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This web page was written while Dr. Fred was hard at work on the biography of
planetary scientist Heidi B. Hammel, who is best known for her work on the atmospheres of the outer planets. The biography was one of ten in a women-in-science series published by the Joseph Henry Press, which is affiliated with the United States' National Academy of Sciences, and Scholastic Library Publishing in 2005.
Order Beyond Jupiter in hard cover from Amazon.com
Order Beyond Jupiter in paperback from Amazon.com
In August 2003, Dr. Fred had an opportunity to participate in a three-day observation session with Heidi and four others: David Lynch, Ray Russell, and Daryl Kim of the Aerospace Corporation, and Brad Perry of NASA. They were using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) at the peak of Hawai'i's highest mountain, Mauna Kea on "The Big Island" of Hawai'i.
Left to right: Brad, Dave, Ray, Heidi, Dr. Fred, and Daryl in the IRTF parking lot, with two other world-class observatories in the background -- Gemini North eight-meter telescope (left) and the University of Hawai'i 2.2-meter Telescope. Gemini South, which can operate in tandem with Gemini North, is in the Chilean Andes.
Of course, Dr. Fred wouldn't go to The Big Island without visiting Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. This web page is a collection of Dr. Fred's own photographs that tell the story of both the observation and the trip to the National Park. Many of them will appear in the finished book. For now, feast your eyes as you share Dr. Fred's exciting journey!
Dr. Fred leaves his home in Pennsylvania at 7:00 on a Saturday morning to catch a 9:30 flight to San Francisco, where he transfers to another plane to Kona on the West Coast of The Big Island of Hawai'i. It takes Dr. Fred almost twelve hours from the time his plane leaves the gate in Pittsburgh to his arrival in Kona at about 3:30 p.m. Hawai'i standard time. He rents a car and drives about twenty miles south to the town of Captain Cook, where he eats a light dinner and goes to bed early.
Because his body is still on Eastern time, Dr. Fred wakes up at about 4:00 a.m. and is on the road again at 5:00. He rounds the southern end of the island, coming within twelve miles of the southernmost point in the United States before heading north again on the east side of the island, where he sees
daybreak over the Pacific Ocean. Before 7:00, he reaches his goal
Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park!
His first stop is the Volcano House Hotel, where he has breakfast and steps out on the rear patio for his first glimpse of
the caldera of Kilauea Volcano, with steam vents at its bottom (not visible here) and its famous steaming bluffs.
Then it's off for a drive around part of the crater's rim, where the first stop is in a rainforest area that includes
the Thurston Lava Tube, where flowing lava cooled on the outside first. It is like a cave without the limestone stalactites and stalagmites. Because of a downpour the previous night, the cave roof is leaking and puddles have formed. Dr. Fred didn't bring waterproof shoes, so he can only go about halfway into the tube before coming to a deep puddle that goes all the way across. Normally, people can walk all the way through on dry ground, a distance of a few hundred feet!
With his spirits undampened by the water, Dr. Fred gets back into the car and drives a short distance toward Chain of Craters Road, where he plans to turn south toward the ocean, but stops first to explore a trail through an area devastated by a 1959 eruption of Kilauea. In some areas, plant life has returned to cover the ground. But in other areas, it is harder for seeds to take root. The plants in those spots remind Dr. Fred of one of the themes in his book about Heidi B. Hammel. She doesn't allow herself to be discouraged by a challenge and often achieves work that scientists consider beautiful,
like this tiny plant with its striking red flowers. (Notice the size of the plant compared to a penny.)
Chain of Craters Road goes all the way down to the Pacific Ocean, dropping a distance of about 4000 feet in nineteen miles. Just as scientists need to pay attention to details in their research, Dr. Fred discovers he can walk across the hardened lava and get close to the shoreline if he is both adventurous and careful--
-- and he is rewarded with an unusual sight:
a natural arch carved into the lava by seawater!
Before the lava from Kilauea started taking a new direction in recent years, Chain of Craters Road connected to another road that went all around the island's eastern shoreline. But now the volcano frequently takes fresh chunks out of the road. In March and April, 2003, a half-mile of roadway and the old turnaround area had to be abandoned. Dr. Fred has to laugh when he sees these signs that got caught in the flow.
Then he checks his watch. He barely has time for lunch and a stop in the giftshop to pick up teeshirts for his twin grandchildren and a bib for his baby grandchild soon to be born.
Then it's off to Kona airport, where he is scheduled to meet Heidi after she arrives on the same flight that he had taken the previous day.
Heidi laughs when she tells Dr. Fred about people's reactions to her frequent trips to The Big Island to observe at either the IRTF or the nearby Keck Observatory, which houses a pair of much larger (ten-meter) telescopes with an "adaptive optics capability" that eliminates the smearing effect of the Earth's atmosphere. "That's not work. It's vacation," people tell her.
They couldn't be more wrong! From the time she leaves her home in Connecticut until the time she returns, Heidi does nothing but travel (24 hours or longer round trip), work (observing dusk to dawn and discussing observations much of the daytime hours), sleep (not nearly enough), eat (usually dormitory food plus plenty of sugar cookies at the summit), and drink (non-carbonated beverages at the summit because the very thin outside air allows bubbles to expand in people's insides, and large amounts because the humidity is very low when the clouds are below the observatories -- which is most of the time). Instead of enjoying a vacation, Heidi experiences the discomfort of airplanes and high-altitude living that always makes her body very uncomfortable and her brain less efficient.
On top of that, Heidi has to schedule observations when the positions of her favorite planets are favorable. That makes coordinating her travels with her family's needs very complicated. She and her husband, an engineering manager at IBM whose work also calls for travel, are raising three very bright young children, currently ages 2, 4, and 6. In the entry to their home is the family calendar, on which they mark their travel times so that one of them is always home, and reserve time for them to be together as a family. When Dr. Fred visited Heidi at her office at home (Her employer, the Space Science Institute, is in Colorado, and she communicates by computer and telephone), the calendar looked like this:
Notice Dr. Fred's visit at the beginning of the month, along with Heidi's mother ("Graga" to the children) and the trip to IRTF about two weeks later.
With Heidi at the wheel, Dr. Fred got to enjoy the scenery as they drove up-up-up from hot and humid Kona to the cool 9300-foot level of Mauna Kea, where the observers and support people live in dormitories. They checked into their rooms and met Ray for dinner, allowing a few hours to adjust to the low oxygen level there before heading up to the much thinner air at the summit, where the oxygen content is about forty percent less than at sea level. Heidi drove a four-wheel-drive IRTF vehicle up to the summit along a nine-mile, steep, mostly unpaved road with a series of switchback turns. About two hours was enough for the first night, and Heidi drove back down to the dormitory, where she and Dr. Fred went to their rooms and some badly needed sleep at about 10 p.m. Taking the six-hour clock difference into account, Dr. Fred realized that Heidi had been awake for 23 hours!
The next day, the team began final planning for their observations. To make sure they could handle the dusk-to-dawn work schedule at the summit, Heidi and Dr. Fred took an afternoon altitude-accommodation trip back up the mountain. There, Lars Bergknut put the telescope through its paces,
allowed Heidi and Fred to see the three-meter (9.8-ft.) diameter IRTF mirror up close and personal, and took this photograph so they could remember the experience.
After a short nap and dinner down in the dorm, it was time to get serious about work. Back up to the summit they went, where they worked until they heard the words, "Sunset call!" The summit is above most of the clouds, and sunset is a not-to-be-missed event,
as you can see in this photo, taken by Brad, of Heidi and Dr. Fred with the Keck Observatory in the background. You can see the cloud layer below them and a few high clouds. Those high clouds make for beautiful sunsets, but they can mean problems ahead for astronomers.
At most nights on Mauna Kea, the clouds drop down below the summit as sunset approaches; but, as the No Parking signs Dr. Fred photographed at Volcanoes National Park might suggest, things don't always go as planned on The Big Island or in science. The telescope operator, Paul Sears, could not open the IRTF dome until the humidity dropped below ninety percent for twenty minutes. Stepping outside for a flashlight test -- shining a light beam upward into the air -- Dr. Fred saw droplets in the beam and felt them on his face. Those high clouds from the sunset picture were hugging the peak of Mauna Kea, the humidity was often one hundred percent, and it didn't seem likely to change for a while.
Finally at midnight, the humidity began to drop steadily. At 12:10, about five hours after sunset, Paul began to open the dome, and at 12:30, the team was ready to start collecting real data. They began by measuring some stars that were well known, just to make sure everything was working well. Then Ray measured the stars he needed and Dave got a look at his nova. Heidi took a few measurements of Neptune and was eager to collect data from her prime target for this visit, Uranus.
Uranus and Neptune are similar in many ways, but the IR spectrum of Uranus is much less dramatic. Astronomers believe that its atmosphere ought to be similar to Neptune's, but although Neptune's IR spectrum shows clear evidence of a gas called ethane in its atmosphere, no one has yet seen that gas on Uranus. In her observations of Uranus in 2002, Heidi saw small hints of ethane, and she believes that the planet's changing weather as it approaches its first equinox in 42 years may result in a warmer atmosphere, which will cause the ethane to glow brighter in IR light. Still, the planet is quite faint, so she will have to collect many hours worth of data if she expects to see ethane's characteristic IR color bands there.
"Channel shift!" Daryl calls out. That's a bad sign. Something is happening to BASS's electronics, and Heidi's Uranus data may be questionable.
He and Ray (right) go to the telescope and check out their instrument. They come back and restart the measurements. For a short time, the system seems to be working; but then comes another channel shift. The weather and the instrument seem to be working against Heidi's attempts to gather IR light from Uranus that night.
While Ray and Daryl try to figure out the problems with BASS, Heidi, Dave, and Brad decide what to observe when the instrument is working properly. Uranus will soon be getting too low in the sky to see well, so they decide to go after a "target of opportunity." Every two years or so, Earth passes between Mars and the Sun. At that time, Mars is said to be "in opposition" because it is directly opposite the Sun as seen from Earth. It rises at sunset, sets at sunrise, and reaches its highest point in the sky at midnight. Opposition is the time that the two planets are closest. Because their orbits are not circular, some oppositions bring the planets closer together than others. This opposition is special: Mars will have its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years -- and that will occur only a few days after this observation. It's an ideal time to look at Mars' two tiny moons, Deimos and Phobos, which race around the planet. Deimos, smaller and farther out, completes its orbit in about 31 hours, and the larger Phobos zips around Mars more than three times a day.
Brad (left) has a program on his laptop computer that can calculate exactly where those moons will be at any minute. The program says that Deimos will be in a good position to be measured at around 4:30 a.m. if BASS is ready to go. Ray and Daryl say it's worth a try, and they tell Paul to turn the instrument toward Mars. Deimos is faint but detectable, right where Brad said it should be. They start to gather infrared light, expecting a weak signal,
but the IR signal is much more intense than they expected. Everyone is excited about seeing something that no one else has ever observed, but they know that scientific surprises are not always telling the stories they seem to be at first glance. It's been a long and often disappointing night, but as sunrise is approaching, they may have made an important discovery. As good scientists, they know that they shouldn't jump to conclusions. But at least they can head down the mountain, have breakfast, and go to sleep with smiles instead of frowns.
"Good morning!" is a standard greeting in the scientist's dormitory, no matter what time the clock says it is, because there's a good chance that the person you're talking to just woke up.
That's the way Dr. Fred greets Heidi and Dave when he finds them hard at work in the library at 2:00 in the afternoon after the first night of observing. They've been looking for everything they can find that people have published about the IR light produced by Deimos and Phobos. They've also been prowling the internet for newer results. It's beginning to look like the previous night's surprise is truly a new result. The data seems to be telling them that the surface of Deimos gets hot like the sand on a sunny beach. But they need more data to be sure, and they wonder if Phobos' surface also warms up in the sunshine. They decide to make more observations of both moons whenever they can, but they know that Heidi's measurements of Uranus and Neptune are still very important. Those were the reason they were given the time on the IRTF while other researchers had to wait their turn.
As the three nights of observing pass, the team continues to have trouble gathering data about Uranus. Perhaps BASS has a problem that shows up only when it is in certain positions that just happen to match Uranus' path across the sky.
Still, Heidi and Dave are happy as they chat about their work and their common love of Bluegrass music. Dr. Fred thinks that their three nights at IRTF were like the lyrics of a country music song that tell a tale of overcoming disappointment with determination. Looking at this photo, he thinks Heidi and Dave might be singing, "We never made it to Uranus, but we had a hot time on the moons of Mars." (But then Dr. Fred has always had a weird imagination.)
Nearing the end of the third night of observing, Heidi shows both the fatigue of hard work at high altitude and satisfaction of having made an unexpected scientific discovery. She knows that before they leave Mauna Kea, the research team will have to decide the best way to share their results with other astronomers.
They decide to produce a short announcement that will alert others to their preliminary findings about the moons of Mars. As Dave puts it, it is important "to stake our claim" on the discovery but not to draw firm conclusions about what it says about the Martian moons until they have a chance to discuss their work with others.
Dave and Heidi are careful writers, polishing their words so that no one will misunderstand what they found and what they think it might mean. They discuss every sentence, and they know Ray will have some thoughts to add before they send it out. Heidi will be visiting some scientists in the San Francisco area on her way home, so they also discuss how best to share their story with them.
As Heidi and Dr. Fred head down the mountain together toward the Kona airport on their way home, they discuss the past four days. For Heidi, it was one trip of many, and she knew that Uranus would be waiting for her another time. For Dr. Fred, it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
He looks back at the summit, where he sees the Subaru Japanese National Telescope gleaming beside the Keck Observatory and the IRTF, and he knows he has been breathing the air near the world's greatest astronomical instruments. He inhales deeply and realizes his "heady" feeling has nothing to do with the thin air and everything to do with where he is on Earth and everywhere he has traveled among the worlds of the Solar System.
He smiles as words swirl in his head. His book is beginning to take shape, and soon he will be home to start writing it.
Dr. Fred logo and art may not be reproduced in any form for commercial or educational use without the written permission of its owner, Alfred B. Bortz. | <urn:uuid:8e430a72-6fdf-4eef-be83-72b165539b8d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fredbortz.com/HammelBio/Preview.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970257 | 3,819 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Glossary of Terms
| At the suggestion of some readers,
I've created this glossary to deal with all the Aussie-isms and sailing
terms which crop up in 'King of the Beach'. If there are any that flummox
you, that aren't included on this list, please contact
Bareboat: renting a yacht and sailing it yourself without qualified skipper or crew. Usually bareboat companies will give you a few hours' tuition with a skipper before turning you loose with one of their boats unsupervised.
Bastard: definitely a term of affection in Australia.
Biro: the brand name of a ballpoint pen. Has become the generic term, at least in Australia.
Boaties: someone who works, lives, eats, breathes boats. An example of the Aussie habit of either shortening words, or adding -ie or -o to them. See also deckies, Joshy, Tez, Gaz, and Jo-Jo. Cadie will probably end up as Cades or Cado, just you wait, matie.
Bommies: short for bombora, and aboriginal word meaning submerged rock. Basically a bommie is a pillar of coral growing up from the sea bed, or reef, that never penetrates the surface of the water, even at low tide.
Boom: the long horizontal spar, hanging low on the mast that the biggest sail is supported by. Swings freely, allowing for controlling the position of the sail relative to the wind direction. I totally just made that up.
Bow: the sharp bit at the front of a boat.
Buggered: as in 'that's me buggered'. Aussie for 'oh dear, I'm really in a mess now'.
Bushwhacked: kidnapped, hijacked, forced into something under duress.
Cyclone: the southern hemisphere equivalent of a hurricane. Cylones spin in the opposite direction to hurricanes, but that's the only difference. Cyclone season in Australia runs from December to March. They rarely travel further south than the Tropic of Capricorn but it's not unheard of.
Digger: nickname for Australian soldiers. It's come to be used more generally as another word for 'mate'.
Divemaster: qualified scuba diver who's also certified to teach. Many bareboat companies, resorts etc will subcontract to a divemaster to come in with equipment and teach their clients the basics to the point where they can get certified.
Dope: oh come on, you know what dope is ... weed, grass, MJ, mary-jane, marijuana, Mullimbimby madness ...
Driving on the left: is what we do in Australia. This means the steering wheel is on the right, which would put Cadie and Jo (who's driving) on Rosa's right.
Dual cockpit: the Beneteau 50 has two wheels at the helm, one on the port (left) and one on the starboard (right) side. This is known as the crew cockpit. Additionally, in front of the helm, is a large area of seating for passengers, and includes a central table.
Fart-arsing: the act of wasting time in a frivolous fashion.
G'day: also spelled gidday. A bastardisation of 'good day'. Contrary to some glossaries of Aussie terms, I have NEVER heard it used as a way of saying goodbye. Strictly hello.
Genoa: a large foresail which takes the place of the jib. Can be furled without taking it down. No, really.
Hooning around: the act of being young, in charge of a vehicle, and intent on looking cool by driving like a complete goose, complete with peel-outs, rubber-burning and loud rap music.
Jackaroo: A farm hand who usually rides either a horse or, these days, more likely a motorbike or four-wheel drive, around the property, doing repairs or rounding up sheep or cattle. A female jackaroo is a jillaroo. Really.
Leeward side: the opposite side from which the wind is blowing. In other words, if you are standing at the helm, looking forward and the wind is coming from the starboard (right), then the port side (left) is to leeward.
Loopies: derogatory, but somewhat affectionate term for tourists. Fairly specific to the Whitsundays as far as I can tell. Never heard it anywhere else.
Low 30's celsius: not Fahrenheit. For example, 33 degrees C is about 91 degrees F.
Mackay: a town in north Queensland, about an and a half's drive south of Airlie Beach.
Main drag: the main street.
Mainsail: the main, um, sail.
Master's ticket: the qualification needed to skipper a boat. Requirements vary depending on the length of the vessel and the purpose of the boat, but usually include a certain number of logged hours as a deckhand, plus a written and oral exam.
Mate: buddy, pal, friend. The most common Aussie term of endearment, inextricably linked with the idea of mateship, an intrinsic part of Aussie bonding.
Michelin Guide: a snooty restaurant rating guide that awards one to three stars with three being the highest. Very few restaurants earn three and businesses have folded on the basis of losing a star.
Mob: group of people. Rural types talk about mobs of sheep.
Moreton Bay bug: a shellfish, smaller than a lobster, but with meat that can be prepared in much the same ways as lobster can be. For mine, it's sweeter than lobster meat. Delicious.
No worries: absolutely no problems, whatsoever. My pleasure.
Pentridge Prison: Australia's most infamous jail, where all the reaaaaaaaally bad boys are kept.
Quids: dollars, bucks, rupees, readies, moolah, cash, Oxford scholars.
Sheila: a woman. Probably originates from the Aussie male's inability to remember too many names at a time. See also the Monty Python Bruces sketch.
Starboard: the right-hand side. Opposite of port.
Stiletto: a small, very thin, incredibly sharp knife which can be easily hidden.
Stubbies: small bottles of beer or cider. Half a dozen of them in a six-pack, 24 in a slab.
Supergrass: the ultimate grass, ie. someone who has turned 'state's evidence', an informant. Usually a criminal who cuts a deal to avoid prosecution or have their sentence reduced.
Tack: to turn the boat so that the wind exerts pressure on the opposite side of the sail.
Taipan: a particularly nasty brand of Australian snake. It's found mostly along the non-desert areas of north and north-east Australia (from Brisbane to Darwin). It is an aggressive, large, slender snake, and may be coloured any shade of brown but always has a rectangular head (large in proportion to the body) and red eyes. Venom output is high and causes neurotoxicity, coagulopathy, and rhabdomyolysis, and the amount retrieved from just one milking from one taipan is enough to kill many million mice. Paralysis is difficult to reverse unless treated early. Untreated, a good bite will almost certainly be fatal. So there.
Tannoy: public address system.
Tinny: a small, usually aluminium, dinghy. Also refers to a can of beer. Also means lucky. For example: "Geez you tinny bastard, how'd you land that fish? Now toss me another cold tinny, before I chuck you out of the tinny."
Townies: big city folks.
Transom: the flat, or sometimes curved terminating structure of the hull at the stern of a boat. That's the blunt, back end of the boat.
Tucker: Aussie for food.
Tyres: this really is how most of the English-speaking world spells those round rubber things on each corner of the car.
Ute: Short for utility. A work vehicle, usually consisting of a cab and a tray. But not usually any bigger than a standard sedan when it comes to engine size. Americans would probably call them a truck.
Winches: geared winding-type gizmos attached to the deck. The sheets (lines used to control the position of the sails) pass through them. Winding them allows for the hoisting and pulling down of sails, and in lower gears, for the fine adjustment of the sails. Bloody hard work, especially on bigger yachts.
Wrinklies: parental units.
Comments, questions, suggestions, broken links? | <urn:uuid:c06625fb-e7fb-4c53-87f1-8996eea4b471> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://academyofbards.org/fanfic/c/glossary.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939836 | 1,846 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Are you doing your own plumbing for the first time? You probably don’t even know where to start. It’s no secret that doing your own plumbing for the first time can be a bit overwhelming. Below are some tips that can help to make maintaining your own plumbing a bit smoother Bathrooms
A great way to save a few dollars is to add insulation to your hot water heater. Much of the energy required to heat the water in your home is the expense from keeping the water in the tank hot for when it is needed. Adding an extra layer of insulation can help reduce this cost Bathroom Fittings
Do not use the liquid cleaning supplies that are designed to clear clogs. These cleaners are harmful and can damage your pipes as they clear the clog. Instead of using damaging liquids, use a plunger or a plumbing snake. These are much more effective and will not harm pipes Bathroom Accessories
Run your washing machine when it has a full load of clothes so that you can maximize the efficiency of the water that you use. You do not want to waste water, as this will lead to a higher water bill and can cause wear and tear to your machines internal components Electric Showers
One way to eliminate the bothersome noise of banging pipes is to see if you need to add extra straps. Over time, old straps can come loose or deteriorate and fall off, resulting in pipes banging against the wall when water is flowing. The addition of inexpensive straps will keep the pipe secure and get rid of the noise.
Regular maintenance of your plumbing lines is a great idea. Your options are getting your lines snaked or jetted. Jetted is a technology that is proven more effective than snaking is. It gets deeper and cleans harder. So jetting is a good idea next time you are having maintenance performed on your lines.
If you’re planning to leave on vacation then it’s key to make sure you turn off the main shut off valve to your plumbing. This will ensure that nothing floods or breaks while you’re gone, leaving you with a horrendous mess to return to and headaches you don’t want to deal with.
To prevent the most common kitchen sink clogs, avoid putting any sort of solid foods down your drain. Many foods, such as eggs and vegetable and fruit waste actually harden with exposure to cold water and over time can form clogs that are next to impossible to remove without professional help.
Check for leaks on your water heater and softener before you leave for vacation. You can also turn off their individual shut-off valves to ensure that they don’t cause any water damage while you’re away. It’s good to check them a few weeks before you leave just in case you need any repairs.
If you install a new water heater, and you start to have a leak from the pressure relief valve, you may need an expansion tank installed. The pressure increases when the functioning of the water heater is being performed properly. Therefore, with your new water heater, it may be necessary to have an expansion tank as well.
If you can’t turn off a main valve to your entire home when you go on vacation then turn off the valves to each water line. For example,if you live in an apartment, turn off the individual valves in your bathrooms and kitchen. Don’t forget to drain out your dishwasher’s hose and get the valves behind your toilets.
As you have seen, doing your plumbing is not as scary as it may appear at first. Just think of all of the benefits it has and all of the expenses it can take care of, along with all of the money it can save you in the long run.
Great Ways On How To Do Plumbing Right | <urn:uuid:08ba0f4b-7a71-4b61-b806-77483ec0f163> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://celluledecrise-2012.tumblr.com/archive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94851 | 776 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Another “rabba” is slated to be ordained next month by the Academy of Jewish Religion, The Jewish Week reports. (The Sisterhood will have more on this shortly.)
Chabad.org has a story about “The Heart That Sings,” a movie with an all-female cast. The film was screened in 11 cities during the Passover holiday; audiences were all women, and mostly Haredi.
Over at Double X, Amanda Schaffer writes about the potential risks of taking too much folic acid — a vitamin that has been shown to reduce the incident of some birth defects.
On the blog Family Inequality, sociologist Phillip Cohen writes about the new National Center for Health Statistics’ findings showing that the recession has driven birth rates down.
Think Sweden is utopia for mothers and young families? Jonas Himmelstrand, an author and consultant from Sweden, tells eReview about the pros and cons of life in the country.
There are two male characters with speaking roles for every female character with such a role in top grossing films, reports The Women’s Media Center.
The infant mortality rate for Arab-Israelis, including Bedouins, is three-times higher than it is for Jewish Israelis, writes Haaretz.
Also in Haaretz: Agunot have begun to file damages suits in attempt to extricate themselves from their unwanted marriages. | <urn:uuid:69a92453-e999-4dea-a928-a9e2dc7a8aa4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/137352/prime-ribs-a-second-rabba-birth-and-infant-morta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959698 | 291 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Google isn't a very old company, but it does have a few holiday traditions. I sometimes refer to April Fool's Day as "Google Christmas," just because it seems like they spend half the year making all those delicious pranks. But Google also celebrates Christmas-Christmas with a few cool apps.
NORAD had a tradition of "tracking" Santa since 1955 when a Sears ad accidentally listed their number in a flyer sent to children in Colorado. When the children called, the agency (which was then CONAD) decided to play along, and it became a tradition. Each caller would be given tracking info for Santa as he made his flight from the North Pole, and Google eventually partnered up in 2004 to make an ever richer experience using Google Earth. The experience eventually moved to Google Maps, and then it involved more and more products. Google isn't the only Web partner. NORAD also has a Facebook and Twitter account to follow the latest Santa movements.
After December 1, visit www.noradsanta.org to find the latest tracking tools and informational apps.
Google usually includes YouTube videos, Google Maps flight information, a Google Plus group and more - maybe this year there will be some Google Plus Hangouts?
It's possible Google will not partner with NORAD this year, although that would really just feel like a lump of coal in our stockings. | <urn:uuid:5837f17b-e139-4af5-88b2-afc4b0fe42bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://google.about.com/od/experimentalgoogletools/qt/Norad-Santa-Tracking-2012.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965047 | 276 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Tree farm a family tradition
EAST GREENBUSH — Economic uncertainty might shrink the pile of presents under the Christmas tree this year, but the seasonal evergreens themselves remain a hot item, at least at one long-time town mainstay.
The McDonough Farm on Gilligan Road has been selling Christmas trees for more than 40 years — since back in the day when a farm could make a solid living selling its harvest to big-name grocery stores, said owner Roger McDonough. They’ve found over the years that a good tree is indispensable, even in a time when people are tightening their belts in a down-turned economy.
“So far we haven’t seen it affect us. We’re very thankful for that,” said Maureen McDonough, Jack’s wife. “They might cut back with the presents, but they want a tree.”
The once-a-year tree shopping has become a tradition for some families who show up year after year at the farm, which sells about 900 trees each December, McDonough said. Sometimes they bring cookies and hot chocolate, she said.
“It’s nice to see the families doing that,” she said. “We have return customers and people who used to come here when they were little kids and now they come with their own families.”
Among those walking through the aisles of pre-cut trees Sunday was the Flanagan family, in search of a solid Frasier fir. John Flanagan said he looks for sturdy branches — an important characteristic, since he plans to adorn the tree with some 1,800 lights.
“I go online and research how many lights you should put on it,” he said. “It takes a long time. So you look for sturdy branches.”
Quietly tagging along is 8-year-old Maggie, who inspects the trees as her father muses about how the branches will settle once the tree is in their Bethlehem home.
“She gets the last say,” said her mother Beth. “That’s our tradition.”
The family has been purchasing their trees at McDonough’s, near John Flanagan’s workplace, for several years. Continued...
“We asked around and someone recommended here. We love it here,” he said.
Another family who likes it there is the farm’s namesake. At least a half-dozen members of the family are on hand during December to help sell trees, cut them down, tie them to cars and carry them — and occasionally a customer — around on a tractor.
“They’ve been doing it since they were probably 14 years old,” said Maureen McDonough. “It’s wonderful. It’s not easy, especially when it’s zero degrees, the wind’s blowing and it’s snowing.”
While there are some growing trees a customer can choose from and cut down, most opt for ones out front that are either pre-cut from the fields or brought to the farm from elsewhere. Most run for $48 this year, tax included.
“We can’t grow them fast enough,” said Joshua Perry, a grandson of the McDonough’s, who comes to town from Syracuse each December weekend to help out.
It’s a billion-dollar industry, and there are some 15,000 farms like the McDonough’s across the nation, according to the National Christmas Tree Association. While it clearly can be profitable, it’s a specialty that does take some patience, Jack McDonough explained.
The farm planted their first trees with seeds bought from the state, to the chagrin of a neighbor who deemed evergreens an unwise choice. Several months of each year are spent planting seedlings and trimming the trees, but the real project is the waiting between when they go in the ground and when they are ready to be decorated in a living room.
“It takes from seven to 10 years before you get a return. You’ve got to like it,” said Jack McDonough, who also operates nearly a dozen greenhouses filled with flowers. “I was brought up with it. I’ve been doing this since I was 13 years old.”
The family hopes 2009 will be a particularly successful year, because last year suffered from the mid-December ice storm that left rows of trees encased in ice and inaccessible for days.
Dave Canfield can be reached at 270-1290 or by e-mail at [email protected].
Location, ST | website.com
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Join Rafi Topalian as he discusses the past, present and future Armenian news, stories and related issues that effect not only the Armenian Community in the Capital District but non-Armenian readers alike. | <urn:uuid:3b1b14a9-cf61-4ed3-acd2-95da2e7565a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://troyrecord.com/articles/2009/11/30/news/doc4b13792a21171689584533.txt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958633 | 1,364 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Byron Reese: Travel Provides a World of Inspiration
Tech exec Byron Reese reflects on travel and creativity.
My job is to head up innovation for Demand Media, an Internet media company. The Internet changes so rapidly that innovating within it is an unrelenting process, and if you are foolish enough to pause to take a breather, you find yourself left way behind. The Internet, after all, changes more in a month than many industries do in a decade. And because of this, I am often asked how I can possibly get a sense of what the future will bring.
A part of the answer is that I travel to the past or, more precisely, to places where the past is still very much alive. This may seem counterintuitive, but I find it quite clarifying; it is always fascinating to see what we hold onto from the past and what we are willing or eager to leave behind. For human nature, unlike the Internet, never changes. But ironically, it is human nature, not technology, that drives change. And human nature can best be seen in environments different from our own.
Where are these places? They cover the planet. Our world is an amazing mosaic of the exotic, the beautiful and the fascinating. I have watched with awe the Mass Games in North Korea, where 100,000 performers put on a spectacle unmatched on the planet. I have danced at the Tropicana in Havana, gasped in wonder at the Blue Grotto in Capri, stood silently before the Taj Mahal in Agra and climbed the pyramids in Egypt. The world is full of wonders beyond description.
Yet inspiration and insights for my business don’t come from the spectacular, but from the ordinary. Take Havana, for instance, where the cars are not the only things frozen in the past. Almost nothing looks like it has been replaced or even painted since 1959. In 1993, however, the Cuban government legalized small, privately owned restaurants, or paladares. In spite of high taxation and crushing regulation, the hunger for the economic opportunity that free markets bring caused a whole host of restaurants to open, offering a cornucopia of dining choices. And although there had been a lack of markets in Cuba for two generations, I found these restaurants to be the embodiment of what comes with free enterprise: high degrees of service, great quality and, most of all, a large variety of choices. It seems that the things that make a business successful can be known almost instinctually. We are wired to compete in business.
Another way travel has inspired my creativity and thinking about business is within the mobile revolution. Mobile phones are basically new, and yet their penetration worldwide is 80 percent. I remember a trip to India, a place where the 21st and 19th centuries coexist. I saw workers hauling immense loads of bricks on their backs, without even the technology of a cart, and yet they had mobile phones. Even in India, where the average income is just $1,500 a year, a staggering 75 percent of the population has a mobile phone. What do we learn from this? Given a range of good things technology can do for us, people universally run toward better communication. Not more comfort, not better transportation, not access to information and not even entertainment. The access to communication that mobile devices offer even the very poorest is overwhelmingly compelling. This tells us something about ourselves and suggests more than a few business ideas.
Then there is my trip to Mount Athos, located on a remote peninsula in a remote corner of Greece and home to more than 2,000 Orthodox monks. Athos resides so far in the past that the date there is literally different from the rest of the world because time is reckoned not with a modern Georgian calendar, but with the ancient Julian calendar. It is off the beaten path in every sense of the word, with very, very little contact with the outside world. They have relatively little technology, but they do have a few battery-operated devices, such as flashlights.
At the Simonopetra monastery, where I stayed, I noticed a small bag in which the monks would dispose of their used batteries. Every now and then, when some matter caused a monk to need to travel to the outside world, he would take that bag so the batteries could be disposed of properly. What thought did this inspire? That if this relatively new concern for green sustainable living has made it to Athos, it must be an extremely powerful and perhaps permanent movement. This suggests no end of product and business ideas.
Finally, there is Büyükada, an island off the coast of Istanbul where the houses were built in Victorian times and cars are banned, so all travel is by horse and buggy. You try not slipping into a bygone era when you are riding in a carriage through a foggy neighborhood of century-old homes. What struck me about this place were the stores. The grocery stores are like the “general stores’ of our own heritage, where all the goods are behind the counter and you ask a salesperson to get them for you. The interesting thing is how beautifully they were arranged. Because the staff knew where everything was, they didn’t have to arrange it functionally, and so they chose to arrange it beautifully. The way that color and size were grouped, the symmetry of the wares, all worked together to be an impressive sight. This reminded me of a basic element of human nature, which is therefore a basic principle of business: We love beautiful things. We like the iPhone for its technological wonder, but we love it because it is beautiful. It was a reminder to me to try to make everything, even the most mundane, beautiful.
These travels to the places of times past continue to inspire my innovation. Dive into the past, and the future becomes a bit less murky. It makes the choices we have made collectively over the last few decades jump off the page and even provides a glimpse of what is yet to come.
Byron Reese is executive vice president of innovation at Demand Media, where he and his team are responsible for the creation of new technologies. | <urn:uuid:234ecdc8-5f7b-42bd-a84b-e8f666a3265a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.executivetravelmagazine.com/executive-travel/travel-feature-stories/byron-reese-on-travel-and-creativity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963364 | 1,249 | 1.5 | 2 |
We have many titles by Robert Kiyosaki in our collection. (formats includes ebooks and audio) You've probably heard about them. So what's the big deal? Rich Dad, Poor Dad chronicles the story of the author's two dads, his own father, who was the superintendent of education in Hawaii and who ended up dying penniless and the father of his best friend who dropped out of school at age 13 then went on to become one of the wealthiest men in Hawaii. Recently the author has included the flollowing disclaimer in his books “Although based on a true story, certain events in this book have been fictionalized for educational content and impact” His books have sold almost 30 million copies.
With perspectives that often contradict conventional wisdom, Robert has earned a reputation for straight talk, irreverence and courage. These are some of his major principles he talks about
Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant is an important sequel.
Are you tired | <urn:uuid:bab222db-6652-49ac-b539-0e50918f82b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sccl.org/browse/books/book-blog/434523--learn-from-rich-dad-and-poor-dad | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985046 | 198 | 1.554688 | 2 |
But Friday, West's statements were much closer to those being made by critics of the Bush administration from across the racial and political spectra. And while he is being criticized by many on the right -- and will no doubt pay a price with some lost album sales and less radio play in more conservative markets -- he did Americans a service by putting the issue on the table for national debate.Robert Hilburn in the LA Times also calls NBC out on their attempt to censor West:
Perhaps the most striking evidence of this came on Sunday during CNN's "Late Edition" when host Wolf Blitzer quoted West when asking Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson whether the response to Hurricane Katrina has been racist. Thompson, a Democrat, said the government had failed and "someone has to be held accountable." He cited the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.
The most revealing part of the exchange, however, was the fact that Thompson mistook the comments from West as a statement from Princeton University professor, theologian, author and activist Dr. Cornel West. In one fell swoop, the rapper and college dropout has earned a place in the front ranks of this country's best-known and most respected African-American activists.
As we enter the celebrity telethon phase of the Katrina tragedy, NBC's "A Concert for Hurricane Relief" stands as a blueprint for its own kind of institutional failure. By censoring Grammy-winning rapper Kanye West's remarks critical of President Bush during its West Coast feed of the program Friday night, the network violated the most moving and essential moment in an otherwise sterile, self-serving corporate broadcast. "It would be most unfortunate," the network said in a statement defending its action, "if the efforts of the artists who participated tonight and the generosity of millions of Americans who are helping those in need are overshadowed by one person's opinion." Excuse me, but whose tragedy is this: NBC's or America's? NBC may have been nervous about West's comments, including the notion that America and its president are unresponsive to the needs of the poor. But you can be sure those remarks would have been cheered more than anything else in the program by the black parents and children still trapped in the New Orleans Convention Center and the Superdome if they had been able to hear them. The line NBC stopped us from hearing on the West Coast: "George Bush doesn't care about black people."If you've not listened to Kayne West's provocative statement yet, listen here [MP3].
[Tags: kaynewest | katrina | aftermath | bush | politics | nbc | power | rap | music] | <urn:uuid:b469b5fb-eb11-4379-933e-125a26702f07> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ponderance.blogspot.com/2005/09/kayne-west-voicing-anguish.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970209 | 534 | 1.796875 | 2 |
“Grumpy Cat! Grumpy Cat! More Grumpy Cat, please!” – That’s basically my two-year-old’s review of FarFaria, a new subscription-based children’s storybook app for the iPad. (To translate: she loves it, and especially that story about the grumpy cat.) The app, to be clear, doesn’t just offer the one story – not that my kid seems to care right now – it’s a collection of nearly one hundred stories with more added all the time. And despite being independently sourced and illustrated (or perhaps because of it), the stories are actually really good.
Operating like a Hulu for kids’ books, FarFaria itself is a free download for the iPad, but access to the content requires a subscription of $3.99 per month. However, parents can try out the app for the first month for free. The pricing model, in fact, is a welcome change from what’s typically available in the iTunes App Store in terms of children’s stories. Parents often have to buy books as one-off expenses, such as is the case with iBooks, or apps like Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham or Cat In The Hat, for example, or the pop-up Tale of Peter Rabbit. And many of those individual books cost the same as a month’s worth of FarFaria.
Meanwhile, other kids’ books apps in the free-to-download space, like Read Me Stories, for example, rely on in-app purchases, which leads to the frustrating experience of having to pull the iPad out of the kid’s hands, purchase the content while they scream “iPad!!”, then hand it back. (I did mention she’s two, right? It’s a very demanding age.)
FarFaria, on the other hand, has gone out of its way to make sure that kids can just use the app on their own, without running into pop-up ads, prompts to purchases, or anything else that would slow them down.
As you may have guessed, the name FarFaria is a play on the common fairy tale beginning: “once upon a time, in a land far, far away…,” It’s meant to evoke a sense of being transported to another world, the way that a good story will do.
Given the founders’ backgrounds, it makes sense that they ended up building something for the kids’ entertainment/education market. The creators, Ajay Godhwani and Gennady Borukhovich, were technical consultants for Disney on Family.com, and later Disney Movies online, over the course of several years.
“The product design is about creating an experience of discovery for children,” explains Godhwani of FarFaria’s goals. “We think there’s an emotional sort of connecting when [kids are] unleashed in the library and they’re allowed to pick any story they want. We all had that growing up. We felt like that’s the emotion we wanted to capture, so we went after a design that did that. And we felt that a world and a map is the better experience to create on the iPad.”
The “world” he’s referring to is FarFaria’s map of make-believe lands where stories are grouped by genre. For example, “Picture Point” island, when tapped, takes you into a collection of picture books meant for toddlers. “Fairytale Forest,” “Fable Hills,” and “GoodLand,” are some of the others, with the latter focused lessons like not being greedy, offering to help, etc.
The stories are appropriate for a broad age range, from little ones being read to by parents, up to around seven or eight, when children tend to transition to chapter books.
FarFaria’s content is not homogenous, thanks to the way it’s sourced. The company is working with some 30 story writers and around 75 illustrators, to create the stories and accompanying illustrations. For now, the stories or illustrations are purchased outright for use in the app, but the startup’s founders say they’re looking into different types of licensing deals. In some cases, like in the land called “Classics Grove,” stories are sourced from the public domain, such as is the case with Peter Rabbit, which pre-dates modern copyright law.
The app was soft-launched back in February and is planning to stage its public launch event next week, when it will be adding two stories per day throughout the course of the week. Afterwards, the pace will slow day to about three stories per week, occasionally more.
The company plans to soon add a new land with humorous stories (“Loony Lagoon”) plus better filtering tools for parents to find story by age or type.
FarFaria is the second product from Intuary, the company behind the Verbally app, which aims to help those who can’t speak communicate via the iPad. Since its launch last March, Verbally has been downloaded over 50,000 times – a pretty decent track record for such a niche product.
Intuary is backed by $1 million in angel funding, mostly friends and family, including funding from SimplyHired founders, Anil Godhwani and Gautam Godhwani.
The FarFaria iPad app is available for download here.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch | <urn:uuid:af63d543-a1db-4442-bdeb-f516cf47036d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://socialshoppingnews.com/2012/04/12/farfaria-brings-a-hulu-for-kids-stories-to-the-ipad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958065 | 1,179 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Invisible Children, the driving force behind the Kony 2012 campaign, has released its long-awaited sequel. "Kony 2012 Part II: Beyond Famous" provides more detail about the Lord's Resistance Army and updates Kony supporters about the movement to capture the LRA leader Joseph Kony.
The first video shone a spotlight on the Lord's Resistance Army and Joseph Kony, and while it has received over 1 million views, it has also received much criticism. One of the arguments was that Joseph Kony was no longer in Uganda, where Invisible Children's video said he was.
The sequel addresses that criticism by providing more up-to-date information on Kony's whereabouts. He has traveled throughout Africa and settled in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kony still has child soldiers working for the LRA and remains elusive, though several organizations are searching for him.
In the month since the Kony 2012 campaign began, 57 people have been abducted by the LRA; over 2,400 have been killed since 2008. The African Union has authorized a 5,000 force to find and stop Joseph Kony, and there is a larger plan for Africa's recovery from the LRA.
Step one is civilian protection. Most of the country is left vulnerable because it does not have communication to warn of impending LRA attacks. Invisible Children and other groups are working to provide the necessary radio equipment in order to offer more protection.
Step two is the peaceful surrender of Joseph Kony and members of the LRA. While this may seem idealistic, the sequel provides hope that it is possible and shares the stories of children who have left the army. Raising awareness that it is actually okay for them to leave is crucial, so Invisible Children has worked to hang signs on trees in the areas where the LRA is located, encouraging members to simply "come out of the bush."
Step three is the rehabilitation of former LRA members and reconstruction of the areas ravaged by the LRA. This includes rebuilding existing structures as well as providing new facilities for treatment, education, and rehabilitation of members.
Finally, the fourth step is the arrest of top LRA leadership, including Joseph Kony. According to Invisible Children, this is possible with the support of everyday citizens around the world. Raising awareness is crucial, as is taking action by contacting government leaders and encouraging them to continue to search for Joseph Kony.
"Stopping injustice around the world is far bigger than stopping the LRA," says the video's narrator Ben Keesy. He is also the CEO of Invisible Children and began working in 2005 to tell the stories of those affected by the LRA. Keesy encourages everyone who sees either of the Kony 2012 videos to take immediate action.
According to Invisible Children, interest has grown substantially since the first video's airing. The next event for Kony 2012 is "Cover the Night," where people are urged to print off posters and plaster them around public areas in order to raise awareness of Joseph Kony's crimes.
Watch "Kony 2012 Part II: Beyond Famous" here: | <urn:uuid:9af41ba1-16c7-4d65-9e88-f47524e40942> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianpost.com/news/kony-2012-releases-sequel-video-72714/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972273 | 629 | 1.734375 | 2 |
‘Not a neutral event’: Clinical psychologists' experiences of gifts in therapeutic relationships
Article first published online: 13 APR 2011
©2010 The British Psychological Society
Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice
Volume 84, Issue 2, pages 170–183, June 2011
How to Cite
Willingham, B. and Boyle, M. (2011), ‘Not a neutral event’: Clinical psychologists' experiences of gifts in therapeutic relationships. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theo, Res, Pra, 84: 170–183. doi: 10.1348/147608310X514523
- Issue published online: 13 MAY 2011
- Article first published online: 13 APR 2011
- Received 6 May 2009; revised version received 20 March 2010
Objectives. This study investigated clinical psychologists' experiences of gifts offered by clients in therapeutic relationships. Since limited prior research of gifts has been undertaken, the study was informed by an inter-disciplinary approach, drawing on theories of ‘the gift’ from anthropology, sociology, and psychoanalysis.
Design and method. A postal survey was undertaken on a 10% random sample of clinical psychologists living in the UK on the Register for Chartered Psychologists (Clinical Section) (N= 441). Responses to three open-ended questions were analysed qualitatively, using thematic analysis.
Results. The response rate to the questionnaire was 50.57% (N= 223). Three main themes were identified: (1) acceptance as the ‘correct’ response to a gift, (2) potency of the gift, and (3) the impact of policy on professional autonomy.
Conclusions. The findings suggested that many participants viewed the gift as a way of the client reciprocating something that was given in the therapy. Within a Maussian account, this notion of reciprocity positions the therapeutic contact as the ‘first gift’. Few gifts were refused and frequently occasioned pleasure in the participants. Although some givers were understood as needing to give because of ascribed intra-individual characteristics or ‘psychopathology’, normative gifting practices were commonly held to apply in therapeutic relationships. Further research should explore clients' perspectives on gifting. | <urn:uuid:f4f0ff4a-5400-45ed-b213-2d63844e5848> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/147608310X514523/abstract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935714 | 461 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Last week the website of The Atlantic had a nice network visualization of the top tweets linking to articles on gun politics. You should go check out their site where the network visualization is interactive, but here is a static picture so you get the idea.
Each node in this network is one of the top 100 most tweeted weblinks on gun politics during the week from Sunday 2/17 to Sunday 2/24. The creator of the network visualization collected all of the tweets that mentioned terms like “gun rights,” “gun control,” “gun laws,” etc. and then looked for the most popular links in those tweets. (One thing I wonder about is how they dealt with shortened URLs. Since tweets are limited to 140 characters or less, when most people post a link on Twitter they shorten the URL using a service like bit.ly. This means that two people that are ultimately linking to the same article might post different URLs. Many news services have a built in “Tweet this” button, which may give the same shortened URL to everyone who clicks it, so those articles would get many consistent links, where articles or posts without a “Tweet this” button might have many links pointing to them, but all with different URLs coming from each time a person shortened the link individually. All of this is just a technical aside though, because I am a 100% sure the main point of the network visualization, which I haven’t even gotten to yet, would still show up.)
The edges in the network visualization connect two pages if the same Twitter account posted links to both pages. The point is that we see two very distinct clusters with lots of edges within the clusters and not too many between them. Of course, taking a loser look at the network visualization we see that one of the groups consists of pro gun control articles and the other contains anti gun control pages. The network science term for this phenomenon is homophily i.e. nodes are more likely to connect to other nodes that are similar to them. Homophily shows up in lots and lots of networks. Political network visualizations almost always exhibit extreme homophily. For example, take a look at this network of political blogs created by Lada Adamic and Natalie Glance (they have generously made the data available here).
Here, the nodes are senators and two senators are connected if they voted the same way on a threshold number of roll call votes.
Homophily shows up in other types of social networks as well, not only political networks. For example, take a look at this network of high school friendships from James Moody’s paper “Race, school integration, and friendship segregation in America,” American Journal of Sociology 107, 679-716 (2001).
Here the nodes are students in a high school and two nodes are connected if one student named the other student as friend (the data was collected as part of the Add Health study). The color of the nodes corresponds to the race of the students. As we can see, “yellow” students are much more likely to be friends with other yellow students and “green” students are more likely to connect to other green students. (Interestingly, the “pink” students, who are in the vast minority seem to be distributed throughout the network. I once heard Matt Jackson say that this is the norm in many high schools — if there are two large groups and one small one, the members of the small group end up identifying with one or the other of the two large groups.)
Homophily is actually a more subtle concept than it appears at first. The thorny issue, as is often the case, is causality. Why do similar nodes tend to be connected to one another? The problem is so deeply ingrained in the concept of homophily that it sometimes leads to ambiguity in the use of the term itself. Some people use the word homophily to refer to the observation that nodes in a network are more likely to connect to similar nodes in the network than we would expect due to chance. In this case, there is no mention of the underlying reason why similar nodes are connected to one another, just that they are. When other people use the term homophily, they mean the tendency for nodes in a network to select similar nodes in the network to form connections with. To keep the distinction clear, some people even refer to the former definition as observed homophily.
To understand the difference it helps to think about other reasons why we might see similar nodes preferentially connected to one another. The casual stories fall into three basic categories: influence, network dynamics, and exogenous covariates. For many people, the influence story is the most interesting. In this explanation, we imagine that the network of connections already exists, and then nodes that are connected to one another affect each other’s characteristics so that network neighbors end up being similar to one another. For example, in a series of papers looking at a network of friends, relatives, and geographic neighbors from the Framingham Heart study, Christakis and Fowler argue that network neighbors influence one another’s weight, tendency to smoke, likelihood to divorce, and depression. While not everyone is convinced by Christakis and Fowler’s evidence for a contagion effect, we can all agree that in their data obese people are more likely to be connected to other obese people, smokers tend to be friends with smokers, people that divorce are more likely to be connected to others that divorce, and depressed folks are more likely to be connected to other depressed people than we would expect due to chance.
In the network dynamics story, nodes form or break ties in a way that shows a preference for a particular attribute. Our intuition is that liberal blogs like to link to other liberal blogs more than they like to link to conservative blogs. This is what some people take as the definition of homophily. Since the word literally means “love of the same” this makes some sense.
But, just because we see observed homophily doesn’t mean people are preferentially linking to other people that are like them. This is reassuring when we see homophily on dimensions like race as in the high school friendship network above. Clearly, the students are not influencing the race of their friends, but this doesn’t mean the fact that we observe racial homophily doesn’t imply the students are racist — there could be what we call an exogenous covariate that is leading to the observation of homophily. For example, it could be that these students leave in a racially segregated city and students are more likely to be friends with other students that live close to them. In this case, students prefer to be friends with other students that live near them, and living near one another just happens to increase the likelihood that the students share the same race. One particularly tricky covariate is having a friend in common. Another common observation in social networks is what is called triadic closure. In lay terms, triadic closure means that two people with a friend in common are likely to be friends with each other — the triangle closes instead of remaining an open like a V. It could be that, in the high school friendship network, there is a sight tendency for some students to choose others of their same race as friends; either because of another variable like location or because of an actual racial bias, but the appearance of racial homophily could be significantly amplified by triadic closure. If one student chooses two friends that are of the same race, triadic closure is likely to result in third same race tie. It turns out that, at least in some cases where scholars have been able to untangle these various stories, triadic closure and homophily on other covariates explains a lot of observed racial homophily (see e.g. Wimmer and Lewis or Kossinets and Watts).
So, what about the gun control network? In this case, we can rule out influence, since the articles had to already exist and have a stance on gun control before someone can tweet a link to them. That is, the “state” of the node as pro or anti gun control precedes the formation of a tie connecting them in the Atlantic’s network. But as far as the other explanations go, it’s probably a mix. An obvious exogenous covariate is source. If I read news on the website of MSNBC and you go to the Fox website, I’m more likely to tweet links to pro gun control articles and your more likely to to tweet anti gun control links, even if we are both just tweeting links to every gun control article we read. Undoubtedly though, many people are using Twitter as a way to spread information that supports their own political opinions, so someone that is pro gun control will tweet pro gun control links and vice versa. This however doesn’t mean that gun control advocates aren’t reading 2nd amendment arguments and gun rights supporters aren’t reading what the gun control folks have to say — it just means that they aren’t broadcasting it to the rest of the world when they do. | <urn:uuid:548c6381-e6d9-467e-81eb-ef66268c9284> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://social-dynamics.org/category/social-media/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961052 | 1,887 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The White House hinted at fresh concessions on taxes and cuts to government benefit programs on Wednesday as bargaining with Republicans lurched ahead to avoid the year-end “fiscal cliff” that threatens to send the US economy into a tailspin.
Increasing numbers of rank-and-file Republicans also said they were ready to give ground, a boost for US House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner and other party leaders, who say they will agree to higher tax revenues if benefit programs are also curbed to rein in federal deficits.
The goal of the talks is to produce a long-term deficit-cutting deal that will allow the cancelation of tax increases and spending cuts set for the end of the year.
“I’ll go anywhere and I’ll do whatever it takes to get this done,” US President Barack Obama said as he sough to pressure Republicans to accept his terms: a swift renewal of expiring tax cuts for all but the highest income earners.
However, there was no sign of tangible progress on an issue that marks a first test for divided government since elections that assured Obama a second term in the White House while renewing Republican control in the House.
House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters the bargaining ought to begin where deficit talks between Obama and Boehner stalled 18 months ago.
She did not say so, but at the time, the two men were exchanging offers that included at least US$250 billion in cuts over a decade from Medicare, the popular government healthcare program for the elderly, and another US$100 billion from Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor.
Those negotiations faltered in a hail of recriminations after the president upped his demand for additional tax revenue and conservatives balked.
Now, Obama has said he is open to alternatives to his proposal to raise additional tax revenue. Yet he says he will refuse to sign legislation that extends the current top rates on incomes higher than US$200,000 for individuals and US$250,000 for couples.
Instead, he is pushing Congress to renew expiring tax cuts for all income below those levels as an interim measure — an offer Boehner and many Republicans say is unacceptable because it would hike taxes on small businesses.
There are other political imperatives to consider.
Unemployment benefits expire for some of the long-term jobless at the end of the year. Additionally, the government is expected to need an increase in borrowing authority early next year or face the possibility of a default.
SEE WORRIES ON PAGE 15 | <urn:uuid:4d8d5c70-2a57-40a8-bdbb-bae467e284ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2012/11/30/2003549007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965083 | 515 | 1.53125 | 2 |
As it was, one Wall Street agency downgraded the gold-plated U.S. credit rating in the aftermath of the political fight over debt.
That same year, Congress took consideration of a hotly contested payroll tax cut down to the wire.
The problem with this method of negotiation is "you get to the 11th hour and you get people who are really tired in a room on a complex set off issues and ... it's not as finely tuned as it could be," Johnston said. "It's hard to get creative to get a deal when the working relationship is poor and there's a lack of trust."
And that lack of trust is what makes the current climate feel different.
"There is so little trust. It's not just Boehner and the president who don't trust each other. There are people who don't trust Obama, (Senate Majority Leader Harry) Reid or McConnell," CNN senior political analyst David Gergen said. "It's certainly extraordinary. Historians would say it's unique. We've had brinksmanship in the past but we've never had government by brinksmanship."
Perhaps not, but Americans, whose earliest heroes exemplified frontier perseverance, especially, may be resistant to compromise and tend to embrace it only after an especially excruciating experience, Benjamin said.
"The question you have to ask yourself is would John Wayne negotiate?" Benjamin said. "The John Wayne way of thinking is that 'I will prove to you I'm right or die trying.'"
Benjamin said that approach has been successful in some cases but may be "our greatest weakness" as issues become more complex.
An innate aversion to compromise further complicates matters, Benjamin said. People inherently mistrust lawyers and politicians, in part, because they are people whose jobs depend on making a deal.
"Compromise is being weak and in some cases being seen as a sell out as you see in the statements of the tea party and the (extreme) left," Benjamin said of criticism faced by lawmakers who try to make deals. | <urn:uuid:9324070a-c2b3-4560-a0f1-42ebab74b969> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcci.com/news/politics/More-cliffs-to-come-in-new-Congress/-/9356970/18052838/-/item/2/-/43iq68/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981331 | 414 | 1.742188 | 2 |
TANK: Hundreds of Wazir tribesmen took to the streets to condemn Thursday’s drone attack in Wana that killed 12 people. After Friday prayers, Wazir tribesmen and elders staged a protest rally in Wana Bazaar and marched through various roads and streets. They called the attacks “an assault on the country’s sovereignty”. The protesters shouted anti-US slogans and demanded that the government play its role in stopping the attacks. Tribal elders said the people had rendered matchless sacrifices during the war against terror, adding that the tribesmen would continue to give more sacrifices to protect the country. They said most of the people killed in the drone attacks were innocent civilians. Markets and shopping malls remained closed to mourn Thursday’s killings.
—Saleem H Ali
During my last visit to Lahore when I interviewed various progressive scholars, they also expressed the strongest concern about America’s unflinching support for Saudi Arabia’s policies, which made them more suspicious of the West’s resolve in tackling extremism
The assassination of Dr Sarfraz Naeemi at a prominent madrassa in Lahore marks a turning point in Pakistan’s civil strife. The Taliban profess to be “pure” Sunni Muslims, and have targeted Shia mosques and seminaries many times before. However, Maulana Naeemi is the first notable Sunni scholar to be murdered by the Taliban.
The growing rift within Sunni Islam that has spread across Pakistan and fuelled the Taliban with foot soldiers from some radical centres of learning has clear connections to Wahhabi doctrines. The culpability of Saudi Arabia, both officially and privately, in perpetuating intolerance across the Muslim world must be duly acknowledged. No longer can we afford to believe cultural excuses from the Saudis for spreading ossified worldviews in other Muslim countries as a means of shielding their own state.
Pakistanis have also been made acutely aware of the arcane interpretations of sharia law in Saudi Arabia this week with the arrests of some poor pilgrims who were duped into drug trafficking by a Karachi agent.
While returning from Hajj three years ago, I had my first encounter with the pernicious evangelism of the Saudi brand of Wahhabi Islam. Before boarding the flight from Jeddah to Islamabad, each passenger was handed a book in Urdu, free of charge, by the Saudi boarding agent in which allegations of heresy were made against any Muslims who did not adhere to the “pure” Saudi brand of Islam. If each Haji returning to Pakistan is to be gifted such vitriol against pluralism, imagine what is going on in madrassas that receive funds from Saudi sources.
Let us not forget also that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were initially the only two countries to recognise the Taliban regime in Afghanistan before 9/11 (the UAE also briefly recognised the regime).
Saudi financing of radical doctrines was acknowledged by the 9/11 Commission report, which points out that “awash in sudden oil wealth, Saudi Arabia competed with Shi’a Iran to promote its Sunni [sic!] fundamentalist version of Islam, Wahabbism.”
In his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Looming Tower, veteran journalist Lawrence Wright described how the rate of Saudi investment would impact the Muslim world: “…eventually, Saudi Arabia, which constitutes only a little over 1 percent of the world Muslim population would support 90 percent of the expenses of the entire faith, overriding other traditions in Islam.”
The Saudi influence in Pakistan is palpable everywhere. They bail us out when we run out of wheat; they provide political asylum in palaces to former prime ministers; they broker peace deals and provide funds for our weapons programmes.
No doubt some aspects of Saudi assistance to Pakistan and other Muslim countries are to be appreciated. However, what they want in return is an insidious evangelism of their exclusionary version of Islam, which must be resolutely rejected. They feel vindicated in destroying several mosques in their own country (such as the destruction of the Sabah Masajid in Medina) for fear of bidda’, or innovation, and we see the same callous destruction by the Taliban now of shrines and places of worship that deviate from their definition of “pure”.
While the world worries about Iran’s return to radicalism in the aftermath of the election, let us not forget the other radical Islamist country across the Gulf. In terms of human rights and treatment of minorities and women, Saudi Arabia is far more retrogressive than Iran and has played a more consequential role in the radicalisation of strategically important countries like Pakistan.
The Saudi government and Wahhabi sympathisers have recently attempted to differentiate Wahhabi Doctrine from “Qutbist” doctrine, named after the Egyptian Muslim Brother Syed Qutb, who travelled extensively in Western countries as well. They have argued that Al Qaeda leaders follow Qutbist views rather than Wahhabi views. However, this argument is not as compelling if one reads some of the writings of Syed Qutb, in books with misleading titles such as Islam and Universal Peace (1977). Much of this book follows a supremacist ideology that can be found in the Wahhabi tradition as well.
The Saudi government would claim that it has been a victim of terrorism by Al Qaeda as well. Indeed, Osama bin Laden has repeatedly declared war on the Saudi royal family. However, the Saudi government has realised that there is tacit support for many of Al Qaeda’s ideas within the Saudi people, and so they have co-opted many of the radical clerics by allowing them to evangelise in other Muslim countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Even from a theological perspective, the Saudi view of Islam is highly hypocritical. For example, there is no concept of a monarchy in the Islamic tradition and yet Saudi Arabia is a kingdom. Strict Wahhabi doctrine also forbids photography yet the Saudi monarch insists on his portrait being displayed in every office in the country!
The Saudi establishment has thus kept an uneasy and unprincipled balance of running with the hare and hunting with the hounds. Such an approach is unsustainable from the perspective of regional conflict resolution as well as for Saudi Arabia’s own viability as a state.
Maulana Naeemi had repeatedly warned against the influence of absolutist Saudi doctrines in Pakistan. He recognised that the Taliban ideology was most closely associated with the Salafi/Wahhabi brand of Islam. Many of the draconian capital punishments that the Taliban practised in the Swat valley were emulating judicially prescribed practices in Saudi Arabia. However, this source of Taliban doctrines is still not being fully recognised by Pakistanis or the West.
During my last visit to Lahore when I interviewed various progressive scholars, they also expressed the strongest concern about America’s unflinching support for Saudi Arabia’s policies, which made them more suspicious of the West’s resolve in tackling extremism. Perhaps such matters were on President Obama’s mind as he visited Saudi Arabia last month. The lack of transparency in any communications during that visit has once again left an unsettling impression.
The unholy alliance between the United States and the Saudis is going to be mutually destructive unless it is predicated on international principles and norms. As a member of the new G-20 group of world powers, the Saudis must be pressured by the other members to reform internally and stop exporting intolerance. The Great Kingdom of the Khaadim-ul Harmain risks becoming an unpleasant anachronism if it continues to resist positive change.
Dr Saleem H Ali is associate professor of environmental planning and Asian studies at the University of Vermont and the author of Islam and Education: Conflict and Conformity in Pakistan’s Madrassas (Oxford University Press, 2009) http://www.saleemali.net
These diaries contain instructions, in exquisite detail, on how to make explosive devices, many with the most innocuous components like sugar, cooking oil (ghee), aluminium, Vaseline, coffee, charcoal, salt and even black seed
A not very well known fact is that during the Swat operations, security forces captured the diaries of some Taliban leaders, including Muslim Khan, the spokesman for the warlord Fazlullah. I managed to lay my hands on some of them, including a diary of someone who styles himself as ‘Khalid bin Al Walid’, an obvious pseudonym.
While most of the diaries read like normal diaries, relating events of the day, recording deaths with names (some names have been kept secret by the security personnel who gave me the diaries), but a portion of each diary is a training manual. This is the fascinating portion.
These portions are restricted to detailed instructions on the conduct of urban and rural guerrilla warfare. These include instructions on carrying out ambushes, evading one if possible, and how to fight through an ambush. They list combatants under loose command structures for certain operations, and even analyses of successes and failures of operations under each, casualties inflicted and suffered; the latter with a list of names. They record why a commander has been changed, occasionally for inefficiency, but more frequently so as to find the most appropriate individual for each task.
The details of each operation, instructions on how to regroup and reorganise after success, partial success, and even failure provide a fascinating insight into the extent of their training and understanding of guerrilla operations. Occasional glimpses of Sun Tzu’s and Che Guevara’s teachings come through. What these diaries resemble most are the ‘training manuals’ captured from the rebel Contras that Nicaragua took before the International Court of Justice to present its case against the United States for involvement in training the Contra rebels. However, quite obviously, these are contained in the diaries of the leaders, those in positions of authority.
While fascinating, they are not any cause for surprise, except for how they received such detailed instructions on guerrilla warfare. However, the remaining instructions contained in the diaries of leaders as well as ‘soldiers’ are certainly cause for concern and alarm.
These instructions, in exquisite detail, are on how to make explosive devices, many with the most innocuous components like sugar, cooking oil (ghee), aluminium, Vaseline, coffee, charcoal, salt and even black seed! Other explosive components include potassium chlorate, the most frequently used, whose chemical composition, KClO3, is invariably stated. In each case, all quantities are spelt out in milligrams, and frequently with diagrams.
Instructions on the use of TNT, RDX and Plastique are also included. The ratio of each component is included in detail, and instructions include information on which composition will result in a fire-bomb, which will explode, which can be charged with ball bearings for additional effect, which should not, and why.
They also include how improvised explosive devices, IEDs, can be triggered. Methods range from conventional fuses to improvised ones from rope soaked in fuel, to ones made from a hand-wound wrist watch, an alarm clock, even a mobile phone. Instructions also include which devices can be used for which IED. In addition, they state how charges can be shaped to maximise effect in a given direction and even have instructions on biological precautions to be taken if there is prolonged exposure to certain chemicals: when to drink a glass of milk or have a quart of yoghurt if exposed to a certain chemical!
Needless to say, instructions also include details on the sensitivity of each kind of IED, what might trigger each prematurely and the life span of each. Everything necessary has been covered in minute detail. Most of this was unknown to me until I read these diaries.
While all his information is available on the Internet, it needs a specialist to even search for it. This information necessitates knowledge of chemistry, physics and biology, and the combination of such knowledge can only be found for specific purposes, such as training people to operate behind enemy lines and make do with whatever is available, mostly special operatives of intelligence agencies who might find it necessary to build and deploy an IED. Such information could also be gathered by a scientist in the pay of an organisation like Al Qaeda.
The obvious question that comes to mind is from where they obtained this information. Even a chemist would need to be pointed in the right direction to collect the relevant data and schematics. This information has to come from an intelligence agency. Mossad, CIA, RAW or ISI: take your pick.
Now we are talking about people who are not only programmed to kill through distortions of religion, but combine that religious conviction with the knowledge of highly trained operatives capable of constructing their weapons individually. Just think of them as a few thousand Rambos with a distorted version of religion to justify the havoc they can wreak.
So far they are used to operating as individuals or in a group, under the instructions of what would be called ‘a control’, in intelligence parlance. However, if the Pakistani military operations are fully successful and eliminate the leadership, the command and control, and even the training structure of all chapters of the Taliban, which they must, even if only to stop them from churning out more of these ‘killing machines’, those already trained no longer need ‘controls’ or further instructions. If only ten thousand are left, and fifty percent decide in favour of peace, five thousand suicide attackers will still be left for us to face. With one suicide attack a day, their attacks can span almost fifteen years.
As far as Pakistan’s future is concerned, the question of who trained them pales in insignificance when compared to the implication: it lends credence to a conclusion I arrived at in an earlier article, that we are not destined to see the end of murder, mayhem, and suicide attacks in Pakistan for the foreseeable future.
This article is a modified version of one originally written for the daily National. He is also former vice president and founder of the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) | <urn:uuid:837bf9c4-c86e-4bc8-b9c9-ac28975e537c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962401 | 2,904 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Carlos Zambrano's no-hitter was the first one to occur at a neutral site and the first thrown by a player whose last name starts with 'Z'. (Morry Gash/AP)
Neutral sight: Big Z no-hits Astros
Not even the weather could stop Carlos Zambrano on Sunday night. After the Cubs' game against the Astros was moved from Houston to Milwaukee's Miller Park because of Hurricane Ike, Big Z threw the first no-hitter of his career, and the team's first since 1972. Zambrano, who struck out 10 and walked one, fanned Darin Erstad to seal the no-no. Full story >
The following are trademarks or service marks of Major League Baseball entities and may be used only with permission of Major League Baseball Properties, Inc. or the relevant Major League Baseball entity: Major League, Major League Baseball, MLB, the silhouetted batter logo, World Series, National League, American League, Division Series, League Championship Series, All-Star Game, and the names, nicknames, logos, uniform designs, color combinations, and slogans designating the Major League Baseball clubs and entities, and their respective mascots, events and exhibitions. | <urn:uuid:c0bbb54e-f644-48c9-a0ef-2bc520465d1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/mlb/news/zambrano_nohitter/index.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941703 | 251 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Taurus IN Super Bowl XLVII?
Super Bowl XLVII will be shown on Feb. 3, 2013 via CBS and tens of millions of football fans will be tuning into to the show. Last year, Madonna’s occult riddled performance was the talk of the blogosphere for many months. She was adorned as a pagan goddess and danced around Sumerian winged-disked and struck poses symbolic of pagan (witch-craft) rituals.
Clearly, these are planned rituals with preconceived outcomes. Most of the world is asleep as this black magic fiesta jumps off and they freely bless this ritual with their energy. Most likely these rituals are opening gateways where more dark forces can easily manifest in our dimension.
This year Beyonce will be the featured artist of the Super Bowl Halftime show and she is no stranger to occult motifs. Many of her videos are swollen with occult symbols and she has even worn a sequence bustier featuring the Baphomet symbol. It is safe to assume this performance will be no different.
In my opinion these occult rituals are used to harvest the emotional energy of the crowd and open star-gates where dark forces can enter our world. Sounds crazy? Well, in the ancient times this was exactly the purpose of these rituals under Babylonian rule. They are now hidden as “fantasy” in horror movies.
The sign of Taurus is taken as representing the initiating impulse that starts the process of illumination. Taurus the Bull is the great Bestower of Light, who fertilizes the minds of mankind with seeds of light.
So based on the occult track record let’s take a stab at the occult motif of Super Bowl 2013. The theme is going to include Taurus the Bull and the occult ceremony will coincide with the alignment of the Taurus constellation over head. Here you will see symbols and “booty shaking” to usher in the lighting of mankind’s mind. The ritual will harvest all of the energy from the people in the stadium to resonate with Taurus; consequently, opening a star-gate.
What is the significance of Taurus? The gods of Atlantis’ descendents were considered the Egyptian pharaohs which would make them descendents of the Fallen Angels. This is the connection to the star constellation Taurus and as you know the Golden Bull was worshiped in the Old Testament as Baal. The Bull which is the ancient Phoenician, Semitic, Baal or the Canaanite Molech of Bohemian Groove which required child sacrifice and always requires a blood sacrifice.
This star-gate appears to allow conscious energy to freely flow into our dimension, further influencing our decisions in the Earthly realms. We have clearly become a culture of compromise and tolerance for every lifestyle in total subversion of The Most High’s will. The new mantra is: Who are you to judge what is right or wrong? And this is certainly true, but if you use the Bible as your moral compass it is immediately devalued as “old-school” or man wrote it.
While these occult practitioners coordinate occult activity with star-gates and channel dark conscious energy into our world, we have been conditioned to not believe there is Super-Conscious Being sitting on a throne highest above all. We have celebrated our own intellect as omnipotent and we are merely fleas on a dog’s back. Year after year, occult costumes fill the Super Bowl Halftime Show airwaves and we accept this “show” as entertainment. If you were to research the ancient times you will see this is nothing more than same conflict between The Most High and Satanism.
The Ancients referred to star-gates as “Astrea Porta.” They have also been referred to as the “Ring of the Gods”, “Portal”, “Doorway”,
“Circle of Standing Water”, “Stone Ring”, “Gateway”, “Annulus”, “Ring of the Ancestors”, and “Circle of Darkness.”
The sad part of this equation is whenever a Nation turns their back on The Most High that Nation falls. The USA is the perfect case of serving two masters. Some still honor the Spiritual laws The Most High laid out while others have become lukewarm Believers who support every new pop-culture subversion. The irony is the occult practitioners are certainly honoring their gods in plain view while brainwashing the masses to join them!
In closing, let us see how accurate the Bull motif will be incorporated into this year’s Halftime Show. Many people will probably unwittingly participate in a Taurian ritual. We can expect the Taurus constellation overhead while certain ritualistic dance moves unlock the star-gate to the hyper-emotion of the crowd. Later the rest of blogosphere will dissect this Halftime show and truth will be laid out. The question is when the people will wake up and fight back?
UPDATE – 1/30/2013 11:36 AM EST We just learned Beyonce’s music video “Run the World (Girls)” does in fact flash a bull in it for one second! The bull is flashed 19 seconds into the video and not to be seen again. It has no true congruence in the video and it is subliminal at best. Because of the pageantry of the Super Bowl Halftime Show, will Beyonce ride a Golden Bull out to the field? We have no way of knowing until the show but after Lady Gaga sang “Judas is my demon” at the Second Inaugural private show for Obama, the gloves are clearly off. | <urn:uuid:8b0c9924-d822-47ed-9eec-0fa1e1cb25ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://revelationnow.net/2013/01/20/taurus-in-super-bowl-xlvii/ | 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 | 0.944649 | 1,180 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Google $12 billion dollar proposed acquisition of Motorola has been approved by European Commission and the U.S. Department. This will make it the largest acquisition by Google so far.
Department of Justice said in a press release yesterday:
“The division concluded that the specific transactions at issue are not likely to significantly change existing market dynamics,”
Google acquisition of Motorola has been closely scruitinized by the EU and US because of possible antitrust issues. There were serious concerns that Motorola could be given unfair advantage on Android mobile operating system that is developed by Google over other mobile device manufacturers such as Samsung, HTC, and LG.
However, Google allayed those concerns by saying that it is in the company’s best interest to maintain the Android ecosystem and not give Motorola advantages over mobile device manufacturers .
The primary reason Google said it wants Motorola is to own its patents, which will help Google better defend Android from lawsuits. Motorola Mobility has some 17,000 patents, and it has another several thousand patents pending approval. That will make for one heck of a shield when other companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle try to attack Android and its manufacturing partners.
Do you think Google might be planning to be the next Apple with this acquisition? We can only but guess for now. | <urn:uuid:f6f7c50b-f116-405e-b9dc-9a997b958a67> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://naija2day.com/2012/02/google-to-acquire-motorola/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965561 | 261 | 1.601563 | 2 |
FAQ: The transition to digital television
The biggest change to television broadcasting since the advent of color will occur on Tuesday, February 17, when radio towers will start sending a digital signal—though Congress is currently debating whether to postpone the date. After the switch, older televisions receiving signals over the air with an antenna will not be able to tune in, potentially affecting over 7 million households still unprepared for the switch, according to Nielsen. Here are some common questions about the transition, and the answers you need to know.
Do I need to buy a new television?
No. But if your TV lacks an ATSC digital tuner, you'll need to buy a digital converter box. The federal government has a coupon program that will cover US$40 toward the cost of a new converter box, which starts at around $50. I purchased a Lasonic LTA-250 for $50 from Amazon; it cost me only $10 after the $40 coupon and free shipping. The devices largely work in the same way, though some models add perks such as a program guide. The converter will also display HDTV signals in standard definition.
Where do I get a coupon for a DTV converter box?
The government has set up the dtv2009.gov Web site and a phone number (888-DTV-2009), through which every household can order up to two coupons worth $40 each toward a new DTV tuner. The coupon program is run by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a division of the Department of Commerce, which maintains a list of approved DTV-tuner devices eligible for the coupon discount. You can also find a list of retail stores where you can buy or order set-top boxes and redeem the coupon. The coupons carry an expiration date. I received my coupons about three weeks after ordering from the site, and my DTV tuner took another week to arrive, so you should order now. If you try to apply but you get a message saying no more coupons are available, don't fear: Your name should go on a waiting list, for when additional funds free up from unclaimed coupons.
Do I need a new antenna?
Possibly. I just attached my old rabbit-ears antenna to the tuner, and the signal came in fine—DTV uses a radio band that's within the same VHF and UHF range as traditional signals are. Your reception experience will vary, however, and depending on a number of factors—including your proximity to the DTV signal—you may need a new antenna. If you have trouble receiving signals after you install your DTV tuner, you may want to try replacing your antenna to see if reception improves. Many companies are selling antennas specially designed for use with the DTV converter boxes' digital signals. But the days of wrapping an antenna in foil or making a friend stand next to the television are probably over, since neither tactic is likely to help.
Will my picture quality improve?
Probably. Digital channels, including HD, come in clear and crisp—when they come in at all. Unlike analog signals, for which interference or poor reception might produce static or "ghosts" in the image, DTV either displays or it doesn't: Channels with poor signals generally won't resolve at all, and if they do, they'll display in scattered blocks or images, or the audio and video will skip every few seconds.
What if I have cable or satellite?
Most cable and satellite providers have been delivering digital signals for a while now; the set-top box that comes with your subscription decodes those signals. The DTV transition affects only "terrestrial broadcasters," or free-over-the-air signals.
If you have no cable box and your basic cable is plugged directly into your TV, check with your service provider about what to expect come February 17. Generally, providers have agreed to maintain the traditional analog signal over basic cable for now, so you don't need a converter box, nor do you have to rent a cable set-top box, to use your analog television after the digital transition. Many cable and satellite providers are using the transition to pick up new customers and are offering discounts on subscriptions and installations.
What about audio? Can I still use the stereo amplifier connected to my TV?
If you have a stereo amplifying the audio coming out of your television, it will still work fine. The new digital broadcast standard supports Dolby surround sound as a part of HDTV signals, so if your amplifier has an S/PDIF digital audio input, consider investing in a DTV converter that has the corresponding digital audio output. Such models are generally more expensive; one example is the $80 Centronics ZAT502 HD, which is eligible for the $40 NTIA coupon.
How can I connect a digital converter box if my TV has just one input?
If your television has only one input (say, it's an older set with one RF input), you may be able to connect both a tuner and a VCR by attaching the tuner to the VCR and then connecting the VCR to the TV. If you have more devices than inputs on your TV, you can purchase a video switch for multiple devices from almost any electronics retailer.
What about receiving and recording signals on VCRs, DVRs, or PCs?
If you're using a VHS deck to receive and record programs, the tuner in the VCR will probably no longer work, so it won't be able to switch channels automatically. Instead, plug the deck into your DTV tuner, set the VCR to the channel the device displays on (usually channel 3), set the time you'd like to record, and then set the tuner to the channel you want to record. If you have a digital video recorder, such as a TiVo, it likely already supports digital signals.
The same goes for TV-tuner devices for PCs, such as USB devices like the Elgato EyeTV Hybrid or Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick. Generally, if a device receives HDTV signals, it will work—consult the documentation to make sure it supports ATSC, which is the official name of the new digital broadcast standard. If you already have a DVD recorder with an ATSC tuner built in, or a PC-based ATSC TV tuner, you'll need to rescan your stations come February 17.
How do I get the most out of DTV?
If you've been looking for an excuse to upgrade your home theater, the upcoming transition is a pretty good one. The typical 42-inch HDTV has dropped in price to around $1000 or less, while 32-inch models can be found for under $600. For HDTV shopping tips, check out our HDTV Buying Guide. And refer to our Top 5 charts for the best 42-inch, 46- to 47-inch, and 50-to 52-inch HDTVs we've tested. | <urn:uuid:c337ec7d-3648-4f47-9bc0-d49221b8b8c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.macworld.com/article/1138186/digitaltv_transition.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945472 | 1,436 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Racial Discrimination and Hostile Work Environment Claims in D.C. in in summary judgment
In Akridge v. Gallaudet University, No. 06-0346 (D.D.C. Aug. 3, 2010), Judge Urbina granted summary judgment to defendant Gallaudet University. The plaintiff, a hearing-impaired African-American male employed at the university, had aplied for the position of Career Center Director. Although the plaintiff was among 13 out of 52 applicants who were interviewed by the screening committee, the committee selected a non-disabled, white male for the position. The screening committee had ranked plaintiff the lowest of the 13 interviewed candidates.
Plaintiff filed an EEOC complaint, alleging that defendant had discriminated against him on the basis of his race and disability. Plaintiff also alleged retaliation, because of an internal race discrimination complaint he filed in 1998. The EEOC issued a dismissal and a "right-to-sue" letter.
Plaintiff then filed suit, alleging defendant intentionally discriminated against him on the basis of his race and disability, and retaliated against him in violation of Title VII and the ADA. The allegedly discriminatory actions include delaying plaintiff's employment advancement, failing to award plaintiff the Director position, and condoning retaliatory and hostile behavior directed toward plaintiff after he sought employment advancement.
Defendant moved for summary judgment, on the grounds that plaintiff did not commence his lawsuit in a timely manner, failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with respect to his hostile work environment claim, failed to allege any hostile conduct as a matter of law, and failed to allege any facts in support of his claim of retaliation. The Court granted the university complete summary judgment.
Among other things, the Court's opinion included an interesting discussion of plaintiff's hostile work environment claim. Plaintiff's EEOC charge did not specifically make this claim. The Court acknowledged that the exhaustion of administrative remedies is less stringent for hostile work environment claims, and that a plaintiff may adequately exhaust administrative remedies without specifically alleging a hostile work environment claim in his EEO charge, so long as the hostile work environment claim is like or reasonably related to the allegations in the formal EEOC complaint and grows out of such allegations.
Here, however, the plaintiff did not rely on the one discrete act of discrimination alleged in the EEOC charge -- failure to hire him for the Director position -- in support of his hostile work environment claim. Therefore, plaintiff failed to demonstrate that his hostile work environment claim is "like or reasonably related to" the allegations in his EEOC charge.
Posted by David B. Stratton on 08/31/2010 at 05:24 PM
District of Columbia
Trial Court’s Refusal to Allow Plaintiff To Name Substitute Expert Affirmed by D.C. Court of Appeals
In French v. Levitt, No. 09-CV-94 (D.C. July 8, 2010), the D.C. Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's denial of plaintiff's motion to designate a new liability expert and for a continuance. However, this result was based on an unusual combination of factors that is unlikely to recur often.
The plaintiff had sued the defendant physicians for failure to diagnose a bone infection on her left foot following an ankle fusion. The plaintiff alleged that the failure to make this diagnosis resulted in a below-the-knee amputation in January, 2005. In her medical malpractice action, the plaintiff identified a medical expert early in the case, but about five weeks before trial, the plaintiff filed an emergency motion to allow for additional limited discovery, in which she asked the trial court to allow her to designate a replacement expert.
The plaintiff's expert had relocated, first to Guam, then to Israel, and had legal problems. Plaintiff's motion was initially denied due to a procedural defect, but then was refiled the day before the pretrial conference. At the pretrial conference, the trial court denied the motion. Subsequently, plaintiff's counsel conceded that his client was unable to meet her burden of proof with a liability expert, and based on that, the trial court dismissed the case.
On appeal, the issue was whether the trial court abused its discretion by denying the motion to, in effect, designate a new expert and for a continuance. The Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court's discretionary decision, and considered the following factors.
The trial court had weighed the five factors required by D.C. precedent. The Court of Appeals also noted that the defendants had already deposed the plaintiff's expert, and had done a de bene esse deposition of their own expert. The plaintiff was unable to proffer a new expert five weeks before trial, much less make a proffer of the opinions of the substitute expert. Therefore, granting the motion would have required the defendants to depose again their own experts, would have required the defendant physicians to schedule additional time and expense for a delayed trial, and would potentially subject them to different allegations of negligence at a late stage of the litigation. Further, the plaintiff had known of issues relating to her expert for months before she filed the motions before the trial court. If the trial court were to grant a continuance, and allow the plaintiff to find a new expert, the case probably would have gone on for almost another year.
Posted by David B. Stratton on 08/30/2010 at 02:02 PM
District of Columbia | <urn:uuid:9190e326-3aa5-444d-b851-bd1208bb08c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jordancoyne.com/index.php/website/blog/2010/08 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972162 | 1,103 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Fisheries Amendment Bills Reported Back (20 AUGUST 1999)
Fisheries Minister John Luxton today welcomed the tabling of the Select Committee report back on two Fisheries Amendment Bills.
"The Bills contain important measures to introduce greater flexibility into the management of commercial fisheries. The changes include fisheries plans, delivery of fisheries services, a cost recovery framework, catch balancing and offences and penalties."
Because of the limited number of House sitting days between now and the end of the Parliamentary year, the Fisheries Amendment Bill No 2. has been split to create a third Amendment Bill. The No 3 Bill includes measures to ratify the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement signed by New Zealand in 1995 along with some other technical measures.
As a result of the Select Committee's deliberations, it was clear to the Government that there was insufficient time to give proper consideration to issues surrounding the Fourth Schedule. The No 2 Bill therefore only contains issues that relate to the Fourth Schedule of the Fisheries Act 1996 and the introduction of South Island Eels into the Quota Management System (QMS).
"It was clear from submissions that this issue should not be glossed over, therefore the Select Committee has indicated it will seek a six month extension from the House to further explore the issues involved in the No 2 Bill."
"The Crown remains very committed to the introduction of South Island Eels into the QMS by 1 October 2000, as agreed with Ngai Tahu under the Deed of Settlement."
"I am delighted that the two Bills have been reported back by the Select Committee. The Bills are essential prerequisites for the reform of the fisheries sector, and will now enable the fishing industry to make an even greater contribution to the New Zealand economy while ensuring sustainability." | <urn:uuid:aa6fedc0-46a4-4826-b70f-a83b6c02bbf7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Press/Press+Releases+1999/August+1999/Fisheries+Amendment+Bills+Reported+Back.htm?wbc_purpose=Basic&WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished%25252525252525252525252525252525252525252b | 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 | 0.945643 | 353 | 1.8125 | 2 |
IM First Officer Michael Bell takes the helm for another look at the statistical data facing evangelicals. This time the news is hopeful, as he explores a connection between the recession and Protestant church growth. Welcome back Michael. (Visit Michael at The Eclectic Christian.)
Michael Spencer recently republished an article which looked at the problems that wealth creates for discipleship. He writes:
Have you ever thought about this? We are living in the most fabulously wealthy, excessively entertained and unimaginably prosperous nation in the history of the world. We have a standard of living, and a level of comfort, that much of the rest of the world cannot imagine…
The Jesus of the Gospel proclaims the promises of prosperity, real estate and parking places to be empty. If we will listen. HeÃs just as discomforting now as ever, unless we render him the harmless servant of our desires.
Rather than telling us about your best life now, Jesus talks over and over about persecution, sacrifice, voluntary poverty and laying down the images and symbols of success for the lasting worth and influence of the Kingdom of Jesus.
In the story of the rich young ruler, Matthew 19:21-24, Jesus makes it clear that it is very difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is so very true. When people are content in their present circumstances it is very difficult for them to hear the challenges of the gospel, and the demands of the Kingdom of God. This goes for both people with and without faith in God. For those with faith, it is a question of discipleship. For those without faith it is a question of evangelism.
Recession changes all that.
Recession turns peoples lives upside down. It helps them realize that they don’t have a sufficiency unto themselves. Not having a job, not being able to pay the monthly bills, wondering where the grocery money will come from, these are all things that cause even those that are furthest from God to question their own self-sufficiency. They come to a point where they realize that they can’t do it by themselves. And here-in lies the message of the gospel: We can’t do it by ourselves. Jesus had to die for our sins, because in and of ourselves we are unable to meet God’s holy standard. In times of prosperity it is a very hard message to communicate. In recession, your audience has a new appreciation of what that means.
Therefore, recession provides new opportunities for evangelism.
A number of years ago I watched a film about Jim Jones and his People’s Temple cult. One of the things that struck me when watching the film was how they presented themselves as a caring community. When someone came to the church without a job, at the end of the service they were introduced to their new employer. When someone came to church without a place to stay, they were assisted with that. Every week church members wrote hundreds of letters to visitors thanking them for being a part of their service, and what a wonderful church it was.
I can remember people around me shaking their heads and saying how terrible these techniques were. All the time I was thinking to myself, “Are you kidding me? If we did things like this our churches would be bursting at the seams!”
Recession and unemployment do impact our churches, and so one question to be considered is what sort of impact does unemployment have?
The leader in analyzing this has been David Beckworth, Assistant Professor of Economics at Texas State University. His study, published in late 2007, was entitled “Praying for a Recession: The Business Cycle and Protestant Church Growth.” Unfortunately the study is quite difficult to read for those who do not have a statistics or economics background. However, it was picked up by the New York Times in December of 2008, and subsequently by bloggers like Ed Stetzer. David updated his study in January of 2009, adding additional information and analysis. I wanted to take a further look at it, and pull apart the study a bit more than the Times and others did, hopefully, to explain in fairly simple terms what implications the study has for the church today.
David analyzed three sets of data. The first set was from a survey done by the Pew Charitable Trust in 2001 that looked at weekly attendance. According to the study, the probability of person attending church on any given Sunday was about 42%. It should be noted that surveys where people self report church attendance always trend higher than actual counts of people in church. That being said, it gave a baseline that David could use to look at four groups of people: Employed Evangelical Protestants, Unemployed Evangelical Protestants, Employed Non-Evangelical Protestants, and Unemployed Non-Evangelical Protestants.
According to the survey, an employed evangelical was roughly 20% more likely to attend church than the general population, a number that we should not find that surprising. The interesting number is that unemployed evangelicals were roughly 27 to 29% more likely to attend church than the general population. In other words, evangelicals that were unemployed were 7 to 9% more likely to attend church than their employed fellow church members.
For other Protestants we saw similar results. Those employed Protestants who were not Evangelical were less likely to attend church. Their attendance was roughly 12 to 13% lower than the national average. However, unemployed non-Evangelical Protestants were 12 to 13% more likely to attend church than their employed fellow church members.
So unemployment definitely has a significant positive effect on church attendance, no matter what flavor of Protestant you might happen to be. We might want to ask ourselves, if the unemployed are coming to our churches in greater numbers, what are we doing to help the obvious needs of the unemployed in our midst.
Recession also brings opportunities and by examining historical data we can see what impact recession has had on church growth.
David Beckworth’s data for church membership comes from an annual publication, “The State of Church Giving”. He found that this publication had consistent data on 14 Evangelical denominations and 11 mainline Protestant denominations between the years 1968 and 2004. The graph of the membership in these 25 denominations is reproduced below.
As can be seen from the graph, the trend in memberships in Evangelical denominations is up, and the trend in memberships in mainline Protestant denominations is down. This is true for the entire time span. Close observation will note that growth in the Evangelical denominations is much steeper/faster in the earlier years than it is in the later years. This is a concern for the Evangelical Church that both Michael Spencer and I have noted in previous essays as other data has shown that the Evangelical trend is likely to reverse itself and we will start to see declines. Over the entire time span however, the Evangelical denominations averaged a growth of 1.1% per year, while the mainline denominations averaged a decline of .94% per year. These are the base numbers that David Beckworth uses for his analysis.
When we divide the growth in Evangelical denomination between years in which there was no recession and years in which a recession occurred, we have another interesting observation. Growth for Evangelicals in non recession years was .98%, where as the growth rate for Evangelicals during years of recession was 1.52%. In other words Evangelicals grew 55% faster (1.52 / .98) during years of recession than in years of non-recession.
What is interesting is that mainline denominations did not see this same effect. There was statistically no real difference between recession and non-recession years. Why they did not see the same “bump” as the evangelicals is hard to ascertain. Perhaps it is easier to build on growth, as in the Evangelical case, than it is to reverse decline.
What about other economic shocks?
Beckworth found that for Evangelical Protestants, other economic factors like the unemployment rate, oil prices, real stock prices, and the difference between short and long term bond rates (an economic predictor) all impacted in a significant way on Church growth.
For mainline churches, most other economic factors did not have that much of an impact. The exception to this was stock prices. With stock prices, the effect was the opposite of what you might expect. As stock prices rose, membership rose (or actually declined less), with the converse also being true. This was the opposite effect that stock prices have on Evangelical congregations. Beckworth surmises that this is the case because mainline Christians on average are in a higher socio-economic class and as such are able to benefit more (in terms of available time) from the income and wealth effects that a rising stock market brings.
How long do these impacts last?
From the previous set of data along with 57 years of quarterly data that Beckworth had for the Seventh Day Adventists, he was able to show that the impact of the economic shocks were significant and generally lasted one and a half years beyond the date when the shock had ended. In the case of an increase in the unemployment rate for example, the greatest effect on membership/converts occurs one year after the initial shock and last another six months beyond that. So with the rise that we are now seeing in unemployment rates, our Evangelical churches may see a positive benefit from it until at least the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011 (depending of course when we hit bottom.) From both the data from the Evangelical denominations along with the further data from the Seventh Day Adventists, it can be shown that one third of all church growth can be directly attributable to economic shocks.
So what does it matter?
As we are know in the midst of a full blown recession, there are great opportunities for both Evangelicals and mainline Christians to reach out to those who are hurting. As Michael Spencer said in his original post, “Jesus talks over and over about persecution, sacrifice, voluntary poverty and laying down the images and symbols of success for the lasting worth and influence of the Kingdom of Jesus.” I have heard the expression before that “people want a hand up, not a handout.” A recession is our opportunity to come alongside those in difficulty and show them that not only does Jesus care, but we care too. It is also our opportunity to tell them about about the ultimate sacrifice that Jesus was willing to make for a world that could not help itself. | <urn:uuid:c0a933c4-dec9-4e49-a606-b299b2b4fe75> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/michael-bell-on-how-the-recession-may-fuel-church-growth | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974511 | 2,138 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman has signed a new safe haven law, limiting the age limit to children 30 days old or less. The new law will take effect at 12:01 a.m. November 22nd.
Nebraska lawmakers gave final approval to the bill Friday morning. The old law had been used to abandon 35 children at state hospitals since July; many of them pre-teens or teenagers as old as 17.
The old law was meant to prevent newborns from being dumped in trash bins or worse. But it was the only one in the country that lacked an age limit. Five of the children abandoned have been from other states, including from as far away as Florida and Michigan. | <urn:uuid:d553fa57-16e8-453b-b55a-29743661531c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wowt.com/home/headlines/34874214.html | 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 | 0.985166 | 143 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Colorado State University-Pueblo hosts photographer and conservationist October 25
PUEBLO – Colorado-based photographer Dave Showalter will present his work and share his passion for conservation with Colorado State University-Pueblo students in October.
Showalter’s photographs capture the natural beauty of Colorado and the Western Frontier and showcase the talent he has built over a 20-year career. His presentation will take place at 7 p.m. on October 25 in CSU-Pueblo’s Library and Academic Resources Center.
Showalter’s presentation aligns with the month long celebration of the All Pueblo Reads book, Plain Song by Kent Haruf, which is set in a fictional town in the prairie of rural Colorado. Showalter will speaking about the prairie/grasslands of Colorado.
Lifelong interest in natural history and preservation fuels Showalter’s constant pursuit of beauty and adventure. He and his wife are avid hikers, climbers, and trekkers, exploring vast stretches of the globe including New Zealand, Nepal, Tanzania, Peru and Italy. They have summitted 44 of Colorado’s 14,000-foot peaks, as well as Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and Mount Pisco in Peru's Cordillera Blanca. Showalter hopes his work of communicates his sense of awe and wonder with nature’s splendor.
Showalter found great success with his award-winning book "Prairie Thunder - The Nature of Colorado's Great Plains." His work has been featured in publications such as “Outdoor Photographer,” “Backpacker,” “National Parks Magazine,” “Wilderness,” and the “Colorado Fourteener Calendar.” Showalter pursues his passion for conservation by photographing for “Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge” and holding the position of Associate Fellow for the “International League of Conservation Photographers” (iLCP).
For more information on Dave Showalter’s presentation, contact Julie Fronmueller at 719-549-2826 or [email protected]
. For more information on Showalter, visit his website at http://www.daveshowalter.com | <urn:uuid:5a4abebb-baff-4b67-8508-5199e818ba03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colostate-pueblo.edu/Communications/Media/PressReleases/2012PressReleases/Pages/10-11-2012.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936395 | 480 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Yesterday, author Eric Weiner shared his hopes for “Steve Jobs of religion” in an op-ed piece for The New York Times.
It was interesting to me on a number of levels, including his initial point that America has become divided between “True Believers, on one hand, and Angry Atheists on the other.”
In between these two groups, Weiner labels himself and others among the Nones.
“We are the Nones, the roughly 12 percent of people who say they have no religious affiliation at all. The percentage is even higher among young people; at least a quarter are Nones.”
I’m not entirely sure who Weiner includes in the “True Believers” but it in my mind it instantly comes with a lot of baggage as a negative connotation.
And as someone who continues to struggle with the actions of the “moral majority” or True Believers in America I’m not entirely sure where I would fall within that spectrum.
Would I include myself as a True Believer? Would Weiner? Would my friends?
Or would I be better labeled as a None?
You see, my image of the True Believers is that while they often mean well, by proclaiming themselves as THE True Believers they’re doing far more harm than good.
Because in the True Believer’s search for righteousness, they seem far too quick to tell the Nones that they must believe and behave (and often vote) this way or that if they’re to be accepted among the group.
And far too often the Nones are told that True Believers never doubt or question their faith — or the Scriptures it’s based on.
So not feeling the conviction of the True Believers (or the Angry Atheists), many Nones simply float through life looking for a connection point.
And with more and more people not willing to jump on board with a set list of convictions and beliefs, the Nones continue to rise in number.
But I wonder though if, as Weiner suggests, a Steve Jobs figure is what we really need to break down the divisions that separate us.
Sure, Jobs knew how to create efficient systems that attracted large numbers of people – but haven’t we already seen that in our attractional models of church?
I tend to believe that rather than a centralizing Steve Jobs figure (who often took a “my way or the highway approach”), what we really need is an open and distributed model of faith that’s built on the shared needs and experiences of one another.
Rather than seeking out a centralized leader to guide us, lets each realize our own potential to be a priesthood of believers.
Let us seek out those relationships and conversations and build spaces of grace and inclusion all around us.
Let us create spaces where the divisions disappear and there are no Ins, Outs or Haves and Nones.
Especially in this holiday season – let us build interactive spaces (like Weiner suggests) where other ideas and questions are welcomed rather than shunned and where we all take hold of a little humility and get over our certainty.
Let’s sit around the Yule log this season and take the time to really listen to one another, share our stories and get to know one another.
Let’s find common ground and let’s share our traditions while also allowing others to share their traditions with us.
Rob Bell suggests a fairly simple way for this to play out in our conversations with others.
“Do you believe the world needs healing?”
“Great! So do I!”
And suddenly we have all sorts of things in common.
And as we find those common places that unite us, we can begin to discuss the details in a gracious and generous manner.
And perhaps then we can give up our divisive nature and let the Holy Spirit do what she does best. | <urn:uuid:6b8b8a65-5788-46fc-be56-6517c96613e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bigbible.org.uk/2011/12/wanted-a-steve-jobs-of-religion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953461 | 818 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Sometimes, it takes a bad blunder by one individual to trigger a long-simmering tension into a full-blow eruption.
Missouri Congressman Todd Akin was that individual. And his blunder became a flashpoint.
Todd Akin’s inconsiderate and indefensible comments on “legitimate rape,” pregnancy, and abortion raise a whole host of questions: Should abortion be allowed in instances of rape? How can we talk about the issue of abortion in a more humane and compassionate way? In a political context, what questions are relevant to helping the lives of women and children and men?
Now we’re talking. And that’s the upshot of Akin’s bizarre remark that’s otherwise incoherent in itself. We’re talking directly about abortion now, when and whether it should be considered acceptable and so on.
Representative Todd Akin’s remarks prompted a CNN headline that abortion is now at the “center” of the 2012 campaign.
And so it is. Now let’s have the discussion.
All people are equal. All choices are not.
People used to value a woman based on who her father or husband was. It is similarly medieval to value a child by the actions of her father. That way of thinking is patriarchal and antifeminist, and it should have passed away with the Dark Ages.
Abortion after rape is misdirected anger. It doesn’t punish the perpetrator of the crime or prevent further assaults against other women.
Feminists for Life’s priority is keeping women safe…
We need to listen to those who have had children conceived through sexual assault and work for short- and long-term solutions that benefit both children and mothers.
Feminists for Life is a proud supporter of the Violence Against Women Act. In fact, we were the only pro-life group active in the National Task Force on Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence.
So maybe now more people will listen to Serrin Foster.
And Matt Franck:
What he said about “legitimate rape” and the chances of a rape victim becoming pregnant was wrong and offensive, and he has apologized. He evidently spoke out of ignorance, and he has learned better. What he said about the injustice of abortion even in the case of rape, however, was absolutely right, and this spoke well of his moral sense. It is a hard saying, but it must be said: The abortion of a child conceived because of a rape is as wrong as any other abortion. Women and their babies, in every kind of crisis pregnancy, need our love, compassion, and support. But abortion is never what anyone needs to heal a wound; it only opens a new one.
It is by now a familiar question from liberal journalists when interviewing pro-life candidates: “You’re against all abortions — what about in cases of rape and incest?” Pro-lifers need to learn how to answer this question, because they can always expect it. The question tugs at heartstrings and aims at exposing a weakness. The appeal to compassion for rape and incest victims must be answered with real compassion for both parties in any pregnancy — mother and child. As for the politics of it, a pro-lifer can always say, “I am for any legislation that reduces the number of abortions and legally restricts a grave injustice. If that means a bill that eliminates most abortions that are legal now but makes an exception for rape and incest, I’m for it. But that doesn’t mean I’m for the exception. Every abortion is a tragic wrong, and we must work to restore respect for the sanctity of every life, from conception to natural death, no matter what the circumstances.”
And Michaelene Fredenburg:
When I speak or write about the grief and loss due to abortion, I remind myself that at least half of all Americans have been personally affected by abortion — either through their own abortion or by the abortion of someone close to them. I consider how my word choices, tone of voice, and body language may be understood by men and women who feel isolated and alone in their pain and grief. Any communication about abortion and other reproductive outcomes may elicit painful memories and emotions, so I am careful to demonstrate compassion and support.
And David French, all of what he said:
Several years ago during a morning drive, I was listening to a rather animated discussion about abortion on — of all things — a local classic-rock radio station. The morning DJs were mocking Christian conservatives in the way Rolling Stone liberals do, by presuming that all intelligent people agree, the issues are settled, and the backward and bigoted carry on only through ignorance and fear.
Then a call came in that silenced them — at least for a moment.
“Hi, I’ve been listening to y’all discuss abortion,” said a quiet female voice on the other end of the line, “and I’ve got my own story to tell.”
“My mother was attacked and raped, but she decided my father’s assault shouldn’t mean that I should die. So she carried me, gave birth to me, and raised me. I’m glad she didn’t kill me for my father’s crime.”
That is how we should talk about abortion in these most painful of circumstances — as a matter of innocence. Under what circumstances can we take a wholly innocent human life? Does the rapist’s dreadful crime justify dismembering a child?
But we can’t talk about legalities alone. It is in these most difficult of circumstances that the church must step up to support and sustain the mother through the most terrifying and trying time of her life. Along with a sacred duty to defend innocent life comes a sacred duty to support and care for mother and child.
Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America:
Pope John Paul II wrote: “Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create. Violence and war can never resolve the problems of men.” It is insensitive to say to a woman who has been raped that the horrific violence of rape can be eased or erased by simply aborting the child conceived during the rape. One act of violence cannot erase another.
Because of the 15-second media culture we live in, pro-life politicians today feel they must say abortion should be legal in cases of rape and incest. Talking about the horrific violence of rape and the personhood of all human beings in a way that is compassionate and sensitive is not possible in a 15-second sound bite. The pro-life movement must do more to educate Americans about the personhood of all human beings. Only then will pro-life politics follow.
Kathryn Jean Lopez:
Questions asked about rape on the campaign trail in reference to abortion remind me of when, a presidential-primary cycle ago, a reporter asked Mitt Romney if he would support a Human Life Amendment. He seemed amazed such a question would be asked, for we would be living in a changed country if the Supreme Court overruled Roe and Congress passed, and the states ratified, such an amendment; we’re not there yet, so let’s talk about what we can do to make abortions seem unthinkable in the lives of women who find themselves pregnant. Only the hardened ideologue doesn’t want to help mothers be mothers. We ought to focus on this in our politics and in our civic communities. This is a legitimate conversation, and a compassionate one.
That’s a chunk of the NRO symposium. There’s more, and it’s well-considered and timely.
And then there’s this gem I came across on the LA Times, by Meghan Daum. No matter what you believe about the issue, this challenges it.
Like any sentient person, I was appalled by Missouri Republican Congressman Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape.”…
But unlike the many people proclaiming their outrage on Facebook and Twitter, I’m actually grateful to Akin…because he has forced those who feel strongly about abortion to face the truth: When it comes to abortion, you’re either in or you’re out. For all the talk about exceptions for rape and incest, for all the hand-wringing about what constitutes “legitimate” sexual violence and whether pregnancy can result from rape, the real issue has nothing to do with rape. The real issue is whether abortion should be legal or illegal.
Period. Full stop. That’s it.
And this will certainly be continued. | <urn:uuid:476cecbc-a37f-406f-a1fb-99f5cd31608e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mercatornet.com/sheila_liaugminas/view/11152 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952363 | 1,813 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Documents show NHTSA closed 2007 probe of runaway Toyota acceleration even though it knew the problem was 'dangerous'
The document dump on the Toyota problems continues, damaging now not just Toyota but the Transportation Department's National Highway Transportation Safety Administration.
Representatives of each will be called before House panels on Tuesday and Wednesday.
In the most recent documents to come out of the House Oversight and Government Reform committee, NHTSA is shown to have dropped its investigation of unintended acceleration in Toyotas in 2007 without finding a defect in the vehicles.
This, despite saying that the the problem causes "extremely dangerous" situations for Toyota drivers and saying that more problems are likely to come. In 2009 and earlier this year, Toyota recalled nearly 6 million vehicles to fix unintended acceleration problems.
“Imagine if a doctor gave a patient a clean bill of health because he couldn’t diagnose the illness but recognized there were symptoms," said Kurt Bardella, spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who will grill Toyota and NHTSA officials on Wednesday. "Two years ago, government regulators became aware of consumer complaints of unwanted acceleration and the best answer they could come up with was saying it was a floor mat issue. Now, three years later, we are asking the same questions that should have been answered in the first place. Instead, government regulators closed the investigation."
Some of the highlights from the NHTSA documents obtained by the Oversight and Government Reform committee:
-- When NHTSA tested the act of trapping the gas pedal wide open with a floor mat, it took 150 pounds of force applied to the brake to get the car to stop. This compares with 30 pounds of force under normal circumstances. This action increased the stopping distance from less than 200 feet to more than 1,000 feet.
-- The Lexus ES350 does not have an ignition switch to turn off. It has a button you push to start the car. If you depress and hold the button for three seconds, the engine will switch off. But finding that out in a panic at 80 mph is not the optimal time.
-- 59 of 600 ES350 owners who responded to a NHTSA survey said they had experienced unintended acceleration. That's 10 percent.
-- "Toyota believes the subject vehicles and the all-weather mat do not contain a safety related defect and that the actions they have taken are sufficient to address any future concerns," NHTSA wrote. This line comes in the same report where NHTSA describes five crashes, four of which involved multiple vehicles and one which resulted in a rollover. The report says that Toyota "acknowledges that some of the alleged incidents are likely related to improper installation of driver side all weather floor mat resulting interference with accelerator pedal movement."
-- Another report noted a July 2007 fatal crash in which a Toyota gas pedal was stuck open for eight miles on a California interstate, accelerating the vehicle to speeds of more than 100 mph, until it crashed into two other vehicles, killing an occupant in one of the struck vehicles.
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February 22, 2010; 6:34 PM ET
Categories: Congress , Corporations , The Ticker | Tags: Darrell Issa, Toyota problems, toyota, toyota recall model and years, unintended acceleration
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The comments to this entry are closed. | <urn:uuid:4f0686f5-b22c-4d1f-a25c-154b3c933ac0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://voices.washingtonpost.com/economy-watch/2010/02/documents_show_nhtsa_closed_20.html | 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 | 0.952571 | 856 | 1.5 | 2 |
The row in Togo over whether Togolese opposition groups should join the ruling Rally of the Togolese People (RPT), of President Faure Gnassingbe, in a credible coalition further indicates Africa’s growing democracy. Togolese democratic disputes are not, in themselves, insincere or unreasonable. On the contrary. Civilized disputes are lifeblood of democracy. Constant questioning can only make applicable democracy stronger, especially in the African situation where political suppression had held sway. Against this thinking, for over 40 years democratic coalition hasn’t crossed the mind of Togolese politicians. But such democratic practices have bided well for Mauritius and have seen it progress as one of the states with the best progress reports in Africa.
Some section of the opposition think Togo’s March general elections were so badly rigged in favour of the RPT that it is not worth joining it, for to do so is to give today’s Africa’s budding democracy a bad name and make Togo still mired in the pretense of multiparty democracy instituted in the early 1990s by Faure’s father, President Eyadema, whose government ruthlessly dominated Togolese politics and maintained power almost persistently since 1967. This has put Togo in the dark, where accountability, transparency and equality before the law, key ingredients of a civilized country, are nil. In such twisted democracy, as Africans have come to experience in the past 50 years, the grounds aren’t different from the ancient anarchic one-party and self-serving military junta years, where the rule of law, human rights, accountability, and freedoms were ineffective.
Some opposition groups (there are over ten groups) reflect that some of their colleagues have not learnt from the painful past, especially the likes of Gilchrist Olympio, whose father, Sylvanus, was violently overthrown by Eyadema and saw Togo’s then promising democracy destroyed. For entering into a deal with the RPT, Togo’s majority opposition parties have suspended its long-serving leader, Gilchrist Olympio. The opposition bad feelings are understandable, since the much disputed March election have not been resolved but the fact that the RPT warmed up to a coalition is a welcome note in Africa’s democratic growth.
Yes, there are impediments along the democratic path, considering Togo’s and Africa’s history of political mistrust worsened by Africa’s Big Man syndrome (of which President Eyadema is one of the best examples), but to join or not to join, the best way is for the opposition to see a coalition as a way of engaging or working to resolve not only Togo’s electoral reforms and closed politics but also its development and security, as Nigerians are attempting to do under President Goodluck Jonathan, and then use it as a springboard to further fertilize Togo’s democracy and the much needed progress.
While Togolese opposition could learn from the new British coalition government, Mauritius, an African home-grown case, could teach them one or two lessons. David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy (both at Canada’s Carleton University) explain that since its independence from Britain in 1968, “Mauritius,” with one of the best development indicators in Africa, “has always been governed by coalition governments made up of at least two political parties.” With a population of 1.2 million, the Mauritian leadership, reflecting the African traditional leadership concept of consensus and participation, and the Mauritian reality, “adapted extremely well to its religious and ethnic diversity by promoting the concept of “unity in diversity,” through regular consultations with religious organizations, government subsidies to religious groups, and the (more controversial) “best-loser system” that guarantees seats in parliament for underrepresented minorities.”
In a country of 6 million people and ranked 159th among 180 countries ranked in the 2009 United Nations Human Development Index (HDI), that measure the wellbeing of nations, Togo is among the “low human development” rank. Pretty much of the reason is lack of credible democracy and political pliability. On the other hand, Mauritius, where its coalition governments have fostered political stability, resiliency and good leadership, relatively high levels of human capital, the rule of law, democracy, human rights, and freedoms, especially press freedom, is ranked 81st in the HDI and is in the “high human development” rank.
Some section of the Togolese opposition may disagree with the wisdom of Gilchrist Olympio in his coalition quest, but added to “human development,” a criteria that judges humanity’s wellbeing such as life expectancy, infant mortality, health, literacy rates and the like, is how civilized a country is – and sometimes a simple vignette of a credible, trustful democratic coalition, as Mauritius demonstrates, capture this essence.
© 2010, Kofi Akosah-Sarpong. All rights reserved. Newstime Africa content cannot be reproduced in any form – electronic or print – without prior consent of the Publishers. Copyright infringement will be pursued and perpetrators prosecuted. | <urn:uuid:fc38f92c-6df9-47ca-b2da-c483872ed101> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newstimeafrica.com/archives/13400 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953689 | 1,090 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Somewhere along Java’s nearly 650-mile southern coast there is a small village tucked in the trees. These trees line a white sand beach that comes to a point at an abrupt headland of volcanic rock, which is well on its way to eroding into a miniature island. Alongside the obvious beauty of the place, the strange rock formation creates a perfect reef setup for two of Indonesia’s finer slabs, conveniently located next to one another.
In the video below Ry Craike makes the journey from Australia to visit Java’s most famous surfer, Dede Suryana, to spend a couple days in this oasis. Keen eyes may recognize this gem setup from a number of recent surf imagery, but as of now its exact location remains a kept secret. After what has happened to some of Indo’s other newly revealed waves, including the crowds now seen at Keramas in Bali, perhaps it’s better that way. | <urn:uuid:b910119d-73d8-4fc3-9c51-8626879824ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grindtv.com/action-sports/surf/post/ry-craike-visits-dede-suryana-in-java/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960572 | 199 | 1.5625 | 2 |
If you've paid attention to political scandals at all over the past 10 to 15 years, you've probably noticed a growning trend among politicians in their public mea culpa: the admission-and-apology-in-steps.
With Bill Clinton, what began as "I did not have sexual relations with that woman," progressed to an admission that he might have had an inappropriate (though not sexual) relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, which in trun led to his confession that it wasn't only a sexual liaison, it was a full-blown affair. His dishonesty throughout the scandal led to only the second impeachment in the history of the United States. Had Clinton not enjoyed safe Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress, he might have gotten a lot worse.
With South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, the initial claim was that his complete disappearance from Columbia for five days was because he'd been taking a hike along the Appalaichian Trail. When that went bust, he admitted that he'd been with a mistress in Argentina, but that he'd only seen her a handful of times, and never on the state's dime. As it turned out, the Governor would have to stick his foot in his...mouth, and admit to many more visits with his illicit lover, several different times using state-funded modes of transportation. Holding onto his career for dear life, Sanford is now the subject of a growing impeachment campaign that may very well cost the self-described "rabid right-winger" his job in one of th most Republican-friendly states in the country.
But others have gotten the art of the political scandal down perfectly, and that's why some of them still have a chance at making a legitimate comeback.
When news broke that Eliot Spitzer had been a patron of a high-priced prostitution ring based in New York, the public outrage was palpable. But so was the Governor's remorse. In what had to be one of the most humbling, humiliating political press conferences in recent memory, Spitzer admitted to every single accusation against him, and was surprisingly candid even in the midst of a criminal investigation into his behavior. He resigned his post several days later, and kept his face out of the spotlight. But in the entire scandal, Spitzer never denied wrongdoing. He never lashed out at the media, or charged Republicans with engineering a politically motivated character assassination. He was dealt one of the most enormous slices of humble pie, and he ate every bite.
But while Spitzer retreated from public life for a short time, he didn't stay down on the mat for too long. Several months later, he signed on with Slate.com to provide analysis of the economic crises, and was insightful in his perspective as a former chief executive. He sat through several interviews, and once again admitted that he had been wrong and still felt ashamed of his earlier actions.
Perhaps because we've all been in a position where we've needed one before, Americans have a strong propensity to give others a second chance even after they've failed. And because Eliot Spitzer never showed the hubris that some other politicians have shown as they've gone down in flames, he may be getting one.
Spitzer is quietly speaking with Democratic operatives about a return to the political arena, seeking statewide office in New York. He's talked about either challenging Senator Kirstin Gillibrand in a Democratic primary , or seeking the decidedly less sexy job of state comptroller. Either way, he may just have a fighting chance. A recent SurveyUSA poll showed that a whopping 62% of New Yorkers would at least consider voting for Spitzer again, with 15% saying that they'd back the former governor no matter what office he sought.
Compare that to John Edwards, who is about as dead, politically as one can imagine. And comparatively, his scandal wasn't nearly as juicy as the New York Governor who was caught galavanting with a young, attractive, high priced prostitute. Edwards' sins were far more common in today's political climate (a la Clinton, John Ensign, etc.): he had an affair with a staffer. But also familiar was Edwrds' response to the charges against him: first he never had an affair, then he did have an affair but his mistress's child wasn't his biological daughter. Now it looks as though that may be false as well: reports claim that the former North Carolina Senator may be preparing to acknowledge that he did, indeed, father a child with Reille Hunter, a former campaign videographer.
Edwards failure to accept responsibility for his actions and utter dearth of honesty will prevent him from ever seeking office again. And conversely, it's Spitzer's candor that may save his career. It's a lesson that every politican should (but probably won't) learn: it's not necessarily the fall that decides one's political fate, but rather the nature in which they respond to the fallout. | <urn:uuid:a432eccb-bf7c-4e96-bfc3-f24b7947969a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eyesonobama.com/blog/content/id_59099/title_One-Fallen-Democrat-Who-Could-Make-a-Comeback-and-One-Who-Never-Will/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987417 | 1,005 | 1.539063 | 2 |
By John Nene
BBC News, Mombasa
Prostitutes are known for their skimpy attire, but Kenya's coastal port of Mombasa is witnessing a controversial fashion makeover.
The twilight ladies, as the city's residents refer to the sex workers, have traded their revealing outfits for the more austere buibui - a loose, floor-length gown and head covering favoured by Muslim women.
Walking along the city's main red-light streets at night, one comes across many of the buibui-clad prostitutes.
Although most shy away from speaking to the press, a few are willing to talk.
"I'm better off wearing the buibui so I look respectable. I can avoid arrest. I am just trying to get some money to live on," one says.
Another claims she wears her buibui to hide her identity.
"I know I am sinning, but I'm forced to because I am looking for my livelihood. So to me, it's acceptable," she says.
Most of her customers are local men, not tourists. She says wearing a buibui helped them to more easily pick out women from the region.
But the phenomenon is causing a stir in the predominantly Muslim city where religious women are required to cover their bodies from head to toe.
Some female residents say it is a big disgrace.
"I feel so embarrassed that sometimes I contemplate removing my buibui and throwing it away. The buibui has lost its respect," Mariam Salma says.
Another resident, Asha Hussein, claims the sex workers are not native to Mombasa.
"They are not Muslims. Most are from Somalia and Ethiopia. They wear it to avoid public humiliation," she says.
Wearing the buibui not only allows prostitutes to mingle freely with other women, black buibuis allow them to hide under the cover of darkness.
When night falls it is even easier for Mombasa's prostitutes to hide
City authorities have mounted numerous operations over the years to get prostitutes off the streets, with limited success.
After the crackdowns, the prostitutes go underground for a while, creating the impression that the operation has succeeded, only to emerge later.
The newly adopted attire has ensured their trade is not disrupted.
However, it is not the first time the prostitutes have used this tactic.
It was popular in the 1990s until a religious vigilante organisation illegally rounded up the prostitutes hiding under buibuis and flogged them publicly.
Religious leaders are now urging the government to take action.
"We cannot arrest any of these women; it is the government's responsibility," says the organising secretary of the Council of Imams of Kenya, Sheikh Muhammad Khalifa.
"We are saddened because the government is ignoring the problem."
If the trend continues, police are likely to mistake respectable women for prostitutes, he says.
"For God's sake, if one has decided to join this profession, the uniform of prostitutes is well known.
"They should stick to their disgraceful attire." | <urn:uuid:52802e2a-f4c5-47e6-90b2-0da44d74e19b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6291100.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962846 | 634 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Small bit of hope in home prices, but large dose of reality in wealth gap
President Barack Obama makes remarks on the home mortgage crisis at Dobson High School in Mesa, Ariz.
Stacey Vanek-Smith: Housing prices rose one percent in May according to the Case Shiller index. Julie Neiman is with Smith Moore and Company in St. Louis. She joins us live. Good morning, Julie!
Julie Neiman: Good morning, Stacey.
Vanek-Smith: Julie, home prices up for two months now. Are things turning around?
Neiman: Well, this is in the category of not so horrible news. You've got some seasonal improvement going on here. Summertime's always the prime time for moving around and interest rates are still really low. But we're still not back to 2003 levels. That's 10 percent above historic trend lines, so we probably have some down side to go. What we're looking at now -- housing is not getting worse -- it's just kind of bobbling around the bottom. That's good news. We have very tight credit conditions among lenders -- a lot of contract cancellations as well.
Vanek-Smith: There's a new study out this morning from Pew Research Center that found the collapse in housing prices affected the net worth of minorities more severely than the general population. Could a jump in housing prices like this -- change that potentially?
Neiman: Well, it's also tied into unemployment. Because unemployment is the highest in blacks and Hispanics, and usually a lot more worth is tied up in the housing market as well. Black unemployment right now is close to 17 percent, Hispanics close to 13 percent. You've got a big wealth gap going on here and you have more housing repatriation -- or more housing defaults going on in those cities where the housing numbers are the worst. So it's all tied together with unemployment and net worth.
Vanek-Smith:Julie Neiman with Smith, Moore and company. Thank you, Julie.
Neiman: You bet. | <urn:uuid:96441fc9-971f-4dfe-9dcb-2b68a60e7d70> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/small-bit-hope-home-prices-large-dose-reality-wealth-gap | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949761 | 421 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I knew there was a connection between web & craft! The New York Times recently published an article called ‘Handmade 2.0′ about the new-wave DIY culture, taking the snobbery and commerciality out of design and putting it back into the hands of individual crafters. They start by quoting the statement of intent from buyhandmade.org website, saying that it echoes “the idealistic language of a tree-hugger activist group” but then goes onto say that its most prominent member is the virtual craft fair Etsy – a very much for-profit organisation.
The full article’s a bit lengthy so you can read a precis of it on Mike Press’ blog. Mike sums it up: “The article argues that the new handmade movement is an explicitly ideological movement that has profound implications for consumerism, and seeks to develop sustainable economies based on craft production.”
The Denver Post published a shorter, less analytical article last year called ‘Crafting Political Messages‘. Hey, there must be something in the air!
I saw a programme about John Ruskin the other night and bells started ringing here … I haven’t read too much of his theory, but he was writing at the time of the industrial revolution, when the creativity was being taken out of the hands of the craftsman and given to the corporations commissioning the art/architecture. His solution (along with other Victorian neo-gothic supporters such as William Morris, George Edmund Street, Pugin etc) was go to take elements of medieval architecture and give the power back to the individual craftsman.
The world has recently undergone another revolution, technical and commercial, and individuals are once again fighting the corporates to get control of the environment they live in, clothes they wear, gifts they give, furniture they sit on etc. This is a pretty stealthy revolution, but it feels like it’s gaining momentum. It doesn’t have the dire threat and warnings of the green movement but it comes from the heart.
For a couple of good examples of politicised craftspeople, try Lisa Anne Auerbach’s site StealThisSweater.com, Craftivism and Microrevolt.
Long live the craft revolution! | <urn:uuid:678375a5-7418-495f-888b-575a7b47fdec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skiffvintageknittingpatterns.co.uk/2008/01/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942031 | 468 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Because the days in winter are so short, we often feel like all we ever do is rush about getting from work or school to the yard in order to muck out, prepare feeds, fill haynets and change rugs before it gets dark. There never seems to be enough hours in the day to have quality time with our horses, and very little time to ride. The good news is that with some forward planning, and a positive attitude there is much you can do to enjoy the winter months.
Use the weekends to get yourself organized. Invest in several haynets and fill them all up, so that you can save time on mid-week mornings and evenings. Assess how much food and hay you have and if necessary, order a new supply so that you are not panicking in the week because youíve run out. Find out when your horse food retailer is going to be closed over the festive season and arrange for a delivery to arrive in plenty of time.
Share the load
If there are several horses and owners on your yard, get together and arrange a rota so that you can take it in turns to feed and turn out in the mornings. Make sure everyone has each otherís mobile numbers on their phones so that you can be contacted in an emergency. Get your car serviced so that it doesnít let you down in the mornings and keep a high visibility jacket and a torch handy, so that you are prepared for anything.
Try and resist being such a perfectionist during the winter. Look for ways that you can save time by cutting back on how much you do. For example, perhaps you can skip out during the week, putting fresh bedding on top and leave doing a thorough mucking out until the weekend. Remember too, that your horse wonít mind if he doesnít have every tiny speck of mud groomed off him each night, and will be quite happy with a quick brush during the week rather than a full grooming session.
Horses do not like being rushed, and so resolve to allow more time each day so that you are not trying to drag them out of their stables and charge down to the field in a great hurry. Resolve to slow down, practice deep breathing and put some relaxing music on in your car on the way to the stables, so that you donít arrive feeling stressed and anxious.
Remember that the only reason we have horses is for our pleasure and enjoyment. Looking after them shouldnít be a chore, so when you are with them give them your full attention and make time to get to know them. Even if you donít have time to ride you can have fun just being with them, finding out what kind of things they like and what they donít. Try grooming, giving them a massage or just generally making a fuss of them. By building a relationship with your horse from the ground, you will increase the trust and communication between you when you ride.
Author: Andrea McHugh | <urn:uuid:df344a36-82cb-484c-9b5d-b2ff0e06ec36> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.equine-world.co.uk/article_read.asp?id=668&title=How%20To%20Have%20Fun%20With%20Your%20Horse%20This%20Winter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971804 | 610 | 1.765625 | 2 |
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Glance, L.G., Osler, T.M., and Dick, A.W. (2002). "Rating the quality of intensive care units: Is it a function of the intensive care unit scoring system?"; and "Identifying quality outliers in a large, multiple-institution database by using customized versions of the simplified acute physiology score II and the mortality probability model II0." (AHRQ grant K08 HS11295). Critical Care Medicine 30(9), pp. 1976-1982, 1995-2002.
Intensive care units (ICUs) use mortality measures, adjusted for patient severity of illness, to benchmark their performance. The first study demonstrates that three severity of illness scales: the APACHE II, Simplified Acute Physiology Score (SAPS) II, and the Mortality Probability Model (MPM) II0, exhibit fair to moderate agreement in identifying ICUs that are quality outliers, that is, either provide far worse or far better care than other ICUs. However, the finding that most ICUS in this study were judged to be high-performing units by all three scoring systems limits the usefulness of these models in their present form for benchmarking, conclude the researchers. They calculated standardized mortality ratios for each ICU at 32 hospitals. Patient outcomes were identified in the Project IMPACT outcomes database created by the Society of Critical Care Medicine, using the APACHE II, SAPS II, and MPM II0. In the second study, the researchers assessed whether customized versions of the SAPS II and the MPM II0 agreed on which ICUs were outliers within a multiple-center database of 54 hospitals. Although both customized models showed good discrimination and good calibration, there was only moderate agreement on which hospitals were quality outliers. Seventeen of the 54 hospital ICUs were categorized differently, depending on which of the two screening systems was used.
Li, X., Stanton, B., Feigelman, S., and Galbraith, J. (2002, September). "Unprotected sex among African-American adolescents: A three-year study." (AHRQ grant HS07392). Journal of the National Medical Association 94(9), pp. 789-796.
Face-to-face discussions about use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV can reduce unprotected sex among black adolescents over the long- term, according to this study. The researchers used trained adult leaders to use discussions, games, and multimedia formats to discuss use of condoms to reduce HIV risk among small groups of black, inner-city youths aged 9 to 15 years (total of 383). Following this primary series, the youths were invited to attend six monthly face-to-face booster sessions after the six-month followup, which reinforced good decisionmaking, communication, and condom use after the followup, as well as annual booster sessions at 15 and 27 months. After only 1 and 2 years of followup, there was no significant difference in cumulative failure to use a condom by the counseled and non-counseled youths. However, cumulatively over the 3-year period, youths who received the counseling reported significantly lower rates of failure to use a condom.
Newgard, C.D., Martens, K.A., and Lyons, E.M. (2002). "Crash scene photography in motor vehicle crashes without air bag deployment." (AHRQ National Research Service Award fellowship F32 HS00148). Academic Emergency Medicine 9, pp. 924-929.
Variables obtained through motor vehicle crash (MVC) photographs are associated with anatomic injury patterns, injury severity, hospital length of stay, and hospital charges in patients involved in MVCs without air bag deployment. As a result, these photographs may provide a useful means of communicating objective information from the crash scene to the clinician in a timely manner, concludes this article. The researchers used photographs of vehicles involved in MVCs taken by emergency personnel from 12 fire departments serving two hospitals over 22 months and collected outcome information for 559 patients from medical charts. Frontal crashes and increasing passenger space intrusion (PSI) were associated with head, facial, and lower-extremity injuries, while rear crashes were associated with spinal injuries. Restraint use had a protective effect in head, facial, and upper and lower extremity injuries but increased odds of spinal injury. Lack of restraint use, increasing PSI, and steering wheel deformity were associated with longer hospital stays and higher charges.
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Current as of January 2003
AHRQ Publication No. 03-0015 | <urn:uuid:3fef8895-3c71-4773-8d97-33d398ee3c9c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.ahrq.gov/research/jan03/0103RA40.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943568 | 1,037 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The cannabis market is conservatively estimated between $35-45 billion, with high estimates of over $120 billion. The tobacco and alcohol industries, on the other hand, have market sizes of $75 billion and $188 billion, respectively. While the sale of tobacco and alcohol generate over $17 billion in federal tax revenue, legalization of marijuana would make it taxable and would bring approximately $16-20 billion in taxes for the federal treasury.
Presently, sixteen states and DC in the United States make up the market with the vast majority coming out of California and Colorado. Present-day cannabis market is extremely fragmented with a lack of any local or national company. | <urn:uuid:443b0c41-9ba3-445f-8702-a9a93fa47670> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.imarijuana.com/industry | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950916 | 133 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Early hay cutting some consolation following 2011 drought
COAL HILL, Ark. – “Crazy” is the word champion hay producer Jamey Styles used to describe the 2012 growing season as he prepared to hit the field with his baler.
“We’re three to four weeks ahead,” he said Wednesday, adding with a laugh that “some people could’ve had tomatoes by now if they’d only known it wasn’t going to freeze.”
Styles, of Johnson County, won the 2011 American Forage and Grassland Bermuda Hay Contest – essentially the national Bermuda hay championships -- despite record drought and high temperatures that in some places hit 120 degrees. On Wednesday, he was hoping to pull a sample that would enable him to repeat last year’s title.
“If we hadn’t gotten some rain in August, last year would’ve been the worst I’d seen,” he said. Even with irrigation on some fields, it was so hot, “it was like I was cooking the grass. I don’t ever want to see that again.”
LESSON NOT LOST
2011 was a year that still haunts Rex Herring, who works in a county that was among the hardest hit by drought. He’s grateful for the early start this year.
“We’re 30 days ahead of the norm,” he said on the last day of April. Herring is the Sevier County extension staff chair for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. By then, Herring had already helped put up dozens of bales of hay on his father’s Polk County farm. “I’m going to have 200-300 rolls in this first cutting.”
The early cutting is a blessing in an area where last year’s drought turned pastures to tinder and forced many producers on scorched farms in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas to sell cattle they could no longer feed. The lesson was not lost.
“We can’t forget the hard times and how much we spent last year to stay in business,” Herring said. “Many spent last year’s calf crop and part of this year’s money to stay in business.”
“I’ve got a couple of producers who are putting up hay or forages in a timely manner,” Herring said. “Everyone sees the value of doing this.”
EARLY BOUNTY DOWN SOUTH
The early rain and perfect conditions have provided a bounty of cool season ryegrass and clover in southern Arkansas as well.
“Producers in Little River County have put up more hay at this point than they did all of last year,” said Joe Paul Stuart, Little River County extension staff chairman for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture. | <urn:uuid:03d576b0-3351-42ef-9c69-aa8b82c4aa57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cattletradercenter.com/news/cattle-feeding/Early-hay-cutting-some-consolation-following-2011-drought--150427385.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962368 | 616 | 1.726563 | 2 |
4, 3, 2, 1: Interactive play about "Apollo 13" coming to Winston-Salem
Jan 05, 2013 (Winston-Salem Journal - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
The countdown is on.
Officials unveiled a clock outside the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts on Friday that will tick down the minutes until "Apollo 13: Mission Control" opens in the center on Jan. 26.
"Apollo 13: Mission Control" is an interactive theatrical production based on the 1970 lunar mission, in which the spacecraft was crippled by an explosion and the astronauts struggled to make it home safely.
In the show, some of the audience members are seated in a replica of Mission Control, complete with computer consoles, flashing lights, data screens and working phones. Those who wish to participate can take an active role in the production, interacting with the cast and helping make the decisions necessary to bring the astronauts back.
And along the way, they get to flip switches, push buttons and answer the rotary phones. "There's something about this tactile playing that gets people really excited," said Brad Knewstubb, stage designer and co-creator of the show.
"Apollo 13: Mission Control," which was originally produced in New Zealand, is on a short tour of the United States, making stops in Tacoma and Spokane, Wash., before coming to Winston-Salem, the last stop on the tour. It's being produced by Bruce Mactaggart, who brought his show "Walking with Dinosaurs -- The Arena Spectacular" to Joel Coliseum in 2007.
Mactaggart said that when he first saw "Apollo," which was operating on a shoestring budget, "I was blown away." He went away from it thinking, "this could be something so much bigger."
Mactaggart hopes "Apollo" will eventually achieve the same kind of success that the animatronic dinosaur show has had. As of this year, the dinosaurs have been seen by 10 million people around the world.
"Apollo" is still in its early phases of development. "We're really just putting our toe in the water at this point," he said.
If it is well-received, Mactaggart hopes to invest more in it, creating new, more elaborate sets, perhaps through a partnership with the UNC School of the Arts. He and others with the show have been talking with school officials about the possibility. "Nothing is set in stone, but I'm certainly hopeful."
"Apollo 13: Mission Control" will be presented in Reynolds Place in the Milton Rhodes Center from Jan. 26 through Feb. 3. Showtimes vary. Tickets are $49 for control-panel seats, $39 for children 12 and younger. There will also be non-control-panel seats available for $35. A family four pack of tickets is $150. For tickets, see www.hanesbrandstheatre.org or call (336) 747-1414.
For more information on the show, or to watch a trailer, see www.apollo13live.com.
___ (c)2013 Winston-Salem Journal (Winston Salem, N.C.) Visit Winston-Salem
Journal (Winston Salem, N.C.) at www2.journalnow.com Distributed by MCT
[ Back To education 's Homepage ] | <urn:uuid:8e98628c-7b8b-4db5-9d74-1764241aabbe> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://education.tmcnet.com/news/2013/01/04/6830782.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951317 | 708 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Being one of the developers for the stable release version of SquirrelMail, it's certainly nice to see it getting some good recognition. However, there are some tiny corrections that should really be made to this article.
The first is mainly the requirements. In your article you stated that you need to be running sendmail, and imapd via inetd. This is incorrect in respect that SquirrelMail was designed to be as flexible as possible and will work with any IMAP server, and SMTP server. This means that you don't need sendmail, you could use postfix, or qmail if you wished. You can also use Courier-IMAP as an alternative for example. Because of this, it may not necessarily mean that your server needs to use inetd to run, and could run as a stand alone daemon.
Another small correction on the requirements. You don't necessarily have to be running apache. Apache is probably the prefered method, but PHP is available for IIS, PWS, and some other web servers as well.
The second is method of authentication. The articles says that SquirrelMail uses /etc/passwd. This is partially incorrect as it really depends on how the imap server authenticates. For example, the University of Washington's imapd (referenced as a requirement) uses /etc/passwd, while courier-imap can use a number of different methods from userdb to mysql databases, and even ldap or PAM.
As with authentication, where the article says it polls mail is also incorrect. That is totally dependant on where you tell your mail server to store it. Most mail servers allow modifications to where files are stored.
Now for a little information. :)
Some things that aren't mentioned about SquirrelMail are it's functionality. Apart from being a simple mail client you can use to send and receive mail, it has support for plugins. With plugins you can extend the features of SquirrelMail itself, for example POP3 collection, or SpamFiltering. There is even a nice little plugin for use with your spamcop account, allowing you to submit with a simple click of a link.
Don't be alarmed by the screenshot either. That isn't how SquirrelMail looks. SquirrelMail actually has the ability to allow the user to change colours for their own preferences. You can also alter the size of fonts, colours, and such.
pmccann asked how passwords are sent. Just like any web based form submission they are normally sent via plain text. This is fixable by installing your webserver with SSL support and allowing logins to SquirrelMail from the secured login page. There are plenty of documents on how to setup apache with mod_ssl flying about (even on the mod_ssl page too).
Currently developers are working on a method of support cram-md5 and digest-md5 authentication for IMAP servers so that we reduce the amount of plaintext data that is sent between points.
Further information about SquirrelMail can be seen at the website, http://www.squirrelmail.org, including some basic installation guides. There is also the squirrelmail irc channel on the openprojects network (now freenode) on irc.openprojects.net in the channel #squirrelmail.
Thanks to the author for the original article. | <urn:uuid:2dca4c77-6c64-4839-a9b2-6ad9a0c2daeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/11029 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946663 | 689 | 1.71875 | 2 |
BUS 355 Principles of Risk and Insurance, 3 credits
This course focuses on the role of insurance in our economy, types of risk, management of risk, legal principles on which insurance contracts are based, basic components of an insurance contract, and insurance terminology. There is also an examination of various types of insurance coverage; life, homeowner, automobile, health and disability, and various forms of commercial insurance. The impact of governmental insurance programs on insurance coverage in the private sector is included. Government regulation of the insurance industry is covered as well as types of insurers, insurance pricing, and ratings systems for insurance firms. | <urn:uuid:f4167c39-0482-49ea-b319-965f33349bd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.misericordia.edu/catalog1011/7707.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968803 | 121 | 1.828125 | 2 |
It seems that rumors of email’s
demise (or rather, social media’s dominance) have been greatly exaggerated. That is, if we are to believe a new study released by interactive marketing solutions provider ExactTarget.
Two-thirds (66 percent) of online
Americans have made a purchase as a result of an email they received, which is
nearly twice as many as those who reported purchasing something based on a
marketing message delivered either on Facebook (20 percent) or via text
messaging (16 percent).
The survey studied 1,481 online consumers to find out just
how these shoppers communicate online with brands and friends. The results
showed a significant divide among communication preferences with regard to
personal and marketing messages.
A whopping 77 percent of the respondents said they would
rather get marketing messages in their email, but just 45 percent said they
prefer to use that channel for personal communication. On the other hand, only five percent of consumers said they prefer receiving marketing messages on
social networking sites.
Email proved itself as the Internet’s continued go-to
communications method, with 96 percent of respondents saying they use email at
least weekly. Also, 76 percent said that email is preferred for customer
Although 70 percent of respondents said they use Facebook
weekly, just 20 percent use Twitter as frequently. Facebook is also twice as
likely to convince teens (ages 15-17) to make a purchase as Twitter, though
both pale in comparison to email's ability to drive purchases. | <urn:uuid:9419d1be-6523-4722-b6de-80cd101e5b2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/archive/2012/04/05/survey-shows-email-drives-the-most-consumer-purchases.aspx | 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 | 0.949386 | 318 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Brilliant experience design- the high line
June 13, 2010
New York’ High Line park is just about a year old, although it was decades in the making.
The park that twists and turns is located on an old abandoned railway track that lies about 30ft above the ground and snakes for about 1.5 miles around the Lower West side of Manhattan.
The project has been executed with a true understanding of experience design making sure that visitors are surprised and delighted as the wind their way through the park.
There’s a strong emphasis on site lines, making sure that visitors have a strong awareness of their surroundings and the context of the park in the city. There are unexpected pieces of art dotted around the park; from torn classic paintings of nature to stained glass who’s colors match the different shades of water in the Hudson.
However, it’s the totality of the experience that wins the day and gives the visitor the sense they’ve taking in something new. We’ve all been to city parks, but not one that’s elevated above the street and crafted from something industrial and old. The secret here is the bending of nature with the park’s old industrial history and combining these with modern touches. Add on top of this brilliant furniture, graphic design and signage and it’s clear a lot of though has gone into designing the experience.
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Mercedes-Benz just opened a | <urn:uuid:9033e2f9-3621-4c3f-898d-1b852767b55e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://influxinsights.com/2010/uncategorized/brilliant-experience-design-the-high-line/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939679 | 408 | 1.5625 | 2 |
I often find myself wondering what comes after death.
People tell me there's an afterlife. A heaven and hell, or rebirth, or... something. And believe me, if I die and find myself in front of some pearly gates, or open my eyes again as a cow, I'll be tickled pink. Even if I end up burning eternally in a fiery pit for not having believed in something that there was no evidence to believe in... well, even that is something. Existence is sweet, because as long as one exists there is hope.
But as much as I'd like to find existence beyond death, that's not what I expect. I expect to simply become nothing. My awareness, I suspect, is simply a function of the biochemistry in my brain, and when the juices stop flowing I will cease to be.
I've tried to imagine it. Being nothing, I mean. I've tried very hard. But I simply can't. The best I can do is imagining blackness and silence. A lack of senses. But even that is something. Blackness and silence are still things. They still exist. And what's more, they assume an observer.
People say it's like sleeping a dreamless sleep, but even that's flawed because that assumes waking. Because when I sleep a dreamless sleep, I may not be aware of the time between sleeping and waking, but I still wake. How can one imagine that state of nothingness stretching on for all eternity?
I can't even wrap my mind around the concept of nothingness, let alone being nothingness. I mean, I can imagine a vacuum, but much like darkness and silence, a vacuum is still a thing. It still exists. It is not nothingness. I don't think the human mind is really capable of imagining nothingness, because for our minds to imagine it it must be something, and thus not nothingness.
So, it's difficult for me to imagine what I expect death to be like, because there's nothing in my experience that prepares me for it. I suppose if I could remember distinctly the first instant of awareness, and the transition from nothingness into somethingness, perhaps I could better wrap my mind around it. Alas, that moment (along with vast stretches of my life since) are lost to me.
I fear I will never truly understand nothingness until I die and become it.
And even that might be robbed from me if I die and am startled to find something beyond. | <urn:uuid:7f9eb84b-919b-41fa-ab9e-7a1781d4052d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=A917322&entry=20621&mode= | 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 | 0.973398 | 514 | 1.726563 | 2 |
For many years we have been concerned about the effects of aging on our health and the potential for declining health to put limitations on our lifestyle. While I know that the path of life will eventually slow me down and require reduced activity and other limitations, I am determined to do everything I can to push those changes as far into the future as I can. We tend to listen carefully to news reports and I have done some reading in areas that can impact the progression of our health into the future. It is clear that individual studies and reports don’t, by themselves, carry much weight but over my years of watching and reading there have been two areas that keep coming up and that are consistently associated with better health and better aging. They are regular exercise and healthy eating. The corresponding threats to long a long and vigorous life are associated especially with heart health and obesity. In turn obesity is related to diabetes and its many negative effects on health. This week there was a report that it is connected to the probability of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
My response to this is to pay attention to the food I eat – how much I eat and what I eat. I eat less red meat, try to get more seafood in my diet and avoid highly processed foods. One of the interesting discoveries I have made in this process it that it is possible to change my tastes. I now prefer food with less salt and sugar and like healthier foods that I once did not care for.
The other area I work on is regular exercise. As I was growing up I spent many hours on a bicycle and I have continued to enjoy biking all my life. Through the spring, as soon as the temperature gets above 45 degrees and into the fall until the snow threatens, I try to ride three times a week. I very much enjoy the exercise and being outside. Sometimes I ride further than I planned just because I don’t want to go back inside. An added benefit for me that it is a great time to think about many things and often to pray. In the winter I ride my bike on a “trainer” inside, but it is much less motivating than being outside. I also go to a local mall to walk inside in inclement weather. I like walking with Rita, but my natural pace is faster than hers, so I also walk alone for a better workout.
I like to give my muscles a workout so I lift weights 2-3 times a week. We bought a weight machine for the basement because we knew that we would lift less often if we had to go to a gym. This has helped me to stay better fit and to control my weight.
So far this regimen of eating well and exercising has worked well for me. It is easier to maintain a schedule since I am retired, but we have busy weeks watching grandkids and other activities that sometimes keep me from maintaining the level activity I would like. It takes some discipline, but I like the results and I have been healthy.
Being healthy makes it easier for us to travel and do the things we like to do together. I intend to keep this schedule going as long as I can and pray that I will be able to accept limitations when age and circumstance inevitably force me to change it.
Sometimes I think being healthy and fit is in the genes. As child I was quite healthy. Growing up on a farm we ate healthy foods which my parents grew and prepared. We spent a lot of time playing outside during all seasons of the year. Walking was something we did without thinking about it. For the most part staying fit and trim was a non-issue. My brothers used to tease me about how thin I was. Through most of my early adult life being fit and healthy wasn’t a major concern. I pushed a stroller through the neighborhood to get out of the house and get exercise. I tried to prepare healthy foods for us. In the early years of our marriage we weren’t financially able to eat out much and much of what we did for vacations and outings with our children involved outside activities. It wasn’t until after I was forty and no longer had small children around that I needed to look at how to include exercise and healthier eating habits in my life.
Since my father died young of a heart condition, I have always been concerned about heart health to some degree. As I resumed a career I put on a few pounds. Somewhere 10+ years ago I participated in a summer workshop for Catholic teachers. One of the sessions I attended was the spiritual health of a religion teacher. I concluded that I was doing a reasonable job of tending to my spiritual life but in the process of trying to be wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend or teacher I had not tending to my physical health very well. When I came home from that conference I told Bob I was going to begin a walking routine. He eagerly said he would join me. It was a wonderful time for us to reconnect at the end of each day. At about the same time I was diagnosed with some minor heart issues and thus the need for getting exercise and eating healthy foods was important. Since then I have managed to walk about 2 miles four or five days a week with various partners and alone with greater success some seasons and years than others.
One of the frustrating things for me is that while most people I know who exercise regularly speak about endorphins, I’ve come to the conclusion that I have none and frequently joke about it. Exercise is not something I genuinely look forward to doing but what has brought the enjoyment to my life is the times and conversations I’ve have had with walking partners, or with God, those I have met on my walks and the number of people who have stopped me to say that I’m their hero or they want to be like me when they are my age. So while I don’t get a chemical high from endorphins, a “high” often results from the enjoyment when Bob sometimes joins me, when others have asked if they can walk with me or those I have met on my exercise journey. It has also been a fantastic high when we have walked for miles in the cities or on the seashores we visited. I want to continue to do that for as long as I can.
I have to admit that while I thought retirement would make it easier it has actually made staying fit more difficult. Teaching took a lot of spiritual, physical and emotional energy. Through the years I shared a classroom with other teachers and as a result I walked between my classroom and our department office many times a day. Being retired I find I spend more time relaxing, reading, writing, sitting at my computer and watching my favorite TV program—all the things I looked forward to with retirement only to find that it is the first time in my life that I’ve had to worry about gaining weight. Sometimes I think I should get a job again.
I do know though that one of the major goals I have had the past 45 years is to grow old with the one I love. I want us to be able to do all the things in retirement that we didn’t have time to do when we were working and raising children. I’m determined to travel and carry my own luggage even though Bob is a wonderful gentleman and walk through the cities and countryside of places we visit. I want to help children and grandchild with household jobs, to sit on the floor and play and read with grandchildren and to continue the service activities that we do. I know that means that staying healthy through diet and exercise is a necessity. It is not always easy but the results are worth the effort.
We hope you find time to stay fit in all areas of your personal lives and in your life with the person you love. We hope you find it as beneficial as we have.
Please leave a comment below. | <urn:uuid:866c667e-cdd7-4ef4-b3db-8766a359a667> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thewonderofmarriage.wordpress.com/2011/09/28/health-and-our-future/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986698 | 1,609 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Give landlords incentive to upgrade appliances, Minnesota 2020 saysby Stephanie Hemphill, Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, Minn. — A Twin Cities non-profit is proposing ideas to improve energy efficiency in rental housing units.
Minnesota 2020 says landlords have little incentive to invest in new, energy-efficient appliances because generally it is tenants who pay the electric bills.
Landlords with multiple units have shied away from rebate programs offered by most utilities because they're too cumbersome, said the group's Will Nissen. He said if utilities would tailor rebate programs to large landlords, they'd reach a big new market.
"Because of the economies of scale, you can hit a lot more units by dealing with just one customer rather than many small tenants or property owners," Nissen said.
Minnesota 2020 is proposing ways to arrive to that solution.
One is called on-bill financing, where a utility loans the tenant money to buy a new appliance and the tenant pays the loan off as part of the electric bill.
Nissen said the the energy savings could be significant. For example, replacing refrigerators that are older than 10 years in Twin Cities rental units would save enough electricity to power more than 3,000 homes every year.
If the tenant moves, the refrigerator and the loan stay with the apartment.
Some utilities might not want to run a loan program, Nissen said, because it might require changes to billing systems. | <urn:uuid:d8cc2be8-0f9f-4fa7-8b22-14909f80108f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012/04/19/energy-saving-appliance-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942138 | 296 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The new DS3, customise every feature to suit your style
Motorists are used to getting fined for bad driving - but now you can be rewarded for driving well, and responsibly.
On Monday Andrew Cupido from Strandfontein became the first driver in the Western Cape to be awarded R25 000 - for driving well.
Transport MEC Robin Carlisle handed over the first of two R25 000 road safety prizes to Cupido.
The Safely Home Road Safety Reward campaign was initiated to encourage safe driving, change motorists' road behaviour and ultimately decrease road deaths.
Motorists are randomly selected from the province's database of 1.6 million licensed drivers.
Using an internet-based programme, officials from Carlisle's department draw 20 numbers and find the corresponding numbers on the traffic and licence eNatis database.
Some of the criteria which finalists have to meet include being fine-free for at least 24 days when their name is selected, the vehicle must be licensed in the Western Cape, the driver must have no outstanding warrants and the driver must be a South African citizen with a valid licence.
In the draw for the second winner which took place on Monday, the first finalist was a Harley-Davidson rider.
PASSING ALL THE CHECKS
Carlisle said he was interested to see whether the motorcyclist would pass all the checks since motorcycle accidents are the only category where deaths have increased in the past few years.
The winner of the second prize will be announced at the end of February.
Cupido, 54, has been a licensed driver since 1978 and passed all tests when he was selected as one of 20 finalists. At first he thought the award was a hoax.
“I feel honoured to receive this and to be recognised for being a safe driver,” he said, once he'd been convinced it was genuine.
“To be chosen out of all the millions of people, I feel really privileged.”
He said the money would be put to good use for his daughter Samantha's wedding.
Carlisle said: “We ran this campaign to reward some of the good guys and recognise them for contributing to safety on our roads.”
Meanwhile the department said the provincial road death toll decreased by 28.4 percent in four years, from 1739 in December 2008 to 1245 last month.
“EXPENSIVE PUBLICITY STUNT”, SAYS ANC
Meanwhile, the ANC described Carlisle's reward scheme for well-behaved drivers as an “expensive publicity stunt”, paid for by taxpayers.
While the cheque was being handed over in Carlisle's Dorp Street office, Cobus Grobler, the ANC caucus spokesman in the legislature, slammed it as “another tata ma chance lottery” which had “absolutely no effect on people's driving behaviour”.
“Carlisle and the DA are engaged in a publicity stunt to score cheap political points,” Grobler said. “The reward scheme won't reduce carnage on the province's roads.
“It doesn't encourage anyone to be a better or safer driver and is a complete waste of taxpayers' money.”
“EXACTLY”, SAYS DA
Carlisle hit back, saying the campaign was indeed a publicity stunt to “ensure safe driving and reduce fatalities. This is a very important campaign and an incentive for people who obey the rules of the road.”
Grobler said Carlisle should instead be pumping funds into getting more traffic officers on the road.
All of the 1.6 million licensed motorists in the province were automatically entered into the draw. - Cape Times, Cape Argus | <urn:uuid:782e6b73-849a-461f-9c38-2de0d40e2dac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.iol.co.za/motoring/industry-news/r25-000-cash-for-being-a-safe-driver-1.1456073 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970943 | 769 | 1.625 | 2 |
Jason Stipp: I'm Jason Stipp for Morningstar.
A couple of metrics this week may have some folks worried about the health of the consumer and the holiday shopping season. Here to offer his take on the data is Morningstar's Bob Johnson, our director of economic analysis.
Thanks for joining me, Bob.
Bob Johnson: Great to be here.
Stipp: We got a couple of pieces of data about the consumer this week. They didn't look so hot, but you said they might not really be indicative of the actual health of the consumer right now. The first one was from MasterCard [Advisors SpendingPulse], and it showed really weak year-over-year holiday sales.
Stipp: What was that data?
Johnson: That data is compiled from individual [transactions], when you swipe your card, what goes back to MasterCard, and they survey the data, and then extrapolate. And frankly, their numbers didn't make a lot of sense, but they said during the holiday period--which they calculate from Oct. 28, which is kind of when Sandy started to hit, through the day past Christmas--that sales were only up 0.7%, and there were screams all over the place yesterday, "worst Christmas since 2007," "disaster hits [consumers]" … but I don't believe a word of it.
Stipp: You said that this data doesn't pass the smell test, and there is one big reason that, I guess, smells the most, and that's online sales. It didn't look like it could be accurate in this MasterCard report.
Johnson: I don't know what it is, [maybe] people used PayPal or something [else] has messed up the [MasterCard] numbers, but here is the deal. [Internet] retail sales in this report were only up 8%. Every other report that I have seen suggests somewhere between the neighborhood of 14% to 16% growth year-over-year in online sales. The [MasterCard] number is wrong by a factor of half, and even if Amazon was the only guy out there, which is a big part of the number, and they are growing 30%, I'm still already over 10% before anything else grows. So, I'm really concerned that that number may be part of what's messing it up.
Stipp: You also said that this report last year ended up being a little bit light compared with the other data on the holiday shopping season in 2011.Read Full Transcript
Johnson: If you looked at the [International Council of Shopping Center] data, the National Federation of Retailers, or even the government's retail sales report, [MasterCard] reported [2011 holiday retail sales growth of] kind of 2%-ish, mid-2%; it was certainly light compared to some of the other metrics that showed more like a 3%-4% growth, may be even 5% in some metrics. So, this number has come in light before, and this is not one that anybody seems to care much about except at the holiday season. It doesn't seem to correlate very well with a lot of other numbers. It's kind of fun, once in a while, I look at [MasterCard's] category-sales data, jewelry is stronger than furniture, or whatever. But certainly it's not a very good predictor of the overall retail sales number.
Stipp: It's not the only piece of data that we get for retail sales. Others report retail sales data in the holiday shopping season, and one of them was the National Federation of Retailers, and their number, they had to bring it in a little bit, which also could cause some concern about the health of the consumer.
Johnson: Right. I think they are now at a number that looks more like 3% year-over-year growth in holiday sales, and they were probably a little bit closer to 4% before. So they have brought their numbers in, and certainly Sandy hit the first few weeks of the holiday period pretty hard, and some people are now saying that maybe it all didn't come back at the end. It really couldn't. So that's certainly part of the thinking in their numbers. But again, that 3%, even if it's a flat 3%, is considerably higher than the scare tactics that are coming out of the MasterCard data that we saw.
Stipp: And there are a few issues that could cause these reports to vary. You mentioned the measurement period, so depending on how much of that Sandy period the different reports capture, that could have an effect on the data.
There are a couple of other things, though, that could be messing with the data a little bit. Layaway is one of those. How does that affect the data if we see more layaways?
Johnson: Well, if you do a layaway sale, you are going to tend to pay that off with cash, and not necessarily a credit card. And layaway sales don't get recognized--even though people have allocated for them many months before--they don't get counted until they are actually paid off and delivered to the customer.
And gift cards are certainly another area that's gone up over time. It's a bigger portion of the data. Imagine iTunes [gift cards] … think about how well those are doing this year. So there's a number of those gift card-type things that aren't fully in the numbers and aren't incorporated either that we will see a little bit later when we get the official government report. And they even seem to be showing up a little bit in the International Council of Shopping Center data, which you know I track so closely.
Stipp: And what about the measurement period? Is it possible some of these reports aren't capturing that last-minute Christmas Eve shopping?
Johnson: Well, I did mention that I do like the International Council of Shopping Centers data, and that indicates that we are up about 3.3% year-over-year. So a little bit higher than what the Federation says. And frankly, [the International Council of Shopping Centers] are saying that they still think we can get to 4%. And the reason they think we can get to 4% is because Christmas Eve fell on a Monday this year. So that puts Christmas Eve in the last week of the year versus last year Christmas Eve was a Saturday, and so it went in the last period, and yet we still were able to show 3.3% on a moving average basis [in the ICSC data].
So, that's a great number. I've gotten used to working with the International Council of Shopping Center data. I'm less familiar with the MasterCard data. It just doesn't seem as reliable to me. So, I'm going with the International Council that we will do something like 3.5% to 4% for the holiday season.
Stipp: So, 4% might be a little aggressive, but definitely you are seeing something like 3.5% to 4%, much higher than what the MasterCard data would suggest.
And lastly, when you just look at the overall health of the consumer, they actually had some tailwinds, and potential tailwinds in the future, that should support that 3.5% to 4% growth.
Johnson: Yes, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind, and another reason why the 0.7% doesn't make any sense.
Number one was, for the month of November, consumer incomes were up 0.8% in a month--that annualizes to almost 10%. So incomes, mainly because of falling gasoline prices and a little bit of wages and some employment, we came up with a huge [increase], probably the best of the recovery type of number in income [in November]. So consumers have more money to spend, gasoline prices are now pretty close to the lowest level of the year, trailing down all during the month of November and December, putting more money in consumers' pockets. So that's really good news.
And housing prices: We got the Case-Shiller data this week. We are up over 4% on over-over-year growth in home prices. It looks like it will be closer to 5% or 6% for the full year, and that's wonderful. And that's one of the things that's really going to give the consumer a lot of confidence.
Stipp: So, it looks like when all the data comes in, we should have a decent holiday shopping season--certainly not as bad as the MasterCard data would suggest. No reason to panic on the consumer front.
Stipp: All right, Bob. Thanks for joining me.
For Morningstar, I'm Jason Stipp. Thanks for watching. | <urn:uuid:6e2992c1-8172-45d2-bc8a-3a7de01e1418> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.morningstar.com/cover/videocenter.aspx?id=579521 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977317 | 1,809 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Hugh Pickens writes "Lewis M. Cohen reports that this Election Day, Massachusetts is poised to approve the Death With Dignity Act, a modernized, sanitized, politically palatable term that replaces the now-antiquated expression 'physician-assisted suicide.' Oregon's Death With Dignity Act has been in effect for the past 14 years, and the state of Washington followed suit with a similar law in 2008. But the Massachusetts ballot question has the potential to turn death with dignity from a legislative experiment into the new national norm, because the state is the home of America's leading medical publication (the New England Journal of Medicine), hospital (Massachusetts General), and four medical schools (Harvard, Boston University, University of Massachusetts, and Tufts). If the act passes in Massachusetts, other states that have previously had unsuccessful campaigns will certainly be emboldened to revisit this subject. The initiative would allow terminally ill patients with six months or less to live to request from their doctor a prescription for a lethal dose of a drug. Doctors do not have to offer the option at all, and patients must make three requests, two verbal and one written. They must self-administer the drug, which would be ingested. The patients must be deemed capable of making an informed decision. 'It's all about choice,' says George Eighmey, a key player in instituting the Oregon law, defending it against repeal and shepherding it into reality. 'You decide. No one else can decide for you. No can can force you into it, coerce you into it or even suggest it to you unless you make a statement: "I don't want to live like this any more" or "I'm interested in that law out there, doctor, can you give me something to alleviate this pain and suffering."'"
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derekmead writes "Batteries rule everything around us, which makes breakthroughs a big deal. A research team at Rice says they have produced a nice jump: by using a crushed silicon anode in a lithium-ion battery, they claim to have nearly tripled the energy density of current li-ion designs. Engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature's Scientific Reports (it has yet to be published online) that by taking porous silicon and crushing it, they were able to dramatically decrease the volume required for anode material. Silicon has long been looked at as an anode material because it holds up to ten times more lithium ions than graphite, which is most commonly used commercially. But it's previously been difficult to create a silicon anode with enough surface area to cycle reliably. Silicon also expands when it's lithiated, making it harder to produce a dense anode material. After previously testing a porous silicon 'sponge,' the duo decided to try crushing the sponges to make them more compact. The result is a new battery design that holds a charge of 1,000 milliamp hours per gram through 600 tested charge cycles of two hours charging, two hours discharging. According to the team, current graphite anodes can only handle 350 mAh/g."
BigBadBus writes "The BBC is reporting that the remains of a World War 2 carrier pigeon were found during renovation of a chimney in England. What is interesting is that the pigeon's remains still had its message attached to the leg ring; even more interesting, this is the first recorded instance of a code being used rather than plain text. The successor to WW2 code-breaking HQ Bletchley Park, the GCHQ, is trying to decipher this unique code. Maybe a Slashdot reader can beat them to it?"
New submitter jest3r writes "On Tuesday the EFF filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload's service and denied third parties access to their property. Many businesses used Megaupload's cloud service to store and share files not related to piracy. The government is calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require individuals or small companies to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings just to get their own property back. Additionally, the government's argument that you lose all your property rights by storing your data on the cloud could apply to Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or Apple iCloud services as well (see page 4 of their filing)."
Lucas123 writes "As anyone who's typed on a virtual keyboard — or yelled at a voice-control app like Siri — can attest, no current text input holds a candle to a traditional computer keyboard. From the reed switch keyboards of the early '70s to the buckling spring key mechanism that drove IBM's popular PC keyboards for years to ThinTouch technology that will have about half the travel of a MacBook Air's keys, the technology that drove data entry for decades isn't likely to go anywhere anytime soon. This article takes a look back on five decades of keyboard development and where it's likely to go in the future."
MatthewVD writes "The National Hurricane Center reported today that the combined energy and duration of all the storms in the Atlantic basin hurricane season was 30 percent above the average from 1981 to 2010. At Weather Underground, Dr. Jeff Masters blogs that record low levels of arctic ice could have caused a 'blocking ridge' over Greenland that pushed Hurricane Sandy west. Meanwhile, Bloomberg BusinessWeek says, 'it's global warming, stupid.'"
mask.of.sanity writes "Dangerous website flaws have been discovered in PayPal that grant attackers access to customer credit card data, account balances and purchase histories. The holes still exist. One was publicly disclosed after a failed effort in July to responsibly disclose them under PayPal's bug bounty program. PayPal is working to close the holes."
Nerval's Lobster writes "Hurricane Sandy may have plunged part of New York City into darkness, drowned its basements and subway tunnels in saltwater, and even set part of a neighborhood on fire, but it couldn't stop New Yorkers from standing in line for hours to purchase the iPad Mini. Hundreds of people lined up in front of Apple's Fifth Avenue store for the chance to get their hands on the 7.9-inch device. According to CNET, which was on the scene and running a live-blog ahead of the store's 10 AM EST opening, 'many people in line are not fluent in English and are either Asian immigrants or visitors.' That opening was originally supposed to take place at 8 AM, and likely delayed because of the obvious citywide transportation issues. But for those in New York City who manage to get their sweaty hands on a new iPad Mini, there's an unusual wrinkle in the situation: power is still out below 39th Street in Manhattan, as well as portions of Brooklyn and Queens. (Apple's Fifth Avenue store is well above that power line.) While some private homes and businesses in electrified areas have set out power strips for strangers to charge their phones, it's hard to imagine a crowd of New Yorkers standing idly by while someone spends a significant amount of time charging a new tablet. Fortunately, many of those without power have found refuge with friends and family, if they haven't left the city altogether."
An anonymous reader writes "We can't get rid of software patents, says Richard Stallman, but we could change how they apply to creating and using software and hardware. In an editorial at Wired, he advocates for a legislative solution to the patent wars that would protect both developers and users. Quoting: 'We should legislate that developing, distributing, or running a program on generally used computing hardware does not constitute patent infringement. This approach has several advantages: —It doesn't require classifying patents or patent applications as "software" or "not software." —It provides developers and users with protection from both existing and potential future computational idea patents. —Patent lawyers can't defeat the intended effect by writing applications differently.'"
CowboyRobot writes "A pair of reports by Juniper and Bit9 confirm the suspicion that many apps are spying on users. '26 percent of Android apps in Google Play can access personal data, such as contacts and email, and 42 percent, GPS location data... 31 percent of the apps access phone calls or phone numbers, and 9 percent employ permissions that could cost the user money, such as incurring premium SMS text message charges... nearly 7 percent of free apps can access address books, 2.6 percent, can send text messages without the user knowing, 6.4 percent can make calls, and 5.5 percent have access to the device's camera.' The main issue seems to be with poor development practices. Only in a minority of cases is there malicious intent. The Juniper report and the Bit9 report are both available online."
sfcrazy writes "Apple is having trouble in Mexico right before the holiday season. The company has lost rights to the name iPhone in the country, as it was already owned by a Mexican telecom company called iFone (Google translation of Spanish original). iFone registered its trademark in 2003, four years before Apple iPhone was launched. In 2009, Apple filed a complaint with the Mexican Industrial Property Institute demanding that iFone stop using is name because it could confuse users. That claim was since denied, and iFone is looking to turn the tables."
another random user writes with news that a Virginia man, Kywan Fisher, has been ordered to pay $1,500,000 to porn-maker Flava Works for sharing ten of the company's films over BitTorrent. "The huge total was reached through penalties of $150,000 per movie, the maximum possible statutory damages under U.S. copyright law." The man did not make any defense in federal court to Flava Works' copyright infringement claims, so the judge handed down a default judgement. "In 2011 Fisher and several other defendants were sued by adult entertainment company Flava Works. The case in question differs from the so-called 'John Doe' lawsuits as the copyright holder had detailed information on the defendants who had paid accounts on the company’s movie portal. For Fisher the trouble started when instead of just viewing the films for personal entertainment, he allegedly went on to share copies on BitTorrent. These illicit copies were traced directly back to his account through a code embedded in the videos. ... The verdict will be welcomed by Flava and the many other copyright holders involved in BitTorrent lawsuits in the United States. DieTrollDie, a close follower and critic of these cases, points out that it will be widely cited in settlement letters to other defendants, but that the case itself is notably different. 'This was not the normal Copyright Troll case – there was some actual evidence beyond a public IP address. Not a smoking gun by far, but certainly enough to show a preponderance of evidence,' DTD writes.
cylonlover writes "Having successfully negotiated the challenging regulatory slopes of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Energy, and a host of Oregon state agencies, the Newberry Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) demonstration project is in the process of creating a new geothermal reservoir in central Oregon. The core of the new reservoir is a two mile (3.2 km) deep well drilled about four miles (6.4 km) from the center of Newberry Volcano. The rock surrounding the wellbore reaches temperatures in the order of 600 F (300 C), and is nearly impermeable to water. That, however, is about to change. Newberry Volcano is one of the largest and youngest volcanoes in the United States. Having last erupted about 1,300 years ago, it consists of over 400 individual volcanic vents, which, when combined, form a broad mounded landform referred to as a shield volcano. The Newberry EGS Demonstration geothermal reservoir is being formed in the high-temperature, low-permeability deep lava of the volcano's northwest flank."
terrancem writes "The Kihansi Spray Toad went extinct in the wild in 2005 when its habitat in Tanzania was destroyed by a dam. However conservationists at the Bronx Zoo managed to maintain a captive population which is now large enough to allow a bold experiment to move forward: reintroducing the toad into its old habitat. To make the once tropical gorge moist again, engineers have designed an artificial misting system that should allow toads to survive in the wild. The effort marks what may be the first time conservationists have ever re-established an 'extinct' species in a human-engineered ecosystem."
First time accepted submitter GrimAndBearIt writes "NASA's Curiosity rover is poised to settle years of debate on the question of atmospheric methane on Mars, which would be a sign of microbial life. With parts per trillion sensitivity, it's not so much a question of whether the rover will be able to smell trace amounts of methane, but rather a question of how much. NASA has announced that Grotzinger's team will discuss atmospheric measurements at a briefing on 2 November. If the rover has detected methane at sufficiently high concentration, or exhibiting temporal variations of the kind that suggests microbial activity, then it will surely motivate a desire to identify and map the sources." | <urn:uuid:6598cb9e-7a07-4515-b593-8bf409955780> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://linux.slashdot.org/?page=3§ion=tag&startdate=20121104 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956565 | 2,750 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Social media for business is exploding. Everywhere one turns, it seems there is another online marketing specialist extolling the absolute necessity of a comprehensive social media strategy. A Facebook page, Twitter account, LinkedIn profile, Pinterest page...the list of requirements goes on and on.
Is this simply marketing hype from the social media industry, or an absolute imperative for business, and especially small business, in South Africa?
Before jumping in boots and all, the burning question should be "Is the return from social media investment justified?" The starting point for a smaller organisation, consisting of a simple page across the 'Big 3' business platforms - Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn - will cost in the order of R5000 to R10 000 depending on complexity, with an additional (optional) fee for on-going management and maintenance of content of around R3 000 per month. This excludes time for in-house staff to manage the social media platforms, planning time, and costs for inevitable upgrades.
With this in mind, is it all worth it? What real business benefit is social media bringing the average small organisation?Cutting through the hype
Understanding the cost: benefit of social media was a hot topic amongst entrepreneurs and small business owners at a recent interactive "Understanding Social Media" conference for small organisations, hosted by the Old Mutual Legends business development programme.
"We ran this conference because every business needs to understand how to stay ahead of the pack, and because the concept of marketing is reinventing itself through social media almost daily. We believe that one must first understand the basics in order to get the job done effectively, because without this it is too easy to be swept up by the hype and excitement of new technology and new social platforms," explains the workshop facilitator Catherine Wijnberg, CEO of enterprise development specialists Fetola.
"It is clear that many organisations are feeling a pressing need for a social media strategy, but remain uncertain how to proceed, or how much time and money to invest in this channel. There is a real need to help people cut through the hype and get true value," adds Wijnberg.
Conference attendee Phindile Mkhize, MD of Zan Zan Décor, concurs: "I have been aware that I need to integrate social media into my marketing, but was unsure where to start and what platforms were best for my business. I believe I now have a much better understanding of the do's and don'ts, and more importantly how to use social media in the correct way to grow my business."Integrated approach
Experienced social media providers such as Lianne Byrne-Hammacott of Digital4Good, understand how to tackle digital media and mould it to benefit small businesses and non-profits."People think that they can simply set up a Facebook page and post a few things here and there, and the sales will come flooding in. In truth, social media needs to be seen as an integral part of your overall marketing strategy and activities for it to deliver to its full potential," she explains.
She believes the rise of mobile technology, niche social networks, the 'fan-sumer' and increasing customer influence through online platforms are trends that all SMMEs and non-profits need to take into account when assessing a social media strategy.
Dorian de Klerck, sales manager at digital media specialist agency Active Ice, agrees. "The mistake many people make is believing that their social media efforts will lead to the phone ringing off the hook and sales rolling in. This is simply not the case. Social media should not be seen as a quick return on investment scenario, but rather a medium to long term marketing and brand development solution. We reckon that a good social media strategy is 85% marketing and only 15% sales focussed," he explains.
"This makes a proper online marketing strategy an absolute imperative. We advise clients to plan and think about every post, tweet or other communication, as well as the look and feel of their pages and platforms, for maximum impact."Beyond the Big Three
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are only part of an online marketing strategy however, and ensuring that your website is readily found by search engines still forms the foundation of any serious online marketing.
"There are two kinds of websites - those that deliver, and those that do not. People need to know how to structure their sites and take the necessary steps to ensure that they are found by major search engines, or the site can become a bit of a white elephant," explains Jason New, search engine optimisation (SEO) consultant and rounder of Click Metrics. "This includes linking to other well-optimised and respected sites, and ensuring your content is fresh and compelling."
"Websites must be developed as part of an integrated online marketing strategy, making maximum use of the automated search tools, and if necessary using specialists to boost success. Almost nobody bothers to look beyond the first page on a Google Search, and often if you are not in the top three search results, you might as well be invisible," he adds.When to call in the cavalry
Social media and online marketing still remains a grey area for many smaller organisations, and a common question is 'how much can be done in-house, and when should one bring in a specialist?'
Wijnberg offers the following advice: "With any marketing or brand development, it is usually necessary to bring in experts for certain elements, such as logo design, copywriting, even assistance with overall strategy. Social media is no different. Just because it is free to set up a Facebook page does not mean you should go ahead and wing it yourself.
"Managing social media badly, or simply 'dabbling' in it, can often be more damaging than having no online presence at all. My advice is that one should seek expert help to develop a strategy and get started, and then make it your business to learn what you need to know in order to manage things for the long term."Putting Facebook in its place
Everyone is talking about Facebook timeline as an absolute must-have for business (this week at least), but it is important to put Facebook in its place. Like social media itself, Facebook is just another marketing tool to get your message to your client. Don't be fooled into letting social media override your core business prerogatives - integrate it into a properly designed and fully integrated marketing and media plan, and remember that at the end of the day your clients are not your contacts on LinkedIn or your fans on Facebook, but those who actually buy your products and services.
For more on the Old Mutual Legends programme and the support it offers small businesses and non-profit organisations, visit www.fetola.co.za | <urn:uuid:ac006cf8-ca41-4b8d-978b-25ae544c3a6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/410/16/78387.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948032 | 1,369 | 1.585938 | 2 |
In Ian McEwan's exquisite little novel, Atonement (now also a film), a young girl tells a lie that produces disastrous consequences over many years although she herself becomes quite celebrated as an adult. I thought of Atonement when I read in Deb Meier's blog to Diane Ravitch, "While you and I are both feeling a little weary about how politics has distorted schooling...." Hah! Ravitch quarterbacked much of the distortion and needs to atone for her role in the suppression of "Perspectives on Education in America," better known simply as "The Sandia Report."
The draft of The Sandia report closed with "There are many problems in American public schools, but there is no system-wide crisis." This was too positive for Ravitch, then assistant secretary education in the now defunct Office for Educational Research and Improvement, and Secretaries of Education and Energy, Lamar Alexander and James Watkins.
Almost precisely 17 years ago, Lee Bray, the Sandia vice president who had overseen the analysis flew up to Denver to show me the 156 page report. I had written an Education Week commentary arguing that the SAT decline had been much smaller than people thought (in fact, I was only riffing off the College Board's own panel which had produced On Further Examination). Bray said he had a lot of data on other indicators that corroborated my conclusions. He did.
Bob Huelskamp, one of the three engineers who authored the report returned some three months later to present it to me and some administrators in the Cherry Creek School District. I said we should take all of the data I had collected (substantially more by then than when I wrote the SAT piece) and the Sandia data and publish them all in one place. Huelskamp said, "We can't. We've got internal political problems."
I think it is inherent among engineers to practice understatement. What had actually happened was that the Sandia group had gone to Washington and presented the report to department of energy and department of education staff and some Congressmen. At the end, David Kearns, former CEO of Xerox and then Deputy Secretary of Education said, "You bury this or I'll bury you." Ravitch has denied Kearns said this. Huelskamp has affirmed it. An article in Education Week said only that "administration officials, particularly Mr. Kearns, reacted angrily at the meeting." The article also contained allegations of suppression and denials of such ("Report Questioning 'Crisis' in Education Triggers an Uproar," October 9, 1991).
The engineers did get buried, being forbidden at one point to leave New Mexico to talk about their findings. "Dead wrong" was how Secretary of Energy James Watkins (Energy funds Sandia) described the report in the September 30, 1991 issue of the Albuquerque Journal. "It is a call for complacency when just the opposite is required," he said. (It amazes me that each time someone points out that the educational sky is not actually falling, those who say it is lose all capacity for logic and accuse that the non-Chicken Littles of being messengers of complacency. In a badly argued, extremely simplistic Washington Post op-ed, Ravitch pinned that label on me and the Sandia engineers, along with Iris Rotberg, then of the National Science Foundation ("U. S. Schools: The Bad News Is Right," November 17, 1991); typical distorting sentence: "[Critics] say it is not fair to compare ourselves to countries like Japan and Korea because they value education and we do not").
Ravitch denied at an AERA meeting that the report was being suppressed. The official story was that it was undergoing peer review by the U. S. Department of Education and the National Science Foundation and that it was not ready for publication. It is to NCES' Emerson Elliott's and NSF's Peter House' everlasting shame that they agreed to have their agencies collude in this political charade and signed dishonest letters to Ravitch about what the reviews had shown. It was, of course, insulting and unprecedented that a report from one agency be peer-reviewed by other agencies.
Five years after Lee Bray retired, I called him. He was not enthusiastic about reopening old wounds, but when I asked him directly if the report had been suppressed he said, "Yes, it was definitely suppressed."
The Education Week article on The Sandia Report closed with the prediction that "Administration officials will use a lengthy review process to bury the report." Indeed, it was never published. It appeared in print only when Jim Raths of the University of Delaware and then an editor at the Journal of Educational Research made it the entirety of the May/June 1993 issue of that small journal. Because nearly 20 years have passed, most people don't know either of the report or the suppression that followed. But that act of suppression sits like Banquo's ghost at the banquet table, seen, in this case, not only by Macbeth, but by to those of us who witnessed the murder. | <urn:uuid:16fcfdda-0e0b-41bc-8618-3206f57ea3fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-bracey/righting-wrongs_b_75189.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979791 | 1,038 | 1.617188 | 2 |
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The Source engine is a game engine developed by Valve Corporation. Its unique features include a large degree of mod-ability, flexibility, an artist-driven, shader-based renderer, industry-leading lip-sync and facial expression technology, and a powerful, efficient, and completely network-enabled physics system.
Source supports both 32-bit and 64-bit environments and the Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Xbox, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 platforms. The Source engine debuted in October 2004 with Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike: Source. Since its release it has been heavily modernized by Valve, with the "Orange Box Update", when the aging Source engine was updated with new features for the release of Half-Life 2: Episode Two, Team Fortress 2 and Portal.
Technology overview
A Half-Life 2: Episode One
scene running on the Source engine, demonstrating high dynamic range, rim lighting, phong shading, facial expressions, and realtime cameras.
- For a full overview, see Source Engine Features on the Valve Developer Community Wiki.
- DirectX 9 with Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL
- 3D skybox; an area can be displayed as a skybox at up to 16x its actual size with full 3D parallax.
- High dynamic range rendering
- Any animation can merge seamlessly with any other animation at any time.
- Inverse kinematics to ensure that characters' limbs react to environments.
- Networked physics
- Originate from Havok 2 physics engine
- Highly-tuned by Valve
- Software only
- Fully networked with low bandwidth requirements
- Vehicle physics including torque, power, gears, tire material, suspension and mode.
- Full DSP system
- Full surround sound support
- Software only
- Low and high frequency components merged depending on surrounding area and relative position of origin.
- Supports DirectX 6 and upwards
- Modularity allows for all current and future Source projects to scale back to DirectX 6 if they desire.
- Facial expressions
- Full range of human and non-human facial movements
- Based on Professor Paul Ekman's Facial Action Coding System
- Over eighty-four "digital muscles"
- Works in tandem with facial expressions
- Auto-generated, but completely configurable
- Stored in sound file itself for localization
Modularity and notable upgrades
Source is designed from the ground up to be highly modular. This allows for the easy upgrade and modification of certain features without breaking other areas of the engine, or breaking engine continuity (that is to say, there need be no 'version jumps' from 1.0 to 2.0). When coupled with Steam, these updates can be distributed retroactively and automatically. For instance, if Source is upgraded to support hardware physics, every Source title on Steam will instantly benefit. Entirely new features such as High Dynamic Range (HDR) Rendering have been shown to require developer input, however.
High dynamic range rendering
First seen in Day of Defeat: Source, then shortly after in Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, HDR was the first major instance of Source's modularity in use. However, whilst in theory all Source engine games and mods were able to use HDR immediately after its release, the game code required to 'hook in' to the new system was not made available to modders until eleven months later, on August 4, 2006. Official licensees and Valve themselves have all made use of the technology since its release.
Facial animation 2
animated with the Source engine's facial animation system, here in Episode Two
When Half-Life 2: Episode One was released on 1 June 2006, it introduced the second version of Valve's proprietary facial animation system. Ken Birdwell explains the upgrade's features in the game's commentary track:
"When we designed the Half-Life 2 facial system back in 2000, our goal was to get a natural-looking performance at a moderate distance. For Episode One, we wanted to extend the characters' facial systems to support more intense performances with a wider range of facial expressions, that would hold up better at close range. These facial improvements included increasing the detail around the eyes and mouth, increasing the number of facial shape targets – think of these as movements of muscle groups – by about 50%, rewriting the rules that control how these shapes blend, and increasing the intensity of many of our existing shapes."
Dynamic lighting and shadowing 2
A new dynamic lighting and shadow mapping system was released for Source, replacing the somewhat limp existing system. It launched with the various other new Source features with Half-Life 2: Episode Two.
Lighting and Shadowing system comparison
| Current Lighting and Shadowing System
|| Dynamic Lighting and Shadowing 2
| Dynamic shadows in a map always come from the same predetermined direction.
|| Dynamic shadows in a map always react dynamically to every light source.
| Models do not self-shadow or cast shadows onto other objects.
|| Models can self-shadow and cast shadows onto the world and other objects.
| Dynamic shadows do not blend with lightmapped shadows and cast through all objects except world geometry.
|| Dynamic shadows are more unified with static shadows and don't cast through models.
| Every object is allowed only one dynamic shadow.
|| Any object can cast multiple dynamic soft shadows.
| The player's flashlight merely illuminates an area.
|| The player's flashlight casts shadows from models and world geometry.
Next-gen renderer
An upgraded rendering path is in development for future Source engine games on PC, Xbox 360, and presumably PlayStation 3. For PC, the new renderer has been confirmed to support DirectX 10.
Landscape and Flora Rendering
Large, open natural environments with heavy foliage, traditionally a weakness for the Source engine, have been supported as of Half-Life 2: Episode Two. The updates were also made available for MOD teams to use shortly after the release.
Soft-Particle system
During the July 2006 Electronic Arts Summer Showcase press conference, Gabe Newell mentioned that a new soft-particle system would be introduced into the Source Engine in the upcoming title Half-Life 2: Episode Two. It was first demonstrated in the July 19 Team Fortress 2 teaser, which showed a remarkably realistic flamethrower in its closing moments.
Cinematic physics
Cinematic Physics oversees the destruction of a two-story forest shack
During the July 2006 Electronic Arts Summer Showcase press conference, it was revealed that former Weta Digital employee Gray Horsfield, special effects destruction lead on The Return of the King and King Kong among other roles, was building a "Cinematic Physics" system for Source. GameSpy described the new system in their conference report:
"The idea behind this is to give players the opportunity to experience in-game physics in action on a grander scale. As an example of Cinematic Physics in action, a clip from Half-Life 2: Episode Two was shown of a huge bridge collapsing across a vast ravine."
The system adds the following features to Source's physics simulator:
- Deforming objects — before, physics models could not be modified except through animation
- Dynamic crumbling of brush geometry — before, lines of separation had to be specified by the mapper
Cinematic Physics supports a keyframe system, but its exact nature is currently unclear. It could be that an animator creates a largely complete but low-detail sequence which then sees details added by the physics system, or it could be that an animator creates a handful of single-frame states which are then used as motion targets for the ensuing simulation (in a manner not dissimilar to the Endorphin NaturalMotion technology).
Either method results in a drastic reduction of developer input, thus allowing the creation of far more complex scenes than before with the same budget. It is currently unclear both whether or not keyframes are strictly required, and what number are needed to create a scene as complex as the bridge collapse demonstration.
Multiprocessor optimizations
As a part of the Source engine's transition to next-generation consoles, multiprocessor optimizations have been added, resulting in faster processing on PC hardware with dual or quad core systems and the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. Gabe Newell:
"Yes. We definitely think that content needs to move forward. For example, one of the things we're reacting to is the speed at which microprocessors are coming out. So, Intel has very aggressively moved up delivery of desktop processors with four different cores; we'll have support for that in Episode Two, and we'll definitely go back to affect, Episode One or Half-Life 2 or Counter-Strike Source, so they can take advantage of that. We'll definitely try to keep the existing games - especially the multiplayer games - current as technology evolves."
Valve has demonstrated the new multi core optimizations which use a multi-threading style they dub "hybrid threading." A Source multi-threading update and benchmark are expected to be released before Half-Life 2: Episode Two, though a date for either and the content of the benchmark are currently unknown.
Unconfirmed future technology
Cinematic effects
Cinematic effects including depth of field, motion blur and film grain are demonstrated in this video capture
With color correction and film grain already released, Valve intends to add other cinematic effects such as motion blur and depth of field to Source when hardware is able to render it to their satisfaction. The effects are accomplished with an accumulation buffer for quality, creating enormous overhead; for instance, twenty to thirty motion blur frames need to be rendered for every one frame that the user sees. For a constant frame rate of thirty frames per second, a video card is required to produce between six hundred and nine hundred frames per second. This causes late 2005-era hardware to require a full two seconds to render each frame.
Motion blur and depth of field can be seen in several of Valve's promotional videos, including:
Image-Based Rendering
Image-Based Rendering is a technique in which 2D elements are manipulated to appear in a 3D world. In the context of a 3D game, it delivers a significant performance boost by replacing 3D geometry that is far enough away for the transition to be imperceptible with a 2D image. Implementation of the technology in this role can be found applied to Rome: Total War's soldiers, Far Cry's forests, and various objects in Guild Wars' environments, such as buildings and flora.
The technology had been in development for Half-Life 2, as a 2003 interview with Driverheaven.net shows, but was cut. It was mentioned again by Gabe Newell during 1UP's 'Valve week':
"There's this technology that was really exciting that I’d like to see us get into production, which is a different approach to rendering complexity: Moving things into and out of an image domain and then seamlessly interpolating between those motions as the player moves around. So that everything close to the player is physical and geometry, and everything really far away from the player is an image, but the player has no way of telling that if the player does it properly and things can fly out and come back."
The June 2006 Day of Defeat: Source update included an "image-based texture blending shader", and Half-Life 2: Episode Two's expansive environments seem ideally suited to the technology, but it has yet to be dated or even officially announced.
File streaming
One of the technologies developed for Half-Life 2's Xbox release was file streaming, wherein a map's resources could be loaded as the player moved around in it rather than in one operation before playability. With the system in place, loading times were reduced to as little as fifteen seconds. The system expanded on the caching system already implemented. There is no time frame for its release, as implementing such a system on the potentially infinite variations of PC hardware setups in use poses serious performance problems (see Stutter section).
Although Valve has explicitly stated that the Source engine has been built internally from the ground up, rumors and myths persist that it is instead merely derived from the original Quake codebase via Valve's GoldSrc offshoot. The primary reasons for this are the manner in which the engine uses similar development interfaces to GoldSrc (to aid transitioning developers), and John Carmack's comment on his blog that "there are still bits of early Quake code in Half-Life 2", expanded through hearsay to be a confirmation that large swathes of code are identical, when no such conclusion can be drawn from the statement. There remains no solid proof that Source is derived from the GoldSrc codebase — and indeed, given the fact that the 2003 code leak did not produce any such claims it can only be assumed that no incriminating evidence was to be found.
However, it is known that Source was developed part-by-part, slowly replacing the GoldSrc engine in Valve's internal projects. This explains its modular nature, and suggests that, even if Source was not derived from GoldSrc, GoldSrc was at the very least modified to plug into it during development.
Common issues
The Source Engine uses a caching system, whereby the loading of certain resources is handled and managed on the fly, rather than in a single operation behind a traditional loading screen. Texture and sound data are the primary areas in which this occurs. Textures are loaded to memory but only moved to the system's video card when needed and audio files are loaded with an unusual "soundcache" system: only the first 0.125 seconds of each file are pre-cached, and the clip is used to cover the asynchronous buffering of the full sound file in the background when it is first requested.
Both systems keep data in the heap until there is no more room and older resources are flushed out, and when either is held up or otherwise slowed down the engine will either freeze or go into a temporary loop until the data arrives. 'Stuttering', or 'hitching' as it is sometimes known, is the result of these pauses.
While stutter can be caused by poor system performance, it has also been noted on hardware setups that should be more than powerful enough to cope with the data rate, and despite many theories, the precise cause remains unknown to the public even over two years since the engine's debut. Most solutions that have been found involve bypassing the caching system, as it cannot be directly disabled, or system-specific optimizations (e.g. driver updates).
When Half-Life 2 was first released and stuttering became a widely-known problem, community member Mark McWilliams set up a page covering the issue and Valve's communication and work on resolving it. Several updates were released by Valve, the effects of which varied from complete fixes for some users to previously smooth systems becoming "infected" with the problem.
- Example (.WMV), showing a relatively low level of stutter. The hitches coincide with the drawing of new areas (a process that is by design not visible without debugging tools).
More recently (February 7, 2006), changes to the Source engine were introduced alongside a beta test of Steam's Friends chat service, with the aim of 'narrowing down' the problem. The update featured a limited implementation of Source's file streaming system (see above). Generally, the response was very positive.
In a recent Source game, Left 4 Dead 2, this has been resolved. Instead of stuttering, the sounds will simply just stop.
Looping audio
The Source Engine suffers from an error whereby the asynchronous loading (see Stutter, above) of a new sound file will cause the engine to lock up with looping audio. Because of the nature of DirectX, once the engine enters such a state it will remain on the screen unless the user can blindly terminate the program, or reboot their computer. The error occurs in a standard Windows library associated with on-board sound cards, and in some cases can be resolved by decreasing DirectSound Acceleration.
Reports of looping audio crashes increased around the release of Episode One. While it is likely that the spike was simply because there was an unusually high number of people playing the game, changes to the engine, of which there were many for the game, cannot be ruled out. It has been noted that people who have been able to play Half-Life 2 without any crashes and audio errors in fact do find Episode 1 to be more prone to that problem. A steampowered.com forum thread is dedicated to discussing the problem and attempting to work out solutions, although the experience of the thread contributors indicates that most suggested workarounds and fixes do not remedy the problem.
On 28 June 2005, Valve opened the Valve Developer Community Wiki. The VDC replaced the previously available Source SDK documentation with a full MediaWiki-powered community site. Within a matter of days Valve reported that "the number of useful articles [had] nearly doubled". These new articles covered the previously undocumented Counter-Strike: Source bot (added by the bot's author, Mike Booth) and Half-Life 2 AI, source control for Source engine mods, and more.
Licensed Source games
- Other developers
- The Crossing
- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
- Deep 6
- The History Channel's ShootOut! The Game
- Kuma\War 2
- Natural Selection 2 (No longer using Source engine)
- Postal 3 (PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)
- SiN Episodes
- The Ship
- They Hunger: Lost Souls
- Twilight War: After the Fall (production resumed)
- Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
- Mabinogi Heroes
- Untitled Threewave Software game
- Zeno Clash
External links | <urn:uuid:0876bea4-c527-4799-a74a-351d93d71dff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://combineoverwiki.net/wiki/Source | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941628 | 3,770 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Joe Biden on Technology
Vice President; previously Democratic Senator (DE)
Double amount of spectrum available for wireless broadband
V.P. Biden announced the release of a new report, "The Economic Benefits of New Spectrum for Wireless Broadband", describing the substantial economic value of aggressively pursuing Pres. Obama's goal of nearly doubling the amount of spectrum available
for wireless broadband over ten years and deploying a nationwide interoperable wireless network for public safety.
The report summarizes the compelling evidence that additional spectrum for wireless broadband is needed to accommodate the surging demand
for wireless data traffic, projected to increase by a factor of twenty by 2015. The report also describes the potential for wireless broadband to play a transformative role in public safety and as a platform for innovation in many areas of the economy.
"I've been working on changing the way we allocate spectrum for a long time, because a smarter system is good for our economy, good for innovation, and vital to keeping our cops, firefighters and EMTs safe," said Vice President Biden.
Source: Press Release: Economic Value of Increasing Spectrum
, Feb 21, 2012
Internet is new public space; make it a force for democracy
Nearly 1/3 of humankind is online today, something we would have never thought possible 20 years ago: more than 2 billion people and counting. The Internet has become the public space of the 21st century, a sphere of activity for all kinds of activities,
open to all people of all backgrounds and all beliefs.
More than 5 billion people will connect to the Internet in the next 20 years. And most of them will live in countries and regions that are now under-represented online.
The benefits they'll derive from it are going to depend in large degree on the choices all of us today make. The Internet itself is not inherently a force for democracy or oppression, for war or for peace. Like any public square or any platform
for commerce, the Internet is neutral. But what we do there isn't neutral. It's up to us to decide whether and how we will protect it against the dangers that can occur in cyberspace while maintaining the conditions that give rise to its many benefits.
Source: VP's Remarks to London Cyberspace Conference
, Nov 1, 2011
No exclusive government control over Internet resources
No citizen of any country should be subject to a repressive global code when they send an email or post a comment to a news article. Now, there are some who have a different view, as you all know. They seek an international legal instrument that would
lead to exclusive government control over Internet resources, institutions and content and national barriers on the free flow of information online. But this, in our view, would lead to a fragmented Internet, one that does not connect people but divides
them; a stagnant cyberspace, not an innovative one, and ultimately a less secure cyberspace with less trust among nations.
So the United States stands behind the current approach which harnesses the best of governments and private sector and civil
society to manage the technical evolution of the Internet in real time. This public-private collaboration has kept the Internet up and running all over the world.
Source: VP's Remarks to London Cyberspace Conference
, Nov 1, 2011
WikiLeaks founder is a high-tech terrorist
Vice-President Joe Biden made his case for why WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is a "high-tech terrorist" in an appearance on NBC's "Meet The Press."
"This guy has done things and put in jeopardy the lives and occupations of people in other parts
of the world," Biden said. "He's made it difficult to conduct our business with our allies and our friends. ... It has done damage."
Biden also claimed the leaks have had a direct impact on his own work when meeting with world leaders. "There is a desire now to meet with me alone rather than have staff in the room," he said. "It makes things more cumbersome."
Biden said the Justice Department is exploring possible legal action against Assange. His comments echoed those made by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell earlier this month. "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist," McConnell said.
Source: Huffington Post, 'High-Tech Terrorist'
, Dec 19, 2010
Proposed $980M for tunnel repair; others have dropped ball
Q: Did you guys in Congress drop the ball on infrastructure?
A: I didnít drop the ball. In 1992, I proposed a $20 billion infrastructure bill proposed by the mayors. We donít need any more studies; 560,000 bridges--27% of them are in bad shape. We have
been proposing since the day after 9/11 that we spend $980 million to refurbish the tunnels on the East Coast. My colleagues need to get on board. These guys, Republicans, have been irresponsible about our infrastructure, and the safety of this country.
Source: 2007 AFL-CIO Democratic primary forum
, Aug 7, 2007
Voted NO on restoring $550M in funding for Amtrak for 2007.
An amendment to provide an additional $550,000,000 for Amtrak for fiscal year 2007. Voting YEA would increase Amtrak funding from $900 million to $1.45 billion. Voting NAY would keep Amtrak funding at $900 million.
Proponents of the bill say to vote YEA because:
- [In my state], Philadelphia's 30th Street station is the second busiest train station nationally, with over 3.7 million boarding a year. And 3,000 people are employed by Amtrak in Pennsylvania. Amtrak and the health of Amtrak is important.
- Last year the Senate transportation bill had $1.45 billion for Amtrak, which is obviously more than the $900 million in the current budget proposal. I am offering an amendment to increase that funding from the $900 million which is in the bill right now to the $1.45 billion level and adding $550 million.
- I support funding through the section 920 account [without a tax increase]. We have seen that without raising the cap or without raising taxes, the Senate has been able to
come up with a robust number for Amtrak which I will support within the context of a responsible budget.
- We have spent less money on Amtrak in the last 35 years than we will on highways in this year alone. And highways don't pay for themselves, even with the gas tax. Neither does mass transit, either in this country or anywhere else in the world. But we subsidize them because they improve the quality of our lives.
- We have never provided the kind of commitment to Amtrak that we have for other modes of transportation, and this amendment will be an important step to getting Amtrak off the starvation budgets that it has subsisted on for far too long.
Opponents of the bill say to vote NAY because:
Reference: Santorum amendment to Transportation funding bill;
Bill S.Amdt.3015 to S.Con.Res.83
; vote number 2006-052
on Mar 15, 2006
- The problem with that is there is no money in the section 920 account. If we want to talk about "funny money" financing, that is it--taking money from an account that has no money. This whole budget takes money we don't have. The result is we keep running up the debt.
Voted YES on disallowing FCC approval of larger media conglomerates.
Vote to pass a joint resolution expressing congressional disapproval of the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission. The rule would therefore have no force or effect. The rule in question deals with broadcast media ownership and would allow media conglomerates to own more television stations and newspapers.
Reference: FCC Media Ownership bill;
Bill S J Res 17/H.J.RES.72
; vote number 2003-348
on Sep 16, 2003
Voted YES on Internet sales tax moratorium.
Vote against allowing states to require companies who do business in their state solely by phone, mail, or the Internet to collect state sales taxes. [Current law does not require companies to collect sales taxes where the customer is out of state]
; vote number 1998-296
on Oct 2, 1998
Voted YES on telecomm deregulation.
Deregulation of the telecommunications industry.
Status: Telecommunications Competition and Deregulation Act of 1995 Y)91; N)5; NV)3
Reference: Conference Report on S. 625, the;
Bill S. 652
; vote number 1996-8
on Feb 1, 1996
Fund nanomaterial research project for car batteries.
Biden introduced funding nanomaterial research project for car batteries
A bill to promote the future of the American automobile industry, and for other purposes.
ADVANCED ENERGY INITIATIVE FOR VEHICLES:
- To enable and promote, in partnership with industry, comprehensive development, demonstration, and commercialization of a wide range of electric drive components, systems, and vehicles using diverse electric drive transportation technologies;
- to make critical public investments to help private industry, institutions of higher education, National Laboratories, and research institutions to expand innovation, industrial growth, and jobs in the United States;
- to accelerate the widespread commercialization of all types of electric drive vehicle technology into all sizes and applications of vehicles, including commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid fuel cell vehicles; and
- to improve the energy efficiency of and reduce the petroleum use in transportation.
The Secretary shall conduct a program of research, development, demonstration, and commercial application for electric drive transportation technology, including:
Source: American Automobile Industry Promotion Act (S.1055/H.R.1915) 07-S1055 on Mar 29, 2007
- high-capacity, high-efficiency batteries;
- control system development and power train development and integration for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, plug-in hybrid fuel cell vehicles, and engine dominant hybrid electric vehicles;
- nanomaterial technology applied to both battery and fuel cell systems;
- large-scale demonstrations, testing, and evaluation of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles in different applications with different batteries and control systems, including military applications; mass market passenger and light-duty truck applications; private fleet applications; and medium- and heavy-duty applications.
Page last updated: Sep 12, 2012 | <urn:uuid:2bc91205-6bd2-4bc0-943c-1568addcbf1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Joe_Biden_Technology.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940098 | 2,141 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The New Year often begins with a crop of garden catalogs arriving in the mail with a number of these offering either seeds or plants of cacti and succulents. Here are a few of the early catalogs I’ve received.
When it comes to hardy succulents, there’s no better source than Bluestone Perennials. Their 2007 catalog offers more kinds than I would have ever imagined. These are sold in pots.
They have three kinds of spurges, including cushion spurge, Tasmanian Tiger spurge, and Chameleon Euphorbia dulcis.
I’m partial to hen and chicks, and like the fact that Bluestone has six different kinds. These include cobweb Sempervivum—noted for its wisp-like hairs, Brauni—a green one, and five kinds with brightly colored foliage, including Red Beauty, Silverine, and Twilight Blue.
Concerning hardy stonecrops, Bluestone is a wonderful source. They have four varieties of showy stonecrop. Among these are Brilliant, Neon, and Stardust. They also have a variegated form of Kamtschatka stonecrop as well as Ruby Glow, Matrona, and Vera Jameson.
Of the two row stonecrop, they offer John Creech, Voodoo, and Fulda Glow. In addition, they also list several other stonecrops, including Purple Emperor, Autumn Fire, Siebold, and Angelina. One of the easiest ways to buy Sedums from Bluestone is to just order the collection, which has one plant
each of six different varieties.
High Country Gardens
This company specializes in tough, drought-tolerant plants, many of which are native. The emphasis is on ones that are hardy in the West though some are suited to other areas of the country.
Their 2007 catalog features various kinds of agave plants. In addition to selling individual species of agaves, they also have a collection of cold hardy ones with four different kinds.
Similarly, they also offer a collection of four different yuccas as well. There is also a collection of five different hardy cacti. All of these collections are recommended either for zones five through nine or ten.
In addition, High Country offers a collection of succulents that are slightly less hardy, for zones six through ten. These species are originally native to South Africa. In colder climates, they can be brought indoors for the winter months.
High Country also sells one cultivar of Little Plum Lewisia and desert spoon.
Territorial Seeds has been in business for over 25 years. For 2007, they’re offering a new seed mix, Sundial Mix Portulaca or moss rose. The mix features plants with flowers in a wide range of colors. These include cream, orange, red, gold, and magenta. Some of these have bright, contrasting centers. These fully double blooms remain open longer during the day than most moss rose flowers do. | <urn:uuid:5a3e620b-2afd-437e-a500-65edfe785e42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bellaonline.com/ArticlesP/art10995.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948509 | 627 | 1.742188 | 2 |
click here for full article: http://psuvanguard.com/news/students-and-staff-rethink-psu/
Campaign looks to overhaul education experience
Students, faculty and administration at Portland State now have the opportunity to think of the institution’s academics as a blank canvas.
It’s a chance to question the status quo.
A campus-wide initiative was recently launched, titled reTHINK PSU, bringing a challenge from the provost of Academic Affairs to bring pioneering change to PSU.
“The idea of the challenge is to deliver education in different, more innovative ways. We’re encouraging each department on campus to think creatively,” said Sona Andrews, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs.
Schools often experience incremental change over time—meaning they’ll make one change and adjust to it before moving on to the next. Incremental changes are more accessible, but they don’t necessarily allow for continuous improvement.The aim of reTHINK is to allow departments to explore new options and focus on how to keep the innovation flowing.
“ReTHINK PSU was really thought of out of the question: if you could really rethink your curriculum in an innovative way, what would it be?” Andrews said.
The concepts are brief, and any ideas submitted must be about a program with more than just a single faculty member behind it. Anyone can comment or inspire ideas, and it’s an opportunity for people to share their proposals for change.
Students who are here today may not reap all of the benefits of this challenge, Andrews said. It won’t come all at once and it won’t affect everybody; some departments will be chosen to lead the changes first, she explained.
A website has been set up so that anyone with a PSU ODIN account can comment on individual proposals featured online.
“We’d like to change how faculty engages with students, and to have closer interactions between students and faculty. I personally think that this is the kind of work that faculty should be doing. It’s really important that the faculty have this opportunity to make these changes,” Andrews said.
This is a project that involves all of the academic leadership around campus.
“PSU is rethinking the curriculum. We will take what we already do and make it better. What are the big ideas that will be relevant two, three, four years from now? You have to continue to invest. We should be looking at the next thing. PSU has always been an innovative institute, and I’m confident that we can do this,” explained Andrews.
“We’re trying to be very forward-thinking. This is about us figuring out a phenomenal PSU experience.”
Marilyn Moody, the head librarian at PSU, is also very involved in the process. She is trying to work with departments to set up a system that will not only incorporate the library into more of the programs offered on campus but also help departments figure out and submit their
“I have two jobs: The first is helping to think about how the library can be more involved with everyone on campus; the second is being part of a team looking at proposals and making recommendations and suggestions.”
Moody then goes on to explain that MOOCs—Massive Open Online Courses—could be one example of possible changes.
This would involve offering students the opportunity to do heavy, study-intensive learning outside of class, allowing a more hands-on learning process in class.
“It’s a chance for departments, colleges and groups of faculty interested in working together to come together for this challenge. I’m pretty excited about it,” Moody said.
Professor Ann Marie Fallon, director of the University Honors Program, was able to provide several examples of how reTHINK PSU may be able to change the program.
“There have been huge innovations in higher education, and PSU is looking to find a way to be a leader.
“What we can do is to continue to honor high-achieving students by changing out learning objectives and investigating MOOCs in combination with what we already have.”
This will happen through the use of online courses and innovative changes incorporated between programs.
This challenge is still in its infancy stage, but within a month there will be proposals posted online on the PSU website, where students and faculty can propose, edit and comment on the ideas put forth to advance our university. Those proposals that seem the most feasible will be the ones receiving the small monetary awards to make them happen.
Check out reTHINK PSU at pdx.edu/oaa/rethinkpsu. | <urn:uuid:f293cea5-24fe-4f9e-b7ce-e822ec483aea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pdx.edu/shac/news/students-and-staff-rethink-psu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956379 | 986 | 1.726563 | 2 |
At UCLA we have an Alzheimer's research center that is looking at a variety of medications for better treatments of Alzheimer's disease. We also have an NIA-supported program project grant that is looking at better brain imaging markers and blood tests to help us understand the disease better and perhaps diagnose it earlier.
I'm convinced that within the next decade, if we stay on course, we will have much more effective treatments and we will be able to diagnose a problem much earlier in its course. I think it's going to be easier to protect a healthy brain rather than try to treat a brain once damage has set in. So, I think there's a lot of cause for hope in the area of research in Alzheimer's disease at UCLA and throughout the world. | <urn:uuid:d80c197e-49e5-45ee-bf24-07d15c85b282> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AlzheimersQuestions/story?id=7470319 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980333 | 152 | 1.71875 | 2 |
US to give additional USD 155 mn aid to Syrians
Washington, Jan 29 : The US Tuesday announced it was providing the conflict-hit Syrian people an additional USD 155 million in humanitarian aid.
The new aid will "help meet the acute needs of people inside Syria and refugees across the region who are affected by the violence in Syria", Xinhua quoted State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland as saying in a statement.
The new funding includes the USD 10 million announced last week in Turkey by a visiting US delegation, she said.
The total US aid to Syria has now reached USD 365 million.
Last week, senior US officials, including Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford, visited camps for displaced Syrians in Turkey and held talks with Turkish officials.
During the visit, the delegation announced that Washington would give USD 10 million of aid to help supply daily food to 210,000 people in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. | <urn:uuid:c7bdfc87-91ab-4a44-a52c-38a65056510c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newkerala.com/news/newsplus/worldnews-129976.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965924 | 185 | 1.625 | 2 |
Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey is expected today to announce he’s seeking input from the legal community and the general public on what reworked state judicial district maps should look like.
Tennessee’s judicial districts have not been redrawn since 1984. And with districts set to elect their district attorneys general, public defenders and state trial court judges this August, some powerful figures in the General Assembly are saying that this legislative session represents the best chance to improve the efficiency of the districts through redistricting.
“The last time our judicial districts were updated Waylon Jennings and Michael Jackson were at the top of the charts,” Ramsey told TNReport in a statement. “Tennessee is a far different place that it was in 1984. Formerly rural counties have become thoroughly suburban, and our suburban counties now confront problems similar to urban areas. We desperately need to take a fresh look at this judicial map to ensure Tennesseans receive the best possible service from their judges, district attorneys and public defenders.”
At a forum sponsored by the Associated Press last week, Ramsey said Tennessee’s judicial districts are “completely out of whack.”
Ramsey added that he isn’t particularly looking forward to the undertaking. He indicated the process of legislative redistricting last year was a bigger headache than he’d anticipated.
“Really, there’s no political upside to this,” the East Tennessee Republican said. “It is something that I just think is good government and efficiency and making sure that the judiciary operates as efficiently as we do.”
Ramsey also said that, in addition to the public at large, he is requesting input from those that would be directly affected, such as the Trial Judges Association, the District Attorneys General Conference and the Tennessee Bar Association.
Officials with the state’s Administrative Office of the Courts have said they have no opinion on redistricting, but Ramsey has said that the process will likely be controversial.
The debate over judicial redistricting is not a new one. Unlike legislative redistricting, it is not mandated by the Tennessee Constitution. And since the mid-1990s — about 10 years after the last redistricting — state officials have been debating how best to go about it — or whether to do it at all.
In 2007, the Comptroller’s Office awarded a $126,522 contract to the Justice Management Institute and George Mason University to conduct a study of potential judicial redistricting in Tennessee (pdf).
The five-page report after the study came to this conclusion: There was no need for redistricting, but more study was needed.
From the report: “Only a few people provided any thoughts about potential benefits, namely the creation of more time available to justice professionals to process cases, lower caseloads and reduced travel time.” | <urn:uuid:f4e9c306-03f7-4a8d-8ac9-4fb5f9f28b6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tnreport.com/2013/02/11/ramsey-seeks-input-from-public-pros-on-judicial-redistricting-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963241 | 588 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The very public death of the Washington Dream Act has left those in Olympia who killed the legislation grasping for a way of explaining why they wouldn’t permit the state Senate even to vote on it.
The latest line, peddled on a conservative radio talk show: Democrats’ purpose in sponsoring the legislation — aimed at making undocumented college students eligible for state financial aid — was to make Republicans look racist.
After being passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the state House of Representatives, the legislation died in the Senate Higher Education Committee. The panel’s chair, Sen. Barbara Bailey, R-Oak Harbor, wouldn’t allow the committee to vote on it.
Bailey was a guest last week on conservative talk radio KVI, where Republican State Chairman Kirby Wilbur is a frequent fill-in host. The two debunked the Dream Act as a way of damaging the Republican franchise rather than helping immigrants’ kids get an education. Democrats had just failed in a bid to force a Senate floor vote.
“It should be obvious, at least to anyone with an IQ above their waist size, that these (bills) have been picked for their political impact, has nothing to do with caring and compassion, to continue this mantra that Republicans are racists,” said Wilbur. “I mean, it seems to me it’s pretty obvious.”
Sen. Bailey agreed.
“It is pretty obvious that it is political. This bill has been brought forward at least twice before by (Sen.) Ed Murray, who is the sponsor of the Senate bill, at a time when both the Senate, the House and the governor’s mansion were controlled by the Democrats and it begs the question: If this is such an important, absolutely needed bill, why didn’t it pass during those times?
“Here’s another fact: If these (undocumented) students were added to the pool that already exists, underserved (sic) citizens, then the only way those students would ever get financial aid is if they are considered and given preferential treatment above citizens.”
Such comments may play on KVI, but they’ll never win any votes for Republican Party candidates. Apparently, somebody in the Republican Party understood that.
The key passages were edited out of “The Weekly Rundown for April 19, 2013,” a weekly Web posting by the Washington State Senate Republican Caucus. (The airbrushed tape can be heard at http://src.wastateleg.org/the-weekly-rundown-for-april-19-2013/)
Supporters of the Dream Act scoff at claims made by Wilbur and Bailey.
“Senator Bailey should ask the 22 Republicans — half the caucus — who voted for the Dream Act if this is just political,” said Collin Jergens of Fuse Washington, a progressive group that campaigned for the legislation.
(Reps. Norma Smith and Dave Hayes, Bailey’s two Republican seatmates from the 10th District, both voted for passage of the Washington Dream Act. A Yakima-area Republican, Rep. Bruce Chandler, was a major champion of the legislation.)
“The Dream Act is about opening the doors of opportunity for thousands of young Washingtonians,” he added. “The only remaining obstacle is Sen. Bailey.”
Patrick Stickney, a Western Washington University student government leader, has been back-and-forth to Olympia lobbying for the legislation. “If the Dream Act were a partisan issue, Texas wouldn’t have this legislation on the books,” Stickney said.
The hand-washing has not been limited to Sen. Bailey. The Senate is ruled by a coalition of 23 Republicans and two Democrats. One of those Democrats, Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina, is Senate majority leader, sits on Bailey’s committee and professes support for the Washington Dream Act.
Tom has taken to blaming Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, for its failure. The “Senate Majority Coalition” offered Kohl-Welles chairmanship of the Higher Education Committee. She refused to take it, on grounds that the governing coalition was under Republican control and would leave her with no authority.
Tom sent out a legislative “session update” last week that sharply attacked Kohl-Welles. He was called to account by Murray for violating Senate rules by using the email newsletter to deliver a partisan attack on a colleague. The update, too, was edited.
What can’t be airbrushed or edited is this: The Dream Act would have made eligible for state need grants hundreds of young people who were brought to the United States and Washington as young children, and who have lived most of their lives in the Evergreen State.
In what is often the only country they have known, these young people are pursuing the American dream — for which an education is a prerequisite. A large number of them descended on Olympia, a couple weeks back, to tell their stories at a public hearing. Sen. Bailey canceled the hearing. | <urn:uuid:eecca55e-f298-4197-9510-aa8a96cc15a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/page/13/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964569 | 1,060 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Does Peter Joseph von Lindpainter's Bassoon Concerto really exist? Do you have a whereabouts, or recording, or anything?
Regards, [an actual professional bassoon player]
Hello, [actual professional bassoon player] --
This is not the kind of question I get every day! ...but yes, the Peter Joseph von Lindpaintner Bassoon Concerto in F Major exists, and I am listening to it as we speak. It's the highlight piece on the 1996 Naxos recording "Bassoon Concertos from the Courts of Baden and Wurttemburg," with Albrecht Holder on the Bassoon and the Stuttgart Philharmonic under Nicolas Pasquet. The recording also includes pieces by Molter, Kreutzer, and Kalliwoda, whoever they all are. I think you'll find that it's a pleasant, charming CD, but I bet you'll also agree that it's no mistake that we talk more about Mozart and Haydn than we do about Lindpaintner and Kalliwoda. Enjoy!
Wow, what a surprise. It's almost like a joke. It's staggering sometimes who pops up from history, given the resurgence of period music. Now we'll see if the music is published as well. Thanks again for getting back with me. Appreciated.
All the best, [an actual professional bassoon player]
The next letter refers to a recent Element of the Month, which I will call 5000um here because the writer obviously has an internet spider that alerts him when anyone blogs about, um, 5000um.
Thanks for writing about 5000um. I joined the 5000um Corporation in 1981, right out of engineering school. It's been a great place to work, many very cool applications as you note, and still a relatively unknown material. It gets a lot more press now days with the use in Flat Panel Displays, but still not as known as well as copper, tin,...
I noted in your article that there is a use of 5000um in ball bearings. I am not aware of the ball bearing application, but I am familiar with its use in sleeve bearings, over all a slight nuance. This application found its original use in aircraft engines during World War II. There are still high performance applications that require these bearings and happily they still use an 5000um coating. The coating improves the life of the bearing. By chance was the application you were referring to? If not I wonder if you can provide any further information on the application. Being the 5000um Corporation, we like to learn about all the uses of the element from which we take our name.
Thanks for your time.
Regards, [a actual materials engineer]
Hi, [actual materials engineer] -----
Thanks for your note! As far as knowing about any specialized applications for 5000um, I honestly wouldn't know a ball bearing from a sleeve bearing from a compass bearing. The lion's share of the information for my monthly posts on the elements is nothing more than what I dredge from wikipedia and similar sources. I'm just giving myself a crude education on the periodic table, and trying to jazz it up a little bit to amuse my friends. I should probably label it "for entertainment purposes only!"
Thanks again for writing,
The most frequent source of letters from strangers, though, is the symbol that I designed with all y'all's help in the Democracy Assisted Design (DAD) process a few years back. Generally, I suspect that people who write me about the symbol have not read the posts, which talk about how I am trying to create an arbitrary symbol ~that has no meaning~. Hence:
My sister and I are looking for a symbol to share as a tattoo. When i googled "symbol meaning sister" your artwork came up. Can you tell me a little bit more about your inspiration for this piece.
Sincerly, [someone's actual sister]
Hi, [someone's actual sister],
Well, it doesn't "mean sister" unless you decide it does, in which case it does!
What I was trying to do with the design is come up with something that looks like a symbol, but has no actual meaning. If you are curious about the design process, you can trace it from this blog post: http://michael5000.blogspot.com/2008/09/looking-for-sign-final-edition.html.
Have a question about what you've read on the L&TM5K? Feel free to write -- although, now that I think about it, how these people are getting my email address is mildly puzzling. But anyway, I am more than egotistical enough to answer anything that could be remotely described as "fan mail!"
...well, almost anything. I didn't answer this one.
Wwhat does that symbol stand for the ur putting on that rug? What is da meaning of it? Please respond asap. | <urn:uuid:234fa449-ec2a-4d4e-87c5-93d01f85bfe9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.infinitearttournament.com/2010/08/castle5000-mailbag.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958399 | 1,027 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Telling all about
When your grandparents bought their first home,
they did so at their own risk. Back then, real estate was governed by the ancient
Roman dictum of caveat emptor.
Today, however, "let
the buyer beware" has gone the way of gladiators and chariots. The operational
phrase in real estate now is let the seller beware.
of all states require that home sellers present home buyers with a property
disclosure form listing known legal hindrances, physical defects and even paranormal
activity relating to the property. Failure to do so could result in civil and
criminal action, and in some cases even recision of the sale.
ghost and meth labs
Some states have minimal disclosure requirements.
Does the seller have legal authority to sell the property? Are there any boundary
disputes, boundary agreements or encroachments? Is the house connected to public
sewers? Does the roof leak? Has there been an addition, remodel or other major
work, and was it completed to code? Are there structural cracks or defects?
In more stringent states,
the list can run to 10 pages, reflecting a variety of consumer or regional concerns,
including earthquake damage, mold, radon, insect infestations, even ghosts and
"The hottest new trend is methamphetamine labs
because some residue from that process is toxic," says Craig
Cheatham, chief executive officer of the Association of Real Estate
License Law Officials. "Some states like South Dakota have
a specific mention in their requirements that if there has ever
been a meth lab on that property, it must be disclosed."
Another disclosure hot button is home
insurance, according to Sandy Taraszki, executive director of
the Worldwide ERC's Coalition - Center for Governmental Issues.
"Arizona has passed an insurance disclosure,
where the seller has to provide a report that covers the last five
years, because new homeowners are increasingly having difficulty
getting insurance," she says. "At least two dozen states
have introduced insurance legislation because of the problem."
says disclosure can even reach beyond the property lines.
you're getting into things like water rights because people are struggling to
get the resources that are vanishing as we try to share the same things. That
creek in the backyard used to be all yours. Now you've got to make sure you've
got rights to the water in case somebody upstream takes it."
some once-touchy issues, such as whether the house
contains ghosts or was the scene of a murder, suicide or AIDS-related death,
have largely gone by the wayside, in part to uphold the seller's right of privacy.
usually comes down to an interpretation of what actually impacts the value of
the house," says Taraszki. "Some things are protected that you can't
disclose. For instance, in Pennsylvania, you do not have to disclose a haunted
In other words, let the buyer be scared.
getting very, very specific these days," says Cheatham. "The pendulum
swings various ways, from rights of privacy to consumer rights. Just how bad does
it have to be to be significant? People are still trying to find their way on
Buyer rights, seller
The move toward seller disclosure is a fairly recent
one. Until the late 1960s, the vast majority of real estate agents represented
the interests of home sellers exclusively. Buyers basically were left to kick
the tires and take their chances.
But with the rise of the
consumer-rights movement and buyer's agents came a growing body of case law that
overturned caveat emptor and held both sellers and their agents liable for failing
to disclose major known defects to a buyer.
The state Realtor
organizations that license and self-govern real estate practices within their
jurisdictions began to develop disclosure forms and encourage their use among
By the late 1980s, state legislatures
began to codify property disclosure as a natural extension of consumer-protection
laws. As a result, any home seller, whether represented by a real estate agent
"by owner," can be legally liable if a state's disclosure requirements
Today, most brokers use some form of seller
disclosure to protect their sellers and themselves, even in states where it isn't
required by law.
"The state doesn't necessarily cover
some of the areas that the industry feels are problematic, so what you're seeing
is state Realtor organizations developing forms that go further than the state-mandated
forms," says Taraszki. "Some states require that you use only their
forms; in other states, such as Pennsylvania, the state form is considered the
The federal government also chipped
in a nationwide disclosure requirement under the 1992 Real Estate Disclosure and
Notification Rule that requires all sellers of homes built before 1978 to disclose
the presence of lead-based paint.
you in court
So what does it all mean if your buyer drags you
"It depends," says Ralph Holmen, National
Association of Realtors associate general counsel. "If the seller completes
the form and outright lies, that clearly is going to be a problem; that's just
flat-out fraud. Similarly, if the broker knew that a misrepresentation was being
made, he or she could be held liable.
"If, on the other
hand, the seller simply made a mistake, there may or may not be culpability."
Some successful civil actions result in a monetary
award to correct the problem, and some states allow the buyer to
collect legal fees, says Holmen. In extreme cases, courts have given
the buyer the option to rescind the transaction and even recover
sale-related costs such as lender's fees.
NAR is so bullish
on disclosure that it has included it in its code of ethics, regardless of state
law. Not all real estate professionals are Realtors, however.
it helps equip sellers and brokers who represent sellers to defend themselves
when the buyer claims he was not told something or was told something incorrectly;
there is a record of what the buyer was told," says Holmen.
when you provide that information fully and early, you avoid (legal) problems
completely. The buyer knows what he's getting so there isn't any litigation at
Buyer (still) beware
Sounds great in theory. But buyer-broker Tom Wemett, former president of the National
Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents, says practical application is less than
Oftentimes, agents adopt a don't-ask, don't-tell
attitude just to secure a listing.
"What happens is that
listing agents go into the property with blinders on; they don't want to know
about that stuff. They hand the seller the property condition disclosure form
and say, 'Get this back to me so we can provide it to the buyer.' The problem
is, sellers never fill out the form correctly," he says.
also are those within the industry who feel that mandatory disclosure is simply
a big waste of time. Sellers are asked questions they are unqualified to answer
(Underground storage tank? Infestation?). Mandatory disclosure also gives agents
and brokers only the illusion of legal protection. Buyers would be better served,
they say, by a thorough
property inspection and an extended home warranty.
MacDonald is a contributing editor based in Mississippi. | <urn:uuid:e82ac365-2cfc-44ce-b0a8-d9fb853fb39c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bankrate.com/bosre/news/real-estate/buyerguide2004/disclosures.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948746 | 1,559 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Court strikes down Texas Voter ID law
Judges say photo ID requirement burden on the poor
A federal court has ruled against a Texas law that would require voters to present photo IDs to election officials before being allowed to cast ballots in November.
A three-judge panel in Washington ruled Thursday that the law imposes "strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor" and noted that racial minorities in Texas are more likely to live in poverty.
The court ruled that the new voter identification law in Texas would have an unconstitutional impact on the right to vote for poor people and especially Hispanics and African-Americans - the same minorities who were protected earlier in the week from Republican redistricting by another federal court panel.
This is the third court ruling in the past three days out of the federal courts striking down Republican voter laws. A federal panel on Wednesday blocked a Florida registration measure from continuing in effect. South Carolina's strict photo ID law is on trial in front of another three-judge panel in the same federal courthouse. A court ruling in the South Carolina case is expected in time for the November election.
In the opinion, drafted by U.S. Circuit Judge David Tatel, the judges said that lawyers defending Texas' the Voter ID law, SB 14, "have only their client to blame."
"The State of Texas enacted a voter ID law that — at least to our knowledge — is the most stringent in the country," Tatel wrote. "That law will almost certainly have retrogressive effect: it imposes strict, unforgiving burdens on the poor, and racial minorities in Texas are disproportionately likely to live in poverty. And crucially, the Texas legislature defeated several amendments that could have made this a far closer case."
Attorney General Greg Abbott responded quickly, saying he would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.
"The Supreme Court of the United States has already upheld Voter ID laws as a constitutional method of ensuring integrity at the ballot box. Today's decision is wrong on the law and improperly prevents Texas from implementing the same type of ballot integrity safeguards that are employed by Georgia and Indiana - and were upheld by the Supreme Court. The State will appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court, where we are confident we will prevail." | <urn:uuid:15f9759d-c98c-4f5a-9d0b-ff567e84e696> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theexaminer.com/stories/news/court-strikes-down-texas-voter-id-law | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971384 | 460 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Last week, Macroeconomic Advisors (MA) ran a blog post that expressed reservations about the estimate of the growth-impact of increased public investment that accompanied EPI’s analysis of the People’s Budget – a plan by the Congressional Progressive Caucus to reduce long-run budget deficits.
The short-version of their criticism is that they examined the estimate of the growth-enhancing effect of public investment that we provided and then compared it to what would fall out of a back-of-the-envelope calculation that assumed the United States economy was well-characterized by a textbook production function. Doing this, they then decided that the implied rate of return identified in the estimates that we used was simply too high to be feasible.
Below, we’ll walk through the reasons why their judgments should not be taken as definitive on this more-technical question. First, though, we’ll say a couple of words on the odd symmetry that MA tries to paint between EPI’s analysis of the People’s Budget and the Heritage Foundation’s estimate of the 2012 Republican budget resolution (aka the Ryan Plan).
The (now infamous) claims made by Heritage about higher gross domestic product and lower unemployment that would result in the 10 years following the adoption of the Republican budget plan stemmed from hugely unrealistic assumptions about: (1) the response of interest rates to lower federal budget deficits, and (2) the response of private-sector investment to these lower interest rates. A key issue to note in dismissing their projections is that there is very little scope for interest rates to fall in the next decade to the degree needed to spur such large investment responses – long-term rates sit at historically low levels today.
Furthermore, the Heritage Foundation’s claims about the growth-boost stemming from increased investments in the Ryan plan are even more far-fetched given the fact that the overwhelming bulk of private-sector response to lower interest rates in their model is centered on residential housing – not a sector generally thought to lead to large productivity boosts.
As a simple matter of transparency and research practice, they do not report any source for the parameters underlying their claims. Conversely, our assessment of the People’s Budget (and its public investment provisions) is based on our experience in drawing up a budget blueprint of our own. In this blueprint, the parameters concerning the possible growth-benefits of ramping-up public investment are explained in detail in an appendix and are transparently drawn from the peer-reviewed literature.
Most crucially, EPI does not use the estimates of improved growth stemming from public investments in our estimate of the People’s Budget effect on fiscal balance – for this we simply use static CBO economic projections.
Equally important, there is no symmetry between the CPC People’s Budget and the Ryan budget in terms of the substantive standards used for developing the budgets. In stark contrast to the Ryan/Heritage analysis, the revenue sources in the People’s Budget are identified, as are specific spending cuts (and increases). There are, in short, no magic asterisks. As has been well established, the Ryan budget assumes its revenue levels and the ability to substantially cut tax rates (paid for by unspecified tax expenditure reductions) and does not establish how they will be achieved. Therefore, all of the projected decreases in deficits presented in the Ryan budget are built on a significant number of these “magic asterisks.”
Macro Advisors seems frankly too eager to adopt a “pox on all houses” approach to macro-analysis of the budget debate, but this stance is not warranted, especially when their criticism of the People’s Budget and our analysis of it centers overwhelmingly on the implicit rate of return to public investment being “too high” in a very loose sense. Maybe they are right about this technical point (but probably not, see below), but this does not affect the projections of fiscal balance at all, and every step of the march toward a smaller deficit is documented in the People’s Budget but not in the Ryan plan. Furthermore, even if the quibble they have over the benefits of public investment is correct (which they themselves note is only about the size, not the direction, of its effect), then it is less a quibble with us than with what is a substantial peer-reviewed research literature on the topic. The same is assuredly not true with their (and our) disagreements with the Ryan plan and the Heritage Foundation’s analysis of it.
What bang-for-buck should we expect from increased public investment?
Now, getting to some weedier criticisms of the payoff in growth we argue could be expected from a substantial increase in public investment effort.
First, we should note again that the estimate of the growth-payoff from public investment is not actually our estimate per se – we chose one of the latest and most methodologically advanced estimates from the peer-reviewed literature (Heintz 2010) to use as our central point estimate. In fact, we were trying to be relatively uncontroversial in parameters we chose throughout the analysis of the People’s Budget – we engaged in no ‘add-factors’ or anything of the like. If the Heintz estimate was a lonely outlier in this literature, then that would perhaps raise questions, but it’s really not.
The MA response to the bang-for-buck of public investments, however, mirrors a common pattern in the empirical literature on public investment; researchers routinely find very large estimates of public investment’s effect on growth and subsequently endeavor to whittle them down to more “reasonable” sizes. Take, for example, the work of Kamps (2006), a careful study that finds large (roughly in the range of Heintz’s results) effects of public investment on growth in a time-series regression estimate for the United States. Kamps then cautions against taking this time-series estimate at face-value (for mostly sensible reasons aside from its simple magnitude), but then finds (but does not remark upon) an identical effect for the United States when examining a panel regression with 21 other OECD countries.
Second, the heart of the argument in the MA blog post is that the large implied rate of return from these regression-based findings sits uneasily with back-of-the-envelope calculations derived from a Cobb-Douglas production function; essentially saying that the simple magnitude of these rates of return is prima facie evidence that they are unreasonable. There are two responses to this: (1) these rates of return are actually far less exceptional than MA makes them out to be; and (2) it is very unclear that when one sees a possible inconsistency between (a) regression-based empirical findings and (b) the implications of assuming the United States is a Cobb-Douglas economy with constant returns to scale that it is the former which must be scrapped.
On the first point, one should be quite careful in seeing a high rate of return and assuming that its simple size rules it out bounds. Implied rates of return on public investments of ~= 40% embedded in these regression-based co
efficients are not obviously inconsistent with other findings in growth economics. Isaakson (2009) finds higher rates of return to public capital investments than this in a study of developing countries, and rates of return about half this level for advanced OECD countries as a group. But he then notes “incidentally, the estimated rates of return for the United States are approximately at par with those obtained here for developing countries.” In the private sector, Oliner and Sichel (2002) found over the 1995-2001 period that software investments yielded a rate of return of over 40% and that accumulated software investments of less than $700 billion in real dollars over that time period increased productivity by 0.35% per year – roughly equivalent bang-for-investment buck to the regression-based estimates of returns to public investments. Lastly, DeLong and Summers (1992) famously found that social returns to all equipment investment looked to be greater than 30% for a large group of countries – and that this estimate applies to rich countries like the United States as well. In short, there is nothing about a “high” rate of return that by itself invalidates the finding.
Additionally, it’s far from clear that a Cobb-Douglas production function with constant returns to scale and with no spillover effects stemming from public capital investment onto multi-factor productivity is a consistency check good enough to invalidate careful regression-based estimates. Generally, if the data doesn’t fit the aggregate production function, one should think hard about whether or not you have got the right production function to describe the actual economy.
The evidence for the United States’ production function being “Cobb-Douglas” is far from obvious, and even specifying an income or output share of public capital services is a speculative exercise. Lastly, DeLong and Summers (1992) as well as Gu and MacDonald (2008) and Perreira and Roca-Sagales (2002) have all shown that public capital investments may also improve total factor productivity and not just improve output growth through simple capital deepening.
Third, in regards to MA’s issue that large defense cuts in the People’s budget could drag on long-run productivity growth, it should be noted that there is a much thinner literature to suggest that this is worrisome. As many studies find negative effects on long-run growth stemming from defense spending as positive, and no study puts any possible benefits from defense spending anywhere in the same neighborhood as that from increases in the public capital stock.
The quibble that the list of priorities that new public investments could help meet includes things besides plain-vanilla physical infrastructure also seems less worrisome to us. Intelligent investments in many facets of education can generate clearly “super-normal” returns, for example (see Heckman’s and Robert Lynch’s work on investments in pre-K education, for example). Investments that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions also clearly pass any serious cost/benefit analysis, even if only their insurance value in reducing the probability of climate catastrophes are accounted for. And yes, if some of these investments, on their way through the political process, get turned into pure consumption, then their growth effects will be lessened.
But, on this last point that we are allegedly calling all new domestic spending “investment,” when it’s actually not, it should be noted that there’s no reason for MA to assume that the People’s Budget is smuggling in lots of pure consumption spending in the $1.7 trillion increase. The reason for this is that the $1.7 trillion increase is over and above spending levels that already assume current appropriations rise with inflation. This is already, relative to all other budget plans out there (except for EPI’s own fiscal blueprint), extraordinarily protective of social consumption spending and transfers. Because baseline consumption spending is already so well-insulated in the People’s Budget baseline, if its architects assert that the extra $1.7 billion in spending is targeted at actual investments, then there’s little reason to doubt it. So, the budget is not calling all domestic discretionary spending ‘investment’ and calculating a return on what is actually consumption not investment.
To sum up, while the precise magnitude of the growth-enhancing effects of public capital stock increases can be debated, it needs to be reiterated that the overwhelming bulk of the literature finds that these effects are positive. Our disagreement with MA is solely about the magnitude of an economic parameter and the disagreement does not affect the accuracy (or solid basis) for the projected deficits in the People’s Budget. Given that there is essentially no disagreement that public capital investments do enhance growth, the larger point remains that responsible policymaking around the federal budget is not just about bringing revenues and spending closer together but about making sure that the budget is used to enhance future living standards.
Is the People’s Budget perfect? Of course not. The most obvious way it’s not is that it targets too-aggressive a fiscal contraction (as MA rightly notes). To us, the jobs crisis should be priority number one until it is solved, and one key impediment to solving it is a premature rush to austerity. We wish the People’s Budget had reflected this view more completely, but given that political currency in the budget debate has degenerated to how fast you can target balance, it’s understandable why their deficit reduction is so aggressive. Within the universe of plans reaching near-term balance, however, the People’s Budget is a stand-out for its transparency and honesty as well as keeping an eye on the bigger picture (long-run living standards growth and economic security for typical American families) as well as just the fiscal bottom-line.
Heritage also had bizarre relationships implicit between GDP, employment, and unemployment changes. For example, in 2012 they had GDP rising by $60 billion, yet employment rising by 1.1 million and unemployment falling by 2.1 percentage points. None of these three values go-together in any recognizable way based on past historical data. | <urn:uuid:fc60f882-9be1-4f69-a1da-0282022a8388> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.epi.org/publication/macroeconomic_advisors_supply-side_suspicions_and_false_symmetry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944592 | 2,735 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Perhaps because Dr. Dobb's has been around since 1975, I frequently get letters from readers to the effect that they've been programming 20|30|40 years and a current practice mentioned in an article is no different than what was being done in programming decades ago. I rarely publish these curmudgeonly dismissals of current practice because, in my view, they are almost always significant distortions of a superficial similarity. The most common attack I hear is that some Agile practice is nothing new, "we were doing that in the 1980s." That is almost always a fallacy. I hesitate only over the qualifier "always."
Programmers who worked in the 1980s know that even the most basic best practices and tools needed for Agile did not exist then. For example, most sites had no formal version control system. Version control was generally done by saving files using names containing dates, so you could go back to an earlier version on the basis of date (rather than what was changed). Once you were assured the current code more or less worked, you were encouraged to get rid of the date-marked intermediate versions. There was no pervasive ability to attribute code changes to a specific person because there was no way to track who had done what. Likewise, build management was not viewed as a discipline unto itself and there were few tools that enabled you to recreate an earlier version of a product because few shops kept track of what versions of components went into what release.
The concept of short sprints also did not exist at most sites. Actually, sprints of any kind were unknown. And modern practices such as continuous integration did not come into the common experience of developers until some twenty years later.
But perhaps the most telling difference between then and now was the view of the user. Up through the beginning of this century, the general IT view of the user was a sort of indulgent condescension. Users were seen as a necessary evil. They were certainly not people you'd encourage to participate in regular product reviews and provide constant feedback.
Without the practices of regular user feedback, short development cycles, continuous integration, and tools like version control, there was no ability to respond quickly to changing requirements. Consequently, there was no agility. Things that look like or smell like agility in such an environment are merely coincidental in appearance. However, even as far back as 1968, it was becoming clear to the folks who had eyes to see that the aforementioned model (despite its persistence as a valid approach for decades more) was not workable and in need of change. Here are some quotations on point taken from a report from a 1968 NATO software engineering conference (note that the full report is a 136-page PDF that loads slowly.)
"We are starting gradually, and building up. My motto is ‘do something small, useful, now.' Large systems must evolve, and cannot be produced all at one time. You must have an initial small core system that works really well."
And later technology approaches were anticipated: "System testing should be automated as well. A collection of executable programs should be produced and maintained to exercise all parts of the system...As an output of a test validation run, each test should list the modules it has exercised, and as well, should list the interfaces and tables it has tested. It is important to document success, as well as failure."
The report itself communicates a gathering dissatisfaction with the waterfall model of that era, which was highly focused on requirements gathering, design, and implementation as separate and distinct stages. There was also great concern that as program size grew, this approach would become increasingly unmanageable. The concern was primarily expressed in terms of cost and schedule, rather than anything else. Satisfying the user was considered a given via the requirements stage. So there was no strong feeling about the need for a methodology that enabled changes to occur during the development phase. The closest anyone comes (in my scan of the document) is this statement: "Users are interested in systems requirements and buy systems in that way. But that implies that they are able to say what they want. Most of the users aren't able to. We should have feedback from users early in the design process." Not exactly a full embrace, is it?
We can see that the idea of constant user involvement had not yet emerged even among leading adopters. And there lies the crucial factor. Today, we operate profoundly differently, not just because we have better technology (although certainly that's a major contributor) and better development practices, but because we have a user-centered approach to development. In that sense, modern practices are different, in fact fundamentally different, from those of previous generations. | <urn:uuid:01ddf36b-b8fe-4394-bd56-d8e61b10eeea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drdobbs.com/testing/its-the-user/232300570 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984896 | 947 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Who's your dictator?
Who's your dictator?
By Paul Jacob
In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson declared, “The world must be made safe for democracy.”
In the century that followed, hundreds of thousands of American sons and daughters paid the ultimate price — and suffered other “expensive” consequences in blood and treasure and peace of mind — pursuing all manner of missions connected directly or ever-so-tenuously to this cause. Today, in Iraq and Afghanistan, my fellow citizens continue to fight and die to uphold that proclamation.
Too bad our leaders couldn’t tell democracy from tyranny if our lives depended on it.
Which, of course, they do.
What would any reasonable person call a leader who has held power for 30 years under an enforced state of emergency? Who wins sham elections wherein his challengers are arrested and opposition parties forcibly disbanded? Who has had his son waiting in the wings to snatch the reins of power as if “divine right” had returned in vogue?
“Dictator!” is the answer.
But what would our nation’s political leaders term this boss-for-life of a government so rife with corruption that his nation’s economy remains a stagnant sewer of structural double-digit unemployment, where friends of the leader get richer and everyone else gets poorer? Who imprisons bloggers daring to question his policies and now turns off the Internet and cell phone communications like we flip a light switch? Who stays in power by employing the various T’s of tyranny: The truncheon, thugs, torture, tanks and a general state of terror?
Which is it: Is Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek a dictator or a trusted ally?
Asked days ago, if, finally, it wasn’t “time” for Mr. Mubarek to step down, Vice-President Joe Biden told the world, “No.” He went on to offer, “I would not refer to him as a dictator.”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton originally pronounced Mubarek’s government “stable” and disingenuously said it was “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.”
He may be a dictator, but he’s our dictator?
The American state funds the Mubarek regime, and has for decades. In the 2011 budget, President Omaha requests $1.5 billion in aid to the Egyptian government. That’s less than in 2006, when Mubarek took $1.8 billion.
The head honcho of the most populous country in North Africa ranks a respectable fourth on the list of world rulers graciously accepting the $58 billion in foreign aid fleeced annually from American taxpayers. (Would you be surprised to learn that taxpayers are sending $12.9 million annually in aid to China? Or $68.7 million to Russia? Or $20 million to Cuba?)
Now, as the protests swell and there’s more than a whiff of revolution, President Obama and Mrs. Clinton scramble to “look busy” and pontificate on the unfolding situation. Yesterday’s Washington Post played along, headlining one story “Obama warns against violence, urges Cairo to institute reforms.”
No call for the dictator to step down, mind you, but the Egyptian crowds facing water cannons, Billy-clubs, bullets and tear gas — with canisters labeled “Made in the USA” — are no doubt inspired by these rhetorical flourishes.
Soon, if evil finds its deserved comeuppance, Mubarek will be gone. And yet some Americans will claim surprise if the new Egyptian government sees the United States as an enemy.
Others Arab dictatorships funded and supported by the U.S. will and should fall. The sooner the better. And we are likely to have more enemies.
So in order to make the world safe for democracy, to see American interests prevail, shall we hope that the jackboot stamps down the voice of the blogger and the student for years to come . . . forever?
Strange that Mr. Obama hasn’t recognized this as a teachable moment. Now that we’re broke, shouldn’t we stop going deeper into debt to finance dictatorships of the right, left and in-between?
Some argue that Americans must support despots to block more serious threats. They forget that freedom and democracy must continually win the hearts and minds of the world’s people. To constantly wed our foreign policy to the thumb-screw can only breed enemies from people who should be our friends. Empowering the lesser of two apparent evils in every instance means that America’s face to the world can appear most clearly as one thing: Evil.
Talk about the wrong message, the wrong stance.
American entrepreneurs deserve enormous credit for the tools — the Internet, the cell phone and social media — by which Egyptians have been organizing their rebellion . . . that is, until the regime pulled the plug days ago. It’s too bad these free enterprise innovations are overshadowed by our official national policy of supporting dictatorship. May the Egyptian people be forgiving of the U.S. government role in their current suffering.
Let’s hope this is a revolution in Egypt. For their sake. And for our sake, we need a new and far less costly foreign policy of not aiding and abetting tyranny.
And we need political leaders with the eye-sight and courage to recognize a dictator when they see one.
To read another article by Paul Jacobs, click here.
Posted by Brett at 10:52 PM | <urn:uuid:87ff44a9-bcaf-4088-864f-51dd012bd6e7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bcfoley.blogspot.com/2011/01/whos-your-dictator.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94357 | 1,184 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Whose powers would you rather have?
- Immortality: This ability is rather ambiguous, as Alucard himself has stated that immortality is a myth. However, what it most likely refers to is the human souls inside Alucard; it has been speculated that, when damaged by blow that would have killed or incapacitated him such as exceedingly holy weapons, the damage is instead directed to his reservoir of souls. Because this ability doesn't really grant him true immortality, it can be considered as psuedo-immortality. Although, this ability is no longer the source of his immortality after he absorbed Schrodinger's soul which did grant him immortality. Before he absorbed Schrodinger, Alucard states he's now "hungry", and starts to absorb the dead city of London, after which his soul count was equal to three million, four hundred and twenty-four thousand, eight hundred and sixty-seven. However, the "soul count" theory is just a fan theory, and has never been definitively proven. But it was stated by Anderson that this was the reason for him not being able to kill Alucard.
- Regeneration: Alucard's ability to regenerate is considerably greater than any other vampire's. He has regenerated from a pool of blood and from being blown to shreds by gunfire, incinerated completely, etc. When damaged to an extreme extent, his body simply turns into a shadow-like substance and reconstitutes. Exceedingly holy weapons have been shown to incapacitate him for a time, but even Anderson augmented with Helena's Nail could do no permanent harm to him. While regenerating against Anderson, he became a shadow entity at one point.
- Superhuman accuracy: Alucard has been known to hit targets at great range using handguns while looking the other way. He does this by using his so-called 'third eye'.
- Superhuman strength: The extent is unknown, but Alucard can physically rip humans and vampires apart with ease. He can slice through Tubalcain's card which is sharp and strong enough to easily cut through a uranium shell propelled at it without the slightest damage to the card. He can rip right through body armor with ease and lifted a falling fighter jet with just his upper body and didn't use any of his arms.
- Superhuman speed: He can move faster than can be seen. He can quickly move up a large building while appearing as a glint of light to Tubalcain identical to how Luke was appearing to Alucard
- Superhuman reflexes: he has demonstrated the ability to catch bullets (both Rip Van Winkle's and ordinary ones). He caught Rip Van Winkle's magic bullet, which punctured a SR-71 moving down at Mach 2.8+ speed several times in rapid succession before causing it to explode and intercepted missiles, with ease.
- Intangibility: The ability to pass through solid objects.
- Superhuman agility: The ability to defy gravity to an uncertain limit. He is also seen leaping impossible distances and can go up vertical surfaces.
- Shadow manipulation: Manipulation of shadows into physical form, which he can then use however he wishes.
Shape-shifting: Alucard can transform himself or parts of himself into bats, insects, snakes, hell hounds, other human forms including a little girl, an amorphous mass of darkness, and many other forms. Alucard has four known human forms, each with different characteristics and weapons. He also states that his form means nothing and that he can take any form that he chooses.
- Weather control: The ability to control the weather to an unknown limit, as demonstrated by the fog created when he returned to London aboard the H.M.S Eagle.
- Illusions:The ability to cast illusions, such as when he tricked Walter into seeing Luke Valentine as himself.
- Teleportation: The ability to disappear and reappear somewhere else.
- Telekinesis: In the manga, Alucard uses telekinesis to close a door on a fleeing SWAT officer. He also launched six SWAT officers into the air and guided them to flag poles where they were impaled. Alucard is later seen moving a broken down air-craft carrier from the Gulf of Italy to the Dover of London all in a little less than 40 minutes, only traveling at a few knots.
- Telepathy: Alucard can speak telepathically to his fledgling.
- Mind control and hypnosis: (fans sometimes call it the "Love Beam" after a remark from Pip).
- Summoning: The ability to summon familiars, the souls of those whose blood he has sucked in a variety of forms that either sprout from his body or swarm around him as an army numbering in the millions. These familiars can also include animals such as horses and the weapons and abilities that the familiars possessed in life, but Alucard can only use this ability when Control Art Restriction System Level Zero is released.
- Bloodsucking: The ability to suck a person's blood and absorb their soul and, consequently, their knowledge and memories. (He learns more about Millennium after absorbing Tubalcain.) He can also absorb blood through his clothes and skin, as he does with Luke Valentine's blood after his hell hound had eaten Luke's body. Alucard can draw in blood over vast distances (at least throughout the city of London).
- Hibernation: Alucard is able to survive long periods of time without consuming blood, but is able to fight at a usual level of strength after drinking even the smallest bit of blood.
- Immunity to vampiric weaknesses: His abilities and health are not in any way compromised by such things as sunlight or silver. In fact, it appears that the only weapons capable of harming him to any real extent are the most holy of Christian artifacts, such as Father Anderson after augmenting his abilities with Helena's Nail (a nail, which was from the True Cross, which crucified Jesus Christ, and was blessed in his blood) but even that did no permanent, or even lasting, damage.
- 'Supernatural sense': The ability to sense supernatural activity (In The Dawn, a prequel to Hellsing, Alucard knew the Captain was a werewolf the moment he saw him, and in the OVA, he could see the blessings on Father Anderson's bayonets).
- Combat experience: In addition to his superhuman abilities, Alucard also possesses centuries of combat experience. While he usually relies on crushing his opponents with sheer power, he does at times use strategy. When he fought Alhambra, Alucard used shadow duplicates to distract him, allowing Alucard to close the distance between them and deliver the death blow.
- Schrödinger's powers: At the end of the series, Alucard has acquired Schrödinger's quantum reality manipulation powers after absorbing him during the Millennium incident. This grants him the ability to exist wherever and however he wishes to. This enables him to be omnipresent at any given time.
- It is not known what Hellsing changed on Alucard's/Dracula's original powers. However, the ghoul army formed by the devoured souls in Alucard can be one of these. Dracula didn't use this ability against Prof. Van Helsing and his crew according to the flashbacks in the manga (and of course according to Bram Stoker's novel, which is a base of Hellsing). In addition, Van Helsing admitted that they had destroyed all of the vampire's servants (which means these servants can't re-appear in 1999). Maybe by some process the Hellsing Organization made advantage of the terrifying amount of the souls restored in Alucard, and made it possible to release them on the battlefield in Control Art Restriction System Level Zero. (In the ending of Hellsing OVA II, which is a trailer of The Dawn, it can be seen that some of the WW-2 german soldiers are impaled much like the Millenium and Crusader infantry in the battle of London. Also, the Major seem to know much about Alucard's release states. However, it is yet to be revealed in the ongoing Dawn-series whether this assumption is true or not.)
POWERS AND ABILITIES
Edward is the fastest vampire in the Cullen family. He and Jasper are the best fighters in their coven, though they are not the strongest. As a vampire, he has sharp senses, superhuman strength, speed, endurance, healing factor, and agility. He describes himself as the most dangerous predator in the world whereas his appearance, scent and voice are enormously attractive to his prey, so much so that he occasionally sends Bella into a daze entirely by accident. Edward explains that vampires do not need to breathe, though they often do so out of habit and to retain their ability to smell. He cannot digest human food, and compares its attractiveness for him to the prospect of eating dirt for a regular person. He also compares his family's "vegetarian" diet to a human only eating tofu, as it gives them the same strength as human blood but never fully satisfies them.
dward possesses the gift to read others' thoughts. His gift is different from Aro's, which is limited by his need to touch the target and can access every thought a person has ever had. Aro is very intrigued by Edward's power because he can read people's minds from a distance and what is going through their mind at that moment, and wishes to make him part of the Volturi Guard. However, Edward refuses.
Edward's power seemingly comes from his dormant ability to read people as a human, which became a supernatural talent when he became a vampire. He can hear all "voices" in range, but has learned to block out the ones he is uninterested in by focusing on one voice or something in particular. Edward mentions that his ability is like being in a room where everyone is talking at once. He can tune out the "voices" so that it's just a low buzzing in the background. The closer and more familiar he is to his target, the farther away he can reach when he wants to, but can only keep track of a person within a few miles. He mentions in Twilight that he can use it to dismiss people who feel attraction toward him and his family. He can also telepathically experience Alice's visions and keep track of a shape-shifter's telepathic link to his pack when he is within range. However, he cannot read Bella's thoughts as she is shielded, which is part of what made him curious about her when they first met. | <urn:uuid:d3690a1d-8d1b-4b7a-9a81-a446ab82a74f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.comicvine.com/forums/gen-discussion-1/alucard-or-edward-657821/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978952 | 2,207 | 1.695313 | 2 |
It has been widely reported that Tiger Woods will not play in his own tournament, or appear at other events before the end of the year. His stated reason for withdrawing from public view is that he was injured in his unexplained car accident. However, his injuries were reported to be minor. More likely, it is the concern about damage to his reputation that has sent him into seclusion. His situation underlines the lasting result of the first choices an individual or organization makes after a negative event, and the impact of public scrutiny on even the most well-liked public figures.
The effect of the accident itself on his reputation, and on his career as an endorser, should have been minimal. But Tiger may be making the situation much worse by his subsequent choices. Now he has stimulated the imaginations of millions of people by compounding the mystery of what actually happened with behavior that appears evasive, if not suspicious.
Fans of irony will also appreciate the unintended consequence of one of his most visible campaigns. Plastered over the walls of airports everywhere is the image of Tiger Woods considering his next shot in Accenture’s long-running ad series. The headline reads: “It’s what you do next that counts.”
No kidding. Especially in public situations. Tiger’s decision to hide and ask for privacy offers lessons for individuals and organizations facing the heat of unplanned attention.
The first, and biggest, point we can take away from Tiger Woods’ brush with infamy is that public figures can have no expectation of privacy in a 24-hour, instant-information world.
This is especially true for people who sell their celebrity as endorsers, as Tiger Woods has done. Even beloved celebrities don’t earn the right to privacy–no matter how much they protest to the contrary. At best, well-liked public figures with “good guy” images may have more reputation resilience. That is, their reputation will recover more quickly, overall, than others in similar situations. But if fame has a cost today, it isn’t just the loss of privacy, it is the risk of instant infamy.
The second lesson to take from the Mr. Woods’ experience is: No matter what, celebrities, executives, and organizations that come under investigation should rapidly declare their intent to cooperate with authorities. Declining to be interviewed by the police in an accident where you were the driver just looks like defensive legal maneuvering, or arrogance. Neither is good for anyone’s reputation. Cooperation may not be the best legal approach for people or companies that have something to hide, but that’s just the point. Resistance to an official inquiry is widely seen as a signal that there must be more to know, information that is worth trying to keep out of view. There is no better bait for the gossip media and public speculation.
Like the maxim in science that nature abhors a vacuum, celebrity gossip also hates an absence of information. If the people involved don’t talk, everyone else will, including the police. Once the speculation is out there, and especially if there isn’t much factual information to go on, the same theorizing and assumptions are replayed over and over. As a result, a celebrity drama can quickly be blown up into a crisis. Thanks to the long-lasting nature of internet content, it stays out there in public view, no matter what is ultimately disclosed.
What is the economic impact of this imbroglio on Woods and his sponsors? That question is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The outlook for Tiger is probably good, unless there is a lot more, and worse, that we haven’t yet heard about his situation. The volatility and recovery of the economic value of reputation can be measured and tracked over time. So, we can say with certainty that celebrities, executives, and companies with mostly positive reputations will almost always bounce back from their first scandal.
It’s important to realize that reputation isn’t just one thing. It is a collection of attributes, and each attribute of Tiger’s reputation that this event harms will recover at a different rate. Eventually, when more is known or more time has passed, his reputation value will recover overall. But certain elements may never be strong again and a lot depends on how much more there is to the story he wants to suppress.
While his reptuation value may recover, his reputation risk will be higher. Reputation risk is the likelihood of further negative change in reputation value, whether from deeper impact of the current situation, or a new pattern of negative events or other reptuation damage. For a visible public figure who is compensated as an endorser, higher reputation risk may lead to the quiet renegotiation of contracts at a discounted fee, or if things get worse for him, the end of sponsor relationships.
But, as this situation unfolds or is resolved, some of Tiger Woods’ reputation elements may rise in value. He may also be more attractive to some new sponsors who are looking for a little more edge, and want to take advantage of his temporary (we assume) brush with infamy.
How could Tiger have avoided most of the impact of this situation on his reptutation and its value? For well-regarded, high-profile personalities or visible institutions and their leaders, the best antidote to instant notoriety is already well known:
- Announce at least the basic facts yourself, before the media and amature gossip sleuths go off hunting for experts to speculate on what happened.
- Cooperate with the authorities, or at least declare your intent to cooperate.
- Aim for quick resolution, including disclosure of enough details to avoid independent digging for “what really happened.”
- Admit fault, to some degree, and commit to do better. (Tiger Woods did say the accident was his fault, but he eliminated the benefit of that statement by asking for the impossible–privacy–and declining the opportunity to look contrite and cooperative when the police asked to interview him.)
- Follow the resolution of the incident with a period of being as boring as possible. The person in the spotlight should recommit to focusing on the activity, skill or talent that created the original reason for his or her fame.
- Celebrities and high-profile executives should rehearse what to do in the event of a situation that can attract negative attention. Organizations invest time preparing for inevitable, but unpredictable, crises. Individuals can do the same.
As the ad says, it’s what you do next that counts…Tiger. | <urn:uuid:e470a133-0b90-41ec-bbab-041b183ae89e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reputationpoint.com/2009/11/30/its-what-you-do-next-that-counts-tiger/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967778 | 1,352 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is VES?
Volunteer Emergency Squad (VES) is a division of the CCNY Safety Services. It is staffed and ran entirely by committed student volunteers. VES's main responsibility is to provide quality emergency medical care (basic life support services) to the campus populace. VES members are either an emergency medical technician (EMT) licensed by the New York State Department of Health or a certified First Aid/CPR/AED provider.
2. What are Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs)?
EMT is a health care provider trained to provide prehospital emergency medical care. EMTs are trained to assist higher level EMTs (paramedic) and other medical personnel (e.g. physicians and nurses). EMTs provide patient care in accordance with protocols and guidelines established by physician medical directors. EMTs are trained in various emergencies (e.g. medical, trauma emergencies, etc) and procedures that need to be deployed rapidly (e.g. treatments for cardiac arrest).
3. What is the difference between CCNY-VES EMTs and 'regular' EMTs?
There is no difference. While we are a volunteer service, all VES EMTs are state certified following a NYS approved EMT course, the same EMT course that all NYC*EMS EMTs go through.
4. What is the difference between CCNY-VES and Wellness and Counseling Center (WCC)?
WCC is trained in providing non-emergency procedures (i.e. getting vaccinated, health consultation, etc), while VES is trained in providing emergency procedures (i.e. seizure, fractures, etc).
5. How confidential is VES?
By law we are required to maintain a level of confidentiality that includes not divulging your information to parties not directly involved in your medical care. After you are treated, we are not allowed to talk with your parents, your friends, or even the police regarding what happened to you.
6. How do I request VES service?
VES is dispatched by the CCNY Department of Public Safety. In an emergency, dial x7777 from any campus phone, or (212) 650 7777 from any other phones. VES has an average response time of 4 minutes.
7. What happens if I call 9-1-1?
If you dial 9-1-1, CCNY-VES and Department of Public Safety will not receive your call and a NYC*EMS ambulance, along with NYPD will be dispatched for your emergency (see #9 for one reason to call CCNY-VES instead). Since NYC*EMS may not be familiar with the layout of the campus or the best way to access different buildings, your service might be delayed.
8. Do I have to be a student to receive VES services?
No. VES provides care to anyone who is on campus (i.e. students, faculty, staff, visitors, etc).
9. How does VES transport patients to a hospital?
We do not. Once VES is dispatched to a patient on campus, we will evaluate if the patient needs to be transported to a hospital. If so, we will call for a NYC*EMS ambulance. Otherwise, we will treat you on the scene and let you go.
10. Will I get a bill for services rendered by VES?
No. VES always provides treatment free of charge to all patients. Patients will only get billed by NYC*EMS, if he/she needs to be transported to a hospital.
11. When is VES available?
VES is available from 8:00am to 8:00pm Monday through Thursdays and 8:00am to 4:00pm on Fridays, every school day except in the summer.
12. I know some VES members or we attend the same class together, and I'm afraid that if I ever need to call VES, one of them will be the one responding (how awkward!). What should I do?
This is a common issue encountered within a small community. By law we are not allowed to talk about patients (see #5). In addition, you will receive the same treatment as any others, regardless if you know any of the on duty members or not.
13. I have a minor cut or injury and I happened to be in Shepard Hall. What should I do?
VES does provides walk-in service for minor injuries (i.e. small cuts). If we believe that the injury is severe enough, we will contact the Department of Public Safety and request a NYC*EMS ambulance to transport you to a hospital. We do not recommend you to stop by our office if you're feeling dizzy, sprained an ankle, etc, instead call x7777 from any campus phone or (212) 650 7777 from any other phone and we will respond to your location.
14. Where and how do I sign up for CPR/AED classes?
You can always stop by or call our office to inquire about the schedule or check out our schedule online
15. Do I need previous training to join VES?
No. You do not need previous training to join, but it is preferred. We have American Heart Association (AHA) certified instructors to train you in CPR, First Aid, and AED.
16. How much time do I need to commit to VES?
Each semester, VES members are required to run at least two shifts a week. The morning shift is from 8:00am to 12:00pm. The afternoon shift is from 12:00pm to 4:00pm. The evening shift is from 4:00pm to 8:00pm. During your shift, you must carry a VES radio and be available to respond to any medical emergencies that arise during that time. You must remain on the City College campus during your shift. It is okay that your class overlaps with your shift as long as the professor approves and you are allowed to leave the class during an emergency.
* For any other questions, please email us. | <urn:uuid:d7a1d104-658c-48df-9992-11967f940988> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://transcoder.usablenet.com/tt/http:/www1.ccny.cuny.edu/current/ves/faqs.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948315 | 1,276 | 1.75 | 2 |
Retirement investment strategies are a hot topic all of a sudden. Not only has the investment landscape shifted over the last decade, a big portion of the population is headed toward retirement.
With thousands of baby boomers reaching their 60th to 65th birthdays every day, the search is on for investments that can produce enough income to support a comfortable retirement. It can be a problem, since the last decade has shaken a lot of confidence in Wall Street.
"Right now, $9.43 trillion is sitting in cash vehicles as people are moving away from the stock market," said Steve Jurich, President of IQ Wealth Management, in Scottsdale, Ariz. "The demand for that risk, for the potential upside in the stock market, has shifted sideways. The smart investor is asking where they can go to ensure a stable retirement income. That's now an area of demand."
Hybrid index annuities
Jurich is an advocate of the Hybrid Index Annuity, which has emerged as the hottest sector of the retirement investment scene since the Great Recession. Consumers nearing retirement often find it attractive because it is said to combine the best features of many different types of annuities.
Stan Haithcock, an annuity specialist in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., says the Hybrid Index Annuity is still little understood by most investors.
"Please understand that indexed annuities are complex products, and the majority of agents are unable, or unwilling, to properly explain them and usually just focus on a few sizzle points," he writes.
First, let's focus on plain old annuities. An annuity is a stream of fixed payments you will receive, based on the amount of money you put in and how it is invested. The company managing the annuity takes what you pay in and invests it, creating returns that are used to fund the regular payments you receive.
Some retirees like the idea of an annuity because it's money they can count on each month. However, the return on the money is usually fairly modest, which results in lower payments.
Some annuities pay for a fixed period of time and then stop. Others, called "life annuities," pay as long as you live. These annuities are usually sold by insurance companies.
A hybrid Index annuity generally pays a standard rate of interest but also delivers the possibility of gains if the stock market goes up. It's this potential for upside gain that many find attractive. Jurich says it's a different breed that provides stability while preserving the option to make money when the market goes up.
"You don't have to worry about losing money, and there are still competitive rates of payout," he said.
But in a report on annuities, Walter Updegrave, senior editor at CNN Money, said the hybrids are hardly all gain and no pain. While they can shield you from market setbacks, he writes, their hefty fees and many restrictions dramatically dampen their growth potential.
Watch out for fees
In any retirement plan, fees are a major concern since they can cut into earnings. Since many retirement investments tend to be conservative in nature, there isn't a lot of growth there to start with.
Ideally, soon-to-be-retired consumers should be getting their financial advice from someone who is not trying to sell them an annuity, or any other type of investment for that matter. A retirement investment portfolio should be custom-tailored to the individual's needs and goals.
Over the last decade, with the stock market showing little long-term growth, some financial advisers and their clients have found income-producing securities to be an attractive way to build a retirement nest egg.
For example, investments in stocks or mutual funds that produce regular quarterly dividends provide a steady flow of cash. Over time, the value of the security might also rise, giving the investor two benefits -- income and growth. The stock price could also go down, but the dividends would continue in most cases.
Look for profitable companies
Not all stocks pay a dividend, but many do. Paying a dividend is one way a company returns a portion of its profits directly to its shareholders. So, before a company can pay a dividend, it needs to be profitable.
While banks are paying less than one percent on CDs, blue chip companies like Johnson & Johnson, Campbell Soup, General Mills, Chevron, and Kimberly Clark, pay dividends of three percent or more. Altria, Eli Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, AT&T and Verizon, pay dividends of five percent or more.
A company may cut its dividend, so the income is not guaranteed. It requires the investor to follow the stocks in the investment portfolio closely. Still, the returns can be impressive.
If you invested $100,000 in a balanced, diversified portfolio of high-yield stocks that yielded on average six percent, your money would earn $6,000 a year in dividends, as long as the companies continued to pay those dividends. You would receive the dividends, usually paid quarterly, whether the price of the stock went up or down. If the stock value rose three percent per year, that's a combined nine percent annual return.
Master limited partnerships
For funds in a tax-deferred retirement account, you might ask your financial adviser about master limited partnerships (MLP) that have issued common stock. MLP dividends tend to be even higher because the companies are required by law to return more of their profits to shareholders.
It's not uncommon for an MLP to pay a dividend of eight or nine percent. While the tax reporting requirements can make them a nuisance for small investors, there are generally no tax reporting requirements if the shares are owned in a tax-deferred account.
Before making any investments, however, you should do research and consult with a qualified and objective financial adviser. | <urn:uuid:da99a530-a1ad-4298-a6d2-d8370e229a5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/hybrid-index-annuity-becoming-the-hot-retirement-investment-vehicle-020813.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966623 | 1,206 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Use online banking to manage your finances better
November 10, 2006
Great strides in technology have made life a lot easier. Thirty years ago, anyone who had to transact with the bank had to go to his own branch, bring his passbook, fill up forms, fall in line, and then wait for his turn.
The advent of automated teller machines (ATMs) in the '80s made it possible for people to withdraw cash and do other banking transactions even after banking hours or on weekends – all in less than five minutes.
Then came phone banking which allowed depositors to do the same without leaving their house or office.
With the Internet age, consumers do not even have to wait for a phone operator. A computer and an Internet connection will allow anyone to transact with their bank at the click of a mouse.
Bank when you feel like it
Why go online for banking? It is an alternative way of banking with many benefits, among which are the following:
- It is convenient. You can do it anywhere, be it your home, office or the coffee shop down the corner. All you need is a computer with modem and an Internet connection. You don't have to drive or walk over to a bank branch, except to withdraw cash. You can perform most banking transactions by logging on to your bank’s online banking website. You can also do it anytime, 24 hours a day even on weekends.
- It is free. Because you don't have to physically go over to your bank, you save on gas or transportation fare and parking.
- It is fast. Because you immediately log on to the network, you are in effect serviced fast by the bank. You can finish your transactions in five minutes or less. No need to fall in line. You save a lot of time.
- It is secure. Banks take precautions against hacking and other types of online fraud. Citibank Online, for instance, is secure. "We have the highest type of encryption available in the market. We also use a dynamic PIN pad when requesting customers to key in their PIN to avoid key stroke capture. And soon, we will be introducing a new login method, which will offer our customers an enhanced level of security," says Cecille Fonacier, Marketing Director and Head for Consumer eBusiness. Citibank also does "account masking" to prevent anyone looking over your shoulder to see your account number. Only the first and last four digits of your account number are shown on your monitor.
- It is reliable. Transactions are posted at real time during banking hours, and the system guarantees that no information is lost.
What you can do online
Most banking transactions, except for cash withdrawal, can now be initiated online. Here’s what you can do:
- view bank account transaction history
- receive and view statement online
- transfer funds between your accounts in the same bank or even to another local or international bank
- pay bills
- save your utility accounts online for easy bills payment
- view credit card transaction history • receive and view credit card statement online or request that statements be e-mailed to you regularly
- book time deposits
- view foreign exchange and interest rates
- order checkbooks
- set up future-dated transactions
- view credit card rewards points and redeem reward items
- load cellphone credits
- join online promotions
- apply for a credit card
- apply for a loan
- apply for an online savings account
- get tips on personal finance matters
- make other inquiries via e-mail
Be not afraid
If online banking is so easy, how come not as many people use it at the moment? People fear new technology, especially those who are used to do banking face-to-face with a teller.
For those who belong in this group, consider this. Online transactions are kept safe from prying eyes through encryption of web pages, meaning your private information is scrambled to prevent unauthorized access.
When you pay a bill, you will have a bill payment reference number to guarantee that your payment has been accepted and recorded.
You can also monitor online your credit card usage to make sure you don't go over your credit limit. This will help you manage your accounts better.
Safeguards to follow
Banks make the extra effort to offer you a secure online banking experience. But you, as a consumer, also need to observe safe online banking practices to maximize your experience:
- Make sure you are logged on to your bank's official online banking website.
- Change your password regularly. Do not use your birthday, phone number, house number, or any other number code tied to you that can be easily guessed by someone else.
- Do not give out your password or write it down where others may see it.
- Update your virus scan software and regularly run a scan on your computer files.
Online banking is a breeze once you try it. You'll ask, "Now why didn't I think of that before?”
- From the "Take Charge of Your Money" series published on http://business.inq7.net/money/.
[tags]online banking, internet banking, Philippines, financial planning, financial plan, financial freedom, citibank, inquirer, philippine daily inquirer, take charge of your money, personal finance[/tags]
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- manage finances philippines | <urn:uuid:e1e5b124-cd60-4ee1-a6a9-cb56ec032bc1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pinoymoneytalk.com/use-online-banking-to-manage-your-finances-better/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941836 | 1,138 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Because of you, the viewers, children in more than 27 countries—including Russia, Nicaragua and Afghanistan—now have books of their own.
The Angel Network was founded on the idea that we all have the power to make a difference. In the most simple of ways and not necessarily with money, people are helping others to live their best lives.
Oprah Radio host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach talks about the responsibility of the United States to combat genocide wherever it occurs.
Interview with United States senator.
On her Oprah Radio show, Oprah talks with author, academic and dream therapist, Rodger Kamenetz about his book The History of Last Night's Dream. | <urn:uuid:6e5e3de3-2b6d-403e-b08c-1c8ad62ba917> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oprah.com/angelnetwork/The-History-of-Oprahs-Angel-Network/9 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951982 | 137 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Mexican Gay Man Granted Asylum in The U.S.
After considering evidence that Jorge Soto Vega "was beaten by police with a 'metal baton or flashlight' and then robbed, called 'anti-gay slurs' and told that he would be killed if he was ever seen again" while living in Guadalajara, a U.S. immigration judge has granted Soto Vega asylum. He has been living in the U.S. since being smuggled into the country in 1988, according to the L.A. Times.
Soto Vega had applied for asylum once before, in 2003, but was turned down by judge John D. Taylor "who said he could return to Mexico since 'it would not be obvious that he was homosexual unless he made it obvious himself.'"
Jon W. Davidson, legal director at Lambda Legal, told the LAT that at the hearing on Tuesday, which was once again held in front of judge Taylor, "the judge agreed that a person should not have to conceal his or her sexual orientation in order to be free from persecution."
Davidson told the Associated Press: "It seemed to us this is a real double standard. Courts don't deny asylum to someone based on their political beliefs by saying, 'If you just didn't tell other people what you believed, you would be fine.'"
Said Soto Vega following the decision: "It's been a long, long wait to get to this point where I feel today, secure and happy."
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On May 15, 2012 Mark Jamison wrote a heartfelt valedictory letter to his community. He begins, “It’s likely that I will be the last postmaster to serve the town of Webster, North Carolina.” And goes on to tell us what he thinks the post office was and should be and what it is becoming.
As most informed observers do, Mr. Jamison sees the passage in 2006 of the laughably misnamed bill, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) as the moment when Congress and the President abandoned the post office. PAEA imposed an arbitrary and unprecedented $5.5 billion a year payment that predictably resulted in a financial crisis that in turn has led the Post Office to propose closing over 10,000 post offices and hundreds of mail processing centers and ending Saturday delivery and all in all decimating this most public of all public goods.
Mr. Jamison’s letter was to his community but its message I hope will resonate with us all. Here are some excerpts. Read the full letter at the ever useful web site, Save Our Post Office.
One might cynically conclude that PAEA was designed to create failure, and while it may not have been the actual folks in Congress who understood that, it is likely that those who crafted the bill did. The more insidious damage of PAEA was to create a business model that completely moved the Postal Service away from defining mission as infrastructure into something more akin to a Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE), a bastardized construction that confuses corporate imperatives with governmental functions. The GSE is a reflection of our acceptance that all things are creations of the marketplace, which fits an ideological presumption that markets are natural phenomena rather than manmade creations designed to solve a problem.
This presumption turns our economics on its head, and it is the cause of a great number of our problems today. It monetizes every transaction and interaction and reduces society and culture to nothing more than a series of economic events. It turns a method of explanation and understanding into a comprehensive worldview that discards much of what makes us human and motivates us.
In failing to understand the value of public goods and the social value of employment and the productive imperatives of including people in our calculations of efficiency, we are succumbing to a system and society based on and motivated by little more than narrow greed for profit.
The postal network is a basic public and social good that has helped communities, both urban and rural, thrive. It is a fundamental utility that has provided useful employment, in a responsible and cost-effective manner, and that too is a basic good.
The Kentucky poet-essayist-farmer Wendell Berry asks, “What are people for?” I wonder, once we’ve modeled, optimized, rationalized, and perfectly justified everything, once we’ve become maximally efficient thanks to our sophisticated software and algorithms that dictate the parameters of our existence, once we’ve given the marketplace complete authority to determine the worth of our existence, will we then have an answer to that question?
People don’t seem to figure much in the current calculations surrounding the Postal Service. There doesn’t seem to be much space for them, whether they are members of a community served by a post office or employees or simply “We the People” who sought to make a compact to provide for the “general welfare”. | <urn:uuid:d97623c1-1631-488c-b639-0142feb56ac6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ilsr.org/people-post-office-for/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956911 | 705 | 1.664063 | 2 |
SEATTLE – As waters recede and lives are put back together following the devastation of Hurricane Sandy, car buyers are urged to take precautions when buying a used vehicle in the coming months. Although the East Coast is far from the Pacific Northwest, flood-damaged vehicles from Hurricane Sandy that should go to the junkyard will likely end up on local car lots to be sold by unaware car dealers to unsuspecting buyers.
Vehicles sold with pre-existing damage are not covered under a standard Auto Insurance policy. If you buy a used vehicle and later discover that it was damaged from being submerged in flood waters, your Auto Insurance will not cover the cost of needed repairs.
“A ‘flood vehicle’ is defined as a vehicle that has been completely or partially submerged in water to the extent that its mechanical components and electronic subsystems have been damaged or destroyed,” said Frank Scafidi, Director, Public Affairs, National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB). “Unscrupulous people buy the vehicles, clean them up to hide the flood damage then ship them to states unaffected by flooding to be sold as normal used cars.”
The scam artists also do not disclose the damage on the title document, which is a crime called “title washing.”
“You have to invest some time to find a reliable used car,” said Karl Newman, NW Insurance Council president. “Checking VIN numbers is a great start, but, whenever there is wide-spread flooding, you have to take extra precautions to avoid getting stuck with a car that falls apart around you.”
If you are planning to buy a used vehicle, it’s important to know how to look for flood damage. NW Insurance Council, NICB and the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) offer the following suggestions on how to spot a flood car:
· Choose a reputable car dealer. Check with the Better Business Bureau or Chamber of Commerce to find several in your area.
· Look for mildew, debris and silt in places where it wouldn't normally be found, such as under the carpeting in the trunk, or around the engine compartment.
· Check for rust on screws and other metal parts.
· Look for water stains or faded upholstery as well as discoloration of seat belts and door panels.
· Inspect the vehicle for dampness in the floor and carpeting and moisture on the inside of the instrument panel.
· Check for a moldy odor or an intense smell of Lysol or deodorizer being used to cover up an odor problem.
For more information about how to spot a flood car, visit the NICB website for more tips. Also, the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System offers an online tool for consumers to access important vehicle history information.
For more information about insurance, contact NW Insurance Council at (800) 664-4942 or visit www.nwinsurance.org.
NW Insurance Council is a nonprofit, public-education organization funded by member insurance companies serving Washington, Oregon and Idaho
National Insurance Crime Bureau is the nation’s leading not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to preventing, detecting and defeating insurance fraud and vehicle theft through data analytics, investigations, training, legislative advocacy and public awareness. | <urn:uuid:335be67a-e1b4-4e58-b983-cc0c87177ec8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lakestevensjournal.com/county-state/article.exm/2012-11-08_flood_damaged_vehicles_from_hurricane_sandy_could_end_up_rusting_on_a_used_car_lot_near_you | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951824 | 677 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Federal Work Study
Federal Work-Study (FWS) is a federally funded need-based financial aid program that allows students with financial need to earn FWS funds through employment with authorized FWS employers. Federal work-study is considered employment and the income earned is taxable.
To be considered for FWS, undergraduate and graduate students must be matriculated in a degree-granting program, enrolled at least half time (minimum of 6 credits for undergraduate students; 5 credits for graduate students) and maintain satisfactory academic progress as outlined for financial aid.
Students should first check with the federal work-study coordinator in the financial aid office to determine eligibility to participate in the program. Once eligibility has been determined students can pursue either on-campus or off-campus employment.
For a complete overview of the program, please view FWS Student Handbook 2011 (PDF 204kB).
Start and End Dates
FWS runs from July 1-June 30. Work for a given Empire State College academic year cannot begin before July and no payment can be made for work done after the following June 30.
Students interested in working on campus should contact their local Empire State College center to find out if any positions are available. FWS students can be employed by any center or unit of Empire State College and may assist an individual mentor or administrator in work normally paid for by the institution, but not in profit-making enterprises in which the institution may be engaged. FWS students also may be employed as clerical help at centers and units.
Students interested in working off campus may contact any nonprofit agencies in your area. If you are not sure what agencies are in your area you may search under nonprofit agencies or community services agencies at www.yellowpages.com.
An eligible non-college employer must meet the following criteria:
- the employment must meet the conditions outlined in section H.2
- the employer should be a federal, state or local public agency, or a private nonprofit organization functioning in the public interest, and having professional staff to supervise the work performed by students
- a formal agreement must be concluded with each off-campus agency accepting a FWS as an employee. Agreement forms and instructions are provided by the Empire State College financial aid office. Copies of each signed agreement must be on file with the employer, the Empire State College financial aid and student accounts offices.
Study abroad students and students outside of NYS are not eligible for off-campus employment.
Community Service Jobs
Community services are defined as services that are identified by an institution of higher education through formal or informal consultation with local nonprofit, government and community-based organizations as designed to improve the quality of life for community residents, particularly low-income individuals, or to solve particular problems related to their needs. These services include:
- fields such as health care, child care, literacy training, education (including tutorial services), welfare, social services, transportation, housing and neighborhood improvement, public safety, crime prevention and control, recreation, rural development and community improvement
- work in service opportunities or youth corps as defined in section 101 of the National and Community Service Act of 1990, and service in the agencies, institutions and activities designated in section 124(a) of that act
- support for students (other than for an institution's own students) with disabilities
- activities in which an FWS student serves as a mentor for such purposes as tutoring, supporting educational and recreational activities, and counseling, including career counseling.
America Reads Challenge
If you are a student interested in this option we recommend you contact local schools, public libraries, before- and after-school programs (such as Head Start) or Literacy Volunteers of America. Federal regulations allow for the waiver of the FWS institutional-share requirement for students who are employed as reading and/or math tutors for children in preschool and elementary school or in a family-literacy project that provides services to families for preschool-age children or elementary-school children. The programs that provide the reading and/or math tutors for children may take place during the children's school hours, after school, on weekends, or in the summer, in order to extend the learning time. Colleges may develop their own reading-tutor program or become involved with existing community programs. For example, an FWS student's employer may be the college, a federal, state or local public agency or a private nonprofit organization. If a student is employed under the America Reads program, the employer’s obligation to pay 25 percent of the overall pay rate is waived. Students or location personnel interested in the America Reads Challenge should contact the financial aid office to verify that the placement they are interested in meets these requirements.
Conditions Of Employment
- Employer obligations:
- The work done by FWS students must not displace regular workers or violate existing employment contracts.
- The employer must be willing to pay a minimum of 25 percent of the wages earned by the FWS student.
- The student's earnings must not exceed the amount of his or her FWS award.
- The student must be paid for all hours worked. The Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits any employer from accepting voluntary services from any paid employee.
- The work must not involve the construction, operation, maintenance of facilities or programs of sectarian religious instruction or worship, or of partisan political activity.
- Payment of dues, fees, gratuities or gifts must not be a condition of the student's employment.
- The student must not be paid for receiving instruction for college credit in a classroom, laboratory or other academic setting.
- Student obligations:
- Once a student has agreed upon a position and pay rate with the potential employer he or she must contact the financial aid office to receive the necessary paperwork which must be completed before the student may begin working.
- The student may not work past the published end date of the term unless he or she has registered for the next term or has requested and been approved to work while not enrolled.
FWS students who work at an Empire State College location will be paid $10 per hour. The rate of pay may be increased at the discretion of the supervisor. Skilled work for which the student is qualified is paid according to an appropriate rate for the type of work being done. Students working under the America Reads program will be paid $12 per hour. Students working at an off-campus agency (non-America Reads) must negotiate the rate of pay with the agency. Federal Work Study students must be paid at least the federal minimum wage (currently $7.25 per hour) and cannot exceed $17.91 per hour.
Once a student is approved for Federal Work Study and all the necessary paperwork is completed, the student will be forwarded timesheets and a payroll schedule. Students should expect to receive their first paycheck up to five weeks after beginning work. If bi-weekly time sheets are submitted promptly, paychecks will be issued every two weeks.
Hours Of Employment
Federal Work Study is a part-time work program. Students generally average 10 to 20 hours per week. The maximum amount of hours allowed to be worked within one week is 25. Any excess over 25 hours per week requires specific permission from the financial aid office. Under no circumstances can students be paid for more than 40 hours per week. Students cannot work for more than six hours without taking at least a half-hour break. Students cannot work more than eight hours per day unless granted permission from the financial aid office.
View your Award (login required)
Empire State College
111 West Avenue
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
Questions? Contact the student information center at 518-587-2100 or 800-847-3000.
Name: SUC Empire State College
The priority deadline to apply for financial aid for the 2013-2014 academic year is April 1, 2013. | <urn:uuid:99332eb4-225a-4d92-8903-54a05bc3fa1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.esc.edu/financial-aid/programs-requirements/federal-grants-loans/campus-based-programs/federal-work-study/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946738 | 1,608 | 1.515625 | 2 |
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| Stanton Drew Great Circle |
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|Description ||Sig Lonegren demonstrating aspects of dowsing at Stanton Drew, one of the Megalithomania field trips.|
|Nice to see this, and how good that you at least had ONE good day's weather for site visits!
(I spent 2 hrs dowsing that circle in 2004, and picked up a fascinating pattern of movements. The 'procession' started from the little lower avenue, after which followed a long-drawn-out pattern of intriguing movements back and forth across this NE circle, and between some of the stones. At the end of this 'ceremony' the rods took me in a 'dog-leg' movement into the main avenue, and thus into the Great Circle. Instead of doing more complicated moves (as I'd expected), I was just 'taken' straight across it in a SW-erly direction, pausing to turn back once, before exiting to the SW. After that I was too tired to carry on, but guessed the continuation may have been to the SW circle, just out of sight over the brow of the hill. From there you can see the Cove easily. I've posted a comment on this before, where I surmised that a 'priest'/ 'priestess'-type, or tribal leader, may have led this special ritual in the NE circle while the gathering of tribes watched (or waited) from (in) the Great Circle, and the fact that my movement in it was straight across the middle was because he/she was moving through the people, turning to acknowledge them, before going on futher (to SW circle, perhaps.) It was only on leaving that I picked up the leaflet and remembered that it was found to be a huge 'woodhenge' type of structure originally, which would explain this straight pathway, too, perhaps? [I always 'ask' to be 'shown' the most original ritual movements.]|
|Correction to above: I didn't study this pic properly! Having just looked at camcorder footage and my dowsing plan: Walking SW, it's the last big stone on the left of the avenue - then there's a gap - on approaching the Great Circle, after leaving the NE circle (in the background).|
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Megalithic Portal eGallery, images of megaliths and prehistoric sites worldwide, free to view. | <urn:uuid:dc4e4041-36d2-440d-908d-2157967688c1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.megalithic.co.uk/modules.php?op=modload&name=a312&file=index&do=showpic&pid=20769&orderby=dateA | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953723 | 559 | 1.804688 | 2 |
When you should file an amended tax return
By Jason Alderman
Not every interaction with the IRS must necessarily induce flop sweat.
Case in point: A few years ago a friend of mine decided his income taxes had become sufficiently complicated to merit hiring an accountant. After examining previous tax returns, the accountant discovered my friend had claimed the standard deduction for two years when he should have itemized expenses. He filed a couple of amended tax returns and voila – the IRS wrote him checks totaling more than $1,200.
Of course, not all tax-filing mistakes end on such a happy note. Sometimes people find out after submitting a return that their employer had sent an incorrect W-2 form, or they forgot to report self-employment income, or they incorrectly claimed someone as a dependent.
Although it's tempting to let such mistakes slide, chances are the IRS will discover the error eventually, and when they do you could be liable for interest and penalties going back to the due date of the original tax return. Worst case: You could even face criminal charges for filing a fraudulent return.
Here's a guide to when – and how – you should file an amended tax return:
If you discover an error on your federal income tax return after having already e-filed or mailed it, you may file an amended return using IRS Form 1040X (at www.irs.gov). The following rules apply:
- Amended returns cannot be e-filed; you must submit a paper version.
- Submit a separate Form 1040X for each year's return you wish to amend and mail them in separate envelopes.
- Generally, you must file Form 1040X within three years from the date you filed your original return or within two years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later.
- If your amended return involves changes to another schedule or form, you must attach a revised version of that schedule or form.
- If you're filing to claim an additional tax refund on a recently filed return, wait until you've received the original refund before filing Form 1040X. You're allowed to cash the original check while waiting for any additional refund.
- On the other hand, if your amended return will result in you owing additional tax, file it right away to limit interest and penalty charges that might accrue.
- The normal processing time for a Form 1040X is eight to 12 weeks.
You needn't file an amended return because of simple math errors – the IRS will automatically make corrections and bill you for any additional tax required (or increase your refund). Nor must you file a 1040X if you forgot to attached tax forms or schedules to your return. The IRS will send a request if it needs them.
However, you should file an amended return if you:
- Received additional or amended tax forms or statements from employers, banks or investment brokers after you filed your return (e.g., W-2 or 1099 forms).
- Forgot to report income.
- Overlooked tax deductions or credits you could have claimed.
- Claimed deductions or credits for which you weren't eligible.
- Didn't claim a dependent you were entitled to, or claimed someone you shouldn't have.
- Chose the wrong filing status.
One last tip: If you're going to the trouble of filing an amended tax return for a specific reason, review the entire original return carefully for any other deductions, credits or exemptions you might have missed the first time.
This article is intended to provide general information and should not be considered legal, tax or financial advice. It's always a good idea to consult a tax or financial advisor for specific information on how certain laws apply to your situation and about your individual financial situation.<< Back to Practical Money Matters
Email to a friend | <urn:uuid:529ab8ec-a971-488f-86d2-add1d80cd055> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.practicalmoneyskills.com/personalfinance/experts/practicalmoneymatters/columns_2012/0817_amendedTax.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937213 | 787 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Port of São Miguel e Santa Maria, Portugal – ESPO initiative
São Miguel e Santa Maria’s project is bringing people closer to the sea
The goal of integration with the community is particularly important, says the port of São Miguel e Santa Maria.
This is especially so on an island which receives most of the cargo to the entire archipelago through maritime traffic and which is increasing its passenger traffic from cruise ships.
The 'Gateway of the Sea' development is a multi-purpose complex which combines leisure, culture and functionality for the tourists as well as the local population. Importantly, it has also become a new central point for the city, with several events bringing local people to the sea, one of the main objectives of the project.
The cruise ships’ quay is linked by a bridge to a terminal allowing fast access to tour buses and to a commercial alley. Ferries are berthed to the west of the complex to segregate the traffic flow and ensure that disembarked vehicles do not interfere with those waiting to board.
The new marina, berthing 470 yachts, is two minutes walking distance from the town centre, providing a cosmopolitan experience in a traditional city. The Sea Pavilion, separated from the terminal, is a modern multi-event centre suitable for exhibitions, concerts, sports and it includes a panoramic restaurant, viewing the sea on one side and the city on the other.
On the east side of the complex there is a commercial alley with various shops, restaurants and bars, directly connected to the maritime terminal. Finally the port also offers a seawater pool and an underground car park with 200 places to serve the entire complex.
Other initiatives planned include a port museum, which will have two unique broad gauge locomotives (Brunel’s gauge) and their line, used in the port’s construction during the 19th century.
Images for this article - click to enlarge
Unless otherwise stated, all images copyright © Mercator Media 2013. This does not exclude the owner's assertion of copyright over the material. | <urn:uuid:3d2c3145-5aee-47dc-a0e9-ab33ed2fb707> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.greenport.com/news101/community-beyond-the-gate/port-of-sao-miguel-e-santa-maria,-portugal-espo-initiative | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941623 | 429 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Out of body experiences (OOBE)
An out of body experience may also be referred to as astral projection or astral travel. Abbreviated names for out of body experiences are OOBE and OBE.
Some people can self-induce an out of body experience by using visualization and meditation techniques. Other out of body experiences happen involuntarily, often to the amazement of the experiencer. Many people report a sensation of floating near the ceiling or flying, and the ability to see their physical body below them. Out of body experiences are unlike dreams in that they feel very real, happening in the here and now physical world. Experiencers report they remember the event clearly and vividly even years afterwards.
Out of body experiences are distinguished from near death experiences by one important feature. Although a near death experience may have an out of body component, such as looking down on your body before continuing on, an out of body experience does not include the belief or fact of being clinically dead before returning to the body.
If you're unsure where to start reading, try the Editor's recommendations below. If you've had an out of body experience, send it to us for inclusion.
Definition of an out of body experienceAn experience of having left the confines of one's physical body and observing the world from a point other than where the physical body is located.
How to have an out of body experienceIf you want to learn more about how to have an out of body experience be sure to check out our how to have an out of body experience page. There are tips and hints and two visualization exercises to get you started. Good luck and don't forget to come back here and tell us about your astral travels!
How to access the storiesUse the navigation on the left to open the menus by clicking on the plus signs. Stories are arranged by year and month submitted, with the most recent additions at the top. Menus can be opened and closed by clicking the plus or minus signs. Story titles appear as clickable links.
Editor's recommendations -- out of body experiencesYou can also access previously recommended stories.
".....I will scream." That was my last thought before IT happened.
Earlier that morning my husband had thrown a punch at me that narrowly missed, putting a hole in the wall. I had just found out that he had an addiction to gambling that had cost him his job, our savings and he had run us into debt and nearly lost our home. In a frightening rage he pushed and shoved me as he swung at me.
Beginners Guide to Signs and Signals of Achieving an OOB or Astral Projection
As some of you may have already read my 6 various stories or posts on this site, including NDE's, OOB's, Astral Projection, Past Life Regressions, Space Travel, Spirituality and most recently, "Soul Mates and Soul Families." I currently work with over 30-some readers and students regarding OOB's and Astral Travel. I have a guide that i would like to share with you here on this site that I give to all of my new students for the actual psychical signs and signals that most recive at the beginning of an OOB experience.
Haunted and OBEs
I remember exploring the new house while it was being constructed. My parents gave me the room over the attached garage and it had a seperate staircase that led off by the kitchen. There was no railing on the staircase as I said the construction workers were still finishing up. My parents had told me to stay away from the edge and to be careful. However, I was pushed off. I got knocked out, but not injured. Then we moved in. I was staying with my grandmother in her room in the main house. I recall looking up at the foot of my bed one night. I could see straight through her. She was looking out the Windows and this was scary for an 8 year old. I then looked over to see if she was in bed. Sure enough she was. How can someone be in 2 places at once? Research OBE.
OBE at Age 5 (1952)
I experienced an accident while playing with my older sister and her girlfriends in our backyard. As they were 5-6 years older, they were playing rough with me, actually wanting me to go away and leave them alone. I was 5 at the time. My sister, while spinning me around, let go and I traveled under the seesaw pipe end just as her friends were bringing it down. It cut a small gash in the top of my head. My parents rushed me to the emergency room at St. Anthony’'s, as the bleeding was profuse. The doctor said it was not serious and he could stitch it up. | <urn:uuid:93994186-7892-4218-b0ad-905694e73418> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wirenot.net/X/OOBEindex.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98132 | 981 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Minot Adult Learning Center director Jennifer Kraft wants to alert people who have taken GED classes in the past few years but have not completed testing of some upcoming changes in the test that could impact their ability to earn the GED certification.
The GED test contains five parts that can be taken separately, but must all be passed to receive a high school credential. Many people have passed some parts of the test but not all and have not completed the exam and earned their GED. The current version of the GED test the 2002 Series GED Test will expire at the end of 2013, along with all of those incomplete test scores. That means anyone who has not completed all of the GED tests by the end of 2013 would have to start taking classes all over again and take the new 2014 GED test.
"More than a million adults have started but not finished the current GED test," said Nicole Chestang, executive vice president of the GED Testing Service, in a press release. "As a nation, we cannot afford to let millions of working-aged adults miss this opportunity to complete and pass the GED test, opening doors to college, training, and better jobs."
The Minot Adult Learning Center offers classes to help people get their GED and also offers testing. Kraft encourages people who started the classes at some point to complete their work and take all five parts of the test by the end of next year so they can get their GED. The Adult Learning Center is located at 1609 4th Ave. NW. For more information, call 857-4488 or look at the center's website at (www.alc.minot.k12.nd.us/pages/4885567359550398578)
According to the press release, there are resources available to GED test-takers in every state. Help includes classes, online preparation or assistance in getting through the process. There is also information online at (finishtheGED.com)
The new 2014 GED test will be based on emerging national and state standards. It will offer dual performance levels where test-takers can earn the high school equivalency credential as well as additional endorsement that indicates career- and college-readiness. The test will be delivered solely on computer and offered only in official testing centers. | <urn:uuid:832cd279-c517-4802-bb68-40bb6f2bb658> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://minotdailynews.com/page/content.detail/id/569833/Upcoming-changes-impact-GED-testing.html?nav=5010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96251 | 476 | 1.601563 | 2 |
And They Say We Are Evil : Jew Advocating Lobotomies For White "Racists"
Posted on: 2012-06-27 04:17:47
Time is running out for a white race already brainwashed into accepting, even welcoming their own fate.
‘Racism’ will be cured by future proceedures such as nano-tech operations to lobotomise areas of the brain as well as to alter DNA to ‘breed out’ the ability to discriminate within the white brain:
“Racism, says a leading Jewish scientist, “is ‘hardwired’ into the human brain – and people (Ed: in the terms of political correctness this means whites) can be prejudiced without knowing it.” Says Dr Elizabeth Phelps, of New York University.
But what is a big discovery for Talmudic thinkers has long been well known to all the rest of us. ‘Racism’ is hardwired into the brain and it operates unconsciously. “The same circuits in the brain that allow us to see which ethnic group a person belongs to overlap with others that drive emotional decisions.” And her anti-nature conclusion is: “The result is that even right-thinking individuals make unconscious decisions based on a person’s race.” | <urn:uuid:c4d8c046-657b-46a4-8959-6882f50bce54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.natallnews.com/printer.php?id=10296 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95727 | 273 | 1.796875 | 2 |
WASHINGTON – The outlook for the U.S. economy appeared dimmer Monday after a report that Americans spent less at retail businesses for a third straight month in June.
The report led some economists to downgrade their estimates for economic growth in the April-June quarter.
Many now think the economy grew even less than in the first quarter of the year, when it expanded at a sluggish 1.9 percent annual rate.
Spending in June fell in nearly every major category – from autos, furniture and appliances to building, garden supplies and department stores. Overall, retail sales slid 0.5 percent from May to June, the Commerce Department said.
Retail sales hadnt fallen for three straight months since the fall of 2008, at the height of the financial crisis.
The weak U.S. spending figures were released on the same day that the International Monetary Fund slightly lowered its outlook for global growth over the next two years.
Stocks fell after the Commerce Department report was issued. The Dow Jones industrial average sank 74 points in early trading. Broader indexes also declined. Later in the day, stocks regained some of their losses.
However hard you look, theres just no good news in this report, said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
Weakening retail spending could make the Federal Reserve more likely to act further to try to encourage more borrowing and spending by lowering long-term interest rates. The Feds policy committee will meet at the end of this month.
Most economists dont expect new Fed action after that meeting. But some said Mondays report, coming after three straight months of tepid hiring, makes some Fed action more likely by years end.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will testify to Congress about the economy on today and Wednesday. | <urn:uuid:1986f9d0-887b-4510-86f5-1140cc3a0b47> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://journalgazette.net/article/20120717/BIZ13/307179953/1031/BIZ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963932 | 363 | 1.789063 | 2 |
On September 25th the world lost a true hero in the untimely death of Wangari Maathai. Her story is one of unmatched courage in the face of oppression and of boundless optimism for the future. A story where one single women stood up to political and social oppression and to environmental exploitation. She fought for the reforestation of her homeland which she knew was closely linked with bringing economic justice to the women of her homeland.
Upon hearing of Wangari Maathai’s passing I felt a deep sense of loss, as if she had been personally dear to me. But in truth I know that the loss I feel is not personal but rather that it stems from the realization that an incredible force for the common good has left us forever.
I will mourn her deeply. | <urn:uuid:75d953f1-64e7-466b-a9a5-6fcca58ce485> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sontheimnews.wordpress.com/2011/09/27/honoring-wangari%C2%A0maathai/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977593 | 160 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Growing up, I rarely thought about Elizabeth Taylor—and never in the context of feminism, which I discovered in high school, thanks to Ms. magazine. By the late seventies, Taylor’s important films were behind her. She had married the Republican senator John Warner, whom cartoonist Garry Trudeau—my generation’s moral compass—called a “dim dilettante.” She would become the butt of Joan Rivers’s fat jokes. Even in 1985, three years into the AIDS epidemic, when Taylor came forth as a spokesperson and fundraiser for the stigmatized disease, I failed to connect her heroic actions with feminism.
Mystics often describe “peak experiences” as moments that crack open the shimmering mirage they had mistaken for truth. Some credit meditation—or LSD—with unlocking the doors of perception. In my case, however, it was some box sets of Taylor DVDs. I watched them with friends from Gen X and Gen Y, people too young to possess even my scant end-of-the-baby-boom awareness of the megastar in her heyday.
From the DVDs, we expected hours of guilty, campy pleasure. But what we saw—to our initial disbelief—was a feminist manifesto. It wasn’t that Taylor necessarily played feminist characters. Or that she had written or directed the movies. But over and over, her epic beauty drew crowds to brave, often subversive projects that challenged patriarchal ideas.
In National Velvet (1944), Taylor’s 12-year-old character deals with gender discrimination. Barred from riding in an important horse race because she is a girl, she poses as a male jockey and comes in first, exposing the absurdity of excluding women for supposedly being less capable than men. A Place in the Sun (1951) is essentially an abortion-rights movie—a harrowing glimpse into a time before women had easy access to birth control. In Butterfield 8 (1960), Taylor’s character is censured not because she’s a prostitute but because she chooses the men with whom she’ll sleep. She demands ownership of her body—a core feminist tenet.
In Giant (1956), Taylor portrays an educated Easterner committed to social justice who moves west to marry a bigoted Texas cattle baron. He’s contemptuous of women, but she transforms him. Taylor’s character in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), which exposes the callousness of the male-dominated medical establishment toward women patients, dares to speak an awkward truth: Her aunt’s gay son was murdered by the urchins he’d propositioned. The situation is so embarrassing to her wealthy aunt that the old woman seeks to have her niece lobotomized. Even Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Taylor’s most celebrated movie, demonstrates what becomes of a woman when the only way society permits her to express herself is through her husband’s career or her children. Watching Taylor roar, “I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops,” I thought of Betty Friedan’s landmark book, The Feminine Mystique. Women “who live without conflict or anxiety in the confined world of home have forfeited their own being,” Friedan wrote. “The others, the miserable, frustrated ones, still have some hope.” | <urn:uuid:16d36c38-42b7-4efa-85a0-a5c5c20d7f27> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2012/02/elizabeth-taylor-feminist-roles?currentPage=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961359 | 709 | 1.710938 | 2 |
[...]that to be too conscious is an illness[...]
This is part of one of the quotes that is always displayed on my blog. I was just online today, looking at my blog and seeing how inactive it had been lately and I read this quote and I realized how true these words are.
I frequently run into arguments with people about issues, present, past or perhaps even future issues that plague our world or have plagued our world. Why? Perhaps I think too much about these things, or perhaps I know or I THINK I know more about certain things? I feel passionate about certain topics – and these are as diverse as I could ever imagine!
What is it? Am I too conscious? And I feel that although I have more control over my outbursts, I lose patience when I see someone not seeing my point and I tend to escape the argument now. I wasn’t like that before. I would persevere. I would argue argue argue till I had nothing else to say, till I had repeated myself again and again and yet I would argue more because I knew I had a valid point. I would try and show the others light about certain things, especially things that I felt passionate about. So what is it now? Why have I become more passive? Have I lost the passion or am I simply seeing the futility in trying to make people see the light? Is it futile?
Karma Yoga – Do what you have to do and don’t think about the fruit of your action. Easier said than done eh? Ignorance is prevalent in this world. It is impossible to break through the veil, no matter how flimsy that veil may seem to the one who is making the attempt to break through it. There’s this brain-washing going on in the world. What has been fed to them for years and years through our education system, through media, through propaganda, can not be removed, can not be overcome no matter how right you are, no matter how justified, logical and rational your views are. Fyodor said it: – Consciousness is a disease indeed. | <urn:uuid:804792fa-eb82-4d8a-9fbf-6c2ac6aea2dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tanhaa.net/index.php/2007/08/08/consciousness/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981255 | 436 | 1.5 | 2 |
Clubs and Organizations
Advisor: Dr. Ladd
The Aesculapian Society is a club open to all students interested in careers in medicine, dentistry, podiatry, and many areas of the allied health professions. The Society endeavors to cultivate and encourage scholarly excellence in the field of health-related sciences. The club sponsors seminars featuring speakers from a variety of health fields. The members make frequent visits to professional schools, hospitals, and industrial laboratories during the year. The club is dedicated to volunteer involvement in programs such as the Heart Fund and the National Foundation of the March of Dimes.
Advisor: Dr. Wagner
The Biology Club invites members from the entire campus as well as from the Biology Department. The activities of this club are numerous and include speakers from other institutions; career seminars; field trips to greenhouses, zoos, and primate laboratories; government experimental stations; mushroom factories; biotechnology facilities; aquaria; and several arboreta and gardens including the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C. and Longwood Gardens. This club prepares the newsletter "Biorythms". Its meetings often include films on various aspects of biology. There is often a visit to the Philadelphia Flower Show and an overnight trip to Washington, D.C. or New York. On Arbor Day, the Club presents a flowering tree to the University to be planted some appropriate place on campus. Along similar efforts, the Club has established and maintains a nursery of trees planted on campus. It financially supports itself by organizing raffles, car washes, plant and food sales.
Advisor: Dr. Ambler
The Conestoga Club was formed in 1996 to educate the community about local natural environments. We are working on natural history brochures about the "Bush", a forested campus area along the Conestoga River. We plan to lead hikes and also encourage people to take self-guided tours. Restoration of native wildflowers and other vegetation is another club project. During Spring 1996, Virginia bluebells were planted. The club is now establishing seed beds for native wildflowers which will be transplanted to the Bush and other local areas.
Advisors: Drs. Wallace and Nolan
The Entomology Club was organized in 1964. The purposes and functions of this club include local and extended field trips to study the flora and fauna of nearby and far-away habitats. Trips are taken to the Florida Keys, the Everglades, Central and Northern Florida, Okeefeonkee Swamp, Cape Hatteras, Wallops Island, Chincoteague and Assateague, the pine barrens of New Jersey, and Big Bend National Park in Texas. Although the emphasis of the course is insects, all animal groups are studied.
- Entomology Club Homepage
Advisor: Dr. Hoover
The Millersvile University Society for Respiratory Care Practitioners, chartered in 1997, was founded to server student who have interest in respiratory care practice. The society meets monthly during the academic year to plan and conduct field trips, make facility tours, and enjoy speakers who come to share their experiences and insights regarding respiratory care practice. The society maintains communication with representatives of the American Lung Association, and memebers volunteer their time to work with children and adults who seek its services. Its goal is to promote enthusiasm and scholarship of students in the respiratory therapy curriculum, increase awareness of the respiratory care profession, advance the role of the respiratory care practitioner in health care, and promote the cardiopulmonary wellness of all people in our community.
Advisor: Dr. Didier
The Ocean Sciences Club is open to anyone interested in marine science. Invited speakers talk about their research, graduate schools, and career opportunities. Field trips include beach cleanups along the Delaware shore, visits to the Baltimore Aquarium, the Smithsonian Institute, and the University of Delaware's Graduate School, as well as boat trips on the Chesapeake Bay. The club also maintains a number of marine aquariums, including the 240 gallon tropical aquarium in the cyber cafe.
Advisor: Dr. Yocom
Priority, the environmental action group at MU, was organized by Biology professors and students in 1969. It strives to educate young and old people in the conservation of our environment. The club accepts invitations from schools, service clubs, churches, synagogues, boy scouts, girl scouts, senior citizens, and other groups, to speak on some aspect of conservation, quality of life, recycling, etc. The club encourages people to repair, re-use, recycle, and not waste. It encourages people to voice dissatisfaction with government officals who make unwise decisions. Priority supports low gas consumption automobiles, limited population growth, preservation of farmland and natural ecosystems, and common sense living. | <urn:uuid:304812c0-db25-4b0b-9a03-15c540b2e394> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.millersville.edu/academics/scma/biology/clubs-and-organizations.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943746 | 978 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Palmer Theological Seminary is part of an educational tradition that reaches back over three centuries to Bristol, England, where in 1679 Baptist training for ministry formally began. From that beginning to the present, Baptists have been concerned about issues of faith and order, such as a vital relationship with Jesus Christ, a believers; church, voluntary religious associations, and religious liberty. The visible church, institutional life and expressions of faith have all helped to shape this great tradition, which forms a context for the theological nurture of ministry and leadership.
The Seminary was founded on March 19, 1925 during a period of social, intellectual and spiritual unrest. Its twelve founders were committed to conserving the great historic evangelical beliefs within a strong denominational commitment to what was then the Northern Baptist Convention. At the same time the original professors agreed to a rigorous and progressive curriculum that would ensure academic and theological integrity.
Through an intensive strategic planning process, the Seminary has strongly reaffirmed its theological heritage and its central commitment to the preparation of sound, effective pastoral leadership as well as to a diversity of other Christian ministries.
Palmer Theological Seminary continues to pursue the course set by its founders and summarized in its motto, "The Whole Gospel for the Whole World." Each year the faculty and trustees affirm the doctrinal basis of the school drawn up in 1925.
Palmer Theological Seminary is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches, USA. While the Seminary's primary relationship is with the churches and agencies of this denomination, it prepares persons for ministries in the whole Church. Within an evangelical context, the Seminary is broadly ecumenical in spirit and practice. The Board of Directors is interdenominational, with up to 25% of its membership being non-Baptist. Approximately 40% of Palmer Theological Seminary's students come from Baptist churches, while others represent numerous denominations.
Both historically and programmatically, the Seminary is related to Eastern University, located eight miles west in St. Davids, Pa. Some faculty members serve both schools. The Seminary also currently networks or is developing affiliations with a number of organizations.
Accreditation and Authorizations
Palmer Theological Seminary is fully accredited by the following organizations:
The Seminary is also approved by the United Methodist Church for the training of United Methodist ministerial candidates and is a member of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education.
Palmer Theological Seminary is approved for Veterans Education under the provisions set forth by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Seminary is also approved for attendance of non-immigrant students under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Palmer Theological Seminary is committed to the policy of providing equal educational opportunities to all qualified students regardless of their economic or social status, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, national or ethnic origin.
The Seminary also adheres to the Educational Rights and Privacy Act of l974 (Revised Edition 1995).
Philadelphia: Urban and Suburban Context
Palmer Theological Seminary is located on the edge of one of the nations major industrial and cultural centers. With nearly 1.5 million people, Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania, the second largest on the East Coast and the fifth largest in the country. The greater metropolitan area is home to nearly 4 million people.
Founded in 1682, Philadelphia is obviously one of the nations oldest cities, though its populace is younger (with a median age of under 35 years) than the national average. It is located within a few hours of other major U.S. cities including Washington, D.C. and New York City. Also close by are many varied recreational opportunities, including the Pocono Mountains to the north, historic Lancaster County to the west, and beach resorts on the New Jersey and Delaware coasts to the east and south.
A cultural hub, Philadelphia is considered to be among the nations top three cities in theater and classical music and number one in architecture. Eighty-eight colleges and universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, are located in the area, as are numerous historic sites such as Valley Forge National Park and Independence Hall. Among the fine arts and science centers located in the city are the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Franklin Institute, Fels Planetarium, the African American Historical and Cultural Museum and the Academy of Music.
The Seminary's proximity to the city allows students easy access to hands-on ministry opportunities in an urban context. Philadelphia's rich ethnic diversity gives it the feel of an international federation of neighborhoods. Historically, the city has a heavily German, Irish, Polish and Slavic base. However, African American, Jewish, Italian, Latino and Asian communities are also strong and distinct, and lately an increasing number of Russian immigrants have been settling in Philadelphia.
The area is rich with religious diversity as well, with a spiritual history dating to the 17th century. Most church denominations are represented in the Delaware Valley. Area churches range from large urban and suburban congregations to small, city store-front churches.
Baptists constitute the largest Protestant group, with most of them belonging to the National Baptist or Progressive National Baptist Conventions. The Philadelphia Baptist Association, the oldest Baptist association of churches in the U.S., was formed in 1707. Affiliated with American Baptist Churches, USA, this association consists of some 127 churches with an aggregate membership of over 46,000. | <urn:uuid:4a867776-6dcd-4239-bc3d-78a9e8d3061f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.palmerseminary.edu/centers/registrar/catalog/history_and_relationships.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959025 | 1,100 | 1.773438 | 2 |
As an avid reader with no small interest in the workings of the mind, I was naturally drawn to the works of former special education teacher, Torey Hayden. While I can’t remember exactly when I read Ghost Girl, the first of her books that I found, I do remember what it made me feel.
Shock. Horror. Rage.
Reading the volumes containing the stories of Jadie, Sheila, and a host of other children taught by Ms. Hayden pulled me through a series of emotional hoops that were not soon forgotten. I’ll be blunt; these are not “feel-good” stories. Child abuse and mental disturbances are not subjects for a cozy fireside read, and Ms. Hayden herself has stated that not all of her students went on to lead successful, charmed lives.
So why read them?
In a word, hope.
The breakthroughs, small and large, that pepper these books encourage readers to believe that a difference can be made. The flashes of humor and insight prove that a damaged soul is not necessarily beyond reach or repair. Each passage brings a need to know that things can and will get better.
One child at a time, Torey Hayden relates her quest to help those who might otherwise have no one watching over them. With clear, unpretentious language, she brings home a vital lesson. These are not monsters to be feared and hidden away. They are children to be loved and nurtured.
We love our children; we want the best for them. We fear for their safety; we cheer for their happiness. When they are threatened in some way, we fight like tigers to protect them. Should we not feel this way about all children?
Torey Hayden is a former special education teacher and clinical therapist. The author of thirteen published works, she continues to work as a consultant and an advocate of children’s needs. Her bibliography and other information can be found on her website. | <urn:uuid:e78954e1-2676-496c-9849-42100877b0dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.littlepicklepress.com/2012/10/torey-hayden-between-fear-and-hope.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960725 | 405 | 1.664063 | 2 |
People like us
All over the country, people representing diverse, and even opposing, viewpoints, fight a battle every day over many fronts. In the meantime, the rest of us, over whom these skirmishes take place, go our own way, unconcerned and unaware, having given up on the possibility of change.
One of the issues ... cities that are clogged because their growth wasn't planned.
"THE Emerging Traffic Scenario" was the title of the seminar held a few days ago in Mumbai. The organisers were surprise, surprise the traffic police department. The invitees consisted largely of non government organisations interested in transport policy, the police top brass and representatives of government infrastructural bodies and the municipal corporation. The three speakers were a senior police officer with a PhD in Traffic Management, a leading environmentalist and me. A volatile gathering on the face of it; one in which you would expect sparks to fly.They did.
But they didn't fly, as I expected, within the auditorium and amongst the participants so that there would be many singed bodies writhing on the floor. The sparks, growing into great balls of fire, went flying out of doors directed at some distant (and unseen) enemies. That's because the people in the seminar, seemingly so much at odds with each other, ostensibly representing such diverse and even opposing viewpoints, had gathered together to form an unlikely coaliation.
What did they look like? These people out there who were our common enemies? They looked like us, exactly like us. It was PLUS versus PLUS, People Like Us against People Like Us.
Although what was being discussed may have been the traffic scenario in Mumbai, the issues are the same in all Indian cities: as small towns become big towns, big towns becomes cities and cities becomes megapolises, they all get clogged, clogged with people and vehicles because these places have grown when their growth wasn't planned.
The authorities try and combat this in the only way they know: to throw money at the problem. Since that money is never enough because even the richest city hasn't all the money it needs, the authorities have to prioritise their spending.
In Mumbai, that priority was to build 55 flyovers and resurface roads with concrete.
The combination has certainly speeded up travel, but it has done so for vehicular traffic, which means cars and taxis.
Yet the city's traffic utilisation pattern is that 88 per cent use public transport, seven per cent use taxis and auto-rickshaws and the remaining five per cent use private motor cars. These figures may vary from city to city, but the basic outline will be the same: a vast majority of commuters use public transport.
Yet how much of the money spent on this sector, is allotted to public transportation? A pittance. Mumbai's 55 flyovers don't help the suburban rail system which carries five million people in what the railway calls supercrush capacity. They could have helped the bus service which carries even more people, because buses don't use flyovers since you can't have bus stops on them. In other words, the flyovers are only for 12 per cent of the commuting traffic which either has cars or hires taxis and auto-rickshaws, i.e. the more affluent part of the population. In the other words, People Like Us.
This PLUS group consists of the political leadership which decides policy and the senior bureaucracy which is responsible for drawing up plans to implement those policies. They live comfortably in government owned housing, travel comfortably in government owned cars and are driven a short commute away to government offices.You will find the city's best roads on these stretches so that even that short commute becomes painlessly quick.
Occasionally, a new railway minister decides to see for himself. With much fanfare, and amidst much popping of flash bulbs, he does a commuter journey by suburban train. But that journey is never in the rush hour and it's always in a sanitised compartment. Having thus seen for himself that commuting isn't all that bad, he goes along with plans to spend money on flyovers and the like, money which will make life a little bit easier for People Like Us.
But what about the People Like Us who were in the seminar auditorium that day?
The cops, being Top Cops, had all travelled in their official cars with their beacons on top, the NGOs, being well-off ladies living in the very poshest parts of town had their chauffers waiting at the very poshest of wheels. The speakers were in the same boat (in this case, cars) too.
But in spite of their affluence, or their senior positions, these were people who had learnt to look beyond their own comforts and outside of their own cocooned worlds and having seen the stark reality knew that they had to do something about it. The police had one added incentive for venting their steam: they were, perforce, the implementers of the absurd policies and planning of the other PLUS group, and were simply fed up of carrying the can for someone else's mistakes.
All over the country this PLUS versus PLUS battle is being fought every day over many fronts, and it will continue to be fought over and over again. In the meantime, the great wide public, the 88 per cent over whom these skirmishes take place, go their own way, unconcerned and unaware, having long ago given up on the possibility of change.
Anil Dharker is a noted journalist, media critic and writer.
Send this article to Friends by | <urn:uuid:22809dc5-6703-4681-ab45-484f7ff3a068> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2002/01/20/stories/2002012000120200.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979637 | 1,144 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Concept cars have always had a place in my automotive heart, as they were works of art and design first, and practical vehicles second. Because of that freedom, designers went wild and not only gave us new ideas of what a car could be, now and then they turned into movie cars. I think you should be able to figure out which went on to fame on the screen as arguably the most famous move/tv car of them all!
Enjoy this collection of amazing cars of tomorrow, that were built in the heyday of chrome and imagination!
The Age of Chrome, Aerodynamic Excess and Sheer Excitement
Jet-like GM XP-21 Firebird from 1954:
1959 Cadillac Cyclone “Motorama” dream car:
1959 GMC Firebird III – truly a product of the Jet Age! -
Little-known 1953 Cadillac Ghia Coupe:
1953 Dodge Fire Arrow, designed by Ghia, with total of four vehicles built between 1953-1954:
Dressed in chrome and full of curves is this 1953 Lincoln XL-500:
1953 Lincoln XL-500 (the first Cutlass) was also quite remarkable:
Aerodynamic and bold 1955 Lincoln Indianapolis (intended for the 1955 Turin Motor Show):
Also from 1955 is this cool and often over-looked Oldsmobile 88 Delta concept:
1955 Lincoln Futura, designed by Ghia , Italy (which later evolved into a Batmobile):
1955 Ford Mystere: streamlined shapes and lots of chrome -
This is somewhat less-known concept, but perhaps one of the most flamboyant from Ford:
1955 Ford La Tosca:
1955 Cadillac La Salle II Hardtop Sedan :
1955 Buick WildCat III sports huge bumper “bombs”:
1956 Oldsmobile Golden Rocket had a spokeless steering wheel! -
Here is extremely rare and stunning 1957 Chrysler Diablo, also the result of collaboration with Ghia (considered the most valuable concept car from the 1950s):
Some discarded original Corvette design makeover concepts: Xp882 Z and Aero Z -
Another Chevrolet Corvette concept that did not make it was 1957 Chevrolet SS
Beautiful view of the 1963 Chrysler Turbine Car, one of many such concepts in 1960s. | <urn:uuid:92931427-2a52-49e7-afd2-ebcb7aa2f3e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://starcarcentral.wordpress.com/tag/motorama/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950486 | 479 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The end of the month is a great time to take a few minutes and roundup your memories. You can do this by looking over your calendar, blog posts, or whatever records you may keep, and simply filling in a few quick notes using a simple format. I've been doing this for 3 years now and I can't even begin to tell you how much easier it has made memory keeping for me! I am constantly referencing my monthly roundups for ideas for scrapbook pages and I always have material for journaling now. After I answer the questions I just post them to my blog and my roundup is done. If you don't have a blog, just save them on your hard drive or print them out.
Here are the questions I use:
What books and/or magazines did I read this month?
What movies, television shows, plays, etc. did I watch this month?
What fun things did I do with my family and/or friends?
What gifts did I give and/or receive?
What special or unusual purchases did I make?
What illnesses or health concerns did I have?
What were my accomplishments this month?
What were my disappointments this month?
Anything else noteworthy to include?
When you combine these roundup prompts with a few month end tasks, you will find that you are much more organized and ready to begin a new month!
Here are the tasks I try to make sure are done by the end of the month:
- All digital pictures uploaded to my hard drive, uploaded to flickr (or any offsite photo storage site), and backed up to DVD. Ideally, these activities should be done every time you process any pictures through your computer so you don't lose any precious files.
- Choose photos or digital layouts to be printed out and get it done while you are thinking about it.
- Backup any other documents or files as needed. I use an external hard drive, I use backblaze as an offsite backup, and I also upload many documents to Google docs. I don't like to lose stuff!
- Backup your blog if you have one. (Typepad backup or blogger backup)
- Clean off work area and empty inbox or clear up papers that have been piling up. I always end up with a messy desk by the end of the month and it feels good to get it under control again, even if it doesn't last long.
- Clean off your computer desktop as well. Unzip files and put them away. Here's my digi organization system if you are interested.
- Change desktop background to something new for a fresh start to the month! Free desktop resources right here.
If you post your roundup on your blog, it would be great if you could give a link back to me so others know where to find the roundup tool, but it's not a requirement or anything. Also, feel free to edit the questions and tasks however you want to make them useful for you. | <urn:uuid:7f17e87f-7690-4ecf-b20e-f181a83eb70a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scrapbookladypages.com/2009/10/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969062 | 609 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Lakshmi Mittal, the Indian-born steel magnate and one of Britain's wealthiest residents, whose company is bidding for Europe's Arcelor, is a prime example. But for every Abramovich, Mittal, Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson, there are thousands of others who never make it into the headlines but who all contribute to the plutonomy. While some of this wealth is being spent on high-profile corporate acquisitions, the bulk of it is being channelled into up-market property, private equity investments, hedge funds and art.
The plutonomy thesis helps to explain why high oil prices haven't slowed the global economy, why consumer confidence might be low yet consumption remains robust in the United States, and why the depreciation of the dollar hasn't done much for the U.S. trade deficit.
—Sylvia Pfeifer, "We're living in a plutonomy," The Sunday Telegraph, April 2, 2006
In a report called "The Plutonomy Symposium Rising Tides Lifting Yachts," Ajay Kapur, Citigroup's global strategist, says the balance sheets of the rich are "in great shape, and will get much better," which is why he recommends going out and buying stocks of companies that cater to that very select market.
Spending by the uber-rich overwhelms that of the average consumer and helps explain why the U.S. economy has continued to do well and the U.S. dollar hasn't collapsed even in the face of the current federal budget deficit, a negative savings rate, global imbalances and high energy prices, he says. The United States is one of the plutonomy countries countries whose economies are powered by a relatively small number of rich people.
—Angela Barnes, "Want wealth? Invest in the uber-rich," The Globe and Mail, October 2, 2006
—"Internalising Kantian ethics," Business Line, July 3, 1999
sudden loss of wealth syndrome
sudden wealth syndrome | <urn:uuid:c89fe09c-dce1-47a3-8a89-579c9c7cfd1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wordspy.com/words/plutonomy.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948952 | 415 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Goat and Sheepskin Import Co. v. United States - 206 U.S. 194 (1907)
U.S. Supreme Court
Goat and Sheepskin Import Co. v. United States, 206 U.S. 194 (1907)
Goat and Sheepskin Import Company v. United States
Submitted April 17, 1907
Decided May 13, 1907
206 U.S. 194
The commercial designation of an article, which designation was known at the time of the passage of a tariff act, is the name by which the article should be classified for the payment of duty without regard to the scientific designation and material of which it may be made or the use to which it may be put.
The word "wool" in paragraph 360 of the Tariff Act of July 24, 1897, 30 Stat. 151, 183, does not include a substance which, while the growth upon a sheepskin, is, nevertheless commercially known, designated, and dealt in as Mocha hair, having none of the characteristics of wool, and which would not be accepted by dealers therein as a good delivery of wool.
This case comes here by virtue of a writ of certiorari issued from this court to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, for the purpose of reviewing the action of the courts and of the customs authorities in relation to an assessment of duty on certain importations made by the petitioner, appellant, at the port of New York.
The merchandise on which duty was assessed was a growth upon certain skins of the Mocha sheep, imported from Hodeida, Arabia, which growth was classified by the collector as wool on the skin of the third class, and assessed for duty at three cents per pound, under the provisions of paragraph 360 of the Tariff Act of July 24, 1897 (30 Stat. 151, 183). The importer duly protested against the classification and insisted that the merchandise was entitled to entry free of duty under paragraph 571, 30 Stat. 198, or under paragraph 664 of such act. (Page 201.) Paragraphs 351, 358, 360, under which the government claims duty, and paragraphs 571 and 664, under which the importer claims free entry, are set forth in the margin. *
The collector having returned the merchandise in question as wool of the third class, under paragraph 360, the importer appealed to the Board of General Appraisers, where the ruling of the collector was sustained, and the importer then appealed to the circuit court, and then to the circuit court of appeals, each of which courts sustained the ruling of the Board of General Appraisers and the collector.
Before the Board of General Appraisers, the importer produced six witnesses, who testified as to the character, use, and commercial designation of the merchandise. On the appeal to the circuit court, a referee was there appointed, and the importer offered further evidence to sustain his claim that the merchandise was entitled to free entry.
No testimony was offered by the government. It is not claimed by the government that the merchandise in question comes under paragraph 351 as wool of the third class (except as it may be wool of like character), as it is not Donskoi, native South American, Cordova, Valparaiso, native Smyrna or Russian camel's hair, but it is asserted that the growth on the skins was wool on the skin under paragraph 360, or was a wool of like character as that above enumerated in paragraph 351.
The evidence shows that the hair or wool (whichever it is called) grows on the Mocha white sheep, imported from Hodeida, Arabia. The growth to be found on this breed of sheep is not bought or sold in this country as wool, but as hair. It would not be accepted as a delivery of wool of any grade by those dealing in that article. Although there might have been a very small proportion of what might possibly be termed very inferior wool on these skins (not more than ten per centum in any case, and frequently less), yet there was no substantial use of any portion of the growth on the skins for purposes for
which wool is generally used. To some extent, but very little, it had been tried in mills to spin, and it might be used sometimes by carpet manufacturers in a small way, and efforts had been made to use it, mixed with wool, in spinning, but it was not practically successful, nor was it practicable to use it for other purposes for which wool is used. The chief, or predominant, and almost sole use of the substance is as hair for stuffing, and for the saddlery trade, and by bed manufacturers for stuffing purposes. It is bought and sold all over the country as Mocha hair. The skin upon which the substance grows is the thing that is valuable. A large part of the skins imported into this country is used in the manufacture of glove leather. One witness testified that his firm so used from seventy-five to ninety per cent of the skins imported, and the growth thereon was bought and sold as Mocha hair. It costs more to remove the growth from the skin than it sells for after its removal. It cannot be used for spinning purposes because it would not hold together. It might be carded, but there would not be much left after carding. The price of the skins on which this growth is found is not influenced by the quantity of the growth on them. The more of a growth there is, the less the skin will bring, or, as is said, the more hair, the poorer the skin. The skins are sold by the importers to tanners of gloves and shoe leather, just as they arrive. After the growth is washed and removed from the skin, it may be sold for from three to five cents per pound, which is less than the cost of removing it. In buying the skins, no notice is taken of the growth, the only consideration being the value of the pelt, and the pelts are worth no more with long hair on than short hair. The growth has never been accepted or sold as wool, but, on the contrary, prior to July 24, 1897, when the tariff act was passed, it was uniformly regarded and bought and sold in the United States as hair. "Mocha hair" was the trade nomenclature prior to 1899, and as such the trade name was definite and uniform throughout the United States, and dealers in it never knew it to be called anything else than Mocha hair. It has not the appearance of
wool, does not feel like wool, and has none of the qualities of wool. It is bought from tanners after it has been taken from the skin by them, and it is thus sold and bought as Mocha hair, and the skins are used for leather by the tanners.
One of the witnesses called on behalf of the importers was an examiner of wool fibers and skins at the port of New York, which position he had held for about fifteen years. He said that when he first went into the government employ, such skins as those in question were returned free, the hair as well as the skin, but that practice has since been changed. The witness further said that if the growth in question were found on a goat, he would return it as hair of a goat, and entitled to free entry; that wool could be run down, or deteriorate, to such a condition as the growth in question, but that it was, in fact, mostly "what they call dead hair or kemp;" that, although it could possibly be carded, it was not commercially suitable, and there would not be much left after they got through carding it. On cross-examination, the witness said that he would return the article in question as Mocha sheepskin with the wool on. On such a skin as the one in question, the witness said there was a substance which he would call wool, which was about ten per cent only of the growth; that he examines such skins as the ones in question and throws out those he considers dutiable when there is enough wool to call it dutiable, and lets the skins go not dutiable when you could not make anything out of the growth in any way, although some use might possibly be made of it.
The cross-examination of other witnesses was to the effect that this growth had been tried in mills for the purpose of spinning, but very little, being used with other stock to make into yarn, but it has not been successfully used for that purpose; it might be used sometimes by carpet manufacturers in a small way, and, while it could not be used or spun alone, it might be carded. It was also said on cross-examination of one of the witnesses that if such growth ran pretty white, it is sometimes used in those low-grade carpet yarns where they put in such stuff as jute packing is made of and some hair like the growth
in question. The evidence is, however, overwhelming, and the witnesses substantially unanimous, that this substance is not known as wool, and is neither bought nor sold as such, and is commercially known as Mocha hair, and is not used as wool. | <urn:uuid:c5f8fc6f-bc0f-42ed-ad77-cb1d47f3dbfd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/206/194/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985679 | 1,895 | 1.75 | 2 |
im going to start my own blogg and sketchbook soon because i wanna give it all i got now.
So befor i do something wrong, i would like to discuss with some more experienced guys.
When i was 9 i played Final Fantasy 8 and decided to start drawing to become an Animator (2D&3D) and in my young mind i tought drawing is the first step.
Currently i reached the first step and i am Studying in an Art School but my drawings are not as good as they are supposed to be in my age (23).
I havnt been drawing much for the last 2 Years because of my Girlfriend and me starting to learn Cinema 4D, going on to 3D Studio Max.
Now my Girlfriend is in Japan for 1 Year from tomorrow, and i wanna focus on drawing and nothing else to REALLY accomplish a big change in my Artwork.
While doing so im taking a further 3D Studio Max class in Art School and ill be working on a small Project. But i wanna focus on 3D Modeling after the Drawing.
To make this more easy for you, i started drawing to become a 3D Artist, but being able to draw on a high level is much more important for me.
I love 3D Art, but drawing is a much more creative act for me while 3D modeling seem like a more technical job.
I wanna be able to draw everything on my mind, but also to model it in 3D and probaly Print it or Animate it. still, i think a good drawing is the basic and most important thing. | <urn:uuid:024a15b1-e36a-4473-bf7e-279502026364> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forums.conceptart.org/showthread.php?252315-Is-this-the-right-Path&p=3568245 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968816 | 333 | 1.601563 | 2 |
As Christians remember the death yet celebrate the Resurrection of the Son of God, I wanted to share with you what I presented to the AiG staff on Thursday (April 5, 2007) about Easter.
I told them about a news reporter who asked me recently, “What statement are you really making to the world through the Creation Museum you’re about to open?” My answer went something like this:
AiG wants the world to know that the Bible is not just a book of religion, or morality, or just a book of spiritual things—although it is all those things. We want people, including future museum visitors, to understand that the Bible is a book of history.
You see, the first book of the Bible relates to us the account of the biological, geological, astronomical, and anthropological history of the universe—and this history is confirmed by observational science in genetics, biology, geology, and astronomy. Because this history as revealed in the Bible is true, then the message of the Christian gospel (concerning salvation from our sin of rebellion in the first man Adam) is true—that the Son of God stepped into history to become one of us and to die (but as a sinless man) on a cross (because death was the penalty for our sin), was raised from the dead (conquering death), and now offers a free gift of salvation (to live with God for eternity in a New Heavens and earth—with no death) to those who will receive it. This is the statement of this Creation Museum.
I told the reporter that the Creation Museum’s centerpiece is a walk through the 7 C’s of history: Creation; Corruption; Catastrophe; Confusion; Christ; Cross; Consummation.
Visitors will first walk through the first four C’s, where they not only experience the history of the world concerning creation, the Fall of man, the Flood of Noah’s day, and the Tower of Babel (the giving of different languages that formed different people groups), but are also given numerous answers (using observational science) that confirm this history. Then they are then taken into a special theater for a dramatic presentation of the final 3 C’s.
Recently, I watched the wide-screen video presentation of those last 3C’s, which visitors will soon see when the museum opens May 28. Although it’s only 14 minutes long, this high-quality dramatic presentation is the most powerful visual presentation of the gospel I’ve ever seen. Various actors (including one who appears in a role as a paleontologist in earlier parts of the museum) act out their parts so that everyone in the theater will clearly understand the gospel message based in true history.
At one stage, a woman acting the part of Mary talks about the Jewish sacrificial system. As you watch this presentation, you’ll become so absorbed with it that it will be as if you’re there. Mary says (in a passionate way):
Our sacrifice always had to be perfect—God required it. I have memories as a little girl, when my family would pick our best lamb from the flock. The priest took his knife and … . It always broke my heart, but my parents insisted that all of us were there. They wanted to make sure we each understood how terrible sin is, and just how much it costs to cover it ... [In the video, you’ll see Mary and her family watching this beautiful animal—and they see the priest’s knife. The priest holds the lamb up above the altar, and you really sense what Mary and her family must have sensed and experienced as the event broke their hearts.]
One day, after I was engaged to Joseph, I was visited by an angel of God. He told me not to be afraid, and that I was to give birth to a child, and that I should call him Jesus.
I asked how this could be, since I was still a virgin. The angel told me the power of the Most High would overshadow me, and my son would be called the Son of God. Of course, one day I learned that my son would be called something else as well—a lamb.
As I watched this new museum video, a number of things came to my mind that I wanted to share with you this Easter:
The first time the gospel was preached was in Genesis 3:15. Right after Adam sinned, which separated himself and all his descendants from our Creator, God revealed He already had a plan to provide a way of salvation for sinners: “ … And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
God further illustrated His redemption plan when he made clothing for Adam and Eve from animal skins: “… Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” This was the first blood sacrifice as a covering for their sin—a picture of what was to come in Jesus Christ, the lamb of God, who would die and be raised from the dead to TAKE AWAY our sin.
As you contemplate this truth, I want you to think about the fact that, as God killed these animals to cover Adam and Eve, He knew that this would happen to the Son of God one day—in fact, knew this before He had created the universe, before there was time, God had predetermined that the Son of God would become a sacrifice for sin so that those who received the gift of salvation could be saved for eternity.
Acts 2:23 states: “… Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain … .”
Revelation 13:8 states: “… And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”
Think about this: before the universe was created, before time existed, before man was created, God knew that we (in Adam) would sin. He knew we would rebel against our Creator. And in the wisdom and love of God, in eternity, He predetermined a plan so that we could receive a free gift of salvation. In eternity, God planned for the Son of God to step into history to provide the ultimate sacrifice—the sinless Son of God would suffer sin’s penalty of death, be raised from the dead, thus providing a way of salvation. Hebrews 10:10 declares: “By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”
As you think about the fact that in eternity, God had predetermined the Son of God would become a man to die for our sins, also contemplate these things:
a. When God created the heavenly bodies on day four of creation “for signs and for seasons and for days and years,” (Genesis 1:14), He knew that one of the signs would be for the time the Son of God would become a man, born of a Virgin in a town called Bethlehem.
b. When God made the trees (and all plants) on the third day of creation (Genesis 1:11), He knew that a tree would one day be used for the most evil event of history: when evil men would crucify the Son of God. And yet, by God’s foreknowledge and predetermined plan, this event would occur for the salvation of souls.
c. When God made the land animals on day six (Genesis 1:24), he knew that He would soon sacrifice at least one of those animals because of our sin in Adam—and He knew He had predetermined that this would one day happen to the Son of God, so we could receive the free gift of salvation
d. When God cursed the ground and caused thorns and thistles to grow because of sin (Genesis 3:18), contemplate the fact that God knew that one day, thorns would be used to pierce the brow of His Son as He hung on that tree paying the penalty for our sin. “And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head …” (Mark 15:17).
Doesn’t this all want to make you want to fall on your knees and worship our Creator, praise Him, and continually thank Him for the … lamb slain from the foundation of the world?
And for those of you who have not received the free gift of salvation, God’s Word tells you: “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
The Creation Museum—and its walk through history—will open May 28, 2007. Not only will Christians learn how to defend the Christian faith in today’s world, but non-Christians will be challenged concerning the true history of world as revealed in the Bible—and the gospel based in that history.
Help keep these daily articles coming. Support AiG.
“Now that I have updated, revised, and expanded The Lie, I believe it’s an even more powerful, eyeopening book for the church—an essential resource to help all of us to understand the great delusion that permeates our world! The message of The Lie IS the message of AiG and why we even exist! It IS the message God has laid on our hearts to bring before the church! It IS a vital message for our time.”
– Ken Ham, president and founder of AiG–U.S.
Answers magazine is the Bible-affirming, creation-based magazine from Answers in Genesis. In it you will find fascinating content and stunning photographs that present creation and worldview articles along with relevant cultural topics. Each quarterly issue includes a detachable chart, a pullout children’s magazine, a unique animal highlight, excellent layman and semi-technical articles, plus bonus content. Why wait? Subscribe today and get a FREE DVD download! | <urn:uuid:b5d94507-7a94-48d5-b02d-851b763fb58a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/04/07/slain-from-foundation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965406 | 2,125 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The patient is a 38-year-old woman who has history of adrenal insufficiency and hypothyroidism. She initially developed scaly raised pink papules on her upper arms. Those lesions have progressed to her back, chest, and abdomen. The more recent physical examination revealed hypopigmented macules and scaly papules on her back (clinical figure), hypopigmented macules on her upper arm, and scaly papules on her anterior trunk and upper arms. A punch skin biopsy of one of the lesions on the right shoulder was performed.
Pathologic findings. Histologic sections revealed a single hair follicle infiltrated by small-sized lymphocytes associated with marked mucin deposition (follicular mucinosis). Occasional eosinophils were seen. Superficial epidermotropism was minimal. Although the lymphoid cells showed no obvious morphologic atypia, the vast majority of these lymphocytes were CD4+ T-cells with significant increase of CD4:CD8 ratio in the intra- and perifollicular infiltrate. An additional skin biopsy (not shown) from the left upper shoulder showed an atypical folliculotropic and perifollicular lymphoid infiltrate associated with mild follicular mucinosis. In this skin biopsy specimen, the lymphoid infiltrate was also positive for CD3 and CD4 with an increase of CD4:CD8 ratio. No significant loss of CD7 expression was identified.
Molecular findings. No monoclonal TCR- gene rearrangements were identified by PCR; however, low levels of a monoclonal TCR-beta gene rearrangement were detected.
Staging, treatment, and follow-up. The patient was diagnosed with folliculotropic MF, stage 1A. Flow cytometry immunophenotypic studies of a peripheral blood specimen failed to detect abnormal T-cells. The patient was treated with topical isotretinoin on her face and triamcinolone on her body, resulting in minimal improvement. She also received topical tazarotene and triamcinolone, which resolved some of lesions; but new pink papules appeared on the arms and trunk. In the last follow-up, the total body surface area involvement was 1.5% plaques, which improved from 2.5% plaques at the initial visit. | <urn:uuid:bf545192-1308-498e-8b12-56110acfc611> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dermpedia.org/case/a-38-year-old-woman-with-scaly-raised-pink-papules-on-her-her-upper-arms-spreading-into-the-bac?0=redirect%3D23092 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948974 | 491 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Fixing an 800 million dollar shortfall in the state's Medicaid program won't be easy.
Medicaid is one of the biggest pieces of the state budget. More than four billion dollars was spent on the program this year.
State officials are weighing options in dealing with the shortfall. Some of the more common choices are reducing the number of people who qualify, eliminate some of the services or lower the amount paid to those who provide care to Medicaid patients.
Advocates for children and seniors are pushing an increase in the cigarette tax. They say an 85-cent increase could raise about 225 million dollars a year. | <urn:uuid:08e0d7c8-4726-4a68-b194-99bfe1f2a79e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.weau.com/home/headlines/1297331.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956758 | 124 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Your position in the website
Make your own TV or radio show!
The Museum of Transport in Lucerne celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009. SRG SSR took the opportunity presented by this event to replace the Museum's over 12-year-old radio and television studio with a multimedia platform. The result is the new Media Factory – a state-of-the-art media and knowledge centre. Young and old alike can breathe in the studio atmosphere, put together and present their own news items, conduct mock interviews and try their hand at synchronising pictures and sound.
The Media Factory is a platform that allows people to engage on a personal level with new media and technologies. It shows the hardware and software that a modern electronic media company such as SRG SSR uses today to meet the varied needs of its radio and television audience. The objective of the Media Factory is to allow Museum visitors to find out for themselves what is involved.
The Media Factory is aimed at all visitors to the Museum of Transport in Lucerne. However, it provides a perfect test environment for schools and colleges wanting to show their students the interplays involved in electronic media production, and is also suitable for media-related events. On the technical side, the Media Factory's facilities also permit the production and distribution of professional-quality radio and television programmes.
Have fun making your own radio or TV show and surprise your friends and family! | <urn:uuid:6e52795f-88b5-48a0-8629-f18dc55a94d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.srgssr.ch/en/multimedia/media-factory/?type=change | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947688 | 288 | 1.648438 | 2 |
MIT students helped WikiLeaks suspect, hacker says
Date of Publishing:2/8/2010
(CNN) -- Adrian Lamo, the former computer hacker who tipped off federal authorities to WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, says two men in the Boston area have told Lamo in phone conversations that they assisted Manning.
Lamo said both men attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but he refused to identify them because, he said, at least one of them has threatened him. One of these men allegedly told Lamo they gave encryption software to Manning and taught the Army private how to use it, Lamo said.
Manning, an Army intelligence analyst, is being held in solitary confinement at a Virginia detention facility. He is charged with leaking an airstrike video that the whistleblower website WikiLeaks published in April, and Pentagon officials say he is the prime suspect in last week's disclosure of thousands of field reports from the war in Afghanistan to the site.
Lamo claimed both men are working for WikiLeaks. Also, both men are Facebook friends with Lamo and Manning, and at least one continues to post Facebook messages on Lamo's wall, the former hacker said.
Asked for comment about Lamo's allegation that men working for WikiLeaks assisted Manning, WikiLeaks responded in an e-mail: "As a matter of policy, we do not discuss any matters to do with allegations relating to the identity of sources."
The New York Times reported Saturday that Army investigators looking into the document leak have expanded their inquiry to include friends and associates who may have helped Manning. Specifically, the Times spoke to two civilians interviewed in recent weeks by the Army's criminal division, who said that investigators apparently believed that the friends, who include students from MIT and Boston University, might have connections to WikiLeaks. The civilians, who the Times did not name, told the newspaper they had no connection to WikiLeaks.
The Boston Globe interviewed a recent MIT graduate who it said acknowledged Saturday that he met Manning in January and exchanged as many as 10 e-mails with him about security issues. But the individual "adamantly" denied any role in the document leak, the Globe reported. The Globe also reported that this MIT graduate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he was interviewed several months ago by Army investigators to find out whether he or "others in the local computer hacker community" helped Manning.
A spokeswoman for MIT, Patti Richards, told CNN: "We are monitoring the situation closely, but are not commenting at this time."
CNN has previously reported that the FBI is assisting the Defense Department in the WikiLeaks investigation of Manning. One FBI official told CNN the bureau is involved in the investigation of potential civilian co-conspirators who may have played a role in the leaking of the classified material.
Attempts to reach an attorney for Manning have so far been unsuccessful.
Web Resource for Reference of the Above Mentioned Article: | <urn:uuid:998d8f2f-74f7-4e98-9a9b-92144d72ca5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://infosecawareness.in/wiki/index.php/MIT_students_helped_WikiLeaks_suspect,_hacker_says | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971339 | 586 | 1.703125 | 2 |
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