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Discretionary infrastucture funds were given out by Mayor Bredesen for each Council member to spend in their districts. This funding turned Councilmembers into mini-Public Works directors as they decided how the money would be spent without regard to public policy or capital planning. As I understand it, this discretionary money was meant to appease those Councilmembers who percieved occaisonal opposition to the Mayor would keep the yellow trucks out of their districts while the pot-holes swallowed cars, pets and children.The money did not go far, but what made it lousy was that giving money to charities can be perceived as political patronage.
Mayor Purcell did not favor the notion that the public's money should be spent without some justification supported by empirical data. His administration spent oodles of time and money on audits, studies and community meetings. In one of the those ironies that characterizes American politics, Mayor Purcell, even with all that data to back him up, was often accused of withholding infrastructure dollars for the less favored. In response, the Council Initiative Funds were born. Each Councilmember gave themselves about $50,000 to spend in their district as they wished. Well, pretty much everyone figured out that $50,000 doesn't go too far when you are talking about installing sidewalks and fixing roads, so the money ended up going to favored charities. Lousy public policy for sure.
And frankly, the council in many cases showed that they were not any better at managing money and responding to actual community needs than those whom they criticized. Case in point: Ludye Wallace sent money--that could have helped keep some programs going at Morgan Park during community center renovations last year--to buy dinner theater tickets for a senior non-profit among other private interests. There are so many other cases. Just click on the 2006-07 Infrastructure Funds label below. | <urn:uuid:ac2d0adc-3884-4761-aa44-27c895aa258d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://enclave-nashville.blogspot.com/2008/05/council-member-blogs-on-discretionary.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981744 | 379 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Newcombe honors his idol Jackie in LA
Former Dodgers pitcher speaks of Robinson's influence
LOS ANGELES -- Don Newcombe took to a podium behind home plate at Dodger Stadium Thursday night with a thin piece of paper in hand. Sitting behind him, listening, were Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, Tommy Lasorda, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Frank Robinson, "Sweet" Lou Johnson and Tommy Davis.
he paper contained just three words, as Newcombe spoke into the microphone, "Thank you, Jackie."
The Dodgers and D-backs wore No. 42 like all of baseball Thursday in honor of Jackie Robinson, who broke Major League Baseball's color barrier on April 15, 1947. The Dodgers will wear the jerseys again Friday when the Giants come to town for a three-game series. San Francisco was off Thursday.
For Newcombe, a teammate of Robinson's for six seasons and a soon-to-be 84-year-old who has survived cancer, he had no doubt of what Robinson did for his life.
"Jackie Robinson period, not just Jackie Robinson Day, will be important to me as long as I live," said Newcombe, who threw out the first pitch to center fielder Matt Kemp. "Jackie Robinson is my idol, he's been my idol all these years and he's in a great way responsible for me doing whatever I was able to do with my career."
Between home and third, while the Dodgers took batting practice, Newcombe told stories as he mingled with people on the field: the first of how he was touring for the government at a school in New Orleans, waiting to speak to children in a library. He looked around and didn't see one book on Jackie Robinson.
"I sent 'em boxes of books on Jackie and [the principal] said he'd put them in the library," Newcombe said. "So if that's the case in New Orleans, it's the same elsewhere. They didn't know about the history of Jackie."
It's why Newcombe said, the day will continue to hold importance to future generations. Not everyone knows Jackie's story.
Evan Drellich is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | <urn:uuid:e7b98351-2672-4529-98d5-6e4ac3df9dd0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://losangeles.angels.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100409&content_id=9176208&vkey=news_la&fext=.jsp&c_id=la | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977738 | 468 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Producer Khalief Brown: Beats for a Space Brawl
[Editor's note: Weekly scribe Jeff Weiss's column, "Bizarre Ride," appears on West Coast Sound every Wednesday. His archives are available here.]
It's rare that you hear a rap song on the radio and your only thought is, "Who produced this?" That's what happened last summer when I first heard Kid Ink's "Drippin'." The beat sounded like the trap on Alpha Centauri: a nightclub brawl between funky extraterrestrial synths and bludgeoning drums, a missing link between The Neptunes and Lex Luger.
The producer was 23-year-old Khalief "KB" Brown, a Virginia-bred, Rancho Cucamonga-based former shipyard worker, legal assistant and ASCAP intern.
"I try to blend the sounds of New York, Virginia, Atlanta and L.A.," Brown says, ticking off his previous stomping grounds on a rainy Friday earlier this month. He's wearing a camouflage Obey hoodie, blue jeans and retro patent-leather Jordans. His only jewelry is a modest diamond stud in his left ear. "It's about doing what other people wouldn't -- drop a trap beat out and pair it with an orchestra breakdown, or use a sample but reverse it. The first thing I often search for is a weird sound."
Producers, rappers and check-writing executives are forever attempting to copy current radio trends. Rick Ross' "B.M.F." resulted in a thousand others jacking the gothic curb-stomp of its aforementioned producer, Lex Luger. The saturnine stripper anthems of rapper Future caused Atlanta's Mike Will to be widely imitated. Though Brown uses similar materials, (production software Fruity Loops, 808 drums, hi-hats), he carves his own lane: up-tempo enough for the club, futuristic enough to pass for the newest banger pulsing out of L.A. beat-scene locus Low End Theory.
Brown's sound is beholden to no one region or rhythm -- fitting for someone who has lived in nearly every major hip-hop production hub. Born to a hairdresser mother who loved old R&B, Brown lived in Queens until he was 8. He taught himself to produce while attending high school in Newport News, Va., the home state of Luger, The Neptunes, Timbaland and Teddy Riley. Shortly after graduation, he went to work in the shipyard, one of the chief employers in town.
"It was well-paid because it's so dangerous," Brown says. "At 19, I was making $20 an hour, more than all of my friends. But I woke up one day and said, 'This is not my life. I can't do this.' "
Quitting the shipyard, Brown promptly moved to Atlanta, where a chance performance in a beat battle landed him his current manager. The manager helped him get several placements on records from Atlanta party rap group Travis Porter. Soon after, Big Sean, 2 Chainz and Meek Mill started rapping over Brown's tracks. | <urn:uuid:62b16823-217c-408a-921f-1cec8187520b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.laweekly.com/westcoastsound/2013/02/khalief_brown_kb_kid_ink_drippin.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959449 | 653 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Authenticity Is King Because Branding Bores Everyone
Today, any brand has a potential army of credible, unpaid spokespeople that are willing to work on its behalf. And this army is the exact same group of people who are willing to work against it.
This is the new world of what I call the “post-positioning era” of branding. In the post-positioning era of branding, what you say about your product or service matters almost nothing at all, and what I, the consumer, can do with it matters completely.
The new conditions of brand success:
1. Deliver a kick-ass product.
2. Be honest.
Arts Discount-Ticketing Strategies
Pricing and marketing arts event tickets isn’t easy. When faced with the need to “put butts in seats” it can be tempting to do whatever it takes. In this article, I hope to give you some explanations on why some discounting strategies would be a better choice than others, and help you avoid some short-term successes that could lead to long-term problems.
Picture this. You’re a big supporter of a large cultural music venue, so when you receive an email from the institution that tickets have gone on sale for an upcoming concert, you pick up the phone and buy your tickets (or better yet, buy online). You get your confirmation that you paid the listed price, and since the concert isn’t until a month from now, you go about your business.
Article by Ron Evans, Groupofminds.com. Read more.
$100K of Free Branding Advice, in Just Three Words
There is a moment during every branding presentation I give when I offer something enormously valuable--for free. I tell clients to write down what is essentially the formula for successful branding employed by the best brands in the world. With their undivided attention and pens in hand, I summarize this formula for them in three words: Unify. Simplify. Amplify.
This is how the world’s best brands tell their stories effortlessly. Apple. Virgin. Lego. Dyson. Prada. They all apply this formula. But the good news is that this can work for any brand, old and new, large or small-- when designing a new brand identity or refocusing an existing one. This is how it works:
What Is Your Brand Against?
Companies understand that to be successful they and their brands need to stand for something. This results in bold and principled declarations to the world: "At Acme Amalgamated, we're committed to X. We believe in Y. We care passionately about Z." Unfortunately, in the end, it all starts to sound like generic ad-speak.
Here's a modest suggestion: If you really want to show the world what you believe in and stand for, how about telling us what you stand against?
Recently, my agency StrawberryFrog launched a new campaign for smart car that was rooted in this kind of oppositional thinking. We understood that the smart car brand stands for some pretty good things: efficiency, economy, reduced environmental footprint. But put way, it sounds rather dull and predictable.
By defining instead what smart is against — over-consumption, excess, thoughtless behavior — we began to craft a statement with more of an edge
65 Terrific Social Media Infographics
As you know, infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge. They present complex concepts quickly and clearly, and communicate ideas in an easily understandable fashion.
Last year, I assembled a collection of 35 infographics that told the story of social media at that time. That post proved to be so popular that I wanted to update it, including images that are still relevant and adding newer visualizations that illustrate more recent knowledge and insights into the social Web. Since social media marketing is a relatively recent addition to organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans, it’s imperative for marketing professionals to gain as much understanding as possible about how people leverage social media for everyday interaction. These snapshots communicate essential information to help marketers make sense of the social networking space and how people are using it in their everyday lives to communicate and share information and ideas.
No Right Brain Left Behind
No Right Brain Left Behind is a speed innovation challenge, calling on the creative industries to concept ideas that can help the creativity crisis happening in U.S. schools today.
In collaboration with Social Media Week 2011, teams from creative industries will have 5 days to concept ideas. On the last day of the week, ideas will be submitted virtually to this site, and an expert panel will pick 3 winning ideas that are to be featured by our media partners. The best ideas are to be piloted in 2011 and 2012.
We are inviting teams of various sizes from advertising agencies, innovation companies, design consultancies, and communication schools. Ideas can be in form of tools, applications, or products, or whatever else we have not thought of.
If adapted, this will be a yearly challenge where creative industries will spend one week out of the year, responding to a burning crisis.
Turn That Frown Upside Down
I recall the first rehearsal of a play I once worked on, where the director impishly warned cast and crew, "This show is going to flop." Despite this caution masked as irony, we slaved away. We rehearsed weeks on end during the dog days of August in a musty, mouse-infested theatre. Of course there was no air conditioning. Actors quit but new ones were hired. People fell ill, but the show endured. We never quite escaped that first rehearsal forewarning. The show did indeed do a massive belly-flop into a pool of scant audiences. There was not a single review.
But what do you do when you get reviews and they aren't the kind you want? It's torture to agonize over a production that ultimately doesn't get the kudos and press praise you know deep down it deserves. Do you disregard the criticism and soldier on? Or what about another familiar situation—when drama offstage proves to be more salacious than the drama on? Do you ignore the gossip or revel in it? Some clever souls—perhaps a tad perversely—turn these frowns, be they mixed reviews or offstage hearsay, into a bold marketing scheme.
Drip-fed up: Why Don't Theaters Get Twitter?
Here's the first of a little series I enjoyed recently:
What starts as a mildly satirical vignette moves up through several gears in a journey to the centre of the sun – without losing that mild satirical sting. Some of you will dismiss this as trivial and silly, and of course you will be right. And if you've just scrolled through it having linked to the account above, I hope you enjoyed it. But you won't have got the best out of it. Rather than being gobbled up, it's designed to be drip-fed on alongside all your other tweets from Stephen Fry and Barack Obama and that guy who wrote that show you once saw.
Metropolitan Museum of Art Seeks New Audience Online
As Thomas P. Campbell begins his third year at the helm of the cultural ocean liner known as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he hears fewer comparisons between himself and his illustrious predecessor Philippe de Montebello, who served as director for 31 years. But the game of “Would Philippe Have ...?” remains irresistible at times, as it was in December, when Mr. Campbell seemed to be everywhere at Art Basel Miami Beach, the contemporary-art bacchanal that Mr. de Montebello virtually ignored.
User-Led Innovation Can't Create Breakthroughs
The user is king. It’s a phrase that’s repeated over and over again as a mantra: Companies must become user-centric. But there’s a problem: It doesn’t work. Here’s the truth: Great brands lead users, not the other way around.
The Apple and IKEA way
Take Apple. One evening, well into the night, we asked some of our friends on the Apple design team about their view of user-centric design. Their answer?
Blog: I Like Older People
At virtually every discussion I have with board members of arts organizations (and many discussions with other arts managers as well), the desire to attract younger audience members is a primary topic. The issue is typically introduced by someone commenting negatively on the age of most current audience members: "Our audience is too old. Everyone has gray hair. Our audience members are likely to die away. We need a younger audience. How do we get young people to come to our performances?"
Latinos in #Twitterlandia
Many Latinos are gathering on Twitter via hashtags. How do marketers connect with them?
In an earlier column, we observed that Latinos not only index higher on Twitter than any other ethnic group, but also self-index higher: that is, we tend to self-identify, self-organize, and self-categorize more than other folks. The tool of choice for all of this self-indexing is the Twitter hashtag - select words and phrases preceded by a hashmark (for example, #twitterlandia - an actual hashtag on Twitter) that make individual tweets more searchable.
You Are Not Your Target Audience
Putting aside for a moment whether we should call them “target audiences” or not, it’s always good to remember that, as a nonprofit communicator or fundraiser, you are very rarely the kind of person that you are trying to communicate with. Even if you match the demographics, the fact that you are employed by your cause sets you apart in major ways from those who are not. Therefore, what you personally think about your fundraising letter, or your e-newsletter’s design, or what so-and-so wants to put on your nonprofit’s Facebook page is not nearly as important as what the people on the receiving end will think about it.
To Groupon or Not to Groupon
Hundreds of websites like Groupon, LivingSocial, Eversave, and BuyWithMe sell discount vouchers for services ranging from restaurant meals and museum visits to spa treatments and skydiving. Best known is Chicago-based Groupon: although only two years old, Groupon touts a ten-digit valuation and purportedly rejected a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google.
To consumers, discount vouchers promise substantial savings — often 50% or more. To merchants, discount vouchers offer possible opportunities for price discrimination, exposure to new customers, online marketing, and "buzz."
Music Groups Turn to Fans to Underwrite New Works
When the Bay Area flutist Meerenai Shim ran out of interesting music to play with her chamber ensemble, she did not content herself with repeating existing repertoire. She commissioned a composer to write something especially for her group instead.
Ms. Shim, 34, who makes a living teaching and performing chamber music, started a fund-raising campaign to pay for the commission using an online financing Web site, Kickstarter. The aim was to raise $5,000 for a composer, Daniel Felsenfeld, to write a 10-minute trio for flute, cello and piano. Within six weeks, Ms. Shim had amassed $5,290 through contributions ranging between $15 and $250, from 130 donors. | <urn:uuid:a8241ab2-8800-4d47-a82d-214408fcfcc6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.artsmarketing.org/resources/news-items?page=19 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946198 | 2,360 | 1.5 | 2 |
By Michel Cousins.
Tripoli, 25 November:
A delegation of some 20 French agricultural and agro-industrial companies is to visit Libya from 1 to 6 December to look into potential collaboration with the Libyan agricultural sector.
The visit to Tripoli, Benghazi and Misrata is being organised by the French government’s Bureau des Operations Internationales (BOI) together with France’s international agricultural promotion organisation ADEPTA, the Franco-Libyan Chamber of Commerce, the French export promotion agency Ubifrance and the export agency of the Brittany region, Bretagne International.
The delegation represents one of the 11 business “clusters” set up by France to respond to perceived Libyan reconstruction needs. Created by MEDEF International (the external trade wing of the French business confederation) and the Franco-Libyan Chamber of Commerce, the clusters correspond to those sectors identified as priorities by the Libyan authorities. They are: Food and Agriculture, Banking and Finance, Construction, Water and Environment, Electricity and Energy, Oil and Gas, Health, Security, Telecommunications, Transport and Urban, and Regional Planning.
The idea is that representatives from each cluster present to both government officials and the private sector a summary of what France can offer Libya.
According to the Franco-Libyan chamber, a recent audit of agricultural potential in Libya by Ubifrance confirmed major needs in the country’s agricultural and agro-industrial sectors.
It is estimated that only a quarter of the Libyan agricultural needs are met locally; the rest is imported. Nonetheless, after being mismanaged for decades by the previous regime, agriculture is seen as a significant potential pillar of a diversified Libyan economy.
The areas the French delegation will cover are livestock (including improving animal production and meat, milk, and cheese processing), cereals and tree plantation, the food industry, irrigation, and aquaculture and fishing port infrastructure.
The visit follows that of the deputy Libyan Minister of Agriculture to the International Agriculture Show in Paris earlier this year which resulted in a series of joint meetings in France.
The visit had originally been planned to take place in June but was delayed because of the elections and then the process of choosing a new government. | <urn:uuid:53404b8a-1d04-4a04-b26a-384dcf96d2ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/11/25/french-agricultural-delegation-to-visit-libya/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943865 | 450 | 1.835938 | 2 |
While Apple Is Criticized for Foxconn, Other Companies Are Silent
Apple’s rivals are quick to say how much better, faster, cheaper or more popular their smartphones, computers and tablets are.
Yet when it comes to working conditions in the Chinese factories that build these competing products, Apple’s electronics rivals go silent.
In recent months Apple has come under heavy scrutiny for working conditions in the overseas factories it uses, specifically those of Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer.
Amid criticism that it hadn’t been vigilant enough, Apple announced it would employ the Fair Labor Association, an independent auditor, to review the manufacturing plants it uses and publicly identify factories where worker abuses take place.
Now, Apple is no paragon of open communication. Executives don’t speak to the public about labor practices in China. But the company has been publishing reports of the practices of its vendors since 2006. Apple has also shared the names of the 156 suppliers it uses to build its devices. And it has publicly pledged to go “deeper into the supply chain” in its own published audits.
Over the past week I have asked Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Lenovo about their reports on labor conditions. Many, if not all, of these electronics makers also use Foxconn.
Most responded with a boilerplate public relations message. Some didn’t even respond. The answer from Barnes & Noble, the maker of the Nook e-reader, was typical. Mary Ellen Keating, a senior vice president, said only, “We don’t comment on our supply chain vendors.” Ms. Keating wouldn’t say why Barnes & Noble does not discuss its manufacturing.
Lenovo e-mailed an off-topic report on sustainability.
Samsung, which sells far more cellphones than Apples does, gave no response.
Although some technology companies share some information about their audits, none go into detail about the violations they find or what they are doing to fix problems.
The elephant in the room is very large and obvious, but all I hear people complaining about is Apple’s sweatshop-based products while they smugly pocket their other-brand device that was made in the same, if not worse, conditions. Hypocrites, one and all. | <urn:uuid:f6c5982a-852f-4ed4-9966-7573b1d285b5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/273830_While_Apple_Is_Criticized_for | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949613 | 488 | 1.554688 | 2 |
When I first came to VLS, I saw people as the problem. And suddenly I saw them as the solution. My career continues to bear that out.”
Director of Farm Programs, The Leelanau Conservancy
It took two law degrees to bring Tom Nelson back to farming. This time, he's not a kid helping out with chores on his family's pheasant farm, but an advocate for protecting northern Michigan's farming heritage, its coastlines, and habitat.
Tom is the director of farm programs for the Leelanau Conservancy, one of the country's premier land trusts. The Conservancy was founded in response to increasing pressure to build second and third homes on the prime agricultural land, wetlands, and scenic sites of Michigan's Leelanau peninsula. Nelson develops partnerships with farmers, real estate developers, local communities, state and federal agriculture agencies, "anyone who'll listen," he says, to conserve the rich farming land he considers so essential to future food security. "If you think relying on foreign oil is scary—imagine relying on foreign food one day," he says. "We're cutting ourselves off at the knees by building on farm land."
The environment has always been Tom's passion, but when he studied law at Cleveland Marshall College of Law in the mid-80s, a career in environmental law wasn't on his radar—environmental law courses weren't even available. Instead, he established a career doing legislative advocacy and policy work on behalf of nonprofits fighting domestic violence and child abuse. Although he found his work highly rewarding, the 2001 death of his father prompted a reevaluation. "I started asking myself questions about my life and career," Nelson recalls. "I did a lot of research and reading, volunteered on land use issues, and realized to make the changes I wanted, I needed to ground myself in environmental law and policy. Vermont Law School jumped out immediately when I started looking at schools."
Not that he didn't have reservations. "My law school experience in the 80s wasn't that pleasant," Nelson remembers. "Before coming to VLS I asked myself, ‘do I really want to go through this again?' But I can say being at VLS was one of the highlights of my life, not just my academic career." He enthusiastically explains why. "I felt at home right away. My eight LLM colleagues and I forged real friendships, and we're all still in touch. We're all over the place now, doing cool things." He gives special credit to the faculty. "The faculty was just superb. They cared passionately about the issues, about developing good lawyers for the environment, and their passion was infectious." From his experience in the Environmental Law Center to his interactions with his advisor, Professor Janet Milne (Director of VLS's Environmental Tax Policy Institute), he always felt part of a community willing to share knowledge and experience.
Nelson originally came to VLS for academic grounding in solving environmental problems, but he left with much more. "I had an epiphany—my whole way of thinking changed," he remembers. "When I first came to VLS, I saw people as the problem. And suddenly I saw them as the solution. My career continues to bear that out."
In his conservancy work, Nelson works with a complex array of constituents, economies, and needs: Farmers are aging, but younger farmers can't afford to buy land; Detroit's industrial decline means less state money for land preservation; Awareness of food issues is growing, but creative financing for farmland preservation doesn't yet meet the need. Advocating at local and state levels for changes in policy and financing has become an essential part of his job.
Nelson is also a booster for Michigan's farming potential, second only to California's for agricultural diversity, he says proudly. "We live in a globally unique shoreline microclimate, and there are 1.5 million cherry trees in my county alone. It's a significant area for apples, apricots, wine grapes—if it's fruit you can grow a lot of it here," he says. And you can grow it wisely. "Most farmers here have hardwood forests, wetlands, and streams that they protect quite well. Because it's perennial agriculture, you don't have the same conflicts with row crops planted right up to the shoreline or streambank," he explains. "Saving farms saves habitat as well as the family farm paradigm."
Tom Nelson's years of advocacy and his lifelong love of nature have given him an alternative definition for "progress." "I think progress is a balance in leaving things alone," he says, adding, "there are ways humans can live in harmony with the rest of the planet—that shows in everything I do every day. If we're smart we can arrive at solutions." As for that second trip to law school, VLS has brought him to an enviable place. As he puts it, "I ended up exactly where I want to be." | <urn:uuid:e30133cf-b105-499f-9d73-933f003b3465> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://vermontlaw.edu/Career_Paths/Alumni_Profiles/Tom_Nelson.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982692 | 1,020 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Marcelo Cruz is one lucky guy. Cruz, a wheelchair user, was going across the Minneapolis bridge that collapsed on Wednesday. He was on his way to a wheelchair racing class when he felt the bridge buckle. "The bridge started shaking like an earthquake. I saw the bridge going up and down a little bit," he told reporters. Then he saw people hanging on the side of the bridge, and then he realized the bridge’s incline was now so steep he couldn’t brake his van. So he drove his van into a concrete barrier and finally, it came to a stop. Because of the steep incline of the bridge, Cruz couldn’t get out of the van by himself, but was able to get help from two other men, and then made it to safety.
Lucky, lucky guy.
I’m drawn to stories like Cruz’ for a few reasons. First, of course, what happened in Minneapolis is horrific, so much like 9/11, and can happen anywhere. True, Hurricane Katrina was more of a disaster, but I live in Pennsylvania. Hurricanes happen elsewhere. But we have a lot of bridges here. And now, like many others, I’m going to speed up when I’m crossing one. Second, I’m drawn to Cruz’ story because it’s such a typical human story. We like to identify with survivors -- they're “every man.” The stories of those who die are heart-breaking and compelling and make us cry, but the stories of those who live … they’re about all of us because everyone alive is a survivor of something. And third, hey, Cruz is a guy with a disability, a wheelchair-user with an SCI.
Let’s look at that last point a bit more.
There’s a core of folks in our community, and I’m one of them, who think deeply about how the general public’s attitudes toward disability is reflected by the media. We work with media outlets to get them to see our lives the way we do – which, yes, varies from person to person … which, actually, is kinda the point. Yesterday saw a flurry of e-mails among media activists examining how Cruz’ story has been handled by the press. Yes, some reporters said he’s confined, some said he’s bound. Some said he’s a quad, some said he’s a para, some just said he’s paralyzed. Let’s put all that language stuff to the side for a minute and look at some other stuff they said.
Newspapers around the nation reported that a guy, just a guy, who happens to use a wheelchair, through quick thinking and decisive action survived a horrific disaster that is reminiscent of 9/11. No one’s surprised he had his own van, no one questioned whether he should have been driving by himself. And his story is portrayed as one of many beautiful survival stories, like the ones about the young woman who helped save school children, and so on and so forth.
Here’s the bigger story Cruz is part of: People, just people, were put under enormous pressure to survive. And people, as people tend to do, rose to the challenge. At least one of those people, and this is no surprise, was a guy with a disability who happens to use a wheelchair.
In the early 1900s, the first pens with http://www.deluxe4less.com matching pinwere made to wear on a lady'slapel. In 1915, the lapel [url=http://www.deluxe4less.com]fake pens[/url] was improved: The watch face was upside down so the replica pens wearer could read it more easily http://www.deluxe4less.com. | <urn:uuid:5185bb9b-1e27-440b-a50d-48b858622a1e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://newmobility.com/browse_thread.cfm?id=61&blogID=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972104 | 805 | 1.65625 | 2 |
By Donald Kursch
CSCE Senior Advisor
American and German delegates to the Winter Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) recently hosted a special forum in Vienna during which more than 75 parliamentarians from 17 countries expressed their support for efforts to combat anti-Semitism in the OSCE region.
The forum was organized by the cooperative efforts of United States Helsinki Commission Co-Chairman and Chairman of the US Delegation to the OSCE PA Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-NJ) and German Bundestag Member Dr. Gert Weisskirchen. Helsinki Commission Members Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD), Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD) and Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-FL), as delegates to the Parliamentary Assembly, actively participated in the discussions.
The forum also included parliamentarians from Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom. OSCE PA President Bruce George and Secretary General Jan Kubis also attended the meeting.
Participants expressed their readiness to support the Parliamentary Assembly’s Berlin Declaration of July 2002 denouncing anti-Semitic violence and agreed that a pro-active approach by parliaments and governments are essential to counter anti-Semitism throughout the 55-nation OSCE region. That measure, based on a draft introduced by the U.S. delegation, was unanimously adopted in Berlin.
Dr. Weisskirchen and Rep. Smith obtained substantial support for the German-U.S. joint action plan of December 2002 to combat anti-Semitism which encourages “all OSCE countries to enact appropriate criminal legislation to punish anti-Semitic acts and ensure that such laws are vigorously enforced.” The action plan also addresses the need for renewed educational efforts to counter anti-Semitic attitudes and stereotypes, and the proliferation of anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi material via the Internet.
Dr. Weisskirchen opened the Vienna meeting by recalling Germany’s experience and stressed the importance of preventive action. He said that anti-Semitism is a virus that may appear small in the beginning but can quickly gain momentum, poison the body of state institutions and destroy democracy itself.
Co-Chairman Smith cited the need for collective action and referred to a resolution he and Commissioner Cardin introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives to combat anti-Semitism that places particular emphasis on law enforcement and education.
Mr. Michel Voisin, head of France’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, described a new law passed unanimously by both houses of the French Parliament that doubles penalties for anti-Semitic and racist violence. He cited the law as an example of decisive action parliaments can take. Voisin noted that prior to the approval of this law on February 3, 2003, anti-Semitic and racist motives were not taken into account when punishing perpetrators of violence. According to Voisin, France is vigorously tackling the problem posed by proliferation of anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi material over the Internet and stressed that providers who knowingly promulgate such material will be held responsible.
Austrian journalist and human rights activist, Marta Halpert, addressed the gathering as an expert witness. Citing the Austrian experience, she underscored how political populism was breaking old taboos in many European countries. Populists sought to fill gaps in the political spectrum by appealing to frustrated voters seeking simple solutions to complex problems, according to Halpert.
Halpert said politicians such as Jörg Haider in Austria and Jürgen Möllemann in Germany used language to encourage those in the electorate who assert that “the Jews encourage anti-Semitism themselves.” She noted how Haider’s high profile has enabled individuals with extremist views to “enter the mainstream” and cited the example of an Austrian neo-Nazi who writes a regular column for a high circulation national newspaper. Halpert stressed the importance of politicians in all parties to vigorously denounce those who use xenophobia and anti-Semitism to appeal to the base fears of the electorate.
Parliamentarians from several other OSCE participating States, including Canada, the Czech Republic, Italy, Sweden and Denmark, expressed their support for the joint German-American efforts. Canadian Senator Jerry Grafstein, OSCE PA Treasurer ,strongly endorsed the German-American initiative and praised the OSCE for leading international institutions in combatting anti-Semitism. He reminded his colleagues that “silence is acquiescence” and stressed that all parliamentary bodies of the OSCE participating States should take a strong, public stance condemning anti-Semitism in all its forms.
Members of the Canadian, French, German, Italian and Swedish delegations signed formal statements of solidarity with the German-American initiative.
Canadian MP and Third Committee Vice-Chair Sven Robinson said the fight against anti-Semitism attracts support across party lines in his country where efforts are underway to formulate a stronger response to those responsible for hate crimes.
Czech MP and head of delegation Petr Sulak expressed solidarity with the initiative and recalled the immense suffering that anti-Semitism had brought to his country and elsewhere in central Europe. In his country alone, more than 300,000 had perished in the Holocaust.
Italian Senator Luigi Compagna and MP Marcello Pacini highlighted proposals introduced into Italian legislative bodies to condemn anti-Semitism. According to Compagna and Pacini, such proposals are unprecedented.
Various speakers raised the need to counter the proliferation of racist and anti-Semitic material through the Internet and endorsed the French delegation’s call for restrictions.
Canadian MP Clifford Lincoln asserted that Internet service providers had to assume a greater sense of responsibility and questioned why measures to accomplish this would be a restriction on freedom of speech. Germany’s head of delegation, Bundestag Member Rita Süssmuth, said that speech should not be permitted to “ignore the dignity of others.”
Rep. Cardin noted the need to trace material transmitted by the Internet more easily, but noted the delicacy involved in finding ways to do this that respect the right of freedom of expression.
Rep Mr. Cardin also congratulated the French on the passage of their new law and particularly endorsed its emphasis on motivation for a criminal act. This distinction was of great importance. He added that we also needed to increase the capability of schools and teachers to instruct the next generation to be fair minded and tolerant. Echoing this sentiment, Mr. Smith pointed out that youth are not inherently inclined to hate, but needed to be “taught by their seniors to hate.” He advocated that more resources should be devoted to promoting Holocaust awareness.
Danish MP Kamal Qureshi also recommended better education and training for police, who needed to learn how to distinguish between anti-Semitic and racist motivated crime and common criminal acts. U.S. Helsinki Commission and OSCE PA Vice President Rep. Alcee Hastings suggested the OSCE consider granting a special award to individuals who had done the most in the region to combat anti-Semitism.
U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE, Stephan Minikes, spoke of plans by OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Netherlands Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, to hold a special conference on anti-Semitism. The date for such an OSCE conference has not been announced, but officials anticipate the two-day Vienna meeting will precede the Parliamentary Assembly’s July 2003 Annual Session to be held in Rotterdam. Topics will likely include the role of governments in monitoring anti-Semitism, appropriate legislation, education, law enforcement training and the role of civic leaders and NGOs in combatting anti-Semitism.
Russian Duma member, Elena Mizulina, noted that some progress has been made in her country. She hailed a new law condemning racism and extremism as a “milestone,” and praised the efforts of President Vladimir Putin in supporting the legislation. However, according to Mizulina, much work remains.
Mizulina said that anti-Semitic attitudes in Russia are much too common among the general population as well as elected officials. She said such attitudes are particularly common in Russia’s provinces where even certain state governors were still not embarrassed to express anti-Semitic views openly. Mizulina said that representatives from Russia and other CIS countries need to speak out more forcefully to condemn anti-Semitism and racism. She added that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has not done enough and strongly endorsed the notion that anti-Semitism be considered as a separate agenda item at the Rotterdam meeting.
Delegates also welcomed the decision by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Dutch Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, to convene a special OSCE meeting on xenophobia and anti-Semitism in the coming months. At the same time, they agreed that the Parliamentary Assembly needs to remain actively involved and that continuing the fight against anti-Semitism must be a high priority item at the Assembly’s Annual Session.
The United States Helsinki Commission, an independent federal agency, by law monitors and encourages progress in implementing provisions of the Helsinki Accords. The Commission, created in 1976, is composed of nine Senators, nine Representatives and one official each from the Departments of State, Defense and Commerce. | <urn:uuid:2687e66b-62a9-4cdd-88a8-c268fad28a6d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csce.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContentRecords.ViewDetail&ContentRecord_id=48&ContentType=G&ContentRecordType=G&UserGroup_id=86®ion_id=86&year=0&month=0&Subaction=ByDate&CFID=9165044&CFTOKEN=78430451 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95624 | 1,915 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Updated May 17th, 2:52 p.m.
I’ve been thinking about writing about the fountain’s construction falling apart for awhile but now it appears there’s a real reason. There are workers on the scene repairing it. A reminder: the fountain is brand new, it was reconstructed from scratch as part of Phase I of Washington Square Park’s redesign in which the Bloomberg Administration decided to move it 23 feet east to align with the Arch at Fifth Avenue. It was newly constructed and unveiled to the public in 2009. So what went wrong? Was there faulty construction? Was it anchored properly? Did the Parks Department oversee the job? More information to come including response from the NYC Parks Department (Update: no response yet).
Updated May 17th, 2:52 p.m.: Third photo from the top is from late yesterday afternoon. The fountain is now fully encased by fences covered in green draping blocking off viewing of the work being done.
Some additional background: The fountain is part of the park’s controversial $30 Million + redesign plan, currently in the midst of Phase II (of III).The fountain had been located in its previous spot in the center of the park since 1871. Seven 40 year old trees were chopped down to accommodate the moving of the fountain. Two replacement trees planted in 2009 died, were replaced, and those replacement trees in the same location died also. They were recently replanted in the hope that they will survive this time. (It’s doubtful because nothing has been changed.)
Still no word back from the city’s Parks Department. See new post. | <urn:uuid:43bbbac8-f275-455d-9dd4-d9f17c907737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtonsquareparkblog.com/2011/05/16/is-the-washington-square-park-fountain-falling-apart/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976381 | 338 | 1.523438 | 2 |
The Pope (then Card. Ratzinger) celebrating Holy Week in the "Old" Rite.
I can't really imagine a lot of priests wanting to say the "Old" Mass but I do think that priests like me, and the younger generation of priests, who have never celebrated it need the presence of this form of the rite to know from where our tradition comes.
The Pope has said repeatedly that "New" Mass sprang "ex nihil" from a post-Vatican II commission of "experts", see his book “The Spirit of the Liturgy”. Ecumenically, the criticism of the Eastern Churches is that we have dispensed with our tradition. I remember a conversation with an Orthodox priest who when I suggested he should become a Catholic, after over half a bottle of Ouzo had disappeared, asked, “How could any Orthodox come into communion with the Bishop of Rome when he assumes the power to remove 2000 years of tradition from the Church with a stroke of a pen”. Pope Benedict when taking possession of the Cathedral of the Lateran said that the Pope was not there put to forward his own views but to re-present the Church’s Tradition.
What the Pope tried to do (as Cardinal Ratzinger) both in his writings and speeches, as well as his actions was to give the “New” Mass roots. It is after all the “Old” Mass that is the root of the “New”, not a something which springs from the Protestant Tradition, thus even in the introduction to the Missal it is Gregorian Chant and Polyphony that are the norm for music in the liturgy not “Hymns Ancient and Modern” or the latest thing published by Mayhew or McCrimmond, it is certainly not the charismatic “Worship Service”.
The “Old” Mass teaches us that the liturgy is an act of worship and not a didactic exercise; the priest is the one who offers prayer and intercedes on behalf of the people, rather than a mere “worship leader”. I do believe that the “Old” Mass is necessary to remind us of the Churches continuity from the time of Christ through the subsequent two millennia to the present day. In the eighties I remember preaching about the Real Presence, frequent Confession and the importance of Marian devotion and being told by a sister, “that is just so pre-Vatican II”, she is now married and the New Movements use these things as the basis of their life and growth. During that time it was as if the Church had reset the clock to year zero and in the seminaries a theology of rupture and discontinuity was so prevalent. I used to keep my Ratzinger books in brown paper covers! | <urn:uuid:99492a21-b384-4d30-bcb5-d199d977ff09> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://marymagdalen.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/thoughts-on-old-mass.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979387 | 581 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Much is being made of a photograph of Pelosi wearing a scarf on her head -- "Pelosi in Hijab" -- as she goes to visit a mosque that houses the head of the beheaded saint, John the Baptist. Is she bowing to Muslim oppression? She's wearing the scarf folded and tied under the chin in a style long used by American women. The mosque is the one Pope John Paul II visited. And it's a Christian tradition for women to cover their heads. In the words of St. Paul:
I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you. But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man. For this reason a woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels. Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a woman to pray to God with her head unveiled? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair, it is degrading to him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering. But if anyone is disposed to be contentious— we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God. (1 Corinthians 11:2-16)You may not like that. I don't. But, clearly, headcovering is not just a Muslim thing. But even if it were, showing respect for the traditions of a place of worship you want to enter is completely appropriate. It's not as if she were asked to denounce Christianity to enter the mosque. The mosque was open to her as a place to worship a Christian relic, and she made the sign of the cross in there.
ADDED: Pelosi also wore an abaya. Not a Christian tradition. She also shook hands with the women inside and "watch[ed]" the men.
YET MORE: Here's Amanda Marcotte's summary of this post: "Ann Althouse wants Pelosi to be a little bit more of a sexbot." Whaa? Marcotte seems to be pulling in signals from outer space. Just flat out nutty, Amanda. Or did you even read this post? (Loser.)
AND: Amanda tries to cover up her blundering and I respond to that here. | <urn:uuid:5cc80b5d-0784-4454-bef4-4d305b545e55> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/04/nancy-pelosi-covers-her-head-and-visits.html?showComment=1175749680000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980193 | 679 | 1.6875 | 2 |
For those who missed the deep investigative piece published by InsideClimate News last week documenting a half-century of Koch Industries involvement in the destructive tar sands of Alberta, Canada, it has finally closed the coffin on a vicious round of lies straight from Koch Industries.
Through its aggressive KochFacts PR website, Koch lawyers, lobbyists and communications advisors hammered InsideClimate for its initial reports on the Koch connection to tar sands and the Keystone XL pipeline, specifically attacking the outlet's publisher and calling the reporting "deceptive," "untrue" and "utterly false," among other claims that, ironically, are deceptive, untrue and utterly false.
A major indicator of InsideClimate's diligence is the response from KochFacts this time around, which mentions nothing of InsideClimate's damning new documentation of ongoing Koch operations in the tar sands, including the following points from the article:
• The company is one Canada's largest crude oil purchasers, shippers and exporters, with more than 130 crude oil customers.
• It is among the largest U.S. refiners of oil sands crude, responsible for about 25 percent of imports.
• It is one of the largest holders of mineral leases in Alberta, where most of Canada's tar sands deposits are located.
• It has its name attached to hundreds of well sites across Alberta tracked by Canadian regulators.
• It owns pipelines in Minnesota and Wisconsin that import western Canadian crude to U.S. refineries and also distribute finished products to customers.
• It owns and operates a 675,000 barrel oil terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, a major tar sands export hub.
• And this year it kicked off a 10,000 barrel-a-day mining project in Alberta that could be the seed of a much larger project.
Zing! And since KochFacts says InsideClimate is simply driving "agenda-driven, dishonest journalism," let's see where exactly the outlet sourced this new round of information:
InsideClimate News has pieced together a rough picture of the company's involvement in the industry, using published reports from the National Energy Board of Canada; documents and data extracted from the website of Canada's Energy Resource Conservation Board; securities disclosures and filings of Koch businesses in Canada; court documents from an inheritance battle that pitted Charles and David Koch against their two other brothers; Canadian and U.S. media reports; company newsletters and press releases; and two books, one written by Charles Koch and the other the autobiography of a long-time Koch company director.
What say you now, Koch? Answer: not very much. The response from the Kochaganda machine this time around was delayed and notably underwhelming, recycling their previous talking points (which are dishonest) and ignoring all of InsideClimate's newest revelations.
This is probably because of the rock-solid documentation of Koch's historic and ongoing operations in the tar sands of Alberta. That and the fact that Koch lawyers directly told Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) that they have "no financial interest in the project whatsoever," which I believe means they lied to a Congressman--expect them to split hairs over the definition of "financial interest" if Mr. Waxman follows up with Koch Industries, not that he hasn't tried. Both Energy & Commerce Committee chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and Energy & Power Subcommittee chairman Ed Whitfield (R-KY) denied Waxman's requests to bring Koch before Congress to speak about Keystone XL.
Also noteworthy: the almost $60 million that the billionaire Koch brothers have funneled to groups that deny climate science, notably Koch support for the anti-environmental American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and their million-dollar attack on California's Global Warming Solutions Act and its provisions to cut back high-carbon fuels from--you guessed it--the tar sands.
Read the new InsideClimate report at InsideClimate News: Koch Brothers' Activism Protects Their 50-Year Stake in Canadian Heavy Oils, as well as previous reports:
Stacy Feldman, "Koch Subsidiary Told Regulators It Has 'Direct and Substantial Interest' in Keystone XL," October, 2011.
David Sassoon, "Koch Brothers Positioned To Be Big Winners If Keystone XL Pipeline Is Approved," February, 2011.
Written by Kyle Ash, Crossposted from Greenpeace USA.
Today Greenpeace released a report, “Polluting Democracy,” featuring 15 members of the Dirty Money Team - Members of Congress who often work for polluters with money instead of their voters.
We live in a representative democracy. Every citizen should not need knowledge and influence with every important decision made by the government. Our representatives are supposed to learn how best to represent our interests, and it's their job to try to make the case for a vote we don't currently support. The fifteen members of Congress in "Polluting Democracy" consistently vote against cleaning up coal pollution so we can breathe clean air.
Representative Upton (R-MI) voted to restrict pollution from coal in 2009. Even if the majority of his voters were against the idea (they are not) representing their well-being means it's his job to make the case again. Unfortunately, some members of Congress are like Upton today, and appear to represent polluters that pay for campaign ads or have money to retain mercenary lawyers to lobby Capitol Hill.
Sometimes paying polluters are not even from the recipient Representative's district. As shown in "Polluting Democracy," Mike Rogers (R-MI) has no large coal plants in his district, but takes coal company cash and votes against pollution controls on coal plants in neighboring districts that kill about 454 people every year, very likely including people in his district. Other Representatives guilty of this type of fatality-friendly politics include Fred Upton (R-MI), Patrick Tiberi (R-OH), and Doc Hastings (R-WA).
Politicians like to talk about creating jobs and slashing wasteful spending, but many of them forget their party's talking points when they are introducing bills and voting. The wind and solar industries have created far more growth than the coal industry in the last several years, and this is expected to continue. The growth potential by 2020 of renewable energy jobs is twice that of fossil fuels.
In the states for 14 of the 15 districts covered in “Polluting Democracy” there are more jobs in wind and solar than in coal-fired power. Representatives Jason Altmire (D-PA) and Mark Critz (D-PA) might consider joining the House Sustainable Energy and Environment Caucus (SEEC) since in Pennsylvania there are twice as many people employed in wind and solar than in coal-fired electricity.
Like Altmire and Critz, Jerry Costello (D-IL) is a member of the Congressional Coal Caucus. Meanwhile, Illinois employs triple the number of people in wind and solar power compared with coal-fired power plants. In Missouri, there are about as many jobs in coal-fired power as in wind and solar. Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) has just as many coal-fired power plants in his district as Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO). Carnahan is a member of SEEC, while Emerson is in the coal caucus.
Wind and solar energy don't release toxic mercury like burning coal does, while mercury is among the many pollutants causing a variety of costs on the order of hundreds of billions of dollars per year. Coal costs just from mercury pollution, due to cardiovascular disease, mental retardation and lost productivity, are as high as $29,312,500,000 per year.
The coal industry in the United States has unjustified pull on the levers of democracy. It is nothing new that polluters choose to invest in stopping public health policy instead of investing in pollution controls. But every year a new group of at least 34,000 people die and hundreds of thousands of other people get sick from pollution caused by burning coal in America.
The same oil and gas companies that set up a front group to campaign against regulations over hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) have spent a combined total of more than $126 million on lobbyists, while pouring money into the campaign coffers of the Hill’s loudest fracking regulation opponents.
DeSmogBlog recently exposed “Energy in Depth” as an oil and gas front group set up to lead the charge against anyone legislating against or even investigating the dangers of hydraulic fracturing and other natural gas industry practices that pose public health and water contamination threats.
Purportedly set up to represent “small, independent oil and natural gas producers,” instead “Energy in Depth” is funded by some of the largest oil companies on the planet, such as Chevron, BP, Shell and Occidental, along with the American Petroleum Institute and other trade associations.
The “Independent” Petroleum Association of America (IPAA) memo obtained by DeSmogBlog was written in 2009, five days before the introduction of bills aimed at closing loopholes around the chemicals used in fracking.
In 2009, Congressional Democrats introduced two bills proposing to close the current loopholes around the use of chemicals used in fracking– The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act (S. 1215), and The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 (H.R. 2766).
Greenpeace (thanks to OpenSecrets.org, DirtyEnergyMoney.com and MapLight.org) looked at the recent lobbying records of the giant oil and gas interests that describe themselves as “small and independent” operators that funded EID. During 2009 and 2010, the EID funders spent a combined $126.8 million on lobbying.
Of course these companies were also lobbying on other issues, but the two fracking bills were key issues listed in their lobby registration documents.
A ProPublica investigation into oil and gas money received by members of the Natural Gas caucus found that they received 19 times more money on average than members of Congress who signed a letter in support of a proposal to require fracking companies to disclose the chemicals they use when drilling on public lands.
All of the five members of Congress mentioned in the leaked “Energy in Depth” memo testified against the proposed legislation before it was tabled. For their efforts, each have received regular payments from a majority of EID members, including the IPAA itself. (See financial figures, compiled below)
The Congressional battles over regulation continue with Republican Representatives Joe Barton (R-TX) and Fred Upton (R-MI) taking up the issue late last year, and another key fracking supporter, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) pressuring Ken Salazar to back off a proposal to introduce new regulations through the Department of Interior if Congress refuses to act.
2010: $5.51 million (some of this was likely spent to deny culpability in the Deepwater Horizon disaster due to their 25% stake in BP's Macondo well)
2009: $2.81 million
Total Anadarko lobbying and political contributions.
Dan Boren (D-OK), chair, House Natural Gas Caucus.
For the 2009-2010 election cycle Dan Boren raked in $216,250 from the oil and gas industry. He is the natural gas transmission and distribution industry’s top recipient, and second highest for the oil and gas industry. Among his funders are Chevron, Occidental, Anakardo, Marathon, and, of course, the Independent Petroleum Association of America.
Doc Hastings (R-WA)
At $84,671 in contributions, the oil and gas industry is Hastings' top contributing industry with regular payments from the EID member companies.
Hastings has been fighting any rules or transparency around fracking and its chemicals, writing to Ken Salazar late 2010 arguing that such rules would “ threaten thousands of jobs, deepen the federal deficit through reduced revenues, and harm natural gas development and our nation’s energy security.”
Doug Lamborn (R-CO)
Lamborn’s second-highest industry favorite was oil and gas, at $31,500, again with EID members prominent in the ranks.
Louie Gohmert (R-TX)
Gohmert raked in $48,550 in oil and gas money in the last election cycle. The oil and gas sector was his third highest donor by industry, a contributions from EID members included Chevron, Marathon and Halliburton.
John Fleming (R-LA)
Oil and gas was Fleming's second biggest earner at $123,500, including Chevron, Occidental, Marathon, IPAA, Halliburton.
Cynthia Lummis (R-WY)
Lummis’s top funders are the oil and gas industry, with $89,550 in 2010 dirty donations. | <urn:uuid:38bac6bf-fbf0-42cf-9dc6-58fd064b4ea5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.polluterwatch.com/category/freetagging/fred-upton | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957283 | 2,643 | 1.6875 | 2 |
It's not too hard to remember a time when it required two hands to get a simple plug out. Things have since changed, and many manufacturers, especially in the gaming industry, are moving toward wireless peripherals, or including breakaways to remedy consumers stumbling over cords and taking the entire machine with them. The coolest one in recent memory is Apple's MagSafe power adapter, which not only makes your Mac laptop easier to plug-in, but keeps flying laptops at a minimum.
A new security company, Haute Secure, is offering a free beta version of its safe surfing toolbar for Internet Explorer that blocks malware from downloading onto your desktop. Firefox support is expected soon. Entering an already crowded field, the Haute Secure toolbar hopes to distinguish itself by taking the best of Exploit Prevention Labs Linkscanner Pro and McAfee SiteAdvisor, and then adds additional layers of protection. If they can pull it off with the final release, Haute Secure could be a must-have add-on for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.
The Haute Secure toolbar hooks into 70 processes running on your … Read more
In a paper (PDF) presented at last month's HotBots 2007 conference, researchers from Google say they've found malware downloads lurking on 1 out of every 10 Web sites visited. For this study Google analyzed 4.5 million URLs. The researchers determined that 450,000 of these contained some form of malicious code. The researchers identified four methods used to infect the unsuspecting Internet surfer. One is site-based, such as compromises in Web server security, but the others involve common user activity such as downloading user-contributed content, clicking Web advertising, and installing third-party widgets.
Attacking Web servers can be … Read more
If you don't have small kids, skip this item because it'll probably seem like a waste of money. But if you do, you'll totally understand why it's a good idea. How many times have you or your rug rats ended up with scalded fingers after checking the bath faucet? Same here.
The "Digital Bath Spout Cover" is designed to keep you and your family out of the burn ward by automatically monitoring the water temperature as it rises. Even better, its digital display uses a simple color code ("red means too hot") … Read more
We're not terribly big on wine, preferring single-malt scotch for our imbibing pleasures, but we couldn't resist beating Caroline McCarthy to the punch on her favorite subject. (Well, one of her favorites, anyway.)
GE's "Monogram Walk-in Wine Vault" is the ultimate oenophile gadget, combining the convenience of a home cellar with security for a vintage collection, according to Gearfuse. From a tech standpoint, one of the most impressive features is its digital inventory system, which the vault's Web site describes this way: "In just seconds, you can locate wines and determine whether bottles … Read more
We never did think much of personal safes that respond to voice commands or come in froufrou colors. When it comes to protecting our personal belongings, we're traditionalists--as in, we don't need anything too fancy, just something that won't get us ripped off.
So even though the "Fingerprint Safe" isn't the old-fashioned dial variety from the Bonnie and Clyde era, we appreciate its combination of old and new with formidable hardware and biometric access. The new part, of course, is the technology that can recognize up to 10 fingerprints (as well as a key … Read more
Remember in Jurassic Park when that nerdy bad guy played by Wayne Knight hid those stolen dinosaur embryos by stashing them in a shaving cream can? Well, this is kind of the same idea, except we hope you won't hide stolen dinosaur embryos in this. Gizmodo has alerted us to an innovative anti-theft solution that allows you to hide your valuables in what appears to be a head of lettuce. You then would presumably stash the "lettuce" in your refrigerator where it would look like just another veggie, and hope that if a burglar comes to your … Read more
Why should safes always be the same boring, battleship-gray fixtures seen in the movies? After all, we've seen color applied with abandon to appliances ranging from stoves and refrigerators to red and flowered washing machines.
You can't unlock these home models with voice commands as with others we've seen recently, but they sure look a lot nicer. Japan's Nakabayashi sells these simply designed personal safes in your choice of primary colors, operated electronically with your personal numeric code.
If you forget the secret word, the safe tells you to try again in four preset phrases. (It sounds like a bad sitcom already.)
On the other hand, you could set up a hidden camera and have fun watching others trying to guess the code. Booby-traps might be in order as well. Maybe this isn't such a bad idea after all. | <urn:uuid:842592f7-abfe-4807-aa42-88215a4f00e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://reviews.cnet.com/8300-5_7-0-15.html?keyword=safe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938912 | 1,035 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Thousands of atheists, agnostics and other non-believers turned out in the US capital on Saturday to celebrate their rejection of the idea of God and to claim a bigger place in public life.
The Reason Rally, sponsored by 20 atheist, secular and humanist groups, was billed as a “coming-out” party in the heart of Washington for a segment of the American population that is growing faster than any religious group.
“There are too many people in this country who have been cowed into fear of coming out as atheists, secularists or agnostics,” said the event’s star turn, Richard Dawkins, the British scientist and best-selling atheist author.
“We are far more numerous than anybody realizes,” said Dawkins, prompting cheers from the youthful crowd that defied sporadic drizzle for an afternoon of speeches, music and satire on the National Mall.
Jesse Galef of the Secular Student Alliance, a spokesman for the rally, told AFP he conservatively estimated the turnout at 10,000.
In the center of the good-humored crowd rose a crucifix with an affixed sign that declared: “Banish the Ten Commandments to the dustbin of history.” Other posters read: “Good without a god” and “Hi Mom! I’m an atheist.”
“This country was not built on religion and God,” said another speaker, Michael Shermer, a self-defined “skeptic,” blogger and Scientific American columnist. “It was built on reason.”
On the sidelines, atheists engaged in vigorous debates with a handful of Christians who turned up with their own placards that read: “Study and obey the Bible” and “Jesus forgives sin.”
In no other Western country does religion figure so highly in society as in the United States, where “In God We Trust” appears on bank notes and “one nation under God” is part of the national Pledge of Allegiance.
Yet research over the past decade has indicated that Americans with no religious affiliations — “the nones” in sociological jargon — now make up around 15 or 16 percent of the population.
“That is more than Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists combined — and doubled,” said David Silverman, president of American Atheists, which campaigns for the civil rights of non-believers.
Raw Story is a progressive news site that focuses on stories often ignored in the mainstream media. While giving coverage to the big stories of the day, we also bring our readers' attention to policy, politics, legal and human rights stories that get ignored in an infotainment culture driven solely by pageviews.
Founded in 2004, Raw Story reaches 5 million unique readers per month and serves more than 19 million pageviews. | <urn:uuid:da7c93ab-0250-42f2-84b0-3e53fedb27d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/24/thousands-of-u-s-atheists-turn-out-for-reason-rally/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945418 | 602 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Guessing at Rose Parade themes is even iffier than guessing who the Grand Marshal will be. After all, a theme is usually a phrase and with more than 1 million words in the English language according to languagemonitor.com, there’s an uncountable number of ways to put them together to create a theme.
In the 90 years that the Rose Parade has had a theme (the first 28 years and seven years in the 1920s had no theme), there has never been a repeat, though some of the themes are pretty synonymous. “Hats Off to Entertainment” and “Entertainment on Parade,” for example, or “Music Music Music” and “The Joy of Music.” All are broad enough to allow a wide variety of float designs, which is useful because designers start working on the next parade before the current one even lines up on Orange Grove Blvd.
R. Scott Jenkins, Tournament of Roses president for the 2014 Rose Parade, will announce his choice of theme on Jan. 18, the same day his presidency is publicly confirmed. So let’s have a little fun: What do you think the 2014 Rose Parade theme will be? Just a general category is fine! Tell us in the comments below.
Here are some pointers:
- 2014 will be the 125th Rose Parade, the 100th Rose Bowl Game, and the 90th Tournament of Roses to have a theme
- Recurring categories, so to speak, are dreams/imagination, family/children, music/entertainment, world/America/travel. In 1944-1946 and 1918 and 1919, the themes centered around the wars and victory. It’s doubtful that will be a 2014 theme!
- Themes often leave room for metaphorical or humorous interpretations. “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” in 2013 brought forth designs that portrayed literal places, such as Rotary’s “All the Places We Go!” illustrating their worldwide reach; Cal Poly’s “Tuxedo Air” which gave viewers a bevy of air-traveling penguins; and South Pasadena’s “Sailing the Sea of Knowledge,” a ship sailing on the open pages of a book.
- The most popular themes incorporated “…in Flowers,” the phrase having been used 22 times, mostly in the early years, but not since 1967. That the Rose Parade is “in flowers” is probably pretty much taken for granted.
R. Scott Jenkins sent out some hints to float builders to help in their design process. “Dreams” seems to be the key word.
- 2014 will mark the 125th anniversary of the Rose Parade and the 100th Rose Bowl Game.
- New Year’s Day represents a fresh start for each person, and the theme reminds us of the optimism we can and should bring forth in our lives and actions.
- We can attain the seemingly unattainable through focus, effort and the belief in the probability of success.
- Believing in the power of our dreams allows us to achieve what might seem impossible.
- Dreams come in all sizes, and regardless of size, dreams fuel the stores of our lives.
- The imagery of fantasy, sports, family, adventure, art, education and community, or the celebration of events that have had and are still having global impact can all be expressed through the prism of Dreams…
Like this story?
Like All Things Rose Parade on Facebook or subscribe to Tournament of Roses Examiner by clicking the "Subscribe" link. Read more articles about the Pasadena area at Altadena Headlines Examiner and San Gabriel Foothills Examiner. If you have a question or would like a reply to your comment, please email me at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:9c53dac3-d5ae-4826-a164-32a0c9448b8f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/rose-parade-2014-what-will-the-theme-of-the-125th-parade-be | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940411 | 798 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The movie below is our first timelapse test using the Canon G9, a power supply and the free CHDK firmware ‘addon’ for a range of Canon cameras.
As mentioned, movie was created by capturing a 5 mega pixel image every 5 seconds, this allowed enough resolution to do the pan in post processing as well as the ability to crop out sections of the image.
As long as we got the settings correct you should be able to run the clip at 1920×1080 via YouTube. CHDK allows a wide range of Canon cameras to be used as timelapse rigs – indeed it arguably makes Canon the first choice for anyone wishing to creating an HD timelapse.
The movie is our first test, the technique should allow some good ‘stacked night time images’ of the city to be created – the image below was created from 8000 images to reveal activity in the sky above a city at night:
The image was created using a simple webcam - see our tutorial for more details, with CHDK we should be able to enhance this considerably. | <urn:uuid:b8f298c0-c6ae-4e7a-ba52-a4d2d507a119> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.digitalurban.org/2009/12/canon-g9-timelapse-1080p-with-chdk.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939559 | 219 | 1.617188 | 2 |
I was lead to believe that the only difference between these 2 chips (assuming they share the same size cache) is that the PIII's cache latency is set to the faster setting of <b>0</b>, while the Celerons is set to <b>1</b>. Can anyone confirm this?
I have tried to set my 1200 Celeron's cache latency to 0 using WCPUL2 v1.6, but have been unsuccessful as you can see from the error prompt in the link below. Is there a later version of this software available that could possibly help me? What about different software? Or am I just attempting the impossible?
You can't change the cache latency on it, I've tried just about everything. I've found that my PIII 1000 is a bit faster than my Celeron 1.2GHz is games (probably do to faster memory transfers), and at 1125MHz, it beats or matches my Celeron at 1.5GHz.
the celerons cache is set to 4/way associative while the P3 is 8/way associative .
Crash have you tried WCPUL2 from H-Oda. This is for setting the latency on p3 chips. Don't have a tualatin to try it on yet.
Zer0, Sandra is the worst piece of garbage I've ever used for benchmarking. This is the same pos software that told me my Atlas 10KII's/8MB disks were slower than my old 5400 rpm/512K Maxtor disk. Sandra is only useful for useless hypothetical crap.
Rick, like I stated in my post, WCPUL2 is the program I've been (unsuccessfully) using to try & lower the cache latency on my Tualy. I am using version 1.6. Maybe there's a newer version out there to work with Tualatins? | <urn:uuid:f67c6db2-e45a-4150-8f4e-1321cfdf0593> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/70107-28-tualatin-celeron-piii-cache-latency-question | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961771 | 394 | 1.5 | 2 |
All the movies portray college as one big beer fest; frat parties, sorority parties and just plain old parties are the objects of the media most times. Aside from this being a completely inaccurate portrayal of college life, especially here at Mount Union, we as a campus work harder towards the mature management of alcohol instead of hosting the best parties in the United States (like some other schools in Ohio).
GAMMA is a major organization on campus that works toward this common goal. Their acronym stands for Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol, which means that members are from the sororities and fraternities on campus, but their influence extends beyond the Greek community. This organization puts on a variety of events throughout the year that do just what their name implies, advocate mature management of alcohol.
One of these events, and arguably one of the largest, is a mocktail competition. This competition took place this past Wednesday and drew quite a crowd. Any organization on campus is encouraged to create a mocktail and compete. The goal is, in the end, to show that alcohol isn’t needed to have a good time and enjoy beverages that are varied and pretty tasty. This year there were a large number of mocktails created, tasted, judged and voted upon. There were trophies awarded for most members in attendance and people’s choice and prizes were awarded for first, second and third place. The group that won most members in attendance was Delta Sigma Tau. The picture to the right is just a few of sisters of DST with their mocktail.
I, along with a friend, headed up the mocktail concoction for Alpha Phi Omega, the co-ed service fraternity that I spoke about in my last blog. Our drink was based around Breast Cancer Awareness since it’s October (Breast Cancer Awareness Month). APO decided to make a drink to advocate for this cause because of the sheer amount of cases of breast cancer being diagnosed each day, each month and each year. Did you know that a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every three minutes? That means, in the time since you began this blog, a woman has been given a diagnosis that will change her life forever. Wow. That’s crazy to think about. THAT’S why there is a whole month dedicated to education about this cancer and THAT’S why APO chose this cause.
The drink we chose to make is called the “Pink Boobie Saver.” It may be a funny name, but people did come over to look and raised awareness on our campus.
Here’s the recipe in case you want to join in on the wholesome, non-alcoholic fun!
2 parts white grape juice
2 parts cranberry juice
1 part frozen pink lemonade
1 part sparkling water | <urn:uuid:2d3cd4de-4eb3-4e07-964b-bebed59ac12b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.mountunion.edu/page/34/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972348 | 578 | 1.695313 | 2 |
You’ve probably heard the old saying “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”
Perhaps you feel like it’s true. You look at other people’s lives, and you envy them. They seem to be doing so much better than you. They’ve got a great job. Lots of money. A happy home life.
They seem to have it all. And you can’t help wishing that you did, too.
But none of us ever really know what it’s like to live someone else’s life. Sure, your friends might be spending lots of money on dinners out, booze, fancy gadgets … but for all you know, they’re deep in debt, or working long hours in jobs they hate.
No-one’s life is perfect – whatever it looks like from the outside.
Plus, it’s a safe bet that some of your friends are looking at your life and thinking very similar things. Maybe they envy your dull but predictable job – you’re home on time every night. Maybe they see your great relationship with your spouse and kids – and they’d rather have that than any amount of money.
Whatever state your life is in, you’ve got a lot of good things. You just need to recognize them again.
Enjoy What You Have
One of the best ways to love your current life is to write a list of things you’re grateful for. It doesn’t matter if they seem small or insignificant: little everyday moments of happiness count.
You might think of:
- People who you’re grateful for – your family, friends, housemates, co-workers…
- Treats which you enjoy – the smell of fresh coffee, the taste of dark chocolate, a long bath after a hard day…
- Things which make your day easier – the dishwasher, online grocery shopping, fast internet access at work…
- Anything special which you’ve grown accustomed to – your wedding ring, your smartphone, a favorite coat…
- Happy moments – chatting with a friend, something which made you laugh, playing with your kids…
I’ll bet you can easily come up with five things every single day that you’re grateful for. Your life is full of good things – you just sometimes need to work a bit to see them.
Focus on the Good Points
When we’re thinking about future goals and ambitions, it’s easy to end up in quite a negative mood about the present. Perhaps you start thinking through all the things you want to change in your life: losing weight, getting fit, quitting smoking, switching jobs…
As well as thinking of what you might want to change, look at the areas of your life which are currently good. Maybe:
- You get on well with your colleagues at work, and you’ve got a good relationship with your boss
- You’ve got some real strengths – like being able to establish a quick connection with clients, and being organised
- Your house is set up pretty much how you want it – there might not be loads of space, but it feels like home
- You’ve got some hobbies you really enjoy
…and so on. How could you make more of these good things? Perhaps you could spend more time on your hobbies, or concentrate on your particular strengths at work.
Live in the Moment
It’s appropriate to plan for the future, and to learn from the past – but it’s not a good idea to constantly have your mind on how “things will be better next year when…” or on “life was so much better last year because…”
Being able to live in the moment means appreciating what’s around you. It’s about having your attention on now, instead of reminiscing about what’s already gone, or worrying about what’s yet to come.
Living in the moment means:
- Enjoying your days off, without constantly thinking about Monday morning.
- Listening when someone’s talking to you, and being fully present in the conversation.
- Taking time to stop and watch a beautiful sunset, or to enjoy the smell of fresh-mown grass.
- Eating your meals more mindfully – instead of grabbing a sandwich on the run.
By keeping your attention on the present moment, the here-and-now, you can get much more enjoyment from the life you already have.
What are you grateful for, in your life? What’s already good? How can you appreciate all of it just a bit more? | <urn:uuid:83de8823-0297-4f3d-9d8c-994168a56368> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-love-the-life-you-already-have/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950529 | 984 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Pablo always wanted to be a cowboy. This is an unusual aspiration for a bull. He met with a lot of obstacles. First of all, the other cowboys had a serious prejudice against bulls
in general. Then there’s the problem of finding a cowboy hat that would fit over his horns. And lastly, Pablo looked everywhere, but could not find a horse that was willing to give him a ride. Perhaps you are saying to yourself, “A bull riding a horse? How absurd!” But Pablo is stubborn. He’s the reason they coined the term “bull-headed”. So while you won’t see him in your local rodeo anytime soon, don’t be surprised if one day you do. | <urn:uuid:0f212ddd-60e7-4af9-b55d-394823e47cbc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/pablo-2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964194 | 158 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The Heartland Institute, a libertarian think-tank based in Chicago, has never been afraid of controversy. It was founded in 1984, originally to push free-market and libertarian causes. Heartland spent its early years as an apologist for the tobacco industry, fighting to deny or obscure the scientific evidence for the dangers of smoking and of second-hand smoke, and derail public health policies to protect people from smoking and smokers. In recent years, it has become more famous for being a hotbed of global-warming denialism, sponsoring conferences where all the “big names” of denialism get together and preach to the choir. They are also famous for their anti-environmental efforts across the board, especially with the debate over fracking, the safety of coal mining, and other controversial practices. In this regard, they are not too different from some of the other “think-tanks” that push free market and libertarian policies, heavily supported by private industry and right-wing foundations.
But the business of pushing unpopular agendas like smoking is all about credibility and PR, and making your institute appear to be a serious defender of some worthy cause, not a hotbed of crazies. Thus, perception is everything. And it’s clear that in recent months, Heartland has “jumped the shark” and is now on a downward death spiral, as funding dries up and even their former supporters refuse to have their names associated with it. The problem started with their almost yearly conferences on climate change, which became more and more extreme so that even many mainstream climate-change deniers refused to participate. By 2006, ExxonMobil stopped funding them, and tried to distance themselves from the Heartland reputation as a bastion of loonies. Still, Heartland kept promoting their causes, and kept their climate-change conferences going nearly every year.
However, the past 4 months have not been kind to Heartland. In February, a series of emails were leaked revealing some of the internal communications of Heartland. The most damaging was the revelation (confirmed by multiple sources, including David Wojick, who was to have run the program) that they were planning a propaganda campaign for the public schools to expose kids to the AGW denial point of view. This is something that states like Louisiana and Tennessee could conceivably use with their new laws opening the doors to creationism in public schools. The leaks themselves proved to be a great embarrassment to Heartland and their financial backers, and caused many of their staunchest funders to pull out when their names were publicized. The list of who had been funding them was revealing: right-wing foundations like the Scaife Foundation, Castle Rock, the Olin Foundation, and the Bradley Foundation; energy giants like ExxonMobil (over $800,000 until 2006, when they withdrew funding), the Koch Foundation, Murray Energy, Illinois Coal Association, and the American Petroleum Institute; tobacco interests like Phillip Morris; and a number of private anonymous donors, one of whom gave as much as 25% to 38% of their annual budget. If there ever were any doubt about who was calling the shots at Heartland, clearly their agenda was driven by the big donations from energy and tobacco and right-wing funders.
But the straw that broke the camel’s back was a billboard campaign that debuted on May 4, comparing climate scientists and those who agreed with them to Unabomber Ted Kaczynkski, Charles Manson, Fidel Castro, and Osama bin Laden. Only the Unabomber billboard went up, then was promptly taken down again in less than 24 hours after a storm of angry controversy lashed Heartland. Such a ham-handed and stupid ad campaign attempting “guilt by association” made you scratch your head and wonder who the heck authorized this almost suicidally bad PR decision. It outraged not only the environmental and scientific community to be compared to various mass murderers, but even the mainstream media and many of Heartland’s erstwhile supporters. As blogger Mike Lemonick pointed out:
Tough stuff, but you’ve got to love the reasoning, which Heartland explains on its website. “…what these murderers and madmen have said differs very little from what spokespersons for the United Nations, journalists for the “mainstream” media, and liberal politicians say about global warming.” It’s a breathtaking tour de force in logic: if a murderous lunatic believes something—anything at all—then everyone else who believes it is a murderous lunatic. By this impeccable reasoning, you’d better not be against smoking, because…so was Adolf Hitler (believe it or not, this gambit has actually been played). Hitler was also a vegetarian, at least some of the time, so if you subscribe to both of these beliefs, you’re doubly despicable. Or maybe you’re a devout Catholic. So was the Spanish Inquisition’s chief torturer and burner-at-the-stake Torquemada. I even heard once, though I can’t confirm it, that former Ugandan strongman Idi Amin loved little kittens, and I have it on good authority that Genghis Khan was good to his horses.
The Unabomber billboard was withdrawn, but Heartland was unapologetic about their actions, and their website full of even more outrageous assertions was still up. But the damage had already been done. Many of their former allies withdrew from the upcoming climate conference late last month in Chicago, including prominent denier Donna Laframboise who blogged:
Instead, those of us who had accepted Heartland’s invitation to take part in its conference found ourselves blindsided—a mere two weeks before the conference is set to begin—by a torrent of negative press. Suddenly, we were all publicly linked to an organization that thinks it’s OK to equate people concerned about climate change with psychopaths.
As economist Ross McKitrick said in an a strongly-worded letter to Heartland yesterday: You cannot simultaneously say that you want to promote a debate while equating the other side to terrorists and mass murderers.
Well here’s the problem. My name—and the name of my book—is currently on the same page of the Heartland website where the above quote appears. Without prior knowledge or informed consent, my work has been aggressively associated with this odious ad campaign. Forget disappointment. In my view, my reputation has been harmed. And the Heartland thinks it has nothing to apologize for.
But the real problems came when corporate sponsors began to pull out, one after another, including liquor giant Diageo (maker of Smirnoff, Guinness, Moet & Chandon, and Johnny Walker), General Motors, AT&T, several large insurance companies (including State Farm and many re-insurers), and many others. No large corporation wanted to be associated with the crazies who compared climate scientists to mass murderers. Meanwhile the protesters outside the Chicago conference put pressure on Microsoft, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, and some of the remaining big-name contributors to renounce Heartland. (The tally is laid out here). Heartland itself admitted that they were in a financial crisis, and had just lost at least $825,000 in funding, and it is unknown how big their losses are now. Their DC office has been closed, and most staffers have been let go.
By the time the Chicago conference rolled around on May 21-23, 2012, many speakers had pulled out like rats fleeing a sinking ship, and it was a pathetic shell of its former self. An undercover video showed a conference of nearly empty rooms (fewer than 170 showed up at an event that usually draws 800 or more), with just a few of the diehards (Anthony Watts, Harrison Schmitt, Lord Christopher Monckton, and their ilk) remaining on their program. Apparently, the speakers spent significant time making “birther” jokes and ranting that environmentalism was a “communist conspiracy”, a testament to how far they had gone off the deep end. At the end of the video there is a desperate plea by outgoing Heartland CEO Joe Bast (famous for defending the “Joe Camel” ads), asking for people to come up with money any way they could, and underlining their perilous financial situation. Shortly thereafter, Heartland announced that the 2012 climate conference would be their last.
In Hollywood, they joke that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. But in the world of non-profit think tanks and organizations whose main job is PR, bad publicity can kill your reputation in a matter of hours. It’s even worse when it’s self-inflicted, as the idiotic decision about the billboards shows. One serious blunder and no one wants to have their name associated with you, and no corporation wants their name revealed. I’m counting the days now until we hear the news that Heartland is closing its doors and going under. I, for one, will not shed a tear…. | <urn:uuid:bb83e8ea-bb5d-4814-986a-0dca2d980070> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/06/27/no-hearts-are-breaking-for-heartland/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97326 | 1,885 | 1.617188 | 2 |
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie became the third Republican governor in a week to opt to expand Medicaid as part of the 2010 health care law. / Manuel Balce Ceneta, AP
WASHINGTON - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie became the second Republican governor in a week to opt to expand Medicaid today as part of the 2010 health care law.
Christie, who announced the expansion during his state budget address in Trenton, N.J., said he was "no fan of the Affordable Care Act," which echoed the other Republican governors who recently accepted millions of dollars in federal help.
"While we already have one of the most expansive and generous Medicaid programs in the nation, including the second-highest eligibility rate for children, we have an opportunity to ensure that an even greater number of New Jerseyans who are at or near the poverty line will have access to critical health services beginning in January 2014," Christie said.
Like Republican governor Rick Scott of Florida, Christie said that not accepting the money would mean it would simply be spent somewhere else, and New Jersey taxpayers would lose out while another state received their federal taxes.
Several studies have shown that states accepting Medicaid could actually make money or see an increase in health care jobs. Christie said New Jersey would save $227 million in 2014 alone, and a study by New Jersey Policy Prospective, a non-partisan policy research group, found that New Jersey could save $2.45 billion over the next nine years if the state participates in the expansion.
"Medicaid expansion will not only improve New Jerseyans access to affordable health care, it will improve our economic health as well," said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J. "With all of New Jersey's pressing needs right now, it is assuring that this assistance will help us to devote more resources toward building our economy and creating jobs."
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Mike Pence of Indiana said last week they won't expand Medicaid, leaving nine Republican governors now to make a decision.
Scott's announcement that he would expand Medicaid came after a report from Families USA that showed expansion would create 71,300 jobs by 2016, and a Georgetown University study that found the state would save about $300 million in 2014. Another study from Colorado State University found that Colorado would increase economic activity by $4.4 billion and create at least 22,388 jobs if it expanded Medicaid.
Still, Christie couched his announcement by saying that state spending had gone down since he became governor and that the government had shrunk by 5,200 state employees.
He used his speech to take a swipe at the federal government and said the Capitol needs leaders and bipartisanship.
"It seems to me our leaders in Washington, D.C., could learn from our example here," he said. "Their failure to take on the nation's budget challenges and address the unsustainability of the nation's long-term liabilities is nothing short of inexcusable."
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: Christie adds New Jersey to the Medicaid expansion list | <urn:uuid:7410c018-3cae-46ce-be37-6063f22c534d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.floridatoday.com/usatoday/article/1949447?odyssey=mod_sectionstories | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967441 | 627 | 1.609375 | 2 |
By Susan Kemp
A couple months ago, a friend posted a photo on Facebook that really stuck with me. It was an open Internet browser with a screen that simply read:
“Congratulations! You’ve just completed your exit loan counseling!”
Of course, you have to imagine the “Congratulations!” in 72-point type.
She made a smug comment about the excitement she most certainly had in paying back her student loans, and a few of her recent grad friends chimed in about their impending doom.
No one really minds what’s said on Facebook. The real tension comes when these young adults are willing to go beyond their network of friends and say something to a larger audience.
The Huffington Post has a whole subsection on their website dealing with student loans. But when recent college graduates write op-ed’s — with the average student loan debt reaching $25,000 in 2010, there’s been quite a few — the comments are notoriously unsympathetic.
It’s as if the 22-year-old with $60,000 of debt (and the audacity to write about it) has become the poster child for the right’s definition of the “entitled liberal.” Why should we have to pay for your irresponsibility, the comments inevitably say. It’s the holier than thou mantra underlying every class reform discussion, and in recent college grads, the right has found their prodigal sons and daughters.
What’s strange is that mainstream culture had an entirely different reaction to the fall of the housing market. How many adults over 30 bought mortgages they couldn’t afford before the bubble burst and are now swimming in underwater mortgages? We call it the housing crisis because that’s what it was – a crisis. These are people who had jobs, and at least some credit, and yet made irresponsible and ultimately tragic decisions.
But on a whole the backlash isn’t toward those who lost their homes, but those who offered mortgages to misinformed folks who couldn’t afford them.
Everyone blames the lenders.
Only a few years later, Netflix is full of documentaries on the topic that really delve into the effect the housing crisis had on individual buyers. Here, the people are victims. But when teenagers with limited work experience and no credit are signing along the dotted line? Well, those kids are everything that’s wrong with the country.
I understand some of the response. I do. People are making sacrifices. There are 18-year-old’s who get into Duke and attend North Carolina State instead. But to task teenagers in one broad stroke as being equipped to make that decision is unfair.
It’s easy when you lump an entire age-group together as one single entity. But in covering the topic, I’ve spoken with orphans and teens in foster care. No one is there to say, “Filing as an independent has its perks, but how are you paying back what the Pell Grant doesn’t cover?”
Even teenagers coming from a two-parent suburban household need better academic counseling than is presently provided. How many of us had the faintest clue what we were doing at 18? Be honest.
At the very least, these graduating seniors should be given a little sympathy. Maybe not money, but sympathy. Think of the housing market. Buying a bigger house is a check mark on the American Dream. Children are then raised to buy into that dream—to not be limited by the circumstances of their parents. It’s hard to decide when to strive and when to settle. It’s that much harder without the requisite experience.
That is not to say, inexperienced or not, young Americans don’t share in the responsibility of their actions. We do. But do we deserve to be the target of so much animosity?
The issue here is a lack of education – on all sides. And the greatest way to encourage education in a democracy is awareness, which tends to be a byproduct of free speech. The younger generation is trying to stay afloat. Some of it is our fault, but personal accountability is only half of the puzzle. Just as with the housing market, private lenders need to be held responsible for entering into risky agreements in the first place. An 18-year-old might not know better, but like Fannie and Freddie, I suspect Sallie very well does.
Contact Susan Kemp.
Double Take is a weekly column re-evaluating issues that affect the college-aged student. | <urn:uuid:652e8f11-f250-49eb-bd46-c352ee0f89c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.scaddistrict.com/blog/2012/04/06/double-take-why-the-animosity-toward-students-with-debt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969584 | 951 | 1.507813 | 2 |
By Patrick Keys
(This is a continuation of this blog’s Nile River series, click here for the full list.)
The annual meeting of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) approaches, and this post aims to place these current events into the broader patterns of regional engagement, particularly on the part of the People’s Republic of China. But, before we dive in to that lets get up to speed on recent events. (If you can’t wait to know what I think, feel free to jump to the conclusions)
Getting up to speed
In 2011, following the ousting of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a question was raised here on this blog about whether the hawkish legacy of Mubarak would continue to guide Egypt’s attitude towards the Nile river, and its allocation – or – whether a different stance would be taken given the growing power and clout of the upstream riparians, namely Ethiopia. At the time, given the euphoric sense of rediscovering popular power in Egypt, the progress of the NBI, and the emergence of a new Nile Basin country in South Sudan, it appeared that there was a unique opportunity for the regional powers to set a new course of political cooperation based on economic integration and shared strategic interests.
Mohamed Morsi at press conference in 2012. Wikimedia, by Jonathan Rashad
Though there has not been any actual conflict, and I still maintain that an outright conflict is unlikely, the tone of Egypt’s president Mohamed Morsi on Egypt’s historic and future allocation has steadily become more aggressive. This has been happening in front of a backdrop of both increasing development in the upstream countries, as well as increasing political cooperation. Ethiopia’s legislature formally endorsed and joined the Nile Basin Initiative, cementing their partnership with the basin-wide organization of Nile nations.
South Sudan is assuming the chair of the NBI this month, and the annual meeting will be held in its capital Juba on Thursday. In the lead up to the meeting, Ethiopia has been diverting flow of the Blue Nile for construction of the Grand Renaissance Dam, the tripartite technical committee (of Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan) has completed the report (which, according to some sources, says impacts will be minimal), and Egypt and Ethiopia are aiming to “swim together” rather than “sink together.”
Understanding these headlines requires taking a step back from the news cycle though. And this article aims to explore the role of China in fostering and influencing Nile basin changes (if you can’t wait feel free to jump to the conclusions).
Don’t let the 门 hit you on the 后身
As the US reorients away from the Middle East & North Africa and towards East Asia, China is perhaps filling some of the empty space by pivoting towards Africa. Much has been made of Chinese activity in Ethiopia, particularly of their involvement in the construction and financing of infrastructure. This is really only a surprise to the status quo, as the construction firms aren’t the familiar (i.e. Western) names, and the financing doesn’t come from the familiar faces (i.e. the World Bank or the IMF).
Longsheng, Guilin, China. Copyright Patrick Keys, All Rights Reserved
The recent experiences of how-not-to get involved in other countries affairs (see: Afghanistan and Iraq) is fresh in the minds of the US and the EU, and thus calls to Western nations to support Egyptian or Sudanese claims to historic allocations of the Nile are unlikely to succeed. Furthermore, China is unlikely to seize the opportunity, in a Western sense, given their profoundly different approach to foreign policy and foreign aid.
Contrary to much commentary, I think that China will serve as a stabilizing, external force by providing a less-red-tape-laden approach to economic development. Though this method has garnered criticism for some of its projects, it also means that development is likely to happen faster than it would under more regulated system.
Lets test this claim a bit though. Is China “more on the side” of Ethiopia than Egypt? Is it more neutral than that? How might we examine this?
A starting point is the economic relationship between countries in the region and China. First, trade flows between regional nations & China are worth exploring (Table 1).
Table 1. Trade flows between China and selected Nile Basin countries (created by Patrick Keys, data source CIA World Factbook)
As a percentage of total exports (2011 values), Ethiopia reports a value of 12% of exports, whereas Egypt reported no flows to China. On the other hand, Egypt beats Ethiopia’s import levels by nearly 5 times. This is in part due to Egypt’s much larger economy. When the absolute values are adjusted relative to the size of the total economy, however, Ethiopia actually imports more than Egypt as a fraction of total imports.
Admittedly, these numbers came from a very quick search on the CIA World Factbook which has its own limitations. This is merely meant to be illustrative of the bilateral relationships between China & Ethiopia as well as China & Egypt. Though China undoubtedly values the nations that drive its currently export-driven economy , bilateral relationships are more important for the future.
Shenzhen port, China. Copyright Patrick Keys, All Rights Reserved
According to another report, Egypt represented China’s 5th largest trading partner in 2011, and its 4th largest in 2012 (after South Africa, Angola, and Nigeria). According to this, Egypt is China’s most important trading partner in North Africa, which could give the relationship added weight in diplomatic affairs. Ethiopia’s economy isn’t big enough to compare in absolute terms to Egypt’s, and thus would not rank very highly for the continent. All this being said, as China transitions towards importing more raw materials and exporting services and higher-input industrial products, relationships like the one it has with Ethiopia will become ever more important, and Egypt might be wise to adjust accordingly.
Who’s more important then? I’m inclined to say neither and both. Egypt is a major trading partner for China in North Africa, while Ethiopia represents much larger opportunities for a long-term, development-oriented relationship
One Dragon or Two?
Throughout this article I’ve been using the word “China” to refer to the People’s Republic of China, on the mainland. Why do I bother pointing out the obvious? Because not everyone sees China (or, the Chinese) the same way. More important than the economic ties discussed above, are the political ramifications of either recognizing “Two Chinas“, that is, recognizing Taiwan as an independent nation, versus the “One-China” policy, where China and Taiwan are the same country (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. “Two Chinas” map showing affiliations of various states (source NuclearVacuum, Wikimedia Commons)
In short, the One-China policy refers to China’s geopolitical and economic strategy to isolate Taiwan. China (formally, ‘People’s Republic of China’, or PRC) tends to look unfavorably upon countries that recognize Taiwan (formally, ‘Republic of China’ or ROC). It may come as a surprise that any nation would intentionally do something to incur the PRC’s disfavor, but the simple reason is that recognition of ROC is likely to come with large piles of Taiwanese money. There are few countries internationally that recognize ROC as the ‘legitimate’ government of China, but there are some, and they include several nations in Africa such as Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Sao Tome & Principe, and Swaziland (according to recent data).
Deborah Brautigam has done a great deal of work studying Chinese (that is, both PRC and ROC) involvement in Africa, and the dynamics associated with political recognition and corresponding foreign investment. For more on this, checkout her blog here (she also happens to be the author of an excellent book entitled “The Dragon’s Gift” exploring China’s foreign aid in Africa).
All of the Nile riparians acknowledge the PRC as the legitimate government of China, and thus on that score Egypt, Ethiopia, and the rest are equivalent.
No, I’m not talking about a delicious new beverage, nor am I talking about an upcoming concert – I’m talking about how China’s relationship with Ethiopia is currently flowing mostly in one direction from China to Ethiopia. Since I can’t paraphrase this well enough, here’s a bit from Wikipedia:
The economic relationship is one-sided, with China providing large amounts of foreign aid (often tied to infrastructure projects undertaken by Chinese firms), growing Chinese investment in the Ethiopian economy and with imports of cheap consumer goods from China greatly exceeding exports from Ethiopia to China. The Chinese appear to be interested in Ethiopia primarily as a source of materials, potentially including oil and food, and as a market for Chinese exports that will expand as Ethiopia’s rapid economic growth continues. For Ethiopia, Chinese involvement is stimulating economic growth and helping promote exports to other countries. China’s “business is business” approach is welcome by comparison to western aid providers who often link their contributions to changes in the Ethiopian legal and political structure.
(Source: For more on this, checkout the full section on Economic Relations in the Wikipedia article ”China-Ethiopia relations”, 2013.)
The relationship described above contrasts that of the relationship between China and Egypt, which appears to be one based primarily on trade, notably Egyptian imports of Chinese goods. This difference is important for many reasons, but key among them is the importance of getting involved in a country as it develops. Though China’s currently being pilloried for its seemingly extractive activity in Africa, it is much less damaging than the headlines suggests and perhaps much, much less damaging compared to Western colonialism and Western-style tied-aid. Though China is capable of doing things simply because they are humanitarian rather than purely profitable, China undoubtedly sees the “downstream” benefits of helping Ethiopia to develop in terms of the preferential relationships (political, economic, etc.) it may receive in the future.
Will the Dragon swim upstream, downstream, or both directions?
How do all of these internal dynamics surrounding Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Nile broadly interact with these external Chinese influences? Based on my assessment it seems clear to me that China does not show a clear preference towards Ethiopia over Egypt, but is more simply seeking out opportunities as they arise. Rather than signing up exclusively to support one nation over another, China seems to be invested in the overall economic growth and success of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Chinese dragon at dragon-dance for Chinese New Year 2000 in Helsinki. By Caseman
The sum of these different parts is that regional prosperity, driven in part by trade, financing, and strategic economic partnerships with China, will increase overall economic development. If Ethiopia can manage to lift its millions out of poverty (with the support of a country who has recently done the same thing), then Egypt will no longer have a low-income neighbor to its south, and rather a new regional power.
Moreover, Morsi and his government should realize that they will very quickly be on the wrong side of history, as they behave as though they have another option to cooperating with the upstream nations in the Nile basin. The end-game for the Nile Basin is moving inevitably towards one of cooperation among the upstream riparian nations from which nearly all the water originates.
As China’s economic aid, loans, and partnerships strengthen in the region, the Chinese will be more and more likely to err on the side of preserving and protecting their investments, translating to stability rather than turmoil. It is good then, that its investments, both diplomatic as well as physical, are not only in Ethiopia, but across the Nile region. | <urn:uuid:395c07b3-a590-4517-bc35-9bfa8068ce2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://watersecurity.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94718 | 2,492 | 1.71875 | 2 |
This vehicle may be the world's most high-tech mobile fortress. The exact specifications of President Obama's limousine, also known as "The Beast," are a matter of national security, and therefore kept secret, but some of the car's key specs have been made public, and there are even more guessed at or postulated.
It's known that the limo is heavily armored, with 8-inch thick doors, for example. The superstructure is made of titanium, ceramic, steel, and aluminum. It has its own oxygen supply, an advanced fire-fighting system, night-vision cameras, tear gas cannons, Kevlar-reinforced run-flat tires, and steel wheels that work even without a tire.
On top of all that, the limo also contains a supply of the President's blood for emergencies, an unspecified number of pump-action shotguns for defense, and the ability to lock down the cabin like a nearly-impenetrable panic room. The Beast is sealed to the environment, mitigating or eliminating the threat of biological attack.
As you might imagine, all the armor-plating and environmental seclusion means almost no sound enters the cabin. To hear sounds outside the vehicle, it's equipped with microphones on the outside and speakers inside.
Further communications equipment enables The Beast's occupants to converse with several of the specialized vehicles that are part of the 45-vehicle motorcade that travels with the President in the U.S., or the handful of vehicles that accompany on trips outside the U.S. Full command and control communications are possible through relay to the White House Communications Agency Roadrunner vehicle, which transmits encrypted duplex radio and video through military satellites.
Unverified features of The Beast include the ability to fire infrared smoke grenades as a sort of chaff to screen the vehicle from attack by rocket propelled grenade or missile. Up front, the driver is thought to have a special video system to enable driving even in blackout or whiteout visibility conditions (smoke, complete darkness, weather, etc.). If you're having a hard time visualizing how all of this fits together, the U.K.'s Daily Mail has an excellent graphic representation here.
In all, it's a formidable vehicle -- truly deserving of its nickname. And with all that we know about its defensive features, it seems unlikely it's not also equipped with rather significant offensive abilities as well -- that is, beyond the complement of Secret Service agents inside, guarding it, and the vehicles following along. Makes a person think twice about laughing at The Beast, or its similarly-able predecessor, when it gets stuck, doesn't it?
The vehicle, built by GM and nominally a Cadillac, is based on the industrial-duty GMC TopKick truck platform. Thanks to its massive size and heft, The Beast drinks fuel at a rapid rate, scoring just 8 mpg.
Some other fun facts about the history of Presidential Cadillac limos (via USA Today): Woodrow Wilson chose a Cadillac limo for his 1919 victory drive through Boston because the car's engine, the first mass-produced V-8, was robust and reliable. After the Pearl Harbor bombing, legend says Franklin D. Roosevelt rode in an armored Cadillac limo formerly owned by Al Capone. Gearhead president Dwight D. Eisenhower rode in one of the first Cadillac Eldorados ever built during his 1953 inauguration.
Get More from the Car Connection
This article originally appeared on the Car Connection. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:6b729725-3a37-441d-8b05-d77061a50c40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.discovery.com/autos/military-vehicles/obama-super-limo-mobile-fortress-130122.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948947 | 714 | 1.664063 | 2 |
POINT PLEASANT — Security at the Mason County Courthouse is still being discussed and as noted months ago when new measures were put into effect, this will be an ongoing process.
After yesterday’s regular meeting of the Mason County Commission concluded, County Clerk Diana Cromley reported while attending a meeting of the West Virginia Association of Counties, those present sat in on a presentation by Capitol Police about security at government buildings. Part of the presentation was watching a film on how to react in crisis situations. Commissioner Miles Epling suggested having a screening of the film with local office holders.
Cromley said one of the big concerns she has is about some of the offices at the courthouse having no exits and what sort of contingency plan could be put in place should an emergency occur and employees be unable to exit until it was safe. Commission President Rick Handley agreed more of a plan needed to be in place. The courthouse already has tightened security by eliminating multiple entrances and exits, into and out of, the courthouse - the public an only enter and exit through the first floor, Main Street door. All those who enter are subject to walking through a metal detector.
This security detail is not cheap, it’s estimated it costs the county around $35,000 a year to operate just one security checkpoint. Security detail for the courthouse is overseen by the Office of Home Confinement which is an arm of the sheriff’s department. Again, this discussion on security was informal and after the meeting adjourned. No action was taken.
In other commission news, during the meeting:
Commissioners were presented with a letter from the City of Point Pleasant asking if the county could contribute any funds to its current, federally mandated flood wall maintenance project.
Handley announced Miss Battle Days Lauren Roush, will be representing Mason County in the state parade celebrating West Virginia’s 150th birthday.
Cromley presented the commission with a free banner produced by the WV Association of Counties as well as the sesquicentennial group celebrating the state’s birthday. All 55 counties received one of the commemorative banners.
Cromley also spoke about a book detailing West Virginia’s 55 courthouses. The book, called “Living Monuments: The Courthouse” was recently published and supported by the WV Association of Counties. Three pages are dedicated to the Mason County Courthouse. The book has a launch planned for Saturday at Taylor Books in Charleston and Cromley said one of the books was purchased for use in her office and can be used to compliment records dealing with genealogy. For information on purchasing the books, email [email protected] or call 304-346-0591.
County Administrator John Gerlach spoke about visiting the 4-H camp in Southside earlier in the day and complimented the leaders, volunteers and youth who are part of not only the camp, but the 4-H program. Handley also noted prior to last week’s impending storm, he was made aware the 4-H camp and its staff already have a safety plan in place for emergency weather events.
Attending this week’s meeting were Commissioners Handley, Epling and Tracy Doolittle, as well as, Cromley and Gerlach. | <urn:uuid:c483d435-1cec-4185-afb6-d6a1456d83bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mydailyregister.com/pages/news/push?per_page=24&x_page=5&class=&rel= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96793 | 681 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Dave McGillivray operates under three principles: Set goals, not limits; the worst injustice anyone can perform is underestimating their own ability; those who doubt things can get done shouldn't interrupt those who are doing.
McGillivray is one of those force-of-nature people who command and inspire. He is a philanthropist, organizer, motivational speaker and author. He was a national-class runner and endurance athlete who competed in Ironman triathlons and who once ran across country. Not cross country, across country – from Medford, Ore. to Medford, Mass., in 80 days, in order to raise money for cancer research.
He has been race director of the Boston Marathon for the past 22 years. His company, Dave McGillivray Sports Enterprises, stages races all over the country and is considered among the best at what they do.
It's no wonder that Walter Segaloff, the founder and CEO of An Achievable Dream, the school for at-risk youths in downtown Newport News, sought out McGillivray when he decided that he wanted to stage an annual race and fund-raiser to benefit the school and the military's Wounded Warriors program.
The result is an annual two-day race event in Williamsburg beginning in May 2011. The Run For The Dream is a half-marathon, while the Fit To Run, Fit To Dream event is an 8-kilometer run/walk whose aim is also to help battle childhood obesity.
"Dave's exciting," Segaloff said. "Talk to anybody who's (run) the Boston Marathon. You couldn't do it for (22) years if you weren't good at it. He's exciting, and he's passionate. We're passionate, too, this whole program. With the military involved, we believe in our mission, and Dave believes in our mission and his mission. So it's a great partnership."
Segaloff first called McGillivray about a year ago. The two conversed periodically for several months. McGillivray visited the area and the school, and a partnership ensued.
Last Tuesday's formal announcement of the event at the Williamsburg Lodge was attended by several dozen people, most of whom were either financially or civically involved.
Sites on the campus of William and Mary will serve as both the start and finish lines. School prez W. Taylor Reveley, who enthusiastically signed on to the project, offered three quick thoughts about the events:
1) He knows how a well-organized race can unite and excite a community, given that his family lives on Monument Avenue in Richmond, which is part of the course of that city's major road races.
2) The collaboration between William and Mary, An Achievable Dream, the Wounded Warrior program and various corporate and civic factions will help Williamsburg move forward.
3) He understands that administering such an event is far more complicated than anyone imagines, and "it's important to have the help of an all-knowing wizard." After surveying McGillivray's bio, he was convinced that "we have engaged just such a wizard."
Magic wands and spells or not, McGillivray – his name is pronounced MAC-gil-vray – was passionate and expansive Tuesday at the announcement. Here are some of his thoughts, on a variety of subjects:
On how being "vertically challenged" (his term – he stands 5-foot-4) and being the last kid picked on rec league athletic teams affected him:
"I went out for my high school basketball team and I was the last kid cut. The coach put his arm around me and said, 'If you were five inches taller, you'd be my starting guard.' I said, 'Coach, I thought it was about ability and not height.' So I challenged the center to a game of '21' in front of everybody, and I beat him. I threw the ball off the court and said, at the ripe, old age of about 14, that I would never, ever, ever allow anybody to tell me that I'm not good enough, that I don't belong.
"I went home that night and put a sign over my bed, and the sign read: Please God, Make Me Grow. But He must have been on vacation or answering someone else's prayers, because he obviously didn't make me grow. But in retrospect, I look back on my life and I think, you know something, He made me grow in other ways. He made me grow emotionally, spiritually, morally, ethically. He made me grow internally, and that's what it's all about. It's what's inside, not what's outside."
On his decision to come on board and direct the local race, after visiting the area and Segaloff's An Achievable Dream school:
"I was sold, right then and there. Even though I direct a lot of races and get asked to direct a lot more, I'm pretty picky and choosy with what I end up aligning myself with. But this had all the ingredients, all the right reasons. The cause, the venue itself. It's a home run and I want to be part of it."
On his chosen profession: | <urn:uuid:539e58f0-12d4-4d2e-8ed1-cbd1ce17114b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.dailypress.com/2010-05-15/sports/dp-spt-race-director-wburg-20100515_1_boston-marathon-races-achievable-dream | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978853 | 1,086 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Global Security Newswire
Daily News on Nuclear, Biological & Chemical Weapons, Terrorism and Related Issues
Indian, Pakistani Heads of State to Meet on Sunday
The heads of state of India and Pakistan are scheduled to meet on Sunday in a visible sign that relations are gradually improving between the two nuclear-armed rivals, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Feb. 22).
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is to join Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for an informal afternoon meal in New Delhi. The two men last year viewed together a World Cup cricket match between their two countries; this time, Zardari will head to India to visit a Muslim holy site.
Ahead of the Sunday lunch, expectations are not high for major breakthroughs in the two nations' historically stormy relations. Singh must deal with domestic lobbying to maintain cool relations with Islamabad until it moves to decisively target the Pakistani-based extremist organizations that have repeatedly mounted attacks inside India, including the November 2008 assault on Mumbai. Zardari must also contend with the fiercely anti-India sentiments of the strong Pakistani army and a number of Islamist groups.
Zardari's trip represents the sole visit to New Delhi by a Pakistani president in seven years. It is also the most high-profile signal to date that the South Asian nations are moving past the extreme tensions that followed the the Mumbai attacks, which led India to withdraw for several years from a bilateral peace process.
The two sides last year agreed to resume peace talks, which include a focus on the disputed Kashmir region, natural resources, terrorism and nuclear confidence-building measures. Pakistani issue expert Hasan-Askari Rizvi said the coming meeting would "keep the momentum going."
Analysts do not think Singh is likely to make a visit to Pakistan, even unofficially, until there are concrete advancements in the peace talks (Associated Press/Washington Post, April 6).
Center for Policy Research analyst Brahma Chellaney in New Delhi told Agence France-Presse, "This is a largely symbolic occasion and contentious subjects will be avoided."
The Pakistani military has the real power over the nation's foreign policy and security postures. "You can't have substantive talks with someone who doesn't' run anything," Chellaney noted (Agence France-Presse I/Express Tribune, April 6).
The U.S. State Department responded warmly on Thursday to the coming Singh-Zardari meeting, AFP reported.
"To us, it's a win-win situation when Pakistan and India are engaging in dialogue, are talking to each other and are building better cooperation," department spokesman Mark Toner said to journalists (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, April 5).
April 2, 2013
An op-ed in The International Herald Tribune urging today's leaders to move decisively and permanently toward a new security strategy in the Euro-Atlantic region.
March 7, 2013
A fact sheet on current and projected costs of maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent, produced by the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
This article provides an overview of Pakistan’s historical and current policies relating to nuclear, chemical, biological and missile proliferation. | <urn:uuid:337285ff-d1a6-486a-a774-127fcd348f16> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/india-pakistani-heads-state-meet-sunday/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936822 | 656 | 1.757813 | 2 |
The ghost of a Spring Framework bug haunts old code
There are reports of the discovery of a remote code execution flaw in the Spring Framework, but many are not mentioning that the flaw in question was fixed over a year ago and that what has been found is actually a new way to exploit that old flaw. In 2011, a "variable" severity flaw, identified as CVE-2011-2730, was discovered by two researchers in versions 3.0.0 to 3.0.5, 2.5.0 to 2.5.6SEC02 and 2.5.0 to 2.5.7SR01. The flaw involved Expression Language (EL) and its use in JSP; EL expressions were evaluated by default and in some circumstances were evaluated twice, which could lead to information disclosure to an attacker if there was a location in an application where an unfiltered parameter was placed in a tag that would be evaluated. A paper covered the details.
The flaw's variable severity was due to the need for the application developers using Spring to write code that did allow unfiltered parameters through. The SpringSource developers created a fix, disabling EL support through an attribute and setting that as the default in future Spring versions, 3.1 and beyond. The mitigating fix was also added to Spring 3.0.6 and 2.5.6SEC03, but it needs the
springJspExpressionSupport attribute to be set to false in the web.xml file.
At the end of 2012, Dan Amodio at Aspect Security decided to look into the EL bug and see what else it could be used for. After finding that it could set session variables, and then failing to exploit it further, Amodio hit upon a plan which made the injected code download byte code from another site and execute it. He gives further details in his paper. Amodio informed the Spring developers at the start of December who modified the advisory, raising its severity to critical.
The reason that the bug is being reported as a new flaw is because the flaw was used to publicise the fact that developers are still downloading old versions of the library by Sonatype, makers of tools to manage component lifecycles. Sonatype, who worked with Aspect Security producing a report on vulnerable libraries in the Maven Central Repository last year, says that over the last twelve months, 22,000 organisations have downloaded the vulnerable versions of the Spring libraries 1.3 million times.
Maven, as an automated build system, does not know whether it is downloading a flawed library and, because of a philosophy of not breaking builds, no files are removed from the repository. With no update notification mechanism, systems like Maven can allow developers to keep using a library and allow the ghost of flaws to haunt their code. In the case of the Spring flaw, the ghost got a bit scarier and should serve to remind developers who use any libraries, proprietary or open source, to ensure they monitor advisories and updates from their software suppliers. | <urn:uuid:9b50705c-b9e4-4f7c-8e8e-ea1ba04da597> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/The-ghost-of-a-Spring-Framework-bug-haunts-old-code-1786850.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95524 | 619 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Kawasaki is reported to be working on some high-tech additions to the Concours14/GTR-1400 for the upcoming model year.
They won’t be officially unveiled until later this year. I don’t know when. It was supposed to be at the Paris Motorcycle show in October, but that event has been canceled.
Anyway, the new additions include an infrared night vision system, and a heads-up display for riders.
The heart of the system is a pair of infrared cameras mounted on the front of the bike. They allow the rider to “see” about 300 meters ahead of the bike, which is well beyond the viewing distance provided by the headlights. Not only will the system be able to find a heat signature before the rider is able to see it, but it will also provide an audible alarm to the rider. This will keep focus on the road rather than the gauge cluster.
Aside from the night vision the Kawasaki Engineering team is also working to design a helmet mounted heads up display. If they are successful, it could be mean riders will rarely have to look away from the road to check their speed or whatever they are monitoring at the time. The current design is mounted on the exterior of the helmet, rather than being part of it, meaning it could quickly become a popular aftermarket accessory.
It’s also supposed to have a bluetooth hookup to the helmet HUD, so there won’t be any annoying wires or whatnot.
Maybe I should reconsider an earlier post. If you’re gonna have the heads-up display, and the infrared night vision, you might as well spring for the Batman suit after all.
A reader from South Africa–isn’t the web just amazing!–has sent in an interesting story about his horrific run of bad luck with the R1200RT, and he also asks me an interesting question. I thought I would address him in a new post instead of the comments.
I am a 54 year old bike rider now and in October/November 2006 I purchased my first R1200RT, strickly ran in the bike as recommended, at about 5000 somthing km while running flat out (230km/hr)up a long hill, at sea level, the engine blew up, right hand cylinder it later turned out. BMW Motorrad led me to belive that it was my fault to an extent, they offered me their demmo RT with 355km on the clock at nost cost although this was a 07 model. I completed the running in procedure to 1000km and proceded to enjoy the bike. Planning on doing a long trip with the ODO at just less than 10,000km I had it serviced for its 10K. 3 days after this service and still not on 10K, running the same hill also flat taps as previous the engine blew, again the RH cylinder with identical damage as the first. After a big fight and quite a lot of money I got a new 09 RT full house, ran it in as previous, blew this motor at less than 3000km, only difference I was on a different hill. Yes, the same cylinder with identical damage as the previous 2 bikes. Completely dishartened as I truely love this machine, I had it repaired kept it for a month after which I traded it in on 1200GS. The GS is a different beast, also good but nothing like the RT. Anyway in this time I found out that BMW are bringing out a new RT,to be released in Germany Nov/Dec this year, it’s apparently top secret, I’ve tried searching the web for any bit of info without any success, I’m waiting in anticipation for it as I know I will have it. Perhaps you know what BMW are doing and could advise me!
Also please advise if you know about other RT owners blowing their motors, especially the R/H cylinders.
Your story is horrific, Deryck. Actually, it sounds outlandish, because I’ve never heard of the RT, or any other of the boxers, having a problem with the cylinders blowing. Now, if you’d told me that your final final drive started spewing lubricant and bursting into flame, I’d have nodded my head and said, “Yeah, that seems to be going around.” There’s been a lot of controversy over BMW’s final drive in the 2005 and 2006 models, and whether there was a fundamental design flaw that BMW refused to acknowledge, but quietly fixed. But I’ve never heard of any sort of problem with the boxer engine, which is, after all, going on its ninth decade as BMW’s banner power plant.
Indeed, here in the states, we have something called the Iron Butt Association (IBA), where motorcycle riders take their bikes on a ridiculously long trips in a ridiculously short time. The three big IBA events are the SaddleSore 1000 (1,000 miles/1,600 km in 24 hours), BunBurner 1500 (1500 miles/2400 km in 24 or 36 hours), and the 50cc Quest (coast-to-coast in 50 hours). In the last Iron Butt Rally (11,000 miles/17,600 km in 11 days) in 2007, 5 of the 72 participants who completed the Rally were riding R1200RTs.
So, you seem particularly unlucky. I suggest that you not take up piloting helicopters. Or skydiving.
I’m just saying.
As for rumors of a new R-Bike from BMW…well, I wasn’t going to actually write anything about this, but I actually have heard something about a new R1300RT. As far as I know, the only place where this has been reported is at a French motorcycle news web site called MotoStation. Back in February, they reported that BMW was working on a new R1300RT for release in June 2010.
They even have a photoshop of the new bike…and you can believe as much of that picture as you please.
Interestingly, they also say that the R1300RT will switch over to the same type of boxer motor as that which powers the current HP2 Sport, with its two camshafts, instead of the current single camshaft. That should up the horsepower to around 130HP, with…oh, let’s call it 95-100 lb-ft (13.1-13.8Kgm) of torque. More or less.
Whether all this is real or not, I really can’t say. You know how some of the motorcycle web sites are. In the UK, MCN has been predicting a new model of the Honda Interceptor (VFR) every year for five years. They’ve become a joke because of it, at least on that issue.
So, yes, there’s rumored to be a new 1300cc boxer for the RT in the works at BMW for next year, which is to say the 2011 model year. Whether those rumors are true, I really can’t say. MotoStation is the only place that’s reporting this, and they haven’t made mention of it again since February. If it’s true, then they’re doing a good job of keeping this hush-hush in Bayern.
I am, however, deliriously proud of myself for converting the English measurements to the heathen metric system for you. | <urn:uuid:8d0e1fbb-9804-4b0b-8fb9-49e6e2a59693> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dalefranks.com/index.php/2009/07/19/ | 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 | 0.96835 | 1,563 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Washington, DC (Vocus/PRWEB) February 17, 2011
On Monday President Obama unveiled his outline for the 2012 Federal Budget making good on his promise to propose broad cuts in domestic spending, leaving many advocates in the non-profit sector wondering how the spending freeze would affect the national economy as well social welfare programs designed to improve low-income communities.
There is real adamant pressure from Republican law makers backed by the Tea Party to cut domestic spending across the board, more so than last year according to a recent post by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
As Obama makes the shift in his economic game plan from stimulus measures to reducing the annual deficit, funding for many of the programs the President once publicly supported are destined to be scrapped, says Vincent Everett (CEO Works of Life International Ministries).
Given the rise of Republican influence in the House, however, it might be the case that the Right is taking the ball from the President to run it more effectively, according to Everett. But even so, some experts in the philanthropic community including Mr. Everett fear that Obama is proposing to slash domestic spending in a way that would harm non-profit organizations and hamper economic recovery.
"Obama is not exactly trimming the size of the federal government in the sense the GOP intends, because he's cutting funding in all the wrong ways," says the Works of Life Chief Executive.
"The president is cutting funding for government-run social welfare programs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing since the most effective organizations in the non-profit sector would thrive," continues Everett, "But Obama wants to cut spending and increase taxes so that more money is going into the federal government with no real security that it will be spent wisely."
The Works of Life CEO wrote in a recent statement that Obama's 2012 Budget Proposal would use increased tax dollars to sustain a new system in which non-profits would have to compete to meet federal criteria in order to receive government grants. "This plan takes personal choice out of the equation," Everett states, "It's the worst thing that could happen to non-profit organizations; you have to pay more in taxes to run a program that, if this administration's past policy initiatives are any indication, will not even be effective anyway."
Obama's official budget for 2012 proposes to diminish the value of charitable tax deductions for Americans in the top economic bracket, 250K and up. This is the same as last year's budget proposal that failed in which Obama made the same suggestion to limit the rate of charitable tax deductions by thirty percent, which if passed this time around would stand at 28 percent.
"What we have here is the president commissioning increased revenue through higher taxes, which will turn the nation's wealthiest away from making a charity donation. It's exactly the same as asking them to donate to charity after you've taken away a chunk of their money. It's not going to work," says Everett, " Americans would have to bank on the success of government-run social welfare programs. But I wouldn't trust them to run a lemonade stand."
Organizations like Works of Life, non-profit, non-denominational faith-based charitable organizations, provide an alternative avenue towards social welfare that by in large runs independently from government interference, adds the charity's Director Don Smith. "The problem," mentions Smith, "is when the Federal Government starts to draw people away from charity only to mess things up even worse than they were before."
For over a decade Works of Life has worked alongside its affiliate charitable organizations Online Car Donation and the With Causes charitable network to encourage more Americans to donate to charity by expanding items eligible for a charitable tax deduction: potential donors can donate car, donate boat or yacht, or even donate aircraft that they no longer wish to own in order to create revenue to help fund a variety of worthy charitable causes.
Works of Life's charitable program has recently gained national attention; the organization has appeared in USA Today and Forbes magazine among other major news agencies. "We do the kind of work that the government never could. We're using what people want to give away to effect positive change in communities across the US, all while providing donors with a charitable tax deduction," writes Everett.
Obama announced in his official Budget Proposal speech that he has to make cuts to programs held dear to his heart in order to ameliorate the annual deficit and ensure future economic prosperity. These are programs that the President said Americans "can do without."
"That means cutting programs that he once advocated? Obama is acknowledging that his own ideas are not absolutely necessary. Nevertheless, the President still wants to get legislation passed that makes it harder for Americans to donate to a charity of their choice, in order to make them fund his own programs, which for the last two years have gone no where," mentions Everett.
Philanthropy leaders like Everett advocate choice in charitable giving. A way for this to happen is letting the non-profit sector work in conjunction with the government, says the Works of Life Executive, "But the President is creating a huge disincentive for a large segment of potential donors. And he's telling us to not worry about it because things might work out later? This is a cop-out. A dangerous one. Up to this point we haven't seen any of the promises Obama made come to fruition, so why should the non-profit sector suffer because of his failed policies, especially when we've been acting as a counter balance to the government's inadequacies for over ten years?"
1081 S. Cimmaron
Las Vegas, Nevada 89145
About online car donation/ Works of Life Intl. Ministries Inc.:
Operating since 2002 Works of Life is a non-profit, non-denominational faith-based charitable organization that provides charitable works for other like-minded organizations in the form of endowments, grants and much, much more.
Their clients range from social service agencies to private non-profits, hospitals and more importantly individuals with special needs including victims of crime, military families, those with physical challenges and victims of abuse.
Works of Life has enjoyed a successful relationship with many like-minded charitable Organizations, developing residential based programs for those interested in Ministering to others but limited physically in doing so.
# # # | <urn:uuid:44375463-ad1c-42b7-8b0b-77fecb4368ed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/2/prweb8014242.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967736 | 1,283 | 1.640625 | 2 |
I wrote an extended piece on POLITICO today drawing on my earlier reaction to Frank Luntz’s recent Huffington Post op-ed.
You can read the full article here.
In preparing my article I also spoke to George Lakoff, an esteemed colleague in the world of political language. His own take on Frank’s formulations went in something of a different direction than my own. Where I see Frank’s platitudes as empty rhetoric (“You decide”; “You derserve”‘; “Let’s get to work”; “No excuses”) which function to both erase actual reasoning and to serve as a dangerous linguistic smokescreen, George also sees framing. Here is some of what he wrote me:
Accountability is a contested concept: it has opposite meaning for liberals and conservatives. Luntz gives the conservative meaning: underlings are accountable to strict overseers. “No excuses” is a threat from the boss. To liberals, political leaders and corporate managers are accountable to the public. “No excuses, Governor Walker. You created a deficit by giving corporate tax breaks. Now you want teachers, nurses and firemen to pay for your gifts to your corporate supporters. And even worse, you use that as a excuse to take away the right of collective bargaining, which balances the take-it-or-leave-it power that bosses like you want over their employees. No excuses, Governor.”
When used by a someone in authority, these phrases project absolute power, and call it “integrity.” But it can be used in other situations: the Wisconsin Senators now in Illinois have uncompromising integrity. They are taking a moral stand and won’t back down.
Aha! But what George is doing here is moving beyond Luntz; he is making an argument.
“Let’s get to work,” uttered by a Republican Governor, introduces a frame placing the blame for what is wrong on others for not doing enough work on his projects. It hides the governor’s own failures.
These are more than empty phrases. When uttered in context, they say of the speaker, “I’m both self-righteous and pig-headed.”
As George says, Luntz’s platitudes can, indeed be mouthed by folks from both sides of the aisle — and with different meaning to their allied audiences. Ultimately, the danger of empty rhetoric is not a party-line matter. Chris Christie rode to victory bellowing “Let’s get to work.” Maybe, as George suggests, this implied an argument about others not doing enough. But a Democratic governor could do the same thing; there is nothing inherently partisan about the phrase. And in either case, there is no explanation of what work, exactly, we need to get to work on, or why we need to do so.
That’s a real problem.
Read Full Post » | <urn:uuid:8fc1dbca-8feb-4d23-91c9-6f2f235b8bf0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://riehlpolitics.com/tag/frank-luntz/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949944 | 627 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Intel's flash new SSDs hit by bugs
Don't alter a set BIOS password
Intel's latest brace of solid state drives has been pulled from the market while a firmware bug gets fixed.
Once the firmware bug has been fixed, the drives will go back on sale by etailers and, no doubt, a firmware upgrade will be made available to existing customers.
Built on Intel's 34nm process, the generation 2 X25-M and X18-M were introduced just ten days ago. The new SSDs represent a partial upgrade of the previous 50nm process line and were announced with faster performance and price cuts.
According to a Daily Tech report, the bug prevents access to any data on the drive. It is set off by users setting a password in the BIOS for the drive and then either changing or disabling it.
Existing customers should not even think about altering or disabling an existing BIOS password they have set up.
When Intel first introduced the MLC (multi-level cell) X25 and X18 SSD range last year a firmware bug was subsequently identified that slowed the drives down and Intel had to issue a fix for that. This second episode of firmware bug-ery will raise questions about Intel's testing procedures.
Meanwhile, Intel spokespeople have confirmed that there will be a 34nm version of the SLC (single level cell) X25-E product, E meaning extreme, the old 50nm process ranges high-speed model. Its speed is now eclipsed by the new X25-M, with M meaning mainstream, and the, presumably faster, 34nm X25-E will arrive next year. It will be accompanied by a higher capacity X25-M model, one with 320GB capacity. ® | <urn:uuid:4401d13d-762b-4863-a16f-21451dba8563> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/31/intel_ssd_bug/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947441 | 355 | 1.617188 | 2 |
She never witnessed a domestic violence in her life. Her parents had been married for 52 years, and she and her four siblings all were college educated.
“I always thought that those people who didn’t have as much education, who didn’t live in good neighborhoods were those who dealt with domestic violence,” Greenlee told Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and more than 30 others gathered Friday near Martinsburg for a discussion on the issue and the Violence Against Women Act now pending in Congress.
Greenlee, who resides in Jefferson County (W.Va.), recounted almost daily emotional abuse in her 10-year marriage to a minister.
After they divorced, Greenlee said he returned to where she was residing in 2009 and he would have killed her had she been alone.
Instead, he attacked her then-friend from church who was with her and whom she later married.
Joseph Greenlee told Rockefeller on Friday that he needed 21 stitches in his chin as a result of the altercation with his wife’s ex-husband, who wielded a butcher knife.
Patricia Greenlee said her ex-husband ultimately served four months in jail and recounted not knowing when he was released from jail until he walked past her with smirk on his face in Walmart.
Patricia Greenlee, who joined other survivors, law enforcement and others working on the front lines of domestic violence services on a 10-member panel, said she was determined to attend the discussion to put a face on the issue.
Rockefeller said the meeting was “not a cure” but part of a process that helps deepen his understanding of the domestic violence issue and possibly be able to do something about it.
“I don’t think there is anybody in this room who hasn’t been moved in one way or another,” Rockefeller said.
Rockefeller told members of the panel that he has a “small streak of optimism” that the 1994 Violence Against Women Act would be re-authorized by Congress this year. It expired in 2011.
The Senate is slated to vote on the legislation Tuesday, Rockefeller said. Last year, West Virginia received $3.9 million for use by local law enforcement agencies and victims’ service organizations, and Ann Smith of Shenandoah Women’s Center told Rockefeller that the funding the agency receives amounts to about $100,000 or one-sixth of their budget.
Some Republicans have objected to new provisions that they say go too far when it extends new protections for gays, lesbians, immigrants and Native American women, according to The Associated Press.
Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley’s amendment concerning the provisions was defeated Thursday by a 65-34 vote, according to The Associated Press. Rockefeller and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., both voted against Grassley’s amendment, according to the U.S. Senate’s website. | <urn:uuid:8fa911f9-fc28-4104-8453-c9311970229d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ktuu.com/news/hm-rockefeller-meeting-puts-face-on-domestic-violence-issue-20130208,0,3745622.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984542 | 605 | 1.59375 | 2 |
My understanding is that wort gravity does not affect hop utilization. Instead, a larger boil volume will increase hop utilization, while a higher amount of break material will lower hop utilization. This would mean that for all grain batches, high wort gravity is correlated to low hop utilization, but for extract batches it would be irrelevant.
Of course, this contradicts a number of brewing resources, such as Palmer's How to Brew and multiple articles in BYO. I've read that Palmer has since changed his mind (but I have no good reference for this). I've also read that BYO and Basic Brewing Radio did an experiment with extract that determined boil size, not wort gravity, was the contributing factor to hop utilization (again, can't find the reference).
So my question is this: Does wort gravity affect hop utilization? In particular, I'm looking for a solid reference (maybe even with a solid experiment) rather than general brewing knowledge or forum posts. | <urn:uuid:18377fb2-204a-4ad5-b777-b01f4ddb88eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/7343/does-wort-gravity-affect-hop-utilization | 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 | 0.957687 | 195 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Life is a long journey rife with both successes and failures that takes place over the course of decades. Our course is punctuated by meaningful events that shape who we are today and who we will become in the future. Sometimes, I find myself getting stuck in the rut known as the daily grind - wake up, go to work, sleep, repeat. At times it is difficult to avoid this because life happens at a frenetic pace and very rarely can you predict exactly what lies ahead despite your best effort planning. The problem with this is that we stand to lose days, months or even years from the calendar in the blink of an eye without actually experiencing life. Seeking new experiences on a regular basis is a valuable tool for breaking out of habit and ensuring that you're living your life to the fullest. The thing that I enjoy about CrossFit is the intentional absence of routine - no two days are alike, every workout can be viewed as a new adventure. In addition to this, the high intensity aspect reminds you just how alive you really are at the end of a workout when you are gasping for air and trying to slow down your heart rate.
What do you do to avoid routine and remind yourself that you're alive?
A. 3x5 back squat (3 sets of 5)
Wall Balls (20/14)
100m run between rounds
Posted by Commish. | <urn:uuid:a8e0009f-b759-4b87-bdab-7b5b01a6997e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.crossfit818.com/2/post/2013/02/alive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958539 | 281 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A better consumption tax
By Dylan Matthews
Although I disagree with him entirely on whether the federal government should be instituting new broad-based taxes, Irwin Stelzer is right to argue, as was Pete Davis, that a value-added tax won't be implemented in anything resembling a clean way. Exemptions will be rampant, due to lobbying and the parochial concerns of key representatives and senators, and some of them – like the exemption Stelzer cites in the British VAT for crackers made from tapioca starch, but not other crackers – will be ridiculous and ridiculous-sounding. It will be hard for businesses to keep track of what is and isn't subject to the tax, and the complexity will be periodically bemoaned.
Which is, of course, the case with the personal income tax, the corporate income tax, and plenty of other current federal taxes. This isn't to say that it's fine to make the tax code even more confusing, but insofar as we'll have to find new, large sources of revenue in order to balance the budget in the long run, a new tax of some kind will have to be adopted. And regardless of whether that's a VAT or an income surtax or a far more potent health insurance excise tax, it's going to be complex, hard to follow and full of loopholes. Periodic simplification efforts, like the Tax Reform Act of 1986 or the current Wyden-Gregg tax plan, will pop up and clean things up, but after a few years it'll be back to normal. Unless one can marshal evidence that the VAT will be more resistant to simplification efforts, or more likely to accumulate exemptions, than existing taxes, this hardly seems to be a reason against adopting it.
That said, VAT proponents do tend to hail its simplicity in arguing for it, and the tendency of real world VATs to grow increasingly complex, as Stelzer and Davis explain, undermines this argument. What's more, it undermines a major argument against an alternative consumption tax proposal to the VAT: Robert Frank's progressive consumption tax. While VATs and retail sales taxes are exacted during transactions, the progressive consumption tax works the same way the personal income tax does, except it includes an unlimited exemption for savings. The difference between income and savings is assumed to be a person or family's consumption level. While VATs and sales taxes hit the poor disproportionately, Frank's tax has a number of brackets and a standard deduction, and is thus, as its name suggests, highly progressive. The main advantage of a VAT or sales tax over Frank's proposal is simplicity and ease of compliance, but if one assumes that any new tax will be riddled with exemptions, that isn't much of a benefit.
-- Dylan Matthews is a student at Harvard and a researcher at The Washington Post.
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The comments to this entry are closed. | <urn:uuid:c653d311-d7b7-4437-801e-2d67df493f72> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/04/a_better_consumption_tax.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950473 | 761 | 1.804688 | 2 |
The children at the orphanage at Mahisda, in West Midnapore’s Keshpur, which witnessed bloody CPM-Trinamul clashes between 1998 and 2001. Picture by Samir Mondal
Raju Ruidas, age 15 or 16 years. The beginnings of a moustache line the upper lip of the wiry Class X student. For 10 years he has grown up in this orphanage deep inside Keshpur, a constituency synonymous with “turf war”.
The Mahisda Kishalay Kalyan Abas, patronised by the CPM and run by an NGO, was set up for the children of conflict. It is not strictly an orphanage though many of its inmates are orphans. The thin and fidgety Raju is one of its oldest residents. His father was a CPM activist in Keshpur’s Satsole village and was killed in a clash with supporters of the Jharkhand Party.
“I was brought here by maa,” he recalls. “I was too young to remember what exactly happened.”
Raju’s two elder sisters live in Satsole. The family is poor and could not support him. The volunteers in the orphanage say Raju is a reasonably good student. He says he finds English the most difficult of all the subjects but loves history and the social sciences.
Raju freezes when asked if he might be interested in politics like his father. Around him are the volunteers and fellow inmates. It is a long silence.
“I want to study,” he says finally after gentle but repeated prodding.
It is Raju’s last few months here. Children have to leave after Class X. Raju is too young to allow the thought of an uncertain future to weigh him down. But he says he is worried and does not know where he will go from here.
The orphanage in Mohisda, a clean village in the middle of paddy fields, is about 4km from the CPM office in Jamshed Ali Smriti Bhavan, named after a party leader who was killed at the spot on Keshpur’s main road in 1984.
Inside, Ahmed Ali, zonal committee secretary, and the party’s candidate, Rameswar Dolui, say the children in the orphanage come not only from “party families” but also from those that have been with the Trinamul Congress.
That is largely true. The backgrounds of the children paint a picture of violent conflict and grinding poverty, with the attendant lack of health care, in a region that today stretches from East Midnapore through West Midnapore’s Keshpur and Lalgarh right up to Belpahari near the border with Jharkhand.
| The CPM zonal office in Keshpur, which is now a Red bastion. Picture by Samir Mondal
Victor Santra, another Class X student, was left here by his father Sachidanand who could not afford to keep him home. His mother, Pushpa, could not be saved after being bitten by a snake.
Bibhash Pramanik, a Class III student from Keshpur’s Ghoshpur village, says he was left here “because I was very naughty”. Voluntary teacher Amit Bhattacharya says Bibhash’s family was too poor.
Subrata Santra, a Class VI student, says his father died of an electric shock. He used to assist an electrician.
Marshal Tudu, a spunky tribal boy with a runny nose and a loud voice, is a Class II student. He is from Akrasole near Lalgarh. His father Gopinath Tudu is a mason’s assistant, earning money occasionally, and mother Gurubari Tudu somehow keeps the household running. His village is crawling with the police one day and with Maoists on another.
Tarash Murmu, from Baishnabpur in Belpahari, a Class IV student, says his father brought him to Mohisda and told him: “At least here you will find something to eat every day and you might be able to study.”
Tarash says: “I don’t feel like going home now.”
Elections in Midnapore mean that the high school to which many of the students go is closed. The police —– some 600 companies from the central forces alone —– have moved in and are camping at the school. So it is haircutting day.
Volunteers Amit Bhattacharya, who teaches, and Biswanath Dolui, who is responsible for the food, had lined up the children in the morning and each of them took turns with a visiting barber. Lunch got delayed.
It costs about Rs 1,100 to support each student for a month at this boys-only hostel. Last year, because of a crunch, the grant from the state government was slashed. So the NGO had to find resources, by raising donations, to support 27 students. They have passed their exams and left.
So this year there are 27 students fewer. The hostel now has 83 boys.
The rising cost of conflict in Bengal’s outback takes a toll in more ways than can be measured. There was so much bloodletting in Keshpur between 1998 and 2001, till the Trinamul supporters were driven out, that even the CPM has had to set up an orphanage to provide a semblance of social security.
There are more applicants than the home can admit or afford. So, admission is based strictly on the recommendation of the panchayat pradhan who certifies if a family is deserving (for reasons of poverty or violence) of the privilege.
Such are the times, however, that even such basic help is becoming unaffordable in the state.
Yet, says CPM candidate Rameswar Dolui, Keshpur bucks the trend seen elsewhere in south Bengal, and the Left wins by record margins, because “people have been through the worst and now they want peace”.
In a region with 12 constituencies of West Midnapore that went to the polls on May 7, Keshpur is easily the most predictable. Dolui’s comrade, Ahmed Ali, the zonal committee secretary and district committee member of the party, says the Opposition may squeeze just one additional seat this time.
The score in the Assembly segments here in the 2009 parliamentary elections was 10-2, the two being seats in Kharagpur. In Sabang, the constituency of state Congress chief Manas Bhuniya, the Left had a lead of more than 6,000 votes but this time it is a tight call.
In Daspur, the Left risks losing a seat because delimitation has added a block where Trinamul had a lead.
In Keshpur, however, there is as much certainty for the CPM as there is for Trinamul in Nandigram. In 2009, the CPI’s Gurudas Dasgupta had a lead of more than 1.12 lakh votes from an electorate of 1.94 lakh. At a meeting in Midnapore town on Thursday, Mamata Banerjee remarked snidely that Keshpur may have more votes than it has voters.
Trinamul has not put up a candidate here knowing that the seat is unwinnable, and the Congress’s Rajani Dolui is contesting. Even if the CPM were to lose 30 per cent of the vote here, it will still win. It polled 83 per cent of the votes in 2009.
The reason is evident in a shanty town by the Kangsabati canal on the outskirts of Midnapore. The row of hutments that have come up here is called Keshpur Colony. Nearly 50 of the 200 households are oustees from Keshpur, driven out by the CPM because they are Trinamul supporters.
On Thursday afternoon, most of the men had gone to Mamata’s meeting in Midnapore. Koresha Bibi, whose husband Kabeel Mullick was arrested when he visited his village Sorshakhola in Keshpur a fortnight ago, said she chose not to go to the meeting “because we do not know what will happen on the way back”.
She said that even when one of her two daughters got married in Keshpur, she could not stay the night there for fear of an attack. Their house was ransacked and burnt.
In Keshpur Colony they are praying for a victory for Mamata. Then they may be able to return home, they hope. Homecomings in Keshpur can be painful. Ask Raju Ruidas, the youth with the hairline moustache in the orphanage, who does not want to go home. He just wants out. | <urn:uuid:d2fef420-928b-4637-8833-ee11f4230b05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.telegraphindia.com/1110508/jsp/bengal/story_13955058.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978397 | 1,884 | 1.632813 | 2 |
What are the politics of high speed internet? Seems like all the major players want to control the market place who gets access and who doesnt. It appears that the better services (e.g. Verizon FiOS, cable, etc) are not available in the poorer neighborhoods. How does a midle income area increase its candidacy for these products? I can get Verizon DSL but they wont give me the FiOS. Thanks for your reply.
- Ron, May 24, 2008 (name changed for privacy)
Hi Ron, remember that I do not represent Verizon FiOS nor do I work for Verizon, so these are my own personal views.
Before discussing Politics, it is important to remember that a Business (Verizon FiOS or any other) needs to invest money in profitable ways both short term and long term. If a business loses money after making a sizeable investment, people lose jobs and customers lose services. No one wins when a Business makes an unwise investment.
If Verizon FiOS were to roll fiber optic cable down my rural street, I would be quite surprised. For their sake, I would also hope that others beside me would sign up for the service. My street is currently serviced by Charter Cable Internet and AT&T DSL internet services. Imagine investing millions of dollars into that market place, kind of scary if they were to use my money. But the Verizon FiOS product looks like a good one and many people want it, and of course I want it too.
Back to politics. Try doing a Google.com search for your state, city, or town along with the words “verizon fios license” for example. Verizon FiOS needs approval to operate in your area. If they get approval, then they have to build out the system which takes time to do. If it’s not too late, you can do your part by voting or voicing your opinion in writing to those in power to approve the Verizon FiOS service.
When I read rumors that local governments request that Verizon FiOS rebuild a public library or give other perks to the town, I bite my tongue. Everyone will benefit in the USA once 100 Mbps internet service is main stream. Any politician that stands in the way of 100 Mbps internet service is a fool. Want to work and video conference from home, want more competition in TV like video and CD quality music online, a truly interactive and liberated media environment? That’s what Verizon FiOS internet service is bringing forth.
Verizon FiOS has the potential for 100 Mbps, however, it is currently not offered at this speed. Please read these two articles I wrote for additional information about Verizon FiOS internet and FiOS TV services: Verizon FiOS vs Comcast Internet and Verizon FiOS Internet
If you enjoyed this article, please bookmark it at del.icio.us » | <urn:uuid:1507800c-81e8-499e-9aef-cf8a0f5f82a4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.internetservicedeals.com/blog/58/i-want-verizon-fios-internet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955722 | 579 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Recent Proposals for Electoral College Reform
posted by Michigan Law Review
Several proposals for changing the manner in which electoral votes are assigned have been increasingly debated since the 2008 presidential campaign began. Among these are recent suggestions that states assign their electoral votes based on the popular vote results in individual congressional districts or assign their electoral votes statewide based on the national popular vote. The symposium contributors explore the viability and advisability in today’s political climate of these and other Electoral College reform proposals.
The extended post contains a more complete description of the symposium and links to the essays.
• Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law Professor Daniel P. Tokaji argues that the thirty-five day period in which states can take advantage of the “safe harbor” provision under federal law offers insufficient time for the resolution of post-election disputes over electors. Professor Tokaji proposes a new timetable that would allow states more time to complete recount and contest proceedings in the event of close, contested elections—a change he feels is justified on both fairness and federalism grounds.
• Sacramento-based election law attorney and former legal counsel for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Republican Party Thomas W. Hiltachk explains and defends his proposed statewide initiative that would change California’s winner-take-all system of awarding its fifty-five electoral votes to a system that arguably would make California more relevant to the election process. If the California initiative took effect, the state would award the presidential candidate winning the popular vote in each of the state’s congressional districts one electoral vote while awarding the winner of the state’s overall popular vote two electoral votes.
• Washington, D.C.-based election law attorney and former Democratic campaign manager Sam Hirsch critiques Hiltachk’s proposed initiative, arguing that the congressional-district system increases the chances of the presidency being awarded to the second-place finisher in popular votes, is significantly biased to favor one political party, and is founded on the erroneous assumption that congressional-district lines are politically “neutral” and thus well suited to functions other than electing members of the U.S. House of Representatives.
• University of Chicago Dean of Social Sciences John Mark Hansen examines the effects of the Electoral College system and the proposed reforms to it on the prospect of equal voice in elections, concluding that if every vote is to count equally, the only solution is to elect the president by direct popular vote.
• University of California’s Hastings College of the Law Professor Ethan J. Leib and Hastings College of the Law J.D. Candidate Eli J. Mark critique three state-based reform systems—reforms granting electoral votes based on winning congressional districts, reforms granting electoral votes in proportion to the state’s popular vote, and reforms granting all of a state’s electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote winner—and note the effects of partisan principles on defenses and critiques of them.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Visiting Scholar Alexander S. Belenky discusses instituting direct popular election of the president as well as the National Popular Vote interstate compact but also evaluates a third option that makes the nationwide popular vote a decisive factor in electing a president but retains the Electoral College as a safeguard against failure to elect a president.
• University of Michigan J.D. candidate Daniel Rathbun contends both legal and sociological theory can explain the National Popular Vote compact’s failure to take hold. Legally, Rathbun argues, the NPV overlooks significant constitutional and practical-institutional obstacles. Sociologically, he contends, the NPV is structurally incapable of dis-embedding the federalist theory underlying the Electoral College.
To download a PDF of the entire symposium, feel free to click here.
Additional First Impressions content is available at http://www.michiganlawreview.org. | <urn:uuid:fef221f7-9482-476b-8d3a-9d07d1d784c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/01/recent_proposal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932765 | 795 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Gatorade Has Evolved shows how Gatorade has advanced hydration and sports performance and how the G Series will break new ground. The spot takes viewers back to a day when athletes balled on peach baskets, their racquets were wooden and hydration was only water. Jump to 1965 when Gatorade revolutionized hydration and helped fuel athletes like Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm as they redefined sports performance. Now in 2010, the G Series will change the sports performance landscape once again. Usain Bolt, Dwight Howard, and Peyton Manning were instrumental in working with Gatorade scientists during the development of the G Series. | <urn:uuid:482b9744-6f53-4ed5-a029-9d7e4af73f79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.themathhattan.com/2010/05/10/gatorade-has-evolved-commercial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956927 | 128 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Tips on how to make the most out of your listening experience. (Pete Ryan / For The Los Angeles…)
Anyone who's had a bad day, then flipped the car radio on and caught the first notes of a favorite song knows how quickly music can lift the spirits. But can that momentary burst of musical power be tapped more strategically to make you a better, happier, more productive person?
All that and more, say the psychologist-entrepreneur authors of the new book "Your Playlist Can Change Your Life."
Like sex, drugs or really good food, music causes the brain to release dopamine, a brain chemical key to addiction and motivation. That's one reason why people like it so much. The effects extend beyond the merely pleasurable: Music (often in tandem with dance) is used in rehabilitation for stroke and Parkinson's disease.
The authors of "Playlist" go further. They argue that music's benefits hold for everyone and that if we queue up our tunes with care they'll lift our mood, reduce anxiety, raise motivation, help us work out better and even fight off depression and insomnia.
The trick, they say, is to find what songs relax you, say, or make you more alert -- and then hone your playlist to fit the moment. The speed of a song is one key audio feature: Norah Jones' "Turn Me On," at a leisurely 56 beats per minute, may be the perfect musical nightcap after work. The driving 139 bpm of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" can push you into high alert, just what you need before that presentation you're hoping will impress the suits.
Even listening to the rhythmic sounds of the ocean, at the beach or through earphones, can relax you and allow you to reach what the authors call a state of "flow," a somewhat hard-to-define state of mind that's akin to "being in the zone" -- focused on the task but still at ease, able to perform at your best.
A few additional tips from the authors on how to make the most out of your listening experience:
Know yourself. A song's activating or relaxing potential doesn't just rely on how fast it is -- emotional connection is key, the authors say. So even though No Doubt's "Don't Speak" clocks in at just 76 beats per minute, making it great in theory for winding down, the drums and pathos in Gwen Stefani's vocals make this ballad to a breakup anything but relaxing for me.
Context is key. "You really need to get in tune with the mind-set you're in at the moment," says Galina Mindlin, an assistant clinical professor in psychiatry at Columbia University in New York and one of the book's three authors. "Sometimes one song will energize you at one moment, but in another moment it would make you more anxious, kind of over-energized."
Study your material. To heighten a song's effect, try linking images in your mind to your songs. Look for meaning in the lyrics, and listen critically: Pick out instruments from the harmony to see how they contribute to the sound, or attend to the rhythm to figure out how a staccato drum segment in the song amps you up.
Anticipating the parts you remember and enjoy about a song is rewarding, says neuroscientist Robert Zatorre of McGill University, who studies emotion and music. It's the same basic concept behind why lab rats get excited when they see blinking lights that precede when they generally get food.
Not that Zatorre buys all the sweeping promises in the book. (And as far as mental smarts go, studies show you'll get a lot more bang for your buck if you play music rather than passively listen to it.)
That said, it's an interesting exercise to try to formulate playlists based on the book's ideas. Whether your life changes or not, getting to better know your own music -- and your own state of mind -- may be reward enough.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
For thrills, chills, hills
Here are sample playlists, each "arced" for a purpose, from some folks who can really pick out a tune.
Rico Love Singer-songwriter | record producer
PICK-ME-UP: I wake up early, no matter how late I am in the studio. I believe in no days off, so to get me up and moving:
"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough"
by Michael Jackson
"Aguanile" by Hector Lavoe
"Why I Love You" by Kanye West and Jay-Z, featuring Mr. Hudson
"Hello Good Morning"
by Diddy-Dirty Money, featuring T.I.
CHILL OUT: I've been really stressed out this past week, so what gets me to calm down and focus:
"In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins
"Vicious World" by Rufus Wainwright
"The Sweetest Taboo" by Sade
"Losing My Religion" by R.E.M.
WORK IT OUT: I can't start any day without going to the gym. When I'm working out with my trainer, I listen to:
"Without You" by David Guetta, featuring Usher
"We Found Love" by Rihanna, featuring Calvin Harris
"Way Too Gone" by Young Jeezy, featuring Future
"Bangarang" by Skrillex, featuring Sirah
Garth Trinidad DJ | KCRW-FM
PICK ME UP: Having kids means I'm up at the crack of dawn. For the ride to school, Murs has the whole fam head-bopping; then it's high-energy rhythms perfect for playground plans and Daddy's daytime adventures.
"Fresh Kicks" by Murs and Terrace Martin
"Lisa Lisa Lisa" by Yellow Alex and the Feelings | <urn:uuid:485c1510-1991-46e5-a05c-274a565bdb99> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/2012/mar/10/health/la-he-play-list-brain-20120310 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939012 | 1,233 | 1.75 | 2 |
|By Amyep (Amyep) on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 05:07 pm: Edit|
Has anyone taken the SAT II Latin exam ? I've had two years of Latin via Distance learning online, and done very well. What did you think of it, and what was the difficulty level ? Do you think with only 2 years of Latin I would be able to score at least a 650 ?
|By Heythere (Heythere) on Thursday, May 29, 2003 - 07:56 pm: Edit|
Where did you take your online course? is Distance learning online a company?
|By Girlinbraids (Girlinbraids) on Saturday, May 31, 2003 - 12:08 pm: Edit|
Ooh, good question. I'm taking Latin over the summer and have been wondering about the Latin SAT II. Anyone have an answer?
|By Icarus (Icarus) on Saturday, May 31, 2003 - 01:15 pm: Edit|
lol okay well i've taken four years of Latin at the college level (we use a college level book at my h.s.) and the past two years, i've taken both AP Latin tests. I've done very well in the class and on the AP tests, but the SAT II killed me for reasons unbeknownst to me. I got a 620. In my opinion, the questions are very poorly structured. who knows, maybe it was just a fluke that i scored so low. haha, well good luck.
|By Cogito (Cogito) on Saturday, May 31, 2003 - 05:05 pm: Edit|
I took the Latin SAT in December, and thought it was quite ok. I've studied Latin for several years, using the British Cambridge and Oxford Latin series. It's hard to judge how difficult the test was, because it really depends on what you've studied. You need to have a solid foundation in grammar (including subjunctive!), and you should have handled some poetry (as well as be able to read sentences, of course). A good place to look is on the collegeboard.com, at the sample questions.
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Technology makes all of us smile this holiday season
As we wrap up our holiday time away, I thought it a great time to reflect on the gift we often forget about … spending time with our loved ones and the ability to make each other smile….
These days we constantly talk about how technology in healthcare settings makes us more efficient, more collaborative and more patient-centric. I don’t hear much, however, about how it makes us SMILE. Today I have found the exception: Santa, connecting live via video, to chat with a hospitalized child. Smiles erupt from the child, parent, and staff alike – not to mention Santa himself.
Such is the scene at 15 hospitals across the U.S. the last couple of weeks. As a nurse and caregiver, it touches my heart to know that despite all that medicine and technology offer today, we can’t cure everyone as soon as we would like and some patients and their families will celebrate the holidays surrounded by beeping machines and sterile environments. It is exciting to see the technology we use to care for a child’s illness can be used to boost the spirit as well…
Success stories like this prompt me to think of every increasing ways we can leverage technology to bring better health services – iced with a bit of joy – to our patients in the coming year! Hope it does the same for you!
What are your ideas how technology can be used for multiple purposes? Wishing us all a Happy and Innovative 2012 benefiting society.
Oh, how I wish tablets were around when I was providing patient care as a Registered Nurse on a busy surgical floor! I had a legion of patients, and masses of information to find and remember ‘in the moment.’ It seemed like I could never find the person or the equipment I needed fast enough.
Sometimes, the most practical option was to take pen to paper (or to my scrubs) to jot down a note, and then go find the information I needed in a chart, the EHR, or reference once I got back to the nurses station. Could I have delivered more timely, efficient and safer care if I had access to the information and data I needed at the patient’s bedside? You bet I could, and here’s how!
Tablets provide information access at one’s fingertips – especially at the patient bedside – helping doctors and nurses to render quick, safe and sometimes lifesaving care. This is echoed in Institute of Medicine (IOM) reports calling for direct care providers to have quick access to electronic references. Moreover, up to 70% of sentinel events in healthcare are caused by poor communications, according to a Joint Commission study (1995-2006). Given these findings, tablets offer a new and improved way to ensure patient safety because up-to-the-minute information and immediate communication is readily available where and when needed.
Tablets help save time by increasing mobility and productivity, reducing errors and keeping information readily accessible within the clinician’s reach.
Come on clinicians … no mater if you are a doctor, nurse, respiratory therapist, case manager, educator or another team member … surely you can think of all kinds of ways tablets could enable you to have the information you need when you need it. You and your patients will be all the happier and satisfied for it.
I quickly came up with a short list of ways that tablets, one of several mobile devices, can make a difference for patient care delivery:
Workflow efficiencies by having access to information and data at the point of care
Real-time communication amongst team members while in different locations
BCMA and real-time drug interaction checking … possibility for a real-time pharmacy consult at the patient’s bedside via voice or video conferencing
My questions to you: Have you used a tablet to deliver patient care? If so, what has been your experience – is the tablet adding real value, or is it just “another toy”? | <urn:uuid:dd781fec-92d2-4212-8a37-c48ab51957ec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.cisco.com/tag/video-consultations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938858 | 825 | 1.648438 | 2 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 25, 2007
Schumer Announces $200,000 Coming To The City Of Rome For Crime Prevention And Policing Initiatives
DOJ "Weed And Seed" Program Provides Funds For Local Law Enforcement To "Weed Out" Criminals And Communities To "Seed In" Prevention, Intervention, And Treatment Services
City Of Rome Will Use Funds For Community Policing Initiatives
U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer today announced that $200,000 has been awarded to the City of Rome in Oneida County to prevent violent crime and reduce drug trafficking through community policing initiatives. The funds are being awarded through the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Weed and Seed Program.
"This is great news for the city of Rome,” said Schumer. “These funds are going toward a program that works to shut down criminals and reduce drug activity. Implementing community policing programs is not just a short term response—it provides long term solutions by focusing on prevention and community partnerships.”
The City of Rome will use federal dollars to focus law enforcement efforts on reducing drug trafficking and violent crime through a coordination of law enforcement efforts with numerous law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. Community policing goals are to improve community relations by providing the knowledge and ability to make positive community changes and to implement policies and procedures for developing and maintaining groups. Prevention, intervention and treatment goals include the creation of a safe haven providing a variety of programs and services focusing on drug abuse, prevention, and other behavioral problems. The program will also focus on neighborhood restoration, restoring the community by increasing homeownership and employment opportunities. The Rome Weed and Seed site received official recognition in June 2006. The Weed and Seed site is a box bounded by Black River Boulevard to the east, Turin Road and Jervis Avenue to the north, Gifford Road to the west, and State Highway 46 to the south. This grant is the site’s second award.
The Weed and Seed program works to prevent, reduce and control violent crime, drug abuse and gang activity in specifically targeted high-crime areas across the country. Its name comes from a two-part approach to these areas. One involves law enforcement agencies and prosecutors getting together to "weed out" individuals who participate in violent crime or drug abuse in an attempt to keep them out of the targeted area. The second part, "seeding," includes bringing social services to the area in order to push for prevention, intervention and treatment, as well as neighborhood restoration. Since 1994, the Department of Justice has allocated at least $9 million annually nationwide for Weed and Seed related task forces administered through the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other DOJ agencies. | <urn:uuid:4934d310-6cad-4030-8ec8-3d6159060380> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.schumer.senate.gov/Newsroom/record.cfm?id=280422&year=2007 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947911 | 560 | 1.703125 | 2 |
4.8.01 Probation and Dismissal A. All students are required to maintain an average of 2.0 on a 4.0 scale to be in good academic standing. 1. Full-time students - a first year day student must obtain a cumulative quality point average of 2.00 or greater by the end of the spring semester of the first year. A student who fails to obtain a 2.00 is automatically dismissed. 2. Part-time evening students - a first year evening student must obtain a cumulative quality point average of 2.00 or greater by the end of the summer term of the first year. A student who fails to obtain a 2.00 is automatically dismissed. 3. Part-time day students - a part-time day student must obtain a cumulative quality point average of 2.00 or greater by the end of the fall semester of the second year. A student who fails to obtain a 2.00 is automatically dismissed. 4. Transfer students - a transfer student must obtain a cumulative quality point average of 2.00 or greater by the end of the first semester of work undertaken at Capital University Law School. A transfer student who fails to obtain a 2.00 for work undertaken at Capital University Law School is automatically dismissed. Only grades obtained at Capital University Law School are calculated in the transfer student's cumulative quality point average. (see 3.2.01(C)). 5. A student with a cumulative quality point average of less than 2.0, but who has not reached the dismissal point described above, is automatically placed on academic probation. 6. Dismissals are based upon the appropriate dismissal point described above and not the number of required courses completed. Dropping or failing to complete a course does not exempt full-or part-time students as described above from dismissal. 7. Upper division students - a student with a cumulative quality point average of less than 2.0 after the dismissal point described above is automatically dismissed. B. All dismissals are effective as of the conclusion of the semester or summer term in which a student failed to attain the required 2.0 cumulative quality point average even if the student does not receive official notice of the dismissal until after the beginning of the next academic term. When a student is dismissed, he or she is automatically withdrawn from the Law School and from all courses in which the student is currently enrolled. For example, if a student is dismissed after fall semester grades are reported, the student will be automatically withdrawn from all spring semester courses. 1. As a courtesy to dismissed students who may and do file petitions for reinstatement, and who are enrolled in fall or spring semester classes, such petitioners are permitted to attend classes pending final resolution of their petitions. Therefore, if the petition ultimately is granted, the reinstatement is made retroactive to the beginning of such fall or spring semester and the dismissed but reinstated student has not been compelled to miss any classes. 2. If a dismissed student is not permitted to file a petition, does not file a petition for reinstatement, or if a dismissed student files a petition that ultimately is denied, the dismissed student will not be permitted to continue to attend classes, no matter how much of the current semester has expired. 3. Dismissed students are ineligible to attend summer school and will not be permitted to transfer academic credit to Capital for off-campus study. If a student receives a letter of dismissal while enrolled in summer school or while pursuing an approved course of study elsewhere, the letter results in immediate withdrawal from the Law School or revocation of permission to take course work elsewhere. The filing of a petition for reinstatement does not toll or waive this rule. Even if a petition for reinstatement is granted, summer course work or course work elsewhere will not be recognized. 4. Any student who is dismissed and withdrawn from the Law School after the next semester or summer term has commenced, and is not reinstated, will be entitled to a full tuition refund as of the end of the previous semester or summer term. The date of withdrawal will be treated as the first day of the semester.
C. Students who are dismissed, have a cumulative quality point average between 1.9 and 2.0, inclusive, and who desire to be reinstated on academic probation must file a petition with the Committee on Admission and Readmission within the period of time stated in their letter of dismissal. The student remains dismissed pending action on the petition for reinstatement. Only if the petition is finally granted is the student removed from the status as a dismissed student.
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See more services | <urn:uuid:4012bbed-49d7-4489-aa1a-bdcd18bc4fda> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://law.capital.edu/4.8RulesandProceduresforAcademicProbationDismissalandReinstatement/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954107 | 922 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Student Publications and Newspapers
Wesleyan University students produce a wide variety of publications through the course of the academic year. Some are distributed weekly, while others are published once or twice each semester. All student publications are funded by the Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA).
The Argus, Wesleyan's campus newspaper, has served the Wesleyan community continuously since 1868. The newspaper is distributed twice weekly while school is in session and provides information on campus news, sports, features, and editorials, as well as news from beyond the hill.
For more information about the Argus, visit the newspaper's Web site at www.wesleyanargus.com
For more information about other student publications, visit the Wesleyan Student Assembly Web site at www.wesleyan.edu/wsa. | <urn:uuid:599c891b-8224-4e13-aeb3-68d9095e6ba3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wesleyan.edu/studentaffairs/studenthandbook/studentactivitesgovernance/publications.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942716 | 166 | 1.546875 | 2 |
ProjectEdge's new collaboration environment helps realty company control development details.
Developing and constructing a large-scale real estate property can range from fairly straightforward to treacherous. For many in the business, it all depends on the amount and quality of planning and communication thats in place when the project gets the green light.
On a typical project, a developer coordinates information with multiple entities including architects and engineers, general contractors, subcontractors, land-use attorneys, local municipalities, and land-use boards, to name a few.
"In the process of development, you generate literally hundreds and hundreds of drawings, and youre dealing with dozens of design professionals," said James Psaki, principal at GRP Realty Co., in Stamford, Conn. "You have changes constantlyfield changes or issues that occur with contracting or subcontractingall that occurs during the construction of a building. The ability to have everyone who has data in front of them, on a desktop or laptop, and has the ability to solve any type of problem is wonderful."
GRP should know. The property management organization has been building apartment buildings for the commercial and residential markets in Connecticut for the past 20 years.
Among the companys more recent and complex projects was a $30 million contract to develop a 30-acre, 339-unit apartment complex in 1998. In addition to the typical issues surrounding development, the project, called The Ledges, involved a number of other hurdles, including complex wetland and planning board issues.
But GRP couldnt handle the impending tsunami of planning details and logistics alone. For that, it turned to ProjectEdge.com Inc.
A software developer and reseller, ProjectEdge offers its namesake collaboration software built on IBM Lotus Domino. GRP runs the software on Intel Corp. hardware, and Domino runs on Linux, Unix and IBM AS/400 servers, said Chris Crockett, general manager at ProjectEdge, in Rochester, N.Y.
The companys project software features a database armed with 15 modules. Customers looking for a server installation must buy a Domino license and any requisite Lotus Notes licenses, as well as a ProjectEdge license, which costs $50,000, said Crockett. Domino is sold separately by ProjectEdge.
GRP decided upon Groton, Conn., for its property in 1999, received site plan approval in 2001 and broke ground in 2002. But before it could move on any of that, the company needed an online collaboration and project management tool. One of the goals GRP had in mind was to transform its paper-rich process into an electronic one.
"You start out [developing], and you have a plan with hundreds of drawings, but at the end of the day, the buildings arent built the way theyre drawn. They never are; theres always issues," said Psaki. "Having ProjectEdge you really have it literally at your fingertips. ... Its like having a librarian right at your desk to get you whatever you want as quick as you want it."
"At any one time, there could be 30 or 40 people dealing with information within [ProjectEdge]," he said.
ProjectEdge software includes a predefined electronic form and policy set that features 15 modules such as Action Items, Contracts, Communications, Discussion, Drawings, Meetings, Phonebook, Photos and Videos, as well as Punchlist, which is a standardized defect list. Other modules include RFI (Request for Information), Drafts, Safety, Service Requests, Submittal Process and Change Management.
Earlier this year, ProjectEdge rolled out an entry-point package featuring only seven modules, allowing a group to manage multiple projects in one system environment.
If customers want to view their engineering documents posted online in ProjectEdges module, they must have a Windows 2000 server to run Informative Graphics Corp.s Brava viewer Java application. This enables CAD drawing, viewing and nondestructive markup. Information Graphics is a ProjectEdge partner based in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Crockett said ProjectEdge is involved from a very early phase, and one of its primary goals is to help developers set early ground rules for responsibility distribution and establish an early comfort level for participants.
"When we come in and bring a team together for the first time, we say, Lets talk about workflow; lets talk about how you want to work together," said Crockett.
GRP expects to finish construction on time late this year.
Check out eWEEK.coms Enterprise Applications Center at http://enterpriseapps.eweek.com for the latest news, reviews, analysis and opinion about productivity and business solutions. Be sure to add our eWEEK.com enterprise applications news feed to your RSS newsreader or My Yahoo page:
Brian Fonseca is a senior writer at eWEEK who covers database, data management and storage management software, as well as storage hardware. He works out of eWEEK's Woburn, Mass., office. Prior to joining eWEEK, Brian spent four years at InfoWorld as the publication's security reporter. He also covered services, and systems management. Before becoming an IT journalist, Brian worked as a beat reporter for The Herald News in Fall River, Mass., and cut his teeth in the news business as a sports and news producer for Channel 12-WPRI/Fox 64-WNAC in Providence, RI. Brian holds a B.A. in Communications from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. | <urn:uuid:5ff49fc4-0d7f-41eb-a521-2082ddb2dc0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Applications/ProjectEdge-Software-Building-on-Collaboration/ | 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 | 0.948759 | 1,129 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The Yerxa-Field House at 37 Lancaster Street in Cambridge, MA has 10 fireplaces. The house was built in 1888 and the fireplaces are beautiful examples of Victorian style tile, masonry, and woodwork.
Every fireplace is different – the tiles or stone vary, a variety of woods are used and some of the detail is handcarved, there are handsome decorative firebacks like the one you see here, and amazing andirons that in many cases match the light fixtures in the room. It’s very hard to pick a favorite!
The Yerxa-Field House at 37 Lancaster Street, Cambridge, MA 02140 is listed with John Petrowski and Christian Jones of Hammond Real Estate for $4,495,000.
37 Lancaster Street Cambridge MA – An Avon Hill Masterpiece. Old and untouched houses are my weakness. The less done to a house over the years the happier I am with it.
For years, whenever I walked or drove past 37 Lancaster Street on Avon Hill I would think to myself that one of the many reasons I loved being a real estate agent in Cambridge was that someday I would get to see inside that amazing house.
Well, a few weeks ago, someday finally came. John Petrowsky and Christian Jones of Hammond Real Estate listed the Yerxa-Field House for sale and held an open house for brokers. Cambridge real estate agents turned out en masse to see the house, a number bringing spouses who, like me, had long dreamed of seeing the inside of this landmark house.
The house was every bit as extraordinary as people had imagined, leaving at least one agent in tears, overcome by its beauty (no – it wasn’t me - I’m not the crying type!).
37 Lancaster Street was built in 1888 for Henry Yerxa and is an example of Shingle Style architecture. When it was sold to the Field family in 1919 many original furnishings remained with the house, giving us a rare glimpse of how people lived 12o years ago. Walking through the house it seemed that the children’s books of the 1880s and 1890s that I loved as a girl had come to life.
The two families that have owned the house kept extraordinary care of this masterpiece. Shades were pulled to prevent sun damage and the lavish finishes on walls and ceilings in room after room are in superb condition. There are nine different types of wood used for the woodwork throughout the house and it is all in impeccable condition.
Everywhere you look there is incredibly rich detail – far too much too describe here. Window seats, built-ins galore, fine paneling, hand carved details - the house is a feast for the eyes. Here are a few of my favorite things:
37 Lancaster Street, Cambridge – A Few of Many Fine Features
- There are ten fireplaces in the house, each with a different fire back, each with a different set of andirons that match the light fixtures in the room.
- The reading nook off the living room is one of my favorite spaces with a large stained glass window and a window seat to curl up on with a book
- The laundry room has eight soapstone sinks in a row, each with two brass faucets, and at the end of the row of sinks, a brick reservoir that held the hot water is still intact.
- There are two wonderful pantries. A third is now a bathroom though the original icebox with its marble shelves remains, now used as storage for towels.
- Even normally mundane features like door hooks and hinges are over the top – “like fine jewelry” one agent exclaimed when she spotted a particularly fine hook that held the pantry door ajar.
- My heart almost stopped when I first saw the second reading nook off an upstairs bedroom. This sweet space has a built-in bench opposite a lovely bookcase-flanked fireplace. This is happiness.
- Best yet – the small square stained glass window in the reading nook that opens up and looks out over the fireplace in the landing downstairs. What fun it must have been for a child to poke her head out the small window to wave at the adults below!
- A second floor bath has a painted mural of a river above the vintage fixtures.
- The carriage house has a row of horse stalls, complete with original raffia fringe trim above the stalls. The tack room has racks for saddles and tack, bearing 1880s patents from a Boston company.
At once grand and charming, the house has beautifully proportioned rooms and an elegant flow. To walk or drive up to this house and call it home – to wake up and walk out to the beautiful golden oak hall – to sit on a bench and gaze out at the neighboring houses on Avon Hill – the new owners of 37 Lancaster Street will be very fortunate. It’s truly a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Click on the small photo below for more information and additional photographs.
Here’s a peek at the fireplaces at 37 Lancaster Street. I have lots more photographs to share in another post or two.
37 Lancaster Street, on Avon Hill in Cambridge, MA 02140 is listed for $4,495,000.
Octagon houses have always intrigued me. Over the years I often drove past a brick octagon house in Townsend and another up the road in West Townsend with clapboard siding (more about these later) and another in Gardner. Here in Somerville we have a round house that’s a local favorite.
Orson S. Fowler and the Octagon House
While Orson Squire Fowler did not create the octagon house style he is most closely associated with it. Octagon houses were built before Fowler’s time – Thomas Jefferson’s summer home, Poplar Forest, was an octagon completed in 1819 for example.
But it was Fowler’s 1848 book, A Home For All, or a New, Cheap, Convenient and Superior Mode of Building in which he promoted the octagon as an economical and healthful house style, that set off the craze for octagon houses in the United States. Fowler pushed for the octagon style as a way to get more interior square footage with the same amount of exterior linear feet as a traditionally styled house.
Octagon house floor plans typically show a layout with four square rooms and four small triangular spaces on each floor.
It is estimated that as many as several thousand octagon houses were built in the United States, most from 1848 to 1860. Fowler was from New York and attended Amherst College in Massachusetts. Octagons were particularly popular in New York, Massachusetts, and in the Midwest in areas where Easterners settled – Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois.
Another edition of Fowler’s book was published in 1854 and retitled A Home For All or The Gravel Wall and Octagon Mode of Building. Fowler believed that the best way to build the octagon was with “gravel wall construction – i.e. poured concrete – but most were built with wood or brick siding.
Fowler also advised that a cupola should be built on an octagon house to provide light and ventilation and many octagon houses were in fact built with a cupola atop.
O.S. Fowler was a man of many interests – he was a publisher, writer, lecturer and reformer.
Even more than architecture, his passion was phrenology – the belief that the shape of a person’s head reveals one’s talents, personality and character. Fowler’s phrenological practice, with his brother as partner, attracted many well known patients including Clara Barton, Horace Greeley, President Garfield, Brigham Young, Walt Whitman, Richard Henry Dana and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Stoneham Octagon Houses
Want to see some octagon houses? The best place to get your fix near Cambridge is Stoneham, Mass which has three octagon houses, all privately owned.
Stoneham’s eight-sided houses are pictured in the photographs here.
The red octagon house with cupola at 2 Spring Street was built for William and Lucinda Bryant in 1850 and is on the National Register.
The octagon house with the two-story enclosed porch at 77 Summer Street was built by Captain James Hill Gould between 1848 and 1850. It originally sat on 16 acres.
Enoch Fuller’s house at 72 Pine Street is beautifully sited atop a rise. It is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
Given Stoneham’s selection of octagon houses I guess the six-sided Dairy Dome on Main Street is just what you’d expect to find here. The distinctive building that houses the ice cream stand was once a Colonial Beacon gas station and is also on the National Register.
So come summer – make a day of it – go for a cone and a drive to see some very cool houses.
More Massachusetts Octagon Houses
The best source for info about octagon houses – and round houses and other many-sided houses – is Robert Kline and Ellen Puerzer’s Inventory of Octagon Houses.
Their site has pictures and details of these unusual houses – those that are still standing as well as those long gone.
Turns out there’s an octagon house on Route 16 in Newton that I’ve never noticed. And those “octagons” in Townsend and West Townsend? Lo and behold they’re both hexadecagon houses. I had to look that up - it’s a sixteen-sided house.
The inventory shows 82 houses in Massachusetts – though that number may include houses that are no longer with us. Either way there are a lot of amazing houses to go see.
Some people have lists of mountains to climb. Me? I’m going hunting for octagon houses.
Other Local Architectural Styles
When you skim through the American architectural guides looking for info on the Dutch Colonial style you’ll see pages about the houses built by Dutch settlers in the earliest years of our country. From 1625 to the 1830s Dutch immigrants built houses in the mid-Atlantic states with steeply pitched gambrel or gable roof lines.
In Massachusetts, what we think of as a Dutch Colonial is better described as Dutch Colonial Revival. These charming houses are common in the towns and cities around Cambridge and were built in the early decades of the 1900s. A Dutch Colonial in Arlington is pictured above.
The defining feature of the Dutch Colonial Revival is the gambrel roof with a continuous dormer. Federal or Georgian style entryways were common.
While the Dutch Colonial in the photograph is a center entrance, the side entrance became quite popular in the 1920s and ’30s. Typically you’ll find in the side entrance version that the living room runs across the front of the house to the side of the entry.
More Posts About Local Building Styles:
And for even more click on the Architecture tag link below.
Robert Campbell, the Boston Globe‘s architecture critic, had an excellent article in last Sunday’s paper about concrete buildings in Cambridge and Boston. Even if it’s not your favorite architectural style the article will give you a new appreciation for these 1950s – 1970s buildings.
“No other American city boasts as much noteworthy concrete architecture in as small an area as Boston and Cambridge”
At right is Harvard’s William James Hall, Minoru Yamasaki’s 1963 building which Robert Bell Rettig describes in Guide to Cambridge Architecture as “fourteen stories of pure white concrete”. Yamasaki also designed the 1962 Engineering Sciences Laboratory included in the slide show below.
Here’s a sampling of concrete buildings in Cambridge. I’ll try to add more the next time the sky is blue!
Click on the “Architecture” link below for more posts about Cambridge architecture.
Tudor Style Homes in Belmont and Nearby. Real estate buyers who move from other parts of the country may expect to see more Tudor style homes when they move to Cambridge.
The Tudor architectural style in America was popular in the early 1900s and was very popular in American suburbs in the 1920s and early 1930s after most of Cambridge and Somerville’s houses were built.
Characteristics of Tudor Revival Architecture
- Usually brick or stucco, less frequently stone or wood
- Many have decorative half-timbering
- Steeply pitched roof
- Massive chimneys, often with decorative chimney pots
- Tall, narrow multi-paned windows, often in groups of three
- Rounded arched doorways are common
- Patterned brickwork or stonework detail is common
Tudor Houses in Belmont and Nearby
Belmont has the largest concentration of Tudors in the area by far. There are some in Cambridge near Brattle Street or in the Divinity neighborhood. Tudors in Medford can be found in West Medford and the Lawrence Estates. In Arlington you’re most likely to see a Tudor Revival house in the Morningside neighborhood.
Here’s a slideshow of tudor style houses in Belmont Massachusetts.
To see posts about other architectural styles in Cambridge and nearby towns click on the Architecture tag below.
The Gothic Revival, was one of the early Victorian Romantic architectural styles.
Most Gothic Revival houses were built between 1840 and 1870.
The development of the jigsaw led to the popularity of elaborate gingerbread trim.
The Gothic Revival style was particulary popular in the Northeast. There are a number of great examples in our area. Three of my local favorites are pictured here:
- The house in Cambridge is on Dana Street
- The brick Somerville Gothic Revival is on Morrison Ave. in Davis Square and was built for Nathaniel Morrison for whom the street was named
- The Angier House in Medford, built in 1842, is next to the library on High Street and is on the National Register of Historic Places
Gothic Revival Features
- Steeply pitched roof
- Typically has cross gables
- Gables often have decorative pendant trim
- Trefoil and quatrefoil ornamention is common
- Windows often have a Gothic-style pointed arch.
- If only one window has the Gothic arch it typically at the top of the most prominent gable – see the Somerville house
- Often has a one-story porch – either an entry porch or a larger porch that spans the width of the house
Other Architectural Styles Around Cambridge:
I know that there are “copycat houses” out there – replicas of well known houses – Mount Vernon has been recreated more than once and I’ve come across copies of Cambridge’s Longfellow House in magazines.
During a tour that was part of this summer’s Cambridge Discovery Days I learned that there’s a copy of a Cambridge house in Cambridge.
22 Fayerweather Street is a copy of Elmwood, once home to several historic figures including writer James Russell Lowell and now the Harvard President’s residence.
Elmwood was built in 1767.
22 Fayerweather was built in 1898 when the Colonial Revival architectural style was popular. The house was designed by Boston architect Herbert D. Hale. H.D. Hale was the grandson of Edward Everett Hale, the writer, reformer and Unitarian minister.
Have you come across any “copycat houses”? | <urn:uuid:87ee198a-db14-4e4e-bd3c-38604a42bd54> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://centersandsquares.com/tag/architecture/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959577 | 3,235 | 1.59375 | 2 |
No, looking for 802.11 APs is primarily active. When you bring up a list of visible APs in the area, your 802.11 client most likely does what's known as an "active scan", where it tunes its radio to each supported channel in turn, transmits a Probe Request frame, and waits perhaps 20-40ms to gather Probe Response frames from any APs on that channel before moving on to the next channel. This allows it to scan all the channels much faster than a "passive scan".
A "passive scan" is possible, but isn't used very often because it takes longer. To do a passive scan, the client tunes to each channel in turn, and waits a typical Beacon Interval (usually about 100ms, but could be more) to gather Beacons.
Some channels in 5GHz in some regulatory regions require that you scan passively first, until you know that the channel is not in use by nearby radar installations. But most clients, as soon as they see a Beacon on a passive-scan channel, will switch to an active scan to speed up the process.
If your client device is on, and hasn't given up looking for your recently-joined/preferred/remembered networks, it will almost certainly be broadcasting Probe Requests which give away not only your wireless MAC address and some of the capabilities of your card, but often also the name the network it's looking for. This is necessary in case the network is a "hidden" (a.k.a. "non-broadcast SSID", a.k.a. "closed") network.
It's pretty trivial to learn people's wireless client MAC addresses and also the names of their home and work networks just by hanging out at the office or a coffee shop or airport terminal with an 802.11 monitor mode packet sniffer, recording Probe Requests. | <urn:uuid:cf513a11-6dc9-462a-884d-e99c34d86115> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://superuser.com/questions/128166/is-looking-for-wi-fi-access-points-purely-passive?answertab=votes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966811 | 386 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Gingerbread Lady is a 1970 play by Neil Simon, written specifically for actress Maureen Stapleton, who won both the Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for her performance.
A major departure from Simon's previous lighthearted romps, The Gingerbread Lady was a dark drama with comic overtones centering on Evy Meara, a cabaret singer whose career, marriage, and health all have been destroyed by alcohol. Having just completed a ten-week stint in a rehab facility to overcome her addiction, she returns home to the welcome of friends with their own problems - an overly vain woman who fears the loss of her looks and a homosexual actor in danger of losing a part in a play - her devoted but anxious teenaged daughter, and a worthless ex-lover. Evy's efforts at hosting a party crumble when she falls off the wagon and careens toward a tragic end.
After twelve previews, the Broadway production - directed by Robert Moore - opened on December 13, 1970 at the Plymouth Theatre, where it ran for 193 performances. It proved to be one of Simon's least successful plays on Broadway, although it frequently is performed in summer stock and by community theater groups.
In 1981, Simon adapted his play for the screen under the title Only When I Laugh, with his then-wife Marsha Mason in the lead role. His reworking of his original script transformed it into a comedy with dramatic overtones, and the film was a critical and commercial success nominated for three Academy Awards. | <urn:uuid:9a25bd19-b000-413f-8294-9579238f6fa3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://showsdata.stageagent.com/index.php?info_type=3&id=4687 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971552 | 306 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Quttinirpaaq National Park of Canada
Ski touring, ski mountaineering, and glacier travel
Quttinirpaaq National Park is a place for the experienced skier, mountaineer, and winter camper. Should something go wrong, your party must be prepared to help itself. Rescue is far away, and technical rescue equipment and personnel may have to be brought in from outside Nunavut. Rescuers may be unable to get to you and are not always available.
© Christian Kimber
Skiers touring in the park must consider themselves to be completely isolated. Your group must be prepared for self-sufficiency. We recommend that groups contain a minimum of four persons.
With every decision you make about this trip, whether it is the route you choose, the time you choose to go or the gear you choose to take, you must seriously consider the consequences of any mistake for yourself and your travel companions.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Are you able to navigate by map and GPS in a whiteout?
- Do you have the training, experience and equipment to assess avalanche conditions, make sound route choices and carry out self-rescue procedures?
- Do you have the training, experience and equipment required for safe glacier travel and crevasse rescue? Technical rescue equipment and personnel have to be brought in from outside of Nunavut.
Parks Canada assumes no responsibility for the way in which this information is used. The decision to ski or climb any area rests solely with the individual.
Those who seek an alpine powder snow ski experience will not find it in Quttinirpaaq National Park. Windslab is common, snow cover is variable, and deep powder is very rare.
However, if you think of ski mountaineering as an alpine adventure involving skiing, exploration and climbing, Quttinirpaaq National Park offers unlimited possibilities. The rock is rough granite, the ice is steep and solid and many peaks have never been climbed.
Although your skis can take you to many peaks and glaciers, most actual ascents will require technical climbing skills and equipment.
Much of the park is glaciated. Low temperatures combined with low annual snowfall mean that glacial movement is very slow. Crevasses and icefalls are reduced compared to glaciers in more southerly regions of North America. However, glaciers must still be treated with respect. Groups must travel roped, and must have a thorough knowledge of the techniques of safe glacier travel, including crevasse rescue. | <urn:uuid:72a71d30-4f51-4ccb-ac15-1b654961c195> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/nu/quttinirpaaq/activ/activ3.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950986 | 525 | 1.742188 | 2 |
And as we contemplate Islamists exploiting new freedom in Egypt to take power, our failure to provide a reassuring safety net for Iraqis means some worry that Maliki is becoming an autocrat:
When the American military presence in Iraq ended in December 2011, Washington and Baghdad claimed that Iraq was a stable, sustainable democracy. However, this appears questionable as Nuri al-Maliki, prime minister since 2006, has continued his quest to dominate the state and to use its power to break opposition to his rule. His systematic exclusion of key politicians from power underlines the failure of the 2010 elections to deliver representative government, and leaves the country vulnerable to heightened sectarian tension and a new civil war.
We struggle to influence an Egypt where people will vote yet we walk away from a system we built in Iraq rather than defend free votes and the development of rule of law.
To be fair to the Obama administration, much of the anti-war crowd hated the idea of promoting democracy in Iraq and insisted that the Iraqis needed a strong man to hold the Kurds, Shias, and Sunni Arabs together and pulling under the yoke in the same direction. So this must be part of that "smart" diplomacy we were promised. Are we getting what our administration has wished for all along?
Yet some of the worries about Iraq are over-blown, I think. Democracy doesn't mean that the winners share power with the losers. It should mean that the losers are treated fairly under the law and that the losers have confidence that there will be scheduled free elections where they can again make their case. Yet we should be there to increase the confidence that this can happen. And we should not assume that Maliki has no reason to target Hashemi, who is being portrayed as a Sunni Arab martyr.
Focus on justice in the Hashemi case and in general promote rule of law. I've long agreed with Strategypage's assessment that the biggest threat to democracy we face in Iraq is getting rule of law rather than beating the Baathists, the Sunni tribes, Iranian death squads, separatist Kurds, or al Qaeda and their jihadi allies. We beat the armed threats. Will the Obama administration fail on the post-war mission as they seem determined to do?
Good grief, man, bust a gut to get a strategic agreement with Iraq that returns US forces so that Iraqis will have some confidence that we won't allow democracy to be subverted. We will get what we deserve if we don't work harder to get what we should wish. | <urn:uuid:c161ccc5-3cca-49f3-8d00-7b9e6cfca341> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://thedignifiedrant.blogspot.com/2012/04/getting-what-they-wish.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966883 | 508 | 1.6875 | 2 |
An American soldier goes berserk and slaughters 16 innocent men, women and children. This is a terrible tragedy for the victims, their families, our policy goals and also terrible for this soldier in particular. He is the 17th victim.
His wasn’t the act of a sane and balanced person. Nor was his an unforeseeable aberration. When we take young men and put them in battle, we must anticipate that all will undergo stress, some will bend and some, inevitably, will break. Each time we send them on another tour, we must assume that the stresses accumulate and the odds of tragedy rise.
This Sergeant, being held pending charges, was on his fourth tour–three in Iraq, then Afghanistan. We have to believe that for him the stress was unendurable. This doesn’t justify what he did, but it should explain it and make us reconsider our policies towards these young people whom we send into battle. Add the fact of a diagnosed traumatic brain injury and you must wonder at our deployment policies.
Our soldiers are no longer GIs or grunts. We’ve inflated their titles while cutting their care. We call our soldiers “heroes” and “warriors.” We’ve honored them with our words but not with true compassion. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is often shamefully re-diagnosed as a pre-existing “character disorder.” These “heroes” are used up and too often spit out of the system. We cut benefits, allow their homes to be foreclosed and shuffle their paper work till any request for help is lost.
Now, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declares that the death penalty is on the table for this former hero and warrior? Of course, he has to be held accountable for what he did. But so too do all of us.
2012 Jonathan Dobrer | <urn:uuid:4a8bd15c-2ae7-4fd3-84a2-182a86a28181> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.dailynews.com/friendlyfire/2012/03/14/the-multiple-tragedies-in-afgh/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965828 | 391 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Master of Science in Environmental Science
Environmental Science course requirements are listed below. The department has developed graduate core course and electives for students enrolled in the program. The program offers advanced courses in specialized areas such as environmental chemistry, environmental remediation, data analysis, instrumental analysis, limnology, remote sensing, watershed management, and wetland ecology. Graduate students may also take courses offered in other departments if the courses are relevant to environmental science and the student's professional goals. Students must maintain a cumulative GPA of 3.00 (out of 4.00) in all course work presented for the degree. Under the guidance of an advisor, graduate students have the option to choose from either a thesis or non-thesis option to complete their studies. A minimum of one credit hour of graduate seminar must be included in each student's graduate program. | <urn:uuid:0d9bb3c8-2ef1-43c1-b3a6-e9437022a754> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lincolnu.edu/web/agriculture-and-environmental-sciences/program-structure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941419 | 169 | 1.554688 | 2 |
― Pregnant women are the vessel for all things that may carry to their unborn child. It’s very important that any mom-to-be take extra care of herself, physically, emotionally, and health-wise. While you’re watching what you eat and the vitamins you take, a pregnant woman also needs to not participate in particular events that may affect the baby. ∙ Here are 5 physical activities pregnant women should avoid. ∙ Thrill seeking – it may seem obvious, but during your pregnancy, you [...]. | <urn:uuid:a7768806-a870-4bdc-bb0e-c35d903f0290> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bloggers.com/post/physical-activities-that-pregnant-women-should-avoid-6582506 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969944 | 111 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Royals celebrate Negro Leagues Day
Club dons throwback uniforms of the Kansas City Monarchs
KANSAS CITY -- The Royals and White Sox celebrated Negro Leagues Day on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. KC wore the throwback uniforms of the Kansas City Monarchs while the White Sox donned the gray Chicago American Giants attire.
Royals manager Buddy Bell wore his Monarchs jersey during the game. Bell, a long-time baseball man who grew up around the game, has been to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City before. He understands the history of baseball, understands the importance of the Negro Leagues.
"It is kind of sad and impressive at the same time, just because it has taken so long for us to come to our senses," Bell said.
Bell learned about the Negro Leagues from his father, Gus Bell, who played in the '50s and '60s against many former Negro League athletes.
Few others, though, have enjoyed Bell's experience or understanding of the game's past. Even with celebrations such as Sunday's, Bell doesn't believe players know the significance of the Negro Leagues or its rich history.
"They don't understand the history of the Negro Leagues, but also baseball in general," Bell said. "Funny story: When I was in Detroit, my first year as a manager, Al Kaline would dress up every day and hit fly balls and do stuff. He is one of the greatest players of all time, and four or five of our [players] asked who he was.
"It's not really a reflection on the players themselves, because there are so many other things growing up that there was to do," he added. "When I was growing up, you would either go swimming at the [YMCA] or play ball. There are so many more things to do now other than just baseball."
Conor Nicholl is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. | <urn:uuid:f56c2f7f-934c-4524-8212-9d8ed146beef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070701&content_id=2060762&vkey=news_kc&fext=.jsp&c_id=kc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982508 | 420 | 1.726563 | 2 |
By KAREN MATTHEWS
NEW YORK (AP) - The nation's largest school system lurched to life Monday, with most of its students making their way back to classes by foot, ferry and subway after a weeklong break because of Superstorm Sandy.
About 100 New York City public schools remain closed due to storm damage, a lack of electricity or because the buildings are being used to shelter people left homeless after the killer storm rolled through last Monday.
That means about 73,000 of the city's 1.1 million students stayed home while officials scrambled to ready temporary space for them at functioning schools or to ensure power is back on at the schools they usually attend.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:eb27a32d-abd4-4594-8e00-d7ef87cadbe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/20006157/schools-return-to-life-in-storm-ravaged-nyc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947655 | 163 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Identity Theft Scam Series - Jury Duty
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The jury duty scam has been around for quite a while, but it is still very successful. Why? The scam is amazingly simple, and it plays on the fear that you have broken the law and that you could be arrested.
So, what is this scam, and how do you protect yourself?
The scam starts with a phone call - a person pretending to be a court official calls and says that a warrant has been issued for your arrest since you did not show up for jury duty. He informs you that he is the jury coordinator and that skipping out on your civic duty is not taken lightly.
The caller knows you will protest that you never received the jury summons, that there is some kind of mistake. This falls right into the scammers plan. The scammer will say that they need to check their records to stop the warrant from being processed. They will ask for your social security number, and your date of birth. Once they have this information - the caller will act as if verifying the information and apologize for the administrative mistake. Guess what, your identity has just been stolen.
Be weary of ever giving out information over the phone when you are called by anyone that says they are a government official, (IRS, state tax administrator, jury coordinator) stay calm and ask for their number so you can call them back. Immediately verify the information via, online directory or your telephone book. You make the call, you check to see if the details being presented to you are valid.
The scam works well, it is simple, and it works well because people want to prove their innocence. The thieves know this and use this to their advantage. | <urn:uuid:3dc0dfaa-c4f6-4ed9-ace0-4d78d5250262> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fmwebschool.com/2007/04/identity-theft-scam-series-jury-duty.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970215 | 354 | 1.6875 | 2 |
TAMPA, December 24, 2012 ― It’s not a surprise that libertarian themes pervade many iconic Christmas specials. After all, they celebrate the birthday of one of the great libertarians of all time.
In the Gospels, government is exposed as evil right from Jesus’ birth. A paranoid Herod is willing to kill all of the babies in the kingdom to try to eliminate the perceived threat represented by Jesus.
Tax collectors are considered de facto sinners, on a par with prostitutes. Libertarians would consider this unfair to prostitutes, but for the times this couldn’t land better.
Jesus himself doesn’t disappoint, either. From the moment he begins his ministry, he wages a nonstop verbal war against the hypocritical, oppressive, tax-devouring Temple priests. Jews at the time were required to pay annual taxes to the priests and were also expected to come and make sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple. Of course, they had to buy the livestock for the sacrifices from the priests and deal with the priests’ money changers in order to do that.
That’s why the libertarian from Galilee kicked them out. This would have been considered a revolutionary act.
One can’t help but equate Jerusalem at that time with Washington, DC, an entire city of tax-fed, opulent wealth.
Jesus has no patience for excessive regulation, either. When he encounters a Jewish law that does not address actual criminal activity, he encourages his followers to break it. When the meddling scribes confront Jesus with allowing his disciples to eat without washing their hands, Jesus lets loose with his customary anti-government invective, calling them hypocrites and then instructing “the people” to ignore this idiotic law and focus on not committing real crimes instead. (Mark 7:1-23) | <urn:uuid:4fa96f06-105e-4791-bc38-fc5a34a5a166> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tommullen.net/featured/2479/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962285 | 374 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Voters in Romania are at the polls in local elections expected to favor the center-left Social Liberal Union now in power on a national level.
More than 40,000 council posts and mayoral positions in over 3,000 cities are due to be determined in the vote, which is open to the more than 18.3 million eligible Romanian voters as well as 37,000 European citizens living in the country.
Few surprises are expected, although attention is focused on the Transylvanian city of Cluj and the mayoral election bid of former Prime Minister Emil Boc, whose government imposed drastic austerity measures in 2010.
In the capital, Bucharest, the campaign has focused on protecting the city's architectural heritage from developers and reducing traffic polution.
The incumbent mayor, Sorin Oprescu, is expected to hold on to his post.
Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters | <urn:uuid:d38f8a6b-f056-4481-8394-1e73ec42b406> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rferl.org/content/romanian-voters-at-polls-in-local-elections/24609487.html | 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 | 0.965839 | 179 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Both sides Are wrong
Both sides Are wrong
A radio interviewer asked IDF Spokesman Ron Kitrey on Sunday about the three children killed in Jenin by Israeli soldiers in a tank (who also killed a 60-year-old civilian). The interviewer chose his words carefully. So carefully, that he asked Kitrey about the "youths" who were killed. These "youths" were 6-year-old Soujoud Turkey, Ahmed Ghazawi, also 6 years old, and his 12-year-old brother Jamil. The two brothers had been riding their bicycles in their neighborhood. They, like many others, thought that the curfew had been lifted for several hours. Soujoud Turkey had gone out with her father to buy bread.
The interviewer stammered slightly as he posed his question, perhaps because in these days of suicide bombings it is not considered politically correct to discuss Palestinian casualties. Turning them into "youths" was not a slip of the tongue. It reflects a phenomenon. Even before the suicide attacks became a daily routine, for Israeli society the IDF's Palestinian civilian victims simply evaporated, and they continue to evaporate. They are not perceived as relevant in the political and military contexts.
This is not about appealing to one's sense of morality and compassion, nor is it forgetting the Israeli pain. It is about the ability to analyze why the conflict has become entangled to the point of a bloody cycle of violence beyond control. To analyze - in order to be able to control it. Israel's analytical ability has been impaired because its collective political consciousness is unwilling to take into account the cumulative Palestinian pain in this intifada and during the Oslo years that preceded it.
Israeli political consciousness has rejected and continues to reject any attempt or proposal to grasp the sum total of the details, characteristics and consequences of the continued Israeli rule over another people. When one tries to talk of the "totality" known as the occupation, the media - the social barometer - responds with resentment. This "totality" is too abstract, transparent, academic. Let's talk about "personal stories" instead.
But when one talks about personal stories, that is exactly how they are perceived: as another tear-jerker about an individual suffering Palestinian. Before this intifada, such stories (deaths at roadblocks, Israeli quotas for drinking water, a ban on building schools in Area C, a significant expansion of settlements, movement restrictions) were perceived as exceptions to "the peace process," although they harmed the Palestinian population every day.
Today, reports on "Palestinian suffering" are perceived as national treason. Israelis conclude that the suicide attacks are the result of a murderous tendency inherent to the Palestinians, their religion, their mentality. In other words, people turn to bio-religious explanations, not social or historical ones. This is a grave mistake. If one wants to put an end to the terror attacks in general, and to the suicide attacks in particular, one must ask why the majority of the Palestinian population supports them. Without their support, the Palestinian organizations would not dare to send suicide attackers and "invite" the expected escalating Israeli response. The Palestinians support the attacks, even the cruelest ones, because they are convinced that they, their existence and their future as a nation are the real targets of the Israeli regime - both when it applied rule-by-deceit tactics during the Oslo period, and now, when it uses tactics of military escalation and siege.
Israeli society did not pay heed to Palestinian warnings during the Oslo period, that an imposed arrangement would lead to disaster. Neither did Israeli political consciousness listen at the beginning of the intifada when the Palestinians pointed to the excessive use of Israeli military force against the first demonstrations. Now, 22 months later, one can here and there find comments by journalists and politicians who in hindsight admit that under Ehud Barak and Shaul Mofaz, excessive use was already made of lethal methods. If there was indeed a desire to control the whirlpool of violence, that harsh military response was a mistake. But this excessive use of force has not been erased from the Palestinians' consciousness. And why should they forget their children, who were killed just because they threw stones at armored jeeps, tanks and fortified outposts? Why should they forget the civilians killed by IDF fire at roadblocks and in their homes, not during gunfights?
The Palestinians are now driven by the same misguided notion that directed Barak, Mofaz and the commanders on the ground at the beginning of the intifada, and the entire Israeli society that stood behind them: "More force and more killing and suffering, as quickly as possible, will teach the other side a lesson and foil their plans."
The suicide attacks in Israel indicate an impaired analytical ability on the part of the majority of Palestinian society. They fail to grasp that just as the daily killings by IDF soldiers and unbearable living conditions under the tightening siege policy only strengthen them, the Israeli response to the death sown in their midst by the Palestinians is much the same. Both sides are convinced that only more deadly and devastating force will restrain the opposing force. Both sides are wrong. | <urn:uuid:a7a07d8c-6708-4c8a-92f3-588836777497> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zcommunications.org/both-sides-are-wrong-by-amira-hass | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977168 | 1,057 | 1.75 | 2 |
[1st verse:] Once I got stuck on a sweet little German And oh what a German was she The best that was walking, well what's the use talking Was just made to order for me So lovely, and witty, more yet she was pretty You don't know until you have tried She had such a figure, it couldn't be bigger And there was some more yet beside
[chorus:] Oh how that German could love With a feeling that came from the heart She called me her honey, her angel, her money She pushed ev'ry word out so smart She spoke like a speaker, and oh what a speech Like no other speaker could speak Ach my what a German when she kissed her Herman It stayed on my cheek for a week
[2nd verse:] This girl could squeeze, and it never would hurt For that lady knew just how to squeeze Her loving was killing, more yet she was willing You never would have to say please I just couldn't stop her, for dinner and supper Some kisses and hugs was the food When she wasn't nice it was more better twice When she's bad she was better than good
[2nd chorus] Oh how that German could love With a sweetness that's sweeter than sweet Just say what you please, you would hug and you'd squeeze Just the shoes that she wore on her feet Her smile was like money that somebody owed you That somebody wanted to give When you felt like dying and she started sighing Ach my it was worthwhile to live
[3rd verse:] Sometimes we'd love for a week at a time And it only would seem like a day How well I remember, one night in December I felt like the middle of May I'll bet all I'm worth that when she came on earth All the angels went out on parade No other one turned up, I think that they burned up The pattern from which she was made
[3rd chorus:] Oh how that German could love With a love like you see in a play When she said, "My dear," it would ring in my ear For a year, and a week and a day Her no was like yes, and her yes was like no It was something like yes, it was, well When we got together ach donner und vetter 'Twas love with a capital "L" | <urn:uuid:820bc2db-3bfc-4305-a316-7757f72e15f5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.lyricsfreak.com/i/irving+berlin/ndl:oh+how+that+german+could+love_20213002.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 | 0.99266 | 470 | 1.664063 | 2 |
01/18/2010 - And yet — if our sampling offers any kind of hint — there’s still a great degree of optimism among D.C.‘s environmental leaders about the new administration.
I created my own mix from some of Peters’ sources and a few new ones. Their take on Obama’s first year in office? Lots of progress. But not enough progress. Below are their responses, in their own words:
Phyllis Cuttino, director, director of U.S. Global Warming Campaign, Pew Environment Group:
There was a great deal of optimism when President Obama was sworn in a year ago, and he started out strong. In his first 100 days, President Obama seized opportunities to regulate, invest and stimulate in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and seize market share in the global clean energy economy. The president seems to really understand that we can renew our manufacturing base, create new high paying jobs for Americans and protect our climate.
The biggest challenge is still ahead: Can he sign a strong climate policy into law in 2010? If we don't pass legislation that puts a price on carbon, we will continue to cede leadership in the global clean energy market to nations like China, Brazil and Germany. The question is, how much political capital will President Obama spend and how involved will he be in getting that strong climate policy?
Read the full article Media Mayhem: On His One Year Anniversary, Obama's Green Report Card on the Mother Nature Network's Web site.
Pew is no longer active in this line of work, but for more information, visit the main Pew Campaign on Global Warming page. | <urn:uuid:b88ce812-a2ce-4a5c-b554-6d87eefc05be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pewtrusts.org/news_room_detail.aspx?id=56856 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947257 | 341 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Sarah Gardner: a footpath a day keeps the doctor away
Rapeseed yellow under a blue sky – the primary colours of a child’s picture is the complexion of the English countryside in late spring. Hurtling on a fast train from London to Cornwall, a vast variety of colours and landscapes keep me sighing almost the entire journey. Lambs tumble over ridges golden with the sun, tranquil caramel-and-white patched cows barely blink at the blur of train; the sun dappled on my arm – it all adds up to an intoxicating bucolic image. Befitting a journey to a land of myths and legend, the dreamy aspects of still water features heavily. The Somerset Levels sees land transformed into a clear sheet of water, with stranded gates and trees rising upwards and mirrored below. Then, at Exeter St David’s, the train slips alongside the sea, where swans glide out to meet sailing boats and yachts and seagulls perch peremptorily atop a rusting and tilting fishing boat. Snatches of happy faces: a blur of golden hair atop a cherubic rosy-cheeked face, a dog pounding along in the surf, barks lost in the wind.
The reason I was enjoying all this scenic luxury was because I had been invited to visit the Cornwall Ramblers, joining their Ramblers Environmental Action Clearance Team (REACT). Volunteers are invited to work alongside the Ramblers and Cornwall County Council, maintaining local paths and thereby ensuring walkers can still access the wonderful places these paths lead to. The work can involve anything from waymarking, replacing signs and stiles, putting in steps and building bridges. In the lead-up to National Volunteering Week (1-7 June), Ramblers staff have been joining Ramblers groups across the country to get a better insight into their voluntary work. In my case, I had lucked out with a trip to Truro.
The path in question was set in a tranquil shaded wood, accessed from Quiet Lane: a fairy-tale country lane, the winding and dappled green tunnel sprinkled with fritillary and orchid. Despite the early Saturday morning start, we were met by the smiling faces of the other path workers, a mix of new and experienced volunteers ranging from 10 to 82 years of age, some of whom had been volunteering and walking with the Cornwall Ramblers for over thirty years. A warm welcome – including lots of tea! – and an explanation of the day’s activities followed from Graham Ronan, the Cornwall Ramblers Chair and Linda Holloway, the Rights of Way Enforcement Officer at Cornwall Council.
Despite the sunshine, there was one cloud on our horizon: a rather unfriendly landowner, glaring at us from behind a locked fence. Linda began what is a regular part of her role as Rights of Way Enforcement Officer – informing and reassuring the landowner as to why we were there, emphasising all the good we would be doing and the benefits we would bring him and others wanting to access this beautiful area. It is understandable that a landowner might be curious about why a large group of strangers has suddenly appeared on his land, but under law, anyone can walk unimpeded on a right of way as long as they do not trespass onto private land. Additionally volunteers can upkeep that right of way, with the permission and aid of the highway authority (usually the county or district council).
We set off along the green, sun-speckled path, the river Kenwyn gurgling to our left, equipment stacked high on our shoulders. Tegenn, 10-year old daughter of Linda (and our youngest Ramblers member), danced along the path like a woodland sprite, jumping in the mud and brandishing her own specially-sized shovel. The path certainly needed work – the bog grasped at our wellies and threatened to suck us in entire. First up was digging holes for the wooden boards which would make this bog an accessible path. The ground was a mix of stone and clay and as such was resistant to being moved – however we attacked the earth with vigour. I might have been keen, but I was definitely slow. Excluding two volunteers from Kernow Boots (the 20s-40s walking group in Cornwall) the other diggers were approximately double my age and double my speed. Eventually though, we had 6 deep holes, beds for the wooden posts. Next up was cementing in the posts and then erecting the side supports for the path.
Tegenn, Bob Fraser (the REACT co-ordinator) and I turned our attention to wrestling with some rusty nails from the broken bridge, before nailing in new slats. Amazingly no-one hit their thumb – though it was a close call at times! Our final task was to dig some ‘grips’ between the path and the river, to encourage drainage and alleviate some of the boggy conditions. I was astonished to realise it was 3.30 – the day had vanished in a flash of light and laughter. I could feel my limbs aching in that lovely way you experience after a long walk, and my mind was rested and content. It’s not news to the 17,000 Ramblers volunteers who regularly give up their free time to keep paths in top condition, but getting stuck into a project like this is incredibly rewarding. Not only are you outside, feeling healthy and happy, enjoying the fresh air, you are also doing something of benefit to the wider community. It wasn’t a mystery to me why most of the 60 and 70-year old volunteers were much stronger than me – years of this kind of work doesn’t just keep the paths in good nick.
At 4pm, equipment all packed up, everyone skipped (or hobbled in my case) home, happy and full of gratitude to the Cornwall Ramblers and Cornwall Council for facilitating another fantastic REACT day. Perhaps our happiness had also rubbed off on the landowner who grudgingly admitted the value of our efforts – though his change in attitude was mainly due to Linda’s brilliant communication skills. I got a real insight into the passion and enthusiam of the REACT group and what a difference it can make when councils and Ramblers volunteers have such a positive working relationship. As Graham remarked in his thanks to us all, “it was absolutely amazing the amount of work we got through”. It’s a great feeling to see a group of people from all age ranges and backgrounds coming together to help others enjoy the outdoors – it seems that this work will only get more vital as cuts to local authority spending increases.
So next time you are out walking, think of the army of secret workers who have been out before you, laughing and sweating over the signs or steps which enable you to get from the A to Z of your lovely walk. For me, I can’t wait for the next opportunity to get my hands dirty with the Ramblers…
- Find out how to volunteer with the Ramblers
- Find out more about the Cornwall Ramblers REACT days and led walks (including Kernow Boots)
- Learn about the work of the Ramblers
- Follow our tweets: @RamblersGB and @Sassgee
- Read more blog posts via Walkblog and Travellingmole | <urn:uuid:fa0ef010-766e-4f9e-9373-0f4439444c80> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.walkmag.co.uk/blogs/sarah-gardner-a-footpath-a-day-keeps-the-doctor-away/ | 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 | 0.967965 | 1,512 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Adams Hall Neighborhood
“A healthy social life is found only, when in the mirror of each soul the whole community finds its reflection, and when in the whole community the virtue of each one is living”
Welcome to the Adams Neighborhood! As you begin your time here at Dickinson there are a few things you should know.
First, being a college student is an exciting time as I’m sure many of you know! There are lots of opportunities that await you. Picture your first year as a college student as a choose your own adventure story. Within the first few weeks you will find that there are many opportunities to get involved in the community. Below are a number of ways to get involved with the Adams community.
Downtown Carlisle Connection- Neighbor to Neighbor-is the first year neighborhood community service opportunity. Throughout the year there will be different projects and ways to serve the Carlisle community. Adams Hall is working with the Downtown Carlisle Connection which is a board of community members that are working to give a voice to community members and are an active part of making Carlisle a great place to live! Bernadette Brandt is the student who will be working with the Carlisle board to bring ideas and activities to Adaminians (people that live in Adams). Some things that have been done in the past are working with others on neighborhood clean-up projects, community gardening, enhancing local parks, and many other area projects! Bernadette Brandt will be working in Adams neighborhood to help connect you to these exciting projects.
Association and Programming Board- Consider joining one of these boards within our neighborhood! They are a great way to plug into a leadership position quickly here at Dickinson. Each group meets weekly and all work with the Residential Community Director (RCD), who is a live in professional staff member.
Association- The Adams Association is a group within Adams that serves as a voice for the community. This particular group connects with others living in Adams and asks the question, “What do you want this community to look like?” This group also serves to address community concerns that arise from living together. One way for students to voice concerns is through the First Year Tab on Gateway. This concern is shared with the RCD who is then able to bring the issue to the Association. Living in community can sometimes be a challenge and the Association helps students navigate some of those challenges, helping to make Adams such a great place to live!
Not only does the Association work to create community standards for the Adams neighborhood, but they also have been significant in working to make Adams their home by giving some of the common spaces a makeover. The Association has also had the opportunity to work with not only the Adams RCD, but also with a faculty member, Marcus Key, and an Administrator. Occurring twice a semester is the faculty dinner which is a time to have a (free!) meal over good conversation with Marcus, Becky, and the other administrator. In many ways this particular group works as a liaison between the college and the Adams neighborhood and is a great way to get connected here at Dickinson!
Programming - The Adams Programming Board is active in planning programs for Adams residents. Some signature events to look for are the Adams Art Gallery, Sundaes on Sundays, Open Mic Nights, and the Adams Floor Olympics. These are just a few events that happen yearly, but with your ideas there is potential for many more programs! If you have a passion for planning and implementing events for our community then this is the group for you!
Some other events to look for…
The Dickinson Duel is a competition between the three first year areas (Adams vs. Drayer vs. the Quads). It is kicked off by the Quiz bowl at orientation and then a full day of competition September 22! Look for more details coming about this! It’s a great way to show Dickinson what Adaminians are made of!
Late Night Breakfast Study Snack is put on by Becky, Marcus, and the other administrator during finals week as a quick snack of breakfast foods to help with studying!
Cultural Night-A night of great food, dancing, and fun in Adams basement! Held during the first few weeks of school as a great way to get connected to others living in Adams!
Fall Fest- a day full of fall like activities, including pumpkin carving, tarot card readings, bouncy houses along with food and fun!
“I really enjoyed being on the Adams Neighborhood Association because it gave me the chance to be more involved in the neighborhood and to meet people, both students and staff, that I would not have otherwise. It gave me the opportunity to be a large part of the discussions and decisions in how to make dorm life more convenient and more enriching, and I was offered my present job on campus because of my involvement in the Association and my desire to contribute to the community in which I lived. I would strongly suggest becoming involved with your neighborhood in some way as it is great experience and a wonderful way to both meet more people and improve life for Adams residents for years to come.” - Katie Roy, Adams Alum
Have an interest in any of these groups feel free to get in touch with your RA or with your RCD, Becky Eby!
You can also email [email protected] to get connected or [email protected] to share programming ideas!
We’re also on Facebook- Adams Hall check us out! | <urn:uuid:b7d6dba7-6270-4f76-a0c4-2feb39fc958a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dickinson.edu/student-life/resources/campus-life/content/Adams-Hall-Neighborhood/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968627 | 1,127 | 1.53125 | 2 |
We all know that social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube can help us to expand our business to a variety of different consumers around the world. Once you decide to get your business out there using social media platforms, however, it is also recommended that you consider adding blogging to your activities.
I know, blogging is not a social media – but still, it helps you reach out to consumers, bring even more traffic to your website and, if done properly, it can also allow you to communicate and build connections with them as well. If you are interested in expanding your business beyond the typical social media networks, continue reading this article. Throughout, we will discuss some tips about blogging for small businesses.
Most of us have heard of the word ‘blog’ and some of you have already started blogging. However, there still are many entrepreneurs who don’t understand what the blog is and how it can benefit their business. And feeling as though everyone else in the world knows except for you, may lead you to be afraid to admit your ignorance. So for those who don’t know, let’s answer the basic question, what exactly is a blog? Simply put, blogs are like online diaries that allow people to express their opinions on various topics (any topic of their choice). They are generally updated on a regular basis, either daily or weekly, keeping readers up-to-date on the hottest news, opinions, or topics.
While blogging is often used for personal reasons, it is also becoming increasingly popular in the business world. Like any other social media outlet, blogs allow you to share information with the world and potential customers. Not only does blogging allow you to share information about your business, but it also allows you to share information about the topics surrounding your business. If, for example, you own a business related to social media marketing for small businesses, you could generate a blog and create entries such as “social media marketing how-to” or “the hottest new tools in the social media world”. When it comes to blogging the sky is the limit – you can make it whatever you want it to be.
If you want to use your small business blog to help communicate with prospects and customers, you can do that as well. All you need to do is open up your blog for comments, allowing readers to post replies. In replies they can leave their opinions or questions, you can then respond back sharing your expertise helping you build their trust. The best part? Creating your own blog is easy. All you need to do is select a domain name, set up your website (or add it to your existing site), and start blogging! It’s as easy as 1-2-3-4! If you’re just starting out, I strongly recommend Social Media Simplified Program which takes you step by step from no blog to a high ranking blog that strategically expands your existing branding and marketing. Our clients keep getting incredible results simply by using strategies and techniques we share in this info-packed program.
If you are interested in expanding your small business social media marketing tactics, blogging should definitely be a consideration. Similar to other social media tools, blogging allows you to reach out to a broader audience, capture their attention, and show them that you are an expert in your niche. Once your customers see that you are knowledgeable in your business area, they will be much more likely to invest in your product or service.
Magnetic Look works with small to medium size businesses who are looking to improve their positioning on the market and increase their profits. Our programs and services are designed to strategically deliver the results you need in order to succeed. If you need help creating systems and strategies for your small business brand that are easy to implement and bring you desired results fast, we’d love to hear from you. Learn more about how we can help you and request your quote here.
Powered by Facebook Comments | <urn:uuid:d0b086b7-167c-4380-b84f-731a9c427949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mymagneticblog.com/small-business-and-social-media-blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958269 | 810 | 1.78125 | 2 |
How do you mistakenly spend billions of dollars?
The Inspector General for the Veterans Administration, says the VA's payment system is so flawed that the agency lost 2.2 billion dollars in 2012.
That comes at a time when veterans wait extended periods for medical treatment, job training and education.
That's in spite of more scrutiny from the Inspector General's Office and VA money managers.
VA brass blames the mistakes on an out-of-date, manual payment system.
Brad Kalbfeld is with our investigative media partner, the Washington Guardian.
"To get a handle on the scale of this, the amount of money the veterans Administration made in improper payments last year is more than half the money the Navy was asked to cut from its expenditures as part of the sequester," Kalbfeld explained.
The Inspector General says once an erroneous payment is made, it's nearly impossible for the VA to recover it, constrained by both law and ability.
How long will it take for the VA to clean up it's payment mess? The answer can be found by going to the link to the Washington Guardian on our home page. | <urn:uuid:39b49c9f-52e3-450a-b366-ad7d166f4613> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cw15.com/news/local/story/How-did-the-Veterans-Administration-mistakenly/efMY5j47_km-tkVszUKNuw.cspx | 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 | 0.947895 | 230 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Why is there no traditional British fish soup when we have such great seafood? Time for one to be developed
The soup is a deep coppery gold, thick and lava-like when you dip in your spoon. There are half a dozen aromas: citric, woodsmoke, pepper, tomato, caramel and, of course, the sea. The soup floods the mouth, zesty with a rich, floury texture. I love fish soups and this may just be the best I’ve ever had.
“A good fish soup is lovely food,” wrote Elizabeth David, in that familiar exasperated schoolmistress tone. British fuddy-duddiness over matters of fish tended to get her particularly grumpy. “Surely it is curious that this island with its vast fishing industry has never evolved | <urn:uuid:d87e03ec-b76f-4f01-875d-2a1d93998cd4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/life/food/article3007952.ece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946201 | 171 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Speak2See app is now on the app store!
Speak to See LLC Introduces a “Visual Hearing” Application that Facilitates Patient/Care Giver Communication for Those who are Hard of Hearing.
For medical professionals and family members who are caring for an increasingly elderly population, Speak to See, is an exciting new “visual hearing” application that alleviates the struggle of communicating with those who are hard of hearing. The application was developed by a long term care physician in response to the daily difficulties of communicating with aging patients and provides a practical and thoughtful interface that has been the result of 25 years of patient care.
The application interface is simple. Use either the pre-loaded questions or speak your own into your i-phone or i-pad, which instantly magnifies the text to full screen, allowing the hard of hearing patient to read and instantly respond. To clear and move to the next question all it takes is a simple shake of the phone, allowing for fluid and seamless patient interaction avoiding the disruptive typing that has increasingly been associated with electronic charting.
The initial idea for the application came from seeing many hard of hearing patients says the inventor, Dr. Thomas E. Dahlberg. “It’s difficult when you can’t communicate with your patients. You either end up gathering insufficient information or spend time uncomfortably yelling until the patient can hear. So far patients have responded immediately to the large text, answering questions with more detail and self assurance. I have been able to communicate more effectively and efficiently with patients I’ve been seeing for 15 years, and as a result I believe I’ve been able to deliver better patient care.”
Speak to See is a small, but significant example of a positive application for emerging technology in the medical field and its ability to enhance communication through real-time interactions. Not only does Speak to See stand to increase the efficiency of patient care as well as the quality of the experience for doctors and nurses, but it can be a valuable tool for families caring for aging parents at home. As a facilitator of communication, Speak to See’s primary objective is to enhance the general quality of life for patients, care takers, and loved ones surrounding—a refreshing goal and hopefully only the beginning of many more practical uses for technology and patient care in the future.
About Speak to See: the application includes pre-loaded questions that cover basic HMI etc. | <urn:uuid:08447390-c3d0-496c-8ffa-7c45fad8ca84> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://appzdev.com/mac-iphone-blog/category/ipod-touch/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949455 | 504 | 1.59375 | 2 |
YANGON, Myanmar, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- Bangladesh will be the first country to move its embassy from Yangon to the new city and capital Naypyitaw, Myanmar's official newspaper said.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on an official three-day visit to Myanmar, formerly called Burma, unveiled the foundation stone at the site chosen for the construction of the embassy, the New Light of Myanmar reported.
The country's junta pronounced Naypyitaw, around 200 miles north of Yangon, as the capital in November 2005, although the site wasn't given an official name until March 2006.
The planned inner city with its wide, and mostly empty boulevards, is still being constructed and is home to many of the former ruling military leaders. The surrounding countryside and its towns and villages that make up Naypyitaw have a population of around just less than 1 million, a 2009 report said.
In August, Russian media announced that a Russian firm had won a contract to construct 30 mile of subway lines, the first for the Asian country.
The expansive layout of the inner city has enabled military leaders to present large military parades.
However, the diplomatic corps has been slow to move from Yangon, formerly called Rangoon and a historic port city.
An official from Naypyitaw Municipality told The Irrawaddy news Web site this month that 120 sections of land have been reserved for foreign embassies.
The official said China, India, Saudi Arabia and Russia will be moving their embassies from Yangon.
Hasina's visit to Myanmar is the first by a Bangladeshi prime minister in eight years and she reportedly discussed increased trade, including the purchase of natural gas, with Myanmar officials.
Trade between Myanmar and Bangladesh was $137 million this year. Bangladeshi and Myanmar ministers said they want to boost that to around $500 million annually within the next several years, the Irrawaddy report said.
But the two countries also must resolve the issue of 220,000 Rohingya people, Muslims from Myanmar, sheltering in refugee camps in Bangladesh. They fled rebel fighting with Myanmar's army and also ethnic discrimination in their native Arakan state in Myanmar.
A report in the Daily Star newspaper in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, said an agreement had been reached between Myanmar President Thein Sein and Hasina for Myanmar to repatriate the refugees.
The agreement depends on verification of refugee status by third parties, including the U.N. High Commission for Refugees that has been monitoring the Rohingya situation.
No date for repatriations to start was given in the Daily Star report.
|Additional Special Reports Stories|
WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) --Natura Pet Products is voluntarily recalling some of its dry pet food because of potential salmonella contamination, U.S. health officials said Tuesday.
REYKJAVIK, Iceland, June 19 (UPI) --Iceland's new prime minister this week cited the country's mackerel fishing dispute with the European Union as a prime example of the value of sovereignty. | <urn:uuid:89ae8925-0afc-4aac-84c2-87559fea9d40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/12/09/Myanmar-capital-to-get-its-first-embassy/UPI-51011323430080/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965813 | 638 | 1.734375 | 2 |
By Jayne Clark, USA TODAY
KUTA, Bali Two years after terrorist bombs killed 202 nightclubbing revelers in this party-hearty corner of paradise, Paddy's Pub, rebuilt and relocated after the blast, is going strong. (Photo gallery: Bali: Revisiting paradise
The pulsing bass of techno-funk filters into the street, mixing with the crystalline sounds of traditional gamelan music wafting from a shop across the street. A sign outside announces, "Drinking Contest Thursday Night!" It's just a warm-up to Friday's advertised "Back to Bali Party."
Visitors are returning to this archetypal paradise, a perennial on "best" lists in glossy travel magazines. In the past, it has annually lured up to 80,000 U.S. visitors halfway around the world to experience its sybaritic pleasures. August was the second-best ever for tourist arrivals. New luxury hotels and villas have opened. Still others have been renovated, further signaling Bali's tourism comeback.
But for much of the past two years, the al-Qaeda-linked blasts on Oct. 12, 2002, coupled with the outbreak of SARS elsewhere in Asia, decimated tourism. The bombings targeted visitors in this densely populated seaside town, a haunt of Australian and U.S. budget travelers. That such violence would occur on an island that is as regarded for its harmonious ways as its natural beauty shocked residents and visitors alike. Headlines around the world asked, "Paradise Lost?"
The short answer is no. The spirituality and artistry that imbue everyday life is unshaken. The majority of its 3 million residents are Hindu, making the island culturally distinct from the rest of predominantly Muslim Indonesia. Balinese Hindus believe the gods are everywhere; their daily offerings to them — bits of rice, fruit and flowers arranged on leaves like three-dimensional still lifes — are ubiquitous, from sidewalks to dashboards to shop counters. Terraced rice paddies plowed by oxen glimmer like emerald sculptures throughout the island. Worshipers dressed in their best sarongs congregate at temples (there are thousands of various types) on frequent holy days.
"The people are wonderful: happy, pleasing, generous. They're smart. They're curious. And they live a really rich life," says April Armstrong, an administrative law judge from Butte, Mont., over coffee at the sprawling Le Meridien hotel on the island's west coast. It is her fourth trip here in just two years, and each time, she hires the same $45-a-day driver for forays around the Delaware-size island.
"Everybody asks me why I come back," she says. "I really don't know. But there's something magical here." That word is often invoked by habitués struggling to characterize Bali's allure.
"People say there's something mystical and magical here," says Trent Munday, general manager of the new Uma Ubud hotel in the interior highlands. "There are so many layers to Bali: the architecture, the sense of community, the spirituality."
Shortly after arriving, Munday came to realize just how pervasive that spirituality is. When a number of glitches occurred as the hotel was nearing completion, a Balinese employee pointed out that appropriate blessings and offerings hadn't been made. The rituals were performed. The trouble ended.
"We've had blessings of the rooms. Blessings of the mountain bikes. Blessings of everything," Mundy says. "There are logical reasons for everything, and you can question (the effectiveness) of the blessings. But at the end of the day, they believe. So it's very powerful."
Just west of Ubud in the village of Sayan, John O'Sullivan, general manager of the island's two Four Seasons resorts, relaxes on the terrace of the Sayan hotel, perched treehouse-style high above the rugged Ayung River Gorge. He boasts that not once in his tenure has an event been rained out, thanks to the employment of professional Balinese "rain stoppers" who, it is believed, have the power to redirect storms. Though O'Sullivan doesn't claim to understand the phenomenon, he doesn't quibble with success.
Occupancy at the architecturally spectacular hotel, where rooms start at about $400 a night, dipped after the bombing but is gradually climbing. In August, 80% of the accommodations were filled vs. 49% a year before.
Posh hotels and gorgeous scenery notwithstanding, Bali's real draw is its people.
"Bali is a lot of things to a lot of people. The Australians come to surf. Others come for the spa resorts. Some come to find themselves," O'Sullivan says. "But the reason Bali affects (visitors) is because of the people."
Its beauty also lies in the small moments that make up a tourist's day. It's in walking down a darkened street and hearing the sounds of the flutes, metallophones and drums of the Indonesian gamelan orchestra emanating from a nearby temple. It's in the almost nightly performances in which elaborately costumed dancers portray the cosmic struggle between good and evil.
It's in the street vendor who notices a flaw in the bag a customer has selected and insists she take another. (To do otherwise would be bad karma.) It's in the massage therapist who goes overtime in a superb $8, hour-long treatment, then seems genuinely surprised to receive a tip. It's in the service at a warung, or refreshment stand, where a cold drink is presented along with a cool, scented cloth.
And it's in the way the Balinese, with their tightly knit social structure and respect for tradition, have deflected the more corrupting elements of tourism.
Not that the place is perfect. Traffic is treacherous. In populated areas, the island's narrow two-lane roads are clogged by box trucks, tour buses and legions of motorbikes — sometimes carrying a family of four — mingling in clouds of blue exhaust. Bali could benefit from an anti-litter campaign. And beer-and-testosterone-fueled tourists rule in Kuta.
The cognoscenti make tracks to the lush, hilly countryside and artisan villages around Ubud; to the upscale lodgings of Jimbaran; the solitude of east Bali; or the planned seaside tourist enclave of Nusa Dua in the south, where large Western-branded hotels line a wide, manicured boulevard.
But even tourists disdainful of Kuta's commercialism will come to the island's most densely populated tourist mecca. Its narrow streets are lined with budget hotels and eateries, and Western icons such as the Hard Rock Hotel, Starbucks and storefronts bearing high-end designer names that may or may not be selling the real thing.
Kuta is Bali's Tijuana. It's also Bali's Ground Zero. The Sari Club, once the hottest nightspot in a town of nightspots and the scene of most of the carnage, was leveled. It's gone but not forgotten. The lot where it stood is surrounded by an iron fence festooned with tinfoil wreaths, bouquets, messages and Xeroxed photos of the dead.
But if paradise wasn't lost after the bombings, some innocence was. Islanders are more watchful of outsiders. At better hotels, guards check the undercarriages of vehicles. At least one resort, the sleek new Conrad Bali, has a bomb-sniffing dog on staff. And at Paddy's Pub, the crowd trickling in for the Thursday night drinking contest casually submits to a metal-detecting wand.
Still, for the Balinese, life goes on.
"Culturally, the Bali bombing was finished quickly," says Conrad general manager Michael Burchett. "After feeling they were being punished, they made their offerings, said their prayers and moved on."
And nowhere is that more apparent than on Kuta Beach, where the sellers are once again out in force. A phalanx surrounds a tourist, variously offering jewelry, massages, sarongs and pedicures. The tourist throws off her shoes and sits for a shoulder massage. The women settle down alongside her, delivering such cheerful banter that it's hard to distinguish the hucksterism from the fellowship.
Suddenly, they're shaken by movement from deep within the sand.
"Earthquake, earthquake, earthquake!" They cry in unison. After the 5.5 tremor subsides, they begin to chant another word that, roughly translated, means "alive."
Then, as suddenly as it began, the drama is over. They return to their banter and negotiations. Their world has been rocked, but only temporarily. They've uttered their prayers and now they move on. | <urn:uuid:99075144-41d5-4e08-83ad-50250b8d245a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2004-10-14-bali_x.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961781 | 1,846 | 1.671875 | 2 |
PHILADELPHIA -- Asked to describe the quality of her school cafeteria's food last year, Sophia Santiago wrinkled her nose. She narrowed her eyes. She chose her words carefully.
"The pizza tasted like rubber," said Sophia, 11, a sixth-grader at Juniata Park Academy. "I am so serious."
"Kids would just throw their whole lunch away," added fifth-grader Joseph Hamas, 10.
Squeezed by increasingly brutal budgets, the Philadelphia School District in recent years has moved to close dozens of full-service cafeterias, switching those schools to meals prepared in a warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y., and trucked into Philadelphia.
Students, advocates, and even district staff agree: The pre-plated food is often less than appealing.
Of the district's roughly 280 meal sites, about 200 still receive the "satellite" meals made out-of-state, frozen, transported, and then warmed in school kitchens. But in an effort to make lunch more appetizing, the district in September converted 10 cafeterias back to full service, with on-site lunch ladies preparing meals daily.
The reaction at the 10 schools has been tremendous, said Wayne Grasela, the district's senior vice president for food services.
Or, as Juniata Park seventh-grader Christy Tran put it, "everyone was doing a victory dance when they saw the kitchen was back to the way it used to be."
When the district closed 26 full-service cafeterias at the end of the 2010-11 school year, officials said they were saving $2.3 million. Grasela said reopening the 10 cafeterias this year was cost-neutral: Only schools with relatively modern buildings that didn't need new equipment were chosen.
The district is also relying on a "lean labor" model in the 10 kitchens: Though extra staff was brought back to accommodate the shift away from pre-plated meals, the district chooses menu items that don't require an abundance of prep work, thus limiting its labor cost.
There's more to do this year, said cafeteria worker Migdalia Dancel, but the children are happier. They take more fruits and vegetables, have more choices, throw away less food.
"There's more interaction with our staff in the serving line," Grasela said. "There's an opportunity for staff to work with them to explain what it is we're serving, encourage them to take healthy options." | <urn:uuid:12ba415c-fa59-41ec-acd2-69cd28e6540f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.goerie.com/article/20121110/NEWS06/311109941/Philly-schools-reopen-some-full-service-cafeterias | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975755 | 515 | 1.664063 | 2 |
She'd Never Marry Him!
The last man Arabella Hadley ever wishes to see again is Lucien Deveraux, the handsome, dissolute Duke of Wexford -- who broke her innocent heart years ago and disappeared to London. So when she finds an unconscious man on her deserted country road and sees that it's Lucien, she's tempted to leave him there. But even more appalling than his presence is the brazen kiss he plants on her shocked lips and her response! So it would be totally insane to take him home to recover -- wouldn't it?
Except For One Small Thing...
Lucien dares not reveal why he's returned to his country estate -- or why he abandoned the strong-willed beauty years ago. Especially since Arabella clearly has secrets of her own. But when her scheming, marriage-minded aunts successfully compromise them, the two are forced to become man and wife. Which makes it ever harder for both to battle the passion that never disappeared...
"Lawks, Wilson! Why'd ye go an' do that?"
The carriage jolted to a sudden halt, sending a basketof raspberry jam crashing to the floor. In alarm, Arabella Hadley threw open the carriage door and peered through the night gloom. "Ned? What's happened?"
"Come quick, Miss Hadley!" the stable hand called. A stout, simple lad of seventeen, he also served as footman, errand boy, cook's assistant, and did every other odd job Arabella could not afford to hire out. "Wilson's done it agin."
The old groom's voice lifted in protest. "Hush your blatherin, boy! There's no need to call the missus."
Arabella stepped across the spilled jam and clambered out of the carriage. She only hoped Wilson hadn't run over another hapless pig. Lord Harlbrook still hadn't recovered from the loss of his prize livestock from last month. She halted when she came to the front of the carriage. "Why have we stopped?"
Ned pointed to Wilson, who stood muttering to one side of the coach. "He was drivin' the coach like a madman agin, and --"
"I was not," Wilson protested.
"Were, too. As we came. round the comer, it musta frightened the man's horse cause it jus' bolted up and --"
"What man?" Arabella interrupted.
Wilson pointed with a grubby hand to the side of the road.
Arabella turned with apprehension. In the dim light, she could just make out the form of a large man lying prone in the dirt. Her heart sank when she noted his multicaped coat and the unmistakable gleam of a costly pair of Hessians, shined to mirrored perfection.
"Heavens!" she managed in a faint voice. "Is he...dead?"
"Lawks, no." Willson jerked his thumb toward a fat,
craggy tree. "He jus' smacked his head on that branchwhen his horse reared."
The low-slung limb quivered as if still recoiling from the blow. Thank God Wilson hadn't run over the poor man; the last thing she needed was the attention of the local constabulary.
The old groom poked at the man with the tip of his worn boot. "Must not have much of a seat, to lose controlof his mount."
"A green 'un'" agreed Ned. "Pity his horse ran off. Master Robert would have liked such a prime goer."
"The last thing my brother needs is a horse that rears at the slightest provocation," Arabella said in a dry tone.
"Give me the lantern. I must see how badly this poor man is injured."
"Don't get too close," warned Wilson from a safe distance. "He might come awake and be none too happy to find hisself a-lyin' on the ground."
"If he lunges at me, I give you full perrnission to shoot him." Arabella bent to examine the man by the lantern's light. "Judging by the quality of his clothing, he must be a gentleman of some means."
Wilson snorted. "He may look a gent, but ye ne'er know. Don't get any closer, Miss Arabella. Lady Durham and Lady Melwin would never forgive us if anything happened to you."
Arabella thought her aunts would be more upset that they had not been present for such an exciting episode. Aunt Emma and Aunt Jane were both addicted to flights of romantic fancy. Fortunately, life had cured Arabella of that fault long, long ago.
She bent closer to the fallen man. He lay on his side, his broad shoulders rising and falling in a reassuringly steady rhythm. Black as midnight, his hair fell across a large purple lump on his brow, while the rest of his face remained obscured by the folds of a woolen muffler.
The wind rose, carrying with it the faintest taste of snow. Arabella shivered and tugged her cloak closer. She had little choice but to take their guest back to Rosemont. Her aunts would look after him until... | <urn:uuid:18f97587-f77e-4ae4-9a6e-07bf359a233c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-abelatedbride-320213-162.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973624 | 1,098 | 1.609375 | 2 |
At a brief ceremony this morning, DNR Law Enforcement Officer Jim McCarthy formally received his special commission from Pacific County. DNR Law Enforcement Officers receive these special commissions to allow them to enforce the law within a county when they are not on DNR-managed land. McCarthy was appointed in August by Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark. A 25-year veteran of the Washington Highway Patrol, McCarthy enforces state laws and safety regulations on State trust lands in several Western Washington counties including Pacific County. His patrol area includes thousands of acres of state trust lands and conservation areas.
Washington state law classifies DNR Law Enforcement Officers as ‘limited authority’ Washington peace officers, which means they primarly detect or apprehend violators in areas of the law under their agencies’ jurisdiction. Others in this category include peace officers working for the Department of Corrections, Parks and Recreation Commission, and State Liquor Control Board among others. City police and county sheriff’s deputies are among those classified as ‘general authority’ officers, commissioned to enforce the criminal laws of the state generally.
|Follow DNR on:| | <urn:uuid:d4dbcdd9-6360-4c50-aed5-ce0c0eaef104> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://washingtondnr.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/dnr-law-enforcement-officers-help-keep-counties-safe-too/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954599 | 228 | 1.507813 | 2 |
In The Avengers, the Hulk lives in Calcutta — and doesn't lose his temper over the city's traffic and other problems. That might not ring true to anyone who's been there, says Sandip Roy.
In The Avengers, the Hulk lives in Calcutta — and doesn't lose his temper over the city's traffic and other problems. That might not ring true to anyone who's been there, says Sandip Roy. Marvel
When I went to see The Avengers the very day it was released, I texted a friend in San Francisco. It seems kind of unfair, I said, that because of the 12-hour time difference, I get to see The Avengers before you do.
Turns out I was a week off. The Avengers actually released in 39 countries around the world, including India, a week before it opens in America.
Once, we waited patiently in India for the latest Hollywood releases to trickle their way over. That's no longer true for the big popcorn and cola blockbusters like The Avengers. Perhaps the studios want to get in on the action before the pirates do. Perhaps they have woken up to the fact that there is a big market in the world, beyond L.A. and New York.
Either way, I am thrilled.
But sadly, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The businessmen in Hollywood might be aware there is a new world out there. The scriptwriters, it seems, are still stuck in the old one.
Sitting in a fancy multiplex theater in Calcutta with cushy seats, 3-D glasses perched on my nose, I discovered that Calcutta has a cameo in the film.
It is not the only city to star in The Avengers. There's Manhattan and Stuttgart, as well. Unlike poor Calcutta, however, they look like cities actually worth saving from invading alien hordes.
Sandip Roy is culture editor with Firstpost.com in India. He is on leave from New America Media in San Francisco.
Calcutta looked cramped, squalid and leprous, as in City of Joy from 20 years ago. Then, Patrick Swayze was saving lepers. This time around, Mark Ruffalo is Dr. Bruce Banner, keeping his inner Hulk under control by saving eternally ill slum-dwellers.
This is not the reverse migration story about the West coming East in search of the future. Or even to Eat, Pray, and Love. It is a throwback to a much older idea of India: a black hole, all slumdogs, no millionaires, waiting to be saved by a foreign do-gooder.
But why does the Hulk even go there?
"For a man avoiding stress, you picked a helluva place to settle," the Black Widow tells Banner.
That is an understatement.
Given Calcutta's notorious traffic jams, stifling sweaty heat and frustrating lackadaisical inefficiency, Bruce Banner should have been exploding into the Incredible Hulk every second day.
That he keeps his cool in Calcutta is the real unexplained mystery of The Avengers. As the summer sweats up here, I, too, want to know his secret. | <urn:uuid:79df6137-fe23-4a55-b42b-fcd373a20097> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151854647/watching-the-avengers-in-india-with-a-twist | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956958 | 665 | 1.5 | 2 |
New York, NY, November 7, 2007 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today welcomed a decision by Interpol’s General Assembly to uphold arrest warrants for five Iranians and one Lebanese believed to be behind the 1994 terrorist attacks on a Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in which 85 people were killed and hundreds wounded. The General Assembly, meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, upheld a March 2007 decision by Interpol's executive committee to arrest the Iranian and Hezbollah-linked masterminds and perpetrators of the attack on the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA).
“Today’s vote is an important demonstration of the international community’s commitment to bringing the perpetrators of this heinous terrorist attack targeting Jews to justice, and an important signal to state-sponsors of terrorism,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
“We stand with the Argentine Jewish community in our hope that this decision will mean that no effort will be spared by law enforcement around the world until justice is served for the AMIA victims.”
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry. | <urn:uuid:14e37f96-11a0-411d-821e-055ad0b11fa1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/terrorism/adl-welcomes-interpol.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931154 | 256 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Rule 6.12. Report by substitute
A. A committee may report a substitute for any House bill or for a joint resolution originating in the House, or for several House bills on the same subject or for several joint resolutions on the same subject which originated in the House, which substitute, if adopted by the House, shall be numbered, and read on three separate days, as in the case of original bills, but need not again be sent to a House committee to be considered. A committee may also report a substitute for a House resolution or for several House resolutions on the same subject, or for a House concurrent resolution or several House concurrent resolutions on the same subject, which substitute if adopted by the House shall be numbered and shall be considered in the manner of House resolutions or House concurrent resolutions reported by committee.
B. Any substitute reported by a committee shall be germane to the original instrument(s). Any report by a committee of a bill or joint resolution originating in the House which would have the effect of striking all material following the enacting clause or the "Be It Resolved" clause shall be by substitute rather than with amendments.
C. When any instrument is reported by substitute, the substitute shall reflect the same authors in the same order as those of the instrument being reported by substitute, if such authors so consent. If more than one instrument is reported by the same substitute, the authors, present and consenting, shall be listed as they appear on such instruments in the order in which the instruments were introduced. In addition, additional coauthors may be added thereafter.
Mason's Manual: Sec. 617, 677, and 722(3)
HR 3, 1973; HR 10, 1975; HR 4, 1978; HR 45, 1998, eff. May 20, 1998. | <urn:uuid:e6272570-dd13-451b-9e41-d5e94e66fafa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://legis.la.gov/lss/newWin.asp?doc=113320 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947842 | 366 | 1.625 | 2 |
Wed February 8, 2012
Talk Of War Against Iran Heats Up
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Syria's turmoil has overshadowed but not stopped talk about war in another country - Iran. The usual scenario is that Israel might strike Iranian nuclear facilities, with or without the approval of the United States. In The Daily Beast, historian Niall Ferguson dismissed concerns about a strike. In the Washington Post, David Ignatius wrote that U.S. officials oppose an Israeli strike but think it may come in the spring.
We put some basic questions to Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Why is there so much talk about a possible war with Iran now, as opposed to any other time?
KARIM SADJADPOUR: Well, Iran is inching much closer now to a nuclear weapons capability and there's particularly concern in Israel that Iran is close to reaching the so-called zone of immunity whereby if they pass a certain point it will be very difficult to set back their program, even militarily.
INSKEEP: How firm is the intelligence that Iran is getting closer to a nuclear capability?
SADJADPOUR: The intelligence isn't incredibly firm. My sources both within the White House and senior ranking Israelis tell me that Iran, if it were to make a decision tomorrow that it wanted to push full speed ahead for a nuclear weapon, it's still at least two years away from reaching that point. And it's very likely that Iran's nuclear sites have been penetrated by foreign intelligence agencies. So there are likely to be more computer viruses and explosions and things like we've seen in the past.
INSKEEP: OK. So there's some question about when the deadline is. It may not necessarily be this year then, depending on which expert you talk with.
SADJADPOUR: That's right. And I think that there's a distinction here between Iran acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon itself. And for the United States, they would certainly would like to prevent both, but I think a red line issue for the United States is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The Israelis, I think, have red lines which are a bit more stringent. They're worried about Iran even acquiring a nuclear weapons capability.
INSKEEP: And so that's part of the reason when we ask why is there so much talk of Iran now, it is partly driven by Israel, stories out of Israel and concerns from Israel about Iran's course.
SADJADPOUR: That's certainly part of it. There's multiple reasons directed from multiple audiences. Certainly another reason why you hear a lot of chatter about the possibility of war is to try to strengthen the course of diplomacy. Meaning you look at a country like China, and China is opposed to sanctions against Iran because it feels like sanctions against Iran are inimical to its energy interests. China needs vast amounts of energy. Iran has vast amounts of energy and henceforth there's an important commercial relationship between those two sides. And one of the messages of threatening war against Iran is to say to the Chinese, listen, if you think you're opposing sanctions because it's bad for your energy interests, if we bomb Iran, it's going to be far worse for your energy interests because oil prices are going to skyrocket. So, the hope is that countries like China will calculate that sanctioning Iran or signing up sanctions against Iran is the least bad option for them.
INSKEEP: And that requires a little talk of war to make sure that the Chinese know that people are serious.
INSKEEP: Now, what has really changed regarding the sanctions against Iran? Of course, there have been sanctions for many, many years against this regime. How much tighter are they today than they were a few weeks ago or months ago?
SADJADPOUR: The pressure against Iran has reached unprecedented levels because you in the past several weeks have had the U.S. government sanctioning Iran's Central Bank, trying to cut off Iran from the global financial system. And the Europeans announced a sanction against Iranian oil, essentially embargoing Iranian oil. And it is true in the last years Iran has gradually shifted their economy westward to eastward, meaning they're less reliant on the Europeans and increasingly dealing with countries like China and India. But that said, Iran still exports almost 20 percent of its oil to European oil markets, and losing that is not going to be negligible for Iran. I think Iran is certainly going to feel the hurt, if indeed those oil sanctions are implemented, which they stand to be implemented in late July.
INSKEEP: Is that another reason that there's so much talk of war with Iran right now, because the sanctions are so serious that the Iranians themselves might be willing to risk a war?
SADJADPOUR: I think there's a legitimate concern that you have hardline actors in Tehran who feel like the walls are closing around them internationally, and domestically this tremendous popular disaffection. And one way to try to resuscitate revolutionary fervor is to invite an attack, provoke some type of a military conflagration for their own domestic expediency.
INSKEEP: Karim Sadjadpour with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Thanks again for talking with us.
SADJADPOUR: Anytime, Steve. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
INSKEEP: It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio. | <urn:uuid:75883cc4-6a34-4891-96ac-a487a6915108> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utahpublicradio.org/post/talk-war-against-iran-heats | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96942 | 1,149 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Yesterday we wrote about how to create a CD ladder. CD ladders are a great way to take advantage of the high interest rates of long-term CDs and the liquidity of short-term CDs. But to be honest, they are a bit of a nuisance to create.
CD laddering requires you to open and manage multiple certificates of deposit. Once opened, you have to monitor the CDs and roll them over into longer term deposits until the ladder is complete. While that process is much easier with online banks, it can still be a hassle.
There is an alternative–open just one long-term CD that has a low penalty for early withdrawals. Ally Bank offers a 5-year CD with an early withdrawal penalty of just two months worth of interest. It’s the smallest penalty we’ve seen for a long-term CD. The current interest rate on the 5-year certificate of deposit is . Given this rate and withdrawal penalty, the 5-year CD is a great alternative to short-term CDs, regardless of whether you plan to create a CD ladder.
For example, let’s assume you invest $10,000 in a 5-year CD, but have to withdrawal your money after 12 months to handle an emergency. At 3% simple interest, you would have earned $300 before the penalty. Two months worth of interest would equal $50, so your actual return for the year would be $250, or 2.5%. (Because of compounding, your actual return would be a bit higher). So even with the penalty, the 5-year CD beats out the rate on a 1-year CD (currently about ) by a long shot.
The small withdrawal penalty has another benefit, too. One of the risks of long-term CDs is the chance that rates will rise and you’ll be stuck with the lower rate until the CD matures. But with such a small penalty, if rates rise significantly, you can still consider withdrawing the money, paying the penalty, and putting the money back into a new 5-year CD with the higher interest rate. | <urn:uuid:747841a1-5b73-48f0-9590-ea9477ec2f28> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doughroller.net/banking/dead-simple-alternative-cd-laddering/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95353 | 429 | 1.773438 | 2 |
The Story of Knole & the Sackvilles
Date of publication: May 2011
Since its purchase in 1604 by Thomas Sackville, 1st Earl of Dorset, the house at Knole, Kent, has been inhabited by thirteen generations of a single aristocratic family, the Sackvilles. Here, drawing on a wealth of unpublished letters, archives and images, the current incumbent of the seat, Robert Sackville-West, paints a vivid and intimate portrait of the vast, labyrinthine house and the close relationships his colourful ancestors formed with it. Inheritance is the story of a house and its inhabitants, a family described by Vita Sackville-West as 'a race too prodigal, too amorous, too weak, too indolent and too melancholy; a rotten lot, and nearly all stark staring mad'.
Where some revelled in the hedonism of aristocratic life, others rebelled against a house which, in time, would disinherit them, shutting its doors to them forever. It's a drama in which the house itself is a principal character, it's fortunes often mirroring those of the family. Every detail holds a story: the portraits, and and all the junk which the subjects of those portraits left behind, point to pivotal moments in history; all the rooms, and the objects that fill them, are freighted with an emotional significance that has been handed down from generation to generation.
Now owned by the National Trust, Knole is today one of the largest houses in England, visited by thousands annually and housing one of the country's finest collections of second-hand Royal furniture. It's a pleasure to follow Robert Sackville-West, as he unravels the private life of a public place on a fascinating, masterful, four-hundred-year tour through the memories and memorabilia, political, financial and domestic, of his extraordinary family. | <urn:uuid:c020a936-aaf0-4fe8-b1a5-a112425985ba> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/bookshop/details.aspx?titleId=1634&tab=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958458 | 387 | 1.84375 | 2 |
How to Keep Dust Mites Away from Your BedroomJanuary 19th, 2010 by Staff Writer
Do you want dust mites crawling around your bedroom? Dust mites are very small arachnids that can live amongst you in your bedroom. They eat human skin that sheds. Our skin is constantly shedding, which gives the dust mites a constant source of food. Although it may be difficult to remove them from your bedroom completely, it is possible to try to reduce the number that are present. Dust mites can impact your health. This impact is especially serious for those with dust mite allergies. Dust mites can be reduced by getting pillow and bed covers, by having surfaces that are easily cleaned, and by choosing your flooring choice wisely.
Pillow and Bed Covers
At most any department stores you can find covers for both the bed and the pillow. These covers come in a variety of sizes to fit every size pillow and mattress. These covers typically have a zipper that seal the cover. This cover prevents dust mites from actually entering the pillow or mattress. Based on the manufacturers recommendations, the covers need to be washed to remove any dust mites. Without the cover, dust mites can enter and live in your pillow case and mattress.
Easy to Clean Surfaces
Another way to reduce the number of dust mites is by keeping all surfaces free of objects. By having smooth surfaces, it reduces the surface area for the dust mites to live on by. A shelf with nothing on it will have less area than a shelf with picture frames or collector plates. A shelf free of items will also be much easier to clean. The more often a surface is cleaned the less dust mites will be present.
Choosing the Best Flooring
Dust mites have numerous hiding spots. The flooring type can make a difference in the amount of dust mites that can settle. A carpeted floor allows dust mites to settle within the carpet. Although vacuuming is an important way of reducing dust mites, it may not be possible to remove the dust mites completely. Vacuums are not always able to get to the dust mites especially when they are deeper in the carpet. By choosing a flooring type that does not allow the dust mites to bury into the surface the amount of dust mites that are present will decrease. Flooring types such as wood or linoleum do not allow the dust mites to hide. With these flooring types, it is easy to damp mop the floor, which allows the dust mites to be removed.
Reducing dust mites is an important part of staying healthy. By getting pillows covers and bed covers dust mites are not able to invade your bedding. The way you decorate your bedroom can impact the presence of dust mites. Whenever possible, try to reduce the number of items on a flat surface to make it easier to clean. Dust mites have many places to hide but by eliminating carpeting in your bedroom you are eliminating one significant place. By making your bedroom as dust mite free as possible you will be taking a step to improving your health. | <urn:uuid:d62358df-6112-4569-8713-717da8cdab52> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ohmyapt.apartmentratings.com/how-to-keep-dust-mites-away-from-your-bedroom.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943536 | 643 | 1.601563 | 2 |
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Ben Bradlee on Deep Throat
Bradlee answers your questions
Watergate: The Biggest Story -- And the Most Intense Moment of Our Lives
By Benjamin C. Bradlee
Benjamin Bradlee is vice president at large and former executive editor of The Washington Post.
Red Square in the rain might seem an oddly inappropriate place to recall the basic incredibility of Watergate and to ponder its meaning.
But last week, 20 years after the great American political scandal, a couple dozen reporters and TV cameramen stood under St. Basil's colorful, many-onioned church, doing exactly that.
We were there because a cameo appearance by Richard M. Nixon had been announced -- to participate in the photo-op presentation of three truckloads of humanitarian aid to Russia and to "answer questions." The real reason we were there was not the humanitarian aid story, with its top-heavy symbolism. What was irresistible was the conjunction of Watergate's 20th anniversary and the chance to ask its long-lived protagonist even a single question, not that there was any real hope of a straight answer.
But the questions that have plagued us for a generation plague us still. How much did Nixon know and when did he know it? Did he really think that there were ends that justified those means? Did Nixon really think he could get away with it? Had he ever felt remorse? Is he sorry now and what is he sorry about?
We all waited for 90 minutes in the rain until some minion was dispatched to say something had "come up" to cause Nixon to change his schedule. The humanitarian aid remained in the trucks, unblessed by cameras and unblessed by Nixon. The questions remained unasked as well as unanswered.
With no new answers, we are left with our memories.
My overwhelming memory of those 26 months -- from the day the five burglars were caught with their rubber gloves on, with the crisp hundred-dollar bills in their pockets and White House phone numbers in their address books, to the president's embarrassingly public final torture -- is simply this.
No news story has ever grabbed and held Washington by the throat the way Watergate did. No news story in my experience ever dominated conversation, newspapers, radio and television broadcasts the way Watergate did. There were times when you could walk whole city blocks and ride taxis all around town and never miss a word of hearings or press conferences.
There were times when anyone with a friend at The Washington Post couldn't go home at night without calling for a "fill" on the next day's Watergate story. People literally couldn't wait for the radio and TV stations to read the next day's Post stories on the 11 o'clock news. Looking back, it's easy to forget that The Post published more than 300 Watergate stories. Each was a comparatively small bite of an apple whose size we were to recognize only later. During that first summer (1972), we felt lonely. Few of our colleagues outside The Post were with us, and in the great American tradition, many newspapers seemed to be trying to knock our stories down. We did everything but keep Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's heads in a pail of water until they produced more stories -- as they did week after week. But we waited in vain for other papers to pick up the story.
Only toward the end of October 1972, when Walter Cronkite devoted two consecutive broadcasts to Watergate, did many editors begin to take The Post's Watergate coverage seriously. I remember the day that Gordon Manning, then a big cheese at CBS News, now at NBC and a former colleague of mine at Newsweek, called up with the good news. Cronkite was going to make us famous, Manning said. He was going to pull our chestnuts out of the fire.
The price for this wonderful gift, Manning announced, was the documents. "We need all the documents," Manning said, "television is a visual medium." I told him we had no documents, we had never had any, it was all original reporting. He stressed what a favor he was doing for us. He recalled the length and quality of our friendship.
Finally Manning was persuaded and we were delighted that the visuals in Cronkite's great pair of broadcasts consisted almost entirely of montages of Washington Post front pages.
Still, it wasn't until well into the winter of 1973 that the rest of the American press not only joined the hunt for the truth but contributed solid, original reporting of their own. Even so, when the Pulitzer juries, those pillars of the American newspaper establishment, met in New York to choose the best stories of 1972, their disbelief in Watergate was awesome. We had entered our Watergate coverage in the public service category, the most prestigious of all -- what we called "Big Casino."
When the jury's verdict was revealed to the advisory board, on which I sat, the results staggered me. Five newspapers had been selected as finalists by the public service jury -- but not The Washington Post.
When I arrived at Pulitzer headquarters at Columbia University for the actual prize decisions, I was greeted by my fellow board members Newbold Noyes, editor of the Washington Star, and James (Scotty) Reston, the dean of Washington correspondents from the New York Times. They told me they had decided that The Post should be granted the public service award and they intended to overrule the jury.
That was great, I thought to myself, but it was only later that I learned the price. The advisory board overruled two of the three other prizes juries had recommended for Post reporters -- Haynes Johnson's for spot national reporting, and Robert Kaiser's and Dan Morgan's for foreign reporting -- and given them to others. (David Broder still got his prize for political commentary.) By this time, the press was united in pursuit of the story of a lifetime and the government was united in covering it up.
Woodward and Bernstein were refining their most important single contribution to American journalism -- persistence. They had no qualms about calling a source back and back and back. And, of course, their persistence paid off.
We pressured them to produce, but once they produced, we pressured them for documentation and for sourcing. We grew more cautious as the story unfolded -- in retrospect, often too cautious. I remember not believing -- and keeping out of the paper -- stories about the plumbers' efforts to discredit Teddy Kennedy. I remember specifically underestimating the importance of the tapes when I first heard that they actually existed.
We worked incredibly long hours -- especially Woodward, Bernstein, Howard Simons, Len Downie, Barry Sussman. We could almost feel public support growing despite occasional low moments. The first low moment I remember involved the days just before the 1972 election, when Sen. Bob Dole and Nixon campaign manager Clark MacGregor (and after the election, Republican National Committee Chairman George Bush) belittled The Post's effort, to put it mildly. None of us saw many Republican big shots socially. The ones I saw, like Henry Kissinger and Pete Peterson, were absolutely convinced we were ruining a great newspaper -- and said so openly.
The lowest moment came over our story about a $350,000 slush fund controlled by White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman from the White House. We had said that campaign official Hugh Sloan had testified about the fund to the federal grand jury investigating Watergate.
We watched the news a lot in those days to see how TV was playing our stories and we were all horrified one morning to see Dan Schorr of CBS shove a microphone into Sloan's face and to hear Sloan deny he had said any such thing to the grand jury.
We went to general quarters and told Woodward and Bernstein to find out what had gone wrong. What had gone wrong was that Sloan had told prosecutor Henry Petersen about the slush fund but Petersen had not questioned him on that subject before the grand jury. We wondered why. Later we learned that the slush fund had $700,000 in it, not $350,000.
There were a few days, though, when we were genuinely worried and we knew that our colleagues in the media were wondering whether the story was going to collapse. Sometimes we felt they were hoping, not wondering. Once the Senate hearings started, followed inevitably by the impeachment investigation in the House, we began to think that it would take the departure of President Nixon to unravel the case. For months I had worried that it would end up as a tie -- the press claiming one thing, the president claiming another and the public splitting along party lines.
By early August 1974 it began to look as though Nixon would leave one way or another. The Post had a strange source, revealed here for the first time, in Sen. Barry Goldwater. With Senate Minority Leader Hugh Scott and House Minority Leader John Rhodes, Goldwater made a special visit to the White House to give Nixon the bad news: He did not have the votes to prevent impeachment.
When Goldwater called after that meeting, it was to warn me against writing something that would make Nixon feel that he was trapped. "He is trapped, but don't you bastards say it," is the way Goldwater put it.
Soon after that conversation, we had a staff meeting to warn against any public displays in connection with the resolution of the case. Anything that could be interpreted as gloating or rejoicing was worthy of a firing, if not a firing squad. We decided to give no interviews, to allow no TV cameras in the Post building and to make no statements.
And suddenly it was over. The most intense moment of all our lives. The president had resigned.
I left town almost immediately for an isolated log cabin in West Virginia to finish a book about John Kennedy. A month later I went on a long vacation that Katharine Graham, the publisher who had stood beside us all the way, had decided we all deserved. I chose Brazil -- the jungles of Brazil -- because I thought at least there would be no talk of Watergate.
When we landed in Manaus, two journalists speaking in heavy German accents met us at the bottom of the landing ramp. I heard the words "Haldeman" and "Ehrlichman" -- they were asking about something Haldeman had said to John Ehrlichman. "What did he mean?" they wanted to know. God knows.
The Post and Watergate | Special Guests
||[an error occurred while processing this directive]| | <urn:uuid:e41c9158-9218-48eb-b709-44ebaba60770> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/bradlee.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981823 | 2,156 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Wall Street Journal
Two years after Washington 'reformed' Wall Street, the economy stinks and 'too big to fail' is enshrined into law.
By JEB HENSARLING
Two years ago, I was one of 43 members of Congress appointed to the conference committee for the Dodd-Frank financial-reform bill. Along with others, I fought against the legislation and lost.
After an all-night session, Democrats (who then held the House majority) produced a 2,300-page behemoth they touted as a panacea for financial crises. President Obama predicted the bill would "lift our economy," give "certainty to everybody" and end "tax-funded bailouts—period" because it would no longer allow institutions to become "too big to fail."
Two years later, we remain mired in the worst economy in the postwar era, "too big to fail" is actually enshrined into law, and Dodd-Frank's voluminous rules are proving to be some of the most confusing, complex and harmful our capital markets have ever seen.
Dodd-Frank was based largely on the premise that regulators lacked the authority to prevent Wall Street from taking outsize risks. But that was the wrong diagnosis—and it led, inevitably, to a prescription for the wrong remedy.
Before the crisis, regulatory mistakes and incompetence abounded—but almost no examples of a lack of regulatory authority can be found. Federal regulations were not the solution to the crisis but its principal cause. Federal policy pushed financial institutions to lend money to people for home purchases they couldn't afford. This dramatically eroded historically prudent underwriting standards. Of the subprime and Alt-A mortgages that led to the 2008 financial crisis, more than 70% were backed by the federal government through government- sponsored enterprises (GSEs, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the Federal Housing Administration and other programs. An accommodative monetary policy, in turn, allowed an inflated housing bubble that finally burst.
Having incorrectly diagnosed the problem, Dodd-Frank's authors wrote 400 new regulations. These generally fall into one of two categories: those that create uncertainty and those that create economic harm.
A prime example is the so-called Volcker rule. This 300-page proposal (to limit the kinds of investments banks can make) is not yet finalized by regulators. The proposal includes roughly 1,300 questions covering nearly 400 topics—and is so confusing that it elicited more than 18,000 comment letters from market participants and the public.
Another example is the rules contained in Dodd-Frank's derivatives title, which the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says could make it more expensive for nonfinancial companies to hedge their risks, possibly causing "hundreds of American companies to take their capital and jobs elsewhere." Then there is the "Qualified Residential Mortgage" rule that, if implemented by regulators as they have proposed, will increase mortgage interest rates by one to four percentage points, according to Moody's Analytics. And these are just a few of the law's 400 rules.
The House Financial Services Committee estimates that private-sector job creators will have to spend 24,180,856 hours each year to comply with Dodd-Frank—and that's only for the 224 rules that have been written to date. William Isaac, a former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, has predicted that hundreds if not thousands of community financial institutions will ultimately buckle under the regulatory load. As one community banker in my native Texas remarked, "My major risks are not credit risks, risks of theft, risks of some robber coming in with a gun in my office; my number one risk is federal regulatory risk."
Dodd-Frank harms not only businesses but consumers, too, by creating the benignly named "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau." This bureau gives unparalleled power to an appointed credit czar who can ban or ration practically any consumer financial product deemed "unfair" or "abusive"—based on his or her discretion alone, with virtually no oversight from Congress.
Rationing consumer credit will make it more expensive for entrepreneurs to obtain capital and will stifle both product innovation and consumer choice. Had the new bureau existed 50 years ago, today we might be without ATMs, frequent-flier miles or debit cards.
Perhaps most harmful, Dodd-Frank has codified into law a taxpayer-funded safety net for institutions deemed too big to fail—the Orderly Liquidation Authority, which the Congressional Budget Office predicts will cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. In downgrading the credit ratings of the nation's largest banks last month, Moody's explicitly stated that its ratings still reflect an assumption "about the very high likelihood of support from the U.S. government for bondholders or other creditors in the event that such support is required to prevent default." So much for ending taxpayer-funded bailouts. And when we lose our ability to fail, we will soon lose our ability to succeed.
Consider also what Dodd-Frank fails to do. Instead of eliminating government-sponsored enterprises—which have received $200 billion and counting in taxpayer-funded bailouts since 2008 and were at the epicenter of the crisis—Dodd-Frank leaves them in a state of perpetual federal conservatorship. Through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Administration, taxpayers now back 99% of new residential mortgage securitizations.
So where do we go from here? For starters, the president should work with Congress to phase out the government-sponsored enterprises and transition them to the private market. Other industrialized nations enjoy comparable or higher rates of homeownership without government dominance in their mortgage markets. Next, Dodd-Frank's bailout authority must be repealed. The way to address the risks posed by financial institutions would be more transparent balance sheets and a meaningful application of capital and liquidity standards. As long as companies have enough capital to cover their risks and absorb potential losses, we don't need federal regulators micromanaging credit allocation.
If Washington regulators were competent enough to manage risk, the government-sponsored enterprises wouldn't have been forced to guarantee subprime mortgages and wouldn't have needed a taxpayer-funded bailout, and the National Flood Insurance Program and the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation wouldn't be in the red. If Washington bureaucrats could be trusted with credit allocation, Solyndra would never have received a dime from taxpayers.
If Americans want the jobs and economic growth that flow from innovative, competitive and transparent capital markets, we should commit to making this anniversary Dodd-Frank's last.
Mr. Hensarling is a Republican congressman from Texas. | <urn:uuid:8a0e7750-103a-472b-9f2d-b2053682152b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gop.gov/press-release/12/07/26/dodd-franks-unhappy-anniversary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955777 | 1,342 | 1.507813 | 2 |
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Mandeville, LA - Exclusive Transcript - In today's transcript Caller Joe berates Mike for being anti-union and tries to convince Mike that people who invest their time in a company (not investing capital or for a paycheck) are the ones that the company and unions should take care of. Sounds like a lot of collectivism to me Joe. Check out the transcript for more. Begin Mike Church Show Transcript Mike: Joe is in Pennsylvania on a Wednesday, Mike Church Show. Hello, J….Continue
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Was Secession A Constitutional Right? 1868 Book Concluded It Was. "It was in 1833, for the frst time in the history of the country, that it was solemnly asserted and argued, that the Constitution of the 'United States was not a compact between the States. This new doctrine simultaneously put forth, by Mr. Justice Story in his "Commentaries on the Constitution of the 'United States," and by Mr. Daniel Webster in "the greatest intellectual effort of his life," that is, in his great speech in the Senate of the I6th of February, 1833. In order to show that the Constitution is not a compact between the States, the position is assumed, that it is not a compact at all. If it be a compact, say they, then the States had a right to secede. But it is not a compact; and hence secession is treason and rebellion. The great fundamental questions, then, on which the whole controversy hinges are, first, Is the Constitution a compact? and, secondly, Is it a compact between the States?" - Albert Bledsoe, Was Secession A Constitutional Right (1868) | <urn:uuid:bd26a4f1-4847-4168-92b5-ec3479b36b50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mikechurch.com/tag/capital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955161 | 403 | 1.515625 | 2 |
In my last post I discussed how the use of the internet has expedited some of my research. However, I’ve also learned that sometimes we can become too reliant on databases, web searches and other online tools. Sometimes we just need to go back to basics.
Such is the case in my search for a photo of Flora (Stanwood) Simpson. Aunt Flora was one of those people that stayed put. Since she was found year after year, census after census, in the same place, I got to “know” Aunt Flora better than many of the other Aunts and Uncles in my family tree. Flora was married three times. She was widowed at the age of 25 when her first husband, Morton Howe, died, leaving her with four small children. Next she married John Miller. This marriage was brief, as in 1900 she married her third and final husband, Oliver Fred Simpson.
My grandmother, Goldie Simpson, recalled seeing Aunt Flora when she herself was very young. She remember this “very old woman with wrinkled socks.” Since my grandmother was only 3 years old at the time, she couldn’t offer many other details. However, she did remember many of Flora’s step chlidren, who were my grandmother’s first-cousins. The relationship is a bit complicated, but the short story is that there were two Stanwood women who married two Simpson brothers.
Aunt Flora was the first. As mentioned, her third husband was Oliver Fred Simpson, or “Fred” for short. When Uncle Fred died in 1917, Flora’s neice, Susan Stanwood, attended the funeral. Fred’s brother, Ernest Simpson, did as well. I don’t know if it was love at first sight, but my guess is that it was. Ernest wrote poems about sitting in Northfield, talking for hours with Susan under the back porch light. That was the summer of 1917. Susan and Ernest married in January of 1918, and their only child, my grandmother, Goldie, was born October of 1921.
With such a role in my great-grandparents’ introduction, Flora has somewhat captivated me. For many years I had sought a photo of Aunt Flora, and the only one I was able to obtain came in the early 1990′s, a very poor quality xerox copy provided by a distant cousin researching the Sisco and Simpson families. It was better than nothing, but not by much.
One day as I was transferring files and organizing them in my new genealogy program (Roots Magic, in case you are wondering – awesome program!), I decided if I was ever going to find a living person with a photo of Flora, I’d better start searching. I began by going through names of Uncle Fred Simpson’s grandchildren, and then their children, and so on. Using Switchboard.com, I began making calls. While I didn’t find anyone with information, I did have some nice chats with cousins.
A bit discouraged, I decided to put the task aside for a bit and continue on with organizing my data. As I pulled open the lid to a large Rubbermaid bin full of ancient photos, there was a picture that I’d seen dozens of times before, but never really analyzed. Could it possibly be Aunt Flora? Turning the photo over, in my own handwriting was a “?”, obviously written many years ago when I’d asked my grandmother to tell me the names of the people on all of her old photos. The gentleman in the photo certainly had a very strong resemblance to Uncle Fred, but if so, why wouldn’t my grandmother have recognized him? If I was right and that WAS Fred, it would stand to reason that they woman in the photo was the elusive Aunt Flora. Pulling out the grainy old xerox photo of Flora from years ago, I compared them both side-by-side. It sure looked like Aunt Flora to me. Next, I compared the woman in the picture to a photo I had of Flora’s daughter Lyda. The family resemblance was astounding. I was as certain as I could be that I had in my possession (and had had in my possession for the last twenty years!) a photo of Aunt Flora Stanwood Howe Miller Simpson.
Not wanting to assume, I became more determined to find someone who could assist in making a positive ID. A few more phone calls, and a few more disappointments. I set it aside again, and went back to my Rubbermaid container to pull out more files to pick back up on my data entry. Then another surprise – a postcard dated 1996 from a Simpson cousin who was in her early 70′s at the time. Could she still be alive? Armed with a name and address, I went back to Switchboard.com and voila! There was a phone number. A few minutes later, I was in touch with my cousin who vowed to do her best to help me. Elated to learn she was also online, I emailed the photo to her, and then awaited her reply. A couple of hours later she emailed back. My query and piqued her interest, and she had begun rummaging through old photos she’d been given by her own mother, Uncle Fred’s daughter Bernice. In the photos was a duplicate of the one I’d emailed to her, and in her mother’s handwriting was the positive ID I’d needed – Aunt Flora, Uncle Fred, and Fred’s grandson, Orval Swanson, were the subjects of this picture which had been in my possession all along. While the internet is certainly a wonderful tool, this story just goes to show some times you need to use good old fashioned sleuthing techniques (and contact with distant cousins) to solve some mysteries. | <urn:uuid:59eb196b-66e9-4f14-92c2-07f9ee75f737> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://genejourneys.com/2010/05/28/genealogy-old-fashioned-style/?like=1&source=post_flair&_wpnonce=c589d5bcbb | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987719 | 1,238 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Military & democracy can’t move parallel!
As we know that the structure and building of any democratic society depends upon four pillars, judiciary, executives, legislature and press. but the most importent element is their balanced function & work within the circle of law. but however as we see the situation in pakistan from last 57 years. notihing is changed! all the old wine is placed in new bottles during these 57 years.its not been observed that all the elements maintain the responsibility & circle of work, so this discripences between all the pillars ultimately brings disruption in the society. as we see the current situaiton, musharraf having two titles, an army general as well as president of the country took the coutry back to zia ul haq era when judiciary & mass media was treated like a puppet, similarly after the imposition of emergency in the country the situation gone worse.
I think its the time for pakistani lawyers to be united. banning the most reliable source of news channel GEO is questionable & i really condem it. thousands of lawyers & media persons has been arrested within the last couple of weeks, what kind of democracy is this? when there is not fair courts to knock for justice? when the reliable news sources are banned
lets pray for the better furture of pakistan, but i belive its the responsibility of every pakistani in the incomming elections to give vote to only that person who they think are the real leader, who rule the country neutrally without any political pressure of countries like america. who give real freedom to mass media & who did’nt interupt the judiciary | <urn:uuid:23f5f3c2-f151-48d2-86ee-6330da77cc76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.zebno.com/life/military-democracy-cant-move-parallel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96321 | 340 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Danville, VA Nov 19 2008 It's gone. Within an instant, the Dye House at Dan River Mills turned to dust, but it didn't go exactly as planned.
The initial problem wasn't at the building, it was nearby. The implosion was delayed several times because people kept standing inside the "danger zone" and authorities had to remove them.
Then, around 10:10, the implosion went off. The right smokestack, the white one, fell backwards. That was not planned.
There was concern initially that the falling tower may have hit a house, or hit some of the workers involved, they were up on a hill. Luckily, firemen tell us, no people or houses were hit.
A man that helped prepare the Dye House for today says things went a little different than planned.
Alan Hastings, Involved in Demolition Preps -"The way the tower was suppose to go, it was suppose to end up hitting the elevator shaft and the stairway and taking that down along with the brick tower that we also watched fall toward the parking lot."
In: Arts and Entertainment
Tags: implosion, demolition, smokestack, dust cloud, explosion, explosives, Danville, Dye House, Dan River Mills
Location: Danville, Virginia, United States (load item map)
Marked as: approved
Views: 10364 | Comments: 4 | Votes: 0 | Favorites: 0 | Shared: 0 | Updates: 0 | Times used in channels: 1
|Liveleak on Facebook| | <urn:uuid:4ab64dc0-6b40-4af8-a847-3b791b28ac2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8cc_1227127000 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970056 | 326 | 1.632813 | 2 |
If credible information is reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles that you are unable to drive because of either physical or mental incompetence, you license will be cancelled.
While under suspension, you may not drive until your license is reinstated.
There are no driving privileges that can be granted by the Hearings Division while under this type of action.
You may request a hearing, however the only issue at the hearing is whether the DMV received credible information that you could not drive due to either physical or mental incompetence.
You will not be able to get your license back until you show proof to the DMV that the problem has been resolved. The DMV makes this determination, not the Hearings Division.
Legal Authority: C.R.S. § 42-2-122
*Disclaimer: This summary was prepared by the Department of Revenue Hearings Division and should be used as a reference only. Interested parties should refer to the full text of the law and seek legal counsel before drawing conclusions. | <urn:uuid:4a1e9bcc-33da-4c53-b426-8196c0d59621> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?c=Page&childpagename=Rev-Enforcement%2FRELayout&cid=1251592962629&pagename=REWrapper | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956899 | 200 | 1.617188 | 2 |
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Escalating Violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti Inflicts Heavy Civilian Toll
MSF Calls on All Armed Groups in Haiti's Capital to Respect Safety of Civilians and Allow their Immediate Access to Emergency Medical Care
Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 19 January 2006 - With violent attacks intensifying and spreading to many parts of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today called on all armed groups in the city to respect the safety of civilians and allow those wounded during clashes to have immediate access to emergency medical care. The organization also called for the safety of national and international aid workers to be respected.
In the last several weeks, MSF medical and surgical teams have seen an alarming increase of people needing treatment for violence-related injuries, including a growing number of gunshot and knifing victims. In December 2005, MSF treated more than 220 gunshot victims at two facilities - St. Joseph's trauma center in the Turgeau neighborhood and Choscal hospital in Cité Soleil. This included 26 gunshot victims treated at Choscal hospital on December 26-27, and was a dramatic increase from the 147 gunshot victims treated at both facilities in November 2005. Nearly 50 percent of all MSF patients treated for violence-related injuries are women, children, or elderly.
"It is unacceptable that so many civilians are victims of this latest wave of violence," said Ali Besnaci, the head of mission for the MSF trauma center at St. Joseph's Hospital in the city's center. "We are receiving patients from St. Martin, Centre Ville, Martissant, Carrefour and other areas of Port-au-Prince. Recently, we treated a 15-month old infant and a 77-year old man for gunshot wounds."
Since December 2004, medical and surgical teams at St. Joseph's have treated nearly 2,500 people for violence-related injuries, including more than 1,500 gunshot victims and 500 knifing victims. MSF re-opened Choscal Hospital and the Chapi Health Center in the heart of Cité Soleil in August 2005, and staff performed nearly 12,000 medical consultations and 800 emergency interventions in the first three months. Since January 1, 2006, MSF has treated 47 gunshot victims in Cité Soleil.
According to patients, people have been both deliberately and unintentionally shot by all of the armed groups in the city.
"Various groups, including Minustah, refer to civilian casualties as 'collateral damage,'" said Loris De Filippi, the head of mission for MSF's programs in Cité Soleil. "But it is inexcusable for so many lives to be torn apart every day in the crossfire."
The situation in Cité Soleil, an epicenter of the widespread politically motivated and criminal violence, is especially grave for those in need of emergency medical care.
"Our ability to work in Cité Soleil is precarious — we never know how much access we will have from one week to the next," said De Filippi. "The safety of humanitarian aid workers must also be respected. If we cannot do our work, a quarter of a million people — or the population of a small American or European city — would have few health care options."
Appalled by a peak of violence in June and July 2005, MSF made a similar call on the city's armed groups to respect the safety of civilians and guarantee unhindered access to emergency care.
"Today's unbearable situation resembles what Haitians faced this past summer and we're worried it is only going to get worse," said Besnaci. "People are living in constant fear, and we know that many injured are either afraid or prevented from getting the treatment they need. This is simply unacceptable."
MSF has been working in Haiti since 1991. In addition to emergency trauma care in Port-au-Prince, MSF provides primary health care services to people in the capital's Decayette neighborhood. | <urn:uuid:8936ed6d-ca91-42da-99f4-7bdd4df0d314> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=1657&cat=press-release | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95888 | 858 | 1.59375 | 2 |
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Fri May 6, 2011
Private companies hiring at faster-than-expected rate
The new national employment report shows the economy is churning out new jobs as people return to the workforce to compete for them.
Governor Rick Snyder says that’s good for Michigan as he tries to convince state lawmakers to adopt his jobs strategy.
Private sector employment is considered a strong indicator of the strength of the economy and, for the first time in a long time, private companies are hiring at a faster-than-expected rate.
Governor Snyder says that’s good news.
"I view that as a positive thing. Obviously, we want to see more and more jobs coming to Michigan.”
But he wants to pick up the pace as one in 10 people in Michigan is still out of work and looking for a job – and that number doubles when people who have quit looking or are under-employed are counted.
The governor’s jobs plan is being debated by the Legislature.
It includes a tax cut for most businesses. But many lawmakers are balking at the plan because it also cuts spending on schools, and raises taxes for many seniors to help balance the budget. | <urn:uuid:7fd55941-1790-49aa-bc7b-d0638a2eeed8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.michiganradio.org/post/private-companies-hiring-faster-expected-rate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972073 | 256 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Advice on Fast Weight Loss Diet
A number of quick weight loss diets are available, which promise easy weight loss. Always remember, there is no shortcut to being healthy and of normal weight. Many of these are crash diets which should not be followed for more than three to seven days. Many of these diets are not balanced and invariably results in complications and deficiencies. Exerting too much and following unnecessary things are avoided.
A few of the quick weight loss diets are Metabolism diet, cabbage diet, 3 day diet, grapefruit diet, Atkins diet, Bread and butter diet, chicken soup and the seven day diet.
A slice of bread with butter is included in every meal in the bread and butter diet. It is a crash diet that is followed for four days. It provides around 850 calories. The grapefruit diet ensures a weight loss of 52 pounds in two and a half months.
Jams, fruits, peanut butter, red onions, radish, broccoli and so on are included. The Atkins diet is a low carbohydrate diet that involves calories from other sources namely protein and fat. Less than 20 grams of carbohydrates are recommended. An array of easy weight loss recipes are available, though medical attention is required in every case. This site fails to recommend any particular diet. | <urn:uuid:b884b23d-d0f2-4f6b-b1d6-dee7907e3891> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.diethealthclub.com/askquestion/858/quick-weight-loss-diet-how-is-quick-weight-loss-di.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937536 | 260 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People
Entering it's fifth year in 2012, our Christmas shows are becoming an institution. Curator Robin Ince explains the origins of our yuletide rationalist romp, and past performers Ricky Gervais, Simon Singh, Richard Herring, Natalie Haynes and Ben Goldacre with some seasonally inappropriate winterval witterings
This article ran as a preview to the original shows in 2008. In 2012 the show's had their 5-year anniversary. Follow us on Twitter (or read our blog) to stay up with plans for 2013
Comedian and organiser of the Nine Lessons shows
None of this would have been possible but for Stephen Green of Christian Voice.
Because I’m a non-believer, I get asked on to radio or TV shows to be the angry, snaggle-toothed atheist. Last year I was invited on a show to talk about whether Britain was becoming more secular, but by the time I arrived it had changed to “Who’s taking the Christ out of Christmas?” I got increasingly furious as Nick Ferrari and Vanessa Feltz passed off half-truths – and full-blown lies – about the way councils up and down the country were abandoning Christmas.
I said, “Actually I think Christmas is good, it’s nice to have some time for reflection,” and Stephen Green, who was in the audience, sat there saying, “I don’t think he does like Christmas, I don’t think he is happy with there being Christmas.”
So that was why I decided I would get together a 20-piece orchestra and a choir, and assorted atheist and agnostic comedians like Ricky Gervais and Phill Jupitus, and some scientists like Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh and Richard Dawkins.
Already people are annoyed, saying, “Oh, typical, you’re just having a go at Christians.” Well we’re not. When we say we’re having a Godless celebration, that means no god at all, from any religion.
Not one. It’s not about having a go at religion – it’s going to be a proper celebration; of the Big Bang, of evolution theory and of comedy. We will be visited by spirits, of course, through the help of a medium. The spirit will be the late great science broadcaster Carl Sagan, and the medium will be a DVD player.
Comedian, actor and writer
Fact is stranger than fiction. Well, it’s more interesting. Because it’s true. Nothing is stranger than the belief that an omnipotent, all-powerful being created the universe 5,000 years ago, and keeps an eye on everything but only gets involved in “mysterious ways”. That’s strange, granted. Unfortunately it’s not interesting because it’s bollocks. It’s fucking mental, to be honest. What’s strange and true is that there is a parasite that changes its stickleback host’s behaviour so the fish no longer flees a heron’s shadow, gets eaten and the parasite can complete its life cycle in a warm-blooded animal. Or that if you were to count, at a rate of one thing per second, everything that happened in your brain in just one second, it would take you 32 million years. That’s strange. And amazing. And beautiful. And true. And it all happened by accident. Or in mysterious ways, if you like.
Comedian, DJ and performance poet
“Science night, Non-holy night …” If only this was what we sang at the end of each calendar year. The fact that knowledge has evolved bit by bit over the years is somehow reassuring. The nature of the human mind is to question. And that is why I think we should be reminded of humanity’s great questions once a year in a festival that should be called “Quizmas”, or “?mas” as we’d write on our cards.
Science broadcaster and writer
It is worth contemplating that the atoms in our body were not forged in the furnace of the Big Bang, but were created within collapsing stars. The temperatures and pressures within dying stars triggered the nuclear reactions that cooked the simple hydrogen and helium into more complex atoms. In the final explosion, as the nuclear fusion reached its climax, these atoms were thrown across the universe and eventually became the iron in our blood and the calcium in our bones. In other words, we are literally stardust. Or, for the less romantically inclined, we are merely nuclear waste.
Musician, member of The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra
Christmas is, as we all know, named after Father Christmas and is thus founded on a childish falsehood. I celebrate the far more rational Xmas instead. But I will spend Xmas furious, as usual, at Hollywood’s disrespectful treatment of its historical figurehead: Father X. What could be more damningly anti-Xmas than Patrick Stewart’s portrayal of a helpless bald paraplegic in the reprehensibly ill-researched film X-men? Lazily capitalising on the success of his role as the leprosy-riddled Professor Christ in the Christ-Men movie franchise.
Comedian and writer
This Christmas I shall be celebrating the achievements of scientists. Because while religious books tell us of the miraculous things superbeings supposedly did hundreds of years ago, the miracles of science are all around us to see with our own eyes. Science has wiped out the diseases that Jesus cured in the occasional individual; science has made it possible for me to fly around the world, which not even the most arduous of praying could achieve; science has discovered DNA, enabling us to understand the complexities of evolution. I think I’d rather put my faith in scientists than in a man who died 2,000 years ago coming back to life and sorting it all out through magic.
I shall be celebrating Thomas Edison, for his discovery of how to record sound, so that now, 30 years after his death, I can still enjoy the genius of Jacques Brel. Even though it now turns out that maybe the first person to record sound was in fact Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville, but everyone forgot him because his name is harder to remember.
Comedian and writer
This Christmas, I shall be thinking about girls, because the current generation of teenagers will be the first women not to face the prospect of cervical cancer. Unless their parents are such vicious bigots that they would choose to see their daughters die young as a twisted punishment for adolescent promiscuity, they’ll be inoculated against HPV, the virus that causes 70 per cent of cervical cancers. So hooray for them – I’ll be raising my glass to their healthy futures, and hoping that other cancer vaccinations follow quickly.
Comedian and writer
Someone recently asked me if being an atheist was a joyless experience. As though one cannot hope to enjoy the universe and all its myriad contents, colours, shapes and possibilities without believing it was thrown together in a week by a magic superbeing. Anyway, is it not far more joyless to slavishly attend church to avoid Hell, or cover yourself head to foot in a burkha? I like the idea that I live in a world that has been millions of years in the making, and that will exist millions of years after I’m gone. I only get to be a momentary part of it but this doesn’t make me feel so small and insignificant that I reach for a made-up meaning. It makes me grateful for the short window of life I’ve been granted and pushes me to make the most of every moment.
Singer and songwriter
This Christmas I will enjoy thinking about “chance” or, perhaps more accurately, probability. I was in a random restaurant with friends the other week and as we mentioned another mutual friend, he walked through the door. Everybody gasped at the wondrous coincidence, but chance is a deceptive beast. What about all the other times I mentioned my friend and he didn’t walk through the door? For 24 hours a day, seven days a week, nothing particularly coincidental or spooky happens at all. Life isn’t stranger than fiction, it’s much, much duller. This comforts me because it means it’s up to me to make life interesting and I can do far better than a chance meeting in a curry house.
I never liked science class at all. But, then, you never got to play with a bunsen burner in RE. I’ve never wanted to know how magic tricks are done, so part of me probably always yearned to believe in something more than our puny selves. But on a practical level, I do enjoy the way bicarbonate of soda makes pigeons explode. And the way a Mentos mint expedites the release of carbon dioxide when dropped into a bottle of Fanta. So I’m unsure. So what? Galileo was a devout Roman Catholic.
Doctor and science writer
This Christmas I’m going to be thinking about what a magical and amazing place the world can be without any recourse to nonsense; that people can get pain relief simply from taking a sugar pill, or a salt-water injection; that we can have an almost psychic sense that a friend is in trouble, from barely perceptible unconscious social cues; that improbable things really do happen; and people really can meet, and fall in love, with a depth so great that it feels as if it was always meant to be. These are all things to be celebrated, because even if there is no destiny and no magic, the effects are still the same. | <urn:uuid:d3fdb4bc-df83-471a-9118-8977f33b6cb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rationalist.org.uk/articles/1917/nine-lessons-and-carols-for-godless-people | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952532 | 2,061 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Blog Action Theme for 2012 is 'The Power of We' to celebrate people working together to make a positive difference in the world.
Tumaini for the Future
The Green Girl met a Kenyan runner, Moses Waweru, last year at the 13.1 Chicago Half Marathon.
Moses is originally from Nakuru, Kenya. He currently resides in the Midwest in Wisconsin.
When Moses visited Nakuru last September, a local school teacher reached out to him.
The teacher explained the parents of the school children in her class could not afford the tuition and consequently, she had fallen behind on rent, and did not have money to purchase ugali (cornmeal) and tea to feed the students.
Moses vowed to do everything in his power to help this teacher keep her school and continue to provide an education for these children.
As soon as he returned to the US, he transformed his vision into Tumaini for the Future.
Moses founded the non-profit organization Tumaini for the Future to provide educational opportunities for underserved youth in his hometown of Nakuru, Kenya.
When Moses spoke to the school teacher, he discovered the ugali and tea served at school is sometimes the only nourishment the children get.
Tumaini for the Future is also raising money to build a new school which will be called the Tumaini School. The goal is to raise $10,000. The land and some building materials have already been purchased.
Tumaini for the Future has partnered with Coach Steve Mackel and his running group, the Sole Runners, to help spread awareness.
Please help celebrate and make the Tumaini for the Future dream come true by spreading awareness to your family and friends. | <urn:uuid:b32b2d09-2d75-4bca-a29b-f3cd9e2bb2bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.therunninggreengirl.com/2012/10/blog-action-day-2012-tumaini-for-future.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965408 | 366 | 1.640625 | 2 |
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Hiring by American employers trailed forecasts in March, casting doubt on the vigor of the more than two-year-old economic expansion.
The 120,000 increase in payrolls reported by the Labor Department in Washington today was the smallest in five months and less than the most pessimistic estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of economists. The unemployment rate fell to 8.2 percent from 8.3 percent as people left the labor force.
Stock futures, the dollar and Treasury yields all fell as the report highlighted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s concern that stronger economic growth is needed to keep the nation’s jobs engine humming. Today’s data also showed that Americans worked fewer hours and earned less on average per week, boding ill for the consumer spending that makes up 70 percent of the world’s largest economy.
“We see a lack of sustainability in terms of strong job growth,” Tony Crescenzi, a strategist at Pacific Investment Management Co. in Newport Beach, California, said in a radio interview on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene and Ken Prewitt. “This is still not strong enough to create escape velocity, which is to say an economy strong enough to make it on its own without additional monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve.”
Among those having trouble finding work is Xander Piper, 30, who has been looking for a full-time job since September, when he completed a master’s program in social science at the University of Chicago. He decided to go to graduate school in 2010 to improve his employment prospects after losing his position at an advertising agency.
“When I graduated, I assumed I was going to get a job within the first couple of months,” said Piper, a San Francisco resident who said he’s looking for work in education and sometimes sends out 10 resumes a day.
“Now I work for a temp company, but even they’re having trouble staffing me,” he said. “I recently had a two to three month break at my temp company. What I have gotten recently is call center work, which is just brutal.”
A separate report today from the Fed showed consumer borrowing rose less than forecast in February, restrained by a drop in credit-card debt. Credit increased $8.7 billion, the least in four months, after an $18.6 billion gain in January.
Employment in March was forecast to increase by 205,000, according to the median projection of 80 economists in the Bloomberg survey. Estimates ranged from increases of 175,000 to 250,000 after an initially estimated 227,000 gain the prior month.
S&P 500 futures expiring in June slumped 1.1 percent to 1,374.90 following the benchmark index’s 0.7 percent weekly loss. U.S. stock exchanges were shut for the Good Friday holiday. The dollar weakened 1 percent to 81.57 yen at 12:14 p.m. in New York, touching the lowest level since March 8. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.06 percent from 2.18 percent.
“We see modest growth inside the U.S. and demand for labor,” Carl Camden, president and chief executive officer of Kelly Services Inc. (KELYA), a Troy, Michigan-based staffing agency, said March 12 during a conference. The expansion is “a nice steady, not robust, not rock-and-roll, but a steady recovery, capable of producing a steady stream of jobs.”
Employment at service providers increased 89,000 after a 211,000 gain in February. Professional and business service payrolls rose 31,000 last month, restrained by a 7,500 drop in temporary hiring.
J.C. Penney Co., the fourth-largest U.S. department-store company, is among employers cutting jobs. The company said today it notified about 1,000 workers, primarily in its headquarters in Plano, Texas, and its Pittsburgh customer call center, that their jobs will be cut as part of a restructuring plan.
Part of the slowdown in March may have reflected a warmer winter, which prompted some employers to hire more or retain workers in previous months than they otherwise would have, Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics Ltd., said in an e-mail to clients. The average gain in payrolls from December through February was 246,000.
“We had mild weather, which basically had consumers in the marketplace earlier,” said Jack Kleinhenz, chief economist of the National Retail Federation, a Washington-based trade group. As a result, retailers postponed headcount reductions that typically follow the holiday shopping season, he said.
The March data showed a 34,000 decrease in retail employment, the biggest decline since October 2009. The Labor Department said today that the number of people unable to work due to inclement weather was 360,000 below average from December through February.
Temperatures in December through February averaged 36.8 degrees Fahrenheit (2.7 degrees Celsius), 3.9 degrees above the average in the 20th century, representing the fourth-warmest winter on record for the 48 contiguous U.S. states, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Some economists saw similarities with early 2011, when the economy slowed amid rising energy prices, a disruption of supplies caused by the tsunami in Japan and political gridlock in the U.S. over the debt ceiling.
This year, rising gasoline prices and the European debt crisis are taking a toll, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania.
Even so, “We are definitely in a better place today than we were a year ago, and two years ago,” he said. “The thing that’s quite amazing is how well the economy’s performed given all those headwinds.”
The jobs report broke a pattern that was boosting President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects and prompted a renewed attack on his record from Mitt Romney, the leading contender for the Republican nomination.
“Millions of Americans are paying a high price for President Obama’s economic policies, and more and more people are growing so discouraged that they are dropping out of the labor force altogether,” Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, said in a statement released by his campaign.
Obama said “we welcome” the added jobs and the decline in the unemployment rate. The economy’s created more than 4 million private sector jobs in the past two years, more than 600,000 in the past three months, he said.
“But, it’s clear to every American that there will still be ups and downs along the way and that we’ve got a lot more work to do,” the president said at a forum on women and the economy at the White House.
Only one president since World War II, Ronald Reagan, has been re-elected with a jobless rate above 6 percent. Reagan won a second term in 1984 with 7.2 percent unemployment in the month of the election, after the rate had fallen almost three percentage points in the previous 18 months.
The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 8.3 percent, according to the Bloomberg survey median.
The jobless rate dropped as both unemployed and employed workers left the labor force. The participation rate, which indicates the share of working-age people in the labor force, fell to 63.8 percent from 63.9 percent.
Private payrolls, which exclude government agencies, rose 121,000 in March after a gain of 233,000 the prior month. They were projected to climb by 215,000. Manufacturing payrolls increased by 37,000 after a 31,000 gain.
Sustained auto purchases are prompting Ford Motor Co. (F), the second-biggest U.S. automaker, to bring in more workers. The Dearborn, Michigan-based manufacturer boosted its 2012 sales forecast to 14.5 million to 15 million vehicles from a previous projection of 13.5 million to 14.5 million.
“We’ve already announced some shift increases, some adds in terms of shifts this year,” Erich Merkle, sales analyst at Ford, said April 3 on a conference call with analysts. “So, certainly we’ll be adding some people to fill those shifts.”
At the Western Area Career and Technology Center in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, about 25 miles southwest of Pittsburgh, the job placement rate is 94 percent.
Some companies in the region, home to an energy boom related to shale gas drilling, are starting to compete for workers, Joseph Iannetti, the school’s director said April 4. Enrollment at the campus in Canonsburg, typically less than 400 students, is 430 this year, he said.
“We’re about to go into a really nice labor shortage here,” he said. “We’re seeing increasing demand for people with skill.”
The Commerce Department last week said the economy expanded at a 3 percent annual pace in the fourth quarter after a 1.8 percent rate in the prior three months. Gross domestic product grew at a 2 percent pace in the first quarter, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists last month.
Today’s report also showed construction companies reduced payrolls by 7,000 workers last month after a 6,000 decrease. Government payrolls fell 1,000 in March.
Average weekly earnings fell to $806.96 in March from $807.56. The average work week for all workers decreased to 34.5 hours from 34.6.
Wage increases are needed to help Americans weather gasoline prices that have increased by 66 cents this year through April 5, to $3.94 a gallon, according to data from AAA, the nation’s largest auto club.
The so-called underemployment rate, which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking, decreased to 14.5 percent from 14.9 percent.
Bernanke, in a speech to economists on March 26, said the recent employment gains have been a “welcome development. Still, conditions remain far from normal, as shown, for example, by the high level of long-term unemployment and the fact that jobs and hours worked remain well below pre-crisis peaks.”
“We cannot yet be sure that the recent pace of improvement in the labor market will be sustained,” Bernanke said, adding he was particularly concerned about the number people out of work for six months or longer.
Today’s report also showed a decrease in long-term unemployed Americans. The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more eased as a percentage of all jobless, to 42.5 percent from 42.6 percent.
To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Christopher Wellisz in Washington at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:01dc3575-c715-4fa6-94e2-c2992ddbcf40> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-06/employers-added-120-000-jobs-in-march-fewest-in-five-months | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960972 | 2,372 | 1.625 | 2 |
Several states are rushing to establish a foothold in online gambling — an activity that federal officials were only recently trying to ban.
Just a while ago, the federal government actually viewed online gambling as a crime. Lately, the Obama administration has taken a more permissive stance. It now allows states to sell lottery tickets online.
New Jersey Gov. Christie had expressed reservations about online gambling a month ago and had vetoed an earlier version of the bill. But in the end, the pressure to sign the legislation was just too great.
The Rev. Richard McGowan of Boston College, who studies legalized gambling, says New Jersey is eager to reap tax revenues from online gambling, and it's competing with other states to break into the industry early on. Nevada has already approved a law and Delaware has taken steps to legalize the activity.
But McGowan says the logistics of regulating Internet gambling are still being worked out.
"I'm just wondering who is going to be running it?" he says. "How are they going to be regulated? How much are the states going to be willing to spend to regulate this stuff? It's going to be a good question."
There are also big technical questions about online gambling. The New Jersey bill limits the activity to people who are actually physically present in the state.
So New Jersey companies that set up gambling websites will have to find ways to keep people in other states from accessing them. Casino industry officials say technology to do that exists. The bill will also require companies to spend money on gambling-addiction treatment programs.
Donald Weinbaum, executive director at the Council of Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, notes that with Internet access, people will no longer have to go to a casino to wager money.
"Compulsive gamblers usually [are] looking for action and being able to play anytime, anyplace maybe being able to play on multiple sites at one time, play in the car," Weinbaum says. "There's a certain appeal to that."
Yet, he says it's also not clear how to keep young people from gaining access to the websites.
"Kids are already into using the Internet, so that's a real risk, a real danger and we're concerned that it may be very hard to keep out underage players," Weinbaum says.
But state and federal officials are willing to take a chance that these issues can be worked out. And there's simply too much money involved not to try.
McGowan says New Jersey's struggling casino industry sees the Internet as a rich source of new revenue.
"Their newest casino just went bankrupt," McGowan says. "Two of their other casinos got sold for less than $20 million. Atlantic City is in real trouble, so [Gov.] Christie is trying to do anything right now to save Atlantic City."
Many gambling companies see the Internet as a way to reach out to new customers and lure them into the casinos. And the more they can do that, the more tax revenue that will bring in. That's increasingly important to states like New Jersey, which continue to face big budget shortfalls five years after the financial crisis got under way. | <urn:uuid:f0856a3e-022a-4920-8fd8-24f21cd74fec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.opb.org/news/article/npr-as-states-embrace-online-gambling-questions-arise/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973541 | 643 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The Super Energy Efficient 4-cubic-yard self-contained compactor from Wastequip holds up to 24 bags of trash in its charge box, twice the volume of 2-yard, self-contained units. The compactor is powered by a Super E Series cool-running motor. The larger charge box and motor mean 65 percent less electricity consumed.
Because the size of the box is doubled, the compactor runs half as many cycles, reducing maintenance costs by 30 to 50 percent, says Kirk Warren, director of product management. A third component to the energy savings is operator education.
“The behavior we witnessed was users throwing in varying amounts of trash, pressing the button and walking away,” Warren says. “We tried to get them to change that behavior and only operate the equipment when they needed to. So instead of throwing in two or three bags, wait until you fill it up to run a cycle and you’ll maximize your savings.”
The compactor has a real-time monitor with infrared camera for through-the-wall installations, allowing operators to see what is in the charge box. The night-vision camera and remote digital monitor provide an extra layer of safety.
“For various reasons, people will try to climb in,” says Warren. “Some do it to keep warm at night, some to avoid being detected, some because they’re playing hide-and-seek. While we have safety measures to keep the equipment from operating when the door is left open this feature allows the operator to look inside, without the need for any lighting, to make sure the charge box is clear and can be operated.”
The compactor also has two Watch Dog timers. The first shuts the unit down if the ram runs for more than two minutes in any one direction — this prevents overheating. A second timer shuts the unit down after five minutes of continuous cycling (this timer can be adjusted based on customer requirements).
An Automatic Maintenance Scheduler triggers an indicator light, alerting operators when preventive maintenance is due. “That has gone over pretty well with customers,” Warren says. “They don’t have to remember once a year or every six months — it’s based on actual usage.”
To maximize hydraulic performance, the compactor has 1/2- and 3/4-inch dripless quick-disconnects, about 33 percent larger than standard disconnects, allowing quicker hydraulic flow. “So again, we’re trying to use less energy by reducing hydraulic flow friction,” says Warren. “If you use it less often, the components last longer. That’s what we’re looking to do — extend the equipment life as long as we can.” 877/468-9278; www.wastequip.com; Expo booth 2025. | <urn:uuid:b03f5b07-f963-425d-bb06-c918f2a4df3d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mswmag.com/editorial/2012/01/energy_saving_compactor_designed_for_long_life_safe_operation | 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 | 0.936124 | 599 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Some rather interesting changes are headed for Twitter search according to Cnet’s Rafe Needleman and Twitter’s new VP of Operations, Santosh Jayaram.
Jayaram, formerly the VP of Search Quality for Google, broke the news that Twitter Search will begin to start crawling the links which are posted in tweets and index the content of those pages. Instead of simply indexing the tweets of its users, Twitter Search will now offer search technology which will transform it into more of an open window of the live conversations and real time indexing which is happening within the Twitter community.
Twitter Search will also be getting a reputation ranking system, which Needleman reports will take into account the reputation of the user who actually wrote the tweet, and rank its search results based upon that reputation. There is no news yet however how this reputation will be calculated.
Perhaps such a ranking system could be built upon trust factors and influence. In a similar fashion that Google has always counted links as a system of relevance and popularity, maybe retweets and follower relationships and interaction will influence user reputation.
The end result, Twitter harnesses its search capabilities and almost instant ability to not only index a brand new web page or document, but also determine a relevancy and reputation ranking will give the company outstanding leverage in further valuing itself AND even licensing out its technology with search partners in the future. | <urn:uuid:961ee62b-ae49-4988-a6e4-1fa1cdf68384> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.searchenginejournal.com/twitter-search-to-start-indexing-pages-and-launch-reputation-algorithm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941994 | 283 | 1.570313 | 2 |
After two bruising years for organized labor in the Midwest, the movement has managed to land two pro-union measures on the November ballot in Michigan.
Michigan locals and their national leaders now face an ad campaign by the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and its friends, urging voters to resist “D.C. union bosses.” Unions, however, have far outraised their detractors, bringing in a quarter of the $30 million total raised for the state’s six ballot initiatives, according to the Michigan Campaign Finance Network.
Labor wants to repeal Gov. Rick Snyder’s landmark emergency manager law, which has been a bane to public sector unions, and to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state constitution to stave off future attacks.
Efforts to curtail union rights “really did spike” since the GOP swept into power in 20 more state legislative houses in 2010, said Jeanne Mejeur, labor expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures. “Last year we saw about 950 [labor-related] bills nationwide, compared to about 100 a year over the last 10 years.”
What happens in Michigan may be an even greater measure of the labor movement’s influence than its unsuccessful attempt to remove union-busting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office earlier this year.
“The eyes of the nation will be on Michigan in November,” said Chris Fleming, a national spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Washington, D.C. “If there’s a chance to enshrine collective bargaining in any state, we will be there to support it.”
Unions in the region, a traditional stronghold, can use the help. In just two years, labor has been battered by the failed recall effort in Wisconsin and an anti-union right-to-work law in Indiana.
Right-to-work laws have stifled union membership in 23 states, mostly in the South. They allow individual employees at organized workplaces to forego membership in, and dues to, the unions that represent them.
Michigan unions have also fought Snyder’s emergency manager law, which has effectively ended collective bargaining rights for public employees in several cities. The Republican-majority Legislature, meanwhile, has passed a slew of anti-union laws chipping away at bargaining rights.
“It’s been death by a thousand cuts,” said Dan Lijana, a spokesman for the Michigan-based union coalition Protect our Jobs.
Ballot lines drawn
The state’s Protect our Jobs initiative has raised at least $8 million, more than a quarter of it from out-of-state unions, to amend the state’s constitution and guarantee collective bargaining rights for all Michigan workers in the future. A victory would produce the first state constitutional amendment in the nation with such strong pro-labor provisions.
“I hope it sets a nationwide model,” said Larry Roehrig, a leader of AFSCME’s Michigan affiliate.
If voters approve the measure, it would effectively prohibit passage of a right-to-work law in the state and overturn other laws that limit collective bargaining, including a key provision in Snyder’s emergency manager law.
In the past year alone, 16 new states have proposed bills similar to right-to-work laws, according to Mejeur.
“We’re not just going to wait for them to cut our throat,” said Roehrig. “If they get their way, they’ll crush the middle class.”
National unions have invested heavily in the effort: $1.25 million from the Washington, D.C.-based AFL-CIO State Unity Fund; $500,000 from AFSCME; $333,000 from the Teamsters; $125,000 from National Nurses United and $100,000 from New York-based hospitality union UNITE HERE.
The D.C.-based United Food and Commercial Workers chipped in $50,000 and the International Association of Firefighters sent along $33,000 to the Michigan effort.
While national unions have helped considerably, state-based unions including auto workers, teachers, carpenters, electrical workers, nurses and professors have all given big money. The United Auto Workers dropped $1 million into the campaign and the Michigan Education Association — the state’s largest union — gave $500,000.
The giant fundraising effort has paid for three television ads blanketing the state. The group’s first ad, released in August, features a 5th-grade teacher from a school in suburban Detroit. Cutting against the critiques that collective bargaining serves a small fraction of the state’s residents at the expense of everyone else, teacher Karen Kuciel argues that collective bargaining rights allow teachers to bargain over things like class size.
“Collective bargaining helps our kids,” she says in the ad.
The business community, free-market think tanks and the Snyder administration say the constitutional amendment will only benefit the unions.
The primary opposition to the amendment has come from the state’s Chamber of Commerce — despite its lack of a formal stance on right-to-work law in the state.
The governor’s office says it is in favor of collective bargaining and unions, but the ballot initiative “goes too far.”
In legal battles over the initiative, Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette and Snyder filed a brief against it — a rare move for a sitting governor.
Schuette, elected in 2010 with support from the state’s wealthiest executives and real estate and banking PACs, released a memo criticizing the “trojan horse-style” proposal that would “abrogate in whole or in part more than 170 Michigan laws.”
The Michigan Chamber of Commerce has given at least $130,000 to a ballot committee called Citizens Protecting Michigan’s Constitution, which has led the opposition. The committee shares a Lansing address with the Chamber.
The fund also has also added $30,000 sums from the Detroit and Grand Rapids chambers of commerce, the Michigan Manufacturers Association, the Association of Builders and Contractors, and Business Leaders for Michigan, which raises money from the state’s top executives.
Chamber CEO Richard Studley told a Michigan radio station in June that the proposal is “a dangerous distraction at a time when business and labor and Democrats and Republicans should be working together to move our state forward.”
Despite substantial support from Michigan’s business elite, the group has raised $345,000 — only a fraction of the pro-union Protect our Jobs' haul.
The state’s Supreme Court overruled objections by the governor and the measure’s opponents in early September, clearing the way for the bargaining rights initiative.
The Chamber-funded group, meanwhile, has taken to the airwaves, launching ads warning voters that the state’s constitution is being auctioned off to “wealthy interest groups trying to grab more money and power.”
“The claim being made by the other side is more applicable to the folks funding their campaign,” said Protect our Jobs’ Lijana.
He notes that a statewide campaign to collect more than a half-million signatures represents the level of “grassroots enthusiasm” for the ballot initiative.
A second group opposing the constitutional amendment called Protecting Michigan Taxpayers cropped up June 11 and a month later bought $1 million worth of TV, radio, and online ads in the state blaming “Washington union bosses” for “tinkering with our constitution.”
Its campaign finance filings are signed by Jared Rodriguez, former senior vice president of the west-Michigan Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce.
Rodriguez is also the current president of the West Michigan Policy Forum, a clearinghouse for business leaders funded by chambers of commerce from around the state. His 2010 op-ed in a Michigan paper touted the Policy Forum’s resolution to endorse the anti-union right-to-work law, and undo labor laws that have “discouraged businesses from investing in Michigan.”
Repealing emergency law
Thanks to union mobilization, Michigan voters will also decide whether to repeal Snyder’s Public Act 4, the emergency manager law described as the “emergency dictator” law by labor leaders.
A union-funded group called Stand up for Democracy raised $184,000, almost entirely from the public employees union AFSCME, which it used to fund field staff, collect signatures, and fight an ensuing legal battle to place the measure on the ballot.
In August, the state Supreme Court approved the ballot measure, suspending the law until the election, and sparking a renewed power struggle in four cities and three school districts that were being run by state-appointed managers.
A state ballot committee called Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility led the legal challenge to the Public Act 4 repeal effort, claiming that the petitions used had a font size that did not comply with state regulations. The group is run by John Llewellyn, vice president of government relations at the Michigan Bankers Association.
State filings show the group was funded entirely by a shadowy nonprofit organization run by three state GOP operatives. One is Rob Macomber, who was state director of Mitt Romney’s primary campaign in Michigan. The other two, Steve Linder and Jeffrey Timmer, are partners at a Michigan-based Republican public relations firm called the Sterling Corp.
Timmer also sat on the state’s Board of Canvassers, and cast one of the two votes halting the emergency manager repeal effort when it came before the board for approval in April.
Citizens for Fiscal Responsibility plans to take the fight outside the courtroom and onto the airwaves — though the group has yet to launch ads opposing the repeal effort. The funders of this effort are not disclosed the public.
“I won’t be sharing a list of donors,” said Llewelyn.
Cities up for grabs
When Snyder’s emergency law was frozen in place, city officials wasted no time going after emergency managers in the wake of the decision. Members of the Flint and Pontiac city councils and the Detroit school board held meetings and attempted to reclaim their elected office and decision-making powers.
Attorney General Schuette released a legal opinion saying the state would revert to an older, less expansive emergency law called Public Act 72, even though Public Act 4 expressly repeals that older law.
Snyder’s administration quickly re-appointed managers in Pontiac, Ecorse and Benton Harbor, and appointed a new manager in Flint, all with fewer powers under the state’s older emergency law. The move came amid protests in Pontiac, Flint, and Detroit.
Detroit’s elected school board has resumed meetings, claiming that Emergency Manager Roy Roberts no longer has power. Roberts used that sweeping power to impose terms on the teachers union in July. The contract raises class size limits dramatically, and kept a 10 percent pay cut in place.
The Pontiac City Council voted in late August to dismiss emergency manager Louis Schimmel, overriding a veto by Mayor Leon Jukowski. Schimmel, a former advisor to Michigan’s leading free-market think tank, the Mackinac Center, shrugged off the vote, claiming that he retained power under the state’s earlier law.
Local media outlets report that Schimmel plans to sell the city’s golf course, privatize its public works department, and get voters to approve a tax hike in November, but he’s already dissolved the city’s fire and police departments and put a large chunk of the city’s real estate portfolio, including libraries, up for sale.
“I’ve done most of the work I needed to do under Public Act 4,” Schimmel told The Oakland Press in August.
The state’s unions have claimed a victory just by landing the initiatives on the ballot. The next phase will play out on the airwaves, as Chamber-backed groups accuse D.C.-based unions of pushing a “special interest” agenda on the rest of Michigan voters.
“Our checking account happens to be in D.C.,” says AFSCME’s Roehrig, “but the union is from every city in America.”
According to the Federal Communications Commission, Protect our Jobs has ads of its own reserved in major media markets in Michigan, contrasting the needs of everyday union teachers with the state’s “corporate special interests.”
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