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For years and years we here at the Brooklyn Gal have always considered Vogue to be the fashion victor, far surpassing its glossy competitor Harper’s Bazaar in every way. But now that we’ve read A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters, Penelope Rowlands’ 2005 biography of the legendary editor, we see Hearst’s style bible in an entirely different light. During Snow‘s reign at HB, from 1934 to 1958, it seems that every chic woman of intellect actually turned to Bazaar, hungry for the scoop on the Paris collections and the latest fiction of the day, written by literary lions like Truman Capote. A powerhouse and prognosticator, Snow was the editrix who delivered all of this and so much more. Blessed with sheer talent and uncanny instincts, she was unstoppable, setting her trained eye on a target and never saying no until she got what she wanted.
If the Devil wore Prada, well, the Irish Snow wore Mainbocher, before bridging into Balenciaga with wardrobe changes to Chanel in between. Diana Vreeland’s quirky style, quotable quotes and indelible imprint may be far better known by fashion worshippers today, but in her time Snow, Bazaar‘s tough, highly influential and oftentimes pickled editor, ruled the roost. Her list of discoveries — yes, Vreeland, along with Avedon, Balenciaga and Pucci — reads like a who’s who of fashion hitmakers, while her work ethic, career first, family second, was more akin to today’s world than hers and not especially laudable in those days. She had her flaws, for sure, but she also had a vision.
Books, plays and museum exhibits have all placed D.V. on a pedestal and she will never be forgotten. Perhaps there’s room for another mover and shaker on your e-reader. We think the time has come for a Snow revival. | <urn:uuid:c22e82a8-c57b-4624-a3ee-7ee9e541ce53> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://randigollin.com/2012/05/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959841 | 430 | 1.578125 | 2 |
By Holly Rosenkrantz
WASHINGTON - Any restaurant guide worth its sea salt can tempt readers with descriptions of One if By Land’s foie gras and roasted poussin. To learn that the owner pays the busboys a “living wage” of $9 an hour, and offers paid sick days, diners need a new guide that rates treatment of employees.
Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a New York-based workers’ advocacy group, reviewed and rated 156 dining establishments and companies, from Morton’s The Steakhouse and the Palm Restaurant to Hooters Inc. and McDonald’s Corp., on pay and workplace policies.
“Consumers will now routinely ask if they are eating free-range chicken,” Saru Jayaraman, co-director of the group, said in a phone interview. “Well, we want them to ask if their servers are getting paid sick days, too.”
The group, formed by former employees of the Windows on the World restaurant that was destroyed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, is using the guide to advocate for better wages and working conditions. Churches and worker-rights advocates, some allied with labor unions, are helping with distribution.
The workers’ group is assuming the role once played by labor unions in raising public awareness about workplace abuses, Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said.
Shrunken Labor Movement
“We’re seeing a smaller, less powerful labor movement,” Shaiken said in a phone interview. “The historic role of labor was to be the voice of working people, and now there are a host of innovative groups raising concerns for workers.”
Business groups such as the National Restaurant Association, based in Washington, say the effort by the workers is a push for more government regulation that will end up hurting workers.
Restaurants have created jobs, including positions in management and ownership opportunities, Scott De Fife, a spokesman for the Washington-based group, said in an emailed statement.
“This purported dining guide is a transparent attempt to disparage many of America’s restaurants, an industry which provides opportunities for millions of Americans to move up the ladder and succeed,” De Fife said.
The guide’s aim is to focus on trends in the restaurant industry that the group says hurts workers, including low wages, lack of paid sick leave and policies that place minorities, women and immigrants into lower-paying jobs. A New York City guide was issued in 2011, and a national edition was issued in December. The group began a campaign to publicize it Jan. 31.
Restaurants are rated on five measures: paying a higher minimum wage to wait staff and kitchen workers, offering paid time off for illness and offering promotion to employees. A fifth measure reflects endorsement of the group’s activities.
The group said 24 restaurants or chains met the majority of its goals, including nine based in New York City.
In-N-Out Burger, a fast-food chain in the U.S. West; Craft Restaurants, which operates in New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Dallas and at the Foxwoods Resort & Casino in Connecticut; and Oyamel in Washington won high marks for treatment of workers.
The Palm, which has steak houses in 20 U.S. cities and in London, has been owned by the same family since its 1926 opening in New York. Reviewers at the New York Times rate the Palm as a “critics’ pick.”
“Cut into your buttery meat, your buttery potatoes, your creamy greens,” the newspaper says in its review. “These are prepared with real skill and care, and taste it.”
The Restaurant Opportunities Center guide is less kind, giving the Palm “zero” in four categories and a question mark for wages for staff working without tips.
“We don’t have a lot of turnover,” said Richard Hammel, district manager of the Palm on Second Avenue in New York City. “If we didn’t treat our servers well, we wouldn’t have so many second-generation servers.”
Roger Drake, a Morton’s spokesman, referred a call about a rating of zero on four measures and a question mark for promotion opportunities to Landry’s Inc., which is acquiring the restaurant chain operating in 27 U.S. states. A Landry’s spokeswoman Feb. 1 declined to comment on the guide.
Restaurants that aren’t so good to their employees, according to the guidebook: Chuck E. Cheese’s, Houston’s and Darden Restaurant Inc., which operates the Capital Grille, Longhorn Steakhouse, Red Lobster and Olive Garden restaurants.
“I don’t think the ratings we received are accurate in any way,” Rich Jeffers, a Darden spokesman, said in a phone interview. “Opportunities in our restaurants are incredible. The president of Red Lobster started as a line cook in 1973. I think the guide is just not accurate.”
Rosanne Martino, general manager of One if By Land, Two if By Sea, said worker treatment is an important corporate value. She doubts consumers will patronize the restaurant, which is about 2 miles north of the New York Stock Exchange, because of their paid sick days.
“I don’t think they care -- I wish they did, since we do that when we are choosing clothing or sneakers,” she said in a phone interview. “But it’s so common for the restaurant industry to not abide by the law, to not pay for sick days. I’m not sure people are even aware of this when they pick a restaurant.”
The group also filed a lawsuit Jan. 31 against Darden’s Capital Grille in federal court in Chicago on behalf of workers in Chicago, New York and Washington, saying the company discriminates against workers.
According to the complaint, jobs such as dish washer and food preparer are given to people of color, while positions such as servers and bartenders, where customer tips are common, went to white applicants.
Darden’s Jeffers said the group never responded to requests for specifics behind their allegations.
“After repeated requests for specifics from ROC, the first response we received is this lawsuit,” he said. “We continue to believe these allegations are baseless. However, as with any claims of impropriety, we will investigate thoroughly.”
The Darden case is Jones v. Capital Grille Holdings, Inc., 12-CV-00660, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago). | <urn:uuid:7b67e10a-cd72-40cb-81b5-cd408cd850f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pbn.com/Workers-group-reviews-pay-policies-at-restaurants,65033?category_id=31&sub_type=stories,packages | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950318 | 1,437 | 1.796875 | 2 |
MOSCOW, June 21. (ARMS-TASS). The aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya" Indian Navy (former Russian aircraft carrier "Admiral Gorshkov") this week successfully completes sea trials of the factory in the White Sea. This was reported by Itar-Tass source in the shipbuilding industry.
"Experts" Sevmash ", where the upgraded aircraft carrier, are deeply gratified that during the trial which began June 8 in a sea of running the required characteristics of the spacecraft were not only sustained, but even exceeded," - said the source.
"The ship operates in the test crew of our Navy, on board are also commissioning team, representatives of the" Sevmash "and the officers of Indian Navy," - he added.
The source said that next week, "Vikramaditya", after loading the fuel, water and food to take a course from the White Sea to the Barents Sea, "where he will begin test flights of the deck on a ship-based aviation group decked Russian MiG-29K."
Previously, the spokesperson of the "Sevmash" Anastasia Nikitinskaya reported that "the testing program is designed for 124 days."
A source in the shipbuilding industry confirmed that the aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya" will give the Indian Navy in December of this year.
As previously reported the official representative of the United Shipbuilding Corporation Alexei Kravchenko, sea trials on factory aircraft carrier "Vikramaditya" in the White Sea, "will test the ship's main systems and components, main and auxiliary power systems, communication systems, navigation and others." | <urn:uuid:29ff7e08-ef3b-4815-9ae8-b3dcea8a658a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?107838-INS-Vikramaditya-Steaming-towards-Induction/page6 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963077 | 353 | 1.5 | 2 |
Click here to view the Sunday School Schedule for May/June 2013
Goals for our ministry to children:
- Bring knowledge and love of God and build a foundation in the Bible
- Help develop a relationship with Jesus Christ and follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit
- Encourage each child’s relationship with the whole church family
- Provide opportunities for Christian outreach
- Provide a safe and secure learning environment
- Encourage and support Sunday School families through mutual communication
The Children’s Ministry at St. Mark’s is vibrant and growing. Children are welcomed members of our church family and we have a dedicated staff of experienced teachers.
Nursery Age - Newborns to 3-year-olds
Our family room is available with suitable toys and furniture for parents and children. Through a built in sound system, the church service is audible but there is a sound-proof glass wall which allows children to have fun and make noises in the room without disturbing members in the Sanctuary.
Sunday School – Ages 3 to 11 years
We meet from 10-11AM every Sunday, September through June. Our time consists of a half hour worship service, including singing, prayers, offerings (used for missionary outreach) and liturgical responses. A half hour lesson time in age related groups, including prayers, bible stories, crafts, games and activities. After Sunday School, children are brought into church in time to join their parents for the Eucharist. On the second Sunday of each month, children sit with parents for the first hymn then hear an engaging children’s talk. The regular Sunday School program then continues in the Education Centre.
Summer Sunday School - Ages 3 to 11 years
We meet from 10-11 AM every Sunday, July through August. The program is simpler but similar to our regular Sunday School.
- Contribute money to a missionary family in Brazil,
- Collect and pacakge lunch food for the Surrey Food Bank,
- Purchase Christmas Hajmper for a needy family,
- one other varied outreach project per year (i.e. A Rocha Food Box, PWRDF, World Vision).
- Celebrate the changing Christian seasons with activities such as a pancake breakfast the first Sunday in Lent,
- Good Friday and Easter Sunday programs,
- Pentecost celebration,
- Advent activities,
- Christmas Pageant. | <urn:uuid:2f45fa34-caf5-4cfe-8753-2969b24b62d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stmarkbc.org/get-involved/childrens-ministry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940322 | 491 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Monday, 16 April 2012
The concept of dating services is nothing new; it has a history of its own. Dating services have been of different varieties: initial, there’s the community dating service; second, the video dating service; third, the tv dating game; and fourth, the online dating service.
The community dating services make use of newspapers and community newsletters for posting their advertisements. This is able to need that the shoppers move to their workplace to avail themselves of the service. Such ads, being short, give just the fundamental information concerning the client. Though such services have the advantage that they guarantee the matching of various profiles, their biggest disadvantage is that they do not reach very far. Their services stay limited to the circulation of the paper. Also, their matchmaking services can’t be considered terribly helpful as a result of of the inadequate info in the profiles.
An offshoot of the community newsletter media, the video dating service involves users making a short personal video for the purpose of presenting themselves to prospective mates. Along with giving info about themselves, the video covers their expectations concerning the person they wish to meet. The match seekers turn out the video on their own or use the agencys office for shooting their footage. The videos are placed in a very library, that allows the users to determine them thus that they will try their potential mates.
The tv dating game became quite well-liked throughout the 1990s. It primarily involves one person, who is that the searcher (male or female), and 3 folks of the opposite sex, who are the aspirants. The aspirants should strive to answer, as candidly and honestly as doable, a group of questions which the searcher has ready. The searcher makes the choice based mostly on how well the potential mate answered. The catch of this game is that, sometimes, neither party is aware of what the opposite person appearance like, as they are separated by a curtain or a cover.
Of course, the most recent in the road appears to be online dating service, which could be a combination of all the 3 mentioned above. A comparatively a lot of informative profile can be posted, complete with photo. It’s conjointly potential to upload videos that show the searchers at their best. | <urn:uuid:8a40548f-853a-47fb-8420-e6abfed43feb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://love-match-partner.blogspot.com/2012/04/dating-services.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967713 | 465 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The Birth of Two Decades of Mayhem
February 01, 2011
Read Also: Part I & Part II & Part III & Part IV
Somalis loot U.N. barracks near the Mogadishu port.
For the “Looma Ooyaan” residents of Mogadishu, the warlords to which they were subjected to are now defined not only by their guns but also the claim to possess of al-xaqq, al-axkaam and al-AMISOM.
Introduction: Since the collapse of the Siyaad Barre regime in 1991 Somalia descended into chaos. Clan-based factions led by warlords have competed to fill the power vacuum and Mogadishu fell under their control. Mogadishu became a battleground of warlords. The devastating effects of war in Mogadishu destabilized the nation to the point of anarchy. Since then, major and minor warlords split the country amongst themselves and have misruled the Somalis.
The history of the emergence of these clan-based political and armed factions illustrates that factions mobilized their clansmen by utilizing clanism and what Roobdoon Forum refers as Islamic Liberation Theology.
Without a doubt, warlords had legitimacy issue in mind, when addressing to the public. In their speeches, the practice of referring to themselves as good-doers and their opponents as evil-doers was the norm. They trumpeted of themselves as saviours of Somali unity, nationalists, as well as religious men who realized the necessity to end Siyaad Barre`s dictatorial regime and thus willing to establish a new all-inclusive broad-based government.
Warlords preached moral codes that concerns all walks of life – from prohibition of Haram food and drinks to the preservation of unity and stability. At the same time, militias loyal to these warlords caused mayhem – haphazardly raping, pillaging, and murdering innocent civilians. When asked about their actions, these warlords put the blame on external factors, throwing the causes of their actions to the defunct Siyaad Barre regime.
As opposed to the 1990s wars, the current wars in Mogadishu and its surrounding regions, led by the Shabab, are indeed wars with religious shadow. But similar to the 1990s wars in terms of its hidden incentive, some religious leaders, such as Hassan Dahir Aweys and Sheikh Sharif, are probably driven by the notion of clan hegemony, in order to break the 20 years of no-winner situation in Mogadishu.
For the “Looma Ooyaan” residents of Mogadishu, the warlords to which they were subjected to are now at the center of Somali politics, defined not only by their guns but also the claim to possess of the al-xaqq, al-axkaam and al-AMISOM. This reality, which may correspond to a perception for some, may seem certain to create more agony and despair parallel only to that of the early 1990s.
Zooming into the 1990s interviews and statements, given by the spokespersons and leaders of Somali factions, enables us to prove that clan-animosity account of the Somali civil war has not been given the scholarly attention that its magnitude warrants, even after sixteen years of clan-warfare. This clan-animosity feeling can in fact be derived from faction joint communiqué and statements; and therefore, posting selections of these public relation statements should be a matter of concern to all Somalis – particularly, to those who are in the field of Somali Studies.
After all, clan factionalism disguised in English acronyms (formed from three or four initial letters which include the sacrosanct letter “S”) are now facts of life for Somalis. The words and deeds of the turbulent faction followers have ordained to presuppose that faction spokespersons assumed a monumental role in fuelling clan-hatred. As a result of that, the Forum rushes in to investigate and share with you excerpts of faction communiqués, hoping to find solutions to the current tragic political situation in Somalia.
Somali Faction Dismisses Need for Ceasefire Talks
January 07, 1992
NAIROBI, Jan 7, Reuter - An armed group engaged in a vicious seven-week ethnic feud in Somalia`s capital Mogadishu has said there is “no point” in meeting its main rival to try to secure a ceasefire.
A statement by warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed`s faction given to Reuters in Nairobi on Tuesday, but issued from the war-torn city on January 5 said rival leader Ali Mahdi Mohamed had been ousted and a new interim administration established.
“Therefore, there is no point in meeting with Ali Mahdi,” said the document signed by a close aide to Aideed, Omar Ahmed Jees.
Up to 20,000 people have been killed and wounded since the latest round of fighting broke out on November 17.
Somalia, an impoverished Horn of Africa country, was plunged into anarchy when guerrillas ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre a year ago and turned to feuding with each other.
James Jonah, the United Nations special envoy who visited Mogadishu at the weekend to urge faction leaders to agree on a ceasefire, said he was pessimistic about peace prospects.
“There is no organised civil society left. In such conditions the life of man is nasty, brutish and short and in the 20th century this cannot be tolerated,” Jonah said on Monday.
The Aideed faction statement said it had called on the U.N. to help organise a national reconciliation conference.
Somalia has virtually collapsed as a nation state, carved up into tribal enclaves ruled by gangs of armed youths.
Political analysts said the prospects of sending an international peace-keeping force had increased as a result of the U.N.`s failure to broker a ceasefire in Mogadishu.
Ethiopia is spearheading calls for sending in an international force that could ensure humanitarian assistance and has said it would contribute to such an operation, the analysts said.
This option is expected to be discussed at a Horn of Africa summit in Addis Ababa this month drawing together Kenya, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia and the self-governing Ethiopian province of Eritrea.
General Aidid Interviewed on Mogadishu Plight
London BBC World Service in English
January 07, 1992, 1705 GMT
[From the “Focus on Africa” program]
[Text] This weekend, James Jonah, the UN special envoy, ventured into the war-torn Somali capital, Mogadishu in attempt to mediate between the rival factions of the United Somali Congress [USC] who have been at each other`s throats for the past weeks. James Jonah managed in the end to meet both Ali Mahdi, the president of Somalia and his rival, General Farah Aidid, chairman of the USC. From Ali Mahdi`s faction of the USC, he received a petition calling for direct UN intervention in the civil war that threat thousands of lives in Mogadishu. Our correspondent, Peter Biles, spoke to Ali Mahdi`s opponent, General Aidid, after he had met James Jonah, and he asked him whether peace was any closer following Jonah`s visit.
[Begin recording] [Aidid] I think a peaceful solution is near. Already, a plan of meeting has been fixed in the next edition.
[Biles] But the reality on the ground seems somewhat different because the fighting is going on, there is shelling and gunfire in the background even as we speak. You refused to have anything to do with your opponent, Mr. Ali Mahdi. Why do you rule out the idea of outside intervention, perhaps, the UN peacekeeping force coming in?
[Aidid] We do not see any solution to bring in these forces or foreign intervention forces in Somalia, in USC areas because we believe we are able to settle our problem by our own. We are working hard, and the results will be seen by everybody.
[Biles] How much longer do you think it is going to go on then?
[Aidid] Inside USC problems, I think it would be a few weeks.
[Biles] Have you been into any of the hospitals yourself? Have you seen the result of this conflict, this carnage?
[Aidid] Yes, I have seen and I hope these killings will be stopped by those who are committing this crime.
[Biles] If you do not accept the presence of the UN peacekeeping force, would you accept some kind of outside intervention to allow humanitarian aid to be distributed?
[Aidid] We are asking the humanitarian aid to be distributed to the needy people. We have made a lot of appeals and we hope the international community will answer.
[Biles] Mogadishu is short of food, it is short of medical supplies, it is short of fuel, almost everything is in short supply. But one thing, Somalia is never seen to run out of is ammunition.
[Aidid] We are not receiving any ammunition or any arms from outside. We are using only the ammunition and the armament we have taken previously from Siad Barre regime. [end recording]
Interim President Ali Mahdi on UN Effort, Italian Role
Rome L`UNITA in Italian
July 09, 1993 P10
[Interview with Interim President Ali Mahdi Mohamed by Mauro Montali in Mogadishu; date not given]
[Excerpt] Mogadishu-[passage omitted] [Montali] President Mahdi, what picture do you paint of the current situation?
[Ali Mahdi] Let us say that Somalia is halfway between good and evil, in the sense that we are getting increasingly closer to pacification. People are no longer dying under fire or from hunger. There are supplies in the warehouses, and people are gradually returning to their jobs. In short, there is a climate of hope. But still there are those who are opposed to this. You know I am referring to Aidid and his comrades.
[Montali] You made an agreement with Mohamed Farah Aidid. Why was it broken?
[Ali Mahdi] Ask the man wholly responsible for breaking it: He failed to observe the Addis Ababa agreements; hence the killing of the Pakistanis and then the Italians.
[Montali] But who is supplying him with arms?
[Ali Mahdi] There are still many arsenals in Somalia. The Habrgidir [as published] leader, however, is also supplied by foreign countries.
[Montali] Who? Which ones?
[Ali Mahdi] We know full well, but I cannot name names. Arms are coming in by all routes, some even by air to two small airports. One of these airports is near Baidoa, the other in Marka.
[Montali] But does the fact that Aidid has moved toward Islamic fundamentalist positions help us understand who his foreign allies might be? Are we far from the truth if we say that Sudan and Iran are helping him?
[Ali Mahdi] No, I will not name any names. But do not make the mistake of overestimating his strength. He must have 300 to 400 fighters currently in Mogadishu, and they do not even have any heavy artillery; that has been taken to Gaalkacyo, in the central region. Look, the problem is only here, in the capital. How much territory does Aidid control? A mere 3 km, an insignificant strip. Are you aware that 98 percent of the population supports the multinational peace force? That means his strength is limited to the remaining, miserable 2 percent.
[Montali] Mr. Mahdi, to be honest, we did not feel that things were that way in Mogadishu. The entire southern part of the city, as we saw with our own eyes, is in the hands of Habrgidir bandits or militias. And anyway, it looked to us as though Aidid is a very popular leader...
[Ali Mahdi] I repeat: They are an insignificant presence. Besides, the Habrgidir are only one-third of the Abgal [as published]. Mogadishu is split into 14 districts, and we are in full control of 11 of them. All Aidid has left is a part of the other three: the so-called 4th kilometer, the roads around 21 October Avenue, the stadium, and the grandstand [Tribuna]. But if you go around Somalia, from Kismaayo to Baidoa, you will see that there is no longer any tension. Morgan Jays and the other clan chiefs have laid down their arms. As for Aidid being loved by the people, my answer is: Why should he be? I know he claims to have freed Somalia from Siad Barre, but that is untrue. It is well known that he was in Addis Ababa and that he arrived when the show was over.
[Montali] In your view, since you know him well, is Aidid really a war criminal?
[Ali Mahdi] That is up to the courts to judge.
[Montali] This morning a leaflet said to have been published by your group, in which the population is stirred up against the Italians, was circulating in town. Do you know anything about it? Apparently it is not the first time this has happened.
[Ali Mahdi] I have never heard of any such thing.
[Montali] But are you in favor of Italians joining the UNOSOM [UN Operation in Somalia] command structure?
[Ali Mahdi] I am in favor of an Italian presence, but I do not like it when your ministers say that the ITALFOR [Italian UN contingent] must not take part in search actions or fire back when shot at.
[Montali] So, as we understand it, you are critical of the “negotiations” tabled with the Habrgidir over the pasta factory checkpoint issue.
[Ali Mahdi] What negotiations? Are you kidding me? The Italians should have recaptured their positions by force of arms, and that`s that. What is all this about compromising with the Habrgidir? That way the Italians arouse the hostility of the Somali people, who support the international force almost to a man. That way you confer dignity on an enemy to peace. That was a very serious error.
[Montali] Do you know [Italian contingent Commander] General Loi?
[Ali Mahdi] I have never had the good fortune to make his acquaintance. But he must be really good, otherwise he would never have made the rank of general.
[Montali] In your view, what mistakes have been made by the multinational peace force?
[Ali Mahdi] The first mistake was made last December. As well as aid being provided, everyone should have been disarmed: the clans and the populace. At that time, everyone would have handed over their rifles and machine guns...
[Montali] Including your men?
[Ali Mahdi] Of course. Look, my group handed over its “hardware” of its own free will.
[Montali] What about the second mistake?
[Ali Mahdi] It is a recent one; it goes back to 5 June, when UNOSOM started bombing Aidid`s positions after the massacre of the Pakistanis. Why did they stop? [Mahdi ends]
The interview is over. Ali Mahdi stood up to say goodbye and offer us a cup of coffee. But his aide Hussen Bod [name as published], head of the United Somali Congress` international section, came up to us and said: “Either you Italians get into line with everyone else, or you had better go home.” Ali Mahdi overheard and corrected his aide: “No, he did not mean that. It is just that we expected something more from the Italian troops.” But of course, Ali Mahdi is defending his own-questionable-power tooth and nail.
Read Part I & Part II & Part III & Part IV | <urn:uuid:2de5efcb-a5c4-45d4-ba21-e84ab55f4819> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://biyokulule.com/view_content.php?articleid=3252 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966368 | 3,375 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Home » Opinion » Editorials
Art and speech: No more freedom for either?
Eight Egyptian Coptic Christians are believed to have been actors in the making of the now infamous “Innocence of Muslims” movie, which supposedly sparked anti-American riots across the Muslim world. This week, Egypt issued orders for their arrest.
Reports the Los Angeles Times: “The prosecutor’s office says the seven men and one woman, all of whom are believed to be outside of Egypt, are charged with harming national unity, insulting and publicly attacking Islam and spreading false information. The office says they could face the death penalty.”
Rounding up artists who offend national sensibilities is the stuff of totalitarian regimes. So it was striking that on Saturday, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man believed to be the maker of the movie, was brought in for questioning on the order of U.S. government authorities, supposedly because he might have violated parole conditions.
After the riots began last week, some left-wing commentators suggested that the maker of the movie be arrested. In the Los Angeles Times this week, a former adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Obama administration argued in a column that the movie was not protected speech.
Granted, the movie is both stupid and deliberately provocative. But this is still the United States. If we are to silence stupid artists because their art makes people angry, then this will no longer be the United States our forefathers gave us. It will be instead a nation whose citizens are no longer free, but subservient to the whims of hotheads around the globe.
READER COMMENTS: 2
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UPDATED: Derry marks a soldier's death
Experts weigh in on UNH logo designs | <urn:uuid:1653777a-f923-42c7-bd8f-5b378b308908> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unionleader.com/article/20120920/OPINION01/709209892/1013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945213 | 503 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Classic TV & Movie Hits
|Welcome Back Kotter|
This Show Page is maintained by:
No One! – Want to do it?
Kotter began its run amid controversy. In Boston, a city going though a tumultuous school busing program to enhance racial equality, the ABC affiliate felt Mr. Kotter's integrated classroom would only add fuel to the fire. The affiliate refused to air the first four episodes, but decided by the fifth episode to pick up what had become a ratings success. Meanwhile, teachers had concerns about how Mr. Kotter might be portrayed, so producers allowed a teachers' union representative on the set to ensure the show protected the image of those in the profession. There were also fears that the show would amount to a celebration of juvenile deliquency; however, such sentiments faded when the Sweathogs' antics proved to be silly rather than scary.
The show enjoyed ratings success during its first two seasons, spawning a host of merchandising tie-ins such as lunch boxes, dolls, comic books, novels and a board game. The characters' signature lines, such as Barbarino's "Up your nose with a rubber hose" and Washington's "Hi there," became catch phrases. It wasn't long before the previously unknown actors became hot commodities, particularly Travolta, the show's breakout star.
By the third season, the ratings began to slip. In an interview years later, Kaplan attributed the decline to the age of the actors playing the Sweathogs (Palillo was 30, Hegyes was 28, Hilton-Jacobs was 27 and Travolta was 25), saying they were no longer believable as high school students. His idea, which never materialized, was to have Mr. Kotter join the faculty of a community college attended by the Sweathogs. To help lure more viewers, a storyline developed that saw Mr. and Mrs. Kotter have twin girls, though that wasn't enough for the show to regain its earlier momentum.
Major changes took place in the fourth and final season. Travolta, who had already starred in box office hits such as Grease and Saturday Night Fever, began to focus more time on his film career. He was featured in less than half of the episodes that year, now billed as a "special guest star." Meanwhile, some behind-the-scenes disputes led to limited appearances by Kaplan. To help fill the voids, Stephen Shortridge joined the cast as smooth-talking southern sweathog Beau De Labarre, and Kotter's wife, Julie, became a substitute teacher at the school. Many fans consider the fourth season to be the worst, often singling out the departure of Travolta as when the show "jumped the shark."
Show Description Credit: Wikipedia
|> Airing History & Information|
|Last Airing||Aug 10, 1979|
|Premiere||September 9, 1975|
|Format/Time||Color / 30 Minutes|
|Upcoming Airs||Not currently airing|
Boom Boom Washington
Robert Hegyes.... Epstein
Gabe Kaplan.... Gabe Kotter
Rob Palillo.... Horshach
Helaine Lembeck.... Judy Borden (1975-1977)
Marcia Strassman.... Julie Kotter
Catarina Cellino.... Maria (1975-1976)
Debralee Scott.... Rosalie Totzie
Dennis Bowen.... Todd Ludlow (1975-1977)
John Travolta.... Vinnie Barbarini
John Sylvester White.... Woodman
[More Cast & Guest Stars]
|> News (News Archive) (Post a News Story)|
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Hezbollah condemns U.S.-made film of Prophet Mohammad
BEIRUT, Sept 12 |
BEIRUT, Sept 12 (Reuters) - Lebanon's Shi'ite militant group Hezbollah condemned a U.S.-made film about the Prophet Mohammad on Wednesday, which triggered violent protests in Libya and Egypt, as an attack on religious belief which it said reflected Western policy.
In a statement which made no reference to the killing of U.S. diplomats in Libya in apparent response to the film, Hezbollah said the film was an "immoral act which represents the highest degree of aggression against the highest human right ... for respect of beliefs and sanctities".
The film aimed to stir tensions and hatred between Muslims and Copts in Egypt and reflected "the true position of the American-Zionist alliance towards Islam and Muslims", it said.
"In this context, the statements of official U.S. condemnation no longer fool anyone," Hezbollah said, referring to official U.S. criticism of the film.
Protesters in Egypt tore down an American flag and burned it during a demonstration on Tuesday against the film. In the Libyan city of Benghazi gunmen attacked and burned the U.S. consulate, killing one consular official.
The U.S. ambassador and embassy staff were killed in a rocket attack on their car as they were rushed from the consular building, a Libyan official said.
U.S. pastor Terry Jones, who inflamed Muslim anger in 2010 with plans to burn the Koran, said he had promoted the film "Innocence of Muslims", which U.S. media said was produced by an Israeli-American property developer. Clips of another film called "Mohammad, Prophet of Muslims", circulated for weeks before the protest.
That film portrayed Mohammad as a fool, a philanderer and a religious fake. In one clip posted on YouTube Mohammad was shown in a sexual act with a woman.
Many Muslims consider any depiction of the Prophet offensive and any depiction of him can cause outbursts of anger in the Islamic world and among Muslims in Europe.
Hezbollah's statement, which comes two days before Pope Benedict is due to visit Lebanon, also called for Christians and Muslims at the highest level to address the issue.
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F. A. Q. - Technology Information
Are PCs provided in residence hall rooms?
PCs are not provided in individual student rooms; however, all students have access to computer labs located in residence halls, including Forrer, Clay, Poole, Rosenthal Commons, and Hazelrigg. Computer facilities are also available in Brown Science Center, the library, and the Cowgill Center for Business, Economics, and Education. Specialty computer labs are available in Mitchell Fine Arts, the Brown Science Center computer science lab, and the Writing Center and language lab in Haupt Humanities for use by students whose course work allows them access to those labs.
To whom can students go if they need computer assistance?
Transylvania's Technology Help Desk offers computer assistance to students. For more information, call (859) 281-3593.
Are students given email accounts?
All students are given free email accounts. Information regarding email accounts is mailed to students before they arrive on campus. The student's email account will remain active during the academic calendar year, through summer, and until July after graduation.
My student is bringing a personal computer to campus. What services does the university provide?
Students who have personal computers with wired or wireless capabilities may connect to the university network from their residence hall rooms and have free access to network software, email, and the Internet. Students without personal computers have the same access to the network from computer labs located around campus. Please see our technology services page for detailed information. If you are shopping for a new computer, please see our Computer Considerations document.
What are the rules for using the Transy network?
Please read our Acceptable Use Policy. When you connect to our network, you will be asked to agree to the AUP. | <urn:uuid:91e06ecd-2e95-46f6-9330-096bca2c2f29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://transy.edu/parents/faq/technology.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938978 | 364 | 1.65625 | 2 |
A Year Ago, IBD Noted Venezuelan Funding of Flawed 'Gasland' Documentary on Which EPA's 'Crucify' Official Collaborated
A year ago in March, an Investor's Business Daily editorial ("America's Enemies Don't Want U.S. Drilling") informed readers that "the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington put out a Twitter post expressing disappointment that the documentary 'Gasland' didn't win an Academy Award." Specifically: "Sadly, 'Gasland' didn't win an Oscar, because a Vzlan helped make it," Venezuela's Twitterer whined." IBD went on to note that "Gasland" had "a Venezuelan production assistant, Irene Yibirin, who ... (has) ties to the (Chavez) government's Foundation National Cinematheque. ... [O]n the site, she praised Chavez."
Why is this relevant? Well, as another IBD editorial on Thursday noted, EPA Region 6 Administrator Al Armendariz, who became deservedly infamous last week when his public articulation of his "Crucify Them" philosophy towards enforcement of environmental laws and regulations in a speech a year ago was exposed, really loves the film, which industry officials have shown is riddled with deceptions and outright falsehoods. Not only that, he was also involved in making it:
Armendariz said in the same speech his proudest moment in his first year at EPA was to have its enforcers watch “Gasland,” an anti-fracking propaganda documentary financed by the government of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who also opposes all U.S. drilling. Armendariz collaborated with its makers, and got his name in the credits.Story Continues Below Ad ↓
IBD could have and perhaps should have gone much further in its criticism of Antagonistic Al. Armendariz, whose resume communicates what should be a high level of relevant scientific expertise, had to throw any fealty he had to the scientific method overboard by becoming associated with the "Gasland" and praising its final result.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America's Energy In Depth blog thoroughly debunked so much of what is in "Gasland" in June 2010 that one almost has to conclude that the list of truths in the film was miles shorter than the list of false assertions and contentions. The film misstated facts about provisions in laws passed by Congress; misrepresented the degree to which fracking is currently regulated; completely miscommunicated key facts relating to the fracking process; recycled long-discredited environmentalist memes; and in at least seven instances, in the blog post's words, was "just making stuff up." In February 2011, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ignored industry objections to the film's eligibility for an Academy Award. Well, at least it didn't win. Sorry, Hugo.
Further, it would appear that:
- One of the film's "hooks," namely that producer Josh Fox was offered $100,000 for the right to drill on his land, is highly questionable at best and complete fiction at worst. This claim was parroted in a June 1, 2010 Associated Press story, which also relayed Fox's claim (with what I believe to be little or no skepticism) that he was still receiving such offers. A separate EID blog post on June 7, 2011 by Tom Shepstone makes a compelling case that it's virtually impossible that Fox received such an offer, and that if he did, it couldn't have come from the company whose documents are, according to Shepstone, the only ones which conform "with the format and wording of the document displayed in Gasland."
- Another dramatic hook, namely "the much-vaunted and disturbing image of flammable running water from faucets," is similarly bogus in the supposed "lesson" it tries to communicate: "Well yes, apparently many can (do this) – but sadly for Gasland, for reasons au naturelle. Fox highlights the instance of a flammable faucet in Fort Lupton, Colorado pinning the blame on gas development. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission however disagree(s), maintaining, 'Dissolved methane in well water appears to be biogenic [natural occurring] in origin” and they found “no indications of oil and gas related impacts to the water well.'"
- In general, filmmaker Josh Fox is a guy who isn't exactly wedded to the concepts of total accuracy and thorough vetting, having been quoted as follows: "I’m sorry but art is more important than politics. … Politics is people lying to you and simplifying everything; art is about contradictions."
Armendariz's involvement with "Gasland," especially as an alleged scientist, his praise of its deeply deceptive content, and his eagerness to brainwash his subordinates with it, all should make it obvious that he is unfit to hold his EPA post or any other position involving regulation.
Following the lead of the Obama administration, which IBD correctly asserted is protecting Armendariz, the establishment press is ignoring the aforementioned crucial elements of this story. Just two examples: The Associated Press, which on Thursday covered the EPA administrator's "apology" while erroneously reporting that Armendariz's outlook only applies to "bad players" who are "not complying with the law (Christopher Helman at Forbes made mincemeat of that claim by recounting the EPA's fantasy-based attempted crucifixion of Range Resources), has done no follow-up story in the intervening 2-1/2 days. Similarly and just as incorrectly, John M. Broder at the New York Times's Green Blog on Thursday claimed that Armendariz's crucifixions remarks targeted "some violators of pollution laws." Helman demonstrated that Range Resources violated no laws, and thanks to its corporate spine eventually forced an EPA courtroom retreat.
What's described here exemplifies yet again how reading key stories and editorials at Investor's Business Daily is indispensable if one wishes to be truly informed, because it so often addresses and exposes matters the establishment press should be covering -- and won't -- and is absolutely fearless in calling them out.
As to Armendariz's continued presence at EPA, I wrote on Thursday that "If this guy holds onto his job — forget the 'apology,' which can’t possibly undo Armendariz’s outlook as practiced — we will know all we need to know about the Obama administration’s regulatory mindset."
Well, now we know, and there can be no remaining doubt.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com. | <urn:uuid:23038efb-442e-4360-b375-f38d9b8ab0f1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2012/04/29/year-ago-ibd-noted-venezuelan-funding-flawed-gasland-documentary-which-e | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970015 | 1,353 | 1.507813 | 2 |
B.C. opens up liquor imports from other provinces
Changes allow import of limited amounts of alcoholic beverages for personal use
Posted: Jun 7, 2012 8:36 AM PT
Last Updated: Jun 7, 2012 2:38 PM PT
British Columbians can now bring liquor back into B.C. from other Canadian provinces and territories without paying additional taxes — but a decision on whether or not wine can flow freely across all provincial boundaries hangs on the fate of a bill currently on its way through the federal parliament.
The B.C. minister responsible for the Liquor Distribution Branch, Rich Coleman, announced Thursday that previous restrictions have been relaxed and B.C. residents can now bring back up to one case of wine, four bottles of spirits, and a combined total of six dozen beer, cider and coolers from other provinces for personal consumption. The amendments bring B.C in line with exemptions permitted by Ontario, Nova Scotia and the Yukon, Coleman said.
In a related development, a federal private member's bill ending the restrictions on carrying wine across provincial borders for personal consumption has passed a major hurdle in Parliament.Canadians could soon be able to legally carry wine over provincial borders. (CBC)
On Wednesday night, bill C-311 passed third reading in the House of Commons with unanimous support. It now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass.
That means it could be signed into law by the Governor General just in time for the summer tourism season at Canadian wineries.
Under the Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act, it is illegal in Canada, with a few exceptions, to carry alcohol over interprovincial boundaries.
Small wineries have long complained the restriction prevents tourists and vinophiles from legally taking home a few bottles from their favourite vineyards.
The new bill would amend the prohibition-era act to allow people to transport wine across provincial borders, but only for personal use. It will also allow vineyards to ship wine by post or courier to customers in other provinces.
Wine can already be shipped between provinces for commercial sale, but only through the provincial regulators, and many smaller vineyards say they are left out of that trade because they don't produce enough product to interest the marketers.
Winemakers support changes
Vintner Sandra Oldfield, Tinhorn Creek Vineyards, sees potential for her business to grow if Canadians outside of B.C. are allowed to buy her wine.
"It's hard to build a relationship with somebody in another province if you can't send them the wine. So I'm hoping for us this really means that we can get Canadians drinking more Canadian wine."
But passage of the bill will not clear out all obstacles for wine lovers. Some provincial regulations will still remain in place. In Ontario, for example, the LCBO still limits amounts of alcohol people can bring into the province for personal consumption.
The bill was introduced by Conservative MP Dan Albas, who represents the riding of Okanagan-Coquihalla, the heartland of B.C.'s rapidly expanding wine industry. Albas introduced the bill last October and shepherded it all the way through the House of Commons.
"We should be trying to take down these barriers to make it as easy to sell to someone in Alberta as it is to sell to someone in China," said Albas after the bill passed.
The bill was expected to be passed by the House last week, just in time for the summer break. But at the final hour it was blocked when the NDP talked out the clock on the debate.
The party later apologized for what they called a miscommunication and the bill was given a second chance on Wednesday night when Liberal MP Scott Brison offered his time slot for the debate.
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- Washington police blame bridge collapse on Alberta trucker | <urn:uuid:eef5baa4-833f-41ac-abb4-e1fadb658891> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/06/07/bc-interprovincial-wine-law.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951295 | 1,287 | 1.625 | 2 |
Santa Cruz, Calif. Behavioral synthesis is finding renewed interest after a long drought, and one small provider now finds itself in a market that's heating up. Nine-year-old Y Explorations Inc. (Lake Forest, Calif.) has just announced enhancements to its Excite synthesis tool, which works from untimed ANSI C-language input.
Founded to commercialize research from the University of California at Irvine, Y Explorations (www.yxi.com) has shipped Excite since 1998, mostly for embedded-software and FPGA development.
Once trumpeted as the next big move in EDA, behavioral synthesis which works at a higher level of abstraction than RTL logic synthesis fell into disrepute in recent years as available products failed to provide sufficient quality of results. Synopsys Inc. pulled its Behavioral Compiler product off the market earlier this year, and market research firm Gartner Dataquest Inc. said the behavioral-synthesis tools market dwindled to $2.5 million in 2001 and 2002, from $7.8 million in 2000.
But several vendors breathed new life into behavioral synthesis this year, including Celoxica, Forte Design, Mentor and Synfora. "There's always been some concern and suspicion about how good behavioral synthesis is," said Tedd Hadley, Y Explorations' CEO. "Our results are good, but obviously some designs will get better results than others."
Most Excite customers are in Japan, Hadley said. Among them is semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Technology Corp. "We're doing OK on sales we're not taking investment money at this point," he said. "Our next phase is to continue product development." Hadley acknowledged that competing with much larger EDA vendors will be a challenge. "This is the first year we've seen some serious competition," he said.
Excite has some unique strengths, Hadley said. One is simply the long background of the technology, which spans some 15 years of research at UC Irvine. Another is its use of untimed ANSI C. Mentor Graphics Corp.'s Catapult uses untimed C++, while Forte Design Systems' Cynthesizer and Celoxica Ltd.'s Agility use SystemC. Untimed C is the most common type of legacy code that's out there, Hadley said. But this raises the question of how to represent hardware concepts such as concurrency. In response, Y Explorations is developing Excite Expert, which provides extensions to ANSI C that allow cycle-accurate specifications, parallelism, communication, exception handling and architectural constraints.
Another distinction, Hadley said, is what the company calls "reuse automation." He explained that Excite has a database that lends itself well to designs with intellectual-property blocks. "You can have a black box, and all you need to do is write an interface," he said.
Indeed, Excite includes C optimization, architectural exploration, interface synthesis and behavioral synthesis. The output is synthesizable VHDL or Verilog, along with a testbench. Hadley said the tool offers automated synthesis, but also allows users to interactively explore architectures and use pragmas to instruct the tool.
As for quality of results compared with handcrafted RTL code, Hadley said, "Sometimes we can exceed it, sometimes we're as good as it, sometimes we're not as good. But in every case we're much, much faster."
The new 3.0 release adds a hierarchical synthesis capability to Excite. It can take function calls and, instead of automatically in-lining every one, turn them into separate processes, Hadley said. This reduces synthesis time and verification complexity, he said. "You can build up a database of these functions and the tool will reuse them during synthesis." Also new is a design quality analysis that reports expected clock periods and areas.
One announced customer for Excite 3.0 is Mitsubishi Corp.'s Advanced Technology R&D Center. The new version is available now starting at around $80,000. | <urn:uuid:e60b9795-a1bd-4467-9a61-c72de6327f03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4050462/Behavioral-synthesis-rebounds-in-marketplace | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947285 | 844 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Up until now apps have had to be tediously loaded on to each and every iOS device one at a time. Apple’s Volume Purchase Program (VPP) now makes it easier to find, buy, and then distribute the apps your business needs. Apple’s new VPP isn’t restricted to just Apple Store apps. It’s also a simple way for businesses to get custom B2B apps built and deployed from third party developers.
To enrol and find out more about VPP visit http://www.apple.com/business/vpp/
PC Magazine May 2012
Microsoft this week continued to push for the demise of Windows XP, arguing that it is more expensive for businesses to remain on the aging OS than it is to upgrade to Windows 7.
Specifically, IDC said that base IT and end-user labor costs associated with Windows XP are about five times as much as those for Windows 7. “That’s a significant amount of money IT shops could put towards modernizing their departments and adding value to the businesses,” Visser said.
Those prices are also still on the rise. “IDC found the longer you wait, the pricier supporting Windows XP gets: IT labor costs go up 25 percent in the fourth year of continuing to run Windows XP past deadline, and user productivity suffers as well, with an increased cost of 23 percent,” he said.
Read the rest of the article here
The new Group Policy Update feature in Windows 8 could be a real time-saver for IT admins. Here’s how it works.
I’m taking a couple weeks off before the busiest part of Microsoft’s 2012 kicks into full gear. But never fear: The Microsoft watching will go on while I’m gone. I’ve asked a few illustrious members of the worldwide Microsoft community to share their insights via guest posts on a variety of topics — from Windows Phone, to Hyper-V. Today’s entry is all about a new administrative feature in Windows 8 is authored by Alan Burchill.
As most IT administrators know, group policy is the feature in Windows that allows you to configured large number of windows computer easily and automatically. These configuration settings are stored in Active Directory (AD) for the workstation to then poll on a periodic basis for any configuration changes. This polling typically take 90 minutes (with some random offset), meaning that any configuration changes that an IT admin makes takes up to 2 hours or more to take effect.
One of the great new features that Microsoft has added to Windows 8 is now the ability to force a group policy update to run. This new feature called “Group Policy Update” can effectively give admins the way to push out configuration changes to all the computers online in less than 10 minutes. This is of course very handy if you want to quickly push out a quick policy change or quickly undo a setting that you might have configured by mistake.
check out the rest of the post from ZDNet
Enfusion, a division of Maclean, provides remote monitoring and maintenance solutions, based on the Kaseya platform. Offering a range of consultancy and hosting, Enfusion enables its partners to automate the monitoring, alerting and maintenance of its clients server and PC infrastructures. By offering a wholesale managed services program, Enfusion facilitates the movement of businesses to enter the managed services industry.
Steve Wilson, Enfusions General Manager, says, Our relationship with Kaseya enables us to stay ahead of the competitive managed services business. Direct access to the Kaseya priority support team means our customers benefit from higher service level agreements (SLAs) and priority access to beta testing and pilot programs before they are released to the broader MSP market.
Ensuring the highest level qualifications of our team reflects our commitment to keep one step ahead of the game in New Zealand and Australia, ensuring our team is the most qualified and experienced in the business, Wilson says.
Enfusion has grown in the last twelve months by responding to demand from managed service providers who are looking to scale their businesses. Prior to partnering, many of the engineers working in break fix environments lost hours of productivity responding to miscellaneous problems or reactively managing client issues on their help desks. Using Kaseya technology, Enfusions managed services promote MSPs to add value to their clients by focusing their time on proactive IT projects.
Dermot McCann, Managing Director, Kaseya Australia and New Zealand, says, We are committed to creating the tools and training that help drive partner profitability through improved productivity and return-on-invested capital. With the Kaseya certification, Maclean is empowering its customers to be the best MSPs in competitive markets.
Maclean takes Kaseya MSP title off the Aussies
SYDNEY, December 10, 2010 Kaseya, the leading global provider of automated IT systems management software, today announced Auckland-based Managed Services Provider (MSP) Maclean as winner of its second MSP of the Year Award. For the first time, the competition was open to Managed Services Providers (MSPs) from both Australia and New Zealand.
Maclean was selected for its outstanding ability to successfully deploy a managed services strategy in New Zealands mid-market. Working closely with their clients in-house IT teams providing complementary services such as system maintenance and monitoring has won the company a healthy portion of the lucrative 100 to 500 seats segment in New Zealand.
Maclean has been a strong advocate of managed services within the wider IT community. The MSP is actively involved in the Kaseya NZ User Group, and has started assisting smaller resellers to deliver world-class managed services as a Master MSP.
“Customer feedback clearly indicated that decreasing system downtime, decreasing response time and increasing the value businesses get from their IT departments were the most important things an MSP can do. To that end, we sought technology, people and processes to achieve these things and have made great progress- in no small part thanks to Kaseya’s technology” said Chris Maclean, CEO of Maclean.
In two years, having recognised the value of a managed service versus the traditional hourly rate service agreements, more than 65% of Maclean clients have moved to a fixed price agreement. By driving efficiencies through the Kaseya managed services flagship solution, Kaseya IT Services Edition, and its advanced automation features, Macleans contracted annuity revenue increased by 2000%, and the company’s engineer utilisation rate has increased 20%.
Martin Ashby, Executive Vice President APAC, commented: “Maclean impressed us with their clear vision and well-defined go-to-market strategy for managed services.” He added: “The ANZ managed services market is one of the most advanced in the world. Maclean demonstrated that they are not resting on their laurels, but pro-actively driving specialisation and maturity in the industry.”
Earlier this week, Kaseya underlined its commitment to the ANZ region with the opening of its new state-of-the-art Global Customer Service Centre in Auckland, which provides ‘follow-the-sun’ support together with a second facility in Dublin, Ireland. The service centres are the primary contact points for all customer related inquiries from the company’s extensive customer base of over 5,000 organisations around the world.
Kaseya has pledged itself to the continuous development of the local managed services community in Australia and New Zealand, by recognising vision, excellence and leadership among its MSP partners with the MSP of the Year award.
Candidates had to demonstrate to a panel of independent judges how managed services have become a catalyst for innovation, business acumen and company growth.
Kaseya is the leading global provider of IT Systems Management software. Kaseya solutions empower everyone- from individual consumers to large corporations and IT service providers - to proactively manage and control IT assets remotely, easily and efficiently from one integrated Web-based platform. Kaseya solutions are trusted by IT service providers and a wide variety of industries including: banking, consumer packaged goods, education, financial services, government, healthcare, military, real estate, retail and transportation. The company is privately held and based in Lausanne, Switzerland with 33 offices in 20 countries. To learn more, please visit http://www.kaseya.com.au/ or http://www.kaseya.co.nz/ | <urn:uuid:c8fe2f02-5e5f-4414-b7a5-2e4d7f5a245f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.maclean.co.nz/category/blog/managed-support/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954705 | 1,764 | 1.5625 | 2 |
President Obama said at a Chicago fundraiser on Sunday that the 2012 election is about two competing visions for America. “Too many folks still don’t have a sense that tomorrow will be better than today,” he said. “And so, the question in this election is which way do we go?” By wide margins, most Americans think the country is on the wrong track with Mr. Obama in the White House.
“Hope and change” have failed to deliver. More than three years into the Obama administration, economic growth has stagnated, unemployment is far higher than what was promised, and Mr. Obama has amassed more federal debt than every president from George Washington through George H.W. Bush combined. When left-wing pundits promised this would be a historic presidency, this wasn’t what they had in mind.
“Do we go forward towards a new vision of an America in which prosperity is shared?” Mr. Obama asked rhetorically, referring to his own agenda. Prosperity has to be earned before Mr. Obama can share it. Income has to be created before Washington divvies it up. Wealth can’t be redistributed if it doesn’t exist. Mr. Obama assumes America’s engines of growth and innovation will simply keep on delivering, but the past three years have shown this is not the case. His administration has been fundamentally anti-business, anti-growth and anti-individual. His purported solutions rely on government works projects, coercive regulatory schemes and handing out vast sums of money the government doesn’t have.
This liberal vision is of shared poverty, not prosperity. Mr. Obama won’t stop until the golden goose is cooked.
“We have to keep working to create an America where you can make it here if you try,” Mr. Obama said. On July 13, however, when he uttered what has become his catchphrase, “you didn’t build that,” Mr. Obama explicitly ridiculed the elements of individual success. “I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart,” he quipped. “There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”
Smart, hardworking Americans get no credit for their efforts, while the White House thinks two of the most obvious symbols of the Democrats’ economic failure — soaring unemployment payments and record numbers of people on food stamps — benefit the economy. It shows how backward this vision of America is. Every food stamp issued should feature Mr. Obama’s picture on one side and an apology on the other for making the handout necessary.
Over the weekend, Republican challenger Mitt Romney warned that Mr. Obama is trying to change America into “something we might not recognize.” The United States doesn’t need a new vision; it simply needs to have its blinders removed. The American ethos of hard work, limited government and individual freedom can cure the problems the nation faces if the people are allowed to do it. At base, the competing visions of the future are simple: One looks to the American people to save the country; the other to a messiah named Obama.
James S. Robbins is a senior editorial writer at The Washington Times and author of the forthcoming book, “Native Americans: Patriotism, Exceptionalism, and the New American Identity” (Encounter, 2012).
© Copyright 2013 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
James S. Robbins, Ph.D., former Senior Editorial Writer for Foreign Affairs, was formerly professor of international relations at the National Defense University, associate professor of international relations at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College and special assistant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. Dr. Robbins is author of the recently released “This Time ...
By Elaine Donnelly
Extending sexual misconduct to combat units | <urn:uuid:5ab60283-dd49-4132-8f6c-ed9ce3539e4d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/aug/13/obama-messiah/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95671 | 848 | 1.585938 | 2 |
DxO Optics Pro
A First Look
This Review First Published — May 11, 2004
have been a beta tester of DxO Optics Pro
and have consulted with DO Labs on the development of this product.
I have no financial relationship with the company.
What Is It?
First, I should explain what it's not. This is not DxO Analyzer, a product that you may have read about previously on these pages, which is a professional optical test system designed by DO Labs for use by camera and lens makers, and also reviewers. I utilize that program in my digital camera and lens tests, and you can read more about it here.
Optics Pro, the subject of this report, is a stand-alone program (PC and Mac) that allows images shot with specific digital cameras and lenses to be corrected for distortion, vignetting, blur (sharpness) and lateral chromatic aberration. It generated a great deal of excitement when it was first announced at the PMA show, and much speculation about how well it would work.
How it Works
This isn't magic. It's science. Quite a bit of it fact. DO Labs is a Paris based company that specializes in the application of mathematics to image enhancement. For their professional test product, DxO Analyzer, they developed mathematical tools which could measure to a high degree of accuracy various optical characteristics of lenses and sensors. It didn't take a rocket scientist (or mathematician) to figure out that if you can measure the errors in a system, using this information you might be able to correct them as well. This is in fact what DO Labs has done with Optics Pro.
When run Optics Pro is very simply to use. The Add button is used to load a file or series of files, or you can drag-and-drop files from any file browser window. These files currently need to be JPGs generated by the camera (not converted from RAW files), though RAW files will be supported directly before year's end.
If you have the right camera and lens modules (more on this in a moment) all you have to do next is to press Start. Files that you have loaded will be processed and transferred to the directory of your choice. You can simultaneously process images done with different camera bodies and different lenses, but of course you have to have purchased the necessary modules. No need to link modules to files — Optics Pro does this automatically. In Figure 2 below you can see a window showing the modules that are loaded on my test system. Most users will simply purchase a camera module and lens module appropriate for the equipment that they own and use.
The one bit of user intervention that may be needed is to tell the program the approximate distance at which the shot was taken. Optics Pro tries to extract this information from the file's EXIF data, but not all cameras provide it. There are several default settings that can be used for this if you're doing batch processing, but it is best to select a distance range manually for each image for optimum results.
When the single file or batch of files has been processed you have the choice of exiting the program or viewing the results. The viewer is handy because it allows you to see a before and after of the converted files, at any magnification. This is fun the first few times, but after the "new" has worn off you'll likely simply move on to your image editing program.
How Good Is It?
In a word — remarkable. I know that some readers who aren't familiar with the fact that I'm often very critical of products, and am not afraid to say so in print, will think that I'm being hyperbolic. But I'm not. This product is revolutionary. It can't turn a bad lens into a good lens, but it can make a mediocre lens a lot better, and a good lens can be raised up to being terrific. I'd hate to put a percentage to it since the level of improvement will vary depending on a great many variables, but I'd describe what I usually see as at least a 50% subjective improvement, if not more — and that's a lot.
I must admit that the samples that you'll see below are not as extensive and descriptive as I would have wished. Two reasons — the first is that I don't shoot JPG. Over the past year I've shot probably 15,000 frames with some of the camera bodies and lenses that Optics Pro supports, but not a single one of them is anything other than RAW. So I have no decent JPG images to go back to. Secondly, between when I returned from a European trip and starting to work with the final version of the program, and then the announcement of the product and publication of this report on May 11th, I had only a few days, and these were frequently rainy, or I was tied up with other projects.
Enough excuses. In completing this review I did some shooting with a half dozen lenses and a Canon 10D, and remain as impressed with what Optics Pro can do as I was during beta testing.
Move Your Mouse Over the Image for Before and After Views
Please note that it appears that some browsers
(mainly Netscape) have a bug
which prevents these roll-overs from displaying properly. You may wish to use
IE or another browser instead to view these properly.
Figure 5 above was taken with a Canon 15mm Rectangular Fisheye on a Canon 10D. Move your mouse over the image to see a before and after of what Optics Pro can do in terms of correcting distortion. Till now one would have to have bought an even more expensive program, such as Imagealign, and done much manual work to produce linear results like this. With Optics Pro it takes just one mouse click to take the heavily barrel distorted images produced by a 15mm fisheye lens and output nice linear images. For anyone with a reduced frame DSLR a 15mm lens opens up the world of wide angle shooting, and for this reason DO labs has provided initial support for Canon's 15mm rectangular fisheye as well as the Sigma 15mm in both Canon and Nikon mounts. (Both images above are straight from the camera, with no adjustments other than Optics Pro conversion).
Move Your Mouse Over the Image for Before and After Views
If all Optics Pro did was to correct for optical distortion in a lens it would be worthwhile. But as can be seen in Figure 6 above (roll your cursor over the image for before and after views), what DO Labs calls "Blur", or apparent sharpness, is also enhanced. Again, these images have had no sharpening or other adjustments applied in Photoshop. They are straight from the camera.
In Figure 7 above we have a frame taken with the Canon 85mm f/1.2 lens. This is shown just to give you a sense of the full image. Below in Figure 8 we see a 100% crop, again with no sharpening applied to either the before or after image.
Move Your Mouse Over the Image for Before and After Views
I could go on, and I'm sure other reviewers will. I'll leave off here by saying that what I see is a dramatic improvement in several aspects of image quality, and no visible negative affects at all. Improvements are most noticeable when using lower quality lenses. But even with very fine (and expensive) lenses improvements are readily visible.
Since this review first appeared there has been discussion on at least one online Board that the example in Figure 8 above shows sharpening halos, and that therefore either I have lied, and have sharpened the image, or that Optics Pro has done so.
Firstly, it is now my policy not to reply to postings on certain Boards (other than my own of course). This is at the request in at least one case of the Board's owner, though why falsehoods and slander should be allowed to continue without rebuttal escapes me.
In any event, here is what's going on in this image: The files that Optics Pro has to work on are JPGs. Unlike RAW files JPGs have been sharpened. This sharpening has been done by the camera. That's what digital cameras do to JPG files, and is one of the downsides of shooting JPG — you don't get to set the appropriate level of sharpening for each frame and final image size, the camera does.
Also, all files which have USM applied have halos, though obviously some more than others. Halos are caused by edge contrast differences, which is what USM does — enhance edge contrast (know in film days as "accutance"). The standard approach to applying the right amount of USM visually is to increase Radius and Amount in proportion for a particular image so that halos begin to be visible at 100% magnification. If one does this properly then at any normal print size they will be invisible. Too much and the image is oversharpened. To little and the amount of sharpening will be inadequate.
With this as background, we now recall that Image #8 above is shown at 100%. Therefore halos are visible, because they were added by in-camera sharpening when the file was turned into a JPG. To criticize either me or Optics Pro because there are halos visible is to simply not understand the nature of how sharpening works. To state the obvious — at normal print sizes these halos are invisible. And, as for Optics Pro, while there may be visible changes to the image at 100% due to having to work with pre-sharpened files, at any normal print size these are simply not visible. A large number of highly reputable and experienced testers have shown this to be the case over many months of intense analysis.
Regrettably a lack of understanding of this topic is all too common. That's why we see people critiquing 100% enlargements of other people pictures online and making all kinds of unfounded deductions. Here's a statement to consider: Any digital image seen at 100% that is either from an in-camera JPG or from a RAW file which has had USM applied properly by the user will show halos. One therefore can not use 100% magnification images to form a reliable conclusion about real-world image quality.
Only JPG — For Now
Note that I am hindered in publishing extensive sample images simply because I personally never shoot JPGs. I only work with RAW files and Optics Pro currently only works with JPGs. I see this as the program's biggest current drawback. If you think about it, this is the product's fundamental contradiction. Photographers who care about optimum image quality shoot RAW files whenever possible. They are clearly this product's target market. But the program will only process JPG files for now.
DO Labs obviously appreciates the issue and is working hard to complete a version of the program that will work with RAW files. This is a non-trivial problem, because the file would have to be delinerarized, de-mosaiced, processed, and then reconverted back to the camera's RAW format. But DO Labs says that they will be announcing a RAW version by Photokina in September, 2004. Stay tuned.
You should also keep in mind that the program can not handle JPG files that have been auto-rotated in camera. Turn off auto-rotation now if you plan on using Optics Pro in future.
What it Costs
DxO Optics Pro comes in three pieces. You need their Correction Engine, Camera Body Correction Module and thirdly a Lens Correction Module. This means that you buy just the pieces that you need, but can upgrade or add what else may be needed down the road.
For example, right now everyone needs an 8 Bit JPG Correction Engine. This sells for $49. You need as well a Camera Body Correction Engine Module, which ranges in price from $49 to $149, depending on the camera. 6MP Nikon and Canon camera are at the low end of the pricing scale while a Canon 1Ds model, for example, is priced at $149. Most lens modules cost $99, but the ones for the Canon and Nikon kit lenses (with non-full frame coverage) are priced at just $29.
So, for example, the three modules needed for a Canon Digital Rebel or Nikon D70 with a kit lens would be as low as $127, while a Canon 1Ds owner would pay close to $300 for the same thing. This is a pricing model that we've seen before. Phase One, for example, has used it with their Capture One software, where essentially the same software has been seen priced between $100 and $500, depending on the camera model on whose files it will be used.
This will be seen as advantageous to those with low-end equipment and gouging by those with high-end gear. Such is life. Companies have to maximize their return on investment and this has been found before to be a viable marketing approach.
DO Labs has done several things right when it comes to their pricing and support policies. For example, when you resell your camera and lens you may transfer your license to the software to the new owner. In other words, the DxO Module becomes part of the hardware.
There are pricing breaks as well. For example, if you buy two lens modules the second one is discounted 20%. A third by 30%, and a fourth by 35%. If you buy a second camera module it is discounted 20%.
There is also a launch discount. Almost all modules are discounted by 25% until June 30th, 2004. This means that by combining all of these discounts a Nikon D100 owner could, for example, pay $274 for a Correction Module, Camera Module and three lens modules, rather than the regular price of $366.
You should check the DO Labs web site www.dxo.com for full details and currently pricing.
Which Cameras and Lenses it Works With
This is a moving target. At launch, in May, 2004, DSLRs from Canon and Nikon are supported. These include the Digital Rebel 300D, Nikon D70 and D100, and the Canon 10D and 1Ds. The Nikon D2h and Canon 1Ds MK II will be supported shortly.
Lenses currently (May, 2004) supported are shown below. DO Labs says that they intend on launching support for some 200 lenses during 2004, and will be doing so on a monthly basis. Check their web site for updates.
Lenses Supported as of May, 2004
Canon EOS 10D Canon 16-35 'L' f/2.8
Canon 17-40 'L' f/4.0
Canon 85 f/1.2
Canon 24-70 'L' f/2.8
Canon 28-105 f/3.5-4.5
Canon 50 f/1.4
Canon 15mm Fish-eye
Canon Digital Rebel / 300D / Kiss Digital Canon 18-55 Kit Lens
Canon 50 f/1.4
Sigma 15mm Fish-eye in Canon mount
Nikon D100 Nikkor 18-35 'AF' f/3.5-4.5
Nikkor Zoom 12-24mm f/4 DX
Nikkor 50 f/1.4 D
Nikkor 85 f/1.4
Nikkor Zoom 24-85mm f/2.8-4D AF
Nikon D70 Nikkor 18-70 f/3.5 Kit
Nikkor 50 f/1.4 D
Sigma 15mm Fish-eye in Nikon mount
Coming this summer:
Nikon D2H With popular lenses
Canon 1D Mark II With popular lenses
Canon 1Ds With popular lenses
There isn't much to complain about. It's annoying that the Viewer, which is available after each conversion (and which does a very nice job) can't be accessed in any other way. In other words you can't load the Viewer on its own so as to be able to look at some before and after comparisons. The files have to be loaded into Photoshop or some other program to be able to do such comparisons. Beyond this, the program simply does what it's intended to do.
What's Not to Like?
DxO Optics Pro is an impressive product, and given what it does the price / performance ratio is attractive. For anyone using a consumer-grade lenses, an extra one or two hundred dollars spent on Optics Pro will elevate the image quality produced to close to that of a much more expensive lens. Of course anyone with one of these expensive lenses can also buy Optics Pro and move their image quality up to an even higher level, so it's a mugs game to think that this is the holy grail of photography. But it works, it works well, and its not unreasonably priced for what it does.
Some people might be mislead by the simplicity of the program's interface. Unlike some software which presents you with a myriad of user controls and variables, Optics Pro simply lets you load files and process them. There are a few file handling options, and that's it. But behind the scenes this program is performing some truly awesome math, and while it can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, it can noticeably improve several aspects of a lens' image quality.
As I've already commented, my main beef with Optics Pro is that it only works with JPG files. On a personal level this means that the program is of no use to me, since I never shoot JPG. But for anyone that does, I can recommend the program without reservation. It does what it says it will. It does it very well, and it appears not to create any processing artifacts. You get visible improvements to your images, and nothing else.
When a module that supports RAW files comes out this Fall I'll be the first in line to buy it.
You can find out more and purchase Optics Pro modules online at www.dxo.com. It begins shipping on May 24th, 2004.
The following letter was received from a reader, which will be of interest to anyone using a Mac OS X system.
I read your article about DxO Optics Pro. I purchased the software for
my Digital Rebel.
I think that's it's very important to inform your readers that, with a
Macintosh computer, the pictures MUST NOT be dowloaded with the Image
Capture software from Mac OS X. Image Capture modifies the EXIF data
("QuickTime 6.5.1" is added in the software field) and then the
pictures can't be processed by DxO. It will be corrected in the July
update (all info from DO Labs technical support). All my pictures were
imported in the Mac with Image Capture and ereased from the CF card,
therefore now I can use DxO only with new pictures (downloaded with a
USB CF reader). | <urn:uuid:97fde26d-e431-45a6-9d1a-38b112eea145> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/software/optics-pro.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951401 | 3,961 | 1.617188 | 2 |
During the November NY QS Show&Tell (#3), many of us were excited to learn about the wi-fi body scale by Withings when Bethany Soule showed us how she had integrated her own Withings scale using their API into her project Kibotzer.com, a tool that helps people track their progress toward all sorts of goals.
This is Good Design
I have never owned a body scale and instead have relied on ones at my local gym or doctor’s office. Because I know how much weight can fluctuate daily, I never saw a reason to invest in something that I could access every week or so elsewhere. But the thought of having my own wi-fi enabled scale that could upload my weight online was appealing. So, in late November, my own Withings scale arrived in the mail. A well-designed product pays as much attention to packaging design and set up instructions as they do their own product (I’m thinking of Apple here), well Withings delivered!
I put the batteries in the scale, set up my account, and entered my wi-fi network password. Then all I had to do was stand on the scale barefoot to wake it up as it immediately measured and displayed my weight, body fat and BMI in that order. After the weigh-in, the scale sent the measurement to my personal Withings account online. It was that simple.
Fatty Tissue Is Not a Conductor
After about 3 weeks, the scale skipped the body fat measurement but there was no indication as to why. I’m not that invested in the fat mass measurement as I’ve always heard that measuring body fat can vary widely in bioelectric impedance, the method Withings relies on and others like it (Tanita, for example). But since the device is connected to my online account, I would like to see a smarter engine behind the Withings scale where it sends personalized messages to me based on what’s been happening. Something like, “Hey, we’ve noticed that the fat mass isn’t recording. We’d like to suggest a few things you can do to try and fix this. They are…” Next generation product fixes, perhaps?
The Sweet Taste of Integration
Withings shines when it comes to sharing my data. I can publish my weight on the web , on Twitter (130 tweets in the last 24 hours by others using the Withings scale), and on Google Health. Since I have a Google Health account and a Keas account, my Withings weight showed up in my Keas profile. I did nothing but stand on a scale. We’re moving toward true integration! Now if I can just get my Keas account to talk to my scale, refrigerator and cupboard.
Does Everything Really Need an App?
Because I can and because it’s free, I downloaded the Withings iPhone app, WiScale. Here’s what I immediately noticed: interacting with a graph on the iPhone is an enjoyable and tactile experience. Withings does a really good job with their interface design, on the app and on the Web. We need more simple, intuitive and elegant feedback mechanisms like this when it comes to tracking personal data.
Thank you Withings for bringing sexy back to the experience of weight tracking. Looking forward to seeing the next “connected object and associated network platform” that comes out of Withings. | <urn:uuid:0be668c8-1854-4e79-8ff6-fdfb686d336b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://quantifiedself.com/2010/01/withings-wi-fi-body-scale/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956694 | 707 | 1.625 | 2 |
(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved. Contact us for information about using this image.
Oliver Partridge (1712-1792) of Hatfield, Massachusetts, was visiting in West Stockbridge, in Berkshire County, where he owned land, in October of 1785. His concern for the health of a friend is contained in a letter to another friend, William Stoddard Williams, a doctor. Dr. Williams has recently begun to practice medicine in Richmond after finishing his apprenticeship with Dr. Sergeant in West Stockbridge. The "Doctor S" referred to in the letter is probably Dr. Erastus Sergeant of that town. | <urn:uuid:8e5ffc55-583f-49af-9b99-32fb85cc9f3a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.americancenturies.mass.edu/collection/itempage.jsp?itemid=5790 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94616 | 141 | 1.59375 | 2 |
It happens every year. The calendar flips to January, and we immediately resolve to lose weight, eat right and exercise more. Setting the goal is the easy part — getting that resolution to last more than a week or two is the real challenge. This year, resolve to get healthier and happier one day at a time. Here are 31 simple, specific tips (one for every day of the month!) that will get you into the habit of living healthier all year long. | <urn:uuid:ff55f1e0-60f3-4cbb-9282-6eb332add921> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.medhelp.org/healthy-living/slideshows/31-Days-to-a-Healthier-You/320 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962905 | 94 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Through blogs and comments, patients and experts explore what it takes to find good health care and make the most of it.
Guest Blog: The End of Life Horror Show: We Can Do Better
Chris Langston | June 12, 2012
Recently, New York Magazine published an agonizing first person cover story by Michael Wolff, 'A Life Worth Ending,' about the terrible choices and harsh reality of illness at the end of his mother's life. The summary slug for the piece says it all: 'The era of medical miracles has created a new phase of aging, as far from living as it is from dying. A son's plea to let his mother go.' Unfortunately, this story is one that all too many baby boomers are living as their parents move into their eighties and beyond. How can it be otherwise when almost 50% of Americans experience three or more years of profound disability before death?
In fact, there is already a growing body of such stories, including Sandra Tsing Loh's 'Daddy Issues: Why caring for my aging father has me wishing he would die,' in the March 2012 Atlantic; Jane Gross' book-length A Bittersweet Season based on her care of her mother and New York Times blog The New Old Age; and Jonathan Rauch's 2010 Letting Go of My Father, also in The Atlantic Magazine. I reflected on Mr. Rauch's piece at the time. You can see an interview with him recorded by The Campaign for Better Care, funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies.
One of the underlying themes of all these stories is a medical system on autopilot where high-tech interventions are provided without regard to their risks, patient/family preferences, or real assessment of potential quality of life benefits or detriments to older adults and their families. Simultaneously, the family caregivers report essentially being abandoned by a system that can't or won't help with the high-touch supportive care that is so often needed in the long aftermath of a medical crisis. Wolff's narrative pits the family caregiver against health care providers whose services rarely seem relevant or helpful ' and are governed by a Kafkaesque system of arcane rules, silos, and limits. Finally, the family can only pray for death of their loved one. Mr. Wolff goes so far as to argue that a healthy lifestyle only makes this kind of agony MORE likely and only slightly facetiously wishes FOR the mythic death panels.
Clearly there are some cases where the challenges of care are so extreme that everyone is helpless. But one thing I note about these stories is how infrequently geriatric or palliative care expertise is brought into the picture. How much hospital acquired damage could be avoided by more conservative, geriatrically informed care in the last years of life? How much better could families be guided to community resources, educated about prognosis, and shown ways to slow the path of decline? Does the end of life have to be a horror show, or can we do better?
I take solace from a story in yesterday's New Old Age blog (now written by Paula Span) about Foundation grantee and UCSF geriatrician Sei Lee's care of his own recently hospitalized mother. In this case Dr. Lee was able to use his geriatric expertise and knowledge of the health care delivery system to get his mother home safe. We are not going to be able to make a Dr. Lee available to every family, but I think we might be able to come close by designing a health care system that builds in his expertise and his caring as the default approach to the care of older people.
More Blog Posts by Chris Langston
Christopher A. Langston, Ph.D., is Program Director at The John A. Hartford Foundation of New York. He is responsible for the Foundation’s grantmaking in support of its mission to enhance the nation’s capacity to care for its older citizens. For more of Christopher Langston’s posts, visit the John A. Hartford Foundation’s Health AGEnda blog or follow them on twitter@JHARTFOUND. This post originally appeared on the Health AGEnda blog, Thursday, May 31, 2012.
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RELATED HEALTH BEHAVIOR NEWS
Easing Distress in Caregivers of Dying Patients | <urn:uuid:dca189f5-9865-495a-ba1b-cc18e4fcdaf7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.preparedpatientforum.org/blog/2012/06/guest-blog-the-end-of-life-horror-show-we-can-do-better/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960846 | 1,035 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Obama tax hike would affect 1.2 million small businesses
July 11, 2012
The Daily Caller
In an effort to restart the tax debate and stave off tax increases for all but wealthy Americans, President Barack Obama has asked Congress to extend tax cuts for individuals making less than $200,000 and married couples making under $250,000.
However, this plan would hurt businesses that are the most successful job creators, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Under Obama’s proposal, the highest income tax rates will go from 35 percent and 33 percent to 39.6 percent and 36 percent, respectively. This rate increase would negatively affect 1.2 million — 28 percent — small businesses filing under the individual income tax code that make over $200,000.
“President Obama’s tax hike is tailored to hit the most successful small businesses that hire the most workers, that pay their taxes through the individual income tax code,” Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the think tank, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Obama argues his plan would extend tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small businesses owners.
“That’s why I’m calling on Congress to extend the tax cuts for the 98 percent of Americans who make less than $250,000 for another year,” Obama said on Monday. “The proposal I make today would extend these tax cuts for 97 percent of all small business owners in America,” he said.
Obama “talked a lot about how 97 percent of small businesses aren’t going to be paying higher taxes. That might be true,” said Dubay. “However, most small business filers are people who do side jobs.. [They’re] not a small business in the traditional sense, [they] don’t hire anybody… so that number is largely irrelevant, it doesn’t mean anything.”
A 2011 Treasury Department study found that 30 million — 88 percent — of small business tax filers are people who do side jobs, like computer technicians, academics or experts writing studies or giving lectures, and even people selling goods on eBay. These “businesses” don’t actually hire workers.
Only 4.3 million small business filers employed workers. Of those 4.3 million small businesses, 1.2 million — 28 percent — earned over $200,000, meaning that a large share would be hit by Obama’s proposed tax increases.
Those 1.2 million small businesses earned nearly all — 91 percent — of flow-through business income in 2007, the most recent year data is available.
“So they’re the ones earning all the income, meaning they’re the ones doing all the hiring,” Dubay said. “So [Obama’s] tax increase is tailored directly to slam small business job creators.”
According to Dubay, increasing taxes on the wealthy would actually hurt lower-income Americans by discouraging small businesses from making investments, hiring and expanding.
Sixty million Americans, half of the private workforce, are currently employed by small businesses, according to the President’s Council of Economic Advisors. Over the past two decades nearly two of every three jobs has been created by small businesses.
On January 1, 2013 Americans may be smacked by nearly $500 billion in tax increases, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.
The figure includes the anticipated expiration of Bush-era and payroll tax cuts and tax increases from the Affordable Care Act.
Obama professes to be an advocate of tax fairness to reverse policies that favor the rich.
“Congress passed trillions of dollars in tax cuts that benefited the wealthiest Americans more than anybody else. And we were told that it would lead to more jobs and higher incomes for everybody, and that prosperity would start at the top but then trickle down,” Obama said. “And what happened? The wealthy got wealthier, but most Americans struggled. Instead of creating more jobs, we had the slowest job growth in half a century. Instead of widespread prosperity, the typical family saw its income fall. And in just a few years, we went from record surpluses under Bill Clinton to record deficits that we are now still struggling to pay off today.”
However, Dubay said that Obama’s appeal to fairness is misleading because taxing wealthy people would hurt overall job creation and economic growth. | <urn:uuid:bcdb9132-1b04-4375-90b2-4ffb4d79cf91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.friendsoftheuschamber.com/article/obama-tax-hike-would-affect-1-2-million-small-businesses-- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966264 | 924 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Newsclick Production, May 03, 2012
Perhaps for the first time since 1947, there is the real possibility of restructuring Indo Pak relations, says Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. The neighbours see that an end to confrontation will mean valuable benefits to both. In Pakistan, there is recognition that confrontation with India only aggravates its internal problems; in India, there is recognition that confrontation with Pakistan is a threat to secularism, the core which holds the nation together. This is an exceptional moment in history, a moment that must be seized. | <urn:uuid:a1de5d74-acad-4921-947c-d1faf4de2580> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newsclick.in/category/tags/manishankar-aiyar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948233 | 111 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Background: 1,3-dimethylamylamine (a constituent of geranium), alone and in combination with caffeine, is widely used within dietary supplements. We have recently determined the hemodynamic effects of 1,3-dimethylamylamine and caffeine alone and in combination, using a single ingestion study. However, no study has determined the hemodynamic effects of these ingredients following chronic use. Moreover, no study has determined the effects of these ingredients on bloodborne variables related to health and safety. Therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to assess the hemodynamic and hematologic profile of two different dietary supplements containing 1,3-dimethylamylamine and caffeine (in addition to other ingredients), before and after two weeks of daily intake.
Methods: 7 men (24.9 ± 4.2 yrs) ingested the dietary supplement Jack3d™, while 4 men and 2 women (22.5 ± 1.8 yrs) ingested the dietary supplement OxyELITE Pro™ once per day for two weeks. On days 1 and 15, resting heart rate (HR), systolic (SBP), and diastolic (DBP) blood pressure were measured and rate pressure product (RPP) was calculated. Fasting blood samples were analyzed for complete blood counts, comprehensive metabolic panel, and lipid panel. These tests were done prior to ingestion of supplement. On days 1 and 15 following blood collection, subjects ingested the assigned supplement (2 servings) and HR, SBP, DBP, and RPP were recorded at 30, 60, 90, and 120 minutes post-ingestion.
Results: After 14 days of treatment, resting HR, SBP, DBP, and RPP were not increased (P > 0.05). No significant changes were noted in any measured bloodborne variable, with the exception of an increase in fasting blood glucose with ingestion of Jack3d™ (P = 0.02). In response to acute intake of the supplements, HR, DBP, and RPP were not increased statistically (P > 0.05). SBP was increased with OxyELITE Pro™ (P = 0.03), but not with Jack3d™ (P = 0.09). Compared to pre-ingestion and in general, both supplements resulted in an increase in SBP, DBP, and RPP from 5%–15%, with a peak occurring at the 60 or 90 minute post-ingestion time.
Conclusion: Acute ingestion of OxyELITE Pro™, but not Jack3d™, results in an increase in SBP. Chronic intake of two servings per day of OxyELITE Pro™ or Jack3d™ over a 14 day period does not result in an elevation in resting HR, SBP, DBP, or RPP. No significant changes are noted in any measured bloodborne variable following 14 days of ingestion, with the exception of blood glucose with Jack3d™. Longer term intervention studies inclusive of larger sample sizes are needed to extend these findings.
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We have had a great experience publishing our paper in Nutrition & Metabolic Insights. The peer review process was rigorous and the journal staff were very helpful with proof processing. We will definitely be submitting future manuscripts to this journal. Keep up the good work!!
All authors are surveyed after their articles are published. Authors are asked to rate their experience in a variety of areas, and their responses help us to monitor our performance. Presented here are their responses in some key areas. No 'poor' or 'very poor' responses were received; these are represented in the 'other' category.See Our Results
Copyright © 2013 Libertas Academica Ltd (except open access articles and accompanying metadata and supplementary files.) | <urn:uuid:096ec84c-556e-4372-962f-cec83d4beee0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.la-press.com/hemodynamic-and-hematologic-profile-of-healthy-adults-ingesting-dietar-article-a2947 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947373 | 820 | 1.664063 | 2 |
New York state officials are reporting approximately 100 wild turkeys were harvested during a five-day hunting season on eastern Long Island.
State Department of Environmental Conservation officials announced the results Thursday from the pre-Thanksgiving hunt in November.
More than 650 people took part in the hunt on state-owned land and private property in Suffolk County.
It was the first since the DEC started a wild turkey restoration effort in the early 1990s.
The DEC says no safety problems were reported.
The wild turkey population on Long Island is estimated at more than 3,000 and growing.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. | <urn:uuid:6ae39c76-70c8-43f7-b361-036679b98c11> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://archive.longislandpress.com/2009/12/10/5-day-turkey-hunt-yields-100-birds/ | 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 | 0.973729 | 124 | 1.734375 | 2 |
DUE NORTH - A Canadian Odyssey
at the Artscape Triangle Gallery
on view to June 3, 2012
Please join us this evening (Friday, June 1, from 7 to 9:30pm) for an Artist Reception.
CBC Radio's Shelagh Rogers will welcome guests and introduce Jeff Molloy, the artist.
TORONTO - Canadian artist Jeff Molloy is about to complete an artistic journey that began in 1998 when he held his first solo show in Toronto.
Travelling with two documentary filmmakers, Molloy left the west coast on May 22nd, traversing the country to bring his highly original exhibition, Due North, home to Toronto where it began.
During the 4700 km journey, the crew experienced an entertaining convergence with a jubilant mechanic, “Mad Mike”, who replaced a rear wheel bearing in Kamloops.
They were stranded in Revelstoke for 36 hours after coming within two wheel bolts of disaster when a front wheel nearly separated from the vehicle.
In the BC interior, they had a chance encounter with “Dead Man Matt”, an eccentric entreprenuer who’s building an old western town on his picturesque property.
In the middle of a chilly Alberta night, the crew was driven from their tents when a sprinkler system deluged them at a campground in Medicine Hat.
In southern Saskatchewan, they connected with a rancher whose family has owned the property for many generations...she generously allowed them to decorate a derelict barn with Molloy's Canadian flag-inspired piece. The crew wandered through her prairie fields littered with ancient wagons, abandoned tractors and old pickup trucks while Molloy revealed the diversity of his inspirations and the inner workings of his process.
Stopping at Manitoba's Red River, Molloy ritualistically baptised a Lois Riel-inspired piece; he placed 'Thomson’s Paint Box' in the chilly waters of Lake Superior, and he floated a canoe piece in an iconic Canadian northern lake. The filmmakers captured all of Molloy’s rituals.
Overcoming countless obstacles, including a close encounter with death in 2009, Molloy brings his brand of Canadiana to the Artscape Triangle Gallery from May 30th through June 3rd. | <urn:uuid:5bea0274-e86c-4a87-a45b-9af815bc2db8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artandculturemaven.com/2012/06/due-north-canadian-odyssey-by-jeff.html?m=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952944 | 477 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Olympics movement 'special'
Durban - The Olympics movement was special in South Africa because of its contribution to the struggle against apartheid, President Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday.
"The Olympics movement is special in this country given the solidarity we received in 1964," Zuma said during a special luncheon for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the Durban International Convention Centre.
More than 2 000 delegates are attending the 123rd IOC session, which ends on Saturday.
Zuma said the IOC had banned apartheid South Africa from participating in the Tokyo Olympics - a ban that was to span 32 years.
Zuma thanked the delegates for supporting South Africa during the 2010 Soccer World Cup.
"We are pleased to host yet another major sporting event, and look forward to working with you to ensure the success of this crucial meeting," he said.
Zuma welcomed the 2018 Olympic Winter Games candidate cities, Munich, Annecy and PyeongChang.
"I would like to extend our special welcome to His Serene Highness Prince Albert and our own Princess Charlene of Monaco.
"We continue to treasure the pride that Princess Charlene brought to South Africa as an Olympic swimmer." Zuma said. | <urn:uuid:d5138b86-8f90-461e-a2c5-3621dd566617> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sport24.co.za/OtherSport/Olympics-movement-special-20110705 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956372 | 251 | 1.75 | 2 |
Medical Hypnosis offers a means to surmount the wide range of challenges in the spectrum of well-being. We offer opportunity to develop skills and resources to grow beyond personal limitation and restriction to personal freedom and authentic self expression in your unique life journey.
Psychotherapy, or personal counseling with a psychotherapist, is an intentional interpersonal relationship used by trained psychotherapists to aid a client or patient in problems of living.
Self-hypnosis ("autohypnosis") is a form of hypnosis which is self-induced, and normally makes use of self-suggestion ("autosuggestion"). Listening to pre-recorded audio or other media is often mistaken for self-hypnosis, but is just another form of hypnosis. | <urn:uuid:f50567f2-2cc6-4bbc-8ca4-76e965cd184b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hypnosisohio.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939332 | 152 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- North Korea said Thursday that it plans to carry out a new nuclear test and more long-range rocket launches, all of which it said are a part of a new phase of confrontation with the United States.
The North's National Defense Commission said the moves would feed into an "upcoming all-out action" that would target the United States, "the sworn enemy of the Korean people."
Carried by the state media, the comments are the latest defiant flourish from the reclusive North Korean regime, whose young leader Kim Jong Un has upheld his father's policy of pursuing a military deterrent and shrugging off international pressure.
The defense commission statement follows a United Nations Security Council resolution on Tuesday that the United States pushed for, condemning a recent recent rocket launch by North Korea and expanded existing sanctions.
The North's angry statement "should have been the expected outcome" from the U.N. decision, said Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group covering Northeast Asia.
"I think they are completely outraged and insulted by it," he said.
North Korea, which often issues bellicose statements in its state media, said Thursday that it rejected all Security Council resolutions concerning it.
It described this week's resolution as "the most dangerous phase of the hostile policy toward the DPRK," using the abbreviated version of its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Analyst: Threat meant as a deterrence
The threats toward the United States, a constant theme in the North's propaganda, have more to do with deterrence than a desire for full conflict, Pinkston said.
"I don't believe they have the capability, the intention or the will to invade or destroy the United States," he said. "They wish to deter interference from the U.S. or any outside powers."
North Korea's successful rocket launch last month nonetheless changed the strategic calculations for the United States, showing that the North's missile program is advancing despite an array of heavy sanctions imposed on it.
Analysts say it still has a lot of work to do to master the technology necessary to mount a nuclear warhead on missile or accurately target it.
At the same time, Pyongyang has been hinting for a while that a new nuclear test could be in the cards.
Just before the North sent out its latest hostile statement Thursday, a U.S. State Department official was telling reporters in Seoul that Washington hoped that Pyongyang wouldn't go ahead.
"We think that that would be a mistake, obviously," said Glyn Davies, the U.S. special envoy on North Korea. "We call on North Korea, as does the entire international community, not to engage in any further provocations."
North Korea has carried out two previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, both of which were condemned by the U.N.
Pyongyang didn't say Thursday when exactly it would carry out a third test, but it could happen "at any time," according to Pinkston.
He said that it was hard for anybody outside the North Korean nuclear sector to know if the country is technically ready to carry out the test, but that politically, "it seems an appropriate time."
Demands unlikely to sway North
South Korean defense officials said last year that they believed the North had been in a position to carry out a new test whenever leaders in Pyongyang gave the green light.
North Korea's nuclear program is "an element of threat to peace not only for Northeast Asia but also for the world," Park Soo-jin, deputy spokeswoman for the South Korean Unification Ministry said Thursday.
"North Korea should immediately stop its nuclear test and other provocation and should choose a different path by cooperating with the international community," Park said.
That appears unlikely at this stage, though.
After a failed long-range rocket launch in April, North Korea ignored international condemnation and carried out a second attempt last month. That one succeeded in putting a satellite in orbit, Pyongyang's stated objective.
But the launch was widely considered to be a test of ballistic missile technology. And it remains unclear if the satellite, which the North insists is for peaceful purposes, is functional.
Both North Korea's previous nuclear tests took place weeks or months after long-range rocket launches.
Those tests were carried out under the rule Kim Jong Il, the father of the current leader, and the man who channeled huge amounts of money into North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs.
Kim Jong Il died in December 2011 after 17 years in power, during which the North Korean people became increasingly impoverished and malnourished.
Economically, the country relies heavily on trade with its major ally, China. | <urn:uuid:1662b52a-cbf1-47be-b9e8-aafef2a0fe72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcentv.com/story/20670243/north-korea-makes-new-threats-against-us | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965035 | 964 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Common Reasons Why People Procrastinate On Their Taxes
It’s 2011 and another tax season is soon upon us. Like other years, this one is sure to see its fair share of income tax procrastinators. Much like yard-work and housecleaning, filing a tax return is something many of us feel comfortable putting off. Putting it off till the tax-filing deadline is one thing, but missing it altogether could cost you. Though you may not realize it, filing late can subject you to stiff fines and penalties. That’s why the following common reasons for tax procrastinating are poor excuses to consider NOW before we get too close to the April 18 tax deadline:
It doesn’t take a forensics team to determine the number one reason for tax procrastination: laziness. Simply put, filling out a tax return can be time-consuming in some cases, or for some attention spans, tedious and boring. Given the choice between filing a tax return and just about anything else, many folks, in fact, an estimated 27% according to a TurboTax customer survey, readily choose the latter till the last two before the tax deadline. In a way, this is no different than most of the other important yet challenging tasks people ignore (such as exercise.)
But in another sense, laziness and taxes are an even deadlier mix. Of no other lazily avoided task can it be said that not doing it exposes you to prison time. If that isn’t reason enough to file, nothing is!
Interestingly, psychologists believe that some taxpayers procrastinate for the thrill of filing late. As PsychologyToday.com explains:
Some procrastinators enjoy the adrenaline “rush.” These people find perverse satisfaction when they finish their taxes minutes before midnight on April 15 and dash to the post office just before it closes.
This is roughly the same as the frantic office worker who never plans ahead and insists that they “work best under pressure.” But in both cases, they are usually wrong. In the office and on your tax return, waiting until the last minute leaves no margin for error.
Perceived Lack Of Urgency
Another reason so many taxpayers take their time is a perceived lack of urgency. Unlike so many of the important obligations in our lives, tax filing is completely up to you. Often attempts by the IRS or other to remind you that April 18 is coming are tuned out as we focus on the important things we need to do in the immediate future. To a busy person with more pressing responsibilities, it’s easy to put tax filing into the “later” pile.
Most of the people who put off their return would never do so on their car or mortgage payment, because it would instantly damage their credit score. Lack of similar immediate consequences for tax filing may help explain why it is routinely neglected.
Availability of Extensions
Still other taxpayers procrastinate because extensions are available. As TurboTax discussed in a blog post last year, extensions can push back your filing date by up to six months. What it does not push back is your payment date. The IRS is willing to let you slide on filing the actual return, but if you owe, expect to pay the full amount owed by April 18.
Most people who put off tax filing because extensions are available don’t know this. They simply assume that an extension equals more time to file and pay. If this is what you believe, ask yourself why the IRS would ever do that. If true, no one would pay on time – the new tax deadline, for all practical purposes, would become October 17, 2011.
No Expected Refund
If there’s one thing people do look forward to about tax season, it’s refund checks. Sure, a big refund means Uncle Sam got an interest-free loan on your dime, but it feels good to get an unexpectedly large chunk of change. So good, in fact, that people who might have procrastinated file well in advance to get it.
On the flip side, taxpayers who don’t expect a refund sometimes use this as a reason to wait. From their standpoint, there’s no big stash of cash waiting on the other end. | <urn:uuid:302da3c1-7f64-4866-b908-aea15951184e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/2011/03/21/common-reasons-why-people-procrastinate-on-their-taxes/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956839 | 873 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Is the truth that healing IS part of Christ's atonement being preached and taught? Jesus shedding of His blood provided for the healing of spirit, soul AND body.
1 Peter 2:24 (KJV)
Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Jesus took stripes on His back for our physical healing. This is not just incidental. It is not insignificant. Jesus thought enough of the importance of healing to purchase it with his own blood. Therefore, we ought to think enough of it to be taught by the Holy Spirit how to receive this healing He made provision for.
What do churches teach about Christ's atonement? If the body of Christ was fully presenting the Gospel it would be making a much greater impact on the world today. Jesus not only came for the life hereafter, He came to heal us and keep us healthy. He came to deliver us from the depression, despair and strife in our daily lives. He came to prosper us in a way we could never accomplish just through our own effort. If the churches presented that God is not only for the forgiveness of sins but for these other areas as well, then people would see that Jesus is truly relevant to their daily lives.
Point 2: A major key to receiving healing is to believe with your whole heart, taking this belief into your inner most being, that Jesus provided healing for us at the same time He provided forgiveness for our sins. The renewing of our minds needs to include this truth. It needs to become an integral part of you and the way you think. No doubting. Doubting often serves as a great hindrance to seeing a manifestation of healing occur. With the understanding rooted in our hearts that Jesus paid the price for the healing of our physical bodies, we will see many more miracle healings take place.
|This truth about healng is not yet widely understood and believed across the body of Christ today, which explains why so few people are walking in it. Most of us as Christians think that God could certainly heal if He wanted to, but we don't see that He has already redeemed us from sickness and disease. We view healing as something the Lord can do, but we don't know for sure that it is His will. Healing is a done deal and is available to us now, exactly the same as forgiveness of sins.|
When I think about sickness and disease, the following makes perfect sense to me: It was man's sin that brought sickness and disease into this world, with the price paid by pure blood for the forgiveness of our sins, sickness and disease no longer has a place in a believer's life. Remember, we are Not powerless. We have authority given to us by Jesus Christ and the very resurrection power of God living in us, specifically the Holy Spirit. It is so so so important to know that we can ward off any sickness or disease that trys to attack us because neither sickness nor disease belong to us, we belong to Jesus Christ.
What Jesus Christ did at the cross was not only for the hereafter, it was not only a heaven-and-hell issue. Healing is not just an add-on or added benefit that only happens sometimes. Healing is an essential part of what Jesus Christ came to do. Jesus purchased healing for us just as He purchased forgiveness. It is all part of Christ's Atonement.
You Must Believe In Order To Receive
Healing Points: #1-Renewing the Mind and Measure of Faith
Healing Points Supplement 1-Renewing of the Mind-Rotator Cuff Miracle
Point #3 Healing and God's Will - the emphasis of the next blog in this series. | <urn:uuid:37d0094a-0697-48d2-bf36-835b975d66cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.christianblog.com/blog/revgenlink/healing-points-number-2-christnumber-039s-atonement-and-healing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972801 | 772 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Quick meals, meals in a jiffy, express meals! When out shopping or in the kitchen preparing certain dishes, these are the phrases I keep in my mind. If someone were to look into my kitchen they would probably get a shock when they see the large amounts of food I prepare during most meals. Although we are a little family of three I often cook for double if not triple that number!
Most of my actual cooking is done on the weekend. Then I have time and will prepare bigger and elaborate meals. Throughout the rest of the week however, we normally live off the leftovers. Prepared in different ways, there is always a remanent of something from the weekend. So, if we had rice, pasta or potatoes, I’ll cook double the amounts, freezing the rest. If we had chicken, I’ll buy six chicken breasts instead of just three, grill or broil the three extras – cut up and freeze. Herbs are bought in huge amounts then chopped and frozen in ice-cube trays so that all I need to do is pop a cube into any sauce, soup or dip.
This way during the week, potatoes will be taken out and re-heated in the microwave, a dip made of quark and yogurt with a couple of cubes of herbs is mixed together for a delicious light – and very German – quick meal of “kartoffeln und quark”. The chicken is used in a variety of ways, for example in salads, in rice pilaws or in soups. Pasta too is great as a leftover there are so many varieties of quick and easy sauces, even sometimes from a jar.
What’s more there are so many great convenience food items available in the stores these days that one can prepare meals in under 30 minutes.
Here are a few of my kitchen tips to help reduce your cooking/preparing time to the min.:
- Onions, garlic and ginger are very often used is Asian/Indian meals. To reduce my preparing time I normally make pastes of each of these ingredients. They are then filled in ice-cube trays. Once frozen I place them in freezer bags and label them.
- These are my basic sauces and are made in fairly large amounts. One can make any variation of the sauces. Filled in jars and topped off with olive oil they normally last for a 1-3 months. Pesto can be used with any pasta, Arrabiata tastes great when used to stuff chicken and the aglio is often used as a basis for many dishes.
- Buy in bulk. Veggies like bell peppers, leeks, carrots, beans etc. from the Farmer’s Market can be bought in larger amounts and then frozen. I normally cut up many of my veggies prior to freezing them. Especially for Asian dinners – I 'll cut up the veggies in strips and mix a combo of 3-5 veggie strips in a freezer bags, label them and freeze them. Now nothing comes in the way of a quick fried rice or vegetable noodle dish
- Indian cooking requires a bit of pre-preparation. A trick I learnt from my mum was to prepare the wet or dry masalas in larger portions. Divide in the portions required and then freeze them. Once frozen put them in freezer bags. Don’t forget to label them. These are so perfect and a quick Indian dinner on a weeknight can be prepared so easily!
- If you use a lot of herbs in your kitchen and cooking, here’s a great thing I picked up at the Sheraton Kitchen while training: Use scissors to chop up your mint leaves, basil, coriander and even chillies.
- If you enjoy breads like naan, roti, Lebanese bread or pita. Make a large amount then stack them up, placing a sheet of waxed paper in between each layer, put in a freezer bag and freeze. When required take them out of the freezer and nuke them on low for a few seconds and you could enjoy a quick meal like this one
My meal here was a quick, super express, made-in-10-mins-flat type of meal. Now presuming you have already made these lovely bagels and they were sitting in your freezer waiting to be used in a meal like this one, you’ll have a great dinner made within minutes. A light salad like this pea and lettuce salad is just perfect with it. The shrimps were marinated and frozen in a light garlic sauce, which gave the whole dish a lovely flavour.
4 bagels - homemade or store-bought
4 - 6 fresh eggs - beaten
200 - 250g shrimps - fresh or frozen.
1-2 cubes of mixed herbs - from the freezer of course
1 teaspoon aglio olio
10 - 12 cherry tomatoes - quartered
Salt and pepper
In a pan gently sauté the aglio until fragrant. Add the shrimps and cook for just a minute. Pour in the beaten eggs into the pan, add the herb cubes salt, pepper and the tomatoes. Cook until the eggs are set and to the desired consistency, then break it up with a spatula.
Toast the bagels and spread with cream cheese on each side. Lay out on a plate and spread the shrimp and egg on one side of the bagel. Close withe the other.
Enjoy warm with a light salad.
This is a fantastic and very versatile dish. You can just about substitute any ingredient with the shrimp and use and herbs to flavor it differently each time. Very cool is that this you can serve for a quick breakfast, lunch or dinner.
For sweet Shaheen, I would like to send this to her Express Cooking event.
Technorati Tags: quick meals, express dish, quick cooking tips, bagel, bread, eggs, shrimp, breakfast, food, recipe, photography, nikon d70s
All photographs and written content on What's For Lunch, Honey? © 2006-2007 Meeta Albrecht unless otherwise indicated. | All rights reserved | Please Ask First | <urn:uuid:c55ae434-4314-43db-9e7c-2d471e78fb7d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whatsforlunchhoney.net/2007/08/quickie-garlic-shrimp-eggs-on-toasted.html?showComment=1186737840000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94863 | 1,270 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Henrietta Cook February 08, 2013
VICTORIA'S forensic mental health institute will suspend assessments of people in court and close 16 hospital beds for the criminally insane as it grapples with budget cuts.
The Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health, known as Forensicare, said it had been forced to slash services as a result of the Commonwealth's $107 million cuts to Victoria's health system.
Forensicare has suspended its court liaison services until June 30, which could lead to more mentally ill offenders being sent to prison and costly delays in the Magistrates Court.
Cases could be adjourned while mentally ill offenders navigate overstretched mainstream mental health services in the hope of being assessed.
Forensicare chief executive Tom Dalton said the cuts, which were announced in the middle of a budget cycle, had placed an ''enormous strain'' on the institute.
''Forensicare is the sole provider of these services in Victoria and these are not decisions that our council has taken lightly. At the forefront of Forensicare's function is that of community safety.''
The institute will gradually close 16 of 116 beds at the Thomas Embling Hospital in Fairfield, which treats mentally ill people in the criminal justice system who need acute psychiatric care and treatment, as well as those who have been found not guilty of crimes due to mental impairment.
''The ultimate loss of beds will require close planning, as it comes at a time when there is unprecedented growth in demand for inpatient admissions from the criminal justice system,'' Mr Dalton said.
Chief Magistrate Peter Lauritsen said Forensicare's court liaison service helped magistrates deal with mentally ill offenders. ''We are currently working with Forensicare to examine options for dealing with this situation until the service is able to resume,'' he said.
The hospital's Jardine unit, where involuntary residents prepare for their release and a double homicide occurred in 2009, is set to be converted into a less secure ''intensive community transitional support'' unit for voluntary patients.
In order to cut costs, there will also be a reduction in training opportunities for staff, who work with some of the state's most dangerous patients. There have been three deaths at the high-security Thomas Embling Hospital in just over three years. In 2009, two men were stabbed to death in the Jardine unit, and in December a patient died after he was strangled.
The chair of the faculty of forensic psychiatry at the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, Dr Ness McVie, said reducing secure beds could put the community at risk because more mentally ill offenders would be sent to jail without treatment.
''If people are released from jail without treatment and their illness continues, they are at the same risk of reoffending. People who go through the mental health system instead of jail have a much lower rate of recidivism,'' she said.
The director of Monash University's Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science, James Ogloff, said the cuts were disheartening and would lead to costly delays in court.
''Mentally ill offenders before court will not receive adequate attention and care. If they are not remanded and expected to go to mental health services for assessment, they pose a possible risk to themselves or others in the community,'' he said.
A spokesman for state Mental Health Minister Mary Wooldridge said Forensicare's move was a result of the federal government's cuts. But a spokesman for federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek said the Victorian government was responsible for any cuts to the state's health system. | <urn:uuid:2299e95c-40c6-4cfe-a249-3a8a2bb75594> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/no-help-for-the-mentally-ill-facing-court-charges-20130207-2e1cy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970334 | 729 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Muddling the message on the economy
- Obama's econmic team advocates for more spending while other Dems are calling for reducing the deficit. AP Photo
Democratic factional infighting and White House dithering are undermining the economic strategy that President Barack Obama needs to rally his party — and the country.
With a clear strategy and message, Democrats could minimize their congressional losses this fall. Otherwise, the widely predicted Republican blowout could paralyze Obama’s presidency.
Obama needs to make a compelling case that government outlays are required to make up for the vicious circle of high unemployment, depressed consumer purchasing power, businesses’ reluctance to invest and bankers’ hesitancy to lend. Even if some of his proposed measures are blocked, he needs to keep fighting.
But the White House isn’t saying clearly what happened and what should happen — largely because of disabling divisions between deficit hawks and liberals.
For some — like departing Office of Management and Budget chief Peter Orszag, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Erskine Bowles, the Democratic co-chairman of Obama’s deficit commission — the economics and politics require deficit reduction. Jack Lew, Orszag’s designated successor, is also a deficit hawk.
Supposedly, reducing the deficit would reassure money markets and demonstrate responsible stewardship to voters.
But Obama’s economic chief, Larry Summers, considers austerity in a severe recession perverse. He scoffs at the idea that money markets need the reassurance of lower deficits, since the U.S. government is financing its long-term debt at record-low interest rates.
Most of Obama’s economic experts counsel more spending in the short run, to produce more jobs and consumer purchasing power. Reduction of the structural deficit would be far less brutal after a recovery.
These White House divisions are mirrored in a divided Democratic Party in Congress. The Blue Dogs side with the White House deficit hawks. They want to escape the tax-and-spend label and fiercely oppose new anti-recession outlays.
The liberals, a majority of congressional Democrats, want more spending for unemployment insurance, public works and emergency aid to states and localities.
The two factions are increasingly furious at each other — and frustrated with the White House.
Obama, fatally, has pursued a course of splitting the difference, denying himself a compelling narrative. Because the White House believes that only modest measures can pass Congress, its message signals “think small” during a big, continuing crisis.
Obama spoke last Thursday at an electric car plant that received stimulus funding. He boasted that this factory now employs 50 workers. Swell — that leaves only about 14,999,950 jobs to go.
Fiscal Frankenstein. The appointment of prominent fiscal conservatives to Obama’s own deficit commission gives ammunition to his opponents. “They thought they’d appease the deficit hawks with the commission,” said a senior congressional staffer, “but they’ve created a Frankenstein monster.” Republicans and Blue Dogs refuse to support even an extension of unemployment insurance, much less aid to the states, unless these outlays are “paid for” by other cuts. But they are only echoing Obama’s own anti-deficit rhetoric. | <urn:uuid:6685388d-8e15-4a83-9c1c-daa1e1d7c4dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39744.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938563 | 686 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Mission of the Department
The theatre unit seeks to instill within students: (1) an awareness of theatre as a significant educational and spiritual force, and (2) a desire to contribute to the general improvement of the human condition through the arts. We engage in the pursuit of educational excellence through innovation, tradition, and technology and we also serve as an artistic, cultural and educational resource for Salem State, other theatre organizations, and the community. We provide theatre education and training of the highest quality within a liberal arts setting, fostering personal and artistic development, and encouraging outreach to society at large. We achieve this through: excellence in the classroom and in the production process, with a strong program-to-production link; artistic excellence in productions, which serve as our faculty’s research; and, enrichment through the culture, art and community building that our productions provide to Salem State and the North Shore.
The speech communication unit seeks to give students: (1) the knowledge and skills in speech communication that will benefit them interpersonally and professionally; and (2) an understanding of the importance of ethical and responsible speech communication in society.
Programs in Theatre
Theatre Arts at Salem State
Two fully operational theatres exist on the North Campus. The Mainstage (Auditorium) houses traditional works and musical theatre productions. The Callan Studio Theatre’s intimate atmosphere serves as a perfect environment for contemporary and more experimental theatre works. Four to six major productions are staged each year with guest artists, studio appearances and student workshops offered. Recent Salem State Theatre productions have earned regional and national recognition and acclaim for excellence in both the technical and performance areas. | <urn:uuid:54d6ab21-57b0-4776-aa07-e4c1e6d57a42> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.salemstate.edu/academics/schools/2659.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940146 | 336 | 1.726563 | 2 |
US government steps back from internet control
But very slowly
Analysis The US government has taken a step back from control of the internet with a new contract between it and overseeing organisation ICANN that came into effect yesterday.
The three-year contract, with an apparently significant halfway review point, has been heralded by both ICANN and the Department of Commerce as a sign that the US government has listened to worldwide criticism of its continued oversight role and has responded by providing ICANN with a new degree of autonomy.
However, experts disagree, with one calling it "old wine in a new bottle", and another barely concealing his frustration with an administration that promised eight years ago it would end its role but now has decided "we will have to wait another three years, at a minimum".
There are some significant changes in the new contract, reflected in a new name for it: it is no longer a "memorandum of understanding" but a "joint project agreement". The US government has pulled out its prescribed list of actions that ICANN has to meet before it is given autonomy - something that has been continually refreshed since 1998 and was universally criticised as a compliance merry-go-round.
Instead, the requirements that ICANN needs to achieve before being granted freedom come in the form of an "Affirmation of Responsibilities" that was approved by the ICANN board. This list was produced by the US government and handed to the ICANN board for approval.
Most controversially, it includes the blinkered approach to "whois" data that US organisations have lobbied so hard in Washington for, but which the wider internet community disagrees with. But the shift in emphasis is nonetheless significant. ICANN says: "ICANN will no longer have its work prescribed for it. How it works and what it works on is up to ICANN and its community to devise."
Meeting people is easy
Another important change is the fact that ICANN will no longer be required to report direct to the US government every six months. Instead, it will produce an annual report for the internet community as a whole. ICANN is also upbeat about the fact that "there is no requirement to report regularly to the DoC. The DoC will simply meet with senior ICANN staff from time to time."
But as commentators have been quick to point out, it is precisely this frequent interaction with ICANN staff that enabled the Bush Administration to interfere with approval of the .xxx domain - something that led to rare public condemnation by the EU of a "clear case of political interference".
The JTA's exact wording is that "the Department [DoC] will hold regular meetings with ICANN senior management and leadership to assess progress". | <urn:uuid:15ae1f79-452a-454e-b710-8bc03f78d845> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/02/icann_doc_jta/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973759 | 551 | 1.789063 | 2 |
United Methodist General Conference (GC2012): We sit in the darkness, waiting for light.
My mind plays with the metaphors of light and dark as I rehash what I saw, heard, and felt yesterday. This statement, “we sit in the darkness, waiting for light,” appeared on a social media post after the UMC General Conference in quick succession voted to retain the oppressive forty-year-old statement, “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching”, announced that the afternoon plenary would be a closed session, and turned off the auditorium lights on the gays huddled around the communion altar.
There was an abundance of hurt and harm yesterday–spiritual abuse by the gatekeepers who would create their church in their own image. So much so that gay leaders asked the bishops to remove remaining resolutions regarding human sexuality from consideration to prevent further abuse.
“I’ve only seen my partner cry twice, and we’ve been together a long, long time,” said my gay friend. “He’s been fighting this battle for forty years, and he sobbed when he realized it may not happen in his lifetime.”
O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant words; all the evildoers boast. They crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage.
When the lights flickered on, God’s children were still there at the altar, still singing, still praying. Christians are optimists and none more so than gay Christians, clobbered again and again by their church, they rise again: a people of hope, a people of trust, a people of the resurrection.
What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
For forty years, the UMC has wandered in the wilderness and still the promised land seems a far distance. And what of the prophets who have led the struggle but who struggle still? Will they, like Moses, not cross the Jordan when the day finally arrives? Perhaps not, yet they have brought a squabbling people to the river’s edge.
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
There is a season for all things, and yesterday was a day for weeping. Today, we lift our lights high, and the journey begins anew. | <urn:uuid:7b058a6e-3b33-416d-b973-245e2315e82e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theliberalspirit.com/?p=3552&cpage=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96787 | 580 | 1.539063 | 2 |
An unsolved crime
The Cooks still don’t know from where the bullet lodged in Katherine’s head came. The Leavenworth County Sheriff’s Department says the investigation remains open.
It's been more than seven months since five-year-old Katherine Cook was shot in the head, and still, the investigation into the shooting remains open. In part two of our series "Learning to Live," 6News reporter Janet Reid sits down with Katherine's parents, LaMont and JoAnne Cook, to discuss their lingering questions about the incident and how it has impacted their lives.
Seven months after being shot in the head, she is back on her feet
Last February, a stray bullet struck 5-year-old Katherine Cook’s head, leaving her in a coma and on life support. Seven months later, Katherine is a bubbly kindergartner. But as the healing process continues, her parents are left questioning how the accident happened and who is to blame.
Past coverage of Katherine Cook’s ordeal
When Katherine Cook was wounded by a gunshot on February 23, her family prayed for her survival. Check out how 6News and the Lawrence Journal-World followed the story.
Linwood girl shot, in critical condition
- Sheriff's officers seeking answers in girl's shooting February 26, 2008
- 5-year-old who was shot remains on life support February 28, 2008
- Linwood girl shot in head has surgery March 1, 2008
- Girl shot in head remains unconscious March 6, 2008
- Girl struck by bullet making progress April 18, 2008 | <urn:uuid:fb2f6fac-5e94-422a-9080-9810081e78fd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.ljworld.com/stories/2008/oct/10/learning_live/unsolved_crime/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97093 | 327 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Google Art Project 2
The Google Art Project first launched last year with 1000 works from 17 museums in Europe and the US. Last week the Google Art Project 2 went live and the numbers swelled to 32 000 works from 151 museums worldwide. Four hundred and fifteen of the 32 000 works mentioned are from the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW. I was fortunate enough to be in Paris to attend the launch of Art Project 2, during which one of the key works in our collection, Arthur Streeton’s Fire’s on, was projected onto the walls of the Musée d’Orsay where the event took place.
So how did Fire’s on end up being projected onto the walls of the Musée d’Orsay? Six months ago Google offered three ways in which our collection works could be displayed on the Art Project:
In September a special camera capable of filming a 360-degree view of our physical gallery spaces arrived from the US with an operator from Tokyo (see the photograph at the start of the post). It was a surprisingly complex task to schedule filming times when our gallery spaces would be completely empty. We weren’t completely successful so when you click through museumview you might spot a few people now immortalised on the site.
In October the Gallery welcomed another Google team from Madrid who spent a day capturing Fire’s on in gigapixel resolution. This painstaking process involved setting up a computer-controlled camera to photograph every inch of the painting in billion-pixel detail. The resulting mosaic of images was then stitched together and the resulting whole work is available to view at incredible resolution on the Art Project site.
For the Art Project 2 launch the Gallery was able to upload 415 high-resolution images of objects from the collection and accompanying metadata. The plan is to keep adding works to the growing Art Project database. While it is wonderful to see highlights of our collection on the Art Project, it is astounding to have the ability to search for an artist across other museum collections as well. I searched for Australian artist Arthur Streeton and on top of the 12 Streeton works we’ve uploaded found 16 works from the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra and 1 from the National Gallery of Victoria.
You can also filter your search results by title and medium and spend hours creating your own collections that can be shared with others, so go play and explore.
Next post: A fish taleblog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:00c15ffe-4d5b-49ac-a60a-d7862b7dea29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/blog/2012/4/9/google-art-project/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950969 | 502 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Sgt. Dan Powers
Soldier Survives Knife in Skull
Oct. 31, 2007
Of all the injuries in the war in Iraq, the one Sgt. Dan Powers sustained was among the most unusual.
Powers, a member of the Army's 118th MP Company Airborne, was in eastern Baghdad investigating an explosion when suddenly an Iraqi walked up to him and stabbed him in the right side of his head. He didn't know what hit him.
"It felt like someone kind of clothesline tackled me and a thump on the side of the head, like a bang," he said.
An Iraqi teenager had inched up behind Powers on a Baghdad street and plunged a 9-inch knife deep into his skull, penetrating his brain.
Knife with which Power was stabbed.
Powers, who did not realize he had been stabbed, reacted quickly by throwing his attacker to the ground. Sgt. Michael Riley then tackled the man and turned him over to Iraqi security forces.
"He had no idea what had really happened," said Spc. Ryan Webb, a company medic. "I did have to fight afew people off that came by and were like, 'Whoa,you've got a knife sticking out of your head.'"
Amazingly, Powers remained conscious and alert as he was rushed to a combat hospital, when he finally noticed the knife and realized the gravity of his injury.
"They kept telling me to go sit down, they didn't tell me how bad I was hurt yet," Powers said.
Video report on knife in head
Miraculous SurvivalThanks to the doctors' skill and Sgt. Dan Powers' determination to get back into the service, he made a complete recovery within two years and is once again a fully-qualified paratrooper with the 118th MP Company out of Ft. Bragg.
Just a few hours later, doctors in Iraq prepared to take the daring but necessary action of pulling the knife out of Powers' skull -- a move they knew might kill him, and almost did.
Powers lost 2 liters of blood -- about 40 percent of the total in his body.
Back home now at Ft. Bragg, Powers and his wife Trudy are counting their blessings.
"All along I knew he would live because I know him and I know how strong a guy he is," Trudy said.
Amazingly, Powers' memory, speech and coordination are all intact.
"I have a little bit of a loss of sensation on my face due to all of it and I can't raise my right eyebrow. So I am kind of like Mr. Spock," Powers joked.
And Powers is forever grateful for the care he received from the military.
"Those are the heroes to me. They're my heroes," he said. "I am just glad to have made it when so many didn't." | <urn:uuid:738b7028-0cd8-469e-a47e-097c99db162d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bowieknifefightsfighters.blogspot.com/2011/08/soldier-survives-knife-in-skull.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988963 | 593 | 1.570313 | 2 |
News in Brief
College Board's SAT Goes Statewide in Delaware
In a bid to raise college awareness and readiness among high school students, the state of Delaware will offer every 11th grader the chance to take the SAT college-entrance exam, free of charge, during the school day.
The state is using $1.8 million from its federal Race to the Top grant to finance the four-year program, according to state officials. About one-third of Delaware’s high school juniors typically take the SAT, education leaders there said. They hope the new campaign will bring that figure to 100 percent.
In addition to its place in Delaware’s college-readiness work, the agreement is noteworthy for its role in the rivalry between the New York City-based College Board, which owns the SAT, and ACT Inc., the Iowa City, Iowa-based company that owns the eponymous college-entrance exam.
The SAT has long been the most widely taken college-entrance test, but the ACT has closed the gap steadily, in part with a bigger array of statewide contracts. With the class of 2010, more students took the ACT than the SAT, according to the traditional method of calculating participation. Just as that juncture was reached, the SAT introduced a new method of calculating its test-taking, which counted a group of students it typically had excluded from the count. By that method, the SAT remained more widely taken than the ACT. ("Few Changes on SAT Posted by Class of 2010," Sept. 22, 2010.)
Five states—Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, and Tennessee—require students to take the ACT, according to company spokesman Scott Gomer. Two more, North Dakota and Wyoming, require students to take either the ACT or ACT’s WorkKeys, a work-readiness assessment. Three more states—Arkansas, Texas, and Utah—offer students the chance to take the ACT free of charge, but don’t require it, Mr. Gomer said.
The SAT, in comparison, has three statewide agreements in operation now, including Delaware’s. Texas offers the test, but it’s up to each school district to opt into that program, College Board spokesman Peter Kauffmann said. Maine requires all 11th graders to take the SAT as part of its accountability system.
Mr. Kauffmann declined to discuss whether the College Board is making a point of securing more statewide contracts.
Vol. 30, Issue 19, Page 4
Access selected articles, e-newsletters and more!
- Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, Multiple Locations
- Round Rock ISD, Round Rock, TX
- Chief of Human Resources
- San Francisco Unified School District, San Francisco, CA
- Amargosa Valley Elementary School, Amargosa Valley, NV
- The Berkeley Institute, HAMILTON, Bermuda | <urn:uuid:f307b213-2ab8-4db3-bd7b-c59c9c1bed0c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/02/19brief-b1.h30.html | 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 | 0.955149 | 596 | 1.835938 | 2 |
A civil rights organization is calling on the U.S. government to create a task force to deal with the threat of radical-right anti-government groups.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said in an Intelligence Report the number of these groups reached an all-time high of 1,360 in 2012.
"We are seeing a real and rising threat of domestic terrorism as the number of far-right anti-government groups continues to grow at an astounding pace," said Mark Potok, SPLC senior fellow and author of the report. "It is critically important that the country take this threat seriously. The potential for deadly violence is real, and clearly rising."
The center said it has sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano urging the creation of a new interagency task force devoted to the threat of domestic terrorism posed by these "patriot" groups.
"As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns," SPLC President Richard Cohen wrote.
SPLC's tracking of radical right "patriot" groups indicates there were 149 in 2008. The following year the number more than doubled to 512.
The report said the increasing number of conspiracy-minded groups was "sparked by the election of America's first black president and anger over the economy."
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There are so many benefits by using LED under cabinet lights that now is the time to switch to LED under cabinet lights. You will save yourself time and money by switching to LED under cabinet lighting. | <urn:uuid:bcd19c2e-8245-472b-ad4e-cc1e5b84f475> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.westsidewholesale.com/led-under-cabinet-lighting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937283 | 421 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Updated 01/17/2013 11:33 PM
Standoff Continues Through School Bus Strike's Second Day
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Parents for a second day are scrambling to figure out alternatives for tens of thousands of students as a standoff between striking school bus drivers and aides looking for job protections and a city administration that says they just can't have it continues with no end in sight.
All 8,800 members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181 walked off the job Wednesday.
The city says overall attendance was just below average yesterday, but among special needs students, attendance was down about 30 percent.
The union says it is digging in its heels over the issue of employee protection provisions.
The union disagrees with the city's contention that offering the job protections is illegal.
There are no talks taking place and Mayor Michael Bloomberg says students may have to "learn to live" with new drivers, a sentiment the union says it finds insensitive and disappointing.
"I hope this does not last a long time, but it's not going to last more than June, because that's the end of the school year," Bloomberg told reporters Wednesday.
"Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Walcott, please come negotiate with us. Put the EPP's back in the bid. Protect the workers that have the experience. Protect the children of New York, you can do it. Please come forward and end the strike, it's in your hands," said ATU Local 1181 President Michael Cordiello.
The strike is impacting some parents at the Mark Twain School for the Talented and Gifted in Coney Island whose children lost their yellow school bus service. Those parents and grandparents said they are losing their patience.
"I am sick, but I must go to pick my grandson [up], because I worry," said one parent. "How can he get home by himself? Eleven years."
"My message is, make a compromise very fast, because it's a big problem to the kid and the parent, too."
A few blocks away from the school, on Neptune Avenue and 20th Street, workers were on the picket lines in front of a bus depot. They were chanting for job security.
There was also a steady flow of yellow school buses that drove by the picket lines and honked for support.
"Some of them beep us because they're with us but they can't say," said Vivian Mcglynn, a bus driver. "What are you going to do? They have children on the bus. We're not going to bother them. We would prefer if they came out with us, but we understand that they would lose their jobs."
Mcglynn said leaving employee protection clauses out of the city's request for new bus contracts puts students in danger.
"Where does the experience come in?" she said. "If you always have new people, then you have people with no experience. Then you're in it for the money."
Mcglynn told NY1 that if the picketing drivers lose their jobs to replacement drivers, they would have to get food stamps and collect unemployment.
At the Meredith Avenue school bus depot on Staten Island, striking workers were out in full force Thursday morning. They say while they realize there are inconveniences for parents and students, they too are facing burdens.
"[Job] security is a main factor. I mean, how are we supposed to live? We're not making a lot of money," said one school bus employee.
"It's very hard. I need money because I pay a mortgage, I pay bills, I pay everything," said another school bus employee.
While there were some concerns of possible flare-ups between strikers and non-strikers, the situation on Staten Island was peaceful, though some on the picket line said they resented the mayor calling some strikers reprehensible after reports they had briefly stood in the way of buses.
"No one here gets rowdy. We all have a peaceful point to make. No one is stopping anyone from rolling out here that is not union," said Julio Echevarria, a union-represented school bus driver.
Drivers striking at Neptune Avenue said there were no such incidents there. They said all they want to do is get their message out peacefully.
Bus companies say they are trying to bring in replacement drivers, but that could take weeks.
They also filed unfair labor practice complaints with the National Labor Relations Board to force drivers back to work.
City residents who have a disabled child and are looking for a new way to get them to school because of the strike may be able to get help from Access-A-Ride.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority said it's willing to accommodate special needs students who need rides to and from school, but on a conditional basis.
Parents interested in scheduling a pickup for their child can call Access-A-Ride at 877-337-2017. | <urn:uuid:f1797dd4-ba67-4d01-b5b9-2178fcce847b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://manhattan.ny1.com/content/politics/political_news/175569/standoff-continues-through-school-bus-strike-s-second-day?ap=1&MP4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980544 | 1,038 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday urged lawmakers to act as soon as possible to avoid the fiscal cliff.
"Coming together to find fiscal solutions will not be easy, but the stakes are high," Bernanke said, speaking before the Economic Club of New York.
The Fed chief cited projections from the Congressional Budget Office that predict the $7 trillion combination of spending cuts and tax increases could send the U.S. economy toppling back into recession.
He also cited Europe's debt crisis as an obstacle to U.S. economic growth.
"Currently, uncertainties about the situation in Europe and especially about the prospects for federal fiscal policy seem to be weighing on the spending decisions of households and businesses as well as on financial conditions," Bernanke said.
"Such uncertainties will only be increased by discord and delay," he added.
Bernanke said U.S. economic growth has been "disappointingly slow" and although the unemployment rate has been declining, it is still well above its pre-recession level.
But Bernanke pointed to the housing sector as an encouraging sign in the recovery. Home sales, new construction and home prices have all started rising recently. Bernanke said he hopes that will turn into a "virtuous circle" where higher home prices lead to a rise in mortgage lending, which in turn, could lead to even higher home prices.
"These developments are encouraging, and it seems likely that, on net, residential investment will be a source of economic growth and new jobs over the next couple of years," Bernanke said.
Mortgage rates have fallen to record lows amid the Fed's recent policy of buying mortgage-backed securities. Last week, the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.34%, according to Freddie Mac. | <urn:uuid:e64802f3-378c-473e-bc95-0f380bc09850> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wptz.com/news/money/Bernanke-Stakes-are-high-on-fiscal-cliff/-/8869718/17487830/-/item/0/-/hivc4u/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971859 | 365 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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After a day of massive protests in Tunisia, ruling Islamist party Ennahda dissolved its coalition government on Wednesday, promising rapid new elections.
The day saw the biggest street protests since the country's revolution two years ago.
The protests were sparked after a well known political opposition leader, Shokri Belaid, was shot dead outside of his home Wednesday morning.
Protesters took to the streets in cities across the country throughout the day, as police and protesters clashed amongst clouds of teargas.
Prime Minister Hamdi Jebali of the Ennahda party spoke on television in the evening declaring that weeks of talks among the various political parties, aimed at reshaping the coalition government, had failed. Jabali said they will now replace his entire cabinet with "non-partisan technocrats" until elections could be held, Reuters reports.
Belaid, 48, was shot at close range as he left for work by a gunmen who fled on the back of a motorcycle.
The day before his death Belaid publicly lambasted Ennahda and the party's allies for a "climate of systematic violence" in the country.
Although the reason for the killing is unclear, it comes as Tunisia continues to struggle with "social and religious tensions" since the 2011 self-immolation of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi which catapulted the country into nation-wide revolution, ousting its longtime dictator President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and triggering similar revolts across the Arab world.
Belaid was a well-known leader of the left-leaning opposition Unified Democratic Nationalist party and, as a lawyer and human rights activist, had been a vocal critic of Tunisia's leadership -- especially the dominant Islamic party, Annahda. Al Jazeera reports, "[Belaid] had accused authorities of not doing enough to stop violence by ultraconservatives who have targeted mausoleums, art exhibits and other things seen as out of keeping with their strict interpretation of Islam."
Last month, secular President Moncef Marzouki warned the tension between secularists and Islamists might lead to "civil war."
Following the Tunisian revolution of 2011 ousted a longtime dictator, spurring similar uprisings across the Arab world, the Islamic-dominated Annahda party won 42 percent of seats in the first elections and formed a government in coalition with two secular parties, including President Marzouki's Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol.
According to reports, Belaid was an outspoken critic of the coalition government. His small party co-founded the Popular Front, a leftist alliance preparing to compete in the elections this year.
The Guardian writes that Belaid's murder "comes amid reports of intimidation and violence against opposition groups, and days before an official commission of inquiry is due to report its findings on an attack against a trades union rally in December."
Lauren McCauley is a staff writer with Common Dreams, where a version of this article was originally published. It is reprinted here with permission.
Photo: Demotix / Corbis | <urn:uuid:db04b495-cf64-4ecb-8121-97b426b110ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rabble.ca/news/2013/02/tunisia-assassination-opposition-leader-sparks-mass-protests | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969301 | 632 | 1.570313 | 2 |
February 28, 2005
Bono's Three Wishes
He starts out by saying what gets him really turned on about the digital age, the digital revolution. "Technology has closed the gap between knowing and doing. Technology has brought prices down and Imagination has been decoupled from the old constraints," says Bono. "I would like to see idealism decoupled from the old constraints."
He speaks of his journey, which started twenty years ago with Bandaid, the summer he went to Ethiopia for the first time. Anyone who has ever given something to Africa gets a significant amount back. Having lived there a few times in my life (Kenya and South Africa), I agree.
"In Ethiopia, a man gave me his child, asked me to take the child back to Ireland with me," says Bono. Why? Because he knew the child would not survive there and would stand a chance if he left the country. Hard to resist a dying man's face, hard to pass up and yet he did. Wouldn't most of us? How many of us would completely change our lives in the face of such a request and bring an African child back with them?
Yet, the feeling never went away. "This is not about charity," says Bono. "It's about justice. Justice is a tougher standard than charity. Africa is in flames and I'm trying to call in a fire brigade......we would not allow what is happening in Africa to happen anywhere else."
Unless it looks like an action packed movie (Tsunami, War in Iraq), we tend not to jump up and say "enough is enough." He chose his words well when he said to a TED audience, "this way of thinking offends the intellectual rigor in this room."
We all know that poverty breeds despair and despair breeds violence. Isn't it better, cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to protect yourself from them later? We have so much to learn.
Bono brings up "Brand USA," and how damaged it is abroad -- too few in this country realize this. Too few realized this when I lived in Europe ten years ago. Too few Americans ever truly know what the perception is because we're so isolated over here, despite the content that is available if we choose to go digging. It's always been like this.
He impresses everyone with his articulate and passionate speech. He's authentic, doesn't use notes and is dramatic at all the right places....."Our generation," he says, "is the first generation that can look poverty and disease in the eye and say, 'we do not have to stand for this.' This is the moment you were designed for, the ideas you thought about in your youth. Because of us, we can change not just the digital world, but the physical world." And this is nothing but honest: "We're afraid to get too excited about making a change even if we realize we have the potential to, because once we acknowledge that we can, we MUST do something about it."
Hell, my feeling is that if we know we can fix something this grossly unjust, we must. It is about turning idealism into action. Idealism detached from action is nothing but a dream. Idealism tied to pragmatism is powerful.
"The digital revolution, the war on terror and putting the fire out in Africa are three things we'll be remembered for," he closes with before he gives us his three wishes.
1. Help build a social movement of more than 1 million American activists for Africa. This will get the ear of Congress.
2. 1 media hit for every person on the planet who is living on less than $1 a day. We need to get these kinds of statistics out to people so they can understand how serious the issue is...and it must be described as an adventure rather than a burden. Bono clearly understands PR spin as well.
3. I want every health clinic, hospital and school in Ethiopia to be connected to the Internet.
Big dreams and big goals but only by voicing them and empowering people will change ever happen.
If we can, we must.
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Thank you for the detailed write up! I have confidence that the TEDsters will be able to grant Bono's wishes and in the process will be inspired into further action.
Posted by: Miroslava | Feb 28, 2005 8:07:37 PM | <urn:uuid:f3a131e1-9293-47fa-b8e6-133b18377e52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.downtheavenue.com/2005/02/bonos_three_wis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972886 | 932 | 1.820313 | 2 |
When the new coalition government came to power in May 2010, it was anticipated that the regional structure of economic development (and tourism) would change but it was unclear how, to what extent and to what timescale. There was also the issue of the impending Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) to account for, with the knowledge that there would be considerable cuts in public sector spending across the board. The transition has thus been a complex issue to follow with some aspects still being developed. For the tourism sector, it represents the biggest structural change in public support for the industry since the 1969 Development of Tourism Act.
The existing mix of Regional Tourist Boards, Destination Management Organisations (DMOs), tourism partnerships and other sub-national structures is realigning in response to the funding challenges and the new landscape of Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs). VisitEngland is connecting with destination organisations to support them through the changes to help grow their local visitor economies.
VisitEngland has established a relationship with the LEPs to highlight the role that tourism can play in growing the economy at the local level and to support them to develop their approach, a role outlined for VisitEngland in the Government White Paper 'Local Growth'.
Please see the sections below on LEPs and Destination Organisations for further information. | <urn:uuid:81c116e6-0b01-419a-89ac-13fdf6f9cc33> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.visitengland.org/england-tourism-industry/how-tourism-is-managed/index.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949505 | 261 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Pennsylvania Turnpikeís Credit Rating Downgraded
The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission tried to distract people from the findings our recent study that demonstrated that the Turnpike is one of the least efficient toll roads in the country by claiming the big credit rating agencies disagree with us. Whoops. As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, " One of the nation's 'big three' credit rating agencies has raised a caution flag about the Pennsylvania Turnpike's financial future because of the transportation funding bill that the state Legislature passed last summer. New York-based Fitch Ratings Ltd. announced it has downgraded the turnpike's $2.1 billion in outstanding revenue bonds by one step, from AA- to A+, thereby crossing the line from 'high grade, high quality' to 'upper median grade.' The move means the turnpike will likely have to pay a higher interest rate on future borrowing for such capital improvements as the new bridge over the Allegheny River and widening the east-west mainline to six lanes between Irwin and New Stanton." The Fitch downgrade notes the "mission change of the PTC from a self-supporting entity into one subsidizing state-wide functions," giving it less financial flexibility. It also notes "the potential that capital projects can be deferred to meet Act 44 obligations, resulting in delayed and more expensive capital projects." It also says that "Fitch believes that there are reasonable scenarios under which planned toll increases may be insufficient to meet the annual obligations under Act 44," reinforcing the Reason report's suggestion that toll rate increases may actually be higher under the status quo (where toll rates are not capped) than under a lease of the Turnpike (where rate increases will be capped). | <urn:uuid:d0d93665-0597-49e1-8ac1-a6860b74aac7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reason.org/news/printer/pennsylvania-turnpikes-credit | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95427 | 349 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hong Lei's Regular Press Conference on March 28, 2012|
Q: It is reported that the US intends to deploy spy drones on the Cocos Islands of Australia in the Indian Ocean. But the Australian Defence Minister is not enthusiastic about the proposal. How does China comment?
A: Peace, development and cooperation is the trend of the times and the common aspiration of people in the Asia-Pacific. We hope relevant countries in this region will adapt to this historic trend and uphold the new security concept featuring mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality and coordination to jointly ensure security for all in this region.
Q: The spokesperson of the UN-AL Joint Special Envoy on the Syrian crisis Annan said on March 27 that the Syrian Government accepted Annan's six-point proposal in a letter to him. How does China comment?
A: China has noticed relevant report and is happy to see the Syrian Government's positive response to Special Envoy Annan's six-point proposal. We believe this is conducive to pushing for the political settlement of the Syrian issue. We hope the Syrian Government and relevant parties in Syria will support and coorperate with Annan's mediation efforts, seize the current important opportunity, take concrete actions in a positive response to the mediation of the Special Envoy and honor their commitments in a bid to push for progress in the political settlement of the Syrian issue.
Q: The Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS) recently decided to suspend the membership of Mali and send a delegation to the country. How does China comment? How do you view the current Malian situation?
A: We believe the pressing task for Mali now is to restore normal constitutional order and social stability as soon as possible. Relevant parties in Mali should seek a proper solution to the crisis through dialogue and negotiation an an early date.
China appreciates and supports the efforts of the African Union, the ECOWAS and regional countries to mediate the Malian issue. We hope relevant parties in Mali will actively respond to the concerns of the international community, engage in cooperation with relevant regional organizations in Africa so that ultimately, the current crisis can be properly solved by peaceful means.
Q: It is reported that the Australian Government recently rejected Huawei Company's participation in the country's nation-wide broadband network project. How does China comment?
A: The Australian market and consumers have already given a fair appraisal of the products and services of relevant Chinese company. We hope competent Australian authorities will provide a level and indiscriminative market environment for Chinese companies, instead of wearing colored glasses and obstructing Chinese companies' normal operations in Australia in the name of security.
For years, China-Australia investment cooperation has not only provided opportunities to the "going global" strategy of Chinese companies, but also injected strong impetus to the social and economic development as well as the improvement of people's well-being in Australia. We are ready to work with Australia to enhance mutually-beneficial cooperation for the benefit of the two peoples.
Q: The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Senate adopted a Tibet-related resolution on March 27, criticizing China's relevant policies. How does China comment?
A: The Chinese Government is committed to protecting the legitimate rights and interests of people of all ethnic groups, including their religious freedom. Some US legislators are confounding right and wrong, black and white in an attempt to interfere in China's internal affairs by using Tibet-related issues. China is firmly against that. We urge these US lawmakers to recognize facts, discard prejudice and stop interfering in China's internal affairs in any way. They should do more things to contribute to China-US relations in stead of the contrary.
Q: Special Envoy Annan has concluded his visit to China. How does China comment on his visit? Separately, the Arab League Summit will be held on Thursday. What is China's expectation of this summit?
A: We believe the visit of Special Envoy Annan is a complete success. During his visit, Premier Wen Jiabao and Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun met and had talks with him respectively. They exchanged in-depth views on the political resolution of the Syrian issue.
Both sides agreed that the pressing task now is to push all parties concerned in Syria to immediately, fully and unconditionally end all acts of violence and launch the process for the political settlement of the Syrian issue. The future and destiny of Syria should be decided by the Syrian people themselves. China will continue to actively support and coordinate with the mediation of Annan, call on the international community to create enabling conditions towards this end and play a positive and constructive role for the fair, peaceful and proper resolution of the Syrian issue.
Annan gave positive comments on China's efforts regarding the Syrian issue and thanked China for support to his mediation work. He expressed the will to continue his close communication with the international community including China for the political resolution of the Syrian issue.
On your second question, we congratulate on the convocation of the Arab League Summit in Baghdad. We hope the meeting will attain positive results in terms of building consensus among Arab countries, promoting internal unity and cooperation among them and enhancing the institutional-building of the Arab League. We wish this meeting a full success and hope it will contribute to maintaining and promoting peace, stability and development of the region.
Q: Military conflicts broke out in the border areas between Sudan and South Sudan. Please brief us on the safety situation of Chinese nationals in the region and the work done by Chinese diplomatic missions.
A: The Foreign Ministry and the Chinese Embassy in Sudan attach great importance to the safety of Chinese nationals and institutions in Sudan. We have asked the Sudanese side to concretely step up security measures. At the same time, we remind Chinese nationals and institutions in Sudan to enhance safety awareness and highten alert to ensure their personal and property safety. Up till now, Chinese nationals in this region have been safe in general .
Q: Has China decided to attend the second "Friends of Syria" meeting to be held in Turkey?
A: China has decided not to attend in light of the current circumstances. | <urn:uuid:d4d8f660-6d19-46b0-9a45-a716813aa32a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://de.chineseembassy.org/det/fyrth/t919056.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952573 | 1,249 | 1.632813 | 2 |
In the last couple of weeks, I finally put a couple of pieces together . . . the tech industry is pushing hard, down two parallel tracks, toward much more resource-efficient computing architectures.
Track 1: Integrated systems. Computer suppliers are putting hardware components (including compute, network, and storage) together with middleware and application software in pre-integrated packages. The manufacturers will do assembly and testing of these systems in their factories, rather than on the customer's site. And they will tailor the system — to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the system — to the characteristics of the workload(s) it will be running.
The idea is to use general-purpose components (microprocessors, memory, network buses, and the like) to create special-purpose systems on a mass-customization basis. This trend has been evident for a while in the Oracle Exadata and Cisco UCS systems; IBM's Pure systems introductions push it even further into pre-configured applications and systems management.
Track 2. Modular data centers. Now, zoom out from individual computing systems to aggregations of those systems into data centers. And again, assemble as much of the componentry as possible in the factory rather than on-site. Vendors like Schneider, Emerson, and the systems shops like IBM and HP are creating a design approach and infrastructure systems that will allow data centers to be designed in modular fashion, with much of the equipment like air handling and power trucked to the customer's site, set up in the parking lot, and quickly turned on.
Part of my role managing the Business Technology Futures team at Forrester is to keep an eye on "what's next" for CIOs and their business partners.
My team is chartered to create an early-warning radar screen of new technologies, new business models and new demands from customers that will change technology's role and impact on business.
That's where the VERGE conference comes in. I spent two very engaging days at this GreenBiz event earlier in March, soaking in the conVERGEnce of energy, transport, buildings and information.
And what a great event! I am an experienced consumer of industry conferences and this was one of the best I've attended. The mix of topics, speakers, and formats really clicked for me, because the event featured:
Multidisciplinary thinking. Not just across the four big domains, but across three dimensions of convergence taking place within them: technology (analytics meets network meets social), organizational (HR meets marketing meets facilities) and ecosystem (suppliers meet distributors meet customers). Holding this 4 X 3 Rubik's cube in one's head is daunting but also mind-expanding. | <urn:uuid:35fe1e8c-a762-48bb-892f-25b73c8e5fab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.forrester.com/archive/201204/179 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939415 | 555 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Courageous final act of professor
Fatally shot as he protects students
BY OREN YANIV and LEO STANDORA
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Tuesday, April 17th 2007, 2:27 PM
Virginia Tech University Prof. Liviu Librescu, described as a family man who once did research for NASA, sacrificed his life to save his students in the shooting rampage yesterday.
"When he heard the gunfire, he blocked the entrance and got shot through the door," his daughter-in-law Ayala Schmulevich said.
"He realized he had to save the students," she said. "That was the kind of man he was."
The hero educator was beginning a class on solid mechanics when all hell broke loose on the second floor of Norris Hall.
First came the terrifying gunshots from a classroom next door.
"It wasn't like an automatic weapon, but it was a steady 'pow,' 'pow,' 'pow,' 'pow,'" student Richard Mallalieu, 23, told The Washington Post. "We didn't know what to do at first."
The students in the class dropped to the floor and started overturning desks to hide behind as about a dozen shots rang out, he said.
Then the gunfire started coming closer. Librescu, 77, fearlessly braced himself against the door, holding it shut against the gunman in the hall, while students darted to the windows of the second-floor classroom to escape the slaughter, survivors said.
Mallalieu and most of his classmates hung out of the windows and dropped about 10 feet to bushes and grass below - but Librescu stayed behind to hold off the crazed gunman.
Alec Calhoun, 20, said the last thing he saw before he jumped from the window was Librescu, blocking the door against the madman in the hallway.
He died trying to protect the students.
Librescu taught aerospace and ocean engineering but focused much of his time on research.
He leaves a wife and two sons. His family is planning to bury him in Israel.
Two other identified victims of the massacre, educator Christopher (Jamie) Bishop, 35, and student Ryan Clark, were mild-mannered gentlemen who by all accounts were liked and admired by those who knew them.
Bishop patiently guided undergrads at the Virginia Tech University through the intricacies of the German language and doted on his wife, Stefanie, and their cat, Trinity.
Clark was working on three majors - biology, English and psychology - yet managed to devote time to Circle K, the largest volunteer community service organization on campus, and serve as an officer with the Marching Virginians, the university's band.
Clark, 23, who was due to graduate soon and hoped to pursue a career in cognitive neuroscience, apparently was one of the first to die. The tall, thin student and resident student adviser was rushing to investigate the ruckus at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dorm when the crazed gunman shot him.
Clark, who was called "Stack" by his pals, "was one of the nicest guys I've ever known," said one friend who declined to give his name.
Another described Clark as helpful and a good listener. "When I was upset about something, he would come over and ask, 'Are you OK,'" she said.
Clark's family was too distraught to talk last night.
Bishop, who got his master's in German linguistics from the University of Georgia and lived in Germany for several years, became an adjunct member of the Virginia Tech staff in 2000.
LATEST IRAQ NEWS
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Courageous final act of professor | <urn:uuid:41ed2ac9-9168-4a52-bc9e-9623cf3a6f32> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bootsinbaghdad.blogspot.com/2007/04/hero-professor-at-virginia-tech.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981943 | 773 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Fiscal cliff threatens jobs in Calif.
Economist: Cuts would mean loss of 225,000 jobs in Calif.
Officials are warning that California's economic recovery could come to a halt if Congress and President Barack Obama are unable to avert the "fiscal cliff."
Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist at Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, said Friday that automatic spending cuts would represent a loss of $22.7 billion in gross state product. It would also mean the loss of 225,000 jobs across the state.
California Employment Development Department spokeswoman Loree Levy says about 400,000 unemployed Californians will stop receiving checks at the end of the year unless Washington acts.
The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has already warned that the state could lose as much as $11 billion in tax revenue if the nation fell back into recession. That would wipe out the bulk of tax gains under Proposition 30.
Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:03f4ce1e-10df-4f95-b7ce-c8cd6b7ee0e0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcra.com/news/politics/Fiscal-cliff-threatens-jobs-in-Calif/-/11797268/17697406/-/view/print/-/10fug2fz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941842 | 208 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Living Generously, the Wise Woman Way
© 2007 Susun S Weed
Living Generously, the Wise Woman Way
as seen printed in Branches magazine
Living generously is a theme that plays loudly in many women's lives. As women, our social conditioning -- and often the impulse of our hearts -- is to live generously by giving generously. And we give the one thing we have assured access to: ourselves. Generosity flows though us and through our lives. We give to friends, mates, children, community, even needy strangers. Many women live generously by literally giving themselves away. But don't we need to be generous to ourselves as well to say that we are truly living generously?
OK! Suppose we do take time for ourselves, indulge ourselves with special foods, buy new clothes for ourselves, treat ourselves to a massage or a weekend at the spa. Is this enough to say we are living generously?
Several of my most important teachers, after knowing me for a while, told me that I was not generous. Since I make it a point to surround myself, and all those within my sphere, with abundance, this comment really took me aback. "What," I demanded of my mentor Jean Houston, "do you mean?" "I mean you reserve yourself; you hold back. You have much more you could share, much more you can do."
To live generously, as she saw it, is to impart as much of yourself as you can to everything you do. To throw yourself into it. Another teacher told me to "Jump into the volcano. Jump into the glacial lake. Otherwise you will just be a lukewarm drink." I have done my best to embody these teachings, to remember that living generously means living every second to its fullest. It means being generous with my real self, being generous with all my feelings (distress as well as love, despair as well as delight), generous with my land (I own 55 acres of forested Catskill beauty), generous with my teachings (for almost forty years).
It has always been important to me that no one is denied access to my teaching for lack of money. But I discovered quite quickly that giving away my teaching was not fair to me or to my students. It devalues my worth. It devalues the worth of my teaching. And it devalues the student's worth and lowers their self-esteem.
In Germany, a woman wanted to attend my workshop. She couldn't pay, she said, for she lived off her own land and had no money. I asked her to give me something as valuable as my teaching would be to her. She insisted she had nothing. I insisted back that everyone has something of value if they look for it. She did attend the workshop, arriving with a hand-made basket filled with her own preserves, honey from her bees, fresh produce, and a hand-knit sweater. Her generosity strengthened her and left her ready to receive. She created a space in herself. She shook off the shame that told her she had nothing. She became free to take abundantly from what I offered. In this case, for me, living generously meant not giving, but demanding that my energy be met and reciprocated.
Barter doesn't always work out so well, though. In lieu of payment in money, I am often asked to accept work that is unskillful and crafts that are useless to me. How can I live generously in this situation? How can I elicit, how can I support, abundance and generosity in my students?
Not by taking from my plenty to make up for their lack, but by eliciting and support their own worth. Not by making it easy for them, but by making it hard. Scholarship students pay half their fees in work on my homestead. I offer work/learn days at no monetary cost. Those with a thirst for knowledge thrive when given work and accept corrections with a smile. Those who won't make use of my teaching shirk their tasks, feel abused when corrected, and generally give up and leave -- often cursing me. Thus living generously leaves room for those who are warmed by my fire and nourished by my words and actions to draw near and drink deeply, while propelling those who feel "burned" by my passion out of my life. More joy for all!
Living generously comes from my excess, not from my source. A Mexican midwife admonished me to: "Give your flowers. Give your leaves. Give your stalk. Even give your seeds. But never, never, give away your roots." So I choose to live generously, to live passionately. The earth is filled with green blessings. Every breath is a give-away dance. Won't you join me?
Susun Weed is the author of four beloved books: Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year, Healing Wise, New Menopausal Years the Wise Woman Way, and Breast Cancer? Breast Health! the Wise Woman Way. Learn more at www.susunweed.com
Planting the Future: Saving Our Medicinal Herbs
by Rosemary Gladstar and Pamela Hirsch
Voted one of the Top 10 books in 2000 by the Vermont Book Publishers Association. A collective endeavor by United Plant Savers, featuring America's most respected and well-known herbalists. Includes a chapter by Susun Weed. All author royalties will be used for replanting native medicinal herbs on a 370-acre botanical sanctuary in Ohio. Paperback: 328 pages
Order Planting the Future in our Bookshop
Wisdom of the Crone:
A Deck Of Fifty-Four Wisdom Cards
Wisdom of the Crone Deck contains 54 wisdom cards.
Comes with an 8 page instruction fold out. Cards measure 4" wide by 5 1/4" tall. Each card bears a unique image of women between the ages of 50 and 100. As leaders, counselors, teachers, grandmothers and aunties, we now have wisdom and diverse life experiences to offer.
"We encourage you to defy society’s view of older women. We empower you to honor this amazing time of life. Know that you are both wise and beautiful." - Judith, Lani and Melinda, co-creators of the Wisdom of the Crone Deck
Order the Wisdom of the Crone Deck in our Bookshop
I was actually just enlightened to your website by my husband. …..
Your website is amazing, I only wish I knew about it years ago. | <urn:uuid:6e3601f1-2da5-4b61-836a-0ae5ff07771e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/April08/anti-cancer.htm | 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 | 0.971151 | 1,324 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista
Microsoft has taken the initiative to facilitate its users more than ever with the windows vista security applications. Different important files and folders can be locked on the system with windows vista. The reason behind doing this was that if it is difficult for the user to move or delete files than it would be just as difficult for the viruses to do this to those files. But what if you have to delete a file or folder from your system? For this purpose you take ownership of that folder which allows you to manage that folder also to delete it if you like.
Taking ownership of a file or a folder in the windows vista is not a very easy job even if you are using the GUI command line interface it takes a lot of steps to do so. But thanks to the person who made a registry hack for this problem. This registry hack would give you a menu item for “Take Ownership” which would take care of all the long and difficult steps of taking ownership for you.
Once you install the registry hack then your new menu would show a new option of take ownership. For this registry hack you can download it and unzip the files from the downloaded zip file. Then double click on the take ownership.reg file, a prompt would appear on the screen which would ask you if you know that the information might affect your different values and if you want to continue click on yes and your job is done.
You can also un install this hack by just double clicking on the remove Take ownership.reg file and go through the appearing prompts. No reboots are necessary for this. | <urn:uuid:2c3fb2cf-2b7f-4307-86fa-190d6d11daea> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freetechexams.com/microsoft-windows/windows-vista/add-quot-take-ownership-quot-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-win-7-or-vista.html | 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 | 0.96277 | 339 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Life And Awesomeness Of Jeff Bezos
Photo Illustration by Business Insider
It was 2003, and he was out looking at a property in West Texas.
Done with the tour, he jumped into his helicopter, ready to take off.
But as hard as the pilot cranked the throttle, the helicopter wouldn't take off.
"We had a full cabin, and a full tank of gas, so the helicopter was heavy," Bezos told Josh Quittner of Fortune magazine back in 2008.
"The way a helicopter takes off is to lift off a few feet, then the rotors tilt and it needs to get some forward momentum to generate lift."
That didn't happen.
Instead, the helicopter crashed.
Back in 2008, Bezos told Quittner he only remembers thinking: "what a dumb way to die" – and that his life did not flash before his eyes.
Disclosure: Jeff Bezos is an investor in Business Insider through his personal investment company Bezos Expeditions.
Get Tech Emails & Alerts | <urn:uuid:fc43339e-a907-4d7d-850d-72ed4db1d1f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-billionaire-jeff-bezos-2011-3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964196 | 214 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Hillary Clinton, who has steadily chipped away at the more than $25 million in debt her campaign amassed during her run for president, owes only $100,000, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures for the second quarter of 2012.
Running for president is expensive, and although the subject of campaign debt has usually been synonymous with Newt Gingrich in the past several months, Clinton is among the many former presidential candidates who’ve departed the trail in debt.
She suspended her campaign in June 2008 owing the $25 million but had paid off enough by the end of that year to owe $5.9 million.
Almost four years later, the campaign owes $100,000 to one entity, the firm of Penn, Schoen & Berland for consulting and polling fees. Penn, Schoen & Berland is a market research firm headed up by a trio of longtime advisers to both Bill and Hillary Clinton: Mark Penn, Doug Schoen and Michael Berland. | <urn:uuid:15ba6a42-d12a-444d-bd18-4a93cb8efe88> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/07/hillary-clinton-close-to-paying-off-2008-campaign-debt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973176 | 195 | 1.757813 | 2 |
We all know that Warren Buffett has praised the power of human potential in the United States of America, and he does so in conjunction with the amazing rate of innovation.
Warren Buffett has provided a video interview in regards to the power of innovation, which was used to officially launch the start of PYMNTS.com’s The Innovation Project 2013. This is currently a two-day program which will challenge the way payments and the much broader commerce ecosystem actually thinks, delivers, talks and ignites innovation.
Buffett recently sat down with Kathy Baron Tamraz, the CEO of business wire, where he offered his particular view on the current landscape of the payments industry. He also provided his optimism for the future of economy in his keynote intro to the 2013 program, which is held at Harvard University.
Berkshire Hathaway owns a Business Wire as part of a joint venture with another partner, and they also own Market Platform Dynamics and PYMNTS.com.
“The pace of change in terms of what customers are doing, how they pay us, how they come to us – it’s breathtaking,” Buffett said. “Any company that interacts with consumers and thinks that last week’s technology and approach is going to work five years from now is probably making a mistake.”
As the current economic climate improves, Buffett tells us that he describes himself to be a “realist,” when he looks toward the future. But, he tells us, it’s America’s way to continually innovate, improve and progress – a very important theme which will certainly endure throughout the entire event.
“Our system does work. It works because it unleashes human potential,” Buffett said. “Never bet against what a human is going to accomplish if they’re operating in the right soil. And we have the right soil.” | <urn:uuid:5e8d301b-12d4-479e-a705-f0b0de566651> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.warrenbuffett.com/tag/harvard-university/ | 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 | 0.96827 | 391 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Twitter recently released a list of the eight most popular hashtags of 2011. Since it first appeared in August 2007, the user-invented convention has become a shorthand, an indexing tool, and a vehicle for irony. The hashtag provides context and with more than 200 million people using Twitter, trending hashtags offer insight into the collective conversation. From death and destruction to popular uprisings and plain, old-fashioned navel-gazing, here's what we talked--err--tweeted about about this year:
1. #egypt and 8. #jan25
Social media played a critical role in the organization and reporting of demonstrations that surged across Egypt starting January 25. So much so that the government shut down Internet access for much of the country.
The unhinged Charlie Sheen was, perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular topic in the actor category. But it was his assertion that he has "tiger blood" that captured Twitter's fascination.
2011's Top Buzzwords
Some hashtags beg for user participation. This one was started by Maria Shriver (@mariashriver) in March. Her three words? Pass it on. In fact, that was the original hashtag of the tweet that started the trend: "Here are three words to live by: pass it on. # passiton"
I don't understand why this hashtag struck such a chord, unless it's that in our modern world there is much uncertainty and misunderstanding. Examples ranged from the Seinfeld-esque (" # idontunderstandwhy people flex") to the serious (" # IDontUnderstandWhy we're enemies.")
The March 11 earthquake in Japan left 15,842 dead, 5,890 injured, and 3,485 people missing. The hashtag was deployed to show support for the devastated nation and to raise money for recovery efforts.
5 Celeb Stories We Hope Don't Make it to 2012
This one is a good illustration that participatory hashtags also offer an opportunity for sarcasm. For example, "#improudtosay I love taking pictures of myself in mirrors."
Nothing unites the world like a sporting event. When the Packers played the Steelers at Cowboys Stadium, the world watched poised over its keyboards.
The most popular hashtags certainly sum up the year, but there were a few topics we were surprised not to see on the list:
Hot Trends in 2011 That Never Took Off
While Mac App Store, iPad, iPhone, and iPod were all on the list of top ten tech topics, the passing of Apple's co-founder and torchbearer didn't break the hashtag barrier.
The Beliebers failed him.
It's surprising that in an election season and a recession, the sitting president did not make the hashtag OR topics list. Or is it? #stateofamericancivilsociety
Then again, Twitter creator Jack Dorsey is part of the 1 percent.
Which hashtags do you think summarized the collective consciousness the most in 2011?
More from DivineCaroline:
Five Celebs Who Won at Life in 2011
How Holiday Overeating Can Damage Your Skin
8 Products to Help You Keep Your New Year's Resolutions
Should Airbrushing Be Banned in Beauty Ads?
First Thoughts on the Holiday Movie Season
Connect with DivineCaroline:
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Share your story! | <urn:uuid:f140b46c-11c2-46d2-9ca0-1c0862b4508f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://shine.yahoo.com/at-home/decoding-top-twitter-hashtags-2011-232500282.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937471 | 697 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Philip Pullman recently made a rather silly statement criticising the use of the present tense in the Man Booker Prize shortlist. According to him, it is a "wretched fad" and "silly affectation."
Aside from the image of Pullman as a crazy old man shouting at people in the public library, his intervention seems spectacularly pointless. If there has been a rise in literary novels written in the present tense, shouldn't the Booker Prize reflect that? I mean, I'm almost certainly not going to read any of the nominees, but I don't go off on one in the media complaining about the amount of linguistic farting-around or lack of "proper story." Not that they'd probably take any notice of me...
Fiction is a broad church, and we should allow for all techniques and points of view. If some people choose not to read any books written in the present tense, well that's their loss. It should be a case of using the technique that best serves the voice and the story, no more, no less. My suspicion is that the increased use of the present tense has been triggered by the information rush that we face daily over the internet, a rush that Pullman may be shielded from as he works away in his garden shed. The world has become a little overwhelming and I think fiction should reflect that feeling of immediacy and being in the moment. The present tense might not technically be the best way to write fiction, but since when did technicality make a story breathe?
I'm going to keep following this wretched present tense fad for as long as it makes my books exciting, disorientating and alive with possibilities. And if I find a story that works better in the past tense? Well, I'll just switch to that outdated old warhorse and you won't hear a peep from me about it.
Edit - Pullman has clarified his views in a much better argued piece here. And he acknowledges that present tense is claustrophobic - which is exactly why I use it! | <urn:uuid:1411d44f-bba8-4302-a763-b2a8bbbc9410> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.whoatemybrain.com/2010/09/tensing-up.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979172 | 418 | 1.546875 | 2 |
On November 5th, Colorado voters surprisingly defeated a proposed parental rights amendment (PRA) to their state constitution by a margin of 42% for, 58% against. The exact language would have asserted that parents have the natural, essential, and inalienable right to direct and control the upbringing, education, values, and discipline of their children.
The effort to pass a PRA began in early 1995 when state representative Mark Paschall of Arvada aligned with the Virginia-based parental rights advocacy group, Of The People. The initial plan was to pass a resolution in the General Assembly to place the question on the November 1996 ballot. Paschall soon realized that this approach was unlikely to succeed. Therefore, several conservative, Colorado-based, pro-family groups met with Paschall and Of The People executive director, Greg Erken, in June of 1995 to formulate a strategy for an initiative petition drive and campaign.
After this initial meeting, however, local organization and leadership to support the PRA developed much slower than expected. And once final ballot language was agreed upon and submitted to the Secretary of State, opposing groups pulled out every trick to stop the effort.
In one attempt to derail the petition drive, the ACLU charged that the PRA petition violated Colorado's single subject rule because it addressed four issues: upbringing, education, values, and discipline. No petitions could be circulated until this issue and several similar complaints were resolved by the Colorado Supreme Court. (The Court ruled that the petition addressed only one subject-parental rights.) That green light wasn't received until late May of 1996, leaving only three months to collect signatures.
Once the ballot question was certified in September, both proponents and opponents shifted into high gear. There wasn't a lot of time left to educate the electorate and solidify votes. Initial tracking polls showed popular support in excess of 75% with only 11% opposed.
The proponent's campaign strategy was to preserve this lead by affirming voters' gut instincts. They produced their initial commercial according to this "feel right" theme.
The opposition, however, hit hard and late in the race with emotionally-charged, high impact ads attacking the amendment as being a shield of protection for child abusers. Raising their battle cry that "the PRA goes too far," they also managed to secure major mileage in the free press, stirring a flurry of other reasons (disruption of public schools, disruption of adoption laws and procedures, reproductive freedom for minors, etc.) the amendment was not a good idea.
Former U.S. Senator from Colorado, Bill Armstrong seemingly added credibility to the opposition's concerns. Armstrong, a staunch conservative icon, was not convinced that a constitutional amendment was the answer. However, in a post-election day letter, Armstrong surmised that, "rejection of the amendment does not mean we are complacent about protecting prerogatives parents must have to fulfill their proper family role … [It] only emphasizes the responsibility of Congress and the Colorado Legislature to investigate and stop [the abuse of power by social welfare agencies and schools] where it may exist."
His closing remarks actually applauded the Colorado PRA effort: "I appreciate and admire those who put this measure on the ballot. Their efforts are not wasted. Indeed, they have performed a worthy service by focusing public attention on this important matter. Now it is up to the rest of us-especially those like me who opposed Amendment 17-to take the next step … contacting [our lawmakers] … to urge priority consideration of allegations that parental rights are being abused."
The Effort to Pass the PRA was led by home schooling parents. Realizing this, HSLDA President Mike Farris sent a letter on October 29 to Colorado home schooling families, outlining actions they could take to promote the PRA. Families were also provided with a flyer to distribute. Below is one family's account of their work to promote parental rights in Colorado.
Many thanks for the flyer sent to our family urging us to do more than vote yes on Amendment 17. God had placed it on our hearts to get involved but we weren't sure how or what to do, so we were encouraged when we received your letter.
We received permission from our pastor to put the flyers on cars in the parking lot, but he preferred us to pass them out to the congregation after church, so we set them on a table for anyone who was interested. Then my 15 month old and I went around our neighborhood with the flyers the day before the election. On election day, my two teenagers and another family went to the polls from 7 am to 8 am and were able to talk to a lot of people; four or five of which were undecided! So we were excited to see that in our county, El Paso, the amendment passed by about 700 votes! A slim but significant margin. Of course, we were extremely disappointed the amendment failed overall, but we saw how a few votes can make a difference.
Thank you for your efforts and keep up the good work!
Yours in the battle,
Mrs. Susan Thurlow
DO YOU SUPPORT PARENTS' RIGHTS
TO RAISE THEIR CHILDREN?
OF COURSE YOU DO.
BUT DO YOU SUPPORT AMENDMENT 17?
Liberal groups that are always clamoring for somebody's new-fangled rights have spent thousands of dollars trying to scare us about Amendment 17.
But Amendment 17 does not give absolute rights to parents. It simply lists parents rights as a clearly protected fundamental right like freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not absolute. You can still be sued and punished for slander.
Likewise, parents' rights under Amendment 17 are not absolute either. A parent who abuses their child could still be taken to court and punished. Fundamental rights are not absolute rights. Liberals groups have tried to scare you by pretending otherwise.
What would Amendment 17 do?
- It would give parents a say when a government clinic wants to give your 12 year old condoms.
- It would give parents a say when a school wants to force your child into a program you don't think is best for your child.
- It would give parents a say whenever a government thinks it knows best about your own child and you have a different reasonable opinion.
Amendment 17 does not interfere with adoption. Parents who abandon or severely abuse their children forfeit their rights.
Amendment 17 does not disrupt public schools. Public schools have to give high protection to the desires of religious parents under existing federal law. Why would giving all parents these same rights hurt the schools?
The liberals who oppose Amendment 17 always want their rights. Isn't it time you stand up for your right to be a good parent?
VOTE YES ON AMENDMENT 17
Paid for by the Coalition for Parental Responsibility -
Mike Norton, Chairman | <urn:uuid:29510313-60c2-43b8-bce2-dbd28ca28df2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hslda.org/courtreport/V12N6/V12N601.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973453 | 1,390 | 1.804688 | 2 |
‘Each next risk is the biggest one’: James MacDonald talks with Mark Driscoll
Wed May 22, 2013
by Mark Driscoll
Tue May 21, 2013
by Amanda Edmondson
From prison to ReTrain: Russell’s story
Mon May 20, 2013
9 types of leaders in Scripture
Mon May 20, 2013
by Justin Holcomb
5 bits of wisdom for the professional Christian woman
Sun May 19, 2013
by Shandel Slaten
Scripture Is True: Machen on the Bible
This is the fourth installment in our seven-part series based on J. Gresham Machen’s seminal work, Christianity and Liberalism (1923). In the book, still relevant almost a century later, Machen contrasts the modernist theological liberalism of his day with biblical Christianity. This post covers Chapter 4, which contrasts the view of Scripture in Christianity and liberalism.
Do You Consider the Cross Crucial?
The Christian view of the Bible is that it is the revelation of God that shows how unholy, sinful people are brought into relationship with a holy God. The New Testament recounts the historical events and the meaning of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection; the Old Testament foreshadows and predicts it. This unique, earth-shattering event is what makes Christianity Christian. But, as J. Gresham Machen argues, this unique historical basis of Christianity is rejected by modern naturalistic liberalism.
Liberalism is suspiciously critical of the past. Instead, it tries to create a salvation independent of history, such that it can be captured in present human experience alone.
Christian salvation is not a human religious experience disconnected from the event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The truthfulness of Christianity is not confirmed by a person’s experience of this event. As Machen puts it:
Salvation then, according to the Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that happened. . . . All the ideas of Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there would be in that other religion no Christianity. For Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the narration of an event. (p. 60)
Do You Believe the Bible?
The authority of the Bible is questioned by modern liberalism, which views the truthfulness of the Scriptures as unimportant and ridicules the plenary inspiration of Scripture. According to liberalism, the Bible contains as much (or more) error as any other book, and the idea that the Holy Spirit would enable the authors of the Bible to write Scripture is seen as foolishness.
Liberalism caricatures the doctrine of plenary verbal inspiration as though it meant that the Holy Spirit dictated to the writers of Scripture and they just robotically scribbled. Machen corrects this caricature: each writer wrote as an individual, gathering information as any writer would and writing in a unique, individual style. The Holy Spirit didn’t turn them into a kind of mechanical Bible printing press, but directed them as they wrote and kept them from error.
Machen draws a distinction between 1) those Christians who believe that the Bible does contain error but is right in its overall message and who have trusted Jesus as their atoning sacrifice for sin, and 2) those within liberalism who have denied outright the central message of the Bible and supernatural act of God in human history.
It is no wonder, then, that liberalism is totally different from Christianity, for the foundation is different. Christianity is founded upon the Bible. It bases upon the Bible both its thinking and its life. Liberalism on the other hand is founded upon the shifting emotions of sinful men. (p. 67)
Is Jesus the Authority in Your Life?
What is important to the modern liberal is not the authority of the Bible, but the authority of Jesus. They claim that Jesus would disagree with antiquated views of the Old Testament and the fiery rhetoric of Paul. Machen points out the problem with this view: in the search for the “historical Jesus,” biblical criticism gets to pick and choose the parts of Jesus’ life and sayings that accord with the critic’s preconceived naturalistic notions.
The authority for a theological liberal does not reside in Jesus and God’s revelation through Scripture, but in individual experience, which Machen describes above as “the shifting emotions of sinful men.” Their authority is themselves or their experience—not Christ or Scripture.
Unlike liberalism, Christianity lives under the authority of the Word of God, an authority that does not enslave us, but frees us to have true knowledge of God and his world.
Next up, we look at the modernist liberal version of Jesus and how it differs from the real Jesus. | <urn:uuid:8b637957-911d-4cd0-bb7e-2aa76069ea10> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theresurgence.com/2012/07/02/scripture-is-true-machen-on-the-bible | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947694 | 981 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Paul W. Newacheck is Professor of Health Policy and Pediatrics at the Institute for Health Policy Studies and the Department of Pediatrics at UCSF. Dr. Newacheck’s work focuses on health care access and delivery for children, and the epidemiology of childhood illness. His research is largely directed at vulnerable populations of children, including children from low income families, racial and ethnic minority groups and those without insurance coverage.
Dr. Newacheck has served on the Board on Children, Youth and Families for the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. He has also served as member of the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics which advises the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Congress on issues related to health information. Dr. Newacheck is also a member of the Research Consortium on Children with Chronic Conditions, a small organization of researchers with career interests in children with special health care needs. He is the author of numerous reports and publications concerning access to health care for children and epidemiology of chronic illness and disability among children. He serves on the editorial boards for Health Services Research and Ambulatory Pediatrics. A few of his awards include being honored by the Vince Hutchins Partnership Award for Outstanding Partnership and Collaboration in Maternal and Child Health in 2004, a Certificate of Appreciation from Tommy Thompson, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for service on the National Committee on Vital and Health Statistics in 2003, and the Distinguished Teaching Award as a professor at the School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley (multiple years). Dr. Newacheck’s educational background includes a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, a Master’s degree in Public Policy and a Doctorate degree in Public Health, all from the University of California at Berkeley. | <urn:uuid:e61ad1fb-6a5d-4c24-a585-77069ed6cef1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nahic.ucsf.edu/about/who-we-are/paul-newacheck-dr-p-h/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955428 | 366 | 1.585938 | 2 |
I like GUI based languages which are fun to write.
Looked at your Arduino lately? Do you see a place to display that GUI? I certainly don't.
Look at your fancy GUI on the PC. How much of that code did you write? How much do you understand? How much was just "magic"?
The fancy GUI full of buttons and sliders and text fields and tabs needs callbacks to actually DO anything. That's boring work. We'll get someone else to do that. I don't think so.
Once you get past the fancy GUI builder which is fun to play with but accomplishes very little (and Visual Studio has them for C/C++ and C#), you need to write code that accomplishes stuff.
Learning to think logically, so you can develop useful code is not restricted to a given language. Learn one. Whichever floats your boat this week.
Then, nest week, when you want a job as a programmer, it might be important to know what language(s) employers expect you to know. A little clue. The list will be longer than one entry. | <urn:uuid:0a9f61a1-d673-4655-9deb-c2700a0d8cba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=129645.msg1006175 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979378 | 230 | 1.84375 | 2 |
If you cry wolf too many times, people are apt to dismiss you. The mobile internet is the boy who cried wolf.
For years, many have predicted its rapid rise, and massive revenues. Yet by in large we've all been disappointed. Year after year new developments have been made but a mobile internet that's as important as many believed it would be hasn't shown up.
But things are changing and the most important foundation for a vibrant mobile internet is being laid: actual users.
Thanks to affordable smartphones and useful applications, according to comScore, the number of people who used their mobile devices to access the internet doubled from January 2008 to January 2009. In January 2009, 63.2m people accessed the mobile internet, with 22.4m of them doing so daily.
According to comScore's senior vice president of mobile, Mark Donovan, "Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives."
The most popular use of the mobile internet is to access news and information. But the use of the mobile internet to access social networks and the blogosphere is rapidly growing. That category of use jumped a whopping 427% from 2008 to 2009.
Finance, movie information, business directories and entertainment information were categories also experiencing year-over-year growth of more than 100%.
As might be expected, younger users are leading the way. The mobile internet is proving extremely popular with males 18-34 and females 18-24.
The key takeaway from comScore's date is that while the mobile internet still has a long way to go before it reaches the epic proportions that have been predicted, it's now building the userbase that's required to get there.
Photo credit: whatleydude via Flickr. | <urn:uuid:7b97707d-6b50-4cc1-981e-f3a406518856> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://econsultancy.com/il/blog/3492-the-mobile-internet-really-does-exist-comscore | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960446 | 372 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Um, blogging break? What blogging break? Of course, I said I'm taking a blogging break, and now here I am posting a full-fledged block tutorial. You knew I couldn't stay away, didn't you?
But June is my month as quilter for the Love Circle of Do. Good Stitches, and I changed my plan for the quilt at the last minute, and the new plan requires a block tutorial ... and here we are. I'm calling this the "Hexing Around" block. Enjoy, whether you are in the Love Circle or not.
Hexing Around Block
This 12.5" square log-cabin-style hexagon block is fun and easy to piece.
1. First, download my template for the center hexagon here. (Click "File" in the upper left to print it or download the original. If you have any problems, email me and I will send you the PDF.) Be sure to print it out at 100% size (no scaling)! When printed at the correct size, the hexagon should be 2.75" high (from flat edge to flat edge).
2. Use the template to cut out a hexagon for the center of your block. The template includes seam allowance, so no need to add for that.
3. Now cut 1.5" wide strips for each side of your center hexie. Sew two of the strips onto opposite sides of your hexie, as shown. Press seams open.
4. Use the 60-degree angle mark on your ruler to trim the ends of the pieces you just added. Line up the 60-degree angle line with the seam opposite the strip you're trimming.
5. When you're done trimming the ends, you should have a unit that looks like this.
6. Add two more strips to opposite edges of the center hexagon.
7. Trim the ends of these strips by matching up the 1.25" vertical line on your ruler with the seam that runs parallel to the edge you want to trim, and the 60-degree angle mark should line up with the raw edge of the unit, as shown.
8. When you're done trimming, it should look like this.
9. Add your final two strips to opposite sides of the hexagon.
10. Again, trim the ends of the strips in the same way you did the previous two strips. Line up 1.25" mark with a parallel seam, and the 60-degree line with a raw edge of the block.
11. Now your hexagon should look like this, with one complete round of "logs."
12. Cut another set of 1.5" strips and follow the steps above to sew another round of logs around your hexagon, in the same manner as the first.
13. Continue adding logs to make two more rounds. Your completed hexagon should be no more than 12.5" wide, from point to point. If it's more than 12.5", go ahead and trim around the outer edge to bring it down to size. If it's a little less than 12.5" wide, that's okay.
14. From your background fabric (I'm using solid white), cut two 5" x 7" rectangles. Now cut a diagonal line through each rectangle, like so.
15. Sew the background triangles onto the corners of your hexagon, as shown. The triangles will be larger than what you need, but I found it easier to make them too big and then trim down to nice 90-degree corners. Add triangles to all four corners.
16. Trim your block so that it measures 12.5" wide by 11" high. (There should be at least .25" of white background at its narrowest point along each side of the block.)
17. Add 1.5" strips to the top and bottom of your block and trim to 12.5" square.
Thank you, ladies of the Love Circle! Now I'm going back into hiding until Thursday as planned, but I will be reachable by email if you have questions or problems with the block. Have a great holiday.
P.S. In case you're dying for an update on the potty training ... well, it's going. That's about the best I can say at this point. : ) | <urn:uuid:4074898b-c481-4513-9d61-0d846df143dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.freshlypieced.com/2011/05/hexing-around-block.html?showComment=1306735678009 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932789 | 905 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The theory of “buy and hold” is premised on two major assumptions.
First, the company is a great company and continues to be great — there are no major changes in the value drivers and prospects of the company for the foreseeable future. Second, the investor bought the stock at an attractive discount to its intrinsic valuation (or “margin of safety” as Benjamin Graham would call it).
The biggest weakness of the buy and hold theory is that there is no explicit mention of exit — return of capital and upside beyond that to investors. Equity research analysts like to use the concept of a catalyst as a solution to this problem. They frequently identify catalysts in their writing, calling out for events that drive stock price towards their intrinsic value, as part of their analyses. I am a non-believer, when it comes to the idea of a catalyst. In my opinion, undervaluation itself is the best catalyst.
So, what is the right strategy? Combining the idea of buy and hold and dividend investing makes more intuitive sense. An investor buys a consistent dividend paying stock and holds it for a period of time to receive dividend income. Once the dividend investor has recovered his capital (or at least a substantial part of it) through dividend income (it could take many years depending on the dividend yield), he could then choose to either to continue to hold the stock to receive dividends or sell the stock for capital gains.
On the other hand, buying and holding a non-dividend paying stock for it to reach its “intrinsic valuation” could be a long fruitless wait, perpetuated by the fact that there are no dividends in between to tide the investor through. In the worst case scenario, the stock never reaches its “intrinsic” valuation or anywhere near, commonly referred to as a "value trap." | <urn:uuid:2861e06c-4f89-467a-9988-692dd88bcbd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gurufocus.com/news/200512/buy-and-hold-still-works--only-with-dividends | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959739 | 382 | 1.78125 | 2 |
It has taken me a while to pin down why I find the meeting considerably more interesting than conferences I usually go to. One reason is certainly the variety of topics. Most conferences these days feature a monoculture of specialists in one particular area. And while that is very efficient for exchanging recent results, it also becomes repetitive rather easily. Here, we have a mix of "fundamental" fields, covering cosmology, quantum mechanics, quantum information and quantum gravity. There are also some philosophers here, and one experimentalist. (I think it's by accident rather than design he's the only one.)
But what really stands that the topics discussed are bold. There's Olaf Dreyer speculating on the origin of space and time from matter, Paul Davies on the relevance of increasing complexity in the evolution of the universe and the role of the observer, Anthony Agiurre about false vacuum bubbles, Eduardo Guendelman on the possibiliy to create universes, Fotini Markopoulou on the emergence of space from a non-geometric phase in the early universe, and Louis Crane on black holes as power sources. Depending on your taste, you might call them courageous or nuts. Laura Mersini-Houghton who talked about the possibility of finding evidence for the multiverse through entanglement on super-horizon scales is one of the more conservative here. There is also lot of talk about the arrow of time, alien civilisations, and the Future of Sex.
I also met another blogger many of you will know, Scott Aaronson, who turned out to be younger and more, oohm, entertaining than I thought
Then there are the usual suspects, Garrett Lisi, Julian Barbour, Max Tegmark etc. You find the full list of participants here.
[Julian Barbour and Olaf Dreyer]
I further meet Zeeya Merali who wrote the article for New Scientist on Garrett's "Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything." Zeeya turned out to be a very charming young women with a PhD in physics who finds writing about science a great way to follow her fascination with physics. Over dinner, we had an interesting discussion about science journalism and science blogging.
The multiverse is a recurring issue that people seem to be very divided on, both with respect to existence and interpretation. Interestingly, on the list with questions that were thought to become/remain relevant within the next ten years "Understanding String Theory" ended up having one of the lowest scores. I'm not sure though this reflects more than the interests of the participants.
Yesterday we had a group discussion on what is "fundamental," I will tell you about that some other time.
You find a lot more details on the conference and the talks on the FQXi blog. | <urn:uuid:446720e6-9baf-4be6-b747-e255649ca0ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2009/07/fqxi-on-azores.html?showComment=1247587973873 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945461 | 575 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Throughout the course of 60 years in video game history, we have seen its share of trailblazers and the mason’s that have built the very structure of the video games industry. They are the pioneers that erected the very pillars of the gaming industry which gave birth to our culture; Fusajiro & Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nolan Bushnell, Ralph Baer, Raymond Moloney and more are the forefathers of the gaming industry.
Considered by millions around the world as Nintendo's #1 supporter, Isaiah TriForce Johnson recently posted news of his attempt to stand the line and become the first person to commercially purchase the Nintendo Wii U at the Nintendo World Store in New York City on November 18th, 2012. Only a few days after Nintendo World hosted a private event showcasing the Nintendo Wii U "Nintendo TVii" application, TriForce post on his Twitter the following:
THE FIRST RENAISSANCE
In 1981 Walter Day founded Twin Galaxies which was later recognized as the foundation to competitive gaming and the cultural landscape for gaming world wide. Walter worked towards establishing video game playing as a professional sport and inspired the creation of the International Video Game Hall of Fame in Ottumwa, Iowa. His work made him a luminary and is considered by many as the “Patron Saint of the Video Game Age.”
After the Nintendo Wii U Press conference concluded, TriForce along with the Founder and President of Street Pass NYC headed down to Nintendo World found only in New York City to be one of first few to stand the line to celebrate and exclusive performance of the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses inside the Nintendo World store the following day. The event started at 6:00pm and ended at 9:00pm on September 14th, 2012.
On September 13, 2012 Nintendo announced that they will hold a Press Conference in New York City, revealing details about the Nintendo Wii U's price, launch date and other gaming details. Nintendo invited media such as CNN, G4TV, Destructoid and more to cover the press event and check out the 50 titles in which they will have after the launch of the system; also invited to the press conference were special guest Gaming Ambassadors of Nintendo, Isaiah TriForce Johnson, Jordan White and Sam "Nintendo Fan Girl" O'Neil.
On September 9th, 2012 the official list of registered champions who competed under the Empire Arcadia brand both past and present has been submitted to Guinness World Record for the Gamers Edition 2013 book. We would like to once again congratulate all members who participated in Empire Arcadia through the years. Below is a list of the official names that were submitted. Name not found on this list were due to insufficient informtaion for tournament wins to be accepted by Guinness World Record Standards.
On September 1st, 1982 what was thought to be an impossible feat was made possible by one man. Activision a 3rd party software developer, designed and produced a video game for the Atari 2600 in 1980 called “Dragster”. The purpose of the game was to shuttle your dragster down a quarter mile track in the fastest possible time. Thousands of gamers purchased the game to see who would be the fastest in the world. | <urn:uuid:f4a1624e-7d37-4182-ac34-1946c519f12e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.empirearcadia.com/Archives | 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 | 0.965808 | 659 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Updated 09/11/2012 05:49 PM
Police investigating case of animal cruelty
Police are investigating a case of animal abuse in the Capital Region after three pit bull puppies were found abandoned and abused on railroad tracks in Albany over the weekend. Lori Chung has more.
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ALBANY, N.Y. -- They’re playful and precocious and these three-week-old puppies give little sign of the pain they endured at the hands of an abuser.
“One of them, the paw is completely cut off, [another] one has a hole through the paw and on one of them, the two middle digits of the rear left paw has been cut off,” said Brad Shear of the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society.
A railroad worker found three puppies on the track near Broadway in Albany. The runt of the three died from its injuries.
“Someone might have tried to put a nail through that dog’s paw,” said Shear.
It’s the kind of case that police throughout the region are getting help to crack.
“Police are mandated by law to investigate animal cruelty,” said Sue McDonough of the New York State Humane Association. “But they don’t get the training because it’s not under the penal law.”
This workshop is filling in the blanks for those pursuing suspected animal abuse.
“[We teach them] how to get help because it’s live evidence,” said McDonough. “How to work with other agencies, when they need search warrants.”
But this case is an example of why police, though at times ill-equipped, have to take cruelty cases seriously.
“This is somebody who got tools, got equipment, went somewhere and did something intentional and did it again and then did it a third time,” said Shear. “So this is an individual that we all need to be worried about.”
There are still no arrests in the case but the Mohawk Hudson Humane Society is asking anyone with information to give them a call at (518) 434-8128.
Some experts at the workshop are supporting a bill that would make animal cruelty a part of the penal law, so that officers will be trained on how to investigate those cases. | <urn:uuid:fe227382-b2ad-4339-b64e-592546c65a00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://capitalregion.ynn.com/content/top_stories/599547/police-investigating-case-of-animal-cruelty/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955973 | 517 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Taking Indianapolis by Storm
While the Little Giants were toiling on the gridiron or on the courts, the rest of us were giving them our exuberant support. We were a vocal crowd, making up for our lack of numbers with superior lung power.
Supporting the cheerleaders in their effort to create some excitement was the Sea Goin' Band. The name originated in the 20s when the band wore scarlet sweaters and round sailor hats with a tassel. We made respectable music even though we practiced but once a week.
The Indianapolis Star carried this article about the band's visit to the Indiana capital in the 1920s:
"Wabash has something that no other college has. Just what it is no one can say exactly, but it is there. It defies analysis Other colleges may come to town with bigger bands, more students, more automobiles and more banners, but none of them is marked by that individuality and punch which characterizes the arrival of the Little Giants.
"Saturday, with a roarin' 500 students, a big dog, and the greatest aggregation of sizzling, steaming, rattling motorized tin cans ever gathered together they took Indianapolis by storm. The hearts of all of Indianapolis warmed to the Wabash rooters. Their singing of 'Old Wabash,' one of the greatest of all college songs, at the Claypool was marvelous."
-excerpted from Of Precious Memory by Bill Starr '37. Used by permission.
This cartoon of the "Sea Goin' Band" was drawn by Dave Gerard '31. The nationally syndicated creator of "Citizen Smith" and other cartoons for publications including The Saturday Evening Post and Country Gentleman, Gerard, along with Frank Beaven '29, Bandel Linn '32, and Allen Saunders '20, was one of four Wabash members of a "team" of cartoonists known as "The Sugar Crick Art School."
"Five of the nation's most prolific, dizzy, well-known creators of comics strips come from the cornfields and elm-shaded villages of Montgomery County," Country Gentleman editor Arnold Nicholson wrote in 1938. Tom Henderson '42 joined the celebrated group in the 1940s. | <urn:uuid:c5729149-86c5-4868-b399-57f7b82f1ab3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wabash.edu/magazine/1998/fall/features/storm.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961064 | 459 | 1.710938 | 2 |
For crop insurance and USDA farm program purposes each year, farmers must report their planted acreage information to the local Farm Service Agency office. This year there are important changes in acreage certification and crop insurance reporting to keep in mind.
Everyone who plants an insured crop should keep track of the date he or she planted each field and how many acres are planted to that crop. That information has to be reported to your local Farm Service Agency office on FSA Form 578—the acreage report. You'll likely be asked to document that information by FSA farm and tract number. For 2012 FSA wants you to report planted acreage to the local office by June 30. You should also provide a copy of your completed FSA form to your crop insurance agent by July 15.
The June 30 and July 15 dates can be confusing. For reporting acreage information to your crop insurance agent, USDA's Risk Management Agency has changed the deadline to July 15 for the 2012 crop. For reporting acreage information to FSA, farmers are being allowed to certify planted acreage by July 15—if they don't get to their local FSA office to do it by June 30. However, FSA is strongly encouraging farmers to meet the June 30 deadline.
Good reasons to report acreage information to FSA by June 30
"We want farmers to report their acreage information to their local FSA office by June 30," says Vickie Friedow, program specialist at the FSA state office in Des Moines. "There are good reasons for farmers to meet this June 30 deadline."
One of those reasons, notes Steve Johnson, an Iowa State University Extension farm management specialist, is the July 15 deadline for reporting acreage of spring-planted crops to your insurance agent. The crop insurance billing date is August 15, which leaves little time for turnaround of acreage reports for crop insurance purposes. A penalty will be attached for late payment of premiums. The premium this year must be received by October 1--which is a month earlier than in the past.
Farmers need to report crops planted, practice (irrigated vs. non-irrigated), number of acres and planting date. FSA Form 578 must include farm serial number, tract number and field number. FSA assigns each farm, tract and field a unique identifier called a Common Land Unit or CLU.
Reporting acreage by CLU, USDA moving toward a map-based system
"Across the Corn Belt more farmers are finding acreage reporting just got easier," says Johnson. "They still need to report the crop and date planted for each field and complete FSA Form 578 before the deadline. However, many farmers can now report this data while viewing a map of each field boundary."
With each field identified by a CLU assigned by FSA, this data is in USDA's Comprehensive Information Management System. The crop insurance industry has access to it and is already using the system to assist farmers. Insurance agents may be able to speed up the process of acreage certification. However, information reported on FSA Form 578 must match the information your crop insurance agent files.
The table accompanying this article gives an example of how information on the number of planted acres and the planting date has changed in recent years.
Advantages of using CLU information—FSA & RMA want consistency
The initial reason for USDA developing the CLU reporting system was for agencies like FSA and RMA to have consistent information. Now heading into year three of phasing in this nationwide CLU effort to create map-based reports, farmers are beginning to see some real benefits in using the new system, says Johnson.
The benefits can include the following:
* It's easier and likely more accurate to track data using mapping information. Fewer reporting errors occur as field boundaries are easier to identify.
* You might be able to use the map-based information obtained from your crop insurance agent in advance of completing the acreage certification with FSA and filing FSA Form 578.
* Map-based information makes it easier for crop insurance adjusters to verify policies, adjust claims and make the indemnity payments.
* The maps work well with precision farming technologies and using planter and yield monitor data for reporting.
The new CLU system is a globally unique identifier associated with each field. Acreage reporting with the CLU system is targeted at 50% of the nation's crop acreage by 2012 and 100% by 2016. The addition of CLU to traditional acreage reports will become the new format for electronic data management and likely lead to the potential for self-certification of planted acreage.
2012 crop insurance premium due in September; pay by Oct. 1 to avoid penalty
"Consider working with your crop insurance agent in advance of FSA acreage certification," advises Johnson. "This can provide an opportunity for you to use CLU information and gain experience with map-based information." Farmers who added land for 2012 or those whose FSA office hasn't yet assigned CLU identification to each field may need extra time during acreage certification.
Whether or not you're moving to map-based information, be sure to provide your acreage report to FSA by June 30, well in advance of the July 15 deadline for crop insurance acreage reporting. Visit your local FSA office about acreage certification and completion of FSA Form 578. Contact your crop insurance agent if you have concerns about your coverage or potential access to CLU and map-based information opportunities.
"Remember, the 2012 crop insurance premium is due in September. To avoid having to pay a penalty, payment must be received by October 1, one month earlier than in the past," notes Johnson. "Always talk to your insurance agent if you have questions regarding your policy or coverage."
For farm management information and analysis, go to ISU's Ag Decision Maker site www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm and ISU Extension farm management specialist Steve Johnson's site www.extension.iastate.edu/polk/farmmanagement.htm. | <urn:uuid:a556a12d-066c-4c59-b8b7-25fee07722e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://farmprogress.com/story-fsa-changes-2012-acreage-reporting-0-59601 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954769 | 1,223 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Also while at the LEGO Engineering Conference, they spoke about the upcoming NXT Temperature Sensor. They had a basic CAD picture of it, and they are sending me a more detailed picture in a few weeks. It has a range of -20 to +110 degrees Celsius, and quite a long sensing area. Those of you familiar with the original RCX temperature probe will remember that the sensing head, the part you were 'allowed' to immerse in liquids was only a few millimeters long. This new sensor has a probe that looks around 80mm long, perfect measuring hot cups of chocolate and icy cool drinks.
It is only being released by LEGO Education, not LEGO Retail so unfortunately it won't be available at "Shop@Home".
I'll be posting a pic of it as soon as I get a copy. | <urn:uuid:f2310b70-69b0-4c52-9f66-a8f6cf8a1167> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thenxtstep.blogspot.com/2008/03/nxt-temperature-sensor.html?showComment=1206543000000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96894 | 166 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Scripture: Luke 17:7-10
7 "Will any one of you, who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep, say to him when he has come in from the field, `Come at once and sit down at table'? 8 Will he not rather say to him, `Prepare supper for me, and gird yourself and serve me, till I eat and drink; and afterward you shall eat and drink'? 9 Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? 10 So you also, when you have done all that is commanded you, say, `We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.'"
Meditation: We love to claim our rights! But who can satisfy the claims of love? Jesus used this parable of the dutiful servant to explain that we can never put God in our debt or make the claim that God owes us something. We must regard ourselves as God's servants, just as Jesus came "not to be served, but to serve". True love is sacrifical, generous, and boundless. God honors the faithful servant who loves generously. He is ever ready to work through us and in us for his glory. We must remember, however, that God can never be indebted to us. We have no claim on him. His love compels us to give him our best! And when we have done our best, we have simply done our duty. We can never outdo God. Does the love of God compel you to give your best?
"Lord, fill my heart with love, gratitude and generosity. Make me a faithful and zealous servant for you. May I generously pour out my life in loving service for you and for others, just as you have so generously poured yourself out for me." | <urn:uuid:346c6f4d-db93-40de-a655-3a3ce491d7c5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rc.net/wcc/parabl18.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972389 | 365 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Late Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray's newspapers Saamna (in Marathi) and Dopahar Ka Saamna (in Hindi) sported black front pages as a mark of mourning for the second consecutive day Monday.
Thackeray, 86, who passed away Saturday, was founder-editor of both newspapers though day-to-day affairs were managed by his hand-picked and trusted executive editors.
This is the first time in Saamna's history since its launch Jan 23, 1988, that its two main cover pages were printed in sheer black two days in a row.
On the jacket cover is a large picture of Bal Thackeray waving adieu to the people with a huge headline in Marathi: "World witnesses Shiv Sena chief's power and Shiv Sainiks' devotion" - and a small accompanying story with a big picture of the crowds outside Shiv Sena Bhavan on Sunday, during the funeral.
The inside main cover has a flier headline: "Storm subsides in the lap of Shivtirth", referring to the public cremation held at Shivaji Park in south-central Mumbai Sunday.
This was an apparent continuation of Sunday's headline: "A storm called Balasaheb is peaceful," and accompanied by a collage of pictures showing the unprecedented turnout for the funeral, a serene image of Bal Thackeray covered by the Indian flag, the gun salute, and the body consigned to flames.
The Hindi daily eveninger, Dopahar Ka Saamna, Monday on a full black background, shows a grieving Uddhav performing the funeral rites (with the earthen pot on his left shoulder), in the backdrop of the flames leaping from his father's funeral pyre.
The headline reads: "Volcano goes down in flames."
Saamna was founded as a party organ to convey Thackeray's views to the Marathi masses directly.
Dopahar Ka Saamna was launched Feb 23, 1993 to woo north Indians settled in Maharashtra and also make Thackeray's voice and views heard in the national capital.
Over the years, Thackeray had mastered the art of using the two newspapers' columns -- stern leaders, acidic edits, rare signed edits or statements and an occasional personalised edit -- through which he spared none, be they relatives, friends or foes.
Besides, there were his annual interviews, running into several instalments, spread over two to four days in the newspapers. In his lifetime, Thackeray rarely spoke to mainstream media, and abhorred the English media.
Two days after his demise, Thackeray's name continued to appear as Editor in its regular place, just as it has been since the launch of the newspapers. | <urn:uuid:db30a071-20a1-4372-aaba-067296cc845c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/Mumbai/Saamna-mourns-Thackeray-s-death-sports-black-frontpages-for-two-days/Article1-961290.aspx | 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 | 0.975973 | 567 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Why study engineering at the University of Denver?
DU's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) is creating the future of technology by providing a graduate education that emphasizes both multi-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary knowledge. The distinguished faculty is creating multi-disciplinary education and research programs that anticipate technological trends in research and development as well as industry. Graduate students join the faculty in conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in emerging disciplines developing novel and unique solutions to old and new problems and opportunities.
All laboratories in the Department contain state-of-the-art equipment and software to support basic and applied research in hardware and software design, hardware/software interfacing, communications and signal processing, image processing, computer vision and pattern recognition, optoelectronics, power and energy systems, MEMS, robotics, mechatronic systems, unmanned systems, among other research areas. Small classes support our multi-disciplinary and real-time focus by providing close contact between students and faculty, which allows us to meet students' individual career goals.
Denver is a first-rate location for business, governmental and laboratory partnerships, and technology employment. The Colorado Front Range is consistently rated as one of the top high-tech areas in the country, and DU is located just minutes from the Denver Technological Center, the site of many top technology companies. The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering is committed to active collaboration with these industry leaders. As a result, our students graduate with relevant research experience and a network of employment contacts in the technology sector that is second to none!
The ECE department offers, among other degrees, a masters and a PhD degree in mechatronic systems engineering (MSE). DU/ECE is the only University in the U.S. that offers BS, MS and PhD degrees in MSE. | <urn:uuid:9f6a22f3-a5b7-4db4-89b0-434ac0076c5c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.du.edu/learn/graduates/degreeprograms/bulletins/ece/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951745 | 368 | 1.742188 | 2 |
I use my own domain for email, so that I can use multiple email addresses when shopping online, subscribing, etc.
These are all redirected to Gmail.
I have created some addresses under that domain for use when sending in Gmail.
What I would like to do is send mail without the need to register each address separately, or create a new email address in "Google Apps for your domain".
Is there a method to register the whole domain with Gmail so that I can send email in this way without needing to verify a new address?
[Original answers suggested Google Apps for your domain. I didn't known about this, and I think it will be useful for me, but it doesn't obviously allow this feature.] | <urn:uuid:2f09429a-e983-498a-a511-dd812d20709f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/2109/can-i-use-gmail-for-my-email-domain/2456 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948201 | 147 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Actively Managed funds
These funds try to predict market changes in order to beat a market index. These funds carry a higher fee than passively managed funds.
An adjective that describes statistical elements, assumptions,
and techniques used by actuaries. An "actuary" is an expert who
computes insurance or pension risks and plan costs based upon plan
membership, experience, and other factors. Actuaries determine the
level of funding required to provide the benefits promised to you under
the Florida Retirement System.
The current fees an investment fund charges to cover management, operating and marketing expenses. Actual fees are proportional to the amount you invest in that fund. For example, if the annual fee for a $10,000 investment in a fund is $2 but you only invest $1,000, you would be charged ($1,000 ÷ $10,000) x $2, or 20 cents for a year. Fees may change in the future. Fees and expenses are only one of several factors that you should consider when making investment decisions.
An insurance contract that guarantees you monthly income for the rest of your life, or for the period of time you choose.
Average Final Compensation or AFC
The average of the 5 highest years of salary earned during
covered employment. Salaries are counted by fiscal year (July 1 - June 30).
Average Market Result
An estimate in "Today's Dollars" of what an investment of $10,000 might grow to over a 10-year period. There is a 50% chance that $10,000 would grow to this amount or more in 10 years. | <urn:uuid:792a3a15-de96-460a-9fa9-c6e795e1f14b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfrs.com/portal/server.pt/gateway/PTARGS_0_2_582_274_0_43/glossary/user/GlossaryDisplay/new_GlossaryDisplay/getGlossaryForAlphabet.do;JSESSIONID2=WH4nQMRD7tCwwJhy4X0HJBM2h6Jd5TvJw2yqjByHNZbfQLkvtRxd!-1147978947?glossaryLetter=A | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940097 | 331 | 1.726563 | 2 |
- Questions to ask yourself before selecting a snowshoe.
- Snow and terrain conditions.
- General activity type with suggested snowshoe model.
- Does size matter?
- Frames and Decking.
- Connecting the decking to the frame.
- Claws/Cleat Crampons used for traction.
- Heel Lift Bars.
- Binding Rotation Styles.
- Binding Fit.
1. Questions to ask yourself before selecting a snowshoe.
- How much will you weigh when snowshoeing (body weight + clothes, gear and equipment)?
- What snow conditions will you be in; deep, dry Utah powder or heavy, wet Washington State snow?
- What will you be doing on your snowshoes? What will the terrain be like? Will you be on packed trails, off the beaten track, climbing up step terrain, etc?
The two biggest factors are snow conditions and your weight, including any pack/gear you may be carrying. It is best to wear the shortest shoe that will still provide you with enough flotation. The shorter the shoe, the easier it is to maneuver. To select a snowshoe size that is right for you, see the fitting chart below. It has been in use longer than any other. Your selection will be a compromise purchase because no snowshoe works best under all conditions. Even so, you will be satisfied that you have chosen the model best for you.
Fitting Chart: Select the smallest snowshoe that can handle your typically load (your combined body and pack weight)
|SIZE||PACKED SNOW, MOUNTAINOUS OR DENSE BRUSH||POWDERED SNOW, FLAT OR HILLY|
|8″X20″||Child to 150 lbs.||Child to 125 lbs.|
|8″X25″||100 lbs. to 175 lbs.||50 lbs. to 150 lbs.|
|9″X30″||150 lbs. to 210 lbs.||125 lbs. to 200 lbs.|
|9″X34″||200 lbs. to 275 lbs.||175 lbs. to 250 lbs.|
|10″X37″||250 lbs. to 350 lbs.||200 lbs. to 350 lbs.|
2. Snow and Terrain Conditions.
Consider that you may need a little larger snowshoe in light fluffy powder conditions then you would in heavier, wetter snow. On the same note, walking on packed trails would not require as large a snowshoe as would plunging through snowdrifts.
Wet Snow: Snow that has gone through repeated melt-freeze cycles, often called Corn Snow. Under Corn Snow, or Melt-Freeze conditions, a crust forms on the surface that is able to support more weight when frozen, but will turn to slush when the temperatures rise.
Dry Snow: has little or no liquid water content and is therefore less dense than average, and not sticky. Less dense means there will be more air pockets between the snow crystals.
3. General Activity Type with Suggested Snowshoe Model.
Aerobic/Running – small and light not intended for backcountry use.
- Atlas Race and Run Snowshoes
- Crescent Moon Gold Series 12
Recreational/Trailwalking – a bit larger, intended for gentle to moderate use.
- Atlas and Elektra 9 Series and 10 Series
- Crescent Moon Gold Series 9
Mountaineering/Backcountry/Expedition/Adventure – intended for serious hill-climbing, long distance trips and off-trail use.
- Atlas and Elektra 11 Series and 12 Series
- Crescent Moon Gold Series 10
- Crescent Moon Gold Series 13 – Women’s
- Crescent Moon Gold Series 15 – Women’s
- Crescent Moon Gold Series 17 – Expedition
- MSR Men’s and Women’s 22” and 25” Lightning Ascent
- MSR Denali Evo Ascent
4. Does Size Matter?
You bet size matters! Most people who have never snowshoed believe they will float on top of the snow with snowshoes. As a result, larger sizes are mistakenly selected. Actually in deep powder you will sink no matter what you wear. The fact is that a smaller snowshoe is often better. You get the greatest gains by selecting the smallest snowshoe that will handle your maximum load.
For example, take Pete O’gear he weighs 180lbs. with a pack and fully dressed for winter. In powder snow, Pete will sink 20 inches, up to his knees, on a 10″x36″ snowshoe. If Pete were to use a smaller 8″x24″ snowshoe, he would sink 24 inches. In the smaller snowshoe Pete sinks 4” further then the larger ones. However, the smaller snowshoe is almost 1/2 the weight of the larger pair.
So which snowshoe is better in this case? The smaller snowshoe is preferable, even though Pete sinks further; he has less weight to lift on each step. In fact, he has 40% (24″/12″/ft x 4 lbs = 8 ft. lbs vs. 13 ft. lbs. = 20″/12″/ft x 8 lbs) less energy expenditure on each step. The example shows that minimum energy expenditure is the criterion for judging snowshoes, not flotation.
5. Frames and Decking.
Frames: In the old days frames were constructed of wood and some manufacturers of today are reintroducing that traditional style. However, many of the modern snowshoes made today are constructed with an aluminum frame, either as one solid piece, like MSR’s, or constructed of an aluminum tubing, such as with Atlas and Crescent Moon.
Decking: In the past, snowshoes were laced with full-grain rawhide in a crosshatch pattern. This pattern added traction and helped prevent snow from accumulating on the shoe. However, these traditional (old school) shoes did not come with toe crampon cleats. Today’s modern shoe decking material is typically synthetic, made from Hypalon or Rubber Coated Nylon. This material is flexible, forgiving, cold resistant and lightweight.
6. Connecting the Decking to the Frame.
Lacing: This is far more time consuming and rare but yields increased traction. Lacing is wrapped around the frame and woven through holes in the deck, alternating between the two to provide a tight bond. This method provides excellent traction around the perimeter of the frame. Patterned after wooden snowshoe lacing, synthetic polymers provide a high performance choice. Look for thick, rectangular extruded lace for maximum cleat-like action.
Wrap and rivet: Some snowshoes have their deck fabric wrapped around the frame and then riveted to itself. Generally the pieces are spaced about 4 to 6 inches apart, leaving a gap of exposed aluminum. This creates a clean, sharp looking shoe, especially with the brightly colored frames on the market. The down side to this arrangement is with all the slick frame surface exposed to the snow, overall traction can be diminished. Look for claws directly under the frame that protect the wrap and add traction.
7. Claws/Cleat Crampons used for Traction.
The next piece of the snowshoe puzzle addresses the issue of traction. Nearly all shoes today come equipped with either aluminum, steel or, in some cases, titanium claws or cleats. These are mounted to the rotating binding and generally the rear of the deck as well. Aluminum is the most common and offers a fine combination of durability, weight and performance. For maximum durability, stainless steel is the leader of the pack. Chose this type of claw if your travels will take you over rocks, stream beds or an occasional plowed road.
Rear claws are standard on many snowshoes today. These offer more traction when climbing or descending, depending on the depth of the claw. Taken a bit further, think about traversing a steep slope. Most front claws are oriented perpendicular to the center line of the snowshoe which helps to grip when moving forward. In a side slope, however, claws that are positioned along the major axis, if deep enough, will add the necessary traction preventing the downhill shoe from sliding out from underneath you.
8. Heel Lift Bars.
On steep climbs a heel lift bar can be flipped up so that your foot better matches the slope angle. This will aid in decreasing the strain on the calf muscle and the Achilles. In addition, it will aid in energy conservation.
9. Binding Rotation Styles.
Fixed Rotation: Fixed rotation snowshoes are better for packed trails and running. Some snowshoers like the feel of the snowshoe picking up off the ground on packed trails with fixed rotation. Backing up in deep snow is also easier with a fixed rotation snowshoe because the tail does not get stuck. Runners like fixed rotation because it keeps the snowshoe close to the foot while running.
The limitation of fixed rotation in backcountry snowshoeing is that rotation beyond the fixed rotation point will lift the heel of the snowshoe off the ground with snow on it. In deep backcountry snowshoeing, the snow on both sides of the hole that the snowshoe makes falls in on top of the snowshoe. This means added weight and increased energy expenditure. Also, the snowshoe snaps up at the fixed rotation point. This throws cold snow down the back of the neck and onto the head.
Free or Floating Rotation: Free rotation snowshoes are better for backcountry snowshoeing. Free rotation transfers the weight of the snowshoe with the snow on it to the ground for minimum total energy expenditure. Vertical climbing is easier with free rotation because on steep ascents, the snow shoe rotates down and becomes parallel to the vertical ground surface, permitting the claw to bite and grip the surface, unlike fixed rotation which would render the claw less useful in this situation.
The limitation of free rotation is that on packed trails the tail drags on the ground. In powder snow, when approaching a dead fall or other objects that must be avoided, extra activity is required to back up, such as turning the snowshoe on its side so the tail does not dig in or totally reversing direction of one foot at a time. The limitation of free rotation when running is that the snowshoe does not remain close to foot and most runners will want to know where their snowshoe is at all times.
Variable Rotation: Variable rotation snowshoes are, as you may have guessed, a partial combination of fixed and free rotation principles. Variable rotation snowshoes are better for combined packed trail use and backcountry use. With variable rotation, the snowshoe automatically picks up off the ground on a packed trail. Yet, in deeper snow, the weight of the snow on the snowshoe keeps the tail on the ground. This transfers the weight of the snowshoe with the snow on it to the ground for minimum total energy expenditure. Variable rotation replaces snowshoe snap with progressively increasing resistance which reduces thrown snow by about 50%. Also, when running, the variable rotation replaces snowshoe ‘slap’ with a ‘kiss’ touch to the foot which is more natural and feels lighter.
The limitation of variable rotation is that the bushings which take the wear on the system may eventually need to be replaced. However, in three seasons of use, only athletes training daily have had enough wear to change their bushings.
10. Binding Fit.
Bindings come in a variety of shapes, materials and even colors. Fortunately, the advice for bindings is pretty simple if you follow a couple simple guidelines to ensure you find a binding that fits properly and ultimately allows you to enjoy your snowshoeing outing.
Snug Fit: The bindings should wrap snuggly around your foot, but not cinched overly tight. They should solidly grasp the boots/shoes that you will be wearing for snowshoeing.
Comfort: Comfort is important. Remember, you may have these strapped to your feet for several hours. Make sure they are snug, but also that you are comfortable when strapped in and moving along.
Slippage: Slippage is when your boot moves around in the snowshoe binding, either initially or after some use. Slippage is BAD. Not only will you have to deal with the annoyance of having to correct/refit your shoe while snowshoeing, it will increase your energy expenditure. It some unique cases, it has lead to shoe/binding wear.
Ease of use: This may be an obvious point but as you see the many binding types on the market, you will rapidly notice that many of them are not really easy to use. Remember, you will be putting on and taking off your snowshoes in cold weather, in snow, perhaps with your gloves on. Something that will allow you to snugly secure your foot without having to do an on snow Yoga routine or remove your gloves in cold weather is usually a very good thing.
Why does snow flip off the tail?
This is an effect of a loaded binding that provides for a more natural stride.
How can a snowshoe that is narrower in the tail provide the same floatation?
Approximately 85% of the flotation on any snowshoe occurs beneath the area surrounding the ball of the foot, the toe and tail of the shoe, regardless of its configuration. If the snowshoe is balanced and symmetrical, from tail to toe and side to side, then the weight distribution across the deck of the snowshoe will occur equally.
References: www.xtremesport4u.com and www.wikipedia.org | <urn:uuid:142954b0-aea8-45f6-a832-090c12fa0aa5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mpgear.com/2010/02/09/detailed-guide-for-selecting-snowshoes/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=e94a57fbb5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932175 | 2,891 | 1.664063 | 2 |
It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, and with NaNoWriMo over in just a few days, surely you are taking advantage of the holiday for a weekend of writing to remember! (I know I am!) But just in case that turkey has you dozing, here are some inspiring words from award-winning and New York Times best-selling authors who've learned to wrangle their muse against all manner of temptations and distractions.
This culminates a week-long party celebrating the thousands writing for NaNoWriMo. If you missed it, be sure to check out Monday and Wednesday's posts for more inspiring tips from some of my favorite professional authors.
* * *
We've all been there: transfixed and empty, staring at the blank page, our head in our hands and our hair standing on end. Usually, it happens when you're under a deadline (either official or of your own doing) or when there's some other pressure upon you to GET THE WORDS DOWN. And that's the key thing--we often get stuck because we don't have the time to get stuck. So, how do you get un-stuck?
You have to learn to LET GO. Obviously, that's easier said than done. How do we let go when we can feel the words buried deep in our brain, hiding from us?
It can be as simple as doing something else. Step away, literally, from the keyboard or the pad of paper. Watch a movie, take a shower, have a dance break, take a walk. Or, if you're a plugged-in kind of person, try switching to paper and pen for a while. Do something different.
Try writing something that isn't the something that you need to work on. If you're a novelist, scribble some poetry. If you're a structured writer, try free writing. Do a character study. Try your hand at doing a scene using a scriptwriting format. Write a flash fiction piece. Write a short story. If you normally turn towards visual imagery in your writing, try thinking with your other senses (after all, there are five!).
If one thing doesn't work, try something else. And remember, the words are in there.
* * *
When I'm stuck, I get unstuck by writing out of sequence. Of course, to write out of sequence you need to outline, which I do religiously. So when I face the dreaded writer's block, I set the current scene aside and read over the book's outline until another scene leaps out and grabs me, then I just jump ahead and write that.
Sometimes I'll write the entire later scene, sometimes just a few paragraphs, sometimes just some important dialogue, but it invariably prods the muse. Hell, often I don't even need to check the outline, since I typically have three or four great scenes from later in the book rattling around in my head (you do, too, I'm sure; some tense showdown, some bit of derring-do, whatever). By jumping around to the scenes that have me on fire right now, in that very moment, I keep progressing and keep the creative fire burning.
Importantly, I also avoid the kind of downward spiral writer's block can create. You know what I mean: "Oh my God! I'll never get this done in time! I'm an awful writer! Blah, blah," with the upshot being that you get more blocked than ever because you're so worried about being blocked. Then, a day or two later I go back to the scene that had me stuck, look at it with fresh eyes, and invariably I find myself unstuck and wondering what in hell had me stuck in the first place.
* * *
I usually don't have trouble starting the next chapter, especially if I'm switching Point of View. In fact, switching POV is one of my favorite techniques for getting on with my writing groove, because it allows me to start with a (relatively) fresh perspective.
Of course, sometimes it's not appropriate to switch POV, which means a fresh perspective has got to come from the same character you left off with. The easiest way to accomplish that is to conclude the previous chapter with a surprising revelation, a surprising turn of events, or even a plain ol' cliff-hanger. Cliff-hangers are cliché for a reason; not only do they make the reader want to find out what happens next, they give the writer room to go in new and perhaps unexpected directions. In some ways, a surprise twist at the end of the previous chapter is like being given a (nearly) blank slate, with only the constraint of the set-up of the surprise to guide you.
Which reminds me of one other technique I use to get my writing back on track: constraints. Because sometimes a blank slate is exactly what you don't want. But throw in a constraint, and even though your character can do anything next, he or she can only do so after figuring out how to get down off the cliff face.
Cliffs aside, most constraints should be simple, and can essentially be randomly chosen. Regardless of the constraint, its appearance provides that essential impetus of 'fresh perspective' I mentioned earlier. Constraints (you might call them ingredients) I've randomly thrown into my novels to great effect include: a pet cat, a scarf, a water-pipe lounge, a vegetarian, a terrible painting, a pawn-shop, and a tendency for excessively foul language. | <urn:uuid:32c4119f-070e-4e0c-b492-1c3223f27dd8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.shelfari.com/my_weblog/2011/11/tips-from-the-pros-kemp-pauley-and-cordell-on-how-to-wrangle-your-muse.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960747 | 1,136 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The worrying news from China is that the country appears headed toward an economic and political crash sometime in the next five years, if current trends continue. The somewhat better news is that a large part of the elite grasps that danger, and is talking fairly openly about the far-reaching change that will be needed to prevent it.
In eight days of meetings with Chinese academics, economists, journalists, businessmen and government officials this month, I encountered little of the rising-superpower hubris that might be expected from a country perceived in most of the West as an unstoppable juggernaut. Instead, I heard considerable anxiety about a slowing economy and an uncertain political transition this year, and even greater worry about the problems the incoming leadership team under Xi Jinping will likely face over time.
Most people I met during a tour of Beijing, Shanghai and the interior city of Changsha thought China would avoid an economic “hard landing” this year, despite a sharp slowdown in growth during the last few months.
But many were concerned about whether the new leadership could manage the restructuring needed to keep growth going beyond the next couple of years – a shift from export industries and infrastructure investment to consumption and services for a rising middle class.
Similarly, few people seemed to think that Xi’s ascension this fall would be derailed by the power struggle reflected in the recent purge of populist Chongqing governor Bo Xilai – possibly because, like most of the world, they don’t know what is happening behind the leadership’s closed doors. But a surprising preponderance of my sources talked about the necessity of political reform and improvements in human rights to preserve China’s stability as its economy slows and shifts. (My trip with several other journalists was sponsored by the private China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, which is chaired by former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee Hwa).
“China is at a crossroads,” said Zhu Yinghuang, the former editor of the China Daily newspaper. “After 30 years of economic reform, we have to get to political reform.”
So what would that change look like? Not surprisingly, no one expects China to become a liberal democracy anytime soon. But I heard a lot of ideas for how the new leadership group could begin to open up the political system. Chief among them was local reform: Several people said that the case of Chen Guangcheng, the blind dissident who was held captive in his home by local security forces until he escaped to the U.S. embassy in Beijing, demonstrated the need for top leaders to force town and village authorities to abide by China’s own laws – including those mandating democratic elections for village leaders.
The Chen case “will give different levels of government a lesson that it is better to accelerate the reform of governance, so that such cases will be dealt with at the regional level rather than at the top level, and in a rule of law way rather than a diplomatic way,” said Chen Dangxiao of the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.
Victor Yuan, who established China’s first private polling firm, said average Chinese cite “enforcement of the rule of law” as a first priority for reform. Another first step, he said, would be “greater social mobilization,” in the form of more independent social service groups and NGOs at the local level. Those organizations could spawn new leaders to challenge entrenched authorities in village elections and eventually compete for places in the National People’s Congress, China’s formal legislature.
Inevitably a process of political change will have to tackle China’s most taboo subject – the suppression of the Tiananmen Square reform movement in June 1989. After requesting that he not be quoted, one academic argued that the best way for the regime to revitalize its political legitimacy would be to apologize to the families of those killed. “This is our burden, our baggage, that has to be dealt with,” he said.
So far there is scant evidence that China’s leaders are considering such steps; repression of political dissidents has increased in the last year and censorship of expression on the Internet was recently tightened. But outgoing premier Wen Jiabao said in March that the country “has come to a critical stage” in which “without successful political structural reform ... new problems that have cropped up in China’s society will not be fundamentally resolved.” That has encouraged hopes for liberalization – and, I suspect, accounts for much of the talk I heard.
“This is the time to do something, and to do it incrementally,” said Shen Dingli, the dean of the Institute for International Studies at Fudan University. “If you reform, you have immediate challenges. But if you don’t reform, you will have even bigger challenges. The top leaders all know this.”Jackson Diehl is deputy editorial page editor for The Washington Post | <urn:uuid:cbb1893b-3e70-445f-87a6-43f8db16763d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenewstribune.com/2012/05/30/2162194/china-can-take-easier-road-to.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964736 | 1,027 | 1.75 | 2 |
In New Orleans, you don’t have to be of Italian heritage to love opera -- although, if you are, you might have grown up hearing your grandparents whistling some of the famous arias from familiar operas by beloved “old country” composers like Rossini or Verdi.
For the rest of us, who also love the over-the-top grandness of grand opera, we not only expect to revel in its dramatic theatrical traditions, but also cherish every note sung and played. We have long since accepted, with a pinch of salt to be sure, the often incredible (in the dictionary sense of that word) plot lines, all the while appreciating each production’s splendid sets and sumptuous costumes.
On the other hand, opera fanatics, no matter what their cultural heritage, are known to scrutinize every aspect of each production, with many of them prone to highly vocal opinions. So I can’t wait to hear what they will have to say about this weekend’s presentation of Guiseppe Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball) presented by the New Orleans Opera Association.
Fans of this famous opera know that because of concerns by 19th century Italian censors about the plot’s on-stage killing of a Swedish king, Verdi was forced to change the venue several times during its creation. Ultimately, he chose to place it in colonial Boston; yes, I know it’s a bit of a mind stretch. But, really, we’ve learned to go with the flow.
Now Robert Lyall, General Director of the New Orleans Opera, has gone one further. He has moved the locale from Boston to New Orleans. And to add to his Crescent City connection, he has brought back one of the country’s great tenors, native son Paul Groves, in the role of Riccardo.
Lyall maintains that there’s enough intrigue and drama in our exotic community to hold up in any production. After all, he says, we may not have kings and earls, but we have had governors of dubious morality, voudou priestesses instead of fortune-tellers, lots of masked balls and some seriously documented contention among the early Spanish and German, French and American citizens.
And what could be more appropriate than a tragic conclusion set at a Mardi Gras Ball?
I have no idea exactly where this operatic masked ball is going to be held, but of one thing I’m pretty sure: It’s not likely to be in a hotel on Canal Street.
For more information about Un Ballo in Maschero at the Mahalia Jackson Theater in Armstrong Park Friday at 8 and Sunday at 2:30 go to www.neworleansopera.org or call 504-529-3000.
Sharon Litwin writes Culture Watch for NolaVie. For more information on NolaVie, go to nolavie.com. | <urn:uuid:5096b1bc-99bf-44cd-b140-d5d2e2ffe52d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nola.com/nolavie/index.ssf/2011/11/verdi_opera_gets_new_setting_c.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94486 | 626 | 1.53125 | 2 |
THERE are times when tragedy and loss can be the biggest motivators in life.
For 24-year-old Israeli Tom Peled, this was certainly the case. His father died of cancer in 2011 after an eight-year battle with the disease. “I didn’t have a goal or purpose. It was a hard time for all of us,” he said.
Peled realized that he needed a physical outlet to manage his grief. He embarked on a cycling journey through six European countries.
“It was a hard experience being by myself and managing myself,” Peled recalled.
“Last year, I didn’t know what was going to happen in the evening or who I was going to meet.” As it turned out, Peled discovered a connection and purpose he didn’t expect to find; the journey became his purpose and goal beyond a way to sooth his grief.
“As I was biking, it gave me good energy and hope. I realized there’s huge potential; wouldn’t this be great to do again for a bigger cause and connect people going through what I went through and raise money for something?”
That was the beginning of BFF, Bike for the Fight, a campaign to raise money for the North American-based Israel Cancer Research Fund, which gives grants to Israeli cancer researchers.
Of course, the idea didn’t come to him overnight. It was a process and a push from the father of his longtime friend Eran Rozen.
“My father was one of the first people to help Tom think of the idea [to ride and raise money for a cause].”
Eran was traveling abroad while plans were unfolding. But then, in a tragic twist of fate, Eran lost his father, too . . . in an airplane crash.
“A few days after the shiva, Tom and I spoke and he told me about his project. I wanted to help but never thought I would be part of the journey. But like the energy of the project, it carried me away.”
Now, Eran is his support on the rides: driving the gear, managing logistics, making contacts across the country, ensuring all the events happen as planned, and updating their followers via the Internet.
BFF is taking Tom across the US from Los Angeles to New York and points in between, including Boulder and Denver.
Along the way, Peled says in addition to raising money, he hopes to raise awareness of who Israelis are and what they stand for, thereby strengthening the bond between American and Israeli Jews.
“I think many people outside Israel see Israel as more focused on security issues. Suddenly we come and show them something else, like research and young people and start ups and social startups and volunteer work” — especially volunteer work, he says.
“I think that people outside of Israel don’t know this side of Israel well enough.”
There are four people involved in BFF to date. In addition to Peled and Rozen, Roey Peleg helps manage the project and is in charge of navigation and medical needs.
Luca Seres is an independent filmmaker putting together a documentary about the trip.
All four are college students, working in their free time. No one is paid for this work. That’s not part of Tom’s goal.
“Besides raising money for cancer research, we hope to inspire people who experience trauma in their lives to take it to a positive place and do some good in the world.”
It was never Peled’s goal to do a ride or two and call it a day.
He wants BFF to become the Livestrong of the Jewish world. So far, it seems, he’s on the right path.
They’ve raised nearly $40,000, enough to fund one Israeli scientist for a year; and Peled and crew still have a long way to go before reaching their final destination.
Copyright © 2012 by the Intermountain Jewish News | <urn:uuid:a802b278-24e4-4347-9ae7-cafd6c8ecb9f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ijn.com/boulder/3415-bike-for-the-fight | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979055 | 854 | 1.554688 | 2 |
That’s what Yogi Berra exclaimed when Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hit back-to-back home runs during the early 1060′s. Those of us baseball fans who follow the economy and politics have had similar thoughts as we recall the sign that James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, hung in Clinton’s Little Rock campaign headquarters in 1992. It read, simply “The Economy, Stupid.” Twenty years later, Carville’s campaign advice still applies.
According to M. A. El-Erian, CEO of Pacific Investment Management Company,
Success here speaks to much more than whether it is Obama or Romney who wins the November presidential elections. It also relates to whether our political system as a whole can regain over time the ability to agree on a common economic vision, and to pursue it with the proper sense of shared responsibility, adequate seriousness and focused implementation.
Here’s the link to the rest of his summary: | <urn:uuid:dc51d696-3378-4d8d-a167-d07310338057> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tedspolitics.com/2012/06/25/its-deja-vu-all-over-again/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953394 | 205 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Iran and Syria want to be seen as a stabilising force in Iraq, in contrast to the failure of the US, but there is little they can do
Jonathan Steele in Irbil, northern Iraq
Friday November 24, 2006
"Never have there been so many competing visions of the Middle East. Viewed from Israel, the central issue is an axis of evil that starts in Iran, passes through Syria (perceived as Tehran's client number one) and moves on to the secondary clients, Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Seen from Baghdad, Iran and Syria assume different roles. They are powerful neighbours who hold the keys to the country's security.
In Kurdistan, Iraq's uniquely stable northern region, the struggle is viewed as one between modernisers who believe in a democratic "new Iraq", and traditionalists who held power and privilege during Saddam Hussein's long regime and want revenge for his ousting.
Finally there are those, such as King Abdullah of Jordan, who perceive the issue as a battle between a newly awakened Shia minority against centuries of Sunni dominance throughout the region.
The Bush administration is now split between advocates of these competing visions. Neocons who share the Israeli and Kurdish view and once believed the US could impose democracy on Iraq, both for its own sake but also to put pressure on the authoritarian regimes in Iran and Syria, are in retreat.
Sectarian civil war and the virtual collapse of law and order in Iraq, coupled with the nationalist insurgency's unrelenting attrition of American soldiers' lives, have "trapped" the US in Iraq, in the words of Kofi Annan this week. During the Vietnam war the word was "quagmire", but the message is the same. American voters are frustrated and pessimistic. Several US columnists who supported the invasion now favour prompt withdrawal.
As a result, realists such as James Baker are gaining the upper hand. They want to bring Iraq's neighbours into the picture and move the focus of US policy from regime change to regional stability, to hand the problem to Iraq's neighbours then let the US pull back, keeping bases but no longer supplying frontline troops.
As US influence wanes, neither Tehran nor Damascus can fill the void. Iraq has become a calamity that outsiders can only watch in horror. If cure there is, Iraqis will have to find it on their own." | <urn:uuid:2d003b69-8533-4afa-95bf-12ba1cff3a16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://palestinianpundit.blogspot.com/2006/11/only-iraqis-can-overcome-this-national.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965217 | 484 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Name: Deanna Ingram
Subject: 1st and 2nd grade combo teacher
Welcome to Mrs. Ingram's 1st and 2nd Grade Combo Class!
My name is Deanna Ingram. I am beginning my fifteenth year of teaching. This is my third year at Caleb’s Creek Elementary. I am a National Board Certified Teacher in Literacy. I earned both my Bachelor of Science and Master’s degrees in Elementary Education from Armstrong Atlantic State University in Savannah Georgia. I also hold a Reading Endorsement Certificate.
The teaching assistant who will be working with us this year is Sheri Rudel. Sheri has worked for WSFCS for three years but has worked with children over 20 years. She really enjoys working with children. Mrs. Rudel will definitely be an asset to your child’s learning and to our classroom. She is very eager to help your child succeed this year.
We are very fortunate this year to have Seth Henley from UNC-G. He will be interning in our room for the first half of the year and student teaching the second half.
Thursday August 23rd- Open House 5:30-7:30pm
Monday August 27th- First day of school
Monday September 3rd- Labor Day | <urn:uuid:1b3ed276-5791-4820-acca-58393cd68642> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Page/22152 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963878 | 260 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Overcoming Fear of Fat
I recently read a great post on the importance of fat in our meals. Fat is a critical nutrient that is vital to our health.
But my first thought when I read the title was that the post was about fear of fat on our bodies. Because that’s what drove the fear of fat in our foods in the first place. And it drives disordered eating, which ends up taking us in the exact opposite direction we want to go. Disordered eating means stress, which supports increased fat deposition. It also often means overeating, which does the same.
So how do we overcome fear of fat on our bodies? It’s not an easy task in this day of “ideal” images that are wildly unrealistic. I know you’ve all probably seen the now-iconic image of the Body Shop rounded Barbie-doll figure with the accompanying phrase “There are 3 billion women who don’t look like supermodels and only 8 who do.” Trouble is, too many of us 3 billion women still strive to be what we aren’t.
These four steps can help you start thinking more positively about your body, regardless of its size.
Step #1: Aim for neutrality. Loving your body right now may seem too big a step to take. So move to neutral. Become aware of how you talk about your body — to yourself and others — and then work to erase the judgment from your words. Example: “I feel uncomfortable” instead of “I look horrible.” You’ll lay the groundwork for moving further when you’re ready.
Step #2: Be realistic. If telling yourself “I am beautiful” doesn’t feel believable yet, come up with a list of affirmations that sound and feel authentic to you: “I am more than my reflection” or “I appreciate my body for what it does for me.”
Step #3: Focus on your self-worth rather than your self-image. Acknowledge what you do well rather than spending time thinking about how you look or or think you should look. Ask yourself where those ideals even came from?
Step #4: Surround yourself with images and art that represent women of all ages, shapes and sizes. Toss those magazines that feature air-brushed women who don’t look like that in real life. Remember, even super models don’t look like super models before airbrushing, hair stylists and makeup artists! Check out these blogs about fashion and beauty for full-figured women for some inspiration.
You can read more about these steps in our article “Tips for Improving Body Image for Women.”
What tips do you have for overcoming fear of fat? | <urn:uuid:ffab0282-6157-4edd-8ef0-36bc310b36da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wearetherealdeal.com/2012/07/11/overcoming-fear-of-fat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952983 | 584 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The Hill reports on environmental advocates’ efforts to work climate change questions into this fall’s presidential debates:
The League of Conservation Voters has launched a petition drive pressing the moderator of the first presidential debate, Jim Lehrer of PBS, to ask about the topic. The first debate is Oct. 3.
“We urge you to ask President Obama and Gov. Romney how they will confront the greatest challenge of our generation — climate change,” states the online petition, launched Wednesday.
What would President Obama and Governor Romney have to say about the issue? Here’s FuelFix’s summary of the two presidential candidates’ alternative energy platforms:
Romney wants to ease regulations that he says have blocked alternative energy as well as development of traditional fossil fuels. He supports the renewable fuel standard and said he backs “eliminating regulatory barriers” that stand in the way of diversifying the electrical grid as well as the transportation sector.
While touting his energy plan Thursday, Romney told a crowd of supporters that the government shouldn’t be in the business of “picking winners and losers” _ a reference to tax incentives and grants aimed at alternative energy producers.
Under the Obama administration, federal regulators for the first time have approved an offshore wind farm that would be built along the Massachusetts coast. The administration also points to government approvals of 16 commercial-scale solar facilities and five wind projects on public lands. | <urn:uuid:92822994-e178-4b70-a78f-a251a374296c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2012/08/27/environmental-advocates-want-climate-change-questions-in-presidential-debates/ | 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 | 0.948595 | 293 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Twitter is a funny animal. Because of the nature of the beast, you wind up following and, in turn, being followed by a wide range of different people with different interests and beliefs. So long as you don’t discuss politics or religion, things can be fairly amicable. Some of the nicest people I’ve met on Twitter were wonderful conversationalists before we clashed swords on some tenuous topic.
Although political tweeters tend to become segregated into the the left versus right dichotomy, I strive for a balance from both sides. As a result, I usually wind up in an argument during the inevitable moment somebody rushes to the defence of Omar Khadr. Or when I discuss the relative merits of the death penalty. Or, as in the case of last night, when I discuss Islamic extremism.
The topic of Islamic extremist can be fairly toxic, since very few people are able to rationally discuss it without offending the other person. Criticizing the fascistic and expansionist aggressive elements of political Islam can be almost impossible, if that discussion is taking place with a leftist afflicted with relativist myopia.
For a political group that claims to reject intolerance and hatred, the left — and I use that term loosely, since I mean a specific subset of the socioeconomic-progressive leftist — have found themselves the apologists for racism, hatred, intolerance, sexism, misogyny, inequality, segregation, and hegemony.
The discussion I had last night with several people revolved around the political symbol of the burqa/niqab, and what it means in the context of a woman wearing it within western society. I posited that while wearing a burqa does not necessarily make one a supporter of political Islam, it certainly ignores the symbolism of the garment, and the gender apartheid it represents in Middle Eastern society.
My opponent made the prevarication that the burqa is nothing more than a choice of dress, worn by the prerogative of the woman, and that I, a male, had no right to repudiate that right. Moreover, toward the end of the conversation, this person suggested that our culture — which by the way, is an egalitarian one, where women’s right are enshrined in law — was not morally superior in this regard, and that we should not place judgment on those who wish to live under Islamic law.
Such nonsensical thinking is the reason why western civilization is rotting from the core outward. That a self-celebrated progressive-leftist can’t summon the ethical fortitude to apply universal concepts of equality beyond her own bubble of self-serving rights, is the reason why the Taliban smirk at our attempts to promote the health and welfare of women in Afghanistan.
So-called feminists in Canada are perfectly comfortable within their much-celebrated birthright to equality under Canadian law. But they cannot summon the courage even to fight for their international sisters yet enchained in the slavery of a codified patriarchal society. They stand on the shoulders of giants, suffragettes who fought for the international principle of human equality, only to stand at a bus shelter next a woman whose identity has been eradicated by a black shroud, and think to themselves how tolerant they are of differing cultures.
Indeed. Yet for all of the education of the pseudo-leftist feminists, who will not hesitate to tell you the underrepresentation of women in Parliament and the gender gap in income, they look to nations like Afghanistan and give a shrug that suggests we should allow Islamic fascism a chance at self-determination.
Ask an eight-year-old child whether women in the third world should have the same equal rights as women in the first world, and you’ll get an unequivocal answer. But ask a neo-feminist in Canada the same question, and be prepared to hear the non sequitur rants on George Bush, Stephen Harper, neoconservatism, neocolonialism, and the rest of the University-bred philosophizing that has dumbed down the common sense of supporting universal human rights universally.
Worse than the fact that these people unwittingly support the paradoxical concept of gender equality and a woman in a burqa, they have the unmitigated gall to bandy about the term “racist” for those who disagree with their shamefully relativist views. The very idea of calling somebody a racist because they don’t believe women should be dressed in black gowns and robbed of their innate individualism, is just about as intellectually bankrupt as it gets.
I have a little girl, whom I love more than anything in this world or beyond. I cannot fathom covering her face behind a veil that shuts her off from the outside world, because doing such a thing would annihilate her outward individuality, and relegate her to nothing more than an object, conformed by extremist religious dogma. I would hope that any parent would feel the same way. | <urn:uuid:1a7bc470-4197-476d-97a4-893bd42cb496> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unambig.com/tag/niqab/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952955 | 1,007 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A 24-year-old volunteer intern killed by a lion at a Central Valley sanctuary died "instantly" from a broken neck, officials said on Thursday. The coroner said the big cat may have escaped its cage prior to the attack against Dianna Hanson. Beverly White reports for the NBC4 News at 11 p.m. on March 7, 2013.
A lion that killed a 24-year-old female volunteer intern may have escaped its cage before the attack, the Fresno County Coroner said on Thursday.
Dianna Hanson began a six-month internship in January at Project Survival’s Cat Haven sanctuary in Dunlap, Calif. She died Wednesday after an adult male African lion attacked her.
An autopsy showed Hanson died instantly of a broken neck, likely from a swipe of the lion's paw. The coroner said other injuries to Hanson's body happened after she died.
Before the coroner's report on Thursday, it was unclear why Hanson was so close to the big cat. The lion escaping from its cage while Hanson cleaned the main enclosure could explain that, though officials said the investigation is still ongoing.
Hanson -- who celebrated her 24th birthday in February -- was remembered by her colleagues as "vivacious."
"Her passion for working with these animals was contagious. Dianna performed her regular scheduled duties, which included cleaning enclosures," Cat Haven founder Dale Anderson said, reading from a prepared statement Thursday.
Authorities said the 24-year-old's body was found inside the African lion enclosure.
The lion – named Cous Cous – may have broken free from his cage to kill Hanson inside a cleaning enclosure, NBC affiliate KSEE 24 News reports, citing the coroner.
The animal was shot and killed after the attack, according to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department.
Before her internship at the sanctuary, Hanson had previous zoo keeper experience, including with big cats. Her family said it was Hanson's dream to one day with the animals, and the victim's colleagues said that passion shined through her work.
"She was doing what she loved and she did it with joy everyday she worked here," Wendy Dabbas, president of Cat Haven, said through tears Thursday.
"She’s going to be missed. I’m so sorry this has happened."
Cous Cous lived at the sanctuary since he was a cub and shared a habitat with Pely, a female lion who could be heard making deep, bark-like noises inside her enclosure on Thursday.
Anderson said the animal was nearby at the time of the attack, and is likely making those sounds because she is stressed.
Cat Haven was closed for its regular winter hours at the time of the attack, authorities said. The Sheriff's Department and state wildlife officials will both investigate the incident. | <urn:uuid:57c0191b-042c-4d32-a9e7-e8b754fa75c8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/Coroner-Lion-That-Killed-Intern-May-Have-Escaped-Cage-Fresno-196227951.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984882 | 571 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Congratulations to all January-May 2012 iEARN Learning Circles participants!
Over 128 schools took part in a total of 13 Circles, with over 7000 messages exchanged back and forth over the course of the January-May 2012 iEARN Learning Circle session.
Projects can be downloaded or viewed from the Finished Project Page.
Learning Circles are highly interactive, project-based partnerships among a small number of schools located throughout the world. There are two sessions each year, September - January and January - May. To join iEARN Learning Circles, you must first be a member of iEARN and complete an iEARN Learning Circles Placement Form two weeks before the beginning of the session. Once you complete the placement form you will be placed in a Circle for the next session.
Registration for the September-January session of Learning Circles will start in August. Stay tuned for details. | <urn:uuid:d59a4ccf-a3ea-4cc4-9b5d-355bc92470ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iearn.org/news/article/congratulations-all-january-may-2012-iearn-learning-circles-participants | 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 | 0.941282 | 185 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Australian media regulators would take an active interest in attempts by News Limited to increase its stake in Foxtel.
Problems facing media moguls Rupert and James Murdoch in the United Kingdom and the United States have yet to have an impact in Australia.
But if recent speculation is true that News Limited might be a buyer for James Packer’s 25% Foxtel stake, Murdoch could find himself in a forest of acronyms as various regulatory agencies – the Australian Consumer and Competition commission (ACCC), the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) and the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) – take an active interest.
The continuing storm over the handling of the UK phone hacking scandal has seen a British parliamentary committee find Murdoch senior is not a fit and proper person to run a multinational media company.
The phone-hacking and police bribery scandal has led to more than 40 arrests in Britain and to a Sky news reporter admitting to hacking emails in pursuit of a story.
These revelations have also led to low-level investigations of News operations in the United States. In July last year, the FBI was reportedly opening an investigation of allegations that News reporters may have hacked the phones of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York and Washington DC.
There is no recent information to confirm that any investigation is on-going in the US. However, American politicians – always on the look out for a media opportunity – have signaled they are taking a keen interest in the British parliamentary report and the Leveson inquiry. A Washington DC ethics lobby group has also written to the US Federal Communications Commission seeking an inquiry into Murdoch’s control of the Fox network.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) want the FCC to revoke Foxtel’s broadcasting licences. A US senator has also written to the chair of the Leveson inquiry seeking any information that might suggest American laws have been broken by News journalists.
Even is there is no illegality, Murdoch does face some problems in the US. Under American law, the finding that he is not a fit and proper person to run a business in the UK can be used to trigger an inquiry in the USA.
These ongoing worries are more than an embarrassment to the octogenarian patriarch; they are a debilitating overhang that could ultimately affect the fate of News Corporation – the parent company that manages the family’s global media business interests, including News Limited in Australia and News International in the UK. For example, BSkyB shares took a hit on UK markets after the email hacking story came to light. Read the rest of this entry » | <urn:uuid:6466f601-b457-4888-ab31-a6bd69f02dc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ethicalmartini.wordpress.com/tag/acma/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94827 | 537 | 1.648438 | 2 |
"A fighter pilot and an engineer are constantly arguing. One day after a sortie, the fighter pilot leaves a note for the engineer saying 'Engine made unfamiliar noise.' The engineer did some tests, and left a note for the pilot saying 'Ran engine for 10 hours. Noise is now very familiar.' " | <urn:uuid:8aea9f7e-235c-4ebc-b406-01ba91978327> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.anime-planet.com/forum/member.php?u=32487 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968066 | 63 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Troopers Take Proactive Approach to Preventing Traffic Deaths
OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - This year in Obion County eleven people have been killed in traffic accidents. Seven of those killed were not wearing seat belts.
Trooper Henry Robertson has been a State Trooper for ten years. He is busy enforcing the seat belt law.
Trooper Robertson said, "Of those eleven, had seven of those occupants been wearing there seat belts there is a pretty good chance they would have survived the crash."
State Troopers in Obion County are using a federal grant to keep more troopers on the road. They have also worked with TDOT on putting up signs reminding people to drive safely.
Robertson said, "Even though we are making our best effort it seems like that we are losing ground instead of gaining ground it is somewhat frustrating."
So far this year there has been 542 traffic related deaths in our state. Last year at this time there were 505 deaths in the roadways. A difference of 37 more deaths this year so far.
Monday in South Madison County, a young mother was killed in a traffic accident. Authorities say she was not wearing her seat belt. Her two children were belted in properly and they survived.
In the district that Obion County is in, seat belt citations are up 109 percent from 2011 and DUI arrests are up 47 percent.
Robertson said, "It's unusual for what the circumstances that we have going on. We have increased our efforts as far as the hours that we are working. We are working later shifts." | <urn:uuid:f02e4ec2-8190-42c8-accd-a06226e53d02> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wbbjtv.com/news/local/Troopers-take-Proactive-Approach-to-Preventing-Traffic-Deaths-162914916.html | 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 | 0.985564 | 319 | 1.765625 | 2 |
|1 Kings 1|
|Entire Chapter | Next Chapter|
|Now King David was old, advanced in years; and they put covers on him, but he could not get warm.
Therefore his servants said to him, "Let a young woman, a virgin, be sought for our lord the king, and let her stand before the king, and let her care for him; and let her lie in your bosom, that our lord the king may be warm."
So they sought for a lovely young woman throughout all the territory of Israel, and found Abishag the Shunammite, and brought her to the king.
The young woman was very lovely; and she cared for the king, and served him; but the king did not know her. |
Then Adonijah the son of Haggith exalted himself, saying, "I will be king"; and he prepared for himself chariots and horsemen, and fifty men to run before him. (And his father had not rebuked him at any time by saying, "Why have you done so?" He was also very good-looking. His mother had borne him after Absalom.) Then he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah and with Abiathar the priest, and they followed and helped Adonijah. But Zadok the priest, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and the mighty men who belonged to David were not with Adonijah. And Adonijah sacrificed sheep and oxen and fattened cattle by the stone of Zoheleth, which is by En Rogel; he also invited all his brothers, the king's sons, and all the men of Judah, the king's servants. But he did not invite Nathan the prophet, Benaiah, the mighty men, or Solomon his brother.
So Nathan spoke to Bathsheba the mother of Solomon, saying, "Have you not heard that Adonijah the son of Haggith has become king, and David our lord does not know it? Come, please, let me now give you advice, that you may save your own life and the life of your son Solomon. Go immediately to King David and say to him, 'Did you not, my lord, O king, swear to your maidservant, saying, "Assuredly your son Solomon shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne"? Why then has Adonijah become king?' Then, while you are still talking there with the king, I also will come in after you and confirm your words." So Bathsheba went into the chamber to the king. (Now the king was very old, and Abishag the Shunammite was serving the king.) And Bathsheba bowed and did homage to the king. Then the king said, "What is your wish?" Then she said to him, "My lord, you swore by the Lord your God to your maidservant, saying, 'Assuredly Solomon your son shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne.' So now, look! Adonijah has become king; and now, my lord the king, you do not know about it. He has sacrificed oxen and fattened cattle and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the sons of the king, Abiathar the priest, and Joab the commander of the army; but Solomon your servant he has not invited. And as for you, my lord, O king, the eyes of all Israel are on you, that you should tell them who will sit on the throne of my lord the king after him. Otherwise it will happen, when my lord the king rests with his fathers, that I and my son Solomon will be counted as offenders." And just then, while she was still talking with the king, Nathan the prophet also came in. So they told the king, saying, "Here is Nathan the prophet." And when he came in before the king, he bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. And Nathan said, "My lord, O king, have you said, 'Adonijah shall reign after me, and he shall sit on my throne'? For he has gone down today, and has sacrificed oxen and fattened cattle and sheep in abundance, and has invited all the king's sons, and the commanders of the army, and Abiathar the priest; and look! They are eating and drinking before him; and they say, 'Long live King Adonijah!' But he has not invited me--me your servant--nor Zadok the priest, nor Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, nor your servant Solomon. Has this thing been done by my lord the king, and you have not told your servant who should sit on the throne of my lord the king after him?" Then King David answered and said, "Call Bathsheba to me." So she came into the king's presence and stood before the king. And the king took an oath and said, "As the Lord lives, who has redeemed my life from every distress, just as I swore to you by the Lord God of Israel, saying, 'Assuredly Solomon your son shall be king after me, and he shall sit on my throne in my place,' so I certainly will do this day." Then Bathsheba bowed with her face to the earth, and paid homage to the king, and said, "Let my lord King David live forever!"
And King David said, "Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada." So they came before the king. The king also said to them, "Take with you the servants of your lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon. There let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel; and blow the horn, and say, 'Long live King Solomon!' Then you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king in my place. For I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah." Benaiah the son of Jehoiada answered the king and said, "Amen! May the Lord God of my lord the king say so too. As the Lord has been with my lord the king, even so may He be with Solomon, and make his throne greater than the throne of my lord King David." So Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites went down and had Solomon ride on King David's mule, and took him to Gihon. Then Zadok the priest took a horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon. And they blew the horn, and all the people said, "Long live King Solomon!" And all the people went up after him; and the people played the flutes and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth seemed to split with their sound.
Now Adonijah and all the guests who were with him heard it as they finished eating. And when Joab heard the sound of the horn, he said, "Why is the city in such a noisy uproar?"
While he was still speaking, there came Jonathan, the son of Abiathar the priest. And Adonijah said to him, "Come in, for you are a prominent man, and bring good news."
Then Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, "No! Our lord King David has made Solomon king.
The king has sent with him Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, the Cherethites, and the Pelethites; and they have made him ride on the king's mule.
So Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king at Gihon; and they have gone up from there rejoicing, so that the city is in an uproar. This is the noise that you have heard.
Also Solomon sits on the throne of the kingdom.
And moreover the king's servants have gone to bless our lord King David, saying, 'May God make the name of Solomon better than your name, and may He make his throne greater than your throne.' Then the king bowed himself on the bed.
Also the king said thus, 'Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who has given one to sit on my throne this day, while my eyes see it!' "
So all the guests who were with Adonijah were afraid, and arose, and each one went his way.
Now Adonijah was afraid of Solomon; so he arose, and went and took hold of the horns of the altar.
And it was told Solomon, saying, "Indeed Adonijah is afraid of King Solomon; for look, he has taken hold of the horns of the altar, saying, 'Let King Solomon swear to me today that he will not put his servant to death with the sword.' "
Then Solomon said, "If he proves himself a worthy man, not one hair of him shall fall to the earth; but if wickedness is found in him, he shall die."
So King Solomon sent them to bring him down from the altar. And he came and fell down before King Solomon; and Solomon said to him, "Go to your house."
|1 Kings 1|
|Entire Chapter | Next Chapter| | <urn:uuid:09ea41bc-632f-4d1b-b116-edd1ef29b3b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://copticchurch.net/cgibin/bible/index.php?r=1+Kings+1&showVN=&version=NKJV | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980269 | 1,997 | 1.78125 | 2 |
“Breathe in … just smell the new book smell.” The girl in the plaid jumper closes the book, looks up at me and smiles. St. John the Baptist School’s Scholastic Book Fair is open and I stand by the door and feel a breeze from the rush of fifth-graders as their feet race into the room, trying not to run. Some are not successful.
As the chairwoman for our fair, I witness the students’ reactions firsthand as they discover new titles and exclaim, “Oh my gosh! I have to have ‘The Guinness World Records 2013!’ ” Walking to my desk, I observe two boys standing shoulder to shoulder searching for their favorite characters in the newest chapter of “The Kane Chronicles.” In the entertainment section, one girl jumps up and down, but her feet do not leave the floor as she loudly whispers to her friends, “Look at that! It’s not just a movie – it’s a book, too!”
The initial rush of quick exclamations slowly fades as the students browse the book fair cases and make their purchases. Plastic bags crinkle when the group joins me on the rug for story time. I read several chapters of “The Name of This Book is a Secret” by Pseudonymous Bosh. While I read, I realize the boy to my right has read the story before. He is covertly holding his hand to his mouth while whispering the story’s secrets to his neighbor as the girl in the plaid jumper interrupts me to ask how to spell the author’s name.
The book fair is only one avenue by which the children can add to their personal libraries. Scholastic also holds clearance sales twice a year, during which volunteers can earn books. Our school chooses to use these books to give to the children on their birthdays. The students are excited to hear their name announced at school and look forward to receiving their birthday book in celebration of their special day. While volunteering at Scholastic, I met Amy and Kathy who, like me, are striving to get books into the hands of students.
Amy loves both children and books and finds pairing young children with worthwhile books of their choosing to be a magical experience. In retirement, she knew that one of her primary volunteer activities would involve literacy. She is currently the vice-chairwoman of the Buffalo Jewish Coalition for Literacy. She says, “The organization is one of over 40 local affiliates throughout the country committed to helping all of America’s children learn to read and to eliminating illiteracy.”
Since the majority of the children with whom she works come from impoverished families, the books she gives away may be the only means of developing even a small home library. Amy approximates the number of books given away each year at 2,700.
Another retired teacher, Kathy, chooses to take the opportunity to donate books to Amazon Valley Academy in Belem, Brazil. The school was originally set up as a school for missionaries to send their children to so they could receive an “American” education. In recent years, however, children of other internationals living in Belem also attend the school. The books constantly have to be replaced because of the humidity creating mold and mildew in them.
Amy, Kathy and I often hear people say that printed books are becoming obsolete, but our love of books is reaffirmed when we hear the girl in the plaid jumper say, “Breathe in … just smell the new book smell.”
Antoinette Shriver has been a librarian at St. John the Baptist School in Alden for seven years and has chaired numerous book fairs | <urn:uuid:8b14bef2-1e90-437a-8c3b-78b7d5b80197> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.buffalonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130108/OPINION/130109450/1074 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975078 | 772 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Reggae Part 2: Reggae in Britain
Danny Holloway, NME, 27 January 1973
WHEN LABOUR IN England was becoming hard to come by during the 1950s, enticing proclamations were urgently sent to the West Indies. "Your Mother Country Needs You!" the poster read and thousands of patriotic black people took advantage of the special £10 boat trip to England.
Total word count of piece: 1677 | <urn:uuid:6b2ee476-d636-44ca-b663-b834797742a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/reggae-part-2-reggae-in-britain | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980289 | 91 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, with support from several offices of the Louisiana state government, has launched a new effort to link independent musicians to the marketplace.
The Jazz & Heritage Talent Exchange is a searchable Internet database of Louisiana music. This free service is open to all Louisiana-based musicians.
It is tailor made for the specific needs of two kinds of professional music buyers:
• Festival producers and other event promoters from around the world looking for Louisiana musicians to hire for live performances
• Film and television productions in need of music to license for their projects.
"This is an important new initiative that serves our longstanding economic development mission," said Don Marshall, executive director of the Jazz & Heritage Foundation. "We are helping our artists - the producers of our incredibly rich culture - tap into new sources of income that have in many cases eluded them."
Support for the Jazz & Heritage Talent Exchange has come from the Louisiana Department of Economic Development, the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation & Tourism, the Office of the Lieutenant Governor and the Louisiana Division of the Arts. | <urn:uuid:8bee729c-7c9d-4ff2-ba12-e226f01f9071> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.nola.com/jazzfest/2008/05/talent_exchange_connects_music.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958195 | 217 | 1.710938 | 2 |
World oil demand is likely to fall by double the official forecasts this year as the global recession worsens, the chief economist of Total, the French oil company, said on Tuesday. "We forecast a decline of 2 million barrels per day (bpd), which is quite an important decrease and which has a strong impact on the oil market," Pierre Sigonney told a conference in the capital. "It needs very strong cuts from OPEC countries just to stabilise the market."
Oil demand has fallen rapidly as the global economy uses less energy for transport and industry. The Total estimate is substantially more than those put forward by OPEC and the International Energy Agency, which predict oil demand will fall by 1 million bpd and 1.2 million bpd respectively. Lower oil prices have made new drilling projects and development of unconventional crude less economical, and are likely to affect the supply of oil available to the world in the long term, Mr Sigonney said.
Total's forecasts for oil supply available in the next three to five years have been reduced by 4 million bpd, he said. Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of Total, has warned that oil production is not likely to exceed 100 million bpd in the long term, but the recent delays in new investments may prevent the world from reaching that level, Mr Sigonney said. "We are thinking the plateau will not be 100 million bpd, but maybe lower, because we are delaying new projects," he said. | <urn:uuid:f56bac42-5d09-4731-b0b1-7d133aecb3c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/total-warns-of-bigger-drop-in-demand | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974302 | 299 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The Campus Diagnostic
How have institutions used their Campus Diagnostic results to garner support for effective alcohol prevention? Campuses share their stories.
Engaging Senior-Level Administrators
Battling a campus culture where senior administrators tend to turn a blind eye to the alcohol issue, the assistant director of health promotion at Alpha University* has had little success engaging campus leaders about the importance of alcohol prevention.
After completing Campus Diagnostic, this practitioner forwarded the results to a recently formed alcohol working group to educate them on their challenges and opportunities and to focus their efforts around areas of greatest concern for their campus. Their results served as a foundation for planning and a tool to ensure that all task force participants were “on the same page.”
The results of the Campus Diagnostic were also shared with the vice chancellor for student affairs. Upon reviewing the results, the vice chancellor immediately requested a meeting to discuss the implications of the diagnostic. The data and feedback provided in the Campus Diagnostic report served as an effective catalyst for re-engaging this administrator and garnering support for addressing the issue of high-risk drinking.
Reallocating Prevention Dollars
At Beta University*, the coordinator of health promotion has tried for years to convince her colleagues to stop investing valuable prevention dollars in invited speakers—a programming strategy that the research demonstrates to be ineffective in changing behaviors or reducing negative consequences of high-risk drinking.
This practitioner completed the Campus Diagnostic and received her results, which recommended that Beta University consider dropping invited speakers from their prevention programming due to lack of research-supported efficacy.
The practitioner passed this feedback along to several colleagues--who had historically resisted discontinuing speakers. Upon reading the Campus Diagnostic feedback, they agreed for the first time that Beta University should shift those prevention dollars towards strategies that are more likely to create behavior change among students.
Using Data to Define a New Strategy
At Kappa University*, the associate dean of students had been struggling to make major progress addressing high-risk drinking on his campus, due partly to a lack of clear strategy. There was also a general sense that the campus was “doing enough” with regard to its alcohol prevention programming.
The associate dean completed the Campus Diagnostic and received his results, which recommended that the institution consider discontinuing Alcohol Awareness Week from their prevention programming due to lack of research-supported efficacy. The dean then scheduled a consultation with a member of the EverFi team to discuss improving his campus’ score, which was lower than expected. Together, they examined Kappa University’s AlcoholEdu data and found two interesting trends: a significant percentage of students were drinking in residence halls, and students generally disregarded alcohol policies due to the lack of consistent enforcement and adjudication.
This new insight inspired the associate dean to undertake a policy review and create a plan for ramping up enforcement efforts in the residence halls, including providing more RA training, a strategy supported by the research literature. The feedback provided in the Campus Diagnostic report served as an effective catalyst for re-examining campus data, spotting key behavioral trends, and reallocating resources to build a more effective strategy. With this new information, the dean felt empowered to step up and propose a new plan. | <urn:uuid:c6edd039-cf76-4189-8a01-4c23dd0bc986> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.outsidetheclassroom.com/community/tools-resources/campus-diagnostic/impact-stories.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958086 | 655 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The Mexico Market
May 29, 2012
The following is online bonus content for "Markets on the Move," from Dairy Today's June/July 2012 issue.
David Freedheim, sales consultant with the California Milk Advisory Board (CMAB), reports on the booming dairy market in Mexico:
- With a population of more than 113 million people, Mexico is one of California’s most important export markets, with strong growth for California cheese (even before tariffs were removed), butter and ice cream. California cheese volume at Wal-Mart Mexico rose 38% for the first quarter of 2012 over last year’s business alone.
- Mexico is also becoming a market for extended shelf life (ESL) California-standards milk with the mid-June rollout of ESL California-standards milk in 200-plus Wal-Mart locations (150 Superamas, 53 Sam’s Clubs), with demo support from the CMAB.
- Pizza is the most significant foodservice market across the globe, including Mexico, where Pizza Hut is now using California cheese in two of its three divisions in the country.
- June/July 2012 | <urn:uuid:b9a233c1-4ad8-49e2-9ced-9c818124bd0d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/topproducer/article/the_mexico_market/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939698 | 233 | 1.5625 | 2 |
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