS brings a sweeping change in the healthcare marketplace,” she says. “The impact on linen and textile services to date is small, but it’s a larger role than we first played in the first draft of HCAHPS.”
Since interviews indicate linens bear a significant role when it comes to patient satisfaction, the industry can expect future questions to relate more to the role that textiles play, Fairbanks says.
WHAT IS HCAHPS?
The ever-evolving tool is a quality assessment survey focusing on patient satisfaction after a hospital stay. Developed in 2002, the survey was a joint project of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Department of Health and Human Resources.
The project was funded in 2005 and implemented in 2006. Data collection began in 2007, and the use of HCAHPS was tied at that time to participation in the Medicare IPPS annual payment program. If facilities wanted to continue to receive payments rapidly under the IPPS program, they were required to collect and submit HCAHPS data.
The current version of HCAHPS will generate reimbursement changes, Fairbanks says, and 2013 will bring another step, as the program will level penalties on hospitals with negative clinical outcomes.
The survey itself is composed of 27 questions, with the core measures looking at communications with nurses and doctors, staff responsiveness, pain management, information about medications, and discharge information. There are demographic questions, as well as two relating to cleanliness and quietness of a hospital, and several questions on the overall hospital rating by the patient.
The survey is given to patients who were at least 18 years old at the time of admission, who did not have a psychiatric diagnosis at discharge, and whose stay included at least one overnight.
Patients with overseas addresses or who are designated non-publicity patients—those who checked in anonymously—are excluded, as are patients who are discharged to a hospice or a skilled nursing facility.
A specific cover letter is included with the survey letter, and while hospitals can ask their own questions, it must be under the cover of a completely separate survey.
The survey can be conducted completely by mail or by telephone, or by a combination of the two. It can also be administered through an active/interactive voice response system. However, the survey must be conducted 48 hours after a patient has been discharged and within six weeks after discharge.
ENVIRONMENT OF CARE
HCAHPS contains two questions that focus on the hospital environment, and many times comments on the survey indicate that linens played a major role in a patient’s satisfaction with a hospital stay.
The two questions ask patients to rate how often a room and bathroom were kept clean, and how quiet the area around a patient’s room was at night.
Consulting groups that are developing efforts to support HCAHPS are attempting to sharpen communications with patients in regard to responsiveness of care and why the environment of care is such an important aspect to the care experience, Fairbanks says.
Budgeting of linens often comes into play with the environment of care, she says. Distribution problems allow a linen provider to assist with a solution, and the industry can look at the use of HCAHPS as a means of determining how and when a linen provider can help a healthcare facility increase patient satisfaction.
Fairbanks mentioned keeping the provision of linens and apparel on a schedule as well as avoiding duplication of linens in a patient room. Linen departments or providers can assist a facility in avoiding duplication when a patient is admitted through the emergency department or after surgery. In these cases, a patient’s arrival in a room is accompanied by part of the linens needed; a gown, pillow, pillowcase, top sheet and blanket are usually with a patient on a stretcher. Those items do not need to already be in place in a room.
Another aspect of linen duplication is that research has shown body-core temperature, if maintained, can hold off opportunistic infections. Allowing a patient to keep the linens that accompany him from a recovery room or the emergency room will help maintain a higher body-core temperature.
WHAT’S THE SCORE?
HCAHPS scores allow a hospital to compare a current performance level to a past level, as well as compare one hospital to another facility. The data is already making a difference, Fairbanks says, and the laundry industry can take its own measures to show improvements.
“If the linen, if the textiles represent an area free from infection and disease, then the patient’s feeling of security that the care they’re going to receive will carry forward,” Fairbanks says. “They definitely see the value in textiles.” | <urn:uuid:c8085892-b040-48f7-82c7-022be284531d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americanlaundrynews.com/topics/the%20Medicare%20IPPS%20annual | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954978 | 1,099 | 1.578125 | 2 |
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