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Gawker's John Cook has unearthed a juicy White House memo – "A Plan for Putting the GOP on TV News" – that shows Roger Ailes and fellow aides to Richard Nixon plotting to disseminate Republican propaganda to local news outlets nationwide.
The idea was to provide "pro-Administration, videotape, hard news actualities" that could be woven into local television newscasts across the country." According to the memo, this arangement "avoids the censorship, the priorities and the prejudices of the network news selectors and disseminators."
The author of the memo isn't named, but the document sports Ailes' handwritten notes, gushing, "this is an excellent idea" and wondering,"Who would purchase equipment and run operation? White House? RNC? Congressional Comm[ittee]s?"
This is an astounding find. It underscores Ailes's early preoccupation with providing the GOP with a way to do an end run around skeptical journalists. More important, it links the plot to create what would become Television News Incorporated – the Ailes-helmed "fair and balanced" mid-1970s precursor to Fox News – to the Nixon White House itself.
As I reported here, the distribution and production costs for the project were ultimately bankrolled by the beer magnate Joseph Coors. TVN then supplied local stations a "news" product that promoted the GOP line while presenting itself as an purveyor impartial of journalism:
TVN made no sense as a business. The project of archconservative brewing magnate Joseph Coors, the news service was designed to inject a far-right slant into local news broadcasts by providing news clips that stations could use without credit – and for a fraction of the true costs of production. Once the affiliates got hooked on the discounted clips, its president explained, TVN would "gradually, subtly, slowly" inject "our philosophy in the news.” The network was, in the words of a news director who quit in protest, a "propaganda machine." | <urn:uuid:e05eb29c-2936-443a-9166-d8c7966d5003> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/ailes-nixon-and-the-plan-for-putting-the-gop-on-tv-news-20110701 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943717 | 415 | 1.5 | 2 |
by Evan Jones
Once upon a time slow connections begat the Progress Bar - bloated sites would taunt us with '15% loaded' screens. High-speed promised to kill the beast and free us from their tyranny but yet it lives! Progress bars are being used MORE lately to direct user actions. Look to Farmville and LinkedIn which push their users to collect 100% of their personal information. Incomplete progress bars are an itch that needs to be scratched. They carry the implicit language that declares 'You are here' but more importantly 'The end is in sight'. Game design motivates us through incremental, measurable progress towards a tangible goal but is this the way real life works? Is the progress bar's ubiquity in technology starting to affect the way we measure progress in meatspace? This panel will reach far across time and space to look at the story of progress bars, why they hypnotize us and what we need to do - slay the beast once and for all, or throw ourselves into its partially-complete embrace...
by Joanna Wiebe
Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana. I agree about the banana, but I'm not so sure about the arrow. What is the shape of time? Our online calendars, clocks and other models of time often are designed with the understanding that time is a forward-moving arrow. This sounds logical to the Western, English-speaking scientific mind. However, not everyone conceptualizes time as a relentless hurtling forward. Some cultures understand time as a fractal, a spiral, a mandala, a cycle. And a child, playing with the same toy over and over again, lives in a single seamless moment from dawn to dusk. Visualizing temporality is a fundamental issue in interaction design today. For example, we are looking at a future where our work must be useful for both Eastern and Western audiences, who differ in time-oriented cultural traits such as long-term vs. short-term orientation. We also need to be able to provide tools to differentiate the personal, bodily-felt experience of time from clock time. We may want to expand our customers' perception of time, to invite them to stay in the Deep Present. Our beliefs about time and its passage profoundly affect the design of software and interactive media. It's time for interaction designers to understand deeply how our customers know time, whether as an arrow, a spiral or a squiggle. How people slice and dice nature into concepts is fundamental to designing tools people can use to successfully live on the earth, for a long time.
New technology brings broad experimentation and new design challenges. It takes years, if not decades, to establish an effective design vocabulary to discuss what "works" and "doesn't work." This panel asks established professionals in architecture, speech writing, and event planning to describe their creative processes and vocabularies and will compare them with the best practices in interaction design. This session brought to you by Meebo.
While both music and design have theoretical underpinnings, they also share a certain ineffability. A musical masterpiece and an exceptionally crafted experience demand more than the simple application of theory. They also demand virtuosity. Designers must skilfully bring together clicks and gestures — the building blocks of interaction design — to form a meaningful experience. Although it's simple to describe these components, we often resort to vague shorthands like 'look & feel' to explain what happens at the experiential layer. Similarly, composers rely on formalised technique to write music; yet ask what makes a piece remarkable and the answer will be similarly nebulous. In this session, we will examine parallels between music and interaction design, including harmony, genre, rhythm, fashion and emotion. Along the way, we will learn how that which defies easy definition can elevate digital and musical works from good to miraculous.
1. Why do some interactions and some pieces of music—even when they seemingly 'obey' all the rules—still feel wrong?
2. What is it about music that provokes such a profound emotional response and how can designers learn from it?
3. Why, despite all expectations, the overflow of information can actually be a rather lovely experience.
4. Why does innovation actually feel bad?
5. And finally, just what is 'The Brown Noise'?
by Lynn Teo
With every new “form factor” comes a unique set of design conventions and interaction paradigms. The emergence of tablet interfaces such as the iPad marks a new chapter in digital design. How much of web navigation or smartphone conventions persist in this new world? And what are we seeing that's new? Are there specific wayfinding and browsing mechanisms that make for a satisfying and productive iPad user experience? Based on an assessment of 50+ iPad applications that run the gamut from utility/transactional interfaces to comic readers and other publishing apps, this presentation provides a focused analysis and assessment of navigation methods in a distilled format. Navigation schemas will be explored by interaction design themes, supported by examples, and recommendations on when best to employ them.
How do you drive up user engagement? What game-like design patterns get your users to complete the sign-up, bring friends and come back? This session will expose the design patterns of engagement and incentives, including relevant metrics. Led by Nadya Direkova, Sr. Designer at Google and game designer, it will teach useful techniques that can drive up - and keep - your user base. You will leave with an arsenal of 7 design patterns to: design effective sign-up sessions and tutorials, promote virality, invite return visits, and apply game mechanics beyond points and bagdes. About the speaker: Nadya Direkova is Google’s local search designer and a game mechanics consultant - helping millions of users find knowledge and fun. She comes from the world of game design, having created fun games for Leapfrog and Backbone. She’s taught design at M.I.T. and spoken at IXDA’09 and SXSW’10.
This panel will discuss how companies can create best mobile mobile user interfaces, avoiding many of the pitfalls of poor design. Mobile user interfaces are not just squished down to fit the small screen, but require an understanding and application of technologies, users, and contexts of use to create the best possible interaction. Core principles for designing mobile interfaces will be discussed, as well as design patterns for use in mobile web sites and applications.
We won't quote Moore's Law to you, but we can all agree that technology is evolving at a rapid clip, maybe doubling its efficiency something like every two years (okay we couldn't resist). As these newly-evolved smart devices hit the market, consumers are changing with them. We become more social, more chatty, more plugged in as a result. We have a wealth of information at our fingertips and we're able to access it faster with smaller and smaller devices. How is all of this information, accessibility and speed changing us? Are consumers doubling our intelligence every two years?
As an Intel Fellow and Director of Interaction & Experience Research for Intel Corporation, Genevieve Bell currently leads an R&D team of social scientists, interaction designers, human factors engineers, and a range of technology researchers to create the next generation of compelling user experiences across a range of internet-connected devices, platforms, and services. She will drive user-centered experience and design across the computing continuum.
Experience design company Adaptive Path launched at South by Southwest 2001 (on the rooftop of the old Waterloo Brewing Company!). Together, we’ve grown up, but we haven’t grown old. From the two guys who helped create a revolution (and some 4-letter neologisms along the way) -- learn how to continually revolutionize your own thinking and approach to your work.
For 10 years now, Adaptive Path has maintained its position at the forefront of user experience. In that time, UX has emerged from the backroom to the boardroom, going from something that’s “nice to have” to an essential element of successful products and services. In this talk, founders Peter Merholz and Jesse James Garrett will chart where we’ve been, where we’re going, and how we’ll get there.
This talk will draw from Adaptive Path's experiences working at the vanguard of social media (such as helping Blogger after it was acquired by Google), pushing the boundaries of interaction design (coining the term "Ajax"), developing new user experience methods (such as sketchboarding), defining a new field of experience strategy (we need to work on the why and what, not just the how), and helping companies of all sizes truly embrace the power of user experience to deliver superior products and services to their customers.
If you’re familiar with Peter and Jesse, you know this session will be light on B.S., heavy on substance, and we’ll probably disagree with each other at multiple points.
11th–15th March 2011 | <urn:uuid:534db40a-5406-4227-b4a7-2612f5af1c86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lanyrd.com/2011/sxsw/schedule/?topics=user-experience,interaction-design | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936596 | 1,859 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Tibetan is a difficult language to learn. Hindi is easier for me, but the script is still a challenge. 4 D's and 4 T's...come on.
Then with Tibetan one stacks together letters that have little to do with pronunciation. Even without using Wylie its an 'expensive' language in terms of brush strokes. Not only must I struggle with pronunciation but also with writing. Lots of input and no output makes Jack a dull boy.
Then there's the lack of people to practice with and the fact that scriptural Tibetan is quite different from spoken. If that weren't enough, so much has been translated into English already it seems like a waste to go to the trouble of learning it - unless you plan on making it a profession (or a very serious practice).
What to do?
I'm a visual person. I touch-type and I spend most of my time on a computer where its warm and comfortable. Fonts and input methods are readily available for Tibetan. Typing saves me enormous efforts in writing and gives me a sense of achievement even if I don't know what I've written. I think we need to have a creative outlet to learn effectively.
I use an operating system called Ubuntu. I have the free equivalent of Microsoft Office: LibreOffice. When I want to change the input language I just press shift+CapsLock. This is system wide, not limited to a specific application. When I change the language the font changes magically in LibreOffice. Because each key is programmed with a letter of the script I don't have to think so hard about the writing. Things go faster.
There is also language learning program called Anki (its all free). It works with flash cards you or anyone creates. There are none for Tibetan yet.
One of the problems with typing flash cards into a someone elses program is that you'll end up with your data stuck in some propriety format. If you ever want to move it or change it its an absolute nightmare. The Tibetans I know input masses of text into WordPerfect files. I'm an IT expert and I couldn't even extract them from that old format.
Propriety software is like a bank and language is like music. Language is not money. You wouldn't keep your music in a bank - to be charged every time you want to do something with it. So why keep your information in the jail of propriety software?
Ubuntu and other Linux distributions are very easy on hardware. If you have an old PC or laptop why not try creating a setup for language learning.
Just some thoughts. | <urn:uuid:88c840ad-01a1-4f8a-ac57-8b6227df6a50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f=81&t=6368 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953551 | 534 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Thu March 8, 2012
Commuters Suffer As Detroit Cuts Bus Service
The city of Detroit is running out of cash. Next month, it might not make payroll, and the state of Michigan is considering taking control of the city's finances.
In his State of the City address on Wednesday, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing said financial catastrophe can be avoided by making sharp cuts, particularly in public transit.
"There will be a short-term pain for a long-term gain and there's no way around it," Bing said.
But bus riders and drivers in Detroit say they don't know if the beleaguered system can stand any more pain. At a downtown Detroit bus stop, Toni Coleman feels frustrated. The bus is late again, and now she will be late to work, too.
"Now I'm having to get off work almost an hour earlier because I can't get on a bus at five o'clock," Coleman says. "The buses are too crowded and they don't stop. Hours worth of pay because of the changes in the bus system."
Coleman is one of more than 100,000 Detroiters who depend on buses for daily travel. There have been fewer travel options of late, after the city cut overnight bus service and eliminated several routes. Unlike many major metropolitan areas, Detroit has a second, separate bus line that serves roughly 40,000 suburbanites and drops them off in the city during the morning and evening rush hours.
But just like in Detroit, the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation — or SMART bus system — has cut back routes and limited schedules in the face of mounting financial difficulty.
About four miles from Detroit's city limits, Carlette Nicole Ingram settles into a SMART bus seat and prepares for a trip that used to take two hours, and now takes four.
"You have to get off that bus — 8 Mile," Ingram says, explaining her route. "Then you gotta cross over then get on this bus, another bus, then go downtown and catch another. You know. "
Detroit state and federal officials have been talking about creating a regional transit system, but so far it remains just talk.
"They don't care about low-income people or people that do catch the bus as far as going to school or going back and forth to work," Ingram says.
A few weeks ago, the city turned management of the system over to a private company and appointed Ronald Freeland CEO of the transportation department. His first ideas about limiting cost might surprise riders.
"The system has not been adjusted or modified to accommodate what is really a declining population," Freeland says. "So therefore we believe we have, quite frankly, too many buses. I'm sure some people would argue with that. That creates a number of problems. That is, you have more buses to maintain, you need more storage space, you need more fuel."
Some Detroit bus drivers say what they need is more information. Some of them say they did not even know they now report to a private management team.
"I haven't seen a memo," veteran Detroit bus driver Mack James says. "You know, I read about it in the newspaper."
James says that about 80 drivers were going to be laid off, until the city decided to wait until the new private management weighed in. Now he says he and other drivers are in limbo.
"I mean, we're on the wire, as far as job security," James says. "We on the fence. And we could fall off at any minute. Basically right now, we waiting on this financial review team. And then from that point, anything could possibly happen."
The state is combing through Detroit's books and could appoint a manager over the city's finances with the power to order draconian cuts, including in the bus system. That state financial review team is expected to make its recommendations to the governor by the end of the month. | <urn:uuid:60190847-0537-42c8-9935-d1f1144fc996> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wmra.org/post/commuters-suffer-detroit-cuts-bus-service | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975152 | 806 | 1.765625 | 2 |
President Obama has invited Sergeant James Crowley and Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. to the White House for a beer to clear up hard feelings over Crowley’s arrest of Gates for disorderly conduct two weeks ago.
Notice how, now that the facts have come out, no one is taking Gates’ side anymore; those who initially sided with Gates are arguing that both men are at fault and that we should all “learn from this incident” and move on.
If anyone still cares, the fact is that both sides are simply not at fault.
Here are a few myths and misunderstandings about Crowley’s arrest of Gates:
Crowley overreacted in arresting Gates.
Not according to the Cambridge Police Department; the Cambridge Police Patrol Officers Association; the Massachusetts Municipal Police Coalition; the Cambridge Multicultural Police Association; mixed-race police unions across the country; Sgt. Leon Lashley, the black cop who accompanied Crowley; or black public figures such as Bill Cosby and Juan Williams. Other than that, the experts are unanimous—he overreacted!
Gates’ behavior was not an arrestable offense; Crowley should have walked away after establishing his identity.
According to police protocol in such an incident, you leave the scene only once all actors are quiet and issues have been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. You do not slip away while one party is still unhinged, screaming like a lunatic, insulting a police officer’s mother, badgering officers, and frightening neighbors who have gathered out of concern. If the object of investigation shows no signs of calming down, it is not police procedure to leave such a raving maniac poised to cause additional mayhem. The police have seen plenty of cases in which angry residents have gone on to cause further trouble; it’s foolish for anyone to second-guess the cops and pronounce that they should have known what Gates would do next. Gates had dozens of opportunities to cooperate with Crowley’s attempts to defuse the situation and back away, and every time he chose not to. That is why he was arrested. read more » | <urn:uuid:95491c17-ee0d-486d-bbb1-44c1f29890d9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://conservativeoutpost.com/tags/harvard_0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951151 | 434 | 1.585938 | 2 |
|Ruling House||5th - Pleasure|
The Lion is considered the king of the jungle, and likewise you Leos have an air of royalty about you. Some Leos even have hair resembling the thick mane of the Lion. But Lions are more than roar, for they are truly magnificent beasts. The Lioness proudly cares for the young, hunts and takes care of survival with relentless intent and ferocity, when needed. And proud are you Lions! Perhaps that's why you often choose work that puts you in the center of stage or in the spotlight of appreciation.
You Leos are warm of spirit, eager for action and are driven by a desire to be loved for what you bring to others. You are a magnanimous leader and a faithful servant. Once scorned in love, however, you'll withdraw your affections and the light, once brilliant, can go cold.
Your motto might be "What you see is what you get." You tend to live your live straightforwardly and with a flair for drama. In fact, many Leos are attracted to the theater, the performing arts and public relations, for you truly understand the importance of putting on a good presentation. As you blaze gloriously through your life, remember to take time to acknowledge the feelings of those around you. If you forget, you could unconsciously hurt someone you love. But, if you remain aware your impact, others can benefit from your presence.
Fire signs are naturally warm. A fire gives light and heat, but it doesn't get depleted as others feed on its warmth. One candle can bring light to a room and it won't burn any faster if ten people read from its light than if there was only one. Fire doesn't plan it next move; it isn't logical. It simply is in the moment and will burn what fuel is available without judgment or forethought. For this reason fire signs can successfully rely on their intuition and survival instincts.
The fire of Leo is brilliant and intense. It's like the summer Sun that relentlessly shows up every day and whose heat continues to build over a period of time.
Your playful and loving nature
Need for approval can become too important | <urn:uuid:4861de2c-049d-4ff4-a18a-d098f27eaf9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.patheos.com/Spirituality/Astrology/All-About-Leo.html | 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 | 0.955201 | 444 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Law Prof Predicts a ‘New Hierarchy’ of Law Schools
Posted Nov 15, 2010 6:30 AM CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A law professor known for his studies of the legal profession is predicting a “new hierarchy” of law schools will emerge, one that will be based on educational quality and connection to the legal profession rather than student academic credentials.
The top law schools admit students with higher LSAT scores, notes Indiana University law professor Bill Henderson. But academic credentials are not a reliable basis for hiring decisions in an environment where law firms are competing for market share, Henderson writes in the National Jurist.
“Sure, lawyers need to be smart,” he writes. “But in this more competitive environment, they also need to be personable, collaborative, entrepreneurial, service oriented, and interested in contributing to the collective welfare of the law firm.”
Henderson says there is little empirical evidence that hiring lawyers with marginally higher test scores puts law firms at a competitive advantage. He cites his own research to illustrate.
In 2007 and 2008, 46 percent of all new associates in the nation’s 100 largest law firms came from a top 14 law school. But during the same period, only 39 percent of lawyers promoted to partner came from one of the top 14.
The numbers are similar in the nation’s largest companies. In 2009, only 35 percent of general counsels for Fortune 500 companies had graduated from a top 14 school. “This suggests that the advantage of higher test scores and academic pedigree diminishes rather than compounds over time—at least for partnership or general counsel positions,” he says.
Henderson also cites a study by Marjorie Shultz and Shelton Zedeck of the University of California at Berkeley that identified 26 factors associated with successful lawyers. No more than eight of the success factors were correlated with academic credentials. Then there were the negative correlations. For law students, undergraduate GPA was negatively correlated with practical judgment, ability to see the world through the eyes of others, and developing relationships.
“Obviously, beyond intelligence as applied to legal doctrine, many of the attributes needed for success in the ‘new normal’ legal economy are not attributes emphasized in law school,” he writes. “Virtually all law professors were vetted based on a world where academic credentials really mattered. As a group, law professors are ill-equipped for the changes that are occurring.”
Henderson has formed a new company called Lawyer Metrics that analyzes the qualities shared by successful lawyers and helps law firms with hiring and retention. | <urn:uuid:57fd1191-07e5-4af8-a220-64f1f4ed68ab> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/law_prof_predicts_a_new_hierarchy_of_law_schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967619 | 545 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Placing Conditions for Marriage
Posted: 18 Safar 1424, 20 April 2003
|Q.) Can a wife make a condition when she is marrying that husband is not allowed to take a second wife? Will such a condition be valid?|
A.) A woman can put such a condition before marrying, but according to Hanafi Jurists, it will not be binding on the husband in legal terms. However, it may be taken as a promise, and the husband is under a moral obligation to fulfill the condition, and not marry a second wife. If he violates this moral condition without a valid reason, he will be committing the sin of backing out of the promise, but no legal remedy can be sought against him. | <urn:uuid:1773a79b-6d17-4ffd-ae8e-23ba3f903f93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.albalagh.net/qa/conditions_marriage.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95847 | 147 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Technology and Intelligence -Reply
James Barnes ([email protected])
Tue, 7 Feb 1995 10:20:09 -0600
On Feb 6, 1995, 4:57pm Bob Graber writes:
J. Barnes says, in crowning his defense of the social-intelligence
hypothesis, that "frankly, technology has been done to death."... Again,
I confess to finding that a singularly unadmirable reason to reject a
theory consistent with a large and growing body of evidence.
Touche. I deserve that. I must admit, shame faced, that my post was
less a defense than a knee-jerk response to the perceived
abrasiveness of your posting.
I'm a little pressed for time (your post although dated yesterday evening
did not reach me until 9:15 am this morning. So much for technology.)
however, while I mull over the full gist of your postings...
Regarding the development of a precision grip: Are you, or others,
suggesting that tool use gave a reproductive advantage to those with a
precision grip? I would suggest that fine manipulation of seeds and
other foods is a more probable explanation. Which raises another
question: How are we defining technology? The use of tools and
innovation thereof, or, the entire artifactual and behavioural suite
associated with physically manipulating the environment? How broadly
are you defining technology?
And, since you are obviously more familiar with the literature than I am,
what is the hypothesis regarding the role of tool-use in the development
of speech and symbolic expression?
Which brings me to my final question: You speak of expansion of the
brain. Which portions of the brain are you referring to? I've already
given my definition of intelligence in another post. What is your
definition? It is entirely possible that we are speaking and referring to
two entirely different phenomena. | <urn:uuid:39cfa985-2643-4759-91e7-db22addfdac6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://unauthorised.org/anthropology/anthro-l/february-1995/0200.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931923 | 416 | 1.53125 | 2 |
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Personal Business: Investing
A DIFFERENT KIND OF HEDGE
In Saul Bellow's 1956 novella Seize the Day, the hero uses his last $700 to buy lard futures on the advice of a seedy acquaintance. The unfortunate fellow's agony, as he watches lard prices plummet and a steely-eyed broker close out his account, is enough to scare a reader away from such markets for life.
But derivatives--financial instruments that, like futures, are derived from an underlying transaction in goods, currencies, stocks, bonds, or money itself--have come a long way. Originally invented for commodities providers as a hedge against price fluctuations, futures and options also gave speculators like Bellow's poor slob the chance to make a fortune or lose their shirts. Now, financial engineers are designing derivatives that ideally meet very specific investment needs. Caution is in order. Some of these products are being peddled by the same firms that brought you REITs, limited partnerships, and portfolio insurance. But for investors who do their homework, derivatives can help make the most of market conditions.
SPLICE JOB. For example, Nikkei put warrants were introduced in 1990 when the tumbling Japanese stock market excited international options speculators. The warrants, which trade on the American Stock Exchange, give holders a right to sell a certain amount of Japanese stock at a locked-in price. So the worse the 225 stocks that make up the Nikkei do, the more the put warrants are worth.
Derivatives are sometimes called synthetic securities because different kinds of investment instruments are artificially spliced together. Thus, PERCS, or Preferred Equity Redemption Cumulative Stocks, act like bonds for two or three years, paying an interest rate usually above-market for investment-grade corporate debt. Then they automatically turn into the underlying common stock at a preset ratio.
That's an attractive proposition if the issuing company prospers, though the conversion formula means there's a cap on the appreciation holders can realize. PERCS are finding favor with investors now because their coupons are about two percentage points higher than those of ordinary corporate bonds. The trade-off is if the issuing company's stock takes a beating, you're forced to own it anyway--or to sell your PERCS, whose value is likely to sink too. Such trade-offs are typical of derivatives, though they may look as if they offer the best of several worlds.
Similarly, synthetics like collateralized mortgage obligations, or CMOs, have made a hit with individuals because they appear to beat the going rate on alternative fixed-income investments. Yet it is almost impossible to calculate your actual yield to maturity on any particular CMO--again the trade-off for a good-looking initial return.
Does the average investor need such instruments in a reasonably diversified portfolio? Synthetics makers believe they do--not as devices for hedging or speculation but as a new and prudent form of asset allocation. "Investors are nervous about stocks, they're sick of short-term money market rates, and they don't want to lock in a long bond at 7.3%," says Joshua A. Weinreich, a managing director at Bankers Trust. Weinreich believes that Bankers Trust's market-linked CDs correct a mistake that investors make out of fear: getting in and out of the market rather than the tried-and-true strategy of buy and hold.
The CDs, sold in denominations as low as $2,000 and maturing in 5 1/2 years, are linked to the S&P 500 and promise to deliver 100% of any gain in the index at maturity. If the S&P rises 100%, you get double your deposit back. If the index stays flat or falls, your principal is guaranteed. A slightly riskier version offers 110% of the S&P's return over 5 1/2 years, and your principal cannot decline more than 10%. The deposits are FDIC-insured.
POOR PROMISE. Merrill Lynch's MITTS, or Market Index Target Term Securities, are issued at just $10 a share and work the same way, promising 115% of any S&P 500 rise after 5 years, with no downside risk. And future MITTS may be linked to other markets or even specific stock sectors. "Versions can be custom-made," says Michael R. Feigeles, first vice-president for equity marketing. "We can link them to the Nikkei or the NASDAQ, biotech stocks, whatever."
On the surface, such deposits seem to let investors bet on the stock market fearlessly. But giving up yield for five years is no joke: Your money will steadily lose purchasing power. And if there's a stock-market scare right before your CD matures, any interim upticks will be lost opportunities--your money was tied up. "Over a five-year period, to promise your money back is pretty poor," says John Markese, president of the American Association of Individual Investors.
Like the innocent-sounding CDs, familiar old zero-coupon bonds have been packaged with stock options to give investors a hybrid that seems to do more than one thing well. LYONs (Liquid Yield Option Notes) and LYNX (Liquid Yield Exchangeable Notes), also Merrill Lynch creations, are convertible bonds that turn into a predetermined amount of the issuer's common stock.
These "liquid notes" are longer-term bets than the CD-stock combinations, typically maturing in 15 to 20 years. That's fine if your goal is to lock in today's interest rate. But the notes' appreciation potential is questionable. Because they sell at a premium to their conversion value in common stock and you get a fixed number of shares, the underlying stock has to rise steeply to make the conversion worthwhile. Eric Ryback, manager of Lindner Dividend Fund, thinks investors are much better off with ordinary convertible bonds. "Anything that requires you to watch the security intensely from day to day, we tend to stay away from," he says.
Possibly the sexiest derivatives are LEAPS (Long-term Equity AnticiPation Securities) and BOUNDs (Buy-write Option Unitary Derivatives). Long-term stock options, these expire in years rather than months and cost a fraction of the underlying stock price.
For example, 10 IBM LEAPS expiring in January, 1994, with a strike price of $105 give you the right to buy 1,000 shares of IBM that month at $105 a share and cost you $3,250, minus commissions. If IBM stock hits 120 at that time, the 10 LEAPS will be worth $15,000: 1,000 shares times the difference between 120 and 105. If IBM closes below 105, the LEAPS expire worthless. Of course, if IBM is on an upswing, you can make money selling the LEAPS before they expire.
Such a bet is more comfortable over two years than over several months. "People find LEAPS attractive because they can take a longer-term view, away from the daily whipsaw of the market," says Harrison Roth, senior options strategist at Cowen & Co. As of now, 108 LEAPS are listed on the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
MURKY STATUS. Will the bigger time frame make options palatable to the prudent investor? Some advisers say that no derivative, let alone an option, belongs in an individual's portfolio. Derivatives "require acute timing skills," observes Michael Metz, chief investment strategist at Oppenheimer & Co. "That hardly categorizes professionals, let alone amateurs."
Most derivatives have other built-in problems. Regulators argue over who should oversee them, because no one is sure whether they should be classified as securities or options. Their tax status is often murky, since many defer payoff until maturity and then don't call it "interest." And the newer products tend to be dangerously illiquid, because the more specialized they are, the smaller the market.
Yet there's a future for the descendants of lard futures, says Richard Kleinberg, a derivatives consultant in New York. "The man in the street has no hedging need to trade soybeans," he says. "But he does have a hedging need to trade interest-rate and stock investments. We're in a new environment where there's a very conservative reason to use derivatives." He may be right. But not with your last $700.UNDERSTANDING AN ARCANE WORLD OF INVESTING
Long-term stock options, with expirations of two, three, or five years.
Investors have a longer time frame in which to make a correct guess on
equities. Like ordinary options, LEAPS (calls) and BOUNDs (buy-write options)
let you play the market more cheaply than if you bought the underlying stocks.
Also like their short-term counterparts, they leave you with 0% of your
investment if you bet wrong
`LINKED DEPOSITS,' MITTS
These state-of-the-art CDs guarantee your principal and offer potential
appreciation based on price changes in some underlying market or index, such as
the S&P 500. When banks issue them, they are FDIC-insured up to $100,000. When
brokerage houses issue them, they are guaranteed by the firm. Terms are usually
about five years. Although they are relatively low-risk, the opportunity cost
of parking interest-free money for five years may be high if the underlying
investment doesn't pay off
Fancy zero-coupon bonds with a conversion feature. These bonds, usually with
15- to 20-year maturities, separate their interest-paying component from their
principal, which is then linked to the issuing company's common stock. Yields
are relatively good, but the so-called appreciation potential of your principal
is very limited. Also, as with zeros, you may pay taxes on deferred interest
Joan Warner EDITED BY AMY DUNKIN | <urn:uuid:d5a22b85-853c-477e-a687-768f56b9af62> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/stories/1992-09-06/a-different-kind-of-hedge | 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 | 0.94454 | 2,109 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Healing the Democratic Spirit
"Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice
of the people? Is there any better or equal hope?"
-- Abraham Lincoln
The American political system is in disarray. Money governs politics, dictates
who is elected and what they will do once in office.
Ordinary people have been locked out of the process in a grotesque perversion
of Thomas Jefferson's republican ideal, their interests and concerns swept
under the massive rug of corporate privilege. The concerns of average working
people -- clean and safe neighborhoods, a living wage and access to quality
medical care, good schools and access to college for their kids -- have
been sacrificed on the altar of profit, have been turned into sound bites,
twisted and deformed to be used by politicians as wedges to separate voters.
In all areas of governance, the voice of the people is being pushed aside
in favor of those with affluence and influence. The debate over medical
reforms is controlled by the insurance industry, discussion of Superfund
reforms is driven by the legal and chemical industries and the big trucking
and oil firms dictate transportation policy. We have an economic elite that
sees rising wages as anathema to economic stability and a financial sector
pushing to get its hands on Social Security.
And our elected officials seem all too happy to keep the gravy train rolling
So its no wonder voters seem to have given up: Barely 50 percent of the
electorate cast ballots during the 1996 presidential election, and just
39 percent went to the polls in 1994.
The political elite bemoans these figures as a sign of America's apathy;
but they do so at their own peril. That's because there is a significant
amount of political energy being generated away from Washington and the
state capitals, in small towns and rural hollows, in union halls and community
centers across the country. The simple fact is, Americans are not as complacent
as the powers-that-be want us all to believe.
Examples of these small political insurgencies abound:
In South Brunswick, N.J., where I live, there has been a concerted effort
on the part of residents to stop the NJ Turnpike Authority from building
a four-lane, limited-access toll highway. The seven-mile road, which would
cost more than $300 million to build, would greatly enhance the value of
two major corporate parks while chewing through 17 acres of wetlands. Residents
are concerned that the road will devastate one of the few remaining undeveloped
areas of the township, force long-time farmers off their land and inundate
a small historic village near the end of the highway with traffic.
Needless to say, the road, known as Route 92, has the backing of major business
and development groups -- and it already has the approval of the Turnpike
Authority. But this hasn't stopped opponents from holding rallies and packing
public hearings, or from trying to get the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency to step in and deny the state permission for the project.
In West Virginia, rural residents are protesting changes in mining rules
that will make strip mining for low-sulfur coal more profitable for the
state's mining companies. Under the new rules, according to the New York
Times, companies will be able to "dump more of the stripped earth
into the hollows and waterways below the mining sites before they would
have to compensate the state for the damage."
Residents of the hollows -- especially those near a strip mine operation
run by Arch Coal Inc. -- say the plan will destroy their way of life and
they are planning litigation against the state. The new law will clog local
rivers and either subject residents to noise and dust and the dangers of
flying rocks and debris or force them to leave towns in which they have
long ancestral ties.
"The bottom line, whether they offer you a fair price or not, is why
do I have to move?" Pigeon Creek resident Patricia Bragg told the Times.
"As an American, I can choose to live in a hollow, call me a hick or
a hillbilly, but that's where I want to live."
Residents across the country are engaged in these kinds of backyard battles,
fighting the siting of incinerators and power plants, sludge factories,
dump sites and all sorts of other things.
And these battles are lot limited to backyard skirmishes. In New York City,
the unions are fighting for changes in welfare-to-work requirements that
essentially turn former welfare recipients into indentured servants while
driving wages down for other workers in the city.
In Baltimore, Minneapolis and elsewhere, workers have fought for and won
living wage laws that require companies doing business with those cities
to pay workers a wage that will keep them above the poverty line.
And there have been a host of other attacks on the political powers-that-be,
ranging from referendum forcing campaign finance reform and the legalization
of marijuana for medical use to health consumers' bills of rights and car
insurance reform. And there are groups fighting against the proliferation
of sweatshops and others fighting for democratic access to television and
radio systems, against mergers that ultimately will lead to higher prices
and restrictions on speech and for preservations of undeveloped areas and
downtown commercial districts.
These small insurgencies are good news for the long-term health of American
democracy and as good an example as can be found that the average citizen
knows what is in his or her best interest.
America's best hope for progressive change lies with these groups.
As William Greider pointed out in his book Who Will Tell the People?
The Betrayal of American Democracy: "Real change, if it comes at
all, would likely have to originate with angry outsiders, the citizens who
are willing to attack the status quo on its own ground and create alternative
examples of how democratic politics ought to function."
It's time America put the energies generated by these solitary fighters
to good use. The long-term health of our democracy demands it.
Hank Kalet is a journalist living in South Brunswick, N.J.
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Copyright © 1998 The Progressive Populist | <urn:uuid:eea4a482-3e62-4b9f-a952-cbb81c3afb55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.populist.com/98.6.grassroots.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948312 | 1,349 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Residents found themselves living under the shadow of two NYPD watchtowers, deployed to combat a wave of robberies and assaults investigated by the department’s Hate Crimes Task Force.
Including an assault on a gay couple inside the former White Castle in Stapleton, police had investigated a dozen assaults since April as possible bias attacks, making arrests in five cases. Typically, the victims were Mexican immigrants and their assailants young black men.
The attacks exposed tensions between the already established black community in Port Richmond and a growing Mexican population there. It sparked community meetings, a massive police presence, attention by the Mexican embassy and national media coverage.
Ultimately, none of the five cases resulted in prosecution on hate-crime charges and, in two cases, police learned the victims had prior confrontations with their attackers.
In September, prosecutors dropped the charges against one suspect when they learned, after a grand jury hearing, that the victim was beaten because of a drug deal gone bad. | <urn:uuid:90dd5eb9-bdbe-440a-97a7-dd61e38c0d05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.silive.com/specialreports/index.ssf/2011/03/attacks_on_mexicans_in_port_ri.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969258 | 196 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Deciding your college
major is an important task, but it need not be overwhelming.
The USP staff has found that students who approach finding
a major as an active process requiring their time, energy,
and attention are generally successful. No one has a crystal
ball to tell you what major is right for you — you have
to find that out for yourself.
Listed below are
some suggestions to assist you with your search:
GS 11900 (Introduction to Academic Programs at Purdue) is a one-credit, pass/no-pass course offered every fall
and spring semester at Purdue. Taking the class is a great
way to learn about Purdue’s colleges, schools,
and majors. Download
information about GS 11900. GS 11900 presentations are also recorded and are available for viewing through the Course Reserves at the Hicks Undergraduate Library.
Perhaps your interests are focused in a certain area (i.e.
science, computers, art, etc.) but you aren’t sure
what majors Purdue offers in that area. The Office of Admissions website has organized Purdue's 200+ majors into different categories. | <urn:uuid:c76e07b0-58e5-44d0-9d7e-ec653f089205> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.purdue.edu/usp/exploring/finding_major.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948139 | 238 | 1.773438 | 2 |
I never met Steve Jobs in person, but upon hearing of his passing I sensed a loss that I could not immediately explain. It took a bit of reflection to understand the feeling, and then more to put it to words.
What I will miss most is not tied to the wonderful gadgets he willed into existence, though I am grateful for every one of them. Nor is it his irreplaceable artistry, although he will no doubt be written into history with the likes of William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Michael Jordan and the Beatles. Rather, it is his presence, both as an inspiration and a source of guidance. Steve embodied common sense in a world overrun with personal agendas and bureaucracy.
Based on the legend of Steve originating from the Valley, I crafted an image of him in my mind. I used that image for inspiration and motivation, giving me hope about the future of the world. Having since read the many recollections of personal experiences from people who knew him well, it seems that the image I created was not far from reality. The recollections also confirmed the loss I had sensed – that one of the guiding stars in my sky had been extinguished.
The Steve I imagined had a rare quality that allowed him to be honest with himself and true to his inner being. This type of honesty is the hardest to maintain – coming from a deep understanding of personal values combined with a quest for motivation and fluency with human nature. He also possessed an inner compass that indicated which decisions were correct and recognized that the road less traveled was a harder path. He answered the harder path’s challenge with courage, resolve and intellect – simply stepping past fear in the face of uncertainty and risk, thereby redefining impossible as possible. No matter how difficult it was to follow his inner compass, he always did what he thought should be done.
The Steve I imagined also viewed respect as a term encompassing pride, honor, integrity, and dignity. He took great pride in everything he touched and believed he should be credited for his accomplishments. Above all, he executed and delivered without fail, and did not rest until everything was the way he had imagined it.
He recognized immediately that a downside to achieving his personal best was to risk offending those around him who couldn’t keep up or were threatened by a change to the status quo. However, he viewed the cost of being polite as an unnecessary pacifier for a lesser world – only delaying the inevitable until someone displayed the courage to offend those who thought themselves the moderators of mankind. Thus, he surrounded himself with other ‘A-type’ personalities and held them accountable to reaching their potential. When their actions aligned with purpose, they generated passion. With passion, they developed focus, and when they were focused, they had power. Powerful action created great accomplishments and reshaped our world. Simply, people followed Steve because he was ahead of us all, not because he was in need of an entourage. He was headed someplace other people wanted to go and he seemed to know how to get there. He didn’t tell us how to live. If we liked what he did, then good for us, if we didn’t, we were all free to find our own path.
What I will miss about Steve is more than the art that only he could produce. I will miss knowing that he is out there fighting for what he thinks is right. He was very much like a parent figure to the technology industry, taking the responsibility to challenge bad governance, see past short-term thinking and “Think Different”. When so much seems to be going wrong, Steve was a beacon of rightness. I will miss the assurance in knowing he’s focused on causes that need to be championed, quietly taking on challenges without concern for personal sacrifice – all according to his personal compass. What I will miss most is the opportunity to personally tell him “Thank you for all you did.” I recognize that we had a guardian angel and that it may be needed more now than ever.
Cloud computing is a completely new direction for businesses, from both a consumer side and a supplier side, and we must “Think Different” about everything we know. In the cloud, there are bureaucracies to be circumnavigated, impossibilities to be disproved, and a lesser world to be avoided. While Steve armed us with his philosophy and opened our minds to new possibilities, the responsibility now rests on each of us to step up and reach for our potential and, in our own way, dent the universe.
Original blog post found at HPC in the Cloud. | <urn:uuid:5c6f0431-7976-44bd-9743-2062d8ec3f5d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deopli.com/author/scottclark/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985775 | 944 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Dozens of Barrington area residents will be making strides to fight hunger on Sunday.
The 29th annual Barrington Area CROP Walk will take place Oct. 16 at 1 p.m. at St. Anne Catholic Church.
Barrington walkers will be joined by thousands of others nationwide as part of the initiative sponsored by Church World Services to raise funds to end hunger in our own communities as well as around the world.
The Barrington walk is hosted by St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, with 25 percent of funds raised being donated to local agencies. The rest will be used by Church World Services for disaster relief and hunger-related programs.
Local organizaions benefiting from this year’s walk include:
“Barrington and neighboring communities have faithfully supported CROP and Church World Services by raising $1,234,171 in the previous 28 walks,” a proclamation by Barrington Village President Karen Darch said.
Darch declared Oct. 16, 2011 as CROP Walk Day in the village of Barrington.
“In recognition and support of the hundreds of CROP walkers who will walk because they walk, and are asking us to join them in making a difference for hungry people locally, nationally and around the world,” the proclamation said.
Registration for the event begins at 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 16 at St. Anne Catholic Church. For more information, or to make a donation, visit barringtoncropwalk.freehostia.com | <urn:uuid:8b8c1710-2f6f-48d9-9fad-47c38a2be55d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://barrington-il.patch.com/articles/walkers-take-strides-to-fight-hunger | 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 | 0.953813 | 311 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Joey Robinson is on the mound with two on and two out in the bottom of the second. He checks the runners, nods to the catcher and rears back into his windup. His coach, Tuneharu Takahashi, signals frantically from the dugout, yelling and tugging at his shirt. Joey stops in mid-delivery and peers perplexedly at Takahashi.
"Shatsu o ireru!" shouts Takahashi. "Shatsu o ireru!"
Takahashi keeps yelling and tugging. Joey keeps peering. Finally, the first baseman calls a timeout and jogs over to the pitching rubber. He points to the shirttail hanging out of Joey's pants. Joey tucks it in. The first baseman nods his approval. Takahashi nods his approval. Even the umpire nods his approval. Joey resumes pitching and gets out of the inning neatly. "We like our players tidy," explains Takahashi through an interpreter. "It's part of the ceremony of baseball in our country."
Joey rarely bows to ceremony. He doesn't even bow to the ump, a ritual practiced by every other 11-and 12-year-old on the Yokosuka Little Tigers. It's not that he is being deliberately disrespectful, it's that he is never quite sure when he is supposed to bow. "I just don't understand the umpires here," says the only American playing Little League ball in the Land of the Rising Sun. "Most of the time I don't know what anybody's saying."
Joey is a shy kid whose conversation tends to trail off into a soft fluttering of umm's, and ahh's. He joined the Little Tigers last fall. He had been the star pitcher on a team at the U.S. Naval base in Yokosuka, where his father, Steven, is a lieutenant. "Joey was a wild kid—not wild-stealing or anything, he just looked down at other kids instead of looking across," says his old man. "He acted like he was Mr. Cool Stuff." Steven thought Joey would find greater challenges with the Little Tigers, who ate him up, 12-1, last August in what is called a "friendship game."
"The Japanese were impressed that Joey could keep them to 12 runs," says Steven, straight-faced. Takahashi's memory of the rout is a little hazier. "I think Joey was on that team, but I don't remember," he says. "All American kids look the same to me."
Steven played his Little League ball for a team sponsored by the Lee Mar Shirt Factory in Pulaski, Tenn. "I had potential," he says, "but my father wanted me to stay home and milk the cows." He was a 6'1" center and forward on the Beech Hill High basketball team when he met Debbie Gaines, a cheerleader for rival Bodenham High. "It was like Romeo and Juliet," he recalls.
They wed in 1974 after Steven served his first 18-month hitch in the Navy. Joey and his older brother, Chris, picked up baseball at various ports of call as his father did tours of duty overseas. He started out in Ex-mouth, Australia, and played in Guam until his father was transferred to Yokosuka.
Baseball is almost as popular in Japan as Ninja turtles are here—some 50,000 kids play Little League. Yokosuka is one of 30 teams in the Kanagawa prefecture, which is the Japanese equivalent of a state. Japanese teams were the first in the Far East to beat the U.S. in the Little League World Series, but they've since been eclipsed by teams from South Korea and Taiwan. The Japanese, however, still play pretty good ball, as Joey has found out. "I feel sorry for him," says Takahashi. "Overall, he's below the other players. He isn't really a hitter or good defensively. He hasn't yet learned the Japanese way of baseball." | <urn:uuid:06eeb288-38ea-4aa8-82d4-cf207d9a75e5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1136758/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989592 | 836 | 1.601563 | 2 |
(Sweden Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 14 May 2012) -- Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt will travel to Canada this week for political discussions primarily focusing on issues on the Arctic agenda. Mr Bildt will also visit the Arctic areas in Canada. Sweden currently holds the chair of the Arctic Council, which is a forum for cooperation between the five Nordic countries, Canada, Russia and the USA. The Arctic areas face many challenges and it is important to find a balance between environmental considerations and economic development for the Arctic to be able to develop. "Arctic region issues are a high priority for the Swedish Government and it is therefore important to discuss these issues with a central Arctic actor like Canada," says Mr Bildt. Sweden has held the chair of the Arctic Council since May 2011 and will pass on the Chairmanship to Canada at the foreign ministers' meeting in Kiruna in May 2013. On 16-17 May, Mr Bildt will be in Ottawa for talks with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird, Minister of National Defence Peter Mackay and Minister of Health and Minister of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency Leona Aglukkaq. On 17 May Mr Bildt will deliver a key policy speech at Carleton University under the heading 'Arctic Challenges and the Future Perspectives of Arctic Cooperation'. On 18-19 May Mr Bildt will visit Iqaluit in northern Canada, where he will meet Premier of Nunavut Eva Aariak and others.
Posted 16 May 2012; 4:08:24 PM. Permalink | <urn:uuid:fb19260d-3d51-4cff-ad55-0e098ff7fea1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dl1.yukoncollege.yk.ca/agraham/newsItems/departments/circumpolarNews/2012/05/16 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931735 | 310 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Member Directory: S
My work is predominately figurative in origin and addressess, through the qualities of glass, the themes of the Figure in Environment and the Human Condition. I am particularly interested in symbolisim within a composition and the play between the drawn image and Three Dimensional forms. I work to Private & Public Commision and exhibit both Nationally and Internationally
Originally a biochemist Chrissie re-discovered the challenge of experimentation with fused glass, silver stain and enamels. During her recent studies at Glyndwr University, Chrissie used hand-cut coloured glass or sandblasted float glass to translate the similarities between water and glass. Her sculptural forms are displayed in gardens, backlit with solar LEDs.
I have always loved the feel and appearance of glass. After a career in science & engineering, I have started exploring what I could achieve in glass. Glass is an amazing material. The way it reacts to heat, cold, pressure and abrasion can be surprising. Understand what the glass wants to do and you can make wondrous objects. Above all, I want my designs to be functional and useful, as well as beautiful. | <urn:uuid:5e5a8e9f-b0a7-4ce8-b64c-ae345e8cb8d8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cgs.org.uk/members/s?field_profile_technique_tid=All®ion=All&occupation=All&field_profile_discipline_tid=All&field_profile_last_name_value_1=&page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949605 | 241 | 1.5 | 2 |
How China Should Deal with GoogleShaun Rein, 06.30.10, 02:16 PM EDT
This is no time for rash action.
Google's beef with China's government is making international headlines again. The company's Chinese license as an Internet content provider is up for renewal this week, and the government has made it clear it won't accept Google automatically forwarding Web surfers to an uncensored search engine in Hong Kong, as the company has done since January. In response, this week Google started sending surfers to a landing page where they have to click manually to get to the Hong Kong site, in hopes that that will placate the government.
That is actually quite similar to what Chinese Web surfers could do before January. Until then, they could choose to conduct searches via the censored domestic Google.cn site or navigate from a link on the Chinese site to Google.com, which wasn't censored by Google ( GOOG - news - people ) itself but was still subject to the filters in China's firewall. That was a concession reformers in China had worked out.
China today is nothing like the old Soviet Union. Despite Google founder Sergey Brin's fears, compromises can be made between companies and the government, but companies still need to follow the law. In the end, Google decided it couldn't live with the deal it had struck and decided to stop censoring its own China-based site, which led to its first confrontation with the government and ultimately its decision to effectively shut down Google.cn.
The ball is now in China's court. How should the Chinese government act? If it wants to, it can reject Google's license application and shut down the operation completely, but should it? Should it allow the current situation to continue and allow Chinese Web users to manually click through to Hong Kong? Or maybe demand something else?
China's leadership needs to be very measured in how it responds to Google in the next few days. With the world already concerned about the yuan exchange rate and China's economic strength relative to America's stalled economy, the government should take this opportunity to act calmly, as a responsible member of the international community. If not, it could provoke trade protectionism, and that would help nobody.
The smart move would be to delay making any decision on Google's license approval until the issue dies down again in the overseas press. It should neither approve nor deny for the moment, but let the status quo continue. In the last six months Chinese netizens searching on the Hong Kong site have caused no security threat to China . After all, the Great Firewall can block any sites the government really wants to limit access to.
In other words, it just isn't worth it to block Google now or even make a decision, because the international outcry could be too great. Moreover, fewer and fewer Chinese are going to Google anyway. My firm, China Market Research Group, has done research with 5,000 consumers in 15 cities that suggests only 12% of Chinese-language searches are actually done on Google, because most users find that Baidu yields far better Chinese-language results. Most Chinese who use Google use it for foreign language searches. They tend to be better-educated people who have opportunities to travel abroad, where they can access unfiltered information anyway.
If China continues to be measured in its response to Google, as it has since January, the benefit will be twofold: It will show the outside world that it can deal with potentially inflammatory situations in a reasonable, non-kneejerk way, and it will allow Chinese users who want to use Google to continue to do so. The government's relatively calm approach over the last half year has earned support from the Chinese populace, which wants access to Google's technology but remains extremely sensitive to external criticism and perceived interference in China's domestic affairs.
My firm's research suggests that the overwhelming majority of Chinese support the government so far in its response to Google, because although they appreciate Google's stand for more open information flow they also feel it went too far in its criticism of the country's leadership. Real change needs to be seen as coming from within, from domestic Chinese Internet firms like Tencent QQ, Baidu, Sina and Sohu--not from foreign companies, which are sometimes seen as acting in the interests of foreign governments. | <urn:uuid:837a9cee-88f6-44bc-8fd9-6027a6210b39> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/30/google-china-license-leadership-citizenship-rein.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964978 | 885 | 1.742188 | 2 |
John L. Nau, III is President and Chief Executive Officer of Silver Eagle Distributors, L.P., the nation’s largest distributor of Anheuser-Busch products. Nau currently serves as Vice Chairman of the National Park Foundation Board of Directors, Civil War Trust Board of Directors and Chairman Emeritus and Board Member for Friends of Vicksburg National Military Park. He is founder and President of The Nau Foundation. He served as chairman of the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, 2001-2010, a position appointed by the President of the United States. Read More >>
Students completed pre-visit work including selecting a soldier identity and electing class corporals and lieutenants. Once they stepped off the bus for their tour, classes were taken back in time to 1863 and stepped onto the battlefield as volunteers. After taking the oath, signing the contract, and receiving their weapon and rations, soldiers marched by regiment to different experience stations where they learned about civilian life and freedmen, documentation, cannons and artillery, and the terrain and the strategic importance of Vicksburg. Read More >>
|Vicksurg National Military Park will offer several events and programs to mark the Vicksburg Campaign Sesquicentennial, (150th anniversary), during 2013. President Abraham Lincoln said "Vicksburg is the key". Confederate President Jefferson Davis said "Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South's two halves together". Both presidents were aware of the strategic importance of Vicksburg on the Mississippi river in 1863. Vicksburg National Military Park commemorates this campaign and its significance as a critical turning point of the Civil War 150 years ago. Click here to read more, or go to the Calendar of Events.|
|The Vicksburg National Military Park has begun a battlefield restoration project, which will cover about 90 acres within the Park. Restoration will involve removal of woodland cover on sites where key military engagements in the battle occurred. What this will mean is visitors now will be able to see and understand the battles that took place. The cost of the project is $300,000, and funding was made possible by a generous gift by Mr. John Nau and family. The project should be completed by late Summer, 2012.|
|United States Mint releases 2011 Mississippi "America the Beautiful" Quarter at Vicksburg National Military Park|
The United States Mint and National Park Service officially released the "America the Beautiful Quarter: honoring Mississippi and Vicksburg on August 30th, 2011, at the Vicksburg National Military Park. The Vicksburg coin, which is being distributed nationally, features the USS Cairo on its obverse, and is the ninth coin relased in this series dedicated to America's most scenic and historic places. Vicksburg was chosen by the Mississippi Legislature to represent the state, and the image of the USS Cairo was approved by the Secretary of the Treasury. Depiction of this historic icon on the quarter emphasizes the crucial importance of control of the Mississippi River to both the Union and the Confederate armies during the American Civil War. The USS Cairo, a U.S. Navy ironclad river boat was sunk by Confederates in the Yazoo River north of Vicksburg, was raised in 1964, and is now on permanent display in the Park. | <urn:uuid:24cee33f-3352-41f8-883d-55d7433a963c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.friendsofvicksburg.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958441 | 666 | 1.617188 | 2 |
This blog provides updated forecasts and comments on current weather or other topics
Monday, March 9, 2009
Some snow showers are moving through the area...except for the northern Sound area, which is in the rainshadow (now snowshadow) of the Olympics. The rainshadow is there because the wind are from the southwest aloft. Northerly winds will push southward today and showers will be enhanced at and north of that interface, aided by a weak upper level shortwave disturbance. Don't expect a major snowstorm, but an inch or two is possible. | <urn:uuid:d03e6ab0-b6ee-40ea-b498-3e65b044b443> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2009/03/snow-showers.html?showComment=1236622080000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948341 | 116 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Europe’s top politicians and civil servants will have to slum it on Ryanair thanks to the scrooges in the Irish government.
The budget airline has announced that they have agreed a cut price deal for flights between Dublin and Brussels during Ireland’s European Union presidency.
The Irish government has been forced to cut costs during the presidency and has accepted a guaranteed $65 one way fare from Ryanair.
The downside for the politicians and officials is that they will land in Charleroi airport, some 30 miles from Brussels.
The Irish Times reports that Michael O’Leary’s budget carrier is one of the airlines listed as part of the Government’s tender system for airline travel during presidency.
A statement from Ryanair said: “The Irish Government had accepted our offer of flights between Dublin and Charleroi airport for a guaranteed €49.99 ($65) one way.”
The report says that the airline highlighted the savings for the Irish government.
The paper adds that Ryanair quoted official Office of Public Works figures from April 2012 which it claims showed the State paying an average of almost $500 per flight. | <urn:uuid:1988f2ca-80d1-4337-9965-11937911fb86> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.irishcentral.com/news/politics/Ryanair-flights-await-Europes-top-politicians-during-Irish-EU-presidency-184913481.html?mob-ua=mobile&c=y | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964042 | 238 | 1.757813 | 2 |
By Jim Schutze
By Rachel Watts
By Lauren Drewes Daniels
By Anna Merlan
By Lee Escobedo
By Eric Nicholson
I met a 75-year-old Nacogdoches woman named Jeanette Singleton. She's lived there since 1956. "They've been really thuggish," she said of TransCanada. "I'm not anti-energy. But we have wells. If it pollutes the aquifer, there goes our country water."
Before long, an 18-wheeler bearing a cherry picker to pluck protesters out of trees slowed as it approached a shouting, sign-wielding crowd. Several young men leaped in its path. One fell beneath the truck. The others screamed and pounded the hood with their fists. A deputy rounded the front of the truck and drove the protesters back, loosing clouds of pepper spray. Singleton, standing off to the side of the road, caught a gust of the burning mist. She clutched at her face and sank to her knees. Several young women rushed to her and gently poured bottled water over her eyes and cheeks.
Others shouted at the deputies pacing the road, crying, "Shame!"
It looked as though every law enforcement officer within a two- to three-county radius had deployed to the pipeline's right-of-way. In some counties, the court system has dealt with them harshly. For three protesters accused of misdemeanors in Smith County, bail was set at $65,000. It was lowered only after Judge Thomas Dunn recused himself over a conflict of interest. The judge had been paid some $40,000 by TransCanada for an easement across land he recently sold. In East Texas, it isn't difficult to find people who've been touched by — or who have profited from — the pipeline. To them, the Keystone XL is in some way almost always personal.
TransCanada's approach to the resistance has been to discount it as out-of-town, not from around here. "Despite their claims that they're standing up for Texas, these aren't Texans," says TransCanada spokesman Dodson. "Look at the people arrested in Nacogdoches. One of them was from Texas, and he wasn't even from that area."
Of course, neither is Dodson's company.
Nevertheless, many of the protesters weren't Texans. That's one way to look at them. Another is to see them as a generation bequeathed a warming planet. NASA says the North Pole has lost sea ice roughly equivalent to the size of the United States. Arctic permafrost, which contains vast stores of carbon dioxide and methane — potent greenhouse gases — is beginning to thaw. The United Nations Environment Programme warns the window in which to prevent global temperatures from reaching a crisis point is quickly closing. It is simply unlucky that Canada is unlocking one of the largest stores of carbon in the world as the climate is balanced on a knife edge.
Yet the protesters can't stop development of the Canadian oil sands any more than they can stop a pipeline through a state that owes its relative prosperity to minerals. Enbridge, the Canadian pipeline corporation responsible for the Kalamazoo River spill, is reversing the flow of 36-year-old pipeline that will carry crude and diluted bitumen from Cushing, Oklahoma, to the Gulf Coast. Even without the Keystone XL, it will find its way through Texas.
Asian investors have funneled tens of billions of dollars into oil sands development. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently approved China National Offshore Oil Corp.'s $15 billion bid to purchase Calgary-based oil sands producer Nexen. Harper says it was necessary to increase the pace of oil sands development and to diversify Canada's exports away from the slower-growing U.S. market. With or without us, Canada's oil sands will flow.
As law enforcement brought young people down from the trees, I spotted a local man whom I'd noticed at the last protest site. His name was Chris Myers, 36, from nearby Wells. He works for a phone company. He wasn't a part of the protest, but he was curious. "I've heard different things about what's going on here," he said. He'd heard the Keystone XL would reduce our dependency on Middle Eastern oil. He heard it would bring jobs, which this area badly needs. But that's just what he's been told, he added. Myers turned toward the Angelina River, a few hundred feet away from the pipeline right of way. "I should research it more," he said. "I didn't see that. It's a big strip of land close to the river. That is concerning."
If Myers ended up doing any research, he might have learned that in October the National Energy Board, the Canadian government's regulatory watchdog, sent the company a strongly worded letter. A whistle-blower had come forward, complaining that the company was putting budgetary and scheduling considerations above quality. An initial investigation by the NEB bore this out. The agency announced a sweeping audit of TransCanada's pipelines, including the Canadian portion of Keystone I.
The protesters were loading up and heading out at the end of a long day spent battling with a $7 billion pipeline, bound for skirmish points farther on down the line. I walked over to the pipeline right of way. Four hundred yards distant, a backhoe was starting up. The construction company had a schedule to keep. Before long, the backhoe was an indistinct shape moving in a dust cloud.
not like the USA doesn't have VAST amounts of OUR OWN CRUDE under public land and offshore to develop and provide for our OWN petroleum products without needing to process Canadian stuff or South American stuff....but NO, the EPA and lib obamabots and the treehuggers are too stupid for solutions...they just want to live on borrowed debt money and smoke dope.
the Hispanics that are moving into and going to dominate all East Texas Love pepper spray...put it on their food...the hippy wannabe protestors are nannyboys.
how sad the gov. of Texas has no soul, our beloved state soon will be a dump ground for oil waste, and the conservative base sees nothing wrong with poisoning the water, then the food supply chain, and soon enough they will blame anyone for allowing them, to poison their own families? with the toxins from the project the conservatives sponsor, and our governor or his cronies, stand to make a fortune, just for making a few thousand of their very own constituents children mentally retarded, or physically handicapped, or dying, or all the above! shame on the republicans as long as they get paid they care not for any living thing themselves included.
@cesar39nt our "beloved state" has had lead smelters, oil wells and slag pits, chemical waste dumps, an army arsenal in Red River filled with unbelievable trash as well as Karnack chemicals, and a Gulf Coast that brought permanent tar balls to the beaches....and the locals infected the water supplies for years with Flourides.
give me a break with the Pristean beloved state of Texas...you live in some kind of la la land.
ELEVEN PEOPLE ARE DEAD that “lived” near the tarsand Michigan Kalamazoo spill from one mobile home park....
Here is a video of some of the affected residents..
@pak152 Where have you been? We have been expecting you to show up ever since we lambasted Trinity East at the CPC hearing on December 20. Cat get your tongue?
Right, because East Texas isn't the birthplace of the modern U.S. oil industry and doesn't have a speck of petroleum product in any of its pristine, like-mountain-water-quality water! East Texans are the soul of Conservatism, representing the intellect and grace for which Conservatives and Libertarians have become famous; that's why they were targeted with this *monstrosity*!
I lived in Longview for 5 years, with regular trips to Henderson, Kilgore, Gilmer and Marshall. I began filtering my drinking water for the first time in my life while I lived there, because I suspected that some brain-eating something in the water must explain East Texan behavior. When I expressed my suspicion to an industrial water quality worker, I was surprised that he only nodded his head and said, "It's benzine." Incidentally, the only pure water in Longview (and much of East Texas) is sucked up for use by Texas Eastman for use in chemical manufacturing; they couldn't use the Sabine River water, because it's too polluted! That's the water East Texans drink!
I was so glad when I finally moved out of East Texas!
Another great mess rented Perry has gotten us into,,,disgusting and smelly crap,,,hope it all lands inside his drinking water and as he is washing his corrupt body,,may it stick to his horrible hair. GREED, and more GREED, thats what its all about.
What a great article about this horrible pipeline filled with toxic diluted bitumen, deceit and corruption. Thank you so much for spreading the truth. Our public officials should be so ashamed of themselves !!!!
You would think there would be a much bigger stink about this pipeline. A foreign country forcing its way across the most conservative part of Texas, tearing up the land and major potential for very toxic spillage. Conservatives are so easily bought and sold. Just wait until the first major spill, there be much hand wringing and kiss your drinking water goodbye.
@sidewalkastro It's like the disconnect between the attitude of the crowd who says "don't touch our guns" and who also say "wire tapping American citizens without a warrant in the name of fighting (non-white) terrorists is fine". Such hypocrisy.
"TransCanada had "34 eminent domain actions against landowners in Texas"" Nice job, Koch bros.
@sidewalkastro I would think true conservatives would be up in arms against this simply because of the "exemption in state law that allows for-profit enterprises to condemn private land if they cannot reach a deal with the landowner," as Brantley put it.
Around here, we call them the Land Rapists. You ought to see what they have done to some of the most beautiful parts of Texas, and they shit on the property owners to boot.
@PerryMoore most of the property owners are dumb as bricks anyway, and fouled up their own land already....anywhere that hosts the world MUD races is too stupid to need education nor housing.
@rusknative LOL - Spoken like a true idiot. So you now know most of the property owners in East Texas. What an ass.
The right of way/easement thing is a travesty.
This will not lower gas prices one iota. You've been fed a load of crap, and cut your own throat for pennies. Even if it did, this isn't worth it no matter what.
"Cherokee County Sheriff's deputies wearing straw cowboy hat".....you gotta love the deep south! Betcha none of them "be's" fat either-right?
@kergo1spaceship Please show some respect for the straw-hatted Barney Fife and the rotund Sgt. Schultz.
Find everything you're looking for in your city
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Check out the hottest list of places and things to do around your city | <urn:uuid:170dc5a6-af8c-4453-a7a8-c1b16945c998> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasobserver.com/2013-01-03/news/there-will-be-tar-sand/6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967776 | 2,401 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Otello, ossia Il Moro di Venezia
Dramma per musica in Three Acts by Francesco Berio di Salsa
Distributed for Fondazione Rossini
The first of eight serious operas newly-written for the Teatro San Carlo of Naples, Otello reveals Rossini as a composer deeply concerned with both character development and large-scale musical forms. Desdemona's "Willow Song" is a fine example: here not only is variation technique used for dramatic ends, but the song itself forms part of a larger scheme that encompasses the entire third act as a single, unified piece.
Far more than a mere forerunner to Verdi, Rossini's Otello deserves to be known for its own innovative qualities. | <urn:uuid:70d064bd-3f41-42a1-8f7f-acfdda5ed468> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/O/bo3628977.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 | 0.93033 | 160 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Leading up to this Easter weekend, my mind had been wondering around Easter bunnies, which got me thinking about our Rock Hyrax commonly known as the “Dassie” or Rock Rabbit. The fascinating thing about them though is that although they may look a little like rabbits, they are…..can you believe it…… related to elephants!!
I came upon this interesting fact while doing some research on our beloved “Dassie” which can, almost without fail, be found lazing in the sunshine on the…Continue
Added by Cynthia Simpson on April 2, 2013 at 12:52pm — No Comments
If you have never been to South Africa, and you were wondering what kind of floral kingdom it would have, perhaps, because you think of it as being hot and sunny, you assume that it’s pretty desert like and quite scarce in the flower department; well nothing could be further from the truth.
10% of the world’s flowering species are found in South Africa with the Cape Floristic Kingdom being one of the world’s six plant kingdoms. The others are the Antarctic, Australasian, Boreal,…Continue
Added by Cynthia Simpson on April 13, 2012 at 12:19pm — No Comments | <urn:uuid:75de8563-8a02-426b-9acd-27fd08ad05a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.travelbloggersunite.com/profiles/blog/list?tag=Table | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968537 | 259 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene conducts inspections of restaurants, tattoo parlors, beauty salons and other businesses to ensure compliance with the City Health Code. Businesses cited for inspection violations may be called before the Department’s Administrative Tribunal and may be fined. In audit 2007-N-10, we examined the Department’s controls over the fine revenue and found that the controls were generally adequate. However, fees were not always assessed as required for late payments and additional actions needed to be taken when the fines were not paid. When we followed up on these matters, we found DOHMH implemented all of the recommendations we made in the initial report.For a complete copy of Report 2009-F-32 click here. | <urn:uuid:0137ee75-6464-4051-bbdb-967351d1d3d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://osc.state.ny.us/audits/allaudits/093010/09f32.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95472 | 152 | 1.5 | 2 |
Belgrade Jazz Festival 2005
Jazz really sounds great after 15 years of abstinence. It sounds too unbelievable, but sadly it is true. It's been 15 years since the last jazz festival in Belgrade has been held, until it was revived last year. During the Milosevic era (who passed away during the writing of this article) the last thing that his regime needed and wanted to sustain and finance was a jazz festival or any semblance of meaningful popular culture. Instead a cancer-like music and culture was produced and supported, which totally screwed up what was built culturally up to that moment.
Not many people know this, but jazz is deeply rooted in the cultures of the Balkans region. It began with dixieland bands and jazz fans' societies in the beginning of the century and it grew from there. During the last century cities like Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Skopje, and these days including Sarajevo, developed strong and popular jazz festivals. Those festivals have provided unforgettable moments that people still talk about and hang on to as something special. Not many people (as told by saxophonist Gary Bartz the previous summer) know this, but Miles Davis played his electronic music live outside of the US for the very first time on the first issue of this festival in Belgrade. Of course, the audience booed him, but to Bartz's astonishment no one left the concert before the performance was over. There are plenty occurrences such as these that make good foundation for legends and myths like Metheny's performance just two days before the dissolution of former Yugoslavia (which made him the last musician to ever play there).
The festival in Belgrade was founded in 1971 as "The Newport Jazz Festival" and the second year it was promoted into "The Newport Belgrade Jazz festival, and eventually it was named "The Belgrade Jazz Festival" in 1974. Even though the jazz musicians association began organizing concerts in the 50's, it wasn't until 1971 when it was promoted into an international jazz festival. And the musicians who have played there are the same artists that people these days talk about in awe. In order to remind people about the golden days of the jazz festival and its tradition, the festival began with an impressive exhibition of posters, newspaper articles and photographies of people like Duke Ellington, Miles Davis with Keith Jarrett, Dave Liebman, Freddie Hubbard, Thelonious Monk, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, Sonny Rollins, Stan Getz, Charles Mingus, BB King, Ray Charles, Sarah Vaughn, Bill Evans, Muddy Waters, Chick Corea, Buddy Rich, Pat Metheny and many, many more.
The festival was divided into several parts opening with Charlie Haden's Liberation orchestra and Billy Cobham's World Party. They were part of the festival's special program and their performance took place at the Sava Centar, a prestigious concert hall. These two acts gave different performances when compared together. Charlie Haden's Liberation Orchestra was very quiet; theirs was an intimate performance sounding like chamber orchestra that was influenced by jazz rather than vice versa. Interestingly, they set Charlie on a raised platform behind the other playersquite an unique arrangement. The band played a repertoire of covers, like a reggae version of Metheny's "This is Not America, Coleman's "Skies Of America, "America The Beautiful, Frisell's "Throughout, Samuel Barber's "Adagio. But, the real star was Carla Bley, who has arranged the numbers alongside writing several of them, and contributed typically brilliant piano work. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable and pleasant. Haden began reminiscing about playing in Belgrade with Ornette Coleman some 30 years ago. Even backstage, he was in high spirits and in the mood for discussing his music and history.
Billy Cobham's performance was more upbeat and dynamic, and naturally, it was a more groove oriented music. The band played with vibrant energy guided by the delicate and precise licks provided by Cobham. Even though he has a reputation of having a thundering blast on the drums, he nevertheless showed he is capable of playing subtle, funky grooves on one hand and awe inspiring solo improvisations on the other.
But Dom Omladine was the place where all major events took place ( and they are the formal organizers of the festival since the 70's). The program at the Dom Omladine was divided in 2 parts with performances at the main hall and performances by Balkan jazz artists that took place at the facility's club upstairs.
The first night was opened by Al Foster, who played his set with an enormous grin on his face. Joined by Doug Weiss on bass, Kevin Hayes on piano and Eli Degibri on saxophone, the band went through a couple of standards, like Hancock's Cantaloupe Island, he dedicated a tune of his to Miles. He even played a tune that he played on when it was recorded in mid 60s by a young and promising pianist named Chick Corea. What began as a shaky and unsteady performance, soon turned into something nice and good. | <urn:uuid:f5b6764b-0def-4bd2-986e-80dde1c81bcd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=21182&pg=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981315 | 1,049 | 1.625 | 2 |
The image of Justice blindfolded, holding her scales, is familiar from courthouses all over the United States and the world. Sadly, in its Thursday ruling in the case of PLIVA v Mensing, the U.S. Supreme Court made a decision that makes one wonder if that blindfold made the court unable to see the right thing to do.
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The court ruled in a 5 to 4 decision that companies that make generic drugs, which account for close to 75 percent of all drugs dispensed in America, cannot be sued under state laws for not disclosing all the risks they know about the drugs they make.
Federal law says that generic drug makers have to use the exact same warning labels as name-brand drugs. Some state laws require changes or updates as new information about drug risks are discovered. That happens because generics come into use many years after name-brand drugs have been available, or because generic drug makers get more information from doctors and patients about risk since so many more people take the generic versions. The court said they did not care what the generic manufacturer might know. State law has to yield to federal requirements and federal law says the warning labels must be exactly the same, new knowledge or not.Story: Generic drug makers not liable for failing to list side effects
This makes no sense at all. The intent of the federal law was to make sure that generic drug manufacturers did not get cute with their labels and “forget” to mention risks known from the name-brand versions of the same drug. It was not to hide new knowledge about risk from you and me.
This is one lousy decision. Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote for the majority said as much. He acknowledged that drawing a distinction about disclosing safety data between name-brand and generic versions of the same drug surely “makes little sense” to those who might get hurt as a result. Still, even in the face of common sense, he and the majority decided to put on their blindfolds and adhere to a pedantic interpretation of the relationship between federal and state law rather than protecting your health and mine. This might get a round of applause in business circles, but it stinks as public policy.
This horrid decision shouldn’t be the final word on setting the duties of manufacturers to warn those taking drugs about the latest and best information they have about risk. Congress should move quickly to amend federal law to make it clear that when it comes to disclosing risks, it should not matter who makes a drug.Story: Heiress's nurse inherits $30 million — but should she?
The only thing that should matter is disclosing known risks about drugs on labels, websites and in communications to doctors. To do otherwise is to leave Justice blindfolded, unable to comprehend how the highest court in the land could not see clearly the need to protect consumers from harm.
Arthur Caplan, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
© 2013 NBCNews.com Reprints | <urn:uuid:52324c56-bc81-4d50-9f0c-344b6262f840> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcnews.com/id/43526608/ns/health-health_care/t/court-was-wrong-give-generic-drugs-pass-side-effect-warnings/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95392 | 780 | 1.757813 | 2 |
On December 26, 2012, a new Facebook page was created, called “Real Democracy.” The basic idea behind it is that Israelis “give up” their vote in the upcoming elections to any of the millions of Palestinians under Israeli rule who have no right to vote. It’s all done on Facebook. The Israeli posts a status saying he/she’s willing to do it, the Palestinian tells him/her who to vote for.
The group behind the page consists of Israeli, Palestinian and international activists. Some of them took part in a similar campaign called “Give your vote” in the 2010 elections in England. In that campaign, thousands of Englishmen gave their votes to people in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Ghana “who are directly affected by UK policies.” According to one activist from the group, the idea is to show the “lack of democracy” not only on the local level in Israel/Palestine, but also on the international level, particularly the UN, which “allows the United States to enable the occupation.”
Though the Israeli bourgeois elections reflect over white-supremacy and racial dominance—it’s quite interesting to note that are there several changes taken in the 2013 elections:
1) The Israeli-Arab parties are officially recognized and are allowed to participate in the upcoming elections. On Al-Arabiya, Israelis court overturned the previous ban on Haneen Zoabi, a Palestinian Arab politician—representative of Arab leftist party, Bal’ad. [x]
2) To see that majority Israelis oppose the current right-wing imperialist government is a successful act towards a defeat of imperialism and a step forward to form a leftist coalition. Our goal is to see a Jewish-Arab working class union to defeat the Israeli chauvinist regime and the capitalists—who have further oppressed the working class with neoliberal policies.
However, it’s important to note the demographics of the Israeli elections. The majority representatives of the Knesset are right-wing nationalists. The leftist coalition, who stands for Arab equality and Palestinian rights consist less than 10%, according to +972.mag.
As of now, the Likud-Beiteinu has faced an opposition—who are also right-wing chauvinists who take no interest for Palestinian equality or for the non-Jewish Arab/Jewish working class. If the leftist parties form a united front to represent the Knesset, it might create a change within the Israeli government and further alleviate the right-wingers and imperialists. It’s important for a Jewish-Arab working class unity to defeat the capitalist pigs and the elections might reflect such acts.
The suggestion given here is to form an entryist organization—but not a popular front, which will disturb the fundamental issue of the conflict.
To read more about the Israeli elections, click here.
To read my previous post on Wordpress about the Israeli elections, click here.
Courtesy to +972.mag
Airline says it conducts security arrangements according to procedures set by the Israeli government
A Jewish Israeli soldier is demanding an apology from El Al Airlines, claiming he was humiliated by security staff at the Brussels airport because he has an Arab-sounding name. Asaf Abudi flew to Belgium in November to represent Israel in a horseback-riding competition.
After spending five days in Belgium, he arrived at the airport for his return flight to Israel, where he says he was separated from the other passengers and treated rudely, and that some of the contents of his luggage went missing.
The soldier’s father, Avi Abudi, told Haaretz he thinks the airline’s personnel stepped up security for his son, who is Jewish, because of his Arab-sounding last name.
The soldier’s lawyer, Lior Har-Zvi, wrote the airline following the incident stating that his client made it clear to airline personnel that he was an Israel Defense Forces soldier who was in the middle of his compulsory army service, and that he was representing Israel at a horseback-riding competition in Belgium.
Treated like a criminal
“Our client,” the letter said, “was taken by your company’s representative to an isolated area of the Brussels airport, and during the entire time he was held in the isolated area he was prevented from using the restroom, as if he was a dangerous detainee or someone accused of a serious crime.”
The soldier said he was held in an area with two other passengers who were speaking Arabic, and that he was later led onto the plane by security personnel shortly before takeoff.
When he arrived in Israel, he said he discovered that some of his riding gear was missing.
El Al responded that, although it regrets any distress caused to the passenger, it conducts security arrangements according to procedures set by the Israeli government.
It added that any special scrutiny is based on professional criteria and is not meant to offend any particular passenger.
In Abudi’s case, the airline added, procedure required that he be subjected to additional security measures as part of routine security sampling.
Corrections Corporation of America, recently sued over its collaborating with violent gangs, is now partnering with police to conduct “lock down sweeps” in which high schoolers are locked in their classrooms while canine units search their possessions for illegal contraband. Via PR Watch:
An unsettling trend appears to be underway in Arizona: the use of private prison employees in law enforcement operations.
The state has graced national headlines in recent years as the result of its cozy relationship with the for-profit prison industry. Such controversies have included the role of private prison corporations in SB 1070 and similar anti-immigrant legislation disseminated in other states; a 2010 private prison escape that resulted in two murders and a nationwide manhunt; and a failed bid to privatize nearly the entire Arizona prison system.
And now, recent events in the central Arizona town of Casa Grande show the hand of private corrections corporations reaching into the classroom, assisting local law enforcement agencies in drug raids at public schools.
t 9 a.m. on the morning of October 31, 2012, students at Vista Grande High School in Casa Grande were settling in to their daily routine when something unusual occurred.
Vista Grande High School Principal Tim Hamilton ordered the school — with a student population of 1,776 — on “lock down,” kicking off the first “drug sweep” in the school’s four-year history. According to Hamilton, “lock down” is a state in which, “everybody is locked in the room they are in, and nobody leaves — nobody leaves the school, nobody comes into the school.”
“Everybody is locked in, and then they bring the dogs in, and they are teamed with an administrator and go in and out of classrooms. They go to a classroom and they have the kids come out and line up against a wall. The dog goes in and they close the door behind, and then the dog does its thing, and if it gets a hit, it sits on a bag and won’t move.”
While such “drug sweeps” have become a routine matter in many of the nation’s schools, along with the use of metal detectors and zero-tolerance policies, one feature of this raid was unusual. According to Casa Grande Police Department (CGPD) Public Information Officer Thomas Anderson, four “law enforcement agencies” took part in the operation: CGPD (which served as the lead agency and operation coordinator), the Arizona Department of Public Safety, the Gila River Indian Community Police Department, and Corrections Corporation of America (CCA).
We Palestinians don’t talk about fear, we talk about death. Our rockets scare them; their rockets kill us. We have no bomb shelters, we have no sirens, we have nowhere we can take our children and keep them safe. They are scared. We are dying.–
133 Palestinians and 5 Israelis have been killed in the latest round of violence which started on Wednesday after Israeli soldiers shot Palestinian boys while they were playing soccer, one of whom was 13-year-old Hamid Younis Abu Daqqa. At least 27 of the dead were babies and children.
One Israeli strike on Sunday killed 12 Palestinians in the same house: four small children and five women including an 80-year-old all from the same family were among the dead [graphic].
Full image link →
Israeli solider stepping on an innocent Palestinian girl. These are the images the US news doesn’t show.
This is not okay. STOP the war in Gaza. Please reblog, don’t be blinded by the lies.
Israel doesn’t need to do anything to worsen it’s image but this picture is from a street performance
In the late 1940s, U.S. researchers used Guatemalan prisoners, mental patients, and soldiers as laboratory animals, infecting them with syphilis without their knowledge in order to test new treatments for the disease.
The experiments, which came to an end with the development elsewhere of penicillin as a treatment, remained secret until several years ago, when a Wellesley College researcher stumbled upon them while looking into similar cases involving poor African-American men in Tuskegee, Ala.
When news of the experiments came to light in 2010, it sparked an international uproar, claiming headlines and prompting apologies from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. The news also led to a phone call from President Barack Obama to Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, who called the experiments “a crime against humanity.”
On Tuesday, a Harvard Law School panel discussed the case, highlighting options for reparations and warning against thinking that something similar can’t happen again. In fact, one panelist said, new laws in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the subsequent anthrax attacks, and global disease outbreaks like H1N1, which were designed to increase protections against liability for disease researchers, could be used to protect those who engage in experiments similar to those in Tuskegee and Guatemala today.
“While we like to think we’ve learned our lessons from Tuskegee and Guatemala, I’m not sure we have,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor and associate dean at Northeastern University’s School of Law.
In addition to Parmet, the panel included Susan Reverby, the Wellesley College professor who discovered the documents; I. Glenn Cohen, assistant professor of law and director of Harvard Law School’s Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics; Fernando Ribeiro Delgado, clinical instructor at Harvard Law School; and Holly Fernandez Lynch, executive director of the Petrie-Flom Center. The event, which was held in the Wasserstein Building, was sponsored by the center and the Law School’s Human Rights Program.
The experiments occurred at a time when syphilis was taking a large toll in human life and undermining U.S. troops, Reverby said. Though the Tuskegee and Guatemala experiments were similar, there was a key difference, Reverby said. In the Tuskegee experiments, researchers withheld treatment but never infected anyone. In those cases, which ran from the 1930s until 1972, African-American men who had the disease were followed to track its course.
In the Guatemalan experiments, however, researchers paid prostitutes who already had syphilis to have sex with the study subjects. The subjects never consented to being infected with the disease and, though some were treated afterward, it is unclear if all were.
Among the thousands of pages of documents and photographs detailing the experiments, there was evidence that the researchers knew what they were doing and knew that it was wrong, Reverby said. The question about how to remedy the situation remains open, panelists said.
In the wake of the revelations, the U.S. government conducted an investigation and took some steps toward making the situation right. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health pledged funding for programs to fight sexually transmitted diseases in Guatemala, but little was done to compensate the victims, panelists said. In fact, a class action lawsuit on the Guatemalan victims’ behalf was dismissed, largely because there are high hurdles for individuals in other countries to sue the U.S. government, even for American actions in their country.
Still, the panelists said, there are other potential avenues, including congressional approval of a settlement, according to Cohen. Other possible avenues include pursuing remedies through the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights or other international bodies.
Wow. Just wow.
The Republican critics of Mitt Romney have had enough of their party’s failed presidential nominee. After Romney told donors his loss was due to “gifts” Obama and Democrats bestowed on women and minorities, Republicans are essentially coming together in a collective “go away, Mitt.”
thank you for the reaction image mitt | <urn:uuid:8aac6760-a73f-4d91-ab43-06655efb1870> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://windupbirdchronicle.tumblr.com/tagged/news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967318 | 2,724 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Dear Ms. Gomez:
You have asked if a county can form its own federal credit union (FCU) and if it can use public
funds to do so. An FCU is a nonprofit, cooperative financial institution owned by its members and,
therefore, a county government cannot “own” an FCU, but a county government, depending on an FCU’s field of membership, could join an FCU and could be a sponsor, assisting in an FCU’s organization and operation. NCUA does not specifically regulate the funding sources of credit union sponsors.
Under the FCU Act, any seven or more natural persons can apply to form an FCU. 12 U.S.C. §1753.
An application must propose a field of membership (FOM), which is a description of who will be
eligible to join the credit union as members; for example, an FOM may be employees of a particular
employer, members of an association, or persons living in a specified community, such as a single
county. 12 U.S.C. §1759(b). Many FCUs have FOMs that are made up of or include federal, state, and local government employees. A sponsoring entity, for example, an employer, may provide assistance in organizing a new credit union in many ways, for example, providing funds, staff, or office space. Once NCUA charters an FCU, it becomes a “body corporate, . . . subject to the limitations, . . . vested with all of the powers and charged with all of the liabilities conferred and imposed by” the FCU Act. 12 U.S.C. §1754.
Part of the impetus for your inquiry is the county’s concern about the fees and commissions charged
against its interest income on funds deposited at financial institutions. We note FCUs are headed
by a volunteer board of directors, elected by the members, and are democratically controlled, with
each member having one vote in the election of directors, regardless of the amount a member has in
FCU accounts. FCUs generally provide members with attractive savings rates and lower fees than many for-profit financial institutions.
An FCU is a legal entity separate from any sponsor or any organization whose members or employees constitute the FCU’s membership. See, e.g., OGC Ops. 94-0118 (Jan. 24, 1994) and 91-0428 (May 7, 1991) (legal opinions available on NCUA’s website). A sponsor is not legally responsible for the actions of the FCU or its officers, and an FCU is not responsible for any actions of the sponsor. Id.
With the exception of concerns about financial viability and safety and soundness concerns
potentially involved with any new charter, the FCU Act and NCUA’s regulations, policies, and
procedures do not address or control the funding sources FCU sponsors may use. We defer to your
offer as to whether there are any state or local laws that would limit a county’s use of its funds
to assist in the formation of an FCU.
If you have any further questions, please contact Staff Attorney Regina Metz or me. | <urn:uuid:ad117fac-d32d-4c98-a90e-13811b8e165e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncua.gov/Legal/Pages/OL2009-1205.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939762 | 679 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Fear of communism forced a lonely, parentless Alois Klement of 3025 Hobson St., Whitehall Township, to flee Europe nearly 70 years ago and make a vow to God that remains unbroken through his work with his church and 50 years of Scouting.
"I left my hometown of Gussing in Burgenland, just west of the Austria-Hungary border, in Europe in 1920 and went to Vienna, Austria," Klement says.
He was a young man. A stranger in a strange land.
"I didn't see any future at home for me. I was afraid of communism. At that time it was very strong. I'm not going to serve in an army with something like that," says Klement, who celebrates his 88th birthday today.
Signs of the youthful-looking Klement's faith in God appear throughout his home. There's a house-blessing prayer over a kitchen doorway, a painting of the Last Supper, pictures of Christ and other holy representations.
His thoughts and philosophy reflect his religious beliefs, too.
"I still attend Mass Sundays and holy days," Klement says.
"I keep that promise I made to God. I said, 'Help me and I'll be a real good boy.' I never broke that promise."
Klement made the promise to God while he was trying to get out of Europe. He was 18.
His mother, Theresa, died while giving birth to one of 11 children in the family in 1904. Klement was 2 then. He says his father, Ignatius, became heartbroken and died in 1906 when Klement was 4.
What brought Alois Klement to Christ and Scouting was his three-week stay in Vienna.
He was having trouble leaving Vienna because his "papers" weren't in order. His parents were dead, and he started by lying.
"I couldn't go on lying," he remembers. "I told the truth."
He went to the American counsel and talked with the official agent in Vienna. They advised Klement that if he tried to go, he might be caught in Hamburg, Germany, or Ellis Island, N.Y., and would probably be sent back to a prison in Budapest, Hungary.
"I was heartbroken, down," he says while sitting at the kitchen table in his home.
Klement recalls that he was "praying and praying day after day."
He says he returned to the American counsel and was told the agency would like to help him. He was asked to become an Austrian citizen. That process took a week.
"From there on I was a free man. I think that prayer helped a lot," he says.
When Klement arrived in the United States, he moved to the Stiles area of the township. He lived with his brother John for a while. John, 91, resides nearby. A sister, Rose Anthony, 93, resides in Coplay.
Klement worked in the cement industry, retiring in 1967.
"I always kept up my faith and religion well. My brother reminded me of Mass on Sundays. Holy days are holy days," Klement says.
"When I came here, I became familiar with the church and Scouting. I thought the best thing I could do, after what happened to me, would be to work through the church and Scouting. If it hadn't been for those two men who helped me in Vienna. . . . I thanked the good Lord for that help."
Klement was raised by his grandfather and his sister until he left Europe. That's how he developed a liking for older people.
Klement is able to move about well. He speaks with an accent that in no way detracts from his ability to recall the past. His memory is sharp. He has moderately long silvery hair and alert eyes that flash behind dark-rimmed glasses.
He is well aware of things that are happening politically and economically in the United States and throughout Europe.
One of Klement's observations is, "Character and discipline are lacking in people throughout the world."
"What can one man do?" Klement asks rhetorically.
"Well, perhaps not much in a big way, but in a small way one man can accomplish am awful lot."
Klement is a member and Scouting coordinator of Boy Scout Troop 79 of St. John the Baptist Church, Stiles. The troop recently began its yearlong 50th- anniversary celebration. He has served the troop in various posts.
He served as scoutmaster in 1961, 1963 and 1972. His son Louis headed the troop 1975-78.
Frank Csencsits was the troop's first scoutmaster, when it had 11 boys. Alois Klement headed the troop in its 25th year with 13 boys. Scoutmaster Gustav L. Sauerzopf now heads the troop.
In 1950 the troop's enrollment reached a high of 34. Throughout its 50 years the troop has had about 300 boys and leaders affiliated with it. Three of its members attained the rank of Eagle.
"I saw practically everything in Scouting," Alois Klement says. "Keeping a troop together today is a difficult task. The kids have so much to do like baseball and basketball practice. The interest in Scouting is low.
"You can't keep 12-15-year-old boys still; they want to move around."
At a recent anniversary dinner, state Rep. Paul McHale, D-133rd District, presented a citation from the state House, congratulating Troop 79 on its 50 years and singling out Klement for his 50 years of service. | <urn:uuid:a73e36e5-cb51-4932-af0a-a21d3b6d2557> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.mcall.com/1988-11-17/news/2663420_1_holy-days-vienna-american-counsel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98843 | 1,161 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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Russia starts production of new ballistic missiles
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has begun producing a new generation intercontinental missile, a senior government official said on Monday, after a successful test launch.
Russia's military hailed Friday's test of the Bulava, a submarine-launched ballistic missile that can carry nuclear warheads to targets more than 8,000 km (5,000 miles) away, after a host of mishaps that had raised doubts about its future.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who oversees defense issues within the government, said another test launch would take place this year and that defense enterprises had already started large scale production of the weapon.
"By the end of the year another test of Bulava is planned," Ivanov told a cabinet meeting, state RIA news agency reported.
"At the same time our defense enterprises have started mass production," he said.
The 12-meter Bulava, which means "mace" in Russian and whose design is based on the Topol-M missile, was supposed to complete testing two years ago. But at least several public test launch failures had raised concerns inside the navy about the weapon.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has said the Bulava missile can penetrate anti-missile shields such as the one the United States plans to deploy in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Russia has made much of a host of "new" missiles it plans to produce in response to U.S. plans to build an anti-missile system in Europe.
But many have been in development for years and are based on older Soviet designs, according to defense analysts.
The Bulava, which is known in NATO as the SS-NX-30, is a submarine version of the Topol-M which was begun in the 1980s but redesigned just after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Colonel-General Nikolai Solovtsov, Commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, said last week Russia had intensified efforts to develop new ballistic missiles.
He said the first of a new generation of Russian RS-24 intercontinental ballistic missiles would enter service in December 2009. On Monday, Solovtsov said Russia was developing weapons to counter U.S. plans to use space weapons as part of an anti-missile shield.
Russia's Dmitry Donskoy nuclear submarine test fired the Bulava on Friday from the White Sea. It hit the Kura testing site testing site on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific and the exercise was a success, the navy said.
Russia's RIA news agency quoted an unidentified Defense Ministry source as saying on Friday it was the most successful test of the Bulava to date.
The previous test of the Bulava on September 18 was pronounced a success by the navy though some media said it had not been perfect.
(Editing by Angus MacSwan)
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- Digg this | <urn:uuid:0f14d14e-08fd-4de2-946c-964383e59c85> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/01/us-russia-missile-idUSTRE4B03QA20081201 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966986 | 675 | 1.664063 | 2 |
A disease deriving from persons of West Virginia descent. The symptons include slurred speech, having intercourse with ones own family members, and the inability to function without liquor in their body. Major signs of progression of the disease include annoying everyone with tales of childhood in poverty and inability to function normally in society. If the diseased person or persons starts to hump everything in sight, the only medical recourse is to shoot them in the fuckin head and move on with your life, the disease has progressed too far.
Hey, did you hear about Scott? He had a major episode of WVD last night and impregnated his mom, now he is going to be his sons father, brother AND grandfather. He's celebrating by drinking himself into oblivion.
1. a person who has so much sex that likely and/or to common belief of people is carrying one or more VDs
2. a person who has a VD, possibly more, named after him or her
3. a person that has massive amounts of sex without thinking or knowing with who
4. a slut, whore, trollop etc.
5. celebrity that is widely known as a slut
note- for derogatory use only, not to actually describe people you know to have a VD, if the celebrity has one that is up to your own preference
1. So and so is a WVD. (general person you know)
2. I don't want to be a WVD like so and so.
3. Look it is little Miss. WVD.
4. (Celebrities name) is such a WVD, and the last thing we need is another Tila Tequila or Paris Hilton. | <urn:uuid:00b41149-b998-4be3-83a0-a9ea2c099c81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=wvd&defid=2034516 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971866 | 348 | 1.625 | 2 |
- Language Tips
Chinese version of Cats feature abundant Beijing elements like bird cages in the stage design. Provided to China Daily
Cats, an award-winning musical by British composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, will soon captivate Beijing audience with a Chinese version.
After its premiere in Shanghai in August 2012, the musical has toured cities including Guangzhou and Chongqing and will celebrate its 100th show in Beijing.
According to British director Jo-Anne Robinson and music director Fiz Shapur, who worked on the musical for more than 30 years, the biggest challenges are the translation and localization.
The second longest-running show in Broadway history, Cats has been translated into more than 20 languages including Korean, German and French.
The musical has performed in China twice since 2004 - both times in English.
"The Chinese version is more than the original by combining dialects, actions and local culture," Robinson says. "Changes have been made. For example, like the population of China, we have more cats in the show than others."
To cater to local taste, the show has added a Chinese cat that performs kung fu and wears traditional silk costumes. The dancers will also be performing acrobatics.
In terms of stage design, the director has incorporated Beijing elements, such as bird cages, tanghulu (sugarcoated haws on a stick) and Peking duck.
Some songs will be sung in Beijing dialect. The lyrics of Jellicle Song for Jellicle Cats, based on T. S. Eliot's poem, has been translated by Xue Fan into Chinese four-character idioms. The result is simple and catchy.
Lu Yun, the chief designer of the musical, says all the costumes have been designed and made by teachers and students from Central Academy of Fine Arts. The costumes use Chinese elements from silk to calligraphic images and the color red, a symbolic color.
Thought has also been given to the makeup to ensure it suits Chinese actors. "Every actor has a unique makeup according to his or her face and costumes," Lu says.
Cats is not the first Broadway musical to be translated into Chinese. In 2011, Mamma Mia, a smash hit musical based on the songs of ABBA, performed before an appreciative audience in Mandarin.
According to the Chinese director of the musical, Liu Chun, the experience of bringing in Mamma Mia paved the way for Cats, including finding the right actors, technicians, stage crew and musicians.
Liu Yang plays the role of Grizabella, or Glamour Cat, and she will perform Memory, arguably the most recognized song of the musical in China.
Ding Zhenying, a graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, who fits the description of Demeter, a skittish female cat, was selected within 30 minutes into the audition.
Organizers say the popularity of Broadway musicals in the Chinese language is growing.
In Guangzhou, Cats sold more than 12 million yuan ($1.94 million) of tickets, which did better than Mamma Mia.
The organizers will continue localizing one hit musical a year, including classics like The Sound of Music and Phantom of the Opera.
(China Daily 12/21/2012 page18) | <urn:uuid:5230cbc6-9649-42ed-a253-35d98d09fe82> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2012-12/21/content_16037708.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945102 | 671 | 1.6875 | 2 |
SOME great stories were told at Wednesday’s launch of Navy in Black and White.
Four of John ‘Prof’ Edward’s mates, who were also part of the first intake of the Fleet Air Arm in 1948, were present.
Ron Hay, Bruce Schmitz, Trevor Bycroft and Les Matterson were all proud to see their mates’ work on display.
“We were all in the initial airman recruit entry in January, February and March 1948,” Mr Schmitz said.
“They sent us, 18-year-olds, to England for two and a half years,” chuckled Mr Matterson.
“I met an Irish girl and brought back a wife,” said Mr Bycroft.
“It’s great to see Prof’s work on display,” Mr Hay said.
“He was a great artist, he was always drawing something.
“I remember when we were back here at Albatross and he applied for art school in 1950.
“They sent out an application form and there was a page split into four squares with a rooster drawn in it and he was required to draw the rooster and return it so the teacher could see where he was up to.
“He sat down and with the paper alongside and drew this rooster with all the details freehand.
“He sent it off and it came back and as there were no lines drawn on it, he must have copied it somehow.
“Prof wrote back and said he had drawn it freehand.
“The reply was if he could do that he didn’t need to go to art school!”
“I remember another time when we were overseas and we had big wooden tool boxes,” Mr Schmitz said.
“Prof got really upset as the instructors would come along and want a tool and would just grab it out of his box and never return it.
“So he painted this most amazing artwork of fingers stuck out from under the wooden lid as if they had been jammed in the box.
“It stopped the tools going missing but he got into a bit of strife for that.” | <urn:uuid:7c8c8f7c-ee15-4b0c-8004-fdfdb6a0cb4f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.southcoastregister.com.au/story/1303662/shipmates-get-together-to-share-some-old-tales/?src=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989326 | 471 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Company presidents are at risk of charges and fines under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This is another example.
A company president, who was also the worker’s supervisor, has been personally fined $10,000.00 in relation to the worker’s death.
According to the Ontario Ministry of Labour’s press release, the worker was replacing a tire on an excavator at a customer’s workplace in Erin. The worker used two jacks to lift the rear of the excavator, with at least one jack on a wooden block. There were no other stands supporting the vehicle. While the worker was under the excavator, it tipped off the jacks, fatally crushing the worker.
Holmes Tire Inc., a commercial tire supplier and the worker’s employer, was also fined $75,000.
Both the employer and the president/supervisor pleaded guilty to failing to ensure that the excavator was securely and solidly blocked to prevent it from moving or falling on the worker. | <urn:uuid:9008c901-d656-4299-96e7-dcf51ad4c211> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.occupationalhealthandsafetylaw.com/company-presidentsupervisor-fined-10000-in-workers-death | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971045 | 209 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Included in the collection are carbon copies of Sheffield's correspondence with John and Elaine Steinbeck through the years
1944-1971. There are also copies of Sheffield's correspondence with Peter Lisca, another friend of Steinbeck. The clippings
Sheffield collected are also included, covering Steinbeck's books, articles, Nobel Prize, exchanges with Communist writers,
tour in Vietnam, and death. Clippings concerning several biographies of Steinbeck and a few related topics (i.e. Steinbeck
Country and Cannery Row, and the "Oakies") are also included. Additionally, Sheffield collected clippings of almost any mention
of Steinbeck in the newspaper, which we have arranged by date.
Carlton Sheffield was a friend and Stanford roommate of the late author, John Steinbeck. He continued his friendship with
Steinbeck after their college years and throughout his writing career through correspondence with Steinbeck and his wife.
Sheffield also amassed a collection of clippings, fliers, and articles both about and by Steinbeck, which constitutes the
source of this collection.
Property rights reside with the repository. Literary rights reside with the creators of the documents or their heirs. To obtain
permission to publish or reproduce, please contact the Public Services Librarian of the Dept. of Special Collections. | <urn:uuid:5ad61a3e-740e-4fd5-aaf3-96a0f7fd825e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf7r29n9kx/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954295 | 274 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Police stand near the scene of a murder in Juarez, Mexico. The country suffers from drug cartel-related violence despite some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world.
The touchy debate over gun control — and specifically a new ban on assault weapons — is moving forward after President Obama said he would bring the issue before Congress in January. The National Rifle Association is expected to break its silence on the issue during a press conference tomorrow
As Peter O'Dowd reports from the Fronteras Desk in Phoenix, whatever policymakers decide — if anything — could affect Mexican drug violence. | <urn:uuid:a853e73c-fe92-4860-b129-9b991e56b7dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scpr.org/programs/take-two/2012/12/20/29776/fronteras-desk-assault-weapons-ban/ | 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 | 0.948668 | 129 | 1.539063 | 2 |
| Feb 05, 2013
No sooner had the plane finished its short ascent that it started to descend, swooping in along the northern coast of Cuba and a little bit to the west of Havana for our landing at José Martí International Airport in the afternoon. We exited the airport and were greeted by Osmin Rivero Soto, our ever-smiling Cuban guide from a state tourism agency who was to accompany us throughout the trip. We boarded the bus and immediately started our adventure and Osmin gave us some important information as we drove into the city, not to our hotel, but to Castillo de Los Tres Reyes del Morro
. Commonly referred to simply as el Morro
, this military fortification, started in the 16th century, is located on the opposite side of the bay from the main city center. There we took in views of Havana extending from Old Havana out west as far as the neighborhood of Miramar, on the far side of the Almendares River.
We piled back in the bus, which was to be navigated throughout the trip by our chofer
Roberto, and made our way to check-in to what would be our home base in Havana, the Hotel Nacional
. Designed by McKim, Mead and White, the Nacional has been one of Havana’s grandest tourist hotels since it opened in 1930. After a quick check-in we reconvened to enjoy a group dinner at one of the near by paladares
—private, family-run restaurants that have been allowed in Cuba since the onset of the economic crisis after the fall of the Soviet Union, referred to as the Special Period. | <urn:uuid:47693ac5-c195-45b2-b441-5a8ad98aa2e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sah.org/conferences-and-programs/study-programs/study-tour-reports/study-tour-blog-detail/study-tour-blog/2013/02/05/cuba-day-1---havana | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97796 | 343 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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6 posts tagged with keyboard and software. (View popular tags)
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(Posting for a friend): I just bought a keyboard, and I would like to learn a little piano-playing. Is there any free or cheap software that can hand-hold me through it? Are there any websites that offer beginning piano lessons?
posted by prefpara
on Sep 29, 2008 -
I would like to learn to play the piano. Is there any PC software out there worthwhile? Also which keyboard would you recommend?
posted by darkmatter
on Jul 17, 2005 - | <urn:uuid:58be537f-a37f-4900-ac45-b33bf2e089cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/keyboard+software | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945531 | 133 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Policy Statement: A Slowdown of Asset Purchases
Until the federal funds rate hit its zero bound, open market operations at the Trading Desk of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York were guided by a target federal funds rate set by the FOMC at its meetings. Since late 2008, however, the Fed has been purchasing a wider scope of assets, and open market operations have been guided by policy directives that specify both the quantity limit and the timing of those purchases. Today, the Fed announced that it would change the timing but not the purchase limits for both mortgage-backed securities and agency debt:
To provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve will purchase a total of $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and up to $200 billion of agency debt. The Committee will gradually slow the pace of these purchases in order to promote a smooth transition in markets and anticipates that they will be executed by the end of the first quarter of 2010.
The change was similar to the one made for Treasury securities at the August meeting. While today’s statement reaffirmed the target pace for reaching the $300 billion limit for those purchases (the end of October), it allowed for flexibility in responding to financial and economic conditions with future changes in both the timing and quantity limits. | <urn:uuid:f337e5c1-5110-4177-8359-5cf51a256b25> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://clevelandfed.org/research/trends/2009/1009/02monpol.cfm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960816 | 273 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Pop Poker: The Odd Couple's Common Thread
In Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple -- first a play, then a film, then made by others into a hit TV show -- poker is of central importance.
Indeed, in the original story, poker seems to be just about the only thing the mismatched title characters have in common.
The stage play was first produced on Broadway in 1965 with Walter Matthau as Oscar and Art Carney as Felix. Simon also wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film adaptation starring Matthau again with Jack Lemmon as Felix.
Then came the popular TV version of The Odd Couple with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall which ran from 1971-1975.
In Simon’s play and film -- nearly identical in most respects, including the cast and much of the dialogue -- the story begins with a weekly poker game in which Oscar and Felix are regular participants along with their friends Vinnie, Speed, Roy, and Murray the Cop.
The game takes place in Oscar’s large New York apartment where all of the play is set, and most of the film.
HARDLY TWO OF A KIND
Oscar Madison, we soon learn, is a recently-divorced sportswriter and especially poor housekeeper.
Simon’s opening stage directions explain how “without the touch and care of a woman these past few months,” Oscar’s apartment has become “a study in slovenliness” with dirty dishes, empty bottles, unopened mail, and other items strewn about.
Roy even complains about the smell coming from a broken refrigerator.
“Temper, temper,” says Oscar in response. “If I wanted nagging, I’d go back with my wife.”
The retort suggests a couple of ideas. One is the association of home-making and cleaning up with women, as the complaint is clearly one Oscar had heard from his ex-wife many times.
The other is the idea that the poker game is no place in which to express such domestic concerns.
The game continues, although all are distracted by the fact that Felix has failed to show. In the play and film, Felix is a news writer, while in the TV show he’s made a photographer. (Also, while his last name is spelled “Ungar” in the play and film -- like Stu -- it is changed to “Unger” on the sitcom.)
A phone call from one player’s wife reveals Felix and his wife have suddenly split after 12 years of marriage, and Felix didn’t show up to work that day. In the film we’ve already seen him dejectedly wandering around New York, even renting a hotel room where he appears to prepare to kill himself though doesn’t follow through.
Meanwhile his poker buddies worry their overly-sensitive friend may in fact be suicidal.
Eventually Felix arrives and soon after the game breaks up, leaving Oscar to try to cheer up his friend. Each subsequently lists to the other his own faults, citing them as causes for their respective marriages having failed.
“I’m a compulsive cleaner,” confesses Felix, adding that his obsessive nature regarding home-making and bookkeeping likely drove his wife away. Meanwhile Oscar describes himself as inconsiderate, sloppy, and wasteful with money.
From there they hit on the plan for Felix to move in with Oscar. They’ll save money, Felix can cook and clean, and both can avoid having to endure living alone.
“WHERE'S YOUR COASTER?”
The pair immediately begin to drive each other crazy, with Oscar’s boorish carelessness clashing with Felix and his desire for all to be neat, under control, and orderly.
The rest of the play and film show their arrangement lasting all of three weeks before Oscar throws Felix out, the conflict building over three lengthy scenes -- another poker game, a failed double-date, and finally a no-holds-barred shouting match between the two.
The troubles begin with another meeting of the weekly poker game, once more taking place in Oscar’s now-immaculate apartment. Rather than take hands, Felix spends the entire time cleaning up while serving food and drinks.
At one point he hesitates before delivering a glass of beer to Roy.
“Where’s your coaster?” asks Felix.
“My what?” asks Roy.
“Your coaster, the little round thing that goes under the glass.” Roy looks up.
“I think I bet it,” he says. Oscar notices he has the coaster and tosses it over.
“Here,” he says. “I knew I was winning too much.”
“NATURE DIDN’T INTEND FOR POKER TO BE PLAYED LIKE THAT!”
Soon it becomes apparent that fastidious Felix and his constant cleaning is getting in the way of the men’s weekly gathering.
Given the context and era, it’s hard not to read the scene as showing something “feminine” having crept into what had been a wholly “masculine” sphere.
“In the last three hours we’ve played four minutes of poker,” says Speed, after removing a cigar from his mouth. “I’m not giving up my Friday nights to watch cooking and cleaning.”
“It was better before,” agrees Roy. “With the garbage and the smoke, it was better before.”
Finally Speed gets fed up with Felix and his fussing about crumbs, coasters, and cleanliness.
“I’m going out of my mind!” he yells, then gets up. “I’m going home... the day his marriage busted up was the end of our poker game.”
Soon after Roy begins sniffing.
“What’s that smell... disinfectant?” he asks. He then holds the cards up to his nose and his face quickly droops.
“It’s the cards. He washed the cards.”
That revelation is enough to send Roy away as well.
“I’ve been sitting here breathing cleaning fluid and ammonia for three hours,” he says as he departs. “Nature didn’t intend for poker to be played like that!”
The whole scene furthers the idea that home-making is not “masculine” while poker is, and thus problems inevitably arise when the two are mixed.
Even though one might argue our ideas of gender roles are produced by our culture (i.e., they are learned, not innate), Roy still thinks Felix’s less-than-manly intrusions into their manly game somehow go against “nature.”
“MARRIAGE MAY COME AND GO, BUT THE GAME MUST GO ON”
From there Oscar arranges the double-date for the pair with two sisters from England, Cecily and Gwendolyn Pigeon, who live upstairs in the same apartment building.
The Pigeon sisters begin the date all giggles, but Felix quickly ruins all when he cannot stop talking about his wife and kids.
All smiles before, the sisters -- both of whom had failed marriages, too -- end up crying along with Felix about their pasts.
It’s another scene that marks thin-skinned Felix as somehow less masculine, and certainly different from the hyper-macho Oscar.
The fight between Felix and Oscar follows, ending with Felix getting ejected from the apartment. He ends up staying with the Pigeon sisters, as we learn during a final scene -- yet another meeting of the poker game.
Interestingly, Oscar doesn’t want the game to be played while he worries about Felix, only allowing the game to continue after Felix returns and the pair make amends.
After they make up, Oscar asks Felix if he’ll be coming to the following week’s game.
“What about next Friday night?” asks Oscar. “You’re not gonna break up the poker game, are you?”
“Me? Never. Marriage may come and go, but the game must go on,” explains Felix.
He then adds “So long, Frances,” repeating a funny slip he made before when bidding Oscar goodbye.
The film clearly presents poker as a male ritual, associating it closely with Oscar’s character and personality as the host of the games.
In that final scene, one of the Pigeon sisters apologizes for interrupting the men.
“So sorry to interrupt your bridge game,” she says, not recognizing the game is poker, but also suggesting that poker is something entirely foreign to women.
In the play version, the sisters even tell Felix to “invite your friends to play in our flat.”
“The five men stare dumbfounded at the door without moving,” go the stage directions afterward, underscoring how absurd the idea of moving the poker game into a non-male setting really is.
“IT’S NOT A POKER GAME... IT’S A WAY OF LIFE!”
The later TV series (with which Simon wasn’t involved) borrowed a few elements from the play and film, including remaking some scenes in early episodes.
Much is different, however, including details of the characters’ back stories as well as the fact that Oscar and Felix remain together as roommates for a much lengthier period.
The poker returns, however, in the TV show, as do the same group of poker buddies. In fact, the very first episode reprises the double-date with the Pigeon sisters, with Oscar and Felix this time trying to figure out a way to have their date without interrupting the weekly game.
As Felix points out, the group has been playing “every Thursday night for the four years. The guys lie to their wives, they get babysitters, they sneak out of work early. It’s not a poker game anymore, it’s a way of life!”
In other words, just like in the play and film, poker is still being presented as something that allows men to take refuge away from women.
Only unlike in the earlier versions, Felix in this instance is not interfering with the game, but rather trying to ensure it continues as a needed escape -- a “way of life” for the men who play.
The show would continue to use poker as an occasion to create humorous plots and dramatize differences between Felix and Oscar, although ultimately the game continued to be presented an activity essentially reserved for men.
Twenty years after his original play, Simon would write a new version in 1985 called The Female Odd Couple. It featured a similar story, but this time with two women roommates, Florence and Olive.
As if to emphasize even further the association of poker with men, he had the pair play a different game with their circle of friends.
What game did they play instead?
The answer seems like it might be the sort of thing to come up in the very game itself... Trivial Pursuit.
More Pop Poker posts from Martin Harris:
- Pop Poker: Is Kaleidoscope Among Best Poker Movies?
- Pop Poker: Baseball and Poker in American Culture | <urn:uuid:fa62e565-5774-405a-9a07-21fdf2694b92> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pokerlistings.com/pop-poker-the-odd-couple-s-common-thread-15621 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966686 | 2,435 | 1.5 | 2 |
Media professionals interested in reporting on university-related stories are encouraged to visit the media newsroom.
February 7, 2007
Sharing about how one of nation's largest newspapers covers today's complicated science issues, Laura Chang, science editor for The New York Times, will give a public presentation 4 p.m. Feb. 15 in the ASUN Auditorium of the Jot Travis Student Union.
Her talk, "Making Sense of Science: How the Times steers a course through data overload and competing interests," is free to students, faculty and the public.
Chang assumed her position in September 2004 after six years in the department and three as the deputy science editor. Before that, she held various posts on the national desk, starting as a copy editor in May 1990, moving to the assigning side in 1993 and becoming special projects editor in 1995.
Chang began her career at The Seattle Times in 1985 working as a wire editor and copy editor. She left to join The New York Times in 1990.
Chang is also the editor of "Scientists at Work: Profiles of Today's Groundbreaking Scientists from Science Times." (McGraw-Hill, 2000).
A native of Seattle, Chang received a bachelor of science degree in communications, with an emphasis in psychology, at the University of Washington in 1984. She served as a copy-editing intern that summer at The Tribune in San Diego. | <urn:uuid:1a43816e-663b-4c1b-a3d7-9a3585ce4f29> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/news/2007/science-times-editor-to-talk-on-competing-interests | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945975 | 287 | 1.648438 | 2 |
No Plans to Return Red Light Cameras to Fairfax County
Despite surrounding jurisdictions reaping profits, Fairfax County has no plans to reinstate program discontinued in 2005.
Despite recent news by surrounding jurisdictions reaping profits from red light cameras, Fairfax County currently has no plans to reinstate its program.
The Virginia legislature issued a red light camera law in the 1990s and Fairfax County gained red light cameras at 10 different intersections. The Photo Red Light Monitoring program expired in Fairfax County on June 30, 2005. The state legislation was renewed but new requirements were added. The county would have had to upgrade from film to digital cameras and provide for additional engineering studies.
A recent Washington Post article reported Washington, D.C. made $55.1 million in 2011 from its red light and speed cameras. In Alexandria, the city took in more than $100,000 in the first three months of 2012.
Fairfax County Police Traffic Enforcement Supervisor Bob Otten said the Fairfax program was not generating an income and policies did not allow the county to charge more than $50 per ticket.
“It was a very expensive program to operate but we saw great success and it was not about the money – at $50 a ticket, you’re not getting any money,” Otten said.
Over the life of the program, which ran from 2002 to 2005, the county lost $1,371,425. Revenues from citations began to decrease in the second half of 2003 because signal timing changes were made at the intersections where the cameras were located and drivers became more aware of the presence of the cameras.
“The number of tickets went down and we needed less people to review (the film),” Otten said. “We had police personnel looking at the pictures and, of course, as the numbers (of violations) went down you had a lot of people who weren’t working.”
The program employed seven positions. Film was sent to the camera vendors to be processed but then returned to county personnel to review each photograph and determine if a driver would be cited with a violation. Although those seven positions were eliminated, the employees were relocated to other jobs within the county.
“Out of every 100 times the camera took a picture we were only citing about 50 people because of the amount of protocol we had for the legislation,” Otten said.
There are no known plans to update the cameras across Fairfax County. The decision would be made by the Board of Supervisors. Ultimately, the program was removed due to changes in law and has not been reinstated for fiscal reasons.
“When we had it, it was very successful,” Otten said. “Across the county we had about 45 percent reduction in (violations). Of course, when you have reductions, you’re not making any money.” | <urn:uuid:badafd8b-c798-4783-b897-8b50cbc772cc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lorton.patch.com/articles/no-plans-to-return-red-light-cameras-to-fairfax-county-73669611 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985107 | 587 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Jails opening soon in Tuba City, Crownpoint
By Bill Donovan
Special to the Times
WINDOW ROCK, December 13, 2012
(Special to the Times – Donovan Quintero)
T he Navajo Nation is just three months away from having something it hasn't had in more than five decades - a decent jail system.
Work is on schedule currently to open two new jails, one in Tuba City, Ariz. and another in Crownpoint, N.M.
"This is very exciting," said Delores Greyeyes, director of corrections for the division.
It's been her burden to maintain the tribe's existing jails, all of which have had problems and had to have major renovations at various times during the past decade.
But renovations could only go so far and as the tribe battled problems with overcrowding and a court order edict to keep jail populations at a certain level, efforts to get funding for new jails just didn't seem to go anywhere.
But that changed with the recent downturn in the national economy and the decision by the new president Barack Obama to spend more than $800 billion on stimulus projects to get people back to work.
As a result the tribe received $67 million to build a 132-bed facility at Tuba City. The Bureau of Indian Affairs kicked in some money that is allowing the building a smaller jail in Crownpoint for $48 million.
For a reservation that has seen unemployment rates hang around the 50 percent mark now for more than two decades, the opening of the jails means a lot of new jobs.
Greyeyes is now working with the tribe's office of workforce development to fill those positions, but said Tuesday, that it has been hard to find enough Navajo applicants who have the prerequisite one-year experience as a security.
As a result, she said, some of the people who have been accepted will have to go through extra training provided by the tribe to meet that requirement.
It has helped that the tribe has agreed to up the beginning salary for corrections personnel with the starting pay in the $30,000 range.
"With benefits, you are looking at about $38,000 a year," she said.
What this means, she said, is that while there will be enough approved applicants to open up the facility in Crownpoint this February, the Tuba City facility will have to be opened in phases over the next two years as the personnel is hired and trained.
"Crownpoint has 48 beds and two drunk tanks that can hold 20 persons," she said. "That's manageable."
The grand opening for the Tuba City is now scheduled for Feb. 15 and the one for Crownpoint on March 8.
She expects, barring any minor construction problem or any delays in getting a certificate of occupant by the BIA, that the facilities will be completed by then.
"We don't want to have any construction going on after we open the facilities," she said.
Since the BIA is paying for the construction of the Crownpoint facility, the tribe is looking at the BIA to pay for the cost of maintaining the facility.
There's a question right now, however, about who will pay for maintaining the Tuba City facility and Greyeyes said the tribe is hoping that since it is being built by stimulus money, the BIA will provide the funding for that as well but that's not a sure thing at this time.
If that doesn't happen, Greyeyes said her office will have to find some "creative ways" to come up with those funds.
"I know my staff is very excited about moving into the new facilities," she said, adding that once the new facilities are up and running, the old facilities in those communities will be shut down.
"Morale in our staff will also be up," she said.
While recent efforts have provided enough personnel for the opening of the jails, Greyeyes said her department is still encouraging people to apply.
"We always need more applicants," she said, adding that people can apply to the tribe's personnel department if they want to work for the corrections department. | <urn:uuid:f5530b34-eb65-430d-9240-b89a1b1d9eef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://navajotimes.com/news/2012/1212/121312jai.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98261 | 843 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Sheriff’s measures would bring added security to schools
In light of recent school violence, both at Sandy Hook and across the country, local law enforcement is looking to take a tougher and more proactive stance on protecting the children in their district.
And during a Jan. 10 supervisors’ meeting, Richmond County Sheriff Douglas Bryant laid out a plan that would utilize grant money to ensure that every child comes home to their families safe and unharmed.
“In an effort to enhance the public safety, especially in the area of the schools that we have in the county, I did address the problems that could occur in light of the recent shootings that have gone on,” Bryant said. “I have been coordinating with the Department of Corrections (DOC) and we have entered into a memorandum of understanding. They have a tactical unit that is right here in the county that is highly trained.”
According to Bryant, in a joint cooperative effort, the safety on local students could become a realized priority through a grant that would allow not only much needed tactical defense equipment for his department, but also the ability to see what is going on at local schools in real time.
The first part of the operation would allow coordination between DOC personnel, who have trained often in tactical operations within buildings, including prisons and other governmental facilities, to offer their tactical services to Richmond County in the event of an emergency.
“I think that it is a good idea. They can help us and we can help them,” Bryant said.
In conjunction with the inter-departmental cooperation, newly offered state funds could enhance the efforts.
“We are also looking into a grant. It is a one-time, $35,000 equipment grant that’s become available and has to be done by Jan. 31,” Bryant said. “We are seeking to purchase, upon approval of the grant, the tactical vests that go with the other equipment that we acquired on a previous grant.”
Although the department currently has bulletproof vests, the funds would provide equipment that could safeguard deputies from the impact of high power rifles.
“We are seeking to purchase those and are seeking to coordinate with the school system to purchase software that will give us the capability to view the cameras at the school from the sheriff’s office and, very possibly, from our units in the cars,” Bryant said, adding that the measure would enhance the county’s ability to address emergency situations at area schools.
“You will be able to pull a camera up and see what is going on before you even get there,” Bryant said, noting that a his system could be patched to real-time surveillance cameras at the schools.
“This grant is a 90/10 match. So, if you apply for the whole $35,000 it would be a $3,500 match for the county,” Bryant said, noting that the expenditure would not be in effect until the next fiscal year.
“I am also trying to put into to place one of my part-time deputies,” Bryant said, adding that he had already cleared the idea with Superintendent Dr. Greg Smith. “I want to send him down to the schools every day and have him float from one school to the other school, back and forth. We’ve been trying to go to the schools as much as we can to be seen.”
With the regular daytime staff that Bryant has working court complaints and other criteria that the county addresses, Bryant noted that his part-time pool budget line item, which is currently locked by last year’s hiring freeze, would have to be expanded.
“I have part-time funding in my budget right now that I can do this, but my concern is if that I start doing this every day… probably by late April early May, those funds are going to run out,” Bryant said. “So, I would like to make the board aware of what I want to do. It is proactive. There may come a time where I may have to come back to the board and say that my funds have run out.”
He added that he would like to address the issue further during the upcoming year’s budget proposal.
Bryant said that while the General Assembly may be able to financially help with this situation at a later point, it was too early to expect those funds now. He added that the immediate need outweighs the commonwealth’s legislative timeframes.
“This would give us more visibility in each school, every day, all day,” Bryant said.
Noting that the coordination and cooperation between new school security plans and sheriff’s office is encouraging, Dist. 3 Supervisor John Haynes said he fully approved of Bryant’s initiative.
“I would certainly support this as much as I can,” Haynes said. “I think it is being proactive, staying ahead of the curve with the security situation because as you know [after] some of the events that have happened in the country there is a lot of attention on this.”
Haynes added that with the pursuit of the grant, the timing for this program was ideal.
“I think this is great news and I’d like to encourage this as much as I can,” he said. “I guarantee you’ll have a friendly vote in this corner.”
Haynes’ fellow supervisors also agreed, adding that Bryant’s program would have an immediate beneficial impact on the community.
Bryant expects to begin pursuing the added school security measures immediately. | <urn:uuid:65adea9e-96b8-487e-a149-5e3c52d85196> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northernnecknews.com/?p=7358 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984389 | 1,180 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Fall in UK manufacturing fans triple-dip fears
LONDON (Reuters) - British manufacturing output fell in January at the fastest pace since June, reinforcing fears that the economy has tipped into its third recession since the 2008 financial crisis.
The unexpected decline in manufacturing will put further pressure on Chancellor George Osborne to come up with measures to revive growth in his budget statement next week.
The economy contracted in late 2012, endangering the government's plans to bring its spending in line with its earnings and leading to the loss of the UK's prized triple-A credit rating, and Britain will be back in recession if economic activity shrinks this quarter.
The pound fell to a 2-1/2 year low against the dollar and British government bonds rallied after the weak manufacturing data, which raised expectations for more stimulus from the Bank of England to shore up the economy.
"This is the penultimate nail in the coffin in terms of triple-dip - it's pretty much game over now," said Alan Clarke, economist at Scotiabank.
"Unless we have a stellar performance from the services sector, we're almost certainly in a triple dip."
Manufacturing output dropped 1.5 percent on the month, wiping out December's gain, the Office for National Statistics said, and bucking forecasts it would be flat. The statistics office noted there were few reports of any disruption from snowy weather at the end of January.
The wider reading of industrial output, which includes energy production and mining, fell 1.2 percent, more than erasing December's rise. The poor reading was partly due to a shutdown of a North Sea oil field, called Schiehallion, which typically accounts for 3-6 percent of Britain's oil production.
Weak industrial production was the main drag on Britain's economy in the final three months of 2012, shaving 0.3 percentage point off quarterly growth and contributing to that quarter's fall in GDP.
Another drop in GDP this quarter would put the economy in recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of negative quarterly GDP.
Data on the bigger services sector last week was more encouraging, showing the sector grew in February at its fastest pace in five months, according to a purchasing managers' survey.
However, UK data has been volatile and the manufacturing sector is showing persistent signs of weakness. A survey of purchasing managers revealed an unexpected contraction in the manufacturing sector in February.
Separate ONS data released on Tuesday showed a rare improvement in Britain's trade position.
The goods trade deficit shrank to 8.195 billion pounds in January from 8.738 billion pounds in December, driven by the biggest monthly drop in oil imports since August 2008. (Additional reporting by Li-mei Hoang; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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Russell Meyer is Pastor of Faith Lutheran Church, Lakeland, Florida. He is a member of the ELCA/MCA Liaison Committee, Ecumenical Coordinator for the Florida Bahamas Synod ELCA, board member of the Florida Council of Churches, and Treasurer of the North American Academy of Ecumenists. He is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and Baker University.
When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, … Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first. (Luke 11.24-26)
Your wishes are bad, when you desire that one whom you hate or fear should be in such a condition that you can conquer him. (City of God, IV, 15)
Professor Weigel seeks to dispel darkness from the Church's witness against pre-emptive war. He maintains that the military has kept faith with Just War Theory even as it has faded from the active memory of many church leaders, who have lost the ability to reason morally in international affairs. Not to worry, though, for he holds that political leaders acquire a charism particular to their office to aid them in waging war as a moral category of statecraft.
Weigel's main complaint about the witness against war by many religious leaders is that they have confused the means by which war is fought with the reasons for waging war. In his opinion, the reasons that justify war mandate a pre-emptive policy against terrorism and rogue states. The manner of how war against them is waged is secondary. This position is offered without the slightest sense of irony. The new argument for pre-emptive war arises from the means by which post-modern conflict may be waged with weapons of mass destruction. The reasons why terrorists and rogue states initiate their hostile activities have no place in Weigel's formula. He assumes they are self-evidently evil because their activities do not discriminate properly between combatants and civilians - yet, this is the very concern of many voices against war.
The argument in his paper "Moral Clarity in a Time of War" suffers two kinds of weaknesses. One is internal and the other is external in scope. The internal weakness becomes more acutely felt in the context with the external one, so I begin there.
Just War Theory has its origins in Augustine's City of God. There, the Bishop of Hippo defends Christianity from the accusation that it brought on the weakness leading to Rome's downfall. Augustine's argument on war and peace is masterfully nuanced and beyond a full exploration here. Let it be noted that the Bishop finds Rome's weakness in her being an unjust and immoral empire. As her pagan sage Cicero noted, an institution of injustice cannot survive. Augustine writes, "nothing is so hurtful to a state as injustice; and that without justice a republic can neither be governed, nor even continue to exist." (CG II 21)
For Augustine, the concept of a just war arises with the notion that the ideal international order is a multitude of small kingdoms at peace with one another. "Human affairs being thus more happy, all kingdoms would have been small, rejoicing in neighborly concord; and thus there would have been very many kingdoms of nations in the world, as there are very many houses of citizens in a city." (CG, IV, 15) But belligerents, desiring to be build empires, attempt to lord over their neighbors and therefore need restraint. Thus, notions of just war not only exist to restrain evil but to restrain the aggressive growth of empire building, and perhaps more importantly, recover some sense of balance in size and strength among nations so that the world might approximate the ideal international order.
Now, Augustine's just war theorizing has its place after Constantine has instituted Christianity as the state religion. Indeed, just war thought is an historical product of Christendom. The height of its theory in later proponents such as Aquinas, Vitoria, Niebuhr, and Ramsey underscores how the moral question of war is both a decidedly Christian concern and, until now, a question of particular acuity for nations with large Christian populations. The American military and political establishments may still conceive of the United States as the leading Christian country in a self-sustaining Christendom, but a great many others have noted that the world is now post-Christian--that Christendom itself is past. This point is shockingly clear when one considers that the rogue states and terrorist organizations of today arise from radicalized Islamic populations and atheistic Oriental regimes. Yet this critical difference in contexts repeatedly goes unnoticed in the quick comparisons with Nazi Germany.
If Just War Theory is to shine a guiding light, it must take stock of this basic fact: there no longer is an overarching worldview which can give a common moral foundation. This is not to say that just war thought no longer is applicable. It is to say that the strategies for achieving the goals of just war theory require re-thinking so that the moral framework of the opponents is taken under consideration. When the opponents' moral framework is not calculated in the response to their aggression, the risk is real that the response will appear imperialistic. No amount of denial to the contrary will be convincing to anyone except the theorists of Christendom. Augustine's ideal of international order will remain a mirage.
The internal weakness of the Weigel's argument comes into view from those who seek to take account of the post-Christian world. Moral theology is a reflection upon anthropology in light of the Gospel, a reflection that must first grapple with who and what humanity is coram deo before it addresses any moral imperative. The post-Christendom evangelical anthropology of Rene Girard and others is significantly different from its Thomistic, Kantian, liberal or neo-conservative predecessors. When religious leaders lament that "violence cannot quell violence," it is not that they have forgotten moral theology so that they no longer discriminate between the responsibility of the state and the lawlessness of rogues and terrorists. Rather they are building on the insights of an evangelical anthropology. In the Cross of Christ, God shows the depth of humanity's inhumanity to itself. Jesus' death comes at the hands of legitimate political and religious authority, sanctioned by the people directly. Jesus declares forgiveness to his persecutors, and God forgives humankind by raising him from the dead. Here, the Gospel declares that only forgiveness casts out violence. Equally revealing, Christ's Passion and Resurrection also shows how easily humanity imitates itself in supporting the use of violence to restrain those described as evil, blasphemous or a threat to our own well-being.
We are a social creature whose strength and glory is made possible because of our ability to imitate one another. But the power of sin lies in the corruption of our desires to imitate that which is unholy. A call to arms rallies within a population such deep desires to be so united against a common foe that it loses the ability to be judicious and discriminating toward those it labels as the enemy. What charism political leaders have has historically more to do with rallying the population against a common - a unifying! - enemy. Legitimatizing such a charism encourages political leaders to pursue a kind of national righteousness rather than the sobering analysis of human culture provided by Calvary and the empty tomb.
Much more needs to be said about how our desires become corrupted by imitating those around us rather than following the Spirit of our Lord. The future of Just War Theory will depend upon its appropriation of evangelical anthropology in a post-Christian world. Otherwise, it will simply become a self-rationalizing tool for those with the means and power to attempt to make the world in their own image. Again, without the least sense of irony, Weigel advocates a version of just war that would create an international order that Augustine said "cannot continue to exist."
Copyright © Bethel College
Contact Mennonite Life | <urn:uuid:6270d9ad-c436-4375-b0a9-c5021222b6c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tools.bethelks.edu/mennonitelife/2003June/meyer.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959412 | 1,626 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I also thought of entitling this column, ‘We don’t get no respect!’ Either headline would work. What I am referring to is something that has been in the background of the beverage business for a long time: how consistently negative the coverage of this industry is by the mainstream news media.
Let me prove my point. Here’s a list, off the top of my head, of some of the ongoing news stories related to our industry we see in the headlines each week: Alcohol abuse, the obesity epidemic, energy drinks and teens, carcinogens in sodas, carcinogens in cans, drunken driving, water shortages, fungicide in orange juice, fizzling soda sales. Like I said, that’s just off the top of my head. I know there are plenty of others.
We all work in a business that many of us are quite proud to be associated with, and yet swirling around us every day is this cloud of negativity being constantly pushed by the 24-hour modern-day news cycles. Each day, it seems, there’s some new piece of bad news eating away at our industry—and our sense of pride in what we do.
The latest target of a lot of the media has been Pepsi, really ever since brand Pepsi dropped from being No. 2 to No. 3 behind Coke and Diet Coke. It all makes for dramatically entertaining news, and it sells papers and boosts website visits I’m sure.
Here’s another example from FoxNews.com, from a story titled: “The Surprising Health Benefits of Beer.” “If you’ve got party plans this weekend, don’t be afraid to knock back a cold one,” the story begins. “Beer has several surprising health benefits. Despite beer’s bad reputation, it actually has a number of natural antioxidants and vitamins that can help prevent heart disease and even rebuild muscle. It also has one of the highest energy contents of any food or drink. Of course, this means you need to set limits—one beer gets you going, four makes you fat.” Even this good news is reluctantly spewed forth, couched in warnings and encouragements to move beyond our fears of a beverage that’s been loved by billions since, well, Ancient Egypt!
How did we come to find ourselves the constant butt of jokes, warnings and criticism? Part of the reason I think is that beverages are just so taken for granted by the modern day world, that it’s a dog-bites-man kind of thing. The only thing the news media think is of interest are the sensational or the downright negative. Perhaps if we sold iPads rather than soda pop, we’d get a little better press? (Bad example. Sometimes they don’t like you just because you’re too successful, too.)
Well here’s a solution. Maybe beverage companies should show off to the general public just what it is they do. Make it clear that producing, distributing and marketing a beverage is hard, complicated work and shouldn’t be taken for granted. That’s a story we tell in Beverage World each month. Maybe it’s time the rest of the world heard it too. | <urn:uuid:6971213f-363e-401d-9089-b261d4e3b213> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beverageworld.com/blog/entry/25448/so-much-bad-news | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944396 | 680 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Poster presentation. Abstract: Purpose. Sphingosine kinases (SKs) phosphorylate sphingosine to create sphingosine 1 phosphate (S1P), which is involved in cell survival, proliferation, motility, and inflammation via intracellular signaling through release of Ca2+ stores, activation of NF??B, and extracellular interactions with G protein-coupled receptors (S1P receptors 1-5). Inhibitors of SK1 have been used successfully to treat experimental murine inflammatory bowel disease, diabetic retinopathy, and rheumatoid arthritis. SK1 is expressed in mesangial cells and plays a role in mesangial cell migration. The role of SKs in promoting inflammation in lupus is unknown. We hypothesized that ABC294640 (ABC), an orally available SK inhibitor, would reduce markers of glomerular pathology in the MRL/MpJTnfrsf6lpr/ J (MRL/lpr) murine model of lupus. Methods. Eleven MRL/lpr mice were treated with either polyethylene glycol (PEG, n=5) or ABC in PEG (50 mg/kg/day, n=6) from 10 (before onset of disease) to 20 weeks of age (significant albuminuria present). Urine was collected every other week and analyzed for albumin. Moribund mice were sacrificed, and all measures were carried forward. At 20 weeks, kidney and total weights were determined. Renal, skin, and joint tissue were harvested for histopathological scoring, while renal tissue was stained for IgG/C3 deposition and examined by electron microscopy. Serum anti-double stranded DNA antibody levels were determined at 20 weeks. Urine thromboxane levels were determined at 16 weeks. Spleen cell subsets were determine by flow cytometry. Differences between groups were determined by t-test or Wilcoxon rank sum analysis. Results were reported as averages standard error. Results. Survival was greater in ABC-treated mice than controls (100 vs. 40% at 20 weeks). By 18 and 20 weeks, proteinuria was lower in ABC-treated mice than control mice (106 vs. 3818 and 191 vs. 6021). Kidney/total body weights were significantly lower in ABC-treated mice than controls (1.50.1 vs. 2.20.1 mg/g, p=0.001). There was a trend towards lower renal thromboxane production in treated mice. Renal and cutaneous pathologic scores were lower
in treated mice. Neither anti-double stranded DNA antibody production nor basement membrane and mesangial IgG/C3 staining were different between groups. Spleen marginal zone B cells were greater in treated mice. Conclusions. ABC294640 treatment improves survival, possibly due to reduced renal failure
and vasculitis. ABC294640 treatment reduces often clinically refractory necrotic/crescentic glomerular lesions associated with reduced renal function in humans, making SK an attractive target for investigation as adjunctive therapy ABC294640 treatment reduces podocyte flattening associated with nephrotic
range proteinuria in humans, making SK a possible target for investigation as adjunctive therapy in membranous nephritis with nephrotic range proteinuria. Improvements in outcomes are independent of changes in production and deposition of nephritic autoantibodies. We hypothesize that inhibition of SK
may reduce homing of inflammatory cells and activation of resident and inflammatory cells to produce inflammatory mediators such as thromboxane. | <urn:uuid:88e1ee9d-8fc2-4798-a1bb-680b74e95905> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lowcountrydigital.library.cofc.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=any&CISOBOX1=unknown&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOOP2=all&CISOBOX2=2008&CISOFIELD2=date&CISOROOT=/mpp&t=s | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955145 | 750 | 1.5 | 2 |
For the evening the ISI director general wore a Jinnah-style black sherwani, which is the national dress of Pakistan.
General Pasha was not the only top ISI officers present at the dinner; two other ISI officers were present along with their staff. The DG, ISI, and the Indian high commissioner exchanged smiles while sitting at the same table in the presence of the former speaker of the national assembly, Gohar Ayub Khan, whose father General Ayub Khan was Pakistan's ruler in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Sabharwal informed his guests that he was serving in Pakistan for the second time, having served as deputy high commissioner from 1995 to 1999. That was the most difficult period in recent India-Pakistan history because 1999 was the year the Kargil [ Images ] war happened. Those days the ISI kept all those visiting the Indian high commission in Islamabad under surveillance. Pakistani diplomats were beaten up in Delhi [ Images ] and Indian diplomats faced the same treatment in Islamabad.
The situation became normal after 9/11, but the Mumbai terror attacks [ Images ] in November last year once again sabotaged the peace process between India [ Images ] and Pakistan.
India accused the ISI of masterminding the Mumbai attacks. Immediately after 26/11, the Pakistani government announced that the ISI DG would visit Delhi to help the investigations into the Mumbai attacks, but after some tough posturing from the Indian foreign minister this decision was reversed.
One Indian journalist present at the dinner commented that "the ISI DG's presence at the high commissioner's dinner is unbelievable; it's glasnost in India-Pakistan relations".
Former ISI DG Lieutenant General Asad Durrani (retd), who was also present at the dinner was surprised at General Pasha's presence and termed it "a very, very positive development."
Many diplomats present at the dinner were of the view that a lot of "quiet developments" have been taking place between India and Pakistan.
Intelligence officials from both countries are in constant touch with each other and the talk is that something positive may emerge very soon. Many Pakistanis asked their Indian hosts: "Will the head of R&AW attend a reception at the Pakistani high commission in Delhi?" The hosts responded: "First you invite our intelligence chief to your high commission in Delhi and then we will see."
High Commissioner Sabharwal and the ISI DG were tight-lipped about the developments. When this journalist told General Pasha that Pakistan was doing a lot to improve relations with India, but the response from India was not very encouraging, he said, "Let's hope for the best, things will definitely improve." | <urn:uuid:e7c509ce-0cfb-410a-b283-a7217c0df927> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.rediff.com/special/2009/sep/11/hopes-of-thaw-as-isi-chief-attends-indian-envoys-iftar.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97857 | 541 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Edmund Zirra, Q-Planet coordinator
The conceptSupposing the Practical Placement of Students are solved locally by each University either using the RCPP model or other equivalent that offers the confidence of a quality practical placement, it is still difficult to know and check trans-national placements in the host enterprise in the regions across a wide area such as Europe. Nevertheless, while there is always a permanent relationship and interaction between the companies and the actors at universities in the target region, like Technology Transfer Units, Career Services or directly with departments and lecturers, these contacts could form a regional network of universities and enterprises, where the partners involved are well known by each other and can be easily contacted. Consequently, all the relevant requirements for international student exchanges could be easily checked locally by a certification body. It would be also easy to visit the regional companies with the aim of proving the quality of the placements and supervision of the international students when necessary by the same certification body. The only need for such a principle to work is the existence of a clear guidelines or even standard for quality of practical placements of students against which the certification should be made.
In contrast with the ISO 9000, where the enterprise certification is pushed by the market and undertaken entirely by the enterprises, in case of the Quality Assurance of Student Placements (QASP), the certification should be undertaken entirely by the certification body (RCPP) which will recover its expenses from the fees perceived for organizing PPS.
The implementation of the new Erasmus-placement programme gives a good chance to establish a new and urgent motivation for solid and permanent quality control of placements, as well as for supporting higher education-industry cooperation.
To avoid multiple visits to companies for the same purpose, the regional quality Reference Centre for Practical Placements (RCPP) for students could act thus as the body responsible for such quality checks, as well as for providing adequate information for recruiting a student from abroad, promoting the mobility of students in the industry and dissemination of results.
A possible procedure is illustrated in the diagram below and is based on the principle that an enterprise signs up for taking part in the programme by accepting the requirements and standards set up for recruiting students from abroad as well as regular audits carried out by RCPP. If the RCPP issue the certification, the company will obtain a status of an Erasmus-Enterprise (see diagram) which is eligible to offer Erasmus-Placements for Erasmus-Students.
For this reason, the RCPP should have the qualification and capacity to perform a certification task with respect to the Enterprises. Reversely, in a later stage it could be possible that the RCPP database develop and maintain a classification of the University courses portfolio according to standards developed in cooperation with the Erasmus Enterprises.
IN order to create a European Quality Reference Network a general standard for integrated practical training periods needs to be developed, even for those placements, which are not financially supported by a European programme.
Such a European Quality Reference Network (callsed hereinafter "Q-Planet") will be an efficient tool for the improvement of the quality of placements and the volume of student mobility. This would positively effect the reception of the Erasmus-Placement programme, improve considerably the employability of graduates and thus also support the goals of the Lisbon strategy.
In order to create this Network
Q-Planet will assembly all these efforts across Europe, capitalising and crating synergies between the various regions. Work experience abroad from studentship periods will be possible to be encouraged at European scale with specific instruments and thus the mobility of the workforce fully enabled and even encouraged with inestimable positive impact on the global European economy, heading certainly towards the Lisbon goals.
In order to establish a quality assurance model to drive the Network constitution in a sustainable way for the student placements in Europe several stages are needed:
A. First a standard series need to be developed in a similar manner as for the ISO 9000 series, including thus the following components:
- Standard 1: "Quality Assurance of Student Placements (QASP) - Fundamentals and vocabulary" including the basics of what QASP means and also the core language of the topic. A guidance document, not used for certification purposes, but important reference document to understand terms and vocabulary related to quality of student placements in enterprises.
- Standard 2: "QASP requirements" is intended for use by any enterprises which want to prepare in view of hosting student placements. It provides a number of requirements which the enterprise needs to fulfill if it is to achieve the necessary quality level of the placement. It includes a requirement for the continual (i.e. planned) improvement of the Quality System. This is the only implementation for which the auditors of third party may grant certification.
- Standard 3: "Quality systems for management of Student Placements" - Guidelines for performance improvements. It gives advice on what could be done to enhance a mature system. This standard is not intended as a guide to implementation but only to improvement.
B. Definition of the standards for accreditation at European level of the RCPP and establishing of EUE-Net as an Accreditation body at European level. For this reason, the accreditation procedures need also to be established.
This regional Networks of certified enterprises will be established by the RCPP`s while the accreditation body will maintain the "Network of Networks" (i.e of RCPP`s). Structured online tools assembling services of these bodies will be set up and maintained in order to evaluate at European level the capacity of organising student placements across the various disciplines and facilitating their organisation as well. The federated information will be certainly useful to all actors involved into the system:
- to the Universities in order to assess realistically the possibility to organise quality student placement within the planned courses.
- To the RCPP in order to assess the need to recruit more enterprises to meet the University needs in student placement organisation
- To the enterprises in order to observe the availability for internship in various areas in case of planned developments that need recruitments.
Definitions:Accreditation=Third-party attestation related to a conformity assessment body conveying formal demonstration of its competence to carry out specific conformity assessment tasks.
Certification=Third-party attestation related to products, processes, systems or persons.
Accreditation procedureThe candidates body will receive a visit plan, which provides a proposed timetable for the work to be assessed. Any improvement actions identified against accreditation requirements will be notified in writing during or immediately following the assessment visit. The candidate organisation is then be asked to advise how it intend to address them. Once the improvement actions have been implemented the accreditation will be granted.
Maintenance of accreditation
The accreditation will be confirmed on an annual basis by surveillance visits, with a full reassessment every fourth year. The first surveillance visit takes place 6 months after the Grant of Accreditation.
Certification procedureThe RCPP investigates the potential enterprises of interest and propose them to implement a quality framework for student placement organisation and its public certification. Upon the enterprise agreement of the terms and conditions, the certification procedure starts by submitting the enterprise a visit plan, which provides a proposed timetable for the conditions to be assessed. Any improvement actions identified against QASP requirements will be notified in writing during or immediately following the assessment visit. The candidate enterprise is then be asked to advise how it intend to address them. Once the improvement actions have been implemented the QASP certification will be granted.
Maintenance of certification
The certification will be confirmed on an annual basis by surveillance visits, with a full reassessment every third year. The first surveillance visit takes place 6 months after the Grant of Certification. | <urn:uuid:4b9cd3bd-1bc5-4d77-a22e-8058f9e00146> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eue-net.org/results/bpEUE-NetProposalForQualityOfStudentPlacementsInEurope.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935463 | 1,597 | 1.710938 | 2 |
(PRWEB) October 04, 2012
Annuity expert, Stan The Annuity Man, is sharing valuable information when it comes to managing financial plans. Many people do not protect themselves against economic inflation, and according to a new report by the United Nations, seniors are currently the fastest growing segment of global populations. This means many risk outliving their retirement income. For investors, inflation-proof annuities provide a secure safety net when it comes to eliminating inflation and longevity risk.
Inflation-proof annuities, also known as inflation-indexed annuities, offer people the benefits of principal protection within a traditional fixed annuity with a potential growth opportunity from rising inflation rates. They provide the contractual guarantees needed for annual increases in income with no minimum cost amount required.
“With Single Premium Immediate Annuities, you can contractually choose the percentage that you want your income stream to increase for life,” says annuity expert, Stan The Annuity Man. “That contractual percentage increase can be as low as 2% annually or up to 10% annually. These increases are called ‘Cost of Living Adjustments’ and are a rider, or attached benefit that can be added to your policy.
With inflation-adjusted annuities, people are guaranteed that their income lasts for the rest of their life and is adjusted for inflation, no matter how long they live or whatever happens in the stock and bond markets. The contractual increases will be in place regardless of how long investors live, and their listed beneficiaries will receive 100% of the remaining account when the original investor passes away.
According to Stan The Annuity Man, these annuity income strategies contractually guarantee inflation increases that can be used for both ‘Income Now’ and ‘Income Later’ strategies. They grow and lock in your income annually with CPI increases or gains in the growth of a specific index like the S&P 500.
About Stan The Annuity Man
Stan The Annuity Man is a nationally recognized expert on annuities known for his transparency, honesty and endless research. He has spoken at every major financial trade show in the United States, and is rigorously independent, representing all major carriers that meet his uncompromisingly high standards. With a financial background that spans some of the major wirehouse organizations such as Dean Witter, Morgan Stanley, Paine Webber and UBS, Stan brings to his clients an informed clarity and “insider” wisdom that makes him extra careful and cognizant of risks and how to avoid them. Stan The Annuity Man’s mission is to give each client his undivided personal attention and to become a trusted member of their “Financial Team.” With clients nationwide, Stan is known for his fly-to-your-home, coast-to-coast service no other annuity company provides. | <urn:uuid:a64cdb7b-1b4f-478d-826b-88341313e7c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prweb.com/releases/Stantheannuityman/annuities/prweb9974234.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962015 | 592 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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Universalism is a theological term for the belief that every person will have salvation. Of the proponents who embrace this fallacious doctrine of Universalism, one of the best known and esteemed was Scottish William Barclay, the author of the New Testament commentaries — The Daily Study Bible Series. Another well-known person from the past was the so-called church father Origen, who ridiculously thought some would go to heaven via hell. (Origen embraced other false doctrines as well. This also proves that the so-called church fathers held to some false doctrines.) In our day, Gary Amirault is an outspoken and vocal proponent of Universalism.
Though it was many years ago, I still remember one of the first universalists I ever conversed with. That woman was very unacquainted with some of the same Scriptures that are mentioned in this study. Just like many others, she apparently was only aware of a few verses of Scripture (that were misused) upon which she based her Universalism belief upon.
Briefly stated are some (but not all) of the reasons why universalism should be flatly rejected. Toward the end of this teaching, I will touch on the primary proof texts mishandled by the proponents of such.
1. History before it happens is found all throughout the Scriptures. One such relevant verse is what the Lord said he will say to some people:
Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41).
Jesus could not have been more clear in stating that some people will end up in eternal fire. This should be enough to refute universalism, but there are many other proofs as well:
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (Matt. 25:46).
Though disturbing such people have the opposite of salvation. They clearly will not enter God’s paradise kingdom, which he prepared for those who love him (the righteous),1 Cor. 2:9; James 2:5.
And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever (Rev. 20:10).
Since the beast and the false prophet are real people, it is apparent there is no salvation for them since they are with the devil to be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Again, it is evident that universalism is fatally flawed, but there is much more Biblical evidence.
3. By the ultimate authority himself, the precious Lord Jesus, we have the following:
This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:49, 50).
Jesus declared that the wicked will be thrown into the fiery furnace and there experience weeping and gnashing of teeth. The wicked are also shown to have a different fate from the righteous. Every person will not, in the end, have salvation.
4. Jesus often warned people of hell. If they could never go there, such warnings would be misplaced and would adversely reflect upon the Lord. Some of those hell warnings were directed at those who were following Jesus at that moment of time. Besides Mt. 10:28 and others, we have the following:
If your hand or your foot causes you to sin cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell (Matt. 18:9).
The fact that the Lord warned the disciples (his spiritual family) of hell because of sin implies there is no truth to the teaching of eternal security (also known as the perseverance of the saints). If that doctrine was true, then it would be impossible for the disciples of Christ to be thrown into the fires of hell over sin. We know that is possible because Jesus gave a true warning to them. Hence, it is a real possibility. Again we have Scriptural evidence that there is no such thing as salvation for everyone (or Universalism).
5. Even though the Apostle Judas Iscariot once was a disciple (Mt. 10:1-4) he later became a thief and betrayed Jesus. After he did such a wicked thing, he repented (Mt. 27:3), but still committed suicide (self-murder). The Bible informs us that Judas Iscariot died spiritually lost, even though he was an Apostle holding the highest office in the church along with the other Twelve:
While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled (John 17:12).
The Son of Man will go just as it is written about him. But woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born (Mark 14:21).
Judas was the exception to the rest of the disciples—he became lost and died in his sins. Hence, there was no universalism (or eternal security) for him either.
6. Will everyone have universal salvation when Jesus comes back to earth? The answer is a clear and unquestionable no. Besides Mt. 13: 49, 50 which was already cited, notice what Paul wrote:
He [Jesus] will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed (2 Thess. 1:8-10).
According to that passage, those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus will be punished with everlasting destruction. This is painfully clear.
7. Raging fire will consume the enemies of God (Heb. 10:27). This pertains to those who were never Biblically saved as well as those who once had true salvation and afterwards became enemies of God by backsliding, as mentioned by James:
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God (James 4:4).
8. Repeatedly the Bible refers to the saved and the lost, even at the very end of the last book of Scripture:
Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood (Rev. 22:14,15).
Notice there will be those that go through the gates into the city and another group that is outside the city. (Where outside the city is not shown there, but is in the aforementioned verses.) If we compare Scripture with Scripture, we can easily see that the ones thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur are described as committing the same types of sins:
But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death (Rev. 21:8).
9. Jesus taught that most would be lost in the end and only the minority would be saved:
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matt. 7:13,14).
In other words, there are two groups of people and two eternal destinies. Everyone will not enter God’s paradise kingdom. To be more precise, only the minority will enter.
10. To be one of the few to enter God’s kingdom, Jesus said you would have to do the following:
Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven (Matt. 7:21).
Since many have been deceived by false teachers and false prophets and therefore don’t even know what God’s will is, they certainly can’t be doing it as is necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven. That same verse says there will be those that will not enter God’s kingdom. Jesus unequivocally taught contrary to universalism.
11. Another time that Jesus showed the truth of God to be the antithesis of universalism is at John 5:28,29:
Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned (John 5:28,29).
Jesus taught there will be a resurrection to life (for the righteous) and one to condemnation (for the wicked). Paul taught similarly:
I have the same hope in God as these men, that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man (Acts 24:15,16).
Paul repeated that concept in the following passage about salvation:
To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism (Rom. 2:7-11).
Not everyone will receive glory, honor and peace after they die. That is only for those who persist in doing good, according to true grace teaching. All others will experience God’s wrath and anger. Christians must sow to please the Spirit of God to reap eternal life:
The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up (Gal 6:8,9).
In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 7)
It is impossible to force out a Universalism interpretation from that. One of the most commonly misused passages cited for support of
This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance
(and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope
in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and
especially of those who believe (1 Tim. 4:9,10).
Misused Texts Cited For Universalism
One of the most commonly misused passages cited for support of universalism is:
This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe (1 Tim. 4:9,10).
It is argued that Jesus is the savior of all men. Hence, all will be saved and universalism is (supposedly) true. The problem for the proponents of Universalism is that the rest of this passage says especially of those who believe. In other words, even though Jesus died for all people that would ever live, as stated elsewhere (1 John 2:2), he is only the savior of all who would become true believers in the Lord Jesus. Jesus’ death on the cross was enough redemption-wise for all people to find salvation, but only those who follow Jesus will benefit with personal salvationby his infinite death. There is nothing in 1 Tim. 4:10, or elsewhere in Scripture, to justify a belief in universalism, which is so explicitly refuted in many other passages.
Another passage universalists mishandle is John 12:32:
But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself (John 12:32).
Jesus spoke that to show the kind of death he was going to die (John 12:33). Hence, Jesus’ draws all people to himself for salvation, even those who will choose to reject him and perish. A corroborating passage is found in 2 Peter:
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance (3:9).
That passage not only proves a person must repent (turn from wickedness) to be saved, but it also declares that God wants all people to be saved. See also 1 Tim. 2:4. Since other verses reveal that many will not be saved, then we know man’s will can override God’s will for the individual. Hence, John 12:32 shows Jesus draws all people to himself—not that all will enter God’s kingdom. (That passage also refutes Calvinism by showing no one is predestined to go to hell.)
In Romans, Paul wrote:
For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all (Rom. 11:32).
God’s will is to have mercy on all people and forgive them, but some people can and do refuse to repent to find salvation and receive God’s mercy. One such example is also found in Romans:
But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God’s wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed (Rom. 2:5).
Elsewhere the same is evident:
Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? (Hosea 11:5).
They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved (2 Thess. 2:10).
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing (Matt. 23:37).
Another passage that has been misunderstood in support of universalism is this one:
For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor. 15:22).
Salvation is only found in the Lord Jesus (John 14:6; Acts 4:12; etc.). We must first get in him, but many refuse to repent and love the truth and therefore remain on the road to hell. Others find salvation (get in Christ), then later go back as a dog returns to its vomit (2 Peter 2:20-22). They too are on the road to hell and will go there unless they turn back to God as the prodigal did (Luke 15:24,32). (King David turned back to God after backsliding, but King Solomon never did.)
While God loves all people, even the unsaved (John 3:16; Mark 10:21; etc.), he will still send the spiritually dead to the fiery lake of burning sulfur because of their sins. Hence, there is no Universalism! Ponder the following facts about God’s righteousness and justice:
On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot. For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face (Psa. 11:6,7).
God is not just a loving and merciful God. He has other attributes such as being righteous and just. These will cause the wicked to be punished with fire beyond the grave.
Dear reader, if you go to hell it will be your own fault! God wants you to spend eternity with him, but he will not force you to love him (obey him). It is your choice to submit to the Lord Jesus or not, but it is also your eternity. There is no universalism, nor is there eternal security. We must get Biblically saved and stay saved to avoid hell, which does not always happen (Mt. 10:22; Heb. 3:14; Rev. 2:10,11).
The twelfth reason why I reject Universalism is the misuse of the above proof texts and shallow arguments advanced for a belief in such. In other words, there are no solid reasons to believe in it. Most people will go to hell, even though God would prefer to have it otherwise. If you have been taught Universalism, please renouce that theology for your own good. Based on the Biblical truths presented here, Universalism is antithetical to Scripture and is spiritually DANGEROUS. God bless you.
Other Scriptural Studies:
Universalist Gary Amirault Gets The Skull and Crossbones Award
The Wicked Dead - Will They Experience Annihilation or Eternal Torment?
Eternal Security or Conditional Security
PO Box 265
Washington PA 15301 | <urn:uuid:bf094977-07ad-4ab1-a801-6a4dbf8eacdd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.evangelicaloutreach.org/rejectuniversalism.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964011 | 3,807 | 1.523438 | 2 |
February 7, 2013
Architecture has been called a plastic art, but don’t let the term fool you. Rather than images of soft, malleable polyurethane, today we bring you architecture on point—sharp buildings that span the gamut from impossible knife-edges to bristling spikes. These unusual forms capture the imagination and catch the eye. But beware, in this case, looks can kill.
These buildings will having you thinking twice before you mess with architecture. Click through for the slideshow! | <urn:uuid:74e710ce-607e-4689-a2c7-792cce4370a5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/tag/pointy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955657 | 108 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Styrofoam roundup collects a housefull
Oct 26, 2012 / 4:28 pm
Okanagan residents concerned with the environment have a number of excellent options in regards to dealing with waste products.
No longer is there a steady stream of items which can be recycled or dangerous waste heading into landfills.
Last Wednesday, more than 400 Regional District of North Okanagan (RDNO) residents tackled the problem of Styrofoam.
The RDNO, Vernon and District Association for Community Living and Interior Freight and Bottle hosted a free Styrofoam round up at the Real Canadian Wholesale Club parking lot in Vernon and at the Super A Foods Parking Lot in Lumby.
In just four hours, three and a half ten-ton truck loads of clean, recyclable Styrofoam was collected.
That's enough Styrofoam to fill an average size house from floor to ceiling. After this material is processed, the densified material would fit in a bedroom closet of that average size house.
“Our Styrofoam Recycling Program is unique in Canada and I am pleased that RDNO residents have an option to keep this material out of area landfills,” says Karmen Morgan, RDNO Waste Reduction Coordinator.
After the success of the event, another Styrofoam Round Up is scheduled for June 2013 during Environment Week.
Vernon residents can still get rid of Styrofoam year-round at Interior Freight and Bottle Depot located at 4205-24 Avenue, and at Venture Training Centre located at 4240 Alexis Park Drive.
A $3 per bag handling fee is charged at the drop-off locations, which covers the cost of receiving, inspecting, processing, and transporting the collected material.
The bags used to drop off Styrofoam must be clear and no larger than a large lawn and leaf bag.
Styrofoam drop-off is also available at the Greater Vernon Recycling and Disposal Facility and the Armstrong Spallumcheen Recycling and Disposal Facility.
Regular refuse disposal fees apply. For more information contact the RDNO at 250-550-3700 or by visiting their website.
Read more North Okanagan News
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- Trampled stampede rider in hospital May 21
- Arrested after scuffle with cops May 21 | <urn:uuid:ef2c4cb4-108d-4d29-baf4-075e774242ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.castanet.net/news/North-Okanagan/82432/Styrofoam-roundup-collects-a-housefull | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931483 | 528 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Filling a cake is an important part of the cake design process. The type of filling is the recipient’s choice, selected to delight his/her guests!
Let’s choose a filling that is hardy and able to withstand the weight of the top cake layer. When filling a cake with icing, apply a thin layer of medium consistency buttercream icing, about 1/4” (the height of a chocolate chip) between the layers with an angled spatula.
There are many wonderful filling recipes to choose from. Always test your filling recipe before using it in your cake to see if it separates. Remember there are no preservatives in your filling except sugar, so here are a few things to keep in mind when preparing a homemade filling:
- Will the recipient need to place the cake in the refrigerator because of the fill? Will they actually place the cake in the refrigerator?
- How long will the recipient keep the cake before eating your delicious masterpiece? Will the filling spoil in that length of time? Laugh if you will, but some recipients will keep a cake up to 2 weeks. They may think the life of your delicious cake is the same as a prepackaged cake from the store.
- Will your family favorite filling keep that long or will it spoil? Sad but true, I prefer to keep my family favorite fillings in the family. This way I may monitor the shelf life of the cake myself.
There are many types of hardy, prepackaged fillings available for the sugar artist to use. I am a firm believer in finding shortcuts that work and prepackaged filling is one of those shortcuts. Jams, jellies and cake fillings are an excellent choice and come in many delicious flavors. Canned pie fillings work very well and are rich and creamy. Prepackaged dessert filling such as pop-top pudding packs are another tasty choice, which are readily available. They hold their shape and will not seep when used as a filling. Because of the preservatives in these types of filling they will not spoil as quickly as homemade cooked fillings.
You may even have a favorite filling of your own; a recipe which has been passed down from generation to generation. Keep in mind that homemade filling often separates once made. This causes your cake to become wet and the filling may seep out of the sides of the cake between the layers. This is not a process that is easily repaired and may be disastrous. It is not wise to freeze cake with a fruit filling. Fruit contains a great amount of water and when thawed becomes soggy.
Test your fillings before you use them. Place a small amount of filling on a plate. Allow it to sit for a couple of days. If there is a separation (a syrup ring around the filling) within a matter of hours, you may want to use a hardier filling.
When a filling is used, pipe a ring of medium consistency buttercream icing 3/4” from the edge of the cake using a coupler in a Featherweight® Decorating Bag. Your coupler opening is about 1/2”, therefore you will come in 1/4” (the height of a chocolate chip) from the edge of the cake. You may even use tip #12 on the coupler to pipe a dam if you would like.
Too much filling may case the top layer of the cake to crack and slide or have a bulge on the sides where the two layers meet. So how much is too much? Try spreading the filling with a tapered angled spatula no more than 1/4” (the height of a chocolate chip) thick inside the dam of buttercream icing.
Once you have filled your bottom cake layer with the desired filling, place the top layer on the filling making sure what was the bottom of the pan is now facing up. This will make it easy to ice your cake and you will have a smooth flat surface with minimal crumbs. Press the top of the cake gently causing the icing and filling to come to the edge of the cake between the layers. Pressing on the cake will also help prevent a bulge on the side of the cake between the layers during the transporting of your cake.
Now you are ready to frost your cake. You have created sugar art, which is tasty and beautiful, inside and out!
Remember there is nothing you can’t fix! And what you can’t fix, you eat! Enjoy your mistakes! | <urn:uuid:3a3699c1-e0ff-4b04-be8c-9193595eafc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wilton.com/blog/index.php/fill-your-cakes-with-flavor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946186 | 924 | 1.539063 | 2 |
You have a job interview scheduled and you’ve done all your homework. You’ve researched the company, prepared answers to commonly asked questions, and developed a list of your own thoughtful questions about the position and the employer.
You’re done, right? Wrong!
As one of the Northwest’s leading employment agencies, Provisional knows that besides preparing for what will be discussed, there are also a few items you need to bring along with you. Here’s a look:
Copies of your resume and letters of recommendation.
The interviewer may not have asked for you to bring copies, but it can’t hurt. If there’s someone there who doesn’t have a copy of your resume or recommendation letters, then you can give them one from your stack. This will demonstrate that you’re well prepared for the interview.
A list of three to five references.
Another way to demonstrate your preparation is to create a list of three to five professional references, along with their contact information, and bring it with you. If all goes well, at the end of the interview, the interviewer may ask for you to send along references. And if you’ve already got a list ready to go, you’ll go a long way in impressing them. Remember, though, to contact your references ahead of time so they’re prepared when they get the call.
A pen and paper.
You might think you’ll remember everything that’s said during the interview, but chances are, you won’t. So bring along a pen and paper so you can write down important information, such as the names of the people you’re interviewing with, next steps in the interview process, and any additional information you need to send along after the interview.
Directions and phone numbers.
Be sure to print out directions or plug in the address ahead of time to your car GPS navigation system. Also, bring along the phone number of the person you’re interviewing with, just in case you are running late or need additional directions.
This one is easy to forget, but all too important, especially considering the amount of talking you’ll probably be doing.
In addition, one item NOT to bring with you into the interview is your cell phone. Even if it’s on vibrate, it can still be heard if there’s a pause in the conversation. So leave it in the car.
Looking for Help Landing Interviews?
Let Provisional know. As one of the Northwest’s leading employment agencies, we partner with some of the top employers throughout the Northwest and can work with you to match you with a rewarding job opportunity. Contact Provisional today to learn more. | <urn:uuid:37a2d5fa-6be7-44ab-9df2-0d1caf5d0da7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://provisional.com/blog/tag/preparing-for-a-job-interview/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939244 | 575 | 1.609375 | 2 |
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Mississippi State University entomologist Frank Davis and the Insect Rearing Workshop he coordinates are slated to appear on the nationally syndicated newsmagazine show “America Now” on April 2, 2013.
“America Now” producer David Scott Jones confirmed plans to air a repackage of footage from Walt Grayson’s WLBT coverage of the Insect Rearing Workshop for “Look Around Mississippi.” Jones said “America Now” will bring the workshop’s story to 53 stations across the U.S., from Honolulu, Hawaii to Charlotte, N.C.
“The stories we use (are) news you can use; it’s good for a water cooler discussion,” Jones said. “(The Insect Rearing Workshop) is fascinating, and from what Frank told me, it’s the only one of its kind in the world.”
Davis said Grayson is a family friend who has been interested in profiling the Insect Rearing Workshop for some time. When Grayson completed and aired the feature, he nominated it for use on America Now, Davis said.
“Then, I got a call from David Jones,” Davis said. “He told me that they wanted to use (Grayson’s feature) as a foundation and then build from that, so we were asked to send him some information on the insect rearing.”
Jones said “America Now” uses a format similar to Vh1’s “Pop-Up Video” to pepper news stories with extra information.
“That way, we cover it anew,” Jones said.
The 2012 Insect Rearing Workshop set to be featured on “America Now” is the 15th iteration of the workshop over the past 12 years, Davis said. While he plays a leadership role, he said the workshop would not be possible without the large team he works with.
“I’m very fortunate to have the best lecture team in the world to go along with tremendous support from my administrators,” Davis said. “(Also helpful are) some administrative assistants in the department, along with other students who do the driving.”
Davis said the workshop is an opportunity to not only learn about the many applications of insect rearing but also to socialize and have fun, with students, faculty and team members from around the world mingling. Davis said foreign countries represented at the insect rearing workshop include Australia, Canada, Panama, the Netherlands, Belgium and England.
“In fact, there were a slightly higher percentage of people from outside the U.S. here for our workshop than inside the U.S.,” Davis said. “That’s the first time that’s occurred. We (also) probably had more private industry people there than we did from the public industry.”
Jones said he wanted to put the Insect Rearing Workshop on “America Now” not only because of its uniqueness, but also because he shares some of Davis’ fascination with insects.
“Bugs are interesting characters in themselves,” Jones said. “Insects make the world go round. Most foreign cultures treat insects way different than we do. If you go to a market in China (or a Chinese market in America,) they have chocolate-covered ants.”
In fact, Davis said the rearing of insects for human consumption and the processing needed to make them palatable was one of the key topics at this year’s workshop. Davis said he hopes to educate viewers nationwide about this and other topics through “America Now.”
“I think they’ll learn that, first of all, insects of all kinds are being reared, anywhere from beautiful butterflies to cotton and corn pests, along with other pests like mosquitoes,” Davis said. “They are reared for research purposes, (and) they’re being reared for their own protein ... to feed fish and chickens and also human beings.” | <urn:uuid:d175f58f-7eaf-452f-96f5-62b7cd255e83> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://starkvilledailynews.com/node/11764 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945017 | 974 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Use video to paint your sanctuary wallsFACILITIES, Operations Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
By Camron Ware
Coppell, TX Baptist church uses environmental projection to tell visual stories during services.
Between Dallas and Ft. Worth, TX sits First Baptist Church of Coppell, where a long-time standing building and congregation wanted to modernize the inside of their sanctuary to stay in tune with the local community.
After seeing a demo and realizing the cost-benefits, the church implemented an environmental projection system, originally developed by local company Visual Worshiper, in order to transform the look and feel of their entire sanctuary with a simple click of a button.
Environmental projection uses video projectors to project images and video onto the walls and architecture of an existing sanctuary, taking its roots from ancient cathedrals and churches where stained glass was used to tell stories. Now it is done digitally, right from a computer. This allows the church to tell visual stories during worship, the message and any other time they want to transform the worship space into something other than four white walls.
Three projectors cast a seamless image around the front of the room, controlled from one computer by a volunteer, with an additional two projectors filling in the extreme side walls for special events which creates a 180-degree visual canvas. This setup allows the church to project not only still imagery, but also seamless motion video to tell a story or enhance the worship.
The church did not have to modify its existing walls or textures. It utilized the existing architecture in the room and mapped the environmental projection to key areas on the walls and ceiling, and at the same time, kept the light out of unwanted areas, such as the eyes of the people on stage and the congregation.
The visual media content is key in a system like this. Most standard images and videos won’t look correct being stretched around a room, but First Baptist received a sample library of content so they were able to use the system right away, with the ability to add more.
The church uses the environmental projection system as a way to foster a mood for worship; projecting images of crosses, stained glass, creation scenes, and anything else that is an enhancement to the worship and message. Motion videos are used as well, but very sparingly as they can be very quick to distract. A favorite among the congregation is a subtle video of snowfall around the room during a Christmas service, or white names of God slowly fading in around the congregation can serve as a powerful reminder.
Using the system First Baptist of Coppell is able to completely transform their worship space for a fraction of the cost and effort than with lighting or with anything physical, such as stained glass.
Camron Ware is founder of Visual Worshipper, Coppell, TX, which produces powerful atmospheres in churches. www.visualworshipper.com
- Gear involved: Five Hitachi Pro-grade projectors, Apple computers, ProPresenter Presentation Software
- Project cost: $25,000
- Project designer: Visual Worshiper | <urn:uuid:8cd900da-2a27-496b-8cb0-f36befce501f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://churchexecutive.com/archives/use-video-to-paint-your-sanctuary-walls | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948361 | 634 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Monday, November 21, 2011
Unitarian Universalist Rev. David Miller discusses, among other things, the role of religion in social activism (and specifically the "Occupy" movement).
SAN DIEGO One local religious leader is supporting the "Occupy San Diego" movement with a simple message: Let them eat pie.
"OCCU-PIE San Diego" takes place Monday, Nov. 21 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. The idea was conceived by Unitarian Universalist Reverend David Miller, who is urging people to not only attend, but to also bring apple, pumpkin, peach or even chicken or turkey pot pies with them to share.
Miller says those who attend this evening's downtown event in Civic Center Plaza should leave with a full stomach.
"It's Thanksgiving week," he said, "and I just felt it was a good week to offer thanks and gratitude for what we already have. And to feed each other and nourish each other."
Despite the event's punny name, Miller is serious about the protests.
He sees the country's growing wealth disparity as a crucial moral issue, and said the "Occupy" protests share a pedigree with such societal conflicts as the civil rights movement.
"To [Unitarian Universalists], and to others I know - people of what I would maybe call progressive faith - this is a moral movement about human relations and human justice and economic justice and human dignity," said Miller.
He expects clergy from other religions to attend, and hopes they will bring some of their congregation to this all-inclusive feast. He even said he'd love for the police to join in. | <urn:uuid:2e905873-c453-40b9-8b44-696025cd1273> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/nov/21/local-religious-leader-organizes-communal-meal-occ/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964095 | 344 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Are you a college or university professor interested in nuclear terrorism, nuclear proliferation, nuclear weapons, nuclear force posture, or the security implications of nuclear energy? Do you know someone who is? If so, you should consider CFR’s 2013–2014 International Affairs Fellowship in Nuclear Security (IAF-NS), sponsored by the Stanton Foundation.
What is the mission of the IAF-NS? The IAF-NS offers university-based scholars valuable hands-on experience in the nuclear security policymaking field and places selected fellows in U.S. government positions or international organizations for a period of twelve months to work with practitioners. The IAF-NS closes the gap between research and practice and enriches the teaching and scholarship of academics, while also benefiting policymakers by exposing them to cutting-edge scholarly research.
What are the eligibility requirements? The IAF-NS is only open to faculty members with tenure or on tenure-track lines at accredited universities and who propose to conduct policy-relevant research on nuclear security issues. Qualified candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are eligible to work in the United States and be between the ages of twenty-nine and forty. CFR does not sponsor for visas.
Does the fellowship provide a stipend? The program awards a stipend of $125,000. Fellows are considered independent contractors rather than employees of CFR, and are not eligible for employment benefits, including health insurance.
What is the duration of the fellowship? The duration of the fellowship is twelve months, preferably beginning in September 2013.
How many fellowships will be awarded? CFR awards approximately two fellowships annually.
When is the deadline? The deadline to apply is November 1, 2012.
How do I apply? Interested candidates who meet the program’s eligibility requirements must submit a cover letter, a CV, and a proposal (maximum 1,000 words in length) to [email protected] by November 1, 2012. Each applicant should also arrange to have two letters of recommendation sent assessing the policy relevance of his/her project and qualifications for carrying it out. The letters of recommendation must also be submitted to [email protected] by November 1, 2012. Materials and letters submitted to other CFR addresses will not be read, acknowledged, returned, or forwarded. | <urn:uuid:ac24c4f5-125c-4b85-bd2c-92e9161f34a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cfr.org/lindsay/2012/10/01/cfr-seeking-applicants-2013-2014-international-affairs-fellowship-in-nuclear-security-sponsored-by-the-stanton-foundation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93617 | 473 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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G10 Ministers reiterated their commitment to a successful conclusion of the Doha Round by the end of the year. An agreement would be an important stimulation to the world economy at this stage.
G10 Ministers appreciated the Chair's efforts in preparing another revised text issued on 19th May. They noted, however, that major issues in the current text still need to be improved and expressed apprehension over the constantly increasing level of ambition. The Ministers reaffirmed that their priorities lie in opposing the introduction of tariff capping, an appropriate number and treatment of sensitive products as well as tariff cut levels, particularly in the upper band.
Participants also highlighted the need for a comprehensive approach to the negotiations and shared the view that progress needs to be made in other areas like NAMA, Services and Rules.
Ministers expressed deep concern over the recent food crisis which has impacted the food security of net-food importing Members, including G10 members. Ever since the outset of the Doha Development Agenda, G10 members have been emphasizing the need to address Non-Trade Concerns, especially food security, in the negotiations. The recent global food crisis shows that these arguments have become even more important. In this context, Ministers discussed export restrictions that could worsen the situation by putting further pressure on global food prices and stressed the need to strengthen the disciplines on this topic.
Ministers stressed that only a balanced outcome within the three pillars of the agriculture negotiations, and between all areas under the DDA negotiations, can be endorsed by Members under the principle of single undertaking.
Ministers discussed the next stages of the negotiation and examined matters of strategic importance to the group. G10 Ministers acknowledged that good progress has been made in agriculture. They urge all Members to undertake necessary efforts to help bridge the gaps and bring the round to a successful conclusion as soon as possible. | <urn:uuid:d618437b-0ff8-46ef-a3dd-79c4637927e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.seco.admin.ch/aktuell/00277/01164/01980/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=19155 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954996 | 391 | 1.585938 | 2 |
- Expedition: Dec 1-6, 2000
- Reseda and Tokay High Schools
- Hite's Cove
To be a Giant Sequoia...
I never really thought of nature howNicole put it. She made me really think about what would it be like if I was a tree. Who would come visit me? What would they think of me? I think I would be very peaceful, calm, happy, and glad to be a tree. It would make me feel like I'm the mother of all mothers, and, my job is to take care of all the other creatures around me. Cause they come to me and sit on me or maybe eat some bark from me. Like I would be their resources. All you would hear would be the birds chirping, the woodpeckers pecking, and the other trees moving, the wind howling. At times it would get kinda lonely! It would have to take time to get used to.
I love the fact that someone can bring a group together that are total strangers and have each one of those strangers get along with one another, share feelings and emotions with each other. Normally I wouldn't take the chance to do that with a stranger. I think that's one of my fears, to let people in. Most of the time I keep [it] all bottled inside until one day, I explode and let everything out. What I learned was now since I had this experience, I respect nature and know more about it and how nature works. | <urn:uuid:292193ec-0f1b-4549-9d1f-e4bd3297bacf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wildlinkprogram.org/archive/2000/00-exp3-reseda-tokay/desiree/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989494 | 311 | 1.679688 | 2 |
After our team helped to extinguish the deadly fires on Mt. Kenya National Park last month, part of the team left for Naivasha for a de-snaring and outreach mission. The Naivasha area in the Great Rift Valley is one of the most hard-hit bushmeat trade hotspots in Kenya and our teams take every opportunity to pitch camp here.
After the usual catching up with our hosts; the Senior Warden Hell’s Gate National Park Nelly Palmeris, Karen Ndiema the Warden in charge of Naivasha station and the other Kenya Wildlife Service officials in the region, it was time to begin our outreach mission concentrating on the schools in the bushmeat hotspots.
“With a Kenya Wildlife Service vet now based in the Naivasha region, we couldn’t be happier! We don’t have to wait any longer for a vet from either our Headquarters or the Mara to come to the aid of our injured animals, instead, our interventions are now based on real time” were some of the Senior Warden’s most reassuring words. Unlike our previous rescues, we knew that we wouldn’t need to wait too long for the vets help.
During one of our patrols we spotted a zebra which was dragging a long copper snare around her neck. Thankfully the snare had not eaten too much into the zebra’s skin although it had already started taking its toll on the poor animal. Within exactly 33 minutes, the vet had joined us and we were all trying to capture the snared zebra which appeared to nearly outrun our two Land Rovers. Ndambiri the KWS vet, who we must say hardly ever misses his target while darting the animals, had the zebra comfortably on the ground and after removing the snare, the zebra was swiftly back with the rest. We then got back to our regular patrols – lifting tens of snares in just a few hours.
Four hours later and about fifteen kilometers away we spotted an adult buffalo with a huge snare around her neck and a young calf in tow. Unlike the zebra’s wounds, the buffalo had already suffered life-threatening injuries from the snare. The vet was again able to re-join us quickly. Treating what is easily the most dangerous animal in Africa is not for the fainthearted! Even the bravest of our team members betrayed a little tension and more caution than usual. Our driver was particularly alert and was ready to drive to safety.
As we attempted to have the buffalo darted, it seemed like everyone had stories to tell on experiences with buffalos. It took the buffalo a while to go down and once on the ground the vet led us in removing the deadly snare which had almost cost the buffalo’s life and almost certainly the calf’s life too. The wounds were cleaned and antibiotics given. As we all held the buffalo to the ground to allow the vet to attend to the injuries, it was clear that everybody was on very high alert; tense but determined to give the poor animal a second chance. And sure enough the buffalo was on all fours and reunited with the calf and the other herd members. These are always the moments we shed tears of joy!
“With the support of Animal Rights Reserved Mobile Vet unit in collaboration with KWS the wildlife welfare in the area has received a major boost.We have saved many animals since we settled here in Naivasha early this month (March 2012).” Assured Dr. Ndambiri, the vet in charge of the new team as they work to ease the pain of the long suffering animals.
The rest of the week was busy, particularly after more schools got wind of our now very popular outreach missions. We had to double our efforts in sharing our conservation message with the ever attentive children and teachers. Soon it was again time to bring down our tents having given our contribution to the welfare of our wildlife; a job I would not trade in for anything.
Victor Mutumah- Born Free Kenya | <urn:uuid:02205097-ef1d-420c-9d28-f0cb3f53e21f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bornfree.wildlifedirect.org/2012/04/03/snared-buffalo-and-zebra-saved-by-the-born-free-kenya-team/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973707 | 836 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Always Something There To Remind Me
Williams began playing guitar when he was child, learning the instrument from his mother. As a teenager, he played in a variety of country, rockabilly, folk, and rock & roll bands. After completing high school, he formed his first band with a friend named Lofton Kline. Williams and Kline recruited another singer, Susan Taylor, and formed the Pozo-Seco Singers, a folk-pop group, in 1964. The following year, the band signed a contract with Columbia Records. In 1966, the Pozo-Seco Singers had a pop hit with "Time," which climbed into the Top 50. For the next two years, they had a series of minor hits, highlighted by two Top 40 hits in late 1966, "I Can Make It with You" and "Look What You've Done." The group stayed until 1971.
After the Pozo-Seco Singers disbanded, Williams decided to pursue a career as a songwriter in Nashville, since he wasn't convinced that he was suited for a solo career. He signed with Jack Clement's Jack Music, Inc., initially just as a songwriter. By the end of 1972, he had signed with JMI as a solo artist, releasing "Don't You Believe" as his debut. The song went nowhere, but "The Shelter of Your Eyes" climbed to number 14 at the beginning of 1973. For the next year, Williams scored a string of minor hits before he had his 1974 breakthrough, "We Should Be Together," which reached number five. The single led to a contract with ABC/Dot. "I Wouldn't Want to Live If You Didn't Love Me," his first single for ABC/Dot, reached number one in the summer 1974. The single launched a string of Top Ten hits that ran more or less uninterrupted until 1991; between 1974 and 1991, only four of his 46 charting singles didn't make the Top Ten. Instead of reaching the top of the charts with his original material, most of his big hits were covers of other songwriters, including John Prine, Bob McDill, Dave Loggins, and Wayland Holyfield.
During the '70s, Don Williams became the most successful country artist in the world. His country-pop not only crossed over into the American pop mainstream, it also gained him a large following in England and Europe. In addition to his Top Ten hits, Williams won several country music awards, highlighted by the Country Music Association naming him Male Vocalist of the Year in 1978, the same year his number one single "Tulsa Time" was named Single of the Year. In the late '70s, he began acting, appearing primarily in the films of his friend Burt Reynolds, including W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings and Smokey and the Bandit II.
In the early '80s, Williams slowed down the pace of his career slightly, as he was suffering from back problems. Nevertheless, the hits continued to come and many of his singles reached number one. In 1986, he left MCA Records -- which had acquired the ABC label while he was recording for it -- and signed with Capitol. The change in labels didn't affect his career at all, as he continued to hit the Top Ten with regularity. In 1987, he underwent back surgery, which cured his problems. Williams signed with RCA Records in 1989. Initially, he continued to have hits, but his streak came to an end in early 1992, following his last Top Ten single, "Lord Have Mercy on a Country Boy." Although he continued to perform in the mid-'90s, he had effectively retired to his Nashville farm, returning to recording in 1998 with I Turn the Page. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi
Track samples provided courtesy of iTunes
Also by Don Williams
Shazam gives you instant satisfaction when you want to know what song is playing:
- Identify music
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- Get song lyrics, album reviews and more!
Emmylou HarrisG WelchAlison Krauss
Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby
Forever And Ever, Amen
Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue
Earl Thomas Conley
Holding Her And Loving You
Merle HaggardWillie Nelson
Pancho And Lefty | <urn:uuid:ec335d17-6616-4305-90db-05cdd7f1046c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shazam.com/music/web/track?id=10260024 | 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 | 0.9824 | 902 | 1.546875 | 2 |
From Wolverine Lake Village Council President John Magee:
The letter to the editor entitled “Sewage release” in the Feb. 23 edition of the Spinal Column Newsweekly may have created several misperceptions regarding the Nov. 28 sewage spill at the Walled Lake lift station on South Commerce Road. I’d like to take this opportunity to set the record straight.
The village of Wolverine Lake did not issue a health advisory following the Nov. 28 sewage spill because the Oakland County Health Department (OCHD) advised us that they did not consider the incident to pose a health threat. All of the evidence that I have seen since indicates to me that their judgment was correct.
Our village administrator (Sharron Miller) was notified by our police department late that Sunday evening, Nov. 28, that there had been an incident that afternoon at the Walled Lake lift station operated by the Oakland County Water Resources Commissioner’s Office (WRC). The OCHD was notified promptly by the WRC, and chose not to issue a health advisory. The next day our village engineer contacted the OCHD directly. He was advised that the OCHD had been notified of the spill, was monitoring the situation, did not consider it to be a health threat at the time, and that they would immediately notify the public if that estimation changed.
All the records that I have seen indicate that the OCHD was promptly updated about both the spill and the results of e-coli testing conducted at the time of the spill. Although the full size of the spill was 30,000 gallons, much of that sewage did not reach the lake. As they repaired the lift station, the WRC vacuumed sewage from the street, the open ditch, and the culvert, and treated the open areas with lime.
Testing at the time of the spill indicated that 100 yards from the point at which the spill contacted the lake, e-coli levels were well below the safety level for partial body contact. Observations by multiple parties over time indicated that there was absolutely no swimming, bathing, or any other full-body contact activity taking place anywhere near the spill or in the rest of the lake — hardly surprising in late November in Michigan. The e-coli levels seen during the spill were expected to quickly dissipate. Subsequent testing at the site has shown that counts quickly fell below safe levels for full-body contact. The village has conducted ongoing e-coli tests in the area this winter and plans to conduct extra tests in the area next summer, to be sure that the area remains safe.
Contrary to the wild claims in the letter, the Wolverine Lake Village Council and administration take the health and safety of its citizens very seriously. We monitor the cleanliness of our lake very closely, and we will continue to do so. | <urn:uuid:eaee2f22-7df4-4ce8-b016-cfa5c86cfeeb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spinalcolumnonline.com/2011/03/02/wild-claims-in-letter/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97764 | 580 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Is there a law about smoking within a certain distance of a public doorway? Does it have to be posted?
Both the state and local smoking ordinances, which were approved in July 2010, prohibit smoking in the access points of buildings where indoor smoking is prohibited by law. Megan Gilliland, communications manager for the city, said an ‘access point’ is defined as the area within a 10-foot radius of any open or closed doorway, open window or air intake into a building. Neither the state nor local law requires signage to be posted. | <urn:uuid:2ce82b7a-86a2-41b9-adea-cd739322c8ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www2.ljworld.com/qa/sound_off/2010/dec/14/Minimum-smoking-distance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968614 | 111 | 1.578125 | 2 |
World Bank: East Asia growth sliding
- Published: 8/10/2012 at 11:41 AM
- Online news:
The World Bank said policy makers in Asia’s emerging economies have room to provide more fiscal stimulus as China's slowdown drags the region’s growth to an estimated 11-year low in 2012.
Growth in developing East Asia, which excludes Japan and India, will probably ease to 7.2% from 8.3% in 2011, the Washington-based lender said in a report on Monday. That is the slowest pace since 2001, according to World Bank data, and lower than a forecast in May of 7.6%.
The International Monetary Fund is set to reduce its global forecast for this year tomorrow at an annual meeting in Tokyo where officials will tackle a slowdown triggered by Europe's sovereign-debt crisis. Central banks are stepping up efforts to protect the worldwide recovery, with the United States. expanding monetary easing, the Bank of Japan boosting its asset purchases and the Bank of Korea forecast to cut interest rates this week.
"As external demand has further moderated and inflationary pressures recede, there is some space for accommodative policies in most countries, and in case of a major external slowdown, sufficient fiscal space for stimulus," the World Bank said. "The latter is likely to be more effective in keeping up demand, as policy rates are already low and liquidity relatively abundant in most East Asia-Pacific countries."
Asian stocks and commodities fell before European finance ministers meet on Monday, with the MSCI Asia Pacific Excluding Japan Index losing 0.8% at 12.58pm in Tokyo. The Australian dollar dropped to $1.0150, the lowest since July 13, while the yuan touched its strongest level since 1993 on speculation policy makers will take more steps to spur the economy.
India’s central bank held interest rates last month while unexpectedly reducing the amount of deposits lenders must set aside as reserves, and South Korea announced 5.9 trillion won (US$5.3 billion) of spending and tax relief as officials acted to shield their economies.
Philippine President Benigno Aquino is increasing spending to a record and seeking more than $16 billion of investments in roads and airports, while Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is boosting disbursements ahead of an election. Manufacturing from Europe to China contracted in September, and the Asian Development Bank last week lowered its inflation and expansion forecasts for the region excluding Japan for this year and next.
Growth in developing East Asia was 7.5% in 2009 during the global financial crisis, according to World Bank data. Most Asian economies are in “good shape” now, with nations dependent on commodity exports more vulnerable to the global slowdown, Bert Hofman, World Bank chief economist for East Asia and the Pacific, said in a briefing in Singapore on Monday.
China will use “preemptive policy” to bolster growth in Asia’s biggest economy, Premier Wen Jiabao said last month, after expansion slid to a three-year low in the second quarter.
“China’s slowdown this year has been significant,” the World Bank said. “Economic momentum is expected to be weak during the coming months with limited policy easing, a property market correction, and faltering external demand.”
Asia’s exports have slipped as slower global growth crimps demand for the region’s goods. China’s shipments abroad rose less than estimated in August, while Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia have reported declines.
How soon the global economy can right itself will be debated at this week’s meeting of the IMF, which monitors worldwide trade and finance imbalances. Delegates will be greeted by the news that the lender anticipates even worse growth this year than the 3.5 percent it projected in July.
China may announce additional tax cuts and spending on infrastructure, public housing and social welfare to boost domestic demand and counter external weakness, economists at HSBC Holdings Plc led by Qu Hongbin said in a report last week.
"The recent disappointing data, in particular the collapse in export growth and rising pressure on the labor market, has acted as a wake-up call to Beijing policymakers, prompting the acceleration of easing policy," they wrote.
China's service industries expanded at a faster pace in September as output increased at the quickest pace since May, with the purchasing managers' index climbing to 54.3 from 52 in August, HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics said on Monday. New home prices rose for a fourth month in September, according to SouFun Holdings Ltd.
In Europe's day ahead, a government report may show Switzerland’s unemployment rate rose to an 18-month high of 3.0% from 2.9% in August, according to a survey of economists. German industrial production probably fell in August from July, when it unexpectedly rose, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey.
Crude oil has fallen about 9.0% this year, helping ease inflationary pressure, the World Bank said. Price gains in the Philippines unexpectedly slowed in September, while in Indonesia they eased for the first time in four months.
Global food-price increases pose less of a risk now after bountiful rice harvests in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines, the World Bank said. Still, renewed monetary stimulus in Europe, Japan and the U.S. could trigger capital inflows into the region, reigniting inflationary pressures and increases in asset prices.
Growth in developing East Asia will accelerate to 7.6% next year, with China expanding 8.1%, as domestic demand is boosted by accommodative policies, the World Bank said.
About the author | <urn:uuid:edf0c424-379c-4712-a556-7fc72da9ac0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bangkokpost.com/print/315996/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939574 | 1,177 | 1.789063 | 2 |
OLYMPIC LONDON 2012: Ali makes emotional return to Games
MUHAMMAD Ali had the honour of carrying the Olympic flag into the Olympic Stadium as part of Danny Boyle's multi-million pound opening ceremony spectacular.
The legendary boxer and civil-rights campaigner, made a second emotional return to the Olympics after he was chosen to light the cauldron at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Flanked by eight stellar names including Olympic legend Haile Gebrselassie and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Ali brought the standard bearing the five Olympic rings into the stadium.
GUIDING LIGHTS: The climax of the London 2012 opening ceremony as the lights built up
towards the cauldron after the Olympic flag was delivered
Doreen Lawrence, mother of murdered London teenager Stephen, was at the head of the procession which followed the parade of nations as representatives of all 204 nations carried their flags around the perimeter.
Sally Becker, credited with saving hundreds of lives with her volunteer work in Bosnia and Kosovo, was one of the nine to carry the standard alongside Brazilian environmentalist Marina Silva.
Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's peace movement that brought an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003.
Shami Chakrabarti is the Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University and the director of Liberty, a British civil liberties advocacy organisation.
Daniel Barenboim has served as a music director of several major symphonic and operatic orchestras and made numerous recordings winning seven Grammy awards in the process.
Earlier the captivated capacity crowd were treated to Daniel Craig as James Bond alongside the Queen as Boyle produced a truly stunning spectacle for all involved.
© Sportsbeat 2012 | <urn:uuid:a8a57735-d3e8-42c9-aa4e-e7e530ef1cf1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.morethanthegames.co.uk/london-2012/2817941-olympic-london-2012-ali-makes-emotional-return-games | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942181 | 360 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Sports Training Products
Sports Training Zone
Football Speed - 7 Tips to a Faster 40
By Patrick Beith
This is the time of the season where I am sure that you are asked the same question over and over. 'How do I run a faster 40?'
Here are the Top 7 Tips to be able to increase your 40 yard time dramatically without having to run a step. Part I will focus on the starting position in the 40 yard dash.
Tip 1 – Foot Placement
You must first determine your 'quick' leg and your 'power/strong' leg. An easy way to determine your “quick” side vs. your “power” side, fold your arms in front of you. The hand that is tucked under your bicep/armpit is your quick side arm. If your left hand is tucked under, your right leg is your “quick” leg.
Your quick leg is going to be in the back position when starting in a 3-point stance and your power leg will be in front. The front leg is going to be the leg that is really starting the initial drive out so you want your strongest and most powerful leg in front.
Technically, the distance between the front foot (power leg) and the starting line should be approximately 55-60% of your leg length. The distance between feet should be shin length, which is about 42-45% of total leg length. A simpler and equally effective spacing is to start by placing front foot (power leg) two foot-lengths from the starting line and the rear foot (quick leg) another foot length between the front and rear feet. Spacing can be adjusted from there based on comfort, existing strength levels, etc.
Tip 2 - Shoulder Position at the Start
I have found that leaning forward at the line often makes athletes fall forward at the start. So, their first step is catching and trying to control their body instead exploding out. They are actually trying to keep their feet underneath them to avoid falling forward and not creating horizontal velocity during the drive phase.
Your thumbs should be directly under your shoulders. This maximizes the distance of the shoulders from the ground. The shoulders should be directly over or slightly behind the hands. This will keep the hips from moving forward and upward on the set command. The quick side, (rear) knee should be in contact with the ground.
Tip 3– Leg Angles (Starting Position / 3-point stance)
Evidence suggests that angles in this range allow for the greatest stretch reflex in the hamstrings, as well as the greatest amount of velocity when exiting the starting line. It is important that you know your limitations. Even advanced male athletes, at the high school level, usually do not have the strength and power capabilities to successfully use lower knee angles when in the set position. A tell tale sign of poor acceleration mechanics and/or body angles is seen when an athlete becomes completely upright within the first few steps of a race. Rapidly decreasing shin angles are the most obvious evidence of limited strength and power output.
Tip 4 – Head Alignment
Your head position should be properly aligned with your spine (so it is straight). Looking down and back normally causes the athlete to break at the hips while driving out while trying to maintain that position. Also, another problem that I have seen with trying to keep the head down is that it can cause the athlete to lean too far forward while in the starting position and it causes a breaking of the hips in the drive phase.
Tip 5 – Hip Height
Make sure that your hips aren't too high or you won't be able to support all the weight and your first step off of the starting line will be short almost 'catching' your body from falling. If your hips are too low, you could have too much weight back where your body can't explode as ideally as you would like to overcome inertia. Also, you are most likely to 'pop' straight up on your first step, negating your acceleration phase.
Tip 6 – Hand Placement
Your quick side hand is going to be the hand that is going to be left on the ground supporting during the set position. Your power side hand will be raised off of the ground. Keep the power side arm at 90 degrees with that hand by your hip. Keeping your power side arm at 90 degrees at the starting position will enable you to come through with that arm quickly when driving out. The biggest reason to keep that arm at 90 degrees at the starting position is if your 40 yard time is being timed by a stop watch and not electronically.
If someone is manually timing your 40 yard run with a stop watch, they are going on your first movement. If your power side arm is up to 120 degrees or so, it is easier to see that arm move first and it won't be as noticeable if it is kept at 90 degrees. So, it might be slight time saver, but as you know, every little bit helps.
Tip 7– Focus
There are two things you can focus on. One is to focus on a motor set, which means to focus on your first movement, not the gun. Second, would be a sensory set. This means that you would focus your attention on the starter’s gun. Focusing on the gun isn’t necessary because you are going to hear it and react to it whether you are focusing on it or not.
By focusing on a sensory set as opposed to a motor set, you are likely to get a slower reaction time to the gun. By waiting to react to the gun, you have to wait to hear the gun, and then your brain has to acknowledge the sound of the gun, and then send a signal to your muscles to react to the gun. This might only take .10, but it is time you cannot afford to waste. Instead, you should focus on driving the power side arm (if your right leg is forward, then drive your right arm) up as soon as the gun goes off. This will help bring your quick side leg through as well as help you drive through your power side leg.
For a faster 40 yard dash, call us today at (508) 699-2986, and we'll set you on the road to an amazing season of football.
Recommended Athletes' Acceleration
Athletes' Acceleration, founded by Latif Thomas and Patrick Beith, combines over 25 years of athletic and coaching experience to bring you the very best in speed development, strength and conditioning programs for coaches and athletes. Get the FREE Complete Speed Training Newsletter now at http://www.athletesacceleration.com. | <urn:uuid:f739e1d5-b2b8-4d4b-9d3f-2af6a8ee01a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.athletesacceleration.com/faster40.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954898 | 1,364 | 1.75 | 2 |
How often do you say to yourself, either silently or aloud, that you wish you could have a do-nothing day? A day to stay in pajamas, eat a late breakfast, read, lounge, whatever. No outside commitments. Wouldn't it be nice to share that kind of a day with your whole family? Make it happen!
Our lives are so busy that they often can feel out of control. We need down time, both as individuals and as families, but that time can be difficult to claim. If an opportunity to have real down time exists, take it. If an "almost" day appears on the horizon, with a little finagling, you can take it to the next level and really enjoy your pajamas.
Take advantage of opportunities
Purely by chance, we had one of these days recently. On Friday afternoon, I realized that we had absolutely nothing planned for Saturday. Rather than speaking up and saying, "Hey, maybe we should plan something," I kept quiet. A day of down time sounded so good.
And it was good. It wasn't perfect, but it was good. We didn't set boundaries. We made a big breakfast and sat around the table, read bits of the paper and books, played a couple of games, drifted in and out of being together and being alone. There were random chores - laundry, dishes - but nothing onerous.
A plan for no plans
It seems so contrary to talk about planning for a day of no plans, but you really must. What makes it really special is if it's kind of a surprise to the rest of the family. As odd as it may be, if you let the family know that you have planned a day with no plans, that in itself becomes the plan, and it adds pressure. The unexpectedness of the day off from plans and commitments makes all the difference.
You also have to let go of planning, and that can be hard. If you know you have this open day coming, you might be tempted to say to yourself, "Oh! I can do this! Or finish that!" or make other plans, even if they are only mental. Try not to. Try to be open to being lazy and as relaxed as possible.
Our day off was rejuventating, and not just because we ended the day by watching a movie together then going to sleep early. It was a true mental health day. Make such a day happen for you and your family; I'm sure you'll love it. | <urn:uuid:fd00092e-7dce-4052-b57c-cef1cc4046e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/807775/monday-mom-challenge-create-a-donothing-day | 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 | 0.985238 | 518 | 1.71875 | 2 |
'Intern Nation' review: Ross Perlin on reconsidering the wisdom of unpaid internships
Published: Friday, June 10, 2011, 1:30 PM
$22.95, 272 pages
In April 2010, the Department of Labor announced that it would begin cracking down on unpaid internships within the for-profit sector for what it termed "violations of minimum-wage laws." Immediately, pro-business publications and pundits took the Obama administration to task by pointing out the hypocrisy of impeding students from getting their foot in the door during a tough economy while still allowing uncompensated internships with Capitol Hill, the White House and other nonprofits. According to ex-intern Ross Perlin, all sides have got it wrong.
Billed as the "first book-length examination of internships ... the good, the bad, and the ugly," Perlin's ambitious and eye-opening exposé -- "Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy" -- invites us all to reconsider the accepted wisdom of doing free labor in the hopes of one day grasping the brass ring of a paying job.
Coming just as "illegal internships are flourishing as never before thanks to the Great Recession," "Intern Nation" is a timely work combining argument, anecdote and remedy for a host of economic and social woes that the author links to the growth of internships across America and the globe.
Chapters bristle with the usual stories of nepotism and exploitation within the centers of British and American political power and corporations (an entire chapter is devoted to Disney World's college internship program: "magical, educational burger-flipping in the Happiest Place on Earth") as well as more eye-popping practices like auctioning off prestigious internships to the highest bidder. Perlin also tackles meatier subjects such as the economic consequences of working for free and its financial boon to employers, and describes the legal limbo interns find themselves in when faced with workplace harassment.
Perlin also once and for all busts the myth that providing training or academic credit, "a considerable financial windfall for schools, considering the minimal cost of providing these credits," automatically entitles employers not to pay interns. He claims instead that "a significant number of these situations are unethical and even illegal under U.S. law -- a form of mass exploitation hidden in plain sight."
Lucidly reasoned and restrained throughout, Perlin takes on the usual arguments in favor of unpaid internships and breaks them down one by one. However, his tone rings with the impassioned fury of a 1960s protester when addressing issues of social justice, particularly instances wherein internships "quietly embody and promote inequalities of opportunity that we have been striving diligently to reduce in courts, schools, and communities." He asserts that the current system pushes out regular workers and favors the affluent and well-connected, or requires primarily young middle-class workers to struggle to support themselves during an unpaid stint that may or may not lead to a job. It all but excludes talented, lower-income candidates who cannot afford to work for free.
Perlin does give due credit to companies that get it right by offering structured internship programs and complying with employment laws, and he praises internship placement programs that help minorities reach leadership levels within prestige industries such as journalism, politics and finance. He also pauses during his litany of injustices to delineate ways in which employers and society can benefit by paying interns. While some of his solutions to fix a broken system, such as a nationwide intern strike, are unlikely to ever see the light of day, several of his suggestions for alternate models for job training, specifically apprenticeships and cooperative education, and industrywide regulations, have already proved effective.
While most students and recent graduates probably don't come away from their internship experiences feeling exploited or having entirely wasted their time, there's no one who wouldn't like to find value in their work by being paid in more than just promises. Perlin makes a powerful case for the need for reform, and "Intern Nation" provides substantial food for thought for policymakers, educators, young workers and all those implicated in shaping the future of American -- and global --employment.
-- Lydia Beyoud | <urn:uuid:f04c8503-0ecd-4f38-86ce-e6895f69e354> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2011/06/intern_nation_review_ross_perl.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957985 | 856 | 1.640625 | 2 |
An Arizona witness with a strong military background was unable to identify a "dark, boomerang object with about 15 to 20 white lights in front" and the "size of a standard size house" as it passed silently overhead under 1,500 feet at 8:37 p.m. on October 19, 2011, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
The witness was outside on a back patio facing west.
"I am 46 years old and have served in the Navy back in the 80's ad 90's as an F-14 mechanic," the witness stated. "I have been exposed to just about every type of military aircraft and their general capabilities. I am also a Cessna private pilot. With that being said, what I observed tonight while sitting on my back patio went against every type of known aircraft I have been exposed to including any on TV."
The movement in the sky at first appeared to be a flock of birds "glowing pure white."
"I then realized what I was observing was some sort of aircraft that was in the shape of a boomerang that had on the front leading edges of the aircraft approximately 15-20 white lights from wing tip to wing tip including the center. At that time it was now directly in front of me traveling in a due south course following Highway 347 almost to the center of my town. I live in a small town. I estimate based on my military and private pilot experience it was traveling around 500 knots. It passed to my left and I was not able to observe any red or green anti-collision lights or the required white tail light."
The witness noticed that the object did not give off any emission.
"In my experience I knew a military type aircraft flying at this speed would have some telltale sign of emission from the tailpipes and none was observed. I was approximately 1/4 to no more then 1/2 mile from this object that appeared to be the size of a standard size house I estimate its altitude to have been around 1,000-1,500 feet. It made zero sound. When it was in my center field of vision, I could see clearly it was a boomerang-shaped aircraft that had a very dark skin color that caused it to contrast with the night sky and allow its shape to be easily seen as it flew by."
The object then made an abrupt course change.
"This aircraft traveled for another 4-5 seconds and then made a very abrupt course change to a westerly course from its southern course. This course change caused me at that time to lose any sight of the aircraft. It appeared to follow the Union Pacific Railroad line going west."
The witness called two area military bases and the local police department. Neither bases were flying in the area where the witness lives and the police had no other witness yet on record describing the same object.
"What I saw tonight was not anything I have ever seen before and the flight capabilities were not of anything I have seen in my F-14 experience or in other military jet aircraft I have been exposed to. Its ability to make such an abrupt course change defies Newton Law of an object in motion stays in motion. We currently don't have any known advance technology to affect that sort of abrupt course change. If this was in fact a secret military test aircraft, then I would say we have advanced significantly in our technology and have somehow been able to develop structural technology that is able to resist high G-force levels both positive and negative.
"What disproves this theory to me is it takes a lot of energy to make such a turn and it requires extremely strong flight controls to force such an abrupt course change and that would have caused the aircraft to emit some level of noise and this aircraft was extremely quite. It would have caused a significant amount of stress on the airframe and on the flight crew."
Internet site reference: http://www.examiner.com/ufo-in-national/military-veteran-what-i-saw-tonight-was-not-anything-i-have-ever-seen-before | <urn:uuid:fcfe1adc-0757-46cf-9b55-92e8efa6a921> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/news/ufo_extraterrestrials/2011/10/22/1292.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98224 | 847 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Running races aren’t always about your speed or passing through the finish line, it goes beyond your physical abilities. Races are a great way to motivate yourself to get fit and can also be a platform for personal breakthroughs. Running makes you test your limits, but also makes you able to believe in yourself by taking control.
The race is not the only thing that is important. The preparation and training involved leading up to the race can prove even more exhilarating than the race itself. Many may not know how important it is to be ready on race day. With only a few months to go until the King of the Road race on October 23, most runners participating in the race are getting physically prepared to run the 5k, 16.8k and 21k course. You have to put a lot of thought into a lot of things – whether it’d be getting the proper running gear, eating a nourishing diet, and do so much more. Surely, nobody wants to cross the finish line exhausted and in pain. Here are a few tips that can get you closer to being crowned as this year’s King of the Road.
1. Do your homework. A lot, or even just a teeny-tiny amount of research can help. Look at the route of the map and get a feel of what you will be getting yourself into. You can also look at the terrain to see the downhills, uphills, ridges, etc that can make an impact on your running performance. At least when you have an idea of where these spots are, you’ll be able to have a good indication of where the course gets tough.
2. Get the perfect shoe. There are all types of great running gear to get you through training. The first thing you’ll need is a new pair of running shoes. Without a good pair, you can expect lots of pains in your legs and lower back. When buying the right shoe, keep ventilation, cushioning and comfort in mind. Ask help from the sales associate about various choices today.
3. Carbs, carbs, and more carbs. Carbohydrates are the most common source of energy, so when preparing for a run, you really have to load up on the carbs. If you’re one of those people on a low-carb diet, you better stop now. The best sources of carbohydrates are fruits, sweets, soft drinks, bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, and cereals.
4. Never underestimate stretching. Most of the time, beginning runners finish a run and find themselves tight and sore, sometimes even resulting to a running injury. A 15-minute stretch after every run makes all the difference. The soreness is lessened, muscle flexibility is increased, strides are longer, and long term injury is prevented.
5. Listen to your body. A common error many runners make is underestimating the effort involved when training. When unprepared, you risk exposing your body to some serious running injuries. It is essential to listen to your body, slowly upping the mileage and adopting a method in which you alternate tough, thorough workout with rest or some soft, easy workouts, giving your body a lot of time to recover.
Remember, even after reading all these tips, you still have to prepare yourself mentally in finishing a personal breakthrough such as this. Held in five countries across the region, the adidas KOTR will culminate in an ultimate championship race in its first ever host country, the Philippines, making it the ultimate race destination in Asia on October 23, at the Bonifacio Global City. Event categories and race fees are Php1, 050.00 for 5km, Php1,300.00 for 16.8km, and Php1,050 for 21k. Simply visit www.adidaskingoftheroad.com to register!
For news and updates on KOTR, visit the adidas Philippines Facebook fanpage and www.adidaskingoftheroad.com launching soon. | <urn:uuid:31a7bff2-249b-44ca-9ded-b596f85ad3b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://s-cred.com/catalog/category/our-news/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951971 | 825 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Magicians (Grossman novel)
Cover of The Magicians
|Genre(s)||High fantasy, Parallel universe|
|Pages||402 pp (first edition)|
|LC Classification||PS3557.R6725 M34|
|Followed by||The Magician King|
The Magicians (2009) is a fantasy novel by Lev Grossman, published by Viking Press. It tells the story of Quentin Coldwater, a teenager from Brooklyn, New York, who discovers that the magical world he's read about in books is real. The review by The A.V. Club, published by The Onion, gave it an "A", calling it "the best urban fantasy in years, a sad dream of what it means to want something badly and never fully reach it." The New York Times review said the book "could crudely be labeled a Harry Potter for adults", injecting "mature themes" into fantasy literature. The Plume paperback edition was released on May 25, 2010.
The book follows the adventures of Quentin Coldwater, a high-school graduate from Brooklyn with above-average intelligence and below-average social skills, as he is accepted to Brakebills Academy, an exclusive college for magicians. As he goes through the five years of schooling, he realizes that, just because his fantasy came true, it does not mean that all of his problems are solved. He is forced to deal with his own sullenness and anti-social behavior along with similar issues with the other students. Magic, it turns out, is boring and tedious to learn. During this time, an incident happens where a strange otherworldly horror, in the guise of a six fingered middle aged man with a branch over his face, enters Brakebills and eats a student before being driven back to wherever it came from. The creature becomes known as The Beast. Quentin and Alice are placed in Physical, a sub group of magic involving manipulation of physical forces. There, they become friends with Eliot and Janet who were older students. At one point the students in Quentins year all travel to Antarctica to Brakebills South, where they are forced to involve themselves in soul-sucking activities such as wearing bland uniforms, living in spartan quarters and not being allowed to talk for weeks on end with the purpose of forcibly engulfing them entirely in magic so that they can instinctively learn all of its seemingly arbitrary rules.
Upon graduation, he groups together with some of his Brakebills friends where they spend the days and nights in hedonistic pursuits, apparently a common theme for magicians who have it very easy in this world. While still looking for a purpose, he discovers that Fillory, a fanciful land that is the setting of his favorite book series, is real.
In the end, the group fights against The Beast, who is revealed to be Martin Chatwin who sacrificed his humanity in order to stay in Fillory forever and destroy its gods. Alice sacrifices herself to kill Martin, Penny loses both of his hands and chooses to remain in the empty city between the worlds and a gravely injured Quentin is left to the care of a group of centaurs when the others fear that he will never awaken from his coma. Upon awakening, Quentin becomes depressed and disillusioned, especially when Jane Chatwin reveals herself to be the Watcherwoman and had been pulling the strings the entire story through the use of a magical time traveling pocket watch, trying different ways to get people to kill Martin and reversing time whenever she was unsuccessful. Quentin leaves Fillory after some time and, via connections in the magical community, takes a high paying job in an investment firm though he spends his time playing video games. The book ends with Quentin eternally unsatisfied with his lot, returning to Fillory with Eliot, Janet and Julia (who learned magic on her own) to become the kings and queens in the hope of finally finding something fulfilling.
Fictional author Christopher Plover wrote the Fillory and Further series, which comprises five books. In "The Magicians" the Fillory books were published in Britain in the 1930s and are about the five Chatwin children—Martin, Fiona, Rupert, Helen, and Jane—and their adventures in Fillory.
Quentin Coldwater, one of the magicians of the book's title, grows up as a huge fan of the Fillory and Further series, which he assumes are fiction, much like The Chronicles of Narnia. However, upon graduating from his Hogwarts-like magical college Brakebills, Quentin discovers that Fillory is real. The kingdom features mobile trees with clock faces, a talking bear with a predilection for alcohol, and giant animals wielding medieval weapons.
Fillory was "a place stuffed with wonder, from the enormous velveteen Cozy Horse that can convey all the children at once to a group of talking bunnies who like to take tea."
In the fictional universe of The Magicians, there are five books in the Fillory and Further series:
- The World in the Walls – Martin and Fiona have to prevent the Watcherwoman from stopping time at 5:00 on a rainy September afternoon. (Excerpt)
- The Girl Who Told Time – Helen and Rupert are magicked out of their boarding schools and into Fillory – but also back in time. Rupert secretly helps Martin and Fiona battle the Watcherwoman (without their knowing it), while Helen hunts the mysterious Questing Beast.
- The Flying Forest – Rupert and Fiona search for the source of a mysterious ticking sound that is troubling their friend Sir Hotspots, a noble leopard.
- A Secret Sea – Set adrift on the Outer Ocean by the Watcherwoman, Rupert and Jane seek out the remnants of the Great Shark Army to help them take back Fillory.
- The Wandering Dune – Helen and Jane find a mysterious sand dune blowing through Fillory. It carries them out into the desert, where they discuss morality. Then, the bunnies show up.
- The Magicians - The final book in the series, written by Jane Chatwin, was never actually published. It concerns the adventures of Martin and Jane as Martin loses his humanity to reach great power and Janes attempts to stop him, ultimately receiving a magical silver pocket watch from a group of dwarves and becoming the Watcherwoman, travelling through time and manipulating events in order to try and stop Martin.
Major characters
- Quentin Coldwater – The novel's protagonist. When the novel begins, he is living in Brooklyn and preparing to enter college. After he passes a test to prove he has the potential to become a magician, he is recruited by Brakebills, an elite college of magic in upstate New York. Quentin has long been a fan of the "Fillory and Further" book series and yearns to fill his life with the same adventures found in those books. He studies with the Physical Kids (Eliot, Josh, Janet, and Alice) at Brakebills. He never seems to be satisfied with what he has and often willfully ignorant of others feelings. This leads him to grow apart from his parents and seek solace in his magic and socializing, and later, drugs.
- Alice Quinn – A talented and natural magician whom Quentin meets while attending Brakebills. They are in the same year, and they study the same discipline once their specialty areas are decided. She lives with Quentin, Eliot, Josh, and Janet while at Brakebills and later in New York, following graduation. She grew up in a family of magicians, and her parents are shown to be flighty nearly to the point of neglect. She is initially extremely reserved, but opens up when she is placed with Quentin in the Physical Magic group. She and Quentin eventually develop a relationship.
- Eliot Waugh – One of the Physical Kids. Another very talented magician, perhaps the most natural at Brakebills. Eliot's sexuality is a minor plot point throughout the novel, as is his dependence on alcohol. He is particularly keen on esoteric wines. He is seen to be the unofficial leader of the group of five (along with Quentin, Alice, Josh, and Janet) throughout the novel. He, Janet, and Josh are a couple years older than Quentin and Alice. He has proven to be serious when something interests him but acts out when he has no skin in the game. He is shown to have little loyalties for his friends, and mainly only cares about himself.
- Josh Hoberman – Another of the Physical Kids. The overweight jokester-slacker of the group, Josh offers much of the novel's comic relief. He is likely the least natural in his skills, but he also flirts with an untapped power throughout. He struggles with his studies but excels at socialization. He grows close to Anaïs during the course of the novel.
- Janet Pluchinsky – The final Physical Kid of the novel. The party animal of the group, Janet seems to be attached at the hip to Eliot. Janet is portrayed as both deeply insecure and surprisingly strong. She is outspoken and sometimes causes controversy, but she is also fiercely loyal. Although she and Eliot are a couple, they are shown to not really care that much about their relationship, and knowingly cheat on each other.
- Penny – A (male) student who enters Brakebills at the same time as Alice and Quentin. He is shown to be one of the three most adept magicians in that year, and he begins to study archaic and untested magic. He is the one that proves the existence of Fillory and finds a passage. His real name is William. He is rebellious, jealous and has a terrible temper. Although he and Quentin become friends soon after joining, he later grows to prefer the company of himself over others and even spends an entire semester's time in an empty parallel universe.
Minor characters
- Anaïs – Richars girlfriend, a Luxembourgish magician whom the others meet during an intercollegiate game of welters (a kind of hands-on magicians' chess). She travels with the core group to Fillory, where she demonstrates her bravery and penchant for battle. She also has an affair with Josh.
- Richard – A Physical Kid who graduated before the main five, Richard lives with them all after they graduate. He also accompanies them to Fillory, but he proves to be the cautious one. He is the only Christian magician described in the novel.
- Dean Fogg – The dean of Brakebills who is shown to be alternatively severe, kind, wise, and cynical throughout the novel. His words often influence Quentin's thinking.
- Martin Chatwin – One of the Chatwin siblings who are the central characters in the Fillory and Further series. The siblings are rumored to have been real and to have lived next door to the author. In the books, Martin finds a way to remain in Fillory forever; and Quentin makes it his mission to find Martin, if he is still alive.
- Julia Wicker – Quentin's unrequited love throughout high school, Julia dates Quentin's best friend instead. She also takes the entrance exam to Brakebills, but fails and has her memory altered. Quentin loses touch with her soon after entering Brakebills and is surprised to see her several years later having fallen to drugs abuse and alcoholism to cope with the not-perfectly-forgotten memories of her exam and her discovery that she can do actual magic. She ends up joining the others on becoming Queen of Fillory in the books coda.
- Other minor characters – Jane Chatwin, Emily Greenstreet, Dint, Fen, Professor Van Der Weghe, Professor March, Professor Sunderland, Professor Mayakovsky.
- VanDerWerff, Todd (August 8, 2009). "The Magicians". The A.V. Club. Retrieved May 16, 2009.
- Agger, Michael (September 8, 2009). "Abracadabra Angst". The New York Times. Retrieved May 16, 2010.
- Deahl, Rachel (January 11, 2010). "Viking Re-ups Grossman". Publisher's Weekly.
- The Magician King at Lev Grossman's website
- "The Magicians by Lev Grossman". Bookforum.com. 2009-08-14. Retrieved 2010-03-14.
- Grossman, Lev (2009). The Magicians. New York: Viking Penguin. ISBN 978-0-670-02055-3.
- Patrick, Bethanne (August 17, 2009). "'The Magicians' by Lev Grossman". The WETA Book Studio. Retrieved May 16, 2010. | <urn:uuid:1cdbc2a2-5835-4823-bfe2-9e9bc0dc8e7e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magicians_(Grossman_novel) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960258 | 2,625 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The problems of praise and worship and making it relevant to all - and a review of the SFC (Seeker Friendly Church) Movement
Debate exists over the 'seeker-friendly' church movement (SFC). Tim Keller examines the problem . . .
Proponents vilify the 'traditional church' as impotent to reach contemporary people or change contemporary culture. The best critics of the SFC movement blame the impotence of the 'traditional church' not on its lack of contemporaneity, but on its over-adaptation to modernity, on its loss of bearing in historic theology and worship.
The whole controversy is complex, but here I focus on one issue where (I think) both sides err and thus 'talk past' each other. Should the Sunday service focus on the seekers/unchurched or on believers?
The seeker-focused service (as made popular by Willow Creek) has the following elements: multiple communication forms (commonly music, drama, testimony, teaching, questions-and-answers); excellent production/artistic quality; low or no audience participation (but it does challenge the onlooker into participation with Christianity); the teaching/talk is purely apologetic and evangelistic.
One fundamental of the SFC movement is that the same service cannot target both seekers and believers. It is said that you can reach one or the other but not both. Most thoughtful proponents of the straight seeker-service agree that it is not worship, and cannot give Christians proper nurture.
Therefore, in many churches in the SFC movement, a 'seeker-focused' service is targeted for the unchurched, and some other weekly believer-focused service becomes the worship service for believers. In many other SFC churches, there is only one main weekly service which serves believers and the unchurched. This is called 'seeker-sensitive' worship.
1. God commanded Israel to invite the nations to join in declaring his glory. Zion is to be the centre of world-winning worship (Isaiah 2.2-4, 56.6-8, Psalm 102.18). Psalm 105 is a direct command to believers to engage in evangelistic worship. The psalmist challenges them to 'make known among the nations what he has done'(verse 1). How? 'Sing to him, sing praise to him; tell of his wonderful acts' (verse 2). God is to be praised before all the nations, and as he is praised by his people, the nations are summoned and called to join in song.
2. Peter tells a Gentile church: 'But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light' (1 Peter 2.9). This shows that the church is challenged to the same witness to which Israel was called - evangelistic worship. A key difference, however, is that in the Old Testament, the centre of world-winning worship was Mt. Zion, but now, where-ever we worship Jesus in spirit and in truth (John 4.21-26), we have come to the heavenly Zion (Hebrews 12.18-24).
We can learn from Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 14.24-25 that:
1. Non-believers are expected to be present in Christian worship. In Acts 2 it happens by word-of-mouth excitement. In 1 Corinthians 14 it is probably the result of personal invitation by Christian friends. But Paul in 14.23 expects both unbelievers and 'the unlearned' to be present in worship.
2. Non-believers must find the praise of Christians to be comprehensible. In Acts 2 it happens by miraculous divine intervention. In 1 Corinthians 14 it happens by human design and effort. But it cannot be missed that Paul directly tells a local congregation to adapt its worship because of the presence of unbelievers.
3. Non-believers can fall under conviction and be converted through comprehensible worship. In 1 Corinthians 14 it happens during the service, but in Acts 2 it is supplemented by 'after-meetings' and follow-up evangelism. God wants the world to overhear us worshipping him.
1. Getting unbelievers in
The numbering of this section is not a mistake. This task actually comes second, but nearly everyone thinks it comes first!
It is natural to think that you must get non-Christians into worship before you can begin 'doxological evangelism'. But the reverse is the case. Non-Christians do not get invited into worship unless the worship is already evangelistic. The only way there will be non-Christians in attendance is by personal invitation by Christians. Christians will instantly sense if a worship experience will be attractive to their non-Christian friends. They may find a particular service wonderfully edifying, and yet know that their non-believing neighbours would react negatively. A vicious circle persists, therefore.
Pastors see only Christians present, so they lack incentive to make their worship comprehensible to outsiders. But since they fail to make the adaptation, Christians (though perhaps edified themselves) do not think to bring their sceptical and non-Christian friends to church. They do not think they will be impressed. So no outsiders come. And so the pastors respond only to the Christian audience. And so on and on. Therefore the best way to get Christians to bring non-Christians is to worship as if there were dozens and dozens of sceptical onlookers. And if you worship as if, eventually they will be there in reality.
2. Is it comprehensible?
Our purpose is not to make unbelievers comfortable. In 1 Corinthians 14.24-25 or Acts 2.12 and 37 they are 'cut to the heart'. We aim to be intelligible to them. We must address their 'heart secrets' (1 Corinthians 14.25). How do we do this?
a. Worship and preaching in everyday language. It is normal to make all kinds of statements that appear persuasive to us, but which are based on all sorts of premises that the secular person does not hold. It is normal to make all sorts of references using terms and phrases that mean nothing outside our Christian sub-group. So avoid unnecessary theological or evangelical sub-culture jargon, and explain carefully the basic theological concepts, such as confession of sin, prayer, thanksgiving and so on. In the preaching, show continual willingness to address the questions that the unbelieving heart will ask. Speak respectfully and sympathetically to people who have difficulty with Christianity.
b. Explain the service as you go along. Though there is danger of pastoral verbosity, learn to give one-or-two-sentence, non-jargony explanations of each new part of the service.
c. Directly address and welcome them. Talk regularly to 'those of you who aren't sure you believe this, or who are not sure just what you believe'. Articulate their objections to Christian living and belief better than they can themselves. Express sincere sympathy for their difficulties, even when challenging them severely for their selfishness and unbelief. Admonish with tears (literally or figuratively).
d. Aesthetics quality. The power of art draws people to behold it. Good art and its message enters the soul through the imagination and begins to appeal to the reason, for art makes ideas plausible. The quality of music and speech in worship will have a major impact on its evangelistic power.
e. Celebrate deeds of mercy and justice. We live in a time when public esteem of the church is plummeting. For many outsiders or enquirers, the deeds of the church will be far more important than words in gaining plausibility. The leaders of most towns see 'word-only' churches as costs to their community, not a value. Effective churches will be so involved in deeds of mercy and justice that outsiders will say 'we cannot do without churches like this'.
f. Present the sacraments making the gospel clear. Baptism and especially adult baptism, should be made a much more significant event if worship is to be evangelistic. There may need to be opportunity for the baptised person to offer personal testimony as well as assent to questions. The meaning of baptism should be made clear.
g. Preach grace. The one message that both believers and unbelievers need to hear is that salvation and adoption are by grace alone. A worship service that focuses too much and too often on educating Christians in the details of theology will simply bore or confuse the unbelievers present. If the response to this is: 'Then Christians will be bored', it shows a misunderstanding of the gospel. The gospel of free, gracious justification and adoption is not only the way we enter the kingdom, but also the way in which we grow into the likeness of Christ. Titus 2.11-13 tells us how it is the original, saving message of 'grace alone' that leads to sanctified living.
Therefore, the one basic message that both Christians and unbelievers need to hear is the gospel of grace. It can then be applied to both groups, right on the spot and directly. Sermons which are basic-ally moralistic will only be applicable to either Christians or non-Christians. But Christocentric preaching of the gospel grows believers and challenges unbelievers.
If the Sunday service and sermon aim primarily at evangelism, it will bore the saints. If they aim primarily at education, they will bore and confuse unbelievers. But if they aim at praising the God who saves by sheer grace, they will instruct the saints and challenge the sinners.
3. Leading to commitment
We have seen that unbelievers in worship actually 'close with Christ' in two basic ways. Some may come to Christ during the service itself (1 Corinthians 14.24-25), while others must be 'followed-up' very specifically.
a. During the service. One major way to invite people to receive Christ during the service is as the Lord's Supper is distributed. We may say: 'If you are not in a saving relationship with God through Christ today, do not take the bread and the cup, but as they come around, take Christ. Receive him in your heart as those around you receive the food. Then immediately afterwards, come and tell an officer or pastor about what you've done'. Another way is to give people a time of silence after the sermon. A 'prayer of belief' could be prayed by the pastor (or printed in the bulletin at that juncture in the order of worship), to help people reach out to Christ.
b. After-meetings. Acts 2 seems to show us an 'after-meeting'. Peter very carefully explained the gospel, and in response to a second question: 'What shall we do?' found it very effective to offer such a meeting to unbelievers immediately after. Convicted seekers have just come from being in the presence of God, and they are often most teachable and open. To seek to 'get them into a small group' or even to merely return next Sunday is asking a lot.
Some in the SFC movement claim that they have rejected the bifurcation of 'seeker-focused' and 'believer-focused services and have melded them into the 'seeker-sensitive' worship service. But my limited experience is that many who do 'seeker-sensitive' worship are really just incorporating a little more participation into the basic 'seeker-focused' model. So I think they are loading too much evangelism into the worship.
On the other hand, many of the critics of the SFC movement are calling us back to expository preaching and traditional worship. But when I actually see what they mean by it, I think they are making an opposite mistake. They are loading too much education into the worship. The non-charismatics try to get too much advanced teaching into worship. It has a heavy cognitive component and the preaching is more like a lecture from Sunday school or seminary. The charismatics, on the other hand, try to get too much heavy praise into the service. In both cases it leaves the unchurched behind.
I think that the best approach is to make evangelistic worship as I've outlined it the 'main course' of the church's offering.
Tim Keller formerly taught at Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, and is now pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York City. | <urn:uuid:80be295b-b67f-49df-a2a2-b171048616df> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.e-n.org.uk/736-Evangelistic-worship.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959623 | 2,584 | 1.765625 | 2 |
What Python module should I be using to sniff packets? I don't need anything too complex, I just need to get the data out of some packets being sent to my computer. I am using Python 2.6 and Windows 7, and I have installed WinPcap 4.1.2.
So far I've seen people suggest pcapy and pypcap, but when I try to install those, they both fail and tell me I am missing msvcr71.dll even though it is on my computer. Also, the python-libpcap sourceforge page seems to be unavailable, so I can't try that. | <urn:uuid:6779e486-b67f-4d1b-9f90-891322336fce> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://facebook.stackoverflow.com/questions/6598904/python-packet-sniffer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964121 | 130 | 1.601563 | 2 |
I'm not sure what 75Ah cells he refers to ... The closest cells I found on the Dow Kokam web site are:
2C Max Charge Rate
5C max continuous Discharge rate
10C max peak pulse discharge rate
between 1.87 kg and 2.03 kg each
5.8 mm ( +/- 0.3 ) x 455 mm ( +/-2.0 ) x 325 mm ( +/- 2.0 )
Bewteen ~0.802978 Liters to ~0.9115779 Liters each
Between ~138.5 Wh / kg and ~127.5 Wh / kg
Between ~322.5 wh / L and ~284.1 Wh / L
Wayne listed 258 cells in a 3P86S format.
between 1,152 lbs and 1,061 lbs just for batteries + Connections + box + etc.
~208 Liters to ~236 Liters + connections + Box + etc.
If just the batteries were all in one tight mass it could be as small as ~60cm x ~60cm x ~60cm ... or
~23.6 Inches x ~23.6 Inches x ~23.6 Inches.
He listed 318V, 225 ah, 71.5 kWh ...
but the cells spec sheets I could find look more like it would be 318.2V , 210 Ah , ~66.8 kwh.
At 80% DoD ( ~53.4 kwh usable ) that means he needs to average about ~6.5 miles per kwh to make the 350 mile trip in one charge... that will be hard at 55+ MPH highway speeds , including the extra several hundred pounds of weight he is adding to the vehicle.
If he does have 75 Ah cells at 80% DoD that gives him ~57.2 kwh usable of the 71.5 ... which would still need more than ~6.1 miles per kwh at those 55+ MPH highway speeds including the extra several hundered pounds of weight he is adding.
Sounds tight / a close call to me... may or may not make it... will be interesting to see what is average speed ends up being and how much energy he does end up using.
Originally Posted by piotrsko
my thoughts are more related to battery sizing and chemistry. I just cant envision any room in the vehicle except for battery storage
They will eat allot of space ... but if he plans it out carefully , he might be able to make it look nearly OEM and still have 2 full seats and the area above the rear flat OEM IMA cover... from the outside it might not look that different from an OEM Gen-1 Insight.
With the Rear IMA area gutted , spare tire removed, and rear cargo area ... all combined there might just be enough space to make it still look near OEM from the top with the rear IMA hatch cover down ... I would expect him to split up the battery pack though ... putting some in the front, not only for space but to distribute the weight.
- - - - - - - -
Considering the goal of ~350 Miles ... I think his desire to use 10C discharge rated cells is an error better suited for the drag strip and less so for this specific application.
We won't be able to use that much discharge rate ... and he could have done better than ~138 wh / kg with other types of cells... even if they don't have the 10C discharge rate.
At 100 kw he won't even be pulling 2C ... and even 200 kw won't be over 3C for a 70+ kwh pack.
A Tesla-ish style pack with modern 18650 cells each over 200 wh / kg would have given him significantly more energy ( ~100 kwh ) in the same weight ... or shaved off a chunk of weight for the same capacity.
But I still look forward to see how it comes out... he has done nice work in the past. | <urn:uuid:8b85e4b0-2124-4ef4-9f9f-47742080c5da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diyelectriccar.com/forums/showthread.php/waylands-350mile-per-charge-honda-insight-56439p2.html?s=900a8ebc63a2b4f5377649b960c929dd | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943174 | 824 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Companies are struggling to fill the skills shortage in mainframe development as existing staff retire and IT students are put off from the unattractive development environment, according to research.
Market research firm Vanson Bourne questioned 520 CIOs internationally about mainframe use in their enterprises, including 100 in the UK. The research, on behalf of Compuware, found that "a stagnant mainframe development environment impacts developer productivity" and in turn "reduces IT efficiency".
More than half (56 percent) of respondents said that mainframe developers - continually challenged to do more with less in a rapidly evolving IT environment - were struggling to meet the changing needs of the business. At the same time, 69 percent believed that a lack of change in the mainframe environment is turning IT graduates off from mainframe development.
Businesses are supporting new technology like mobility and cloud computing at a record pace, forcing mainframe teams to contend with the added workload of quickly and successfully integrating new applications with legacy mainframe applications.
Kris Manery, senior vice president and general manager of mainframe solutions at Compuware, said: "This rise in mainframe development coupled with a lack of new developers puts teams at risk of becoming less effective in supporting the applications that are critical to today's world economy."
The survey also showed that 46 percent of CIOs had no plans in place to address mainframe developer shortages. In addition, high acquisition costs (60 percent), complex integration (54 percent) and high training and implementation costs (45 percent) are preventing businesses from modernising their mainframe environment.
Computerworld recently questioned IT leaders about the lack of certain IT skills in the jobs market, and mainframe ones figured. | <urn:uuid:024795c1-bce6-487b-a961-c135ee118d65> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/www.computerworlduk.com/news/careers/3341480/companies-struggle-fill-mainframe-skills-gap/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942667 | 346 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, is a beautiful, elegant, poem of a film, and yet, like Arbus (Nicole Kidman) herself, it's so strange it almost defies description. Arbus (whose first name is pronounced "Dee-Ann") is simultaneously one of the most celebrated and controversial photographers of our time. Arbus grew up in a wealthy Jewish family, amidst a life filled with privilege that she viewed largely as a prison. Overshadowed by her older brother, who grew up to become the famous poet Howard Nemerov, Arbus chafed against the expectations her family had for her to be an obedient, compliant child and, later, an equally socially acceptable wife and mother.
Fur is not a historical portrait of Arbus; rather, as the title suggests, it is an imagining of what might have been going on inside Arbus' mind at the time she broke free of the constraints of 1950s wife-and-motherhood to fully realize her own potential as an artist. Arbus and her husband Allan (who later became an actor, most famously playing Major Sidney Freedman on M.A.S.H.) owned a photography business, which made much of its income shooting advertising campaigns for the fur company owned by Diane's wealthy parents.
Diane's husband Allan was the photographer, and she was his assistant. Although he always gave her credit for the creativity she brought to their mutual work and the contributions she made, for a woman of vast intelligence and creativity, with the heat of rebellion and passion churning inside her, one can imagine, as this film does, how restrained Arbus must have felt being relegated to a mere assistant.
Fur explores, by crossing and blurring the lines of fantasy and reality, Arbus' transition from assistant to artist. In the film, she meets and befriends her upstairs neighbor, Leon (Robert Downey, Jr.), who is himself one of the freaks to whom she has always been drawn. Through this relationship (whether it's real or imagined, we are never given to know, and it doesn't seem to matter), Arbus frees herself from the societal conventions that have restrained her for her entire life, and taps into the creative free spirit that had been trapped dormant inside her for so long.
Arbus' body of work, which largely focused on people on the fringes of society -- transvestites, giants, midgets, and other people who might have once populated the freak sideshows of touring circuses -- has been called brilliant by some and degrading by others. One of her most famous portraits, Identical Twins, was paid homage by Stanley Kubrick in The Shining, when he recreated her portrait of identical twins standing, shoulders touching, one with a half smile and one almost frowning, as ghosts met by young Danny in the creepy Overlook Hotel. Although Fur doesn't explore the later development of Arbus as a photographer and artist, it does give us an imagined window into the perspective that made her work so unique.
Fur is based on the book Diane Arbus: A Biography. Access to Arbus' work and life has been tightly controlled by her older daughter Doon since Arbus committed suicide in 1971; it is only recently that Doon finally allowed an exhibit of her mother's work to be curated and presented to the public. Through Fur, we get a peek at what Arbus might have been like at this pivotal point in her life. Kidman and Downey, Jr. give spectacular performances; Kidman, in particular, captures the pent-up passion that drove Arbus; this may well be my favorite performance from her yet. The film is visually spectacular, overlapping worlds of fantasy and reality until we're never quite sure what's real and what's not. Arbus, as a character study, is a fascinating artist to examine more closely. Director Steven Shainberg (Secretary) , who grew up surrounded by Arbus' photographs in his parents home (although he never met her himself) struggled for some 15 years to get permission to make a film about Arbus. And with Fur, he has done a fine job paying tribute to this intriguing and enigmatic artist. | <urn:uuid:0da88c55-0a8c-4954-b24a-146f970172ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.moviefone.com/2006/09/16/telluride-review-fur-an-imaginary-portrait-of-diane-arbus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980101 | 866 | 1.71875 | 2 |
The actor Al Pacino stars as a Cuban refugee who becomes a Miami crime boss in Scarface, which opens in theaters on this day in 1983.
In Scarface, Pacino played Tony Montana, who arrives in Florida from Cuba in 1980 and eventually becomes wealthy from his involvement in the booming cocaine business. Things fall apart when Tony becomes addicted to the drug and his world collapses in violence. Directed by Brian De Palma from a screenplay by Oliver Stone, Scarface co-starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Robert Loggia. The film was loosely based on a 1932 gangster film of the same name, directed by Howard Hawks and reportedly inspired in part by the real-life mobster Al “Scarface” Capone. Though De Palma’s Scarface received mixed reviews upon its initial release and was criticized for its violence, it proved to be a success at the box-office and went on to achieve pop-culture status.
Tony Montana is just one of many notable roles in the career of Pacino, who was born on April 25, 1940, in New York City. He first gained notice for his portrayal as a young drug addict in 1971’s The Panic in Needle Park, which was produced by Dominick Dunne and written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Pacino’s next film (just the third of his career) was the director Francis Ford Coppola’s now-iconic crime-family drama The Godfather (1972), co-starring Marlon Brando, James Caan, Diane Keaton and Robert Duvall. Pacino received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as the conflicted crime boss Michael Corleone, a role he would reprise in the acclaimed sequels The Godfather: Part II (1974) and The Godfather: Part III (1990).
Throughout the rest of the 1970s, Pacino turned in a number of acclaimed performances, garnering three Academy Award nominations for Best Actor, for Serpico (1973), Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and …And Justice for All (1979). In the ensuing decades, the prolific actor continued to rack up an impressive list of credits in such films as the 1989 hit Sea of Love, opposite Ellen Barkin; Dick Tracy (1990), for which he earned yet another Best Actor Oscar nomination; and Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), for which he received a nod for Best Supporting Actor. He took home his first Best Actor Oscar for his performance as a blind, retired Army officer in Scent of a Woman (1992). Among Pacino’s other memorable films are the 1970s-era gangster drama Carlito’s Way (1993); the New York mafia drama Donnie Brasco (1997); the Oscar-nominated The Insider (1999), with Russell Crowe; and director Oliver Stone’s Any Given Sunday (1999), in which Pacino played a pro football coach. In 2008, Pacino teamed up with another Italian-American screen legend, Robert De Niro, to play New York City police detectives in Righteous Kill. | <urn:uuid:8a2a0c99-f0d1-43e8-8921-3d31f6c9184d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/pacino-stars-in-scarface | 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 | 0.96331 | 651 | 1.65625 | 2 |
6 Q’s About the News
Read the article to answer basic news questions.
In “Pistorius Charged With Murder in Shooting of Woman,” Lydia Polgreen and Alan Cowell write about a woman’s killing that involves a world-famous athlete.
WHO is Oscar Pistorius?
WHO was fatally shot?
WHY had Mr. Pistorius become such “a national sporting hero” in South Africa?
With WHAT crime was he charged?
WHAT is his nickname?
WHERE did the shooting take place?
HOW old is Mr. Pistorius?
WHEN did the shooting take place? | <urn:uuid:b5e39185-d9a4-4840-90aa-03246602fd31> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/in-south-africa-an-olympian-is-charged-with-murder/?src=twr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967532 | 134 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Proprietress Anka got her crafty roots growing up in Russia, where sewing and making things were part of the school curriculum. When she moved to Ireland 12 years ago and couldn’t find work as a journalist she started making and selling her jewelry.
Since launching Fabula, Anka has rediscovered a love for mixed media pieces and vintage and revamped components.
Anka has generously offered to up a brooch or a necklace to one lucky Crafting a Green World reader! Want to learn more about Fabula and how to enter? Read on!
She says that eco-friendly materials inspire her because of:
The unexpected. I don’t start with a sketch of jewellery. The nature of the materials I use requires a more intuitive approach, so I start looking at bits of vintage textile or lace, bits or upholstery cord or fabric, throw in some chain and beads, and then come up with ideas how to recycled and repurpose them, turn them into something beautiful and make them desirable again. I never know where the materials will take me. As I source my fabrics mostly in thrift shops, flea markets and online, it is an adventure in itself. So working on a collection is always full of surprises.
The word Fabula comes from Latin and means a story or tale, and Anka says that her pieces are meant to represent a “different shopping experience, where you give yourself time to listen to a story behind the jewellery that you like, learn how it was made and by whom.”
I just love the way that she combines notions and vintage finds to create such dramatic pieces! You can learn more about Fabula and Anka on her website or check out all of her revamped accessories in the Fabula Etsy shop!
There are several ways to enter:
- Comment on this post with your favorite item from the Fabula shop.
- Become a fan of Fabula on Facebook, and leave a comment on this post letting us know.
- Become a fan of Crafting a Green World on Facebook or on Twitter and let us know here.
You can do one or two of these things or all of them! Each one gets your “name in the hat” for an additional entry. Just remember to let us know in the comments, so we can be sure to count all of your entries! We’ll announce a winner on June 9th. | <urn:uuid:23621d7f-a565-4c8f-87ae-8402e631dace> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://craftingagreenworld.com/2010/06/02/green-crafter-profile-accessories-by-fabula-and-a-giveaway/comment-page-1/ | 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 | 0.950783 | 499 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Later in life, a remarkable encounter with a rescued steer at a sanctuary opens the door to Harold's past, launching him on a life-changing quest to reintegrate the parts of himself that were fragmented as a child. With striking honesty and emotional courage, Harold attempts to come to terms with the violence he both witnessed and participated in as a routine part of life on the farm.
Harold's quest for healing leads him to connect with other former farmers, and to forge a new path that integrates his love and knowledge of animals with his vision for a more peaceful world. "To follow that vision, that dream," says Harold, "It's really a joyous thing. It's going home."
Visit Harold Brown's web site: Farmkind | <urn:uuid:2b384d99-ce94-48b0-9912-34366d9e77e8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.peaceablekingdomfilm.org/pk_subjects1_english.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981602 | 152 | 1.539063 | 2 |
The Chronicle have published an extremely articulate and well thought-through letter written by professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State University in response to their being encouraged to “adopt” an edX course on Justice. I’ve embedded the letter below, which I strongly encourage you to read in full.
The one section of the letter that absolutely breaks my heart is the top of page 4:
Good quality online courses and blended courses (to which we have no objections) do not save money, but purchased-pre-packaged ones do, and a lot. With prepackaged MOOCs and blended courses, faculty are ultimately not needed.
Oh, MOOCs. How thoroughly, completely, and profoundly you have failed us.
The SJSU faculty’s last statement is true if and only if one underlying assumption is met – that the content of the pre-packaged course is traditionally, fully copyrighted. So with regard to this particular edX course, whose YouTube videos all say “Standard YouTube License” for example, the SJSU criticism is accurate. This fully copyrighted, pre-packaged MOOC is clearly meant to run as is, and is not meant to be taken apart, adapted, localized, and customized by local faculty. If edX intended for those things to happen, they would take down their silly registration barrier and put a proper license on the course.
(Don’t even get me started on how edX oh-so-deceivingly puts “Some Rights Reserved” in their footer without ever specifying which rights those are. “Some Rights Reserved” is, obviously, a nod to Creative Commons licenses – but the site does not use one. Check their Terms. When you don’t use a Creative Commons license, why try to hoodwink us into thinking you’re “one of the good guys” by putting that language in the footer of EVERY page?!? And this is how the one NON-profit in the space behaves. No wonder people are suspicious…)
If entities like edX and Coursera and Udacity would simply be open – meaning, use an open license for their materials – the concerns of SJSU faculty and others could be assuaged. Rather than pre-packaged, teach-as-you-receive-it collections of material meant to undermine faculty, openly licensed course frameworks empower faculty to tweak and customize and modify while still saving money. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You can have your cake and eat it, too, when you use open licenses. The either/or presented by the SJSU faculty is only true when purchased-pre-packaged courses are copyrighted – like the edX course is.
Come on, MOOCs. There’s no innovation in allowing open enrollment. The OU/UK has had that for decades. There’s not even innovation left in open licensing – we’ve been doing that for over a decade, too. What exactly is it you’re doing that we’re supposed to be so impressed by?
(Grab the letter as a PDF or as plain text. | <urn:uuid:9672c116-6af0-4717-906d-2b2c4f47c14e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://opencontent.org/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947571 | 664 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Published on 19 Jul 2012 by magnetvortex
NOBLE GAS MOTOR "NO OIL AND NUCLEAR POWER NEEDED HERE" TO MAKE THIS WORK !! FREE fuel (almost)..
MAKE COPIES OF MY VIDEO AND GIVE THEM AWAY TO ALL CHEMISTS AND SCIENTISTS !!!
I have NO INTEREST in this company below !!
Here is real proof that "I" Al here in Denver have been able to show that there is indeed a method to the madness that Intelegentry mfg. is on the right track to make the "Noble Gas Motor", and since the Joe Papp patents are expired this technology is now in the public domain...
I have studied this "quantum effect", transmutation of one element into another through a very sharp electro magnetic pulse. THIS IS VERY REAL AND THIS WILL CHANGE THE WORLD AS OIL AND HYDROCARBON FUELS GO WILL GO AWAY !!
Any one can do this too.. This concept is very simple and the requirement are a basic air compressor and a modification to it.. Please look up the J.Papp patents and study them as the major objective of this discovery is that " Noble gases can be made to expand and contract in a closed container through a magnetic pulse and high voltage" look and study my video clip and down load it as it is in HD. (get FVD suite as it is free it allows you download in HD clips from YouTube.)
Noble gas plasma type motor is a sealed gas chamber, created by the piston, cylinder the chamber, is back filled, and sealed with a noble gas a magnetic pulse trigger is applied which causes the noble gas to expand, turning off and on excitation causes gas to return to a normal state causing partial vacuum and leaving the noble gas ready to cycle again. This cylinder is an air tight seal. This motor does not consume the noble gas and produce heat. There is no coolant needed.
"videos of the Papp Engine as designed by Joseph Papp and manufactured by Rohner Machine Works, for Papp International. This is the engine that was later certified. Most of these people are now dead. " | <urn:uuid:f7283823-d41f-46ac-a2e3-f0dbbf09ede6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?47708-The-Free-Energy-Videos-of-Magnetvortex&s=5e833b549c05bd8b9b542874ab326230&p=580782 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932061 | 451 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Children's books have really been in the news this week!
Needless to say, a lot of media coverage has centered on THE HUNGER GAMES, which is breaking records at the box office. We too have several HUNGER GAMES stories to share, as well as news reports on an upcoming picture book from a political wife, a re-release of a young adult novel from the seventies, a new study on the popularity of various Newbery winners, and a tragic tale about the loss of a beloved children's book icon. Read on for a round-up of recent children's book news stories, presented Sunday Brunch style.
REAL LIFE HUNGER GAMES PLOT FOILED
Cuts in library budgets. An overworked public servant. A popular children's book, recently made into a major motion picture.
These three components came together last week in a near-tragic incident that resulted in the arrest of a beloved children's librarian.
Delores Clemmons, 38, was head children's librarian at the Collingswood, Colorado Public Library. Popular with both young patrons and their parents, Clemmons was known for afterschool programs such as "Westing Game Mini-Mysteries," "Sew Your Own Joseph's Little Overcoat," and every Christmas Eve she would dress up as a train conductor and take young library patrons on an imaginary trip aboard the Polar Express.
However, city budget cuts for fiscal year 2011-2012 resulted in Clemmons' staff being reduced from four full-time librarians and six part-time paraprofessionals, to one librarian -- Clemmons herself -- and two teenaged book shelvers.
Clemmons (shown below in an unrepentant arrest photograph) has become a fixture at Collingswood City Council meetings over the past year, complaining of overwork and demanding increased staffing. Her parting words at last week's Council meeting -- "We either need a bigger staff or fewer young patrons!" -- seem particularly chilling in light of what would happen several days later. To celebrate the release of the new movie, Clemmons planned a Friday night "Hunger Games Party" in the basement of her library. Children between the ages of five and twelve were invited to dress as their favorite character from the book. When they arrived, Clemmons locked the children in the basement with hunting bows and arrows, razor-tipped lawn darts, and flame throwers, as well as an assortment of loaded firearms. Fortunately, Collingswood Police -- contacted by a Facebook friend of Clemmons -- were able to break down the doors and remove the weapons before any children were hurt.
"Social networking saved those kids!" declared Police Chief Dan Landale.
In the days leading up to the Hunger Games Party, Ms. Clemmons had posted a number of disturbing messsages on her Facebook wall, including:
CALL ME KATNISS!
ONE LIBRARIAN + 2000 PATRONS = MADNESS!
JUST THINK OF IT AS "THINNING THE HERD."
AND YOU THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A GAME!
Concerned by these messages, Ms. Clemmons' Facebook friend contacted authorities just minutes before the party was to begin.
Delores Clemmons is currently being held without bail at the Collingswood City jail, charged with child endangerment and conspiracy to commit murder. Her lawyers are seeking a plea bargain, but the librarian says she is ready and willing to go to prison and looks forward to possibly working in the prison library and organizing events such as ground-digging/tree-planting parties inspired by the children's book HOLES.
A NEW HUNGER GAMES BOOK
No, Suzanne Collins does not plan a fourth book to her very popular series...but the success of the movie version has inspired a coloring book based on the novels. "Why should older kids have all the fun?" asks Richard Deeth, vice-president of marketing for Colormore Coloring Books. "Kids five and under may be too young to read the books or see the movies, but there's no reason they can't 'Color Along with Katniss.'"
Mom-of-two Jackie Oberg has a different perspective on the issue, stating, "Preschoolers are too young for all that blood and gore," but Deeth countered by asking if she'd even looked at the coloring book "which contains many character studies and lovely pastoral landscapes."
Oberg then asked why the accompanying "Hunger Games Crayon Set" was issued with every crayon a different shade of red, all labeled with names such as Plasma, First Blood, Splattered Scarlet, Transfusion Red, and Type O Negative.
Deeth stated that it's not unusual for Colormore to release boxes of only color tone, pointing out the recent set of gray crayons that accompanies the company's new coloring book based on the internet literary sensation, FIFTY SHADES OF GREY.
ONE LAST HUNGER GAMES STORY
Perhaps the biggest controversy surrounding this week's release of the HUNGER GAMES movie had nothing to do with the film's violence. It turns out that some fans were upset by the movie's depiction of Roo, a young participant in the Hunger Games ceremony. "She didn't look like I expected," tweeted one, adding, "and I think you know exactly what I mean!"
Several other viewers took to Twitter with complaints that usually began, "Don't call me a bigot, but...."
One Twitter user finally said it straight out: "I pictured Roo being a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl. I never dreamed they'd cast this part with a male kangaroo!"
The young actor playing this role is disappointed in the reaction "from a few bad apples," but says the majority of moviegoers have been nothing but supportive. Roo (shown on the left with actress mother Kanga in an earlier, undated photo) said times have been rough since he outgrew the Winnie the Pooh movie franchise some years ago. "I was thinking of chucking my acting career and heading off to Australia or someplace," says Roo, now basking in great reviews for his comeback performance in the year's hottest film. "If a few of the book's fans feel I don't have the right 'physical appearance' for the role, they can bite me. I thought we'd outgrown the era when actors were judged by the color of their pelt. Look around yourselves, folks. I mean, there's nothing wrong with blonde, blue-eyed girls, but thank goodness our world is filled with a lot more variety than that!"
OF COURSE HE'D LIKE IT
However, those who do have an interest in blonde, blue-eyed girls can still find one hanging out on the cover of Fran Arrick's 1978 young-adult novel, STEFFIE CAN'T COME OUT TO PLAY.
One of the first YA novels to deal with the subject of teenage prostitution, the novel was a groundbreaker in 1978 and still speaks to youth today, according to publisher Deb McClain-Volson, who has just re-issued the book for twenty-first century readers, along with a cover blurb from an individual known for his strong feelings on the subject:
BAN THE HOODIE FOR GOODIE?
Meanwhile, Limbaugh's colleague Geraldo Rivera stuck his foot in his mouth this week when he advised young people to avoid wearing "hoodies."
Spurred on by Geraldo's remarks, thousands of Fox News viewers mounted a "ban the hoodie" campaign and directed it at an unlikely enemy: children's books.
In a petition to several major publishers, Fox viewers demanded a number of high profile novels have their texts altered and illustrations changed to eliminate hoodies from the pages of children's books. Favorite characters who could be affected by this petition include Harriet M. Welsch:
and Ramona Quimby:
Needless to say, Harriet and Ramona are two of the most formidable children's book protagonists of all time.
Something tells us that the Fox crowd have picked the wrong kids to tangle with!
HAS THE NEWBERY FOUND ITS WAY AFTER ALL?
The question that has confounded children's book critics for generations may finally be answered: do children really like books that have won the Newbery Medal? Past criticism has centered around the award winners being appreciated much more by adults than by young readers. However, a new poll from KidReadUSA -- the first of its kind -- may stand conventional thinking on its ear. According to this poll of 3000 grade school kids who characterize themselves as "average to compulsive readers" ("average" being described as "reading 2 to 4 books per month" with "compulsive readers" reading "between 12 to 1800 books per month"), the Newbery books are among the most popular volumes being read by youngsters today. Which Newbery titles are their very favorites? According to the poll, which ranked the individual titles from first to last, the #1 favorite among young readers is the 1966 winner I, JUAN DE PAREJA by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino. As Melinda W., age 8, said, "If I have to choose between a book cover that shows a boy playing with his dog, or a couple girls talking, or a grown-up man with a mustache and pantaloons...well, I'm always going to choose the man with the pantaloons." Danny G., age 10, stated, "You can never go wrong with a book by Elizabeth Borton de Trevino -- and this may be the very best!" Kristin K., age 6, said, "Stories about modern kids having problems at school and home are okay, but I always prefer a good novel about a thirty-five-year-old illegitimate slave serving a Spanish artist like Diego Rodriguez de Silva y Velazquez."
The #2 favorite in the poll was 1928 winner GAY-NECK : THE STORY OF A PIGEON by Dhan Gopal Mukerji. According to Matt S., age 11, "Some kids like boy-and-dog stories. Me, I like a good boy-and-pigeon story!" Another reader, Morgan Y., age 11, said, "Some of the Newbery books tend to stretch credibility. Kids running away to a museum? A dead kid living in a graveyard? C'mon. For me there's nothing better than a good, ol' realistic story told in first-person by a pigeon." Finally, Heather A., age 5, had this to say: "Gay-neck's insights into India's caste sysem are fascinating!"
Rounding out the top three favorites among average-to-compulsive readers is SECRET OF THE ANDES by Ann Nolan Clark, which won the Newbery in 1953. Of this book, Jacob C., age 9, said, "Llama herders living alone in Peru? It doesn't get more exciting than that!" Boyd M., age 8, reported, "A lot of people pre-judge this book because it beat out CHARLOTTE'S WEB for the Newbery. My advice? Read the book! By the time you get done with SECRET OF THE ANDES, you'll be saying, Charlotte WHO?" Perhaps Katherine R., age 12, summed it up best when she said, "Who doesn't love a 'SECRET'?"
THE GROWING THREAT OF SELZNICK SYNDROME
This is Bobby.
Bobby has Selznick Syndrome.
You've never heard of this condition?
You will soon.
Selznick Syndrome has increased by 300% during 2011 and, experts predict, it may double yet again by the end of this year.
Bobby, like thousands of other children in the United States, suffered a broken arm when he attempted to lift Brian Selznick's WONDERSTRUCK off the picture book shelf at his local public library.
"It was the fifth time this year that we've had to call EMS for a child who tried to read a Brian Selznick book," reports Richard Warrington, children's librarian at the Peoria, Illinois main library. "Folks, there's a reason that picture books traditionally had very few pages. Children's bones are not fully-formed and they don't have the strength to hold such heavy books. It was bad enough that THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET was 533 pages. Two of our young patrons broke their arms just carrying the book to the circulation desk. Then WONDERSTRUCK came out this year and it's over 600 pages! One little girl put the book in her backpack and is now hospitalized with a broken spine."
Because of the high incidence of injury associated with Selznick's books, many libraries will not allow children under ten to borrow these volumes without bringing in either a muscular parent or a wheeled cart to transport the book home.
PEEPY, WE HARDLY KNEW YEE
For years now, award-winning author Lisa Yee has traveled with a special mascot in tow -- the much-loved Peepy.
Peepy has many friends and fans in the children's book community, ranging from ORIGAMI YODA author Tom Angleberger:
to Newbery winners Richard Peck and Avi:
And then of course there is Peepy's BFF (Best Friend FOREVER), Judy Blume:
So it's with a heavy heart that we report the sad news that Peep met her maker this past week during the author's visit to Sarah Palin Grade School in Dayton, Ohio.
"I'd been invited to the school to discuss my novels MILLICENT MIN, GIRL GENIUS and WARP SPEED," sobbed Yee, "and of course I brought Peepy with me, never realizing it might be her...her last school visit. I handed her to the students, saying, 'I'd like you to meet Peepy' and the next thing you know, Peepy was...gone!"
"So I misunderstood her. Big deal!" said fifth-grader Tommy Dumbas. "Meet, eat...they sound a lot alike. Hey, it's Eastertime. I thought she was passing out candy!"
"We couldn't believe it!" exclaimed Tommy's classmate Kaylee Johnston. "Mrs. Watson told us to use our best 'company manners' when Ms. Yee visited, but Tommy never listens in class, which is why he got a D in behavior last semester AND got sent to the office twice this year."
A memorial service for Peepy was held in the school library during lunch period. Weepy Peepy owner Lisa Yee thanked Mr. Harnell's shop class for making a special bunny-sized casket for her big-earred yellow companion, whom she tearfully described as "my pal...my mascot...my, as Philip Pullman would say, daemon."
However Yee cheered up considerably when the students pooled their milk money and class president Kaylee Johnston walked over to the local K-Mart during recess and purchased a new Peepy for the visiting author.
"Big deal!" said Tommy Dumbas. "If they'd just waited till next Monday they could have gotten it for half-price when all the Easter junk goes on sale."
In a kind gesture of forgiveness, Lisa Yee later presented Tommy Dumbas with an autographed copy of her newest book -- and said it was "most likely a mistake" that she misspelled his last name in the inscription.
FROM THE "WHO REALLY CARES?" DEPARTMENT
Why is that every politician's wife thinks she needs to write children's books? Laura Bush...Lynne Cheney...Callista Gingrich. Now Ann Romney, wife of aspiring GOP presidential candidate joins their ranks with SEAMUS GOES ON VACATION!
"The book is based on a real-life incident involving the Romneys' dog Seamus," said publisher Harvey Cooper, who recently inked the half-million deal with Ms. Romney. "It's about a dog who's a bit..put out...by the fact that he has to travel in a cage on top of a car, but eventually learns he's got 'best seat in the house' -- or, as Ann's lovely rhymes tell us:
Sitting on a rooftop is the very best place to be,
To view the good old USA, from sea to shining sea."
Asked if the book was an attempt to rehabilitate the Romney family image after the political fallout from, you know, sticking a big dog in a little cage and then chaining the cage to the roof of a speeding car and traveling several hours until the dog gets sicks out of both ends, publisher Cooper simply said, "Pshaw."
He added, "We could take a real loss on this book. If Mitt gets elected in November, it could be a bestseller. But if he loses...well, expect to see SEAMUS GOES ON VACATION! at a remaindered store near you for $1.98 by Thanksgiving."
AND SPEAKING OF GIVING THANKS....
Thanks, as always, for visiting Collecting Children's Books. Hope you enjoyed the April Fool's Brunch! | <urn:uuid:28f9cf78-97f1-4d65-bf7c-b08dae28875b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://collectingchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/2012/04/sunday-brunch-with-all-news-thats-fit.html?showComment=1333302044034 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96745 | 3,618 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Ferrari to reveal hybrid 599 at Geneva show
No details of the new car were forthcoming, but Montezemolo said the prototype 599 hybrid will be officially unveiled at the Geneva auto show in March.
European patents revealed last year suggest that Ferrari was working on a four-wheel-drive hybrid drivetrain with electric motors powering the front wheels.
The Italian magazine Quattroruote has since reported that the new system will use lithium batteries and an electric motor to cut the fuel requirements of the 599's V12 by 35 percent.
Montezemolo said he was keen for Ferrari to lead F1 in the transfer of race technology to road cars.
Company sources said the Ferrari hybrid system is derived from the KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) used in 2009 F1 racing season.
Luca Ciferri contrbuted to this report | <urn:uuid:e31f4754-6c42-44a1-833a-b8fedc30a6d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://europe.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100201/ANE/100139992/1164 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948076 | 180 | 1.570313 | 2 |
George W. Bush has not been known as a great proponent of recycling — except when it comes to ideas. It seems he has never proposed a single one that he doesn’t think deserves repeated consideration, no matter how hopeless or discredited it may be.
Bush proved this again on Wednesday. In an op-ed article in The Wall Street Journal, he laid out some areas where he believes that he and the Democratic Congress can work together, which consist entirely of recycled ideas that even the Republican-controlled Congress rejected.
Bush’s biggest pitch was for line-item veto authority. Rather than explain all the problems with this idea, I will simply direct readers to my March 15, 2006, post on this Web site. You see, Bush made exactly the same proposal last year and it sank without a trace — mainly because every budget expert knows that its impact would be extremely limited.
The fact is that the so-called earmarks, which Bush presumably would use his line-item veto to erase, make up at most one percent of the budget, and no one is suggesting that every one of them is without merit and should be abolished. Another of the dirty secrets about earmarks is that many are proposed by the president. We just don’t see them because they are buried in the budget requests of the Transportation Department and other agencies.
We know that presidential pork exists, because every president running for re-election promises spending wherever he thinks it will do him some good — and in 2004 Bush was no exception. Members of Congress rightly ask why their pet projects are routinely portrayed as wasteful while those the president proposed just to win a few votes in key states are assumed to be justified on the merits.
At the very least, the idea of making the line-item veto a key presidential initiative in the seventh year of an administration is uncreative. Even die-hard Bush loyalists see that. For example, former Bush speechwriter David Frum, who wrote a hagiography of Bush in 2003 called “The Right Man,” sees the intellectual bankruptcy of proposing a line-item veto yet again. Said Frum on National Review magazine’s Web site:
Never mind that the Supreme Court has found the line item veto unconstitutional.
Never mind that after six years of presidentially led overspending, it is a bit implausible for the president to try to present himself as the guardian of the public purse against rapacious congresspersons.
Consider only this: Republicans have been suggesting a federal line item veto as a talisman against big government since the middle 1980s. If twenty years later, the line item veto is the only domestic idea a Republican president has to offer — what more emphatic confession of mental exhaustion can an administration give? And if the administration confesses itself exhausted, why should not the Congress elbow it aside? Somebody has to govern after all. . . .
This president has always preferred to retire early for the night. I fear that the whole domestic policy staff seems now to be following the boss’s example, settling in for bedtime two years ahead of schedule.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, and I was fired by a conservative think tank for saying similar things. Perhaps my real sin was saying them too soon.
But proposing a line-item veto isn’t the only thing Bush said in his op-ed that a reasonable conservative would take issue with. He also said that his tax cuts had “fueled robust economic growth and record revenues.” This is evidence of a logical fallacy called post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this), which basically means that just because A precedes B, it doesn’t mean that A caused B.
In Bush’s case, he is saying that we had various tax cuts and subsequently achieved robust growth and record revenues. Therefore, the tax cuts caused the growth and the record revenues. No empirical evidence is offered.
However, if you ask most economists, they will more than likely say that the robust growth we have today is simply due to the normal workings of the business cycle — what goes down eventually goes up again. If any governmental action deserves credit, it would be the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy. (The Fed lowered interest rates aggressively as soon as a recession was detected — which it has not always done — and then reversed course in time to prevent an outbreak of inflationary expectations.) The tax cuts undoubtedly raised the growth rate slightly, but at most their effect amounted to only tenths of a percent of the gross domestic product.
Consequently, there is no possible way that the tax cuts can be credited with raising federal revenues, as Bush implies. Studies of the Kennedy tax cut in the 1960s and the Reagan tax cut in the 1980s show that perhaps a third of the gross cost of a tax rate reduction might be recouped through stronger growth. No serious person believes that across-the-board tax cuts of the sort that Bush proposed ever recoup 100 percent of their gross cost. Not even Bush’s own economists. Professor Andrew Samwick of Dartmouth, who served as chief economist of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, said this to his former colleagues about Bush’s claim:
You are smart people. You know that the tax cuts have not fueled record revenues. You know what it takes to establish causality. You know that the first order effect of cutting taxes is to lower tax revenues. We all agree that the ultimate reduction in tax revenues can be less than this first order effect, because lower tax rates encourage greater economic activity and thus expand the tax base. No thoughtful person believes that this possible offset more than compensated for the first effect for these tax cuts. Not a single one.
Again, I couldn’t have said it better myself. | <urn:uuid:b3db6914-2257-4dba-8196-e49b19dce099> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bartlett.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/04/bush-recycles-the-trash/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97189 | 1,201 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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Books to check out
One of the benefits of staffing the Welcome Desk is talking about great books. Two recently released titles that have been frequently requested are the fictional novel, "Lone Wolf" by Jodi Picoult and the nonfiction title, "The Obamas" by New York Times correspondent Jodi Kantor. Both of these recently made it to my "to read" list. Not able to put either down, I finished them in time to blog about them here.
"Lone Wolf" by Jodi Picoult
Jodi Picoult, once again, has successfully written a multifaceted story that entertains the reader with the complications of family relationships, while encouraging the reader to consider a moral dilemma, in this case, who in a family makes the final life-or-death decision, while also introducing the reader to a completely new subject. I learned more than I ever thought I would about the advanced socialization of wolf packs and the in-depth experiences of a professional wolf researcher who literally lives among a wolf pack for two years in a Canadian forest, at the expense of his wife and two children. The format of the story, similar to some of Picoult's previous novels, is told in the first person by different characters, allowing the reader to develop a relationship with, and consider each character's point of view as the story evolves.
Picoult's talent for storytelling, developing characters who could literally be "the girl (or boy) next door", drawing the reader into the story, results in the real world being put on hold for the duration of the book. At least, that's my experience with Picoult's novels. The next best thing to reading her books is listening to them on audio while on a long car trip.
"The Obamas" by Jodi Kantor, New York Times correspondent
Often reading fiction simultaneously with nonfiction, I read chapters of "The Obamas" between sections of "Lone Wolf." Being such diverse books, there was no confusion of characters or storyline. Jodi Kantor has chronicled the Obamas' story and some of America's recent history from November, 2008 - the time of the presidential election to President Obama's 50th birthday in August, 2011. With an inside glimpse into the personal lives of the president and first lady, their family, close friends, along with staff from the East and West Wings of the White House, Kantor is able to chronicle the challenges and successes of the presidency, the first lady and the country.
I approach nonfiction by first reviewing supplemental sections to the text such as author notes, bibliography, index, photographs and, often the most likely to be inferior - or even absent - accompanying maps. These sections are great accompaniments to the text and give insight into the breadth of research conducted. "The Obamas" includes significant supporting documentation, including a wide selection of photos.
Kantor, who has covered the Obamas since 2007, includes details about Michelle Obama's personal struggle with becoming the first lady: putting her career on hold, founding "Let's Move," parenting Malia and Sasha without exposing them to more than she is comfortable, and negotiating a healthy balance between her public and private life. Kantor writes in detail about President Obama's adjustment to the White House, his loss of personal freedom and the frustrations of Washington, D.C., and his commitment to his family and dedication to achieving his goals for the United States.
Writing a biography of the president while he is still in office, actually while he's in the middle of his first term, doesn't allow for a book with a historical perspective. Perhaps Kantor will publish a second volume that includes the balance of Obama's time in office and later a biography about the Obama years that includes the perspective and reflection that time will allow.
Maybe these titles will make it to your list of books (whether in print, digital or audio) to check out. If you do, or already have, please share your thoughts by commenting here or with me at the Welcome Desk!
Submitted by JHauge on April 2, 2012 - 8:00am | <urn:uuid:4582cb66-f0f4-42db-9e01-4eb5005a6cc2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.princetonlibrary.org/blog/2012/04/books-check-out?page=1&mini=events%2Fcalendar%2F2013-03 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965181 | 854 | 1.523438 | 2 |
WALMART STORM WATER COMPLIANCE TEAM GRANT
With the assistance of the Walmart Storm Water Compliance Team Water Quality Grant Program, the MRBPLG developed an outreach initiative entitled “MS2 - Municipal Stormwater Stewards” to create an instantly recognizable allusion to the EPA MS4 program. The MS2 initiative was designed to assist the core partners with training to enhance their existing Phase II stormwater programs. Funding from the Walmart Grant Program will pay for design and installation of innovative best management practices (BMPs) such as rain gardens, bio-swales, permeable pavement/concrete, and green roofs. An educational component was also developed focusing on stormwater pollutants, what can be done to reduce those pollutants, and increasing the awareness of water quality regulations within the Maumee River Basin.
The overall goals of the “MS2 – Municipal Stormwater Stewards” initiative are to develop knowledgeable and experienced MS4 staff, provide appropriate information to the public, and encourage communities to lead by example when protecting stormwater quality. This initiative can become a model for other areas throughout the United States showing an example of successful outreach and training that can be offered to expand existing MS4 programs.
Training: The MRBPLG utilized their Coordinator, Christopher B. Burke Engineering, Ltd. to develop and facilitate a series of 4 trainings held throughout the Maumee River Basin designed to provide resources to knowledgeable MS4 staff, to provide examples of the economic benefits of stormwater programs, and to encourage communities to lead by example when protecting stormwater quality. This workshop series, the Municipal Stormwater Stewards (MS2) series, was developed for elected officials, economic development, planning, and MS4 staff in regulated communities that wished to enhance or expand their existing MS4 programs.
Training sessions were held in Fort Wayne, IN (September 22, 2009); Lima (October 26, 2009), Defiance (October 28, 2009), and Bowling Green (November 4, 2009), OH and presented the valuable information to more than 40 individuals representing 27 individual municipal entities and engineering firms in the Maumee River Basin. Presentations were given that focused on providing attendees an overview of MS4 programs and requirements, how to get economic value out of stormwater programs, and in depth reviews of each MCM in the Phase II program. Evaluations that were completed and returned after each session showed that attendees routinely ranked the speakers at 4 or 5 (1=poor; 5=excellent) and overall comments were positive and appreciative.
BMPs: Each community signing a Memorandum of Understanding for the administration of this grant is eligible for $20,000 to develop and install an innovative BMP in their jurisdiction. Each community is asked to provide details of the project such as location, cost, accessibility of the public, and expected pollutant load and stormwater volume reductions due to the BMP. The Sub-Committee reviews each application packet and utilizes a score sheet (attached to this report) to evaluate each proposed project. To date, 6 communities have prepared and submitted “mini-applications” for review by the grant Sub-committee.
|Bowling Green, OH||New Haven, IN|
|Defiance, OH||Paulding, OH|
|Leo-Cedarville, IN||Perrysburg, OH|
|Lima, OH||Fort Wayne, IN|
Educational: Materials have been gathered and created that will assist Core Communities and other regional partners in educating themselves and their residents on the benefits of protecting stormwater quality. These materials are beneficial for both residents and municipal officials wanting to learn more on how their actions may positively or negatively impact water quality in their community, as well as the entire Maumee River Basin. | <urn:uuid:0099312f-c119-4975-ad47-754ad9034f03> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mrbplg.org/walmart.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945152 | 779 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Born: 13 June 1935
Died: 18 November 2009 (complications from a brain aneurysm)
Birthplace: Casablanca, Morocco
Best known as: The wife and creative partner of the avant-garde artist Christo
Name at birth: Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon
Together with her husband Christo, the artist Jeanne-Claude created some of the biggest, craziest, and most-discussed art installations of the 20th century. Their best-known work may be Running Fence, an 18-foot-high white fabric fence installed across nearly 25 miles of Northern California hills and farmland in 1976. Jeanne-Claude was born in Casablanca to a French military family and earned a degree in Latin and Philosophy from the University of Tunis in 1952. She met Christo in Paris in 1958 and they began making art together almost immediately. In the 1960s they were known for their impulse to wrap objects, from oil barrels on the docks of Cologne (1961) to a fountain in Italy (1968) to an entire art museum building (the Kunsthalle) in Bern, Switzerland in 1968. Running Fence brought them a wider audience, along with a mix of praise and insults from critics. Their other works included dotting the Japanese countryside with umbrellas ("Umbrellas," 1991), wrapping the Reichstag building in Berlin (1995), and hanging orange fabric panels throughout New York's Central Park ("The Gates," 2005). While Christo was the public face for the art, he always insisted that he and Jeanne-Claude were equal collaborators on their works, and in the 1990s they retroactively declared all their works to be co-creations.
Extra credit: Christo and Jeanne-Claude were born on the exact same day: 13 June 1935... They had one child, a son named Cyril, born on 11 May 1960. Cyril is a published poet... In later years Jeanne-Claude dyed her hair bright red; she once joked that the stresses of wrapping the Reichstag turned Christo's hair gray and hers red... Jeanne-Claude married Philippe Planchon in August of 1959, about 10 months after meeting Christo; the couple separated shortly after the honeymoon, and Jeanne-Claude became pregnant with Cyril the same month.
Copyright © 1998-2013 by Who2?, LLC. All rights reserved.
More on Jeanne-Claude from Fact Monster:
Information Please® Database, © 2007 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:5a2d6d05-ce24-4d61-8693-1880eaac5586> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.factmonster.com/biography/var/jeanneclaude.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95683 | 525 | 1.765625 | 2 |
As part of the California Supreme Court’s ongoing outreach and education efforts, the court will welcome more than 100 students and teachers from Sacramento’s C.K. McClatchy High School’s Law and Public Policy Academy to hear the two morning cases on the court’s February 6, 2013 oral argument calendar at its courtroom in San Francisco.
The visit is part of a month-long program by Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye to raise awareness about the importance of civics education to our society and to focus attention on the need for civic learning programs in California. “The current fiscal crisis has highlighted gaps in awareness of, and understanding about, our judicial branch and its role in state government. There is a critical need for an engaged citizenry to make fully-informed choices about the future path of our democracy” said Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye. “I am advocating for improved civics education so that our citizens understand that the strength of our democratic institutions relies on the public’s understanding of and participation in those institutions.”
The Law and Public Policy Academy at C.K. McClatchy High School (the Chief Justice’s alma mater) was created two years ago. Students take core classes together and supplement their schedules with elective courses. The goal of the program is to provide experiences engaging to students and a rich curriculum centered around the law, augmented with guest speakers and field trips. Research has shown academy-style learning promotes academic success, produces more high school graduates, and leads more students to pursue higher education.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for the kids,” said Bennae Dillingham, Coordinator of the Law and Public Policy Academy. “Being in the courtroom during the oral arguments will allow them to learn firsthand about the important work of the Supreme Court and expose them to the broad range of careers within the field of law.”
The students will attend the morning oral argument session and will hear two cases, People v. Gonzales (Ramiro) (Case No. S191240) and People v. McCullough (Antoine) (Case No. S192513). “The cases being heard have been selected to be of general interest to students and relevant to their studies in the Law and Public Policy Academy,” said Mr. Frank McGuire, Clerk/Administrator of the Supreme Court. “Copies of the legal briefs and case summaries were provided to the students in advance to enable them to prepare for the oral arguments and make their visit more meaningful.”
Wednesday’s visit will follow a special oral argument session at the University of San Francisco School of Law on February 5 where law students will be joined by high school students from Balboa High School Law Academy and Thurgood Marshall High School in San Francisco. The Chief Justice will follow up the visit by C. K. McClatchy students to the Supreme Court with a return visit to their school in Sacramento on February 21. During February she will also visit Sutter Middle School in Sacramento, University of La Verne Law School in Ontario, and Balboa High School in San Francisco.
The month of outreach on civics education will culminate with the Civic Learning California Summit: Making Democracy Work in Sacramento on February 28, where the Chief Justice will be joined by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (Ret.), Secretary of State Debra Bowen, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson, and others interested in civic learning. | <urn:uuid:39361497-252b-49fc-a27b-8abac68d8f78> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp.htm/20866.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942413 | 736 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.
LEADERS: Beka27 BinkyBunny Elrohwen KokaneeandKahlua LittlePuffyTail Peppypoo RabbitPam Sarita
first time bunny owner and poster.
Can anybody offer any advice on litter training my little bunny? He's 5 months old (just got him yesterday) and everytime he poops outside of his litter box (usually when he is eating his pellets - is this normal?), I pick him up and put him in his box.
Unfortunately, because this is after he poops, he thinks it is his duty to run to the litter box once he's done and escape my attempt at picking him up. It's extremely hard to catch him while he's pooping, so I'm at a loss at how to proceed here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. | <urn:uuid:2422da28-16bf-4fba-976c-7732f642b543> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/121694/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97228 | 235 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Like YouTube in 2006 and Facebook in 2008, 2012 will go down as the year that online polling joined telephone polling as part of our electoral process. This victory for online technology wasn't a foregone conclusion. The criticisms leveled at online polls, especially before this election cycle, reminded me of many of the avoidance tactics I used to hear from companies that were afraid to embrace social media. But in this election all but the die-hards made room for online polling, just as marketing teams have now near-universally gone social. (Full disclosure: the phone-versus-online polling issue is on my radar because I've just joined Vision Critical, a tech solutions company that owns Angus Reid Public Opinion, one of the online pollsters.)
What helps a tech path cross over from resistance to inevitability? There are four key mental and organizational shifts that I have seen in companies that adopt social media, and which we can recognize in the way online polling was embraced over recent months:
Assessing the bottom line. The prospect of cost savings has long been a major driver of tech adoption, though many businesses are all-too-willing to pay a premium for the benefit of change-avoidance. The polling companies that actually did include cell phone users did so at an enormous price (between 1.8 and 3.8 the cost of a traditional telephone poll): because the FCC prohibits robo-calling cell phones (and thank goodness for that!), it takes a huge phone bank of people willing to plough through a lot of hang-ups in order to generate the same number of completed surveys. By looking at the bottom-line costs of doing things the old way — and just as crucially, the bottom line savings from doing things the new way — organizations can find a powerful motivation to accept the risks and anxieties of trying something new.
Benchmarking against reality. Once you know that more than 90% of respondents refuse to answer phone surveys, online surveys start to look pretty robust. That's the kind of perspective shift that helps organizations embrace their online opportunities; conversely, those that compare the flaws and imperfections of online life with their hypothetically rosy offline alternative have a hard time accepting the trade-offs of digital solutions. When I hear professionals gripe about the superficiality or occasional hostility of the social web, I always wonder what magical rose garden they were living in offline. Smart organizations benchmark their tech choices against a different standard: reality.
Differentiating among tech solutions. Businesses often need to be persistent in experimenting with a range of tech tools before they find the right option. Yes, some online polls have been dead wrong...but this time, the major online pollsters got it right! Writing off every version of a new technology, based on a single bad experience, is a classic way to deprive yourself or your business of the benefits from tech adoption. If I had written off MP3 players on the basis of my Iomega HipZip, I would never have become the proud owner of a first-edition iPod. And if your organization writes off LinkedIn or Twitter because you're turned off by the frivolity of Facebook or the ribaldry of a Reddit, you're missing out on some crucial conversations.
Embracing the inevitable. Just as many marketers had to be dragged into the world of social media kicking and screaming, there are pollsters who will hold onto their phone banks until the last landline has been severed. What makes the adoption of new tools possible for even the most hardened resistor is the ultimate recognition that change is inevitable. Those customers you want to engage? They're on Facebook and Twitter. Those voters you want to survey? They're on the web. The faster a company can embrace an inevitable tech change, the sooner it leads to thrive in a new medium.
The pay-off from making these shifts goes way beyond doing things cheaper, though companies do find real financial savings in moving from the old technology to the new. And it's not just about being faster, though companies that make the mental and organizational shifts required to adopt one new technology are well-positioned to make subsequent shifts faster, so that they stay ahead of the innovation curve.
The real benefit of tech adoption, if you get it right, is that you do things better. That's what we've seen from companies who have built stronger brands and customer relationships through social media, and it's what we saw in the adoption of online polling. When the final votes were tallied, the online pollsters proved themselves by delivering results that were every bit as accurate as their phone-ringing brethren: according to Fordham University's assessment of polling accuracy in the 2012 election, 3 of the 5 most accurate polls came from companies that relied on online polling. | <urn:uuid:cba775c8-32d4-4b4d-9935-292bda695451> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/11/what_we_can_learn_from_the_suc.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959136 | 966 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Transcend means "to move beyond, to surpass." At least that's what I always thought. But I'm beginning to wonder whether it means instead: "Much, much more of the same, only this time really stupid."
Exhibit A: the incessant, relentless, click-your-ruby-red-slippers-and-say-it-until-it-comes-true mantra that Barack Obama will magically cause America to "transcend race." One hears and reads this everywhere, but less as an argument than as a prayer, an expression of faith, a "from my lips to The One's ear" sort of thing.
It is, of course, total and complete nonsense. According to L.B.O. (Logic Before Obama), transcending race would involve making race less of an issue. Passengers on Spaceship Obama would see race shrink and then vanish in the rearview mirror.
Instead, Obama has set off a case of full-blown race dementia among precisely the crowd that swears Obama is leading us out of the racial wilderness. Rather than shrink, the tumor of racial paranoia is metastasizing, pressing down on the medulla oblongata or whatever part of the brain that, when poked, causes one to hallucinate, conjure false memories and write astoundingly insipid things. For instance, a writer for Slate sees racism when anyone notes that Barack Obama is -- wait for it -- skinny. What this portends for Fat Albert is above my pay grade.
We need to rewrite those old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons, because now virtually any adjective, noun, verb or adverb aimed at Barack Obama that is not obsequiously sycophantic or wantonly worshipful runs the risk of being decried as racist. Community organizer? Racist! Mentioning his middle name? Racist! Arrogant? Racist! Palling around with a (white) terrorist? Racist! Celebrity? Racist! Cosmopolitan? Racist! This? Racist! That? Racist! The other thing? Oh man, that's really racist.
The new Schoolhouse Rock cartoon: "Conjunction: a word that connects a racist attack and Barack Obama."
This week, an editorial writer for the Kansas City Star denounced John McCain and Sarah Palin for suggesting that Obama is a socialist because he wants to "spread the wealth around." Don't they understand that "socialist" has always been a racist codeword used by bigots like J. Edgar Hoover to demonize black activists like W.E.B. Du Bois?
A couple problems: First, as best I can remember, Marx, Engels, Lenin, George Bernard Shaw, Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas and Michael Harrington do not usually get a lot of attention during Black History Month. Second, as writer Michael Moynihan recently noted, Du Bois wasn't merely a socialist, he was a Stalinist! (Du Bois was not entirely unsympathetic to the Nazis, either.) Besides, when did "socialist" stop being an anti-Semitic codeword for Jew? Maybe when the left started going batty over "neocons." But that's a story for another day.
The idea that Obama was ever really about transcending race flies completely in the face of his own writings. The overarching theme of his book "Dreams From My Father" is the story of man who found it impossible to transcend race and instead explicitly chose to have a racial identity when he didn't have to (he describes fellow multiracial students he met in college as sellouts). He then joined a black church whose theology is shot-through with black nationalism and whose longtime pastor believes that black brains are different from white brains.
But, yes, I know: The above paragraph reads: "Blah, blah, blah ... racist, racism, racey-race-racism."
Now, let us actually transcend race for a moment. Apparently for Obama, "transcend" isn't a racial term so much as a euphemism for declaring victory. He says he wants to "turn the page" on the arguments of the '80s and '90s, by which he means conservatives should stop clinging to their guns and antiquated Sky God and join his cause.
He told Planned Parenthood he wants to stop "arguing about the same ole stuff," by which he means he wants people who disagree with his absolute support for government-funded abortion on demand to shut up already.
He doesn't want to argue about his pals from the Weather Underground who murdered or celebrated the murder of policemen and other Americans, he just wants everyone to agree no one should care.
In short, Obama and his disciples only demand one kind of transcendence from all Americans. We must, as Obama likes to say, unite as one people, one nation, one American family and transcend all of our misgivings about Barack Obama. Then, and only then, will The One fulfill his wife's pledge and fix our broken souls.
Only a racist could possibly disagree. | <urn:uuid:79fc8bcf-d2f3-48cf-9064-0a4fa07e10dd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://townhall.com/columnists/jonahgoldberg/2008/10/24/racy_content/page/full/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956478 | 1,047 | 1.679688 | 2 |
February 21, 2013 @ 4:06 pm
The entire faculty and staff of Tacoma-based Charles Wright Academy skipped school on Feb. 15.
While the group enjoyed rare sunny skies, a case of Spring Fever was not the cause of the wide-spread absenteeism. Instead it was the school’s designated community service day for all faculty and staff. Every year, with students away for the President’s Day holiday, the faculty and staff gather for professional development.
About three years ago, they decided to add community engagement to their professional development curriculum. In the three years since the community outreach component was added, the teachers have volunteered more than 600 hours in support of numerous projects around Pierce County, including beach cleanup at nearby Chambers Bay and working in the greenhouses and fields at L’Arche Farms in Tacoma.
The organizations receiving support evolve from year to year based on employee interest. Every year, employees nominate projects or organizations in the surrounding communities where they wish to volunteer their time and talents. And every year, when students are away enjoying the long holiday weekend, the faculty and staff head out in groups large and small to help their neighbors.
Setting aside a day for employees to volunteer has many benefits according to organizers.
“Of course, it benefits the recipients, but it’s also been beneficial to our own campus community,” said Sam Harris, Charles Wright’s Middle School Librarian and one of the event’s coordinators. “It’s an opportunity for faculty and staff with different responsibilities on campus to work together. That fosters communication, deeper understanding, and ultimately helps strengthen our own community."
By Published in the Tacoma Weekly
Tacoma residents who get their trash collected on Mondays are the first to shift from weekly… Read More >> | <urn:uuid:6bdc41e8-921d-43f8-a84c-c3eb9b621f40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tacomaweekly.com/dailymashup/view/tacoma-area-teachers-skip-school-for-a-good-cause/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958916 | 370 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Brigadier Violet Merritt’s connection with Czechoslovak Salvationists started in 1967, when a group of Czech Salvation Army officers visited London. Vi took care of them during the visit not knowing that this would change her life and Christmas for many others for years to come. Soon after her getting to know the Czech officers, Vi became a friend, a supporter, an encourager and a guest who visited every Christmas since 1968.
Violet knew the risk such a visit contained. The Communist regime after 1970 became very sensitive regarding visitors who supported organizations like The Salvation Army, especially if the visitor carried Bibles and songbooks with her. Without doubt Vi could have easily been arrested and put into prison like others who did the same service, but somehow by the mercy and grace of God, she was protected and passed through customs every year without harm. What an encouragement for the Czech officers who were living under persecution! Many of them witnessed later about the faithfulness of God during the times when The Salvation Army was not allowed to exist in Czechoslovakia and when they faced many persecutions by the Communist government, which was demonstrated in Violet Merritt and her courage to cross the border with “forbidden contraband” in her luggage.
I personally met Violet for the first time in Prague in 1990 when she was actively involved in the re-opening of The Salvation Army work after 40 years of darkness. First I wondered about the little English lady running up and down The Salvation Army meeting hall and making sure everyone had their place to sit. After all during this time I did not speak English. But with Violet somehow you didn’t have to. Even though she spoke a different language her love toward people spoke for itself. People were able to understand her interest in the Army, people she cared about and the few Czech words she learned to speak during her numerous visits, pronounced in English accent.
Later on when I was preparing for entry to the training college while working at Sunbury Court her house became a place which I visited over the weekends whenever possible. I often visited Penge Corps and she made sure I had someone sitting next to me (…just like in Prague). And besides, her cooking was much better then at Sunbury Court. In my opinion Violet’s spiritual gift was without doubt hospitality. Her house had been called the “Czech embassy in London,” by her many Czech guests and those she helped.
I remember the day I was supposed to enter William Booth Training College in London. Like every fresh cadet I was nervous about the new life ahead of me. I stayed in her house and in the morning I was supposed to be picked up to travel to the training college. She arranged everything to the last detail…maybe to make sure I really got to the training college. While I was waiting for my lift Vi came to me and prayed with me a prayer, which I believe has been answered and was a big encouragement for me during my training years. Encouragement was Vi’s second spiritual gift. She continued to encourage me and later my fiancée Charity who came to London from the US during my second year of training. After training we returned for a very short time to Los Angeles to get married, and I was glad that Violet was also able to be there. She truly became my other “English mom”.
I am sure she celebrates today with all the other Czech officers from the communist era in heaven now and she is making her final and eternal visit with them, since she was the last “Czech” Salvation Army officer alive.
Premek Kramerius, Captain | <urn:uuid:a091e978-f4cf-4155-81e0-c36eefa27380> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://salvationarmypuyallup.org/blog/major-premek/brigadier-violet-merritt.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990129 | 744 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Before we begin, please bear in mind that this garden is the work of many volunteers. Please respect their good intentions. Pick up your cigarette butts and candy-wrappers. Dispose of them properly. Leave only virtual footprints as you explore this aromatic reserve. Please do not look for or exchange medical advice on the premises. Just listen to the plants.
Your virtual footsteps will take you on a path that exists only in cyberspace. Which is say, when you visit the real Medicinal Herb Garden (as you should when you have the opportunity), you will find things are a bit more complicated than they might appear here. You may credit this to the superior fractal algorithms used in rendering the real garden. Nevertheless, the images presented here may give you a taste of the riches that are stored in these scant hectares of real estate, believed by some to be the largest medicinal herb garden in the Western Hemisphere.
The garden is arrayed in several rooms of beds: A and B on the west; C in the middle; D and E on the east -- F in disrepair -- with additional specimens located in the entry and ornamental surrounding areas.
There is no need to return to the bus stop when you have completed your walk. Now, go have a look for yourself | <urn:uuid:3bec26ba-3f93-4bf6-a080-b425c78565f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://nnlm.gov/pnr/uwmhg/walk95.html | 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 | 0.948507 | 260 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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