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The cat returns
A British classic is revived by Indian owners
SOME cars are a long time in the making, but half a century is sluggish even by the standards of the British motor industry. So the unveiling of Jaguar’s new F-Type at the Paris Motor Show this week was met with relief as well as excitement. The two-seater sports car is the successor to the 1961 E-Type—the “most beautiful car ever made”, in the judgment of the late Enzo Ferrari, a rival. It is also a tribute to Indian ownership.
Jaguar got its independence from state-owned Rover in 1984 as one of Margaret Thatcher’s privatisations. An F-Type was under development when Ford bought the company in 1990, but it was running late and had turned into an overweight hotchpotch. So Ford killed it. In 2000 another F-Type prototype was revealed at the Detroit car show. But Ford was short of money and Jaguar ended up using its limited budget to develop a new diesel engine instead. Jaguar was soon lumped with Land Rover, a brand that Ford had purchased from BMW, and put up for sale in 2008.
Tata Motors paid $2.3 billion for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), largely to get hold of the Range Rover and other SUVs. But Ratan Tata, the group’s boss, is a Jaguar enthusiast who understands the appeal of foreign brands in emerging markets. The Indian group has given JLR’s bosses creative freedom as well as a budget, now worth some £2 billion a year, to invest in new products. The new Jaguar—which is made from aluminium, not the steel that made Mr Tata’s fortune—is one result. It will go on sale next spring.
The luxury sports car market is tiny, accounting for around 0.1% of global car sales. But a sports car can attract younger buyers and spread some shine across other models. Although Jaguar’s existing cars have been improved to compete with the likes of Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the firm’s image is rather staid. Jaguar, which sold 54,200 cars last year, needs some of the sparkle it had during the swinging sixties.
Tata has already worked wonders with Jaguar’s sister company. Land Rover sales shot up by 33% in the financial year to March 31st, to 251,600. In the same period JLR’s pre-tax profits rose by 35% to £1.5 billion. As the mainstream European car market struggles with chronic overcapacity, the firm is humming. Its factory near Liverpool has moved to work around the clock. If the new Jag purrs along as well as an E-Type, Tata will have pulled off a remarkable double act.
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Small cells still in trial mode
The company is targeting traditional macro base stations and systems one size smaller with its initial 16- and 12-core chips. It plans smaller and custom versions later for smaller cells.
Many carriers believe they will need and are conducting trials with a new tier of so-called small cell basestations to provide capacity in dense urban areas. However, each has its own distinct requirements and most see 2013 as a year of trials before deployments likely in HSDPA networks initially in 2014, said an Ericsson executive.
Some systems vendors used the Super Bowl and London Olympics as trials of so-called heterogeneous networks or HetNets. AT&T put out a request for information about small cells in November, indicating it wants to add 40,000 small cells to its LTE network.
“I expect HetNets will continue to be a big buzz at the Mobile World Congress” where LSI is formally announcing the new SoCs, Bailey said. “People will also talk about how software-defined networks will play out--some people think it has a big role and others say it doesn’t,” he added.
Click on image to enlarge.
The Axxia 5500 initially comes in high-end flavors with 16 and 12 Cortex A15 cores.
LSI, TI, Freescale in 28nm base station battle
Mobile Congress: Wireless Nets Move Front and Center
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Abdul Sattar Edhi, NI (??? ?????? ?????), or Edhi, as he is often known, is one of the most active philanthropists in Pakistan. He is head of the Edhi Foundation based in Pakistan with branches all over the world. His wife Begum Bilquis Edhi, heads the Bilquis Edhi Foundation. They both received 1986 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service. He is also the recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize as well as the Balzan Prize. Maulana Edhi, as he is often referred to, is of the Memon community. According to the Guinness World Records, Edhi Foundation has the largest private ambulance service network in the world.
Dr. Edhi was born in 1928 in Bantva in the Gujarat, British India. His father was a textile trader and earned a modest income for his family. He was a natural born leader and would encourage his friends to hold tiny circuses and perform gymnastics for the locals. When his mother would send him to school she would give him two paisa, one to spend for himself and the other to spend for another. At the age of eleven he started to take care of his mother who suffered paralysis from severe diabetes. From an early age Edhi learned to help others before himself - this would be crucial to success in his life later on.
His family migrated to Karachi after independence in 1947. In 1951 he used the money he saved up while he was looking after his mother to purchase a small shop. It was at this shop where he opened a tiny dispensary with the help of a doctor who taught him basic medical care. He also encouraged his friends to give literacy classes there. Edhi had spent his life a simple man, and would continue to do so, he would sleep on a concrete bench outside the dispensary so he was available at any time to help people.
In 1957 a major flu epidemic swept Karachi. Edhi was quick to react, setting up tents on the outskirts of the city to distribute free immunizations. Grateful residents donated generously to Edhi and so did the rest of Pakistan after hearing of his deeds. With all the donation money he bought the rest of the building his dispensary was located in. Edhi opened a free maternity centre and nursing school, and so Edhi Foundation was born.
n the years that followed, Edhi Foundation grew through all of Pakistan. After the flu epidemic, a businessman donated a large sum to Edhi and with the money he purchased an ambulance vehicle which he drove himself. Today the Foundation has over 600 about 2000 in year 2008 according to BBC Asia ambulances located all over the country. He himself continues to travel with call outs out of Karachi to the rest of the Sindh province, the response time and services the ambulances provide are renowned for being better than the municipal ones. Along with hospitals and ambulance services, Edhi Foundation has set up clinics, maternity homes, mental asylums, homes for the physically handicapped, blood banks, orphanages, adoption centers, mortuaries, shelters for runaway children and battered women, schools, nursing courses and soup kitchens. A unique part of every Edhi centre is that there is a carriage outside each one, so that women who cannot afford to keep their children or have had a child out of wedlock and cannot keep it, can simply place their baby in the basket and Edhi Foundation will place it into an orphanage and give them a free education.
Today not just in Pakistan, but in the Muslim world, Abdul Sattar Edhi has earned a reputation as being one of the most selfless and honorable human beings today. Despite his fame and reputation he continues to lead a simple life, he wears traditional Pakistani Shalwar Kameez, of which he only owns one or two, and he owns one pair of slippers, which he has supposedly worn for the last twenty years. This is despite the fact the Edhi Foundation has a $10 million budget, out of which he takes nothing for himself. His son Faisal once stated that when the Foundation was setting up in Afghanistan, local staff had purchased chairs for guests and the press when a new center was being opened, when Edhi arrived he was furious because the money that was spent on the chairs could have been used to help people. That night he slept on the clinic floor with the ambulance drivers.
The Edhi Foundation continues to grow. Dr Edhi, looking to the future, has stated that he aims to build a hospital every 5 km in Pakistan. Although he is given the title Maulana out of respect, he himself dislikes the title as he has never been to a religious school and he is not an Islamic cleric. He prefers being called 'Doctor' as he has received an honorary doctorate from The Institute of Business Administration in Pakistan for services to humanity. He also completed his MBBS Degree from Pakistan in 1981. He is also famous for being very shy about his popularity and when people personally praise him for his work. He also refuses to accept donations from governments or formal religious organisations, because according to him they set 'conditions'. Both General Zia-ul-Haq and the Italian government sent him generous donations, which he sent back.
In 1996 his autobiography, A Mirror to the Blind, was published.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, as of 1997, Edhi Foundation's ambulance service is the largest volunteer ambulance service in the world. He also personally holds the world record for having gone the longest time working without having taken a holiday. As of when the record was set, he has still not taken a single day off work.
On January 8, 2008, US immigration officials interrogated Abdul Sattar Edhi at the John F. Kennedy Airport in New York for over eight hours, and seized his passport and other documents.
Edhi told that US immigration officials had questioned him for eight hours at the airport. “During the interrogation, they wanted to know why I travelled to the US so frequently” he said. “I told them about the nature of my work, but they did not understand. They also wanted to know why I was not living in the US in spite of having a green card.” "The only explanation I can think of is my beard and my dress," he said when asked why he had been stopped so often.
On Thursday, January 29, 2009 The News newspaper reported Edhi is not allowed to visit Gaza. The newspaper further reported that Abdul Sattar Edhi, who is in Cairo along with Faisal Edhi and his two daughters for the last two weeks to help the affected Palestinians of Gaza, regretted that every coming day was making the sphere of human rights more restrictive across the world. A spokesman for the Edhi Foundation said on Wednesday that Edhi after staying in Cairo and not getting permission to visit Gaza, has reached the conclusion that human rights have been killed and buried deep. He said that he has helped in the provision of relief to people affected by wars, civil wars, earthquakes and drought in 28 countries and was never stopped to do his job. The spokesman said that Edhi has been trying to get permission from Cairo authorities to visit Gaza but in vain. He thanked the Pakistani ambassador to Egypt and the staff of the embassy for their cooperation and said now he was returning home as a depressed person.
may he live long. Ameen
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"It is with great foresight that New Mexico has chosen to invest in the commercial space business," she told the group in Las Cruces. "And when I say New Mexico, I mean taxpayers have chosen to invest."
Her eagerness seemed a far cry from the skepticism she showed soon after taking office in early 2011. The change of heart illustrates an ironic reality midway into Martinez's four-year term.
It's not clear that Martinez would have supported the massive public investment required to build the spaceport had she been governor when the state and local communities pumped $209 million into the project. Economic Development Secretary Jon Barela wouldn't say whether Martinez would have invested the money former Gov. Bill Richardson championed had she been in his place, saying he was "not willing to second-guess the prior administration's decision."
Because of the investment made while Richardson was governor, many spaceport supporters say, the project presents a real opportunity to create private-sector jobs - the kind Martinez likes best.
But the spaceport's future, and the possibility of private-sector jobs in a region desperately in need of them, appears tenuous, its fate hanging in part on proposed legislation state lawmakers will
The Legislature has twice failed to pass the bill even as some other states with competing spaceports have enacted similar protections. Sen. Pete Campos, D-Las Vegas, thinks compromise is possible this year.
"I would indicate today that it would be very likely, but all the stakeholders truly need to be brought to the table," he said in late December. While Martinez's economic development plans are larger than Spaceport America - the spaceflight informed consent bill is one of seven measures she'll promote in the upcoming session - the bill's passage has the potential to boost Martinez's economic development record, which some say is a mixed bag so far.
Martinez can count among her achievements a boom in international trade and a growing border-related industry in Santa Teresa. But the state is losing jobs, and other economic indicators show slower growth than nationally.
Spaceport supporters say the project has the potential to help grow a new aerospace economy and reduce reliance upon federal dollars. New Mexico ranked sixth in per-capita federal spending in fiscal year 2010, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report.
Though Martinez looks on the spaceport more favorably than she once did, she has been unwilling to pump more money into the project and has scaled back funding for its administering agency. Meanwhile, competing states have ramped up spending in the race to attract the commercial space industry and its jobs.
Those factors make the bill to cap legal liability for spaceflight parts manufacturers and company shareholders make-or-break for Spaceport America, supporters say. In recent weeks the CEO of the spaceport's major tenant, Virgin Galactic, bolstered those fears, saying the company would rethink its plans if the measure fails this year.
The legislation has powerful opponents. The New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association has adamantly objected to the bill, saying it could undermine a long-held tenet protecting consumer safety.
Martinez has thrown her political weight behind the bill in the months leading up to the legislative session that begins next week. The proposal matches with her philosophy for creating a friendlier business climate in New Mexico.
It's perhaps Martinez's best chance of supporting potential new jobs at the spaceport without spending more money on a project she likely initially saw as excessive.
A look back
Soon after taking office in 2011, Martinez installed a new board and Executive Director Christine Anderson for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority. The facility was in mid-construction, and the shake-up worried spaceport supporters.
Martinez, in a recent interview in Las Cruces, said she was concerned at the time about lax financial accounting.
The skepticism may have also been partly because the project - along with others like the Rail Runner commuter train in northern New Mexico - symbolized what some saw as Richardson largesse. Martinez took aim at other symbols of what she perceived as excess by selling a state-owned jet, shrinking her security detail and laying off chefs at the governor's mansion.
Asked if she is a spaceport supporter now, Martinez replied: "Absolutely. And the counties that voted were also strong supporters," she said, referring to Doña Ana and Sierra counties' self-imposed tax increases.
But Martinez is holding to her pledge to downsize public spending on the facility.
When Virgin Galactic sought an extension of the already-built spaceport runway for landing safety reasons last summer, the spaceport re-worked its existing capital outlay budget to pay for it.
Martinez has also cut funding for the spaceport authority, which is responsible for construction and operation of the facility, from $1.2 million to $500,000 annually, said Anderson.
New Mexico's project was designed and built from the ground up as a spaceport. It features a 10,000-foot concrete runway, a spacious terminal-hangar, and rocket-launching facilities.
That's one advantage New Mexico has over other states that are using funds to expand upon or refurbish existing infrastructure, such as rocket launch pads and airport runways, Spaceport Authority Chairman Rick Holdridge said.
But the competition is steep. Florida, Virginia, Texas, Colorado and California are all vying for a piece of the action as the United States moves toward greater reliance upon commercial aerospace to transport people and payloads.
Last year's final space shuttle flight signaled that the federal government was holding to earlier plans to privatize spaceflight in low-earth orbits. In 2012, California-based SpaceX carried out the first-ever commercially contracted resupply mission to the International Space Station.
Florida received FAA approval for two spaceports in 2010 at Cecil Field Airport, a former naval air station near Jacksonville, Fla., and Cape Canaveral. Virginia has a coastal spaceport for launching rockets. Its main client is Orbital Sciences Corp., a company with a $1.9 billion NASA contract to resupply the International Space Station.
Both states are building up spaceports, boosting dollars for the state agencies that oversee the projects and offering incentives.
In Florida, the Legislature has appropriated $4 million a year for its spaceport agency, said Tina Lange, spokeswoman for the entity. It also received another $6 million in one-time funding. Lange said about $30 million was allocated over the past two years for spaceport infrastructure projects.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, has supported legislation to open up more funding for Cecil Field Airport.
In 2012, Virginia's GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell approved a budget for his state's spaceport authority of $9.5 million annually for four years. Reaching a goal of building "the leading commercial space launch facility in the country" also includes improving facilities and exempting from income taxes companies that operate in and launch from the state, according to its strategic plan.
Texas is offering the commercial aerospace industry substantive financial incentives. It also benefits from a CNBC ranking as the most business-friendly state in the nation; New Mexico, by comparison, was tied for 36th in 2012. Texas has one privately owned, FAA-licensed spaceport. Others are in the works.
New Mexico offers some aerospace-related gross receipts tax reductions. Spaceport America offers attractive natural features - clear weather, clear airspace because of White Sands Missile Range nearby, a low population density, and a high elevation that lets companies launch payloads at a lower cost, Holdridge said.
Martinez told Las Cruces symposium attendees in October that she's committed to broader changes that would benefit the aerospace industry. "I'm personally focused on reforming our tax and regulatory environment, as well as improving public education to equip more workforce to better serve the industry," she said.
But New Mexico doesn't have the population or financial resources to rival the efforts of some other leading aerospace states, Holdridge said. The state's best hope to stay competitive is the expanded legal liability bill, supporters say.
Failing to OK the measure is "basically telling the industry the state is schizophrenic," and will likely drive companies away, Holdridge said.
Virginia started a trend in 2007 when former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine signed the first measure to protect manned spaceflight operators from crash-related lawsuits. New Mexico followed suit in 2010 during Richardson's last year in office.
New Mexico spaceport supporters contend the protections must extend down the supply chain and to company directors and shareholders, which is what the proposed legislation would do. The Legislature's failure to pass the bill has factored into at least one company's decision to go elsewhere. XCOR Aerospace, which plans suborbital flights, said New Mexico had several attractive sites including Spaceport America. A "surprise" failed vote on the expanded bill was partly why the company opted last year to locate a headquarters and research and development facility in Midland, Texas, said Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nelson.
In November, a group named "Save Our Spaceport Committee" announced support for the bill. Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides was present but is not part of the group.
In an interview, Whitesides emphasized that he's never said the company would consider leaving if the bill fails again. He also didn't rule it out. "What I've said is we're going to take a closer look at what the Legislature does and then evaluate our stance," he said.
Virgin Galactic has a 20-year lease to base flight operations at Spaceport America. Breaking it would cost the company $500,000 or $2 million, depending on the circumstances of the departure, the lease states. Virgin Galactic has to guarantee itself by filing a letter of credit once lease payments begin - something that hasn't happened yet.
Even so, Virgin Galactic would be required to pay the penalty if it pulled out before the first lease payment, Anderson said. She said she expects the company to move forward with its New Mexico plans.
The guarantee is a drop in the bucket compared to the more than $200 million Virgin Galactic has invested in the spacecraft it's building to fly customers into suborbital space.
Whitesides said the proposed legislation is needed to attract other spaceport tenants. The vision has always been to create a "thriving spaceport with multiple anchor tenants and a robust ecosystem of manufacturers and suppliers," he said. That hasn't happened.
"We're faced with a situation where all the operational costs of the spaceport are going to fall on our shoulders, and that's not what we signed up for," Whitesides said.
Anderson said at least two other spaceflight companies are considering locating in New Mexico. She declined to name them.
Room for compromise?
Supporters and opponents of the proposed legislation point to different concerns.
Failing to enact the law could lead manufacturers to stop supplying parts to companies operating at Spaceport America, said N. Wayne Hale Jr., a former NASA official and consultant to commercial spaceflight companies, in remarks to the spaceflight symposium.
New Mexico Trial Lawyer's Association President Ray Vargas said there's higher risk for negligence if companies can't be sued.
"What they're saying is: 'Let's change 200 years of settled law and tell these manufacturers you can do what you want and make a faulty product and come to New Mexico and use it,'" he said.
Spaceport officials said the measure wouldn't affect the rights of people on the ground to sue in the case of an accident.
Vargas also said the bill could set a precedent for other exemptions to tort law.
State Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, said any legal changes should apply "to the businesses that are actually going to come to New Mexico and commit to creating jobs."
Cervantes said there's room for compromise, perhaps drawing upon other states' statutes. He said he's expecting the measure to pass. "I hope I'm going to be in a position to strike a good balance between our goals for economic development and the goal of safety," he said. "I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive."
Sen. Campos, too, said policymakers can find a balance that protects consumers and advances the spaceport's economic development potential. It will take involvement early in the legislative session from all parties in the debate, he said.
Diana Alba Soular can be reached at [email protected]. This article and series were produced by New Mexico In Depth (www.nmindepth.com) in partnership with the Las Cruces Sun-News and Santa Fe New Mexican.
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Archive for Local Events
John Allison, Distinguished Practice Professor at Wake Forest University and retired Chairman of BBT, joins Bill Smith and Dr Jim Leggette on The Morning Show and discusses the importance of the novel, Atlas Shrugged. Click the link below to hear the interview.
1 JOHN 3:17 is a weekly outreach ministry that blossomed from a mission project called Playground for Jesus. The Playground for Jesus is a recreational area built to honor God, and to provide a safe place for children to play. Through one simple email titled “What could you do with $10?”, God provided over $65,000.00 for the project. I have seen God at work in tremendous ways during this entire process. It started by building a “Playground for Jesus” in a low income area of our community. After building the playground I noticed a young boy playing without a coat on. I was convicted by this boy not having a coat. I was reading my Bible that night, and came across 1 JOHN 3:17. This Verse says, “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has not pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” I decided the needing people in our community needed a voice. I knew according to this verse people would feel pity on the needy, and provide for legitimate needs. God has opened so many doors it is amazing. I started emailing people every Friday a need in our community. Each and every need was being met on a weekly basis. Then the radio station 1010 AM WMOX called and wanted me to be a part of a weekly radio segment. This radio segment started in January of 2010. Every week I present a need on the radio. I wonder each week if this is the week we will not met the need. However, God has come through on a weekly basis. Every single need that has been presented has been met.
Monday mornings at 7:15 we have a weekly segment on radio station 1010 AM WMOX called the 1 John 3:17 segment. We will highlight the TODAY’S NEED during the segment and have call ins for about 30 minutes where we try to get the money pledged. Please listen and call in (601-693-1010) or (601-693-1891) to help things get started off with a bang!! This is a great chance to help people in need in our community.
Please remember about the needs we present
**All donations are tax deductible**
For your information- Any need presented will be after an individual has been checked out through the Wesley House Clearing Procedure. Each individual must bring proof of I.D., pay stubs, tax records, social security for each member of the household, any child over 18 must provide income information, receiving any subsidy (food stamps, housing allowance, etc.), and proof of all outgoing bills. There is an extensive application that proves who the people are and the situation they face. Phone calls are placed to verify employment and information provided.
I know everybody has limited incomes, but many people are willing to help if they know who and what their money is going to. I simply cannot afford to do it all, and neither can you. I have a hard time going to sleep at night knowing somebody in this world who is trying their best needs a little help. The money you give will go in full to the individual if you decide to help. God is so good, and thank you for being somebody God can use. Please pray for each story and see if God gives you the means to help. If God puts it on your heart, please do not use the excuse somebody else will take care of it because it might go undone.
The mailing address for 1 John 3:17 is PO BOX 664, Marion, MS 39342. Make checks out to the Wesley House and earmark them for 1 John 3:17.
Dr Lee Lee Marlow, Director Division of Children and Youth at Weems Community Mental Health Center, joins Bill Smith and Al Brown on The Morning Show and addresses distracted parenting – a result of parents’ increased use of smart phones, texting, social networks and other electronic communication. Click the link below to hear the interview.
Jimmy Slay, Lauderdale County Tax Assessor, joins Bill and the Dog on The Morning Show and discusses a free tax seminar – Tax Responsibilities for Small Businesses, to be held January 20th, 2011 6p-8p Union Station. Registration is required – call 601.693.1306. Sponsored by The Citizens Bank, EMBDC, MSU-Starkville SBDC, Wells Fargo Advisors, Culpepper and Culpepper Accounting and Meridian Community College. Click the link below to watch the show.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010 • 7 p.m. •McCain Theater, Ivy Hall
$10 for Adults • $5 for Children / Students
Brought together at a young age by their love of music, the Starkville, MS group, Nash Street strives to artfully bridge the gap between country music and traditional bluegrass. Winners of the 2008 Colgate Country Showdown, the band was named “Best New Act in Country Music.” Nash Street has a distinct sound, stage presence and ability to connect with varying audiences. The group utilizes the inspiration of influences such as Chris Thile, The Eagles, Ricky Scaggs, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill and Allison Krauss as a pleasant compliment to the soulful melodies of Mississippi and the leisurely rhythm of southern life. The quintet provides a hybrid gene which is being hailed “Grassroots Country”. The band consists of Daniel Hare on upright bass, Hannah and Caroline Melby on fiddle and mandolin respectively, Ben Mathis on rhythm guitar, and Clay Lezon on lead guitar. Suitable for audiences of all ages.
Check them out here: www.nashstreet.com
I hope you enjoy the 2010-2011 Arts & Letters Series!
Mississippi will honor “Father of Country Music,” Jimmie Rodgers, with the first marker on the Mississippi Country Music Trail. The ceremony will take place Tuesday, June 1, at Oak Grove Baptist Church Cemetery in Meridian at 11:00 a.m.
“Because of his influence on the musical genre, Jimmie Rodgers is clearly recognized as the ‘Father of Country Music,’” said Mary Beth Wilkerson, director of the Mississippi Development Authority’s Tourism Division. “Prior to the recording of Rodgers’ first songs for the Victor Talking Machine Company, there was no such musical genre as country music. His style was a national phenomenon that paved the way for generations of country music, blues and rock and roll artists to come.”
Much like the Mississippi Blues Trail, which now garners over 100 markers, the Mississippi Country Music Trail celebrates Mississippi’s rich heritage of country music legends and chart toppers. The trail will feature a variety of country music artists, including Charley Pride, Conway Twitty, Jerry Clower, Faith Hill, Paul Overstreet and others to comprise the first 30 markers across the state.
For more information about the Mississippi Country Music Trail, explore the official Mississippi Development Authority’s Tourism Web site, http://www.visitmississippi.org/.
The 68th Semi-Annual Ralph Morgan Rodeo April 16th-17th 2010 Lauderdale Mississippi. Showtime 7:30p both nights rain or shine, covered bleachers. $10 Adult $6 Children. Sponsored by Rush, Johnson Dodge, Hardees, US Army and Electric Mills Wood Preserving.
Handel’s Messiah Oratorio for the Easter Season will be presented by the Meridian Symphony Chorus on Sunday, April 11, 2010 at Highland Baptist Church at 2:30 p.m. Singers and orchestra will be conducted by Dr. Bob Hermetz, assisted by organist David Benson. The MSO Chorus will be joined by the Columbus Choral Society conducted by Doug Browning. Soloists will be Heather Clancey, mezzo-soprano, Diane Key, soprano, Chris O’Rear, bass, and Bob Hermetz, tenor.
Messiah presents the Easter Passion story through glorious choruses and solos, including “Behold the Lamb of God”, “Hallelujah” and “Worth is the Lamb Who was Slain”, among others. Text for Messiah is in English and is entirely Biblical, foretelling the suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ. It is the most popular and frequently performed oratorio by any composer. What is perhaps more remarkable is that Messiah was composed in the short span of twenty four days, from August 22 to September 14, 1742! This Easter offering burst onto the stage of the Musick Hall in Dublin, Ireland, on April 13, 1743.
Meridianites will hear this profound oratorio on April 11, 2010, nearly two-hundred and sixty-seven years later. There will be no admission charged, however, a free-will offering will be takes. Highland Baptist Church is located in north Meridian at 3400 27th Street.
Pace Cooke Emmons joins Bill Smith and the Dog on The Morning Show and promotes Blame it on the Alcohol – The Message in the Media, a parenting seminar sponsored Weems Community Mental Health Center. Speaking at the event is Marc Fomby. Click the link below to listen.
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172 West 23rd Street,
No one has favorited this theater yet
This little-known theatre was showing motion pictures when it caught fire on February 5, 1922. As reported in the New York Times, the patrons left “hats, coats and even a Maltese cat in flight” at this small theatre located on 23rd Street near Seventh Avenue.
“Panic was averted by the presence of mind of the management and the employees of the theatre, whose efforts enabled the spectators to march out in an orderly manner while the pianist played The Star Spangled Banner”.
The only person injured was the projectionist, who was “scorched”. The cat was assumed to have been brought in by a patron as he had never been seen before.
The Lyric was still operating in 1924 when it was advertised running a week of Paramount pictures.
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater
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| 0.983761 | 194 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Doctors Lounge - Orthopedics Answers
provided on www.doctorslounge.com is designed to support, not
replace, the relationship that exists between a patient/site
visitor and his/her physician."
Back to Orthopedics Answers List
- Tue Aug 03, 2010 6:14 pm
Two weeks ago I fractured my clavicle. I went to the ER and was told I would likely need surgery based on my X-Rays. The following morning I went to the bone trauma surgeon, and he looked at my X-Rays and said that the other doctor (not a specialist) was wrong and this would heal by itself. He also said that the bump, caused by the relatively profound overlapping of my clavicle, will heal on top of itself.
Although I feel much better and have not needed to use a sling at all in almost a week, the bump appears larger than it had before. Does this have to do with the healing process? The range of motion in my arm improves everyday and there hasn't been a feeling of much bone movement in almost a week. Since I do not have health insurance (and only for the month this happened), surgery will be a nightmare and put me in a suddenly awful financial situation. Is it normal that the bump may be a little larger?
https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#in ... 7c7ff799f4
| Tom Plamondon PA-C
- Thu Aug 05, 2010 10:04 am
The vast majority of clavicle fractures heal without surgery.
The bump can increase slightly in size as the bone heals - the callous formation increases the diameter slightly.
Since your shoulder range of motion is improving and assuming pain levels are manageable then the clavicle ought to be healing nicely.
If there are concerns or potential issues with healing, then the best thing to do is have another x-ray taken.
But in general, the need for surgery with a clavicle fracture is low.
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| 0.955162 | 419 | 1.507813 | 2 |
When President Bush was governor of Texas, one of his most
significant accomplishments was reforming tort laws to curb
frivolous, abusive lawsuits. For this reason, many U.S. trial
lawyers opposed Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. Since then, the
Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) actively has opposed
Bush's agenda to reform tort law at the federal level.
The White House Council of Economic Advisors estimates the cost
of the tort system, including all types of personal-injury claims,
is $179 billion annually. Bush knows tort reform is essential to
help the economy and lower insurance costs. But comprehensive
reform to reduce tort laws' financial burden is difficult to get
through Congress, so more specific bills are being considered.
As Bush requested, on March 13, the U.S. House of
Representatives passed the Help Efficient, Accessible, Low-cost,
Timely Healthcare (HEALTH) Act of 2003 (HR 5) by a 229-196 vote to
establish federal limits for medical malpractice lawsuits. Such
lawsuits cause doctors' liability insurance premiums and consumers'
medical insurance premiums to...
Log in or register for FREE access to this article and other Professional Roofing online content.
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| 0.931692 | 263 | 1.625 | 2 |
Puggle is a desktop search engine that provides full text search over files, folders, music, photos, Web pages, and other data that are stored locally on your computer. Puggle is able to create many different indices, each with a different configuration. For example, you may have a different index for your music collection as well as your documents. Each of them can be used on demand, simply by loading it. Furthermore, Puggle supports indexing of portable devices, like USB flash drives or external hard disks. The index will be stored in the device, using relative paths, allowing you to search over the data very quickly on any computer.
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Google Search Engine Optimization
Seach Engine Optimization Whether you are a web designer, web programmer, marketing specialist, or just a business owner Your goal is to have you web site reach the top of the search engine listingsSeach Engine Optimization
Whether you are a web designer, web programmer, marketing specialist, or just a business owner. Your goal is to have you web site reach the top of the search engine listings. To do so you must know how search engines rank web sites in their index. Knowing how this happens gives you a great advantage over others who know nothing about search engine optimization. Basically search engine optimization is a process you go through to make sure that your web site is spider friendly and easily indexable. In this article we will mainly be discussing Google's search engine and there are two ways to get your site to the top of Google's list.
The first way is paid advertising with Google AdWords. This is the quickest way to get your web site at the top of Google's listing and on multiple other pages that are sponsored by Google AdSense but you are going to pay for this service. There are two ways to pay for this type of service and that is Pay Per Click (PPC) or Pay Per Impressions (PPI). This means you can pay a fee every time someone clicks on your link, or you can pay a fee for every thousand times you add shows up on another web site. The positive aspects about AdWords is that Google's network allows you to really focus on your market group specifically. If you have a business that only services a specific city then there is no reason that your add should be showing up on websites people are viewing from another country. You can really just focus on your specific niche and your clicks will be more likely to turn into sales or leads which give your a better ROI. The downfall to AdWords is that you are in a constant bidding war with other advertisers for that ad space. In AdWords you type in your daily budget for a specific ad and then how much you are willing to pay per click for that add. Lets say you are willing to pay $0.25 per click but your competitor is willing to pay $0.50 per click, well his add wins out over yours and his will show up higher in the listing than yours. So not only is it a constant battle but your competitors can easily knock your ad to the second or third page by simply bidding higher than you. You can also purchase different packages that teach you how to effectivly optimize your website for search engines. Brad Callen's SEO Elite, WP SEO Sniper, and SEO One Way Links are just a few of those programs.
The second way to get your web site to the top of Google's search is called Natural Listing. Natural listing is based on many different things in Google's algorithm and it ranks your site by how popular Google sees it to be. There are many things you can do to get your site in on natural listings. First submit your site to as many search engines are you can because most of them are free and it can never hurt. This allows different search engines to know about your site and allow their spiders to crawl across it and discover the different pages. A lot of search engines, mainly google, offer free webmaster tools for you to use. I highly recommend this because it gives you the ability to upload a site map that tells the specific search engine where all your pages are located. There should be a link to every page you want indexed somewhere on your page. A site map helps search engines to locate pages that they might have trouble with ordinarily, such as database driven web sites and some more complicated web programming.
There are somethings you can do to help spiders index your page properly and first is to have a good title tag on every page. A good title tag helps the spiders find out what you page is about so make sure you include some important keywords in your title tag. Next thing you want to do is include some h1 and h2 tags in the body of your pages. You also want to include some important keywords between your h1 and h2 tags so that the spiders will pick these up too. The great thing now with CSS you can make an h1 and h2 to tag look any way you want it to look and you are not bound by the large bold text of the h1 and h2 tags. Back in the day meta tags where what you used to define keywords on your website, but people to often where over loading their meta tags with to many keywords and search engines put very little weight into meta tags if any.
Part of Google's main algorithm for ranking websites is how many people link back to your website. The more people you have linking back to your website the better because it makes you seem more reliable. There are two types of links when it comes to the internet. There is the one way link, where Bob's web site links to my web site but I do not link back to Bob's. Then there is the two way link, where Bob's web site links to my web site and I link my site back to Bob's web site. Google looks more favorable on one way links to websites because your site looks more popular if everyone is linking to it. There are a few tricks to get your website out there and have people link back to it.
Participate in Help Forums by searching for forums that relate to your website. Read the forums and participate with constructive comments or help answer someones problem or question. When you join these forums most of them give you a signature field where you can add a little information about yourself. Here is where you put your name and your web address. Now use a little common sense here and don't make your signature an advertisement because you will most likely be banned from the forum. But if you really help out and contribute to the forum it is a great way to get your web site out there.
Write Free Articles for different websites with free information. Everyone is on the internet looking for free information so if you happen to have a site about balloon animals then write some articles about balloon animals and submit it to free websites. Websites that publish free articles will give you a little about the author tag that goes at the bottom of every article you write and they publish and this is where you include a little bit about yourself and your web address. Again this is more free advertising for your website. When you sign up for these free article websites you agree to let anyone download and reuse your article somewhere else as long as your author box stays with it. So if you write a great article about being creative with balloon animals your 5 download your article and use it in their newsletter or on their website that is 5 more links you have back to yours.
So are you getting excited about this whole advertising thing yet. I know I am!
Participate in Blogs as much as you can about your specific topic. This is one of my favorite things to do because I love getting into discussion with people about different things so search the internet and find blogs about your topic, trust me you will find them. Then read a couple blogs and comment on what was written in the blog. Now the big thing here is please contribute real information to the blog and not just an "I Agree" statement. If your comment is just obviously there just to get your link displayed most blog admins will block you from posting which will only hurt your cause. Most blog sites allow you to type your name your email and them your comment and when your comment is posted your name becomes a link to your website. So blogs are another great way to get your web site out there.
You SHOULD NOT spam blog websites or spam any other website for them matter just to get your name out there because you will be blocked. Another big tip you should NEVER do is something that was done a while back and that is hidden text. A lot of people use to make a section of text on their site the same color as there background then they would just throw as many keywords in that hidden text as they could and as many times as they could. All search engines have picked up on this unfair trick and will not block you and remove your site from their listings should they catch you doing this.
So everyone just use some common sense in how to get your website out there for people to see. Be creative but the ethical about it because as I said before no one likes a spammer. Play around with different suggestions and see what works for your and what doesn't.
Mike Walton, founder of MikeNet PC, has been in the technology field for 8+ years working with different technologies but focusing on web develtopment. Check out his web site at http://www.mikenetpc.com
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| 0.957236 | 1,791 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Biography: The Kellogg Brothers: Corn Flake Kings
Using extensive footage and commentary from family members and historians, this profile of the cereal giants explores their tumultuous relationship at home and at the office. After a 20-year partnership, the brothers engaged in a 10-year legal battle. This episode examines the feud that drove them apart and how one brother turned a humble invention into the cornerstone of one of the most successful companies in the world.
60-minute runtime; two-year copyright clearance
Aug 23 at 7:00AM ET/PT
Related Tools & Resources
This episode of Biography chronicles the three generations of the Heinz family that built an international business giant with their ketchup.
Series profiles political leaders, artists, and other famous figures.
Retraces the path of the great adventurer and reveals what is known of his private life.
This episode of Biography travels with an expeditionary team as they follow clues to Genghis Khan's burial site and provides insight into the Asian warlord.
Biography profiles the life of the industrial giant who earned notoriety for his intolerance as well as his inventiveness.
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The Medicare program provides subsidized medical insurance for the elderly and for some disabled people. During 2012, enrollment in Medicare averaged about 50 million people. Gross spending (excluding administrative costs that are subject to appropriation) for the program was $551 billion. (Net spending, which has beneficiaries’ payments of premiums and some other receipts subtracted out, was $466 billion.) CBO anticipates that Medicare spending will rise rapidly over the next decade, spurred by the retirement of the baby boomers. The agency’s work on Medicare includes projections of future program spending, cost estimates of specific legislative proposals, and a range of analyses of policy options and issues affecting the program.
Use this menu to filter CBO's publications by topic. From January 2011 forward, all the agency's products are categorized by topic. Cost estimates released prior to the 112th Congress are not categorized by topic.
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But that’s a good thing. At least, it is for Scouts who love to mountain bike.
The BSA has approved a mountain biking option for Cycling, a merit badge mainstay since 1911. So for the first time, Scouts who prefer fat tires instead of thin can earn the badge.
The news comes in advance of next summer’s opening of the Summit Bechtel Reserve in West Virginia, where mountain biking will play a big role in the high-adventure fun.
Here’s what else I know about the change:
- The patch design will stay the same.
- An updated requirements book will allow Scouts to choose one of two tracks: road cycling and mountain biking.
- Expect new pamphlets in late 2012 or early 2013, but Scouts who start the merit badge with the old pamphlets can still finish will those requirements.
- Members, who told BSA professionals and volunteers that Scouts want this option, drove this decision.
In fact, commenters on Bryan on Scouting have championed mountain biking for a long time. Commenter Gregory Gamache wrote, “Why not a Mountain Bike Merit Badge? Mountain Biking has become a separate sport from road cycling. It has its own equipment and skills. However, the cycling merit badge is all about road cycling.”
Commenter Sian Barranco added, “Could simply be a Track B with separate riding requirements. Change the distances; keep the safety; adapt the mechanical requirements. Not a really difficult adaptation. We live in eastern TN and mountain ride a lot. The Scouts are more interested in mountain than road riding.”
Well, Gregory and Sian, ask and you shall receive!
About Cycling merit badge
Cycling, first introduced as a merit badge in 1911, is an option for the Eagle Scout rank. Scouts can choose among Cycling, Hiking, or Swimming.
Keep up with merit badge updates
At the New Merit Badges guide, right here on Bryan on Scouting.
What do you think?
Will this change mean more Scouts earn Cycling merit badge? Leave your thought below.
Photo by Roger Morgan/BSA
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To the Editor:
If this sounds familiar, well I wrote a letter like this some five or six years ago. Sadly, nothing much has changed. The people of Rhode Island still want non-stop flights to the West Coast. I assume this means San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Diego.
So again, I checked our two other airports in New England with 10,000-foot runways and otherwise similar in size to T.F. Green (Bradley International and Manchester, New Hampshire). I was shocked; the Manchester airport goes as far as Las Vegas and Phoenix, and the Hartford airport lists non-stops to Las Vegas. Neither lists non-stops to the West Coast, and T.F. Green goes non-stop to Las Vegas, as they do. People, check the schedules; you will only see Logan (in New England) provides non-stop service to the West Coast.
Yes, we can supply temporary construction jobs and probably money in the pockets of some powerful Rhode Island politicians, but sadly one fact is the further destruction of wetlands and the city of Warwick. Also stated on a cheap fare website, which I will not name, “non-stop flights are always more expensive compared to direct or connecting service flights.” So where is the gain?
Smaller East Coast cities will never get non-stop flights to the West Coast. It is simply too costly to the airlines, so they will continue to ferry the passengers to their hubs. Sure, our fantasy dreams will keep us wishing for easier travel to the coast, but I also dreamed for a Bruins Stanley Cup – it took 39 years.
One fact the larger runway will bring is larger freight shipping planes to T.F. Green, since these flights would be more profitable to the likes of UPS, FedEx and others.
Yes, we are called NIMBYS, but the longer runway will result in nothing changed other than more negatives. Just take the drive or the train or the bus to Logan for non-stops. Perhaps a doubling of the population in Rhode Island will get the airlines’ attention, but with our tax and spend problems, we all know better. On that note, just leave Rhody when you see those precious flights…
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| 0.948266 | 461 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Immigration New Zealand could be heading for a record deficit because of the drop in numbers of people coming to this country.
A briefing paper to the Immigration Minister says the agency's memorandum account is forecast to hit a deficit of $44 million at June 30, up from a deficit of $28.1 million recorded last October.
"This is largely a result of a drop in visa application volumes following the global financial crisis and the Canterbury earthquakes," the paper says.
It said the agency's high fixed-cost business model meant it was unable to reduce operating costs in the short term in line with the decreased application volume.
Steve Stuart, acting immigration head, said overall visa applications dropped by 17,301 last year to 516,024 - down from 533,325 the previous year.
The largest drops were in the number of people approved for permanent residence, down 11.5 per cent, temporary work visa applications, which dropped 4.7 per cent, and student visa applications, down 2.6 per cent.
"Immigration New Zealand's revenue from visa applications was $108.3 million, representing 58.4 per cent of total revenue," Mr Stuart said.
The paper said the agency was moving towards a new operating model that would provide "better immigration services at less cost", which would be technology-enabled, and that work was under way to establish a "future funding model".
Mr Stuart would not say if there would be job losses at the agency under this new model.
"It is too early to specify the exact changes needed and the staffing which will be necessary for the new operating model, but we do know that the type, nature and number of roles required within Immigration will change," Mr Stuart said.
"Any changes will be subject to full consultation with the staff throughout before decisions are made."
The Government is spending $90.5 million to upgrade computer systems at the agency, which is hoped to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs by $12.1 million over 15 years.
It will introduce the Immigration Global Management System over five years to replace the current ageing system.
The agency is aiming to save 1 per cent a year in administration and support costs.
"In the year to October 2011, annual net migration into New Zealand fell to negative 100 people," the report said.
"This is the first annual net loss since the September 2001 year."
The outflow of migrants has continued to January, when the annual population net loss from migration hit 3100 - the highest in more than a decade.
The target of attracting between 45,000 and 50,000 residents was not met, with just 40,737 residence visas issued in 2010-11.
"Reducing the minimum threshold for skilled migrants would ... weaken migrants' economic and settlement outcomes," the paper said. "Skilled migrants who are granted residence without a skilled job offer may not be able to find work."By Lincoln Tan Email Lincoln
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| 0.968328 | 600 | 1.648438 | 2 |
This morning, Russians in Chelyabinsk, an industrial city 950 miles east of Moscow, were jolted awake when a meteor exploded in the sky, producing shockwaves that shattered windows, set off car alarms, and injured at least 500 people. The meteor was traveling at 19 miles per second, according to Russian authorities, before exploding mid-air, likely as a result of the immense heat generated as a large object speeds through the atmosphere.
On the ground in Chelyabinsk, Russians witnessed a scene that must have seemed ripped out of an apocalyptic film, as a bright, flaming object suddenly appeared in the sky, streaked across the horizon, and unleashed a bone-rattling shockwave. The extraordinary developments were captured on video, in part through the automobile dash-cams that are nearly ubiquitous in Russia.
Below, we've compiled a selection of some of the best videos of the meteor shower, along with translations of the reactions of the stunned Russians on the ground.
At 1:40, the speaker says that there was an extremely bright flash going across the sky. Once the blast can be heard he says, "What the hell? ... Something fell. Do you hear? You know what that was? It was supersonic. It must have been an asteroid, and that's the blast wave." At 2:38, the speaker exclaims, "What the fuck?" They look at the broken windows and say it's like something out of the war. Then, another speaker says, "It must have been a rocket or something." While they're cursing up a storm, one of his friends says, "It must have been the Chinese!"
The video below gives a sense of the magnitude of the blast's shockwave.
This video, shot across the border from Kazakhstan about 200 miles from Chelyabinsk, shows how far from the city the meteoroid could be seen.
The blast blew out windows in Chelyabinsk. The closed-circuit video below gives a sense of how many Chelyabinsk residents likely experienced the meteoroid.
This video of a street in Chelyabinsk, which doesn't capture the direct path of the meteoroid, shows how the meteoroid lit up the street, casting a veritable klieg light on an entire city block.
This video compilation shows how residents experienced the meteroid across the city, and includes footage from a Chelyabinsk school right after the explosion was felt on the ground.
This blog does not have any specific about information tied to it.
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| 0.956726 | 522 | 1.804688 | 2 |
In December 2012 compared with November 2012, seasonally adjusted industrial production grew by 0.7% in the euro area and by 0.5% in the EU27, according to estimates released by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. <br/>
In November production fell by 0.7% and 0.6% respectively. In December 2012 compared with December 2011, industrial production decreased by 2.4% in the euro area and by 2.3% in the EU27. Compared with 2011, the average production index for 2012 dropped by 2.4% in the euro area and by 2.1% in the EU27.
In December 2012 compared with November 2012, production of non-durable consumer goods grew by 2.0% in the euro area and by 1.3% in the EU27. Durable consumer goods increased by 2.0% and 0.4% respectively. Capital goods rose by 1.3% in the euro area and by 1.2% in the EU27. Intermediate goods fell by 0.2% and 0.3% respectively. Production of energy dropped by 1.2% in the euro area and by 0.4% in the EU27.
Among the Member States for which data are available, industrial production rose in fourteen, fell in six and remained stable in Spain, France and Romania. The highest increases were registered in Ireland (+8.5%), Latvia and Slovenia (both +2.7%), and the largest decreases in Slovakia (-4.4%) and Denmark (-2.3%).
In December 2012 compared with December 2011, production of intermediate goods fell by 4.6% in both the euro area and the EU27. Durable consumer goods dropped by 3.9% and 4.8% respectively. Capital goods decreased by 2.9% in the euro area and by 2.3% in the EU27. Non-durable consumer goods declined by 1.3% and 1.9% respectively. Production of energy increased by 1.2% in the euro area and by 0.4% in the EU27.
Among the Member States for which data are available, industrial production fell in fifteen and rose in eight. The largest decreases were registered in Spain (-6.9%), Italy (-6.6%), the Czech Republic (-5.8%) and Poland
(-5.4%), and the highest increases in Latvia (+10.7%), Malta (+10.3%) and Lithuania (+9.1%).
Total industry excluding construction. The index of industrial production measures the evolution of the volume of production. According to the Council Regulation 1165/98 Eurostat publishes national seasonally adjusted data if available. For the other Member States (Greece, Spain, Cyprus and Luxembourg) Eurostat performs the adjustment. Seasonally adjusted euro area and EU series are calculated by aggregating the seasonally adjusted national data.
The weights of the Member States in the EU and euro area aggregates can be found at:
See file: EU27_EA17_NEWS_RELEASE_WEIGHTINGS_2005_nace2 (NR ind_production).
More detailed data can be found in the short-term statistics database on the Eurostat website:
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Friday, November 16, 2007
Beowulf is a weak film whose motion capture technique and stereoscopic 3D will distract reviewers and audiences from realizing how empty it is. Director Robert Zemeckis is far more involved with his camera than his characters. Some may mistake Zemeckis use of motion capture as a quest for realism, but it's not. Motion capture is just a way for Zemeckis to exert more control over the film; the problem is that control is a disadvantage in the hands of a second-rate director.
The story is about powerful men who are seduced by evil but who can't admit to their failings. This can be the stuff of great drama, but the film rarely rises beyond a high school production of Macbeth. Instead of Zemeckis burrowing into his characters and providing them with conflicting needs and desires, they succumb all too easily. While they are eventually forced to confront their sins, they never feel the full weight of them.
Zemeckis uses motion capture for two reasons. One is to avoid going on location and the other to give him increased freedom with the camera. Neither reason justifies the effort involved.
Locations inform an actor's performance. Lawrence of Arabia would not be the same film if it was shot on a soundstage, unless you believe that the desert heat, the great expanse and the sand that gets blown into every crevice and orifice did not influence the performances. For all of Zemeckis's obsession with skin pores, body hair and saliva, he hasn't bothered to show the breath of characters when they are standing in the snow.
Zemeckis is more besotted with stereoscopic 3D and a computer animated camera than a first year film student. He can't resist throwing things at the audience or using mile-long camera moves. The camera is constantly calling attention to itself, never more so than in the sequence where Beowulf decides to fight Grendel while naked. Besides being questionable from a tactical standpoint, this results in some of the most contrived camera compositions imaginable. While the audience should be getting emotionally involved in the battle, it's constantly distracted by the ways that Zemeckis uses the camera and props to hide Beowulf's genitals. In one shot, Zemeckis hides them behind a sword stuck in the floor, one of many obvious pieces of sexual symbolism sure to raise snickers from the twelve year olds who are the film's target audience.
While debates about motion capture and the relative success of it in this film will dominate the discussion, it's a pointless argument. Had the technical work been flawless, convincing the audience that they were watching flesh and blood creatures on the screen, it would not compensate for the fact that Beowulf is a colossally dumb movie. The characters are so simplistic, the drama so uninvolving, the direction so crass that no technique could elevate this film beyond mediocrity.
Compare the flight of arrows in this film to that of Olivier's Henry V. Compare the battle scenes with Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky. Compare the monsters to those in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings. Compare the complexity of the characters with George Stevens' Shane. In every case, Zemeckis falls short and by a wide margin.
What's going to kill this kind of film making is that reputable actors will avoid it like the plague. Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich should be horrified with the results. No one will equate their "performances" in Beowulf with films where these actors appear in the flesh. Why would performers concerned with their reputations lend themselves to a process that doesn't present them at their best?
There will be debates as to whether this film is animated or not. Should it be eligible for the Best Animated Film Oscar? Let the debate rage, but I won't bother with it. A film like Beowulf is a waste of time regardless of how you classify it. Technique and novelty are never enough; they're just distractions that eventually lose their appeal. I demand more from movies than skin pores, big camera moves and spears pointed at my nose. A movie should have a heart and a mind, and Beowulf has neither.
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STRUGGLING WITH STRESS? Pain, blood pressure, cholesterol, strength, movement, heart, digestion, mental slowness.
Click the animation below to learn more.
Northridge chiropractor, Dr. John Termini of Termini Chiropractic Relief & Wellness who practices near Granada Hills, Reseda, Chatsworth, Tarzana, North Hills, Canoga Park, West Hills and Encino Says:
Pain is a reliable sign that there is something significantly wrong in your body: You might say that pain is your body screaming at you to stop hurting it! (Even if you dont know what it is youve been doing to abuse it!)
Pain is not always a reliable sign of what is wrong, how much something is wrong, or where something is wrong.
Someone having a heart attack can have a mild pain in their arm; another with liver problems can get an ache in their shoulder blade; a kidney infection can produce a dull low back ache. Many cancers can be totally symptom free until they are life threatening. Similarly a headache can come from the upper part of the neck; pains in the shoulders and arms can radiate from the lower neck or upper back; chest and abdominal pain can be referred from the mid spine; buttock, hip and leg soreness can spread from the low back. These are all examples of referred pain.
And, more detailed understanding of the nervous system reveals that tension in one part of the spinal system can transfer tension to another part of the spine. In other words you may be feeling soreness in your low back, but the actual source of the tension leading to that pain could even be in your neck!
And, you can have Subluxations that are serious, but symptom free.
The good news is that TRT is a system that aims to detect and direct your Chiropractor to the source of spinal tension, and the adjustments are focused to reduce this root of your problems.
This has an important application: We wont always adjust you or treat you where you are feeling your pain. This doesnt mean we dont care about your pain or are not interested in relieving your pain. It just means we are looking at your body from a more holistic perspective. Many clients are fascinated by how seemingly remote and unconnected aches and pains can mysteriously disappear once they start receiving TRT.
Try to assess your progress by more than just how much pain you have: How well are you moving, carrying out daily activities, sleeping, relating to others, feeling emotionally, energy levels changing? LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE.
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Monday, June 22, 2009
With a cliche here and a cliche there, here a cliche there a cliche don't use a cliche!
You can find "writing tips" all over the web, in books, on blogs, under rocks, in the refrigerator behind the mayonnaise. But there are general things I think about as an editor, as a writer, and as a reader and from time to time I'd like to share them.
I want to talk this morning about things I see as "cliches." I try double dip hard not to write cliche-ingly. Those cliches can be tricky; they can be sneaky. It's not always the obvious cliche of "soft as a cloud," or "hard as a rock," etc. There are other things I think of as "cliche." Those things that are over-used or unimaginative or sometimes just, um, "lazy writing." And this does not mean one must try to be clever - if you are trying to be clever, it will show that you are TRYING to be clever. If one is constantly THINKING about what they are writing and how they are writing it instead of actually just writing, then the work will be stilted or the work won't be done or one could freeze up and feel as if they will "fail" - there is no failing, there is doing what feels right for You--and if writing with the cliches below feels right to you, then for gawd's sake write that way.
Some things I think of as "Cliches" (and yes my word "cliche" doesn't have the emphasis mark but I'd rather have none that use a ' ):
Please don’t end your story with “it was all a dream.” Or, set me up with a situation and then I find out it's a dream. As I always say: Rules are meant to be broken, but you dang sure better be good at it and convince me! I love reading dreams in a story, but I like to know they are dreams and not feel as if the author is trying to fool me or say "gotcha!" Those "gotchas" better be done in a way where I think "oh! I didn't expect that! Cool!" and not the gotcha that has me rolling my eyes and feeling frustrated and "fooled."
Watch those descriptions of characters where they look into mirrors and then describe themselves, for example: “Betty looked into the mirror and studied her strong determined chin, her curly red hair that framed a pale winsome face, the freckles across her haughty nose.” Who does that? Who thinks about themselves in that way? I can see something natural, though—the character notices something that we really would—hair all messed up or lipstick smudged or a spot of dirt on a cheek, etc. Just be careful that your character looking into the mirror to describe their physical characteristics to the reader doesn’t become a cliché--if you describe your character in a mirror, then it already is a cliche.
This is my own personal pet peeve, but, watch phrases such as when something floods a character’s mind or body or whatever, as in “Relief flooded Betty’s body,” or “Anger flooded her veins," or "Happiness flooded Betty's mind." It's just a personal thing for me - maybe it's been overdone, but mostly I'm looking for something more compelling to describe the feelings Betty is having .
Oh well, those are just a few things I am thinking about this morning. More important for you is to get the words on the page; the more you practice, the more things that come to you naturally or instinctively or through an awareness, the more you will automatically do them so that in re-writes you have less work in front of you. If I knew what I know now back when I first wrote Tender Graces, that novel would have been completed and ready to go much sooner. Do I sometimes make mistakes - hellvitica yeah! Do I sometimes mess up and write out my own pet peeves? I do and I try to catch them. Will I ever stop learning how to be a better writer? Heckles no! Writing-words and language-is alive and breathing!
Now, I am going to go work on Virginia Kate Book 2. See y'all later!
google image: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WTtnAYyqVog/RnquAL19y1I/AAAAAAAAA9I/Vmj8mBEiAx4/s400/cliche-bingo.jpg
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Cross-posted with permission from Disability.gov
I recently shared my story as a speaker at the Alliance for Full Participation Summit in November, and today I would like to post some of my thoughts and experiences on Disability.Blog. My name is David Egan, and I have been an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton for 15 years. I believe that improving the employment opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities is a smart business decision and a social responsibility.
There are many people like me who are seeking to be valued members of our society. People with intellectual disabilities can succeed on the job. People with intellectual disabilities have dreams; we want to be included; we want to be a part of the community. We want employers to hire us, and we want to be useful members of our society – because we want to show OUR ABILITIES and to contribute to the goals of the businesses we work for.
How It Started and What I’ve Learned
Let me tell you how it all started for me and why I am able to succeed. It did not all happen suddenly. It took many years to prepare, and there were a few things I learned along the way:
(1) It takes a TEAM. All through my journey, there were very special people – my family, neighbors, friends, teachers, coaches and mentors – who made a difference in my life. They all helped me overcome obstacles.
(2) Inclusion starts at home. In my family, I was taught that work is part of life. Early on, I helped with family chores, and I was not excused because of my disability. On the contrary, I engaged in all of the activities: the fun ones and the not so fun.
(3) My disability is not an obstacle. It was hard for me to accept the fact that I have Down syndrome, but it became easier when I discovered that I was not alone. I know that I have a disability just like many others in this world, but my disability does not get in the way when I train and compete in Special Olympics sports. It is not an obstacle when I learn and perform; it is not a barrier when I take the bus to go to work or when I earn my paycheck every two weeks. It may be a challenge, but I think of all the things that I CAN DO.
The Road to Employment
Transition from school to work started for me in high school with an internship at the Wild Life Federation and then at the Davis Center, a vocational training school. However, the best internship was with Booz Allen Hamilton. I started as a clerk in the Distribution Center during the summer when I was a junior in high school.
The internship did not include transportation. My family and I discussed our options, and I started training on taking the bus to work. I learned some basic security when crossing the roads and how to make sure I knew where to take the bus and where to get off. It took a week, and then I was completely on my own throughout the summer. I have taken the bus now for the past 15 years.
My first supervisor was great. She took it upon herself to teach me everything there was to know about being a clerk in the Distribution Center. She believed in me. She wanted me to fit in, and after the summer internship, she asked me if I wanted to stay and become a staff employee. She taught me how to fill out my timesheet and establish a routine for the day.
I am treated like other employees at work. I receive benefits, time off, and an annual 360-degree assessment like everyone else. I go to compulsory training and participate in All Hands meetings and corporate events. The company cares about my personal and professional development.
I have also made many friends. And one of them is Greg, a senior employee in the Distribution Center, who knows me well and has been my role model for the past 15 years. He truly cares about me and gives me guidance.
The CEO of Booz Allen Hamilton, Dr. Ralph Shrader, has stated, “Work provides more than a paycheck. It brings dignity and community. When businesses open job opportunities to men and women with disabilities, everyone benefits – the individual, the company, and society at large.”
The Meaning of Inclusion
Inclusion also means that I have to give back to the community. When I was 12, I dreamt of winning the race in the Special Olympics. I still like the competition and want to win many races. But now, I dare to dream about changing the way people think of us, changing the perceptions, opening doors for people with disabilities to shine and overcome the disabilities, not only on the court but in the workplace and at all levels of our society. I believe in the Dignity Revolution, as Special Olympics International CEO Tim Shriver calls it. He coined that term at the World Games this past summer.
Dream with me, of a world where people are respected and encouraged to succeed: a world where people with intellectual disabilities are fully accepted and have great friends. Employing people with intellectual disabilities is a smart business decision and a social responsibility.
The goal is to make sure that all people with intellectual disabilities can launch successful careers. To achieve that goal, we need strong family and community support, good education and social skills, internships during high school, and a seamless transition from school to work, showing that WE CAN achieve because people have high expectations and value our contributions. We need mentors in the workplace, supervisors who are willing to take a risk and invest some time to teach us new skills and help us learn.
This is what it means to have an inclusive workforce. This is how we fulfill our social responsibility and make a good investment. Our nation and the world will be a better place for all of us – a place where people with disabilities do not have to hide and are fully accepted.
David Egan has been an employee of Booz Allen Hamilton in the Distribution Center of the McLean, VA campus since 1998. He is also an advocate for people with disabilities as a member of the Board of Directors of the Down Syndrome Association of Northern Virginia, and at the international level through Special Olympics, where he serves as a Global Messenger and co-chair for the Winter Games for Special Olympics Virginia. An athlete himself, he plays and competes in soccer, basketball, ice skating, softball, and swimming.
David has also served on the Special Olympics International, United States Athlete Leadership Program Committee and is a recipient of the 2002 Heroes Award from Special Olympics International and the 2003 Voices Award from the National Down Syndrome Society. He speaks at various fundraising events for Special Olympics and has been part of delegations for people with intellectual disabilities in Ireland and Morocco. He has visited both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate lobbying for people with disabilities. In 2011, he testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which convened the first in a series of hearings to examine how to improve employment opportunities for people with intellectual disabilities.
blog, Down syndrome, Employment, Inclusion, intellectual disabilities, transition to adulthood
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I wanted to talk with NATO officials to understand the incident and help initiate the process for lessons learned from the civilian casualties, but NATO refused to meet. NATO officials have not considered civilian casualties in their May review of the war and have refused to conduct an on-the-ground assessment of the civilian impacts in Libya. These issues aren’t going away. How can NATO uphold its mandate to protect civilians while denying civilian harm?
I had a vastly different experience with NATO in 2008, when I investigated civilian deaths from airstrikes in Afghanistan for Human Rights Watch. At that time, civilians were being killed at a dizzying pace; the United Nations documented 359 civilian deaths from airstrikes in that year. After our report was released, NATO acknowledged problems and implemented changes: The number of documented civilian deaths stemming from airstrikes in 2011 was 187. When I led the U.N. office on civilian protection in Kabul last year, I saw firsthand how seriously alliance forces take civilian casualties.
Last July, for example, our Gardez office alerted me that a night raid in Khost had killed a number of civilians. Alliance troops initially told me they had hit a Haqqani network commander and killed him, as well as a woman who had been targeting Western forces and at least four other “militants.” The U.N. team on the ground said it had proof this was wrong and provided evidence that compelled the launch of a joint incident-assessment team. This ad hoc assembly of military professionals partnered with Afghan investigators on a thorough investigation. The U.N. liaison officer to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) called me later to confirm they had unfortunately killed civilians and thanked us for repudiating their initial claim. A colonel with the ISAF subsequently participated in a jirga in the village to apologize and offered amends for the dead. It is hard to believe NATO has not applied in Libya simple lessons gleaned from a decade in Afghanistan: investigate civilian casualties, acknowledge and make amends.
Although civilian casualties were reported in only nine targets out of more than 7,700 dropped bombs in Libya in 2011, NATO refused to discuss those incidents or provide gun-camera footage and questioned why the United Nations was investigating. Alliance officials eventually declassified information that was provided to my team, but they gave terse answers to our queries and claimed that all targets were legitimate and that no civilian casualties could be confirmed.
The United Nations provided Global Positioning System coordinates for each strike, dates and times of attacks, specifics on the bomb fragments found at each site, details about the civilians killed and the lack of any military signatures such as weapons or communications equipment that would have proved these were legitimate military targets. NATO responded that we had gone to the sites too late to find any proof of military targets. But if I could find the remnants of NATO bombs months after some strikes, surely there would be remnants of the intended targets. Instead I found only the remains of homes.
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If there was a musician who transcended the difficult boundaries between East and West, it was sitar maestro Ravi Shankar.
Panditji, as he was known to his fans, did it by remaining true to his craft. "He was an amazingly pure artist," says Kartik Seshadri, one of Shankar's pupils and a sitar master in his own right.
Though he's often thought of in the West as an experimenter and collaborator -- with guitarist George Harrison, violinist Yehudi Menuhin, saxophonist John Coltrane, composer Phillip Glass and conductor Andre Previn -- Shankar was a traditionalist.
Indian classical music, as ancient as the scriptures of Hinduism, flowed from his fingers with ease. His music transfixed even those who knew not one iota about the complexities of it.
"That is the beauty of his approach to music and how he was able to transfer that and translate that to an audience in the West," Seshadri says.
Shankar's music moved from introspective to playful.
"There's a whole gamut of emotions that finds a place with people," Seshadri says.
Shankar died Tuesday in San Diego, his home for many years. He was 92 and led a life rich with accomplishments and accolades.
I was one of those people who was transfixed the first time I listened to Shankar.
I was still in high school in Tallahassee, Florida, when Shankar and his troupe came to town for a performance at Florida State University's music school in December, 1978.
There were only a handful of Indian families in Tallahassee then, and not much was available to us in the way of homeland culture. It was a rare treat for us to be able to see Shankar in concert.
My mother was especially excited. She was trained in voice and sang the songs of another talented Indian, Rabindranath Tagore, India's sole Nobel laureate in literature. She played harmonium with her songs and sometimes, a tanpura, a string instrument that resembles a sitar but has no frets.
It was a moment of pride, as well -- in a time when India was known to many of my American friends as a land of human misery. When we wanted to boast of the greatness of our land, we uttered Shankar's name.
A few days before the concert, organizers called my mother with a special request: Could she possibly cook dinner for the musicians? Shankar was craving a home-cooked Bengali meal.
Of course, yes, my mother said. Who would not be honored to cook for the maestro? Then came days of cooking -- spiced rice pilau with raisins and pistachios, chicken curry, lentils and sandesh, a special milk sweet for which Bengalis are famous.
On the night of the performance, Opperman Music Hall was packed. The lights dimmed and the Shankar's music filled the air, mellifluous and luscious like the rich silk of a Benarasi sari.
I didn't understand the melodic forms and rhythms of the music that was played that night.
I knew that he had written the music for director Satyajit Ray's acclaimed "Apu Trilogy." But I was not unlike millions of others who connected Ravi Shankar's name to the Beatles and to the concert for Bangladesh.
I had expected to react in typical teenage fashion with boredom. Instead, I was transported to another sphere. Shankar's sitar was magical.
The rhythms of the performance fell and rose with the improvisation of each melody framework known as a raga. His sitar told of joy and sorrow, of lives led and dreams dashed.
The intensity on stage rose as Shankar challenged tabla virtuoso Alla Rakha to match each one of his sitar riffs. I did not just hear a performance that night. I felt it.
Later that evening Shankar and Rakha arrived at our house. I sat in awe through every course of my mother's dinner.
It was my introduction to the classical music of my homeland. I realized then that I didn't need to understand the nuances of the notes. Shankar spoke to me in a language that was universal.
"He created an aura of spirituality," says journalist and musician Partha Banerjee.
"His music transcends the boundaries of race and religion. It is what humanity is all about." Harrison dubbed Shankar the "godfather of world music." Many Indians like to think of him as their cultural ambassador to the world.
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"In most sports they have a physical effect on your performance, in swimming only psychological. If you worry about what your rival is doing, you take your mind off what you are doing and so fail to concentrate on your performance."
Bachrach, great Chicago coach of the 20's
"In training everyone focuses on 90% physical and 10% mental, but in the races its 90% mental because there's very little that separates us physically at the elite level".
"People ask me 'what was going through your mind in the race?' and I don't know. I try and ...let my body do what it knows".
"I wouldn't say anything is impossible. I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and put the work and time into it".
"When I go out and race, I'm not trying to beat opponents, I'm trying to beat what I have done ... to beat myself, basically. People find that hard to believe because we've had such a bias to always strive to win things. If you win something and you haven't put everything into it, you haven't actually achieved anything at all. When you've had to work hard for something and you've got the best you can out of yourself on that given day, that's where you get satisfaction from."
"I have been visualizing myself every night for the past four years standing on the podium having the gold placed around my neck."
"Before the (Olympic) trials I was doing a lot of relaxing exercises and visualization. And I think that that helped me to get a feel of what it was gonna be like when I got there. I knew that I had done everything that I could to get ready for that meet, both physically and mentally".
"The water is your friend.....you don't have to fight with water, just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move".
"I can't control what everyone else swims but if all goes well I know there are no limits."
"I am not going to allow myself not to perform well just because I don't feel well. I am bulletproof to the extent that a lot of things can be thrown at me, but it's about how much I am prepared to let them affect me".
"I can definitely take more off my world record - a lot more. I have no doubt about that. I'm by no means putting pressure on myself, it's just the belief I have in myself......I'm not going to limit myself by nominating times or anything like that. I never thought I'd do 14:34 and I did. I thought I'd maybe do 14:38 or 14:39 that day, and I went nearly five seconds quicker so I don't want to limit the possibilities". Grant Hackett
"Body does what mind prefers." Lenny Krayzelburg
"Mainly, I like to have fun. Swimming is all about having fun, and I am firm believer that you should keep swimming as long as you are having fun, but I can say that it becomes much more fun as you get older and learn more about the sport, life, and especially more about yourself".
"For myself, losing is not coming second. It's getting out of the water knowing you could have done better. For myself, I have won every race I've been in".
"While I'm swimming, I sing songs in my mind."
"I enjoyed every bit of my swimming career. I think that's the most important advice — to enjoy what you do".
Summer Sanders 1992 double gold medallist
"Any time you can get up there and scare a few people, throw up some decent times, it builds up your confidence and also sends a message to other people."
Olympic silver medallist Marianne Limpert
"Susie had no talent whatsoever. She's a little person who couldn't even make a final at a state meet - coming and showing the world that on sheer guts and determination you can do anything you want!"
Susie Maroney's coach Dick Caine after her 200 kilometre marathon swim from Mexico to Cuba
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When Ms. Nagel came to Northern from her native Germany in 2000, she was hired as a head native speaker for the Foreign Language Residence Program (FLRP). Cited for being “the best native speaker we have ever had,” she prepared games and activities for her fellow “FLRPies” at Douglas Hall and still regularly attends special dinners and bi-annual Taft retreats, where she presents mini-workshops for the students to great acclaim.
After earning her degree, Nagel first taught at Buffalo Grove High School, then accepted a teaching position at Prairie Ridge High School in Crystal Lake, where she received tenure. While working full time, she received a Master of Arts in Teaching and Leadership from Saint Xavier University and is currently working on Type 75 certification at Concordia University.
By all accounts, Nagel is truly a “born teacher.” Her outstanding teaching abilities have not only been recognized at Prairie Ridge, where she has single-handedly increased German enrollment by three sections, but also in the profession.
She is the youngest member of the Goethe-Institut Trainer Network Midwest, a group of accomplished teachers who offer workshops to colleagues. This past summer she taught a week-long immersion workshop in Casper, Wyoming. The topic: Keine Angst vor Technik im Deutschunterricht! (Don’t Be Afraid to Use Technology in Your German Class!)
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IHTM28292 - Investigating liabilities: sums payable to third parties in Scotland
You should not disallow a deduction for any sum that the transferor has agreed to pay just because the person they were due to was not a party to the agreement. But any sums payable must be legally enforceable, and you need to bear in mind the extent of consideration (IHTM28293).
Usually, where a contract is made under Scots Law between two parties, only they acquire rights and incur liabilities under the contract. A third party does not acquire either rights or liabilities under the contract.
But, if a contract between two parties is drawn up to benefit a third party or a class or group of people who are identified in the contract, it is said to confer a 'jus quaesitum tertio' on the third party. It must be clear from the wording of the contract that both contracting parties intended to confer a benefit on the third party, who would then be entitled to enforce performance of the contract according to its terms or to recover damages for non-performance.
To be enforceable, it is said that a jus quaesitum tertio must be irrevocable (Carmichael v Carmichael’s Executrix 1920 SC (HL) 195, 2 SLT 285). This is established by
- delivery of the contractual document to the third party
- registration for publication in the Books of Council & Session
- intimation to the third party
- the third party coming under onerous undertakings on the faith of having a jus quaesitum, or
- by evidence that the third party knew of the provision intended for their benefit.
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Research: 2012 Government IT Salary Survey
Research: Federal Belt-Tightening Slows Compensation Growth
The survey was designed by InformationWeek and fielded online. The survey was promoted in InformationWeek’s daily and weekly newsletters. In addition, email invitations with an embedded link to the survey were sent to qualified IT professionals from InformationWeek Business Technology Network print, newsletter and events databases. The survey was fielded from November 2011 to January 2012.
The information in this report is based on responses from 733 government IT professionals. Unemployed and part-time workers were excluded from these results, as were respondents from outside the United States. This report uses median rather than mean or average figures for salary and percentage salary changes to eliminate distortions caused by extremes at the high or low ends of the responses. (R4150412-GOV)
Survey Name 2012 InformationWeek U.S. IT Salary Survey; Government
Survey Date January 2012
Region North America
Number of Respondents 733 federal government IT employees, including 480 IT staff and 253 IT managers.
Purpose To track IT salary and compensation trends from the perspective of those on the front lines, InformationWeek conducts an annual U.S. IT Salary Survey. Now in its 15th year, it’s the largest employee-based IT salary survey in the country. Last year 18,201 full-time IT professionals completed the Web-based survey. This year 13,880 took part. The goal of this trendable study is to measure various aspects of compensation, benefits and job satisfaction. This report focuses on the 733 government IT professionals who participated in the survey.
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| 0.954247 | 333 | 1.65625 | 2 |
By Rosie Mestel
2:20 PM PST, January 25, 2013
There's new fireworks exploding around the plan by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — a.k.a. “Nanny Bloomberg” — to ban the sale of sugar-sweetened soft drinks larger than 16 ounces from a broad array of eateries in the city.
That a lawsuit was filed by the American Beverage Assn. and other trade groups to block the city’s move, due to take place in March, may come as no surprise. But nutrition advocates are upset by support that is coming from other, less-expected quarters: the New York State branch of the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation. The two groups filed a brief in support of the food industry's lawsuit on Wednesday, arguing among other things that the move would hurt minority businesses and asking the city to consider a broader approach (including exercise promotion) to fight the obesity problem that disproportionately affects African Americans and Latinos.
Here is the amicus brief filed by the NAACP and Hispanic Federation.
And here's a commentary published last year by Hazel N. Dukes, president of the New York State NAACP chapter, in which she terms the soda-size-limit plan “a misdirected solution to the growing problem of obesity” in the African American community and argues that the issue should be addressed more broadly in approaches akin to the NAACP’s Project HELP (Healthy Eating, Lifestyles and Physical Activity), which “educates participants on the risk factors that lead to chronic diseases, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, stroke and cardiovascular disease” and “develops community health ambassadors to build healthier environments for families.”Nutrition advocates don’t argue with a multi-pronged approach, but they point to the fact that the NAACP receives funding from Coca-Cola for Project HELP. And they are expressing their dismay.
Michael Jacobson, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement that the organization should give that money back.
“My guess is that the NAACP looks back with some regret at its acceptance of money from Philip Morris and other tobacco companies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and wishes it could take back some of the favorable things the group said about those companies and its executives, the tobacco sponsorship it accepted for NAACP events, and the times it opposed raising tobacco taxes, and so on.
“I fear that the current leadership of the NAACP will look back with similar regret at its acceptance of money from Coca-Cola and its subsequent willingness to oppose sensible public health measures such as the cap on soda serving sizes proposed by New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg.”
And here from the Food Politics blog of Marion Nestle, nutrition professor at New York University:
“Public health measures like this are about removing health disparities and giving everyone equal access to good nutrition and health. This makes public health — and initiatives like the soda cap — democratic, inclusive, and anything but elitist… . [I]n funding this suit, the soda industry has made it clear that it will go to any lengths at any cost to protect its profitability — even to the point of dragging along with it the very groups that would most benefit from the initiative.”
HuffPostLive hosted a heated interview with NAACP’s Dukes plus guests with various other viewpoints. (Search for it under “archives” and “business,” then look for the segment called “NAACP Sides With Big Soda.”) When challenged about the NAACP’s position and the fact it receives funding from Coca-Cola, Dukes said: ”We’ve been funded by many corporations,” and “I’m not siding with Coca-Cola.” She said that obesity needs a holistic approach and that you can’t ignore the economic impact of the soft-drink size limit. “Who will be punished? Not the chains ... but the little mom-and-pops,” she said. (Loopholes in the law would exempt many convenience stores, including 7-Eleven, because they don't come under the purview of the city's health department.) Appearing to be angry, she eventually hung up on the interview.
Jeffrey Robinson, an assistant professor at the Center for Urban Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., said he didn’t think the soda drink limits will adversely affect small businesses that much. He added, “People can still go drink as much as they want. They just have to do it in portions of 16 ounces or less.”
Food reform advocate Nancy Huehnergarth of New York said: “My concern is seeing any organization … taking money from the soda industry and then feeling that they can then weigh in on soda issues. … You have to wonder if their opinions have been compromised.”
But Kellie Terry-Sepulveda, executive director of the Point, a South Bronx community development nonprofit, said a lot of good can be done with private dollars, and she asked whether enough research had been done to explore the effects of the looming soda restrictions on small businesses.
An editorial in the Baltimore Sun called the beverage industry’s actions “beyond shameless.”
“Why would the nation's oldest civil rights organization take a stand so at odds with its historic mission of advocating on behalf of issues important to African Americans? The simple answer is: Follow the money. The New York City branch of the NAACP has received tens of thousands of dollars from the Coca-Cola Co. and other beverage companies over the years, and now the industry is demanding payback. Through its longtime Atlanta law firm, Coke literally wrote and paid for the friend of the court brief that the New York NAACP filed in opposition to the ban.”
"How can they look themselves in a mirror knowing they are hurting deliberately the life expectancy and the quality of life for the people that they're supposed to serve?" Mayor Bloomberg said Friday.
Copyright © 2013, The Los Angeles Times
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Spurred on by a group of students, the Harford County public school system this week became the first in Maryland to prohibit tobacco use in its buildings and vehicles. The ban, which affects school employees, takes effect July 1 with tobacco use to be allowed only in outside designated areas. Students already are barred from smoking on public school property statewide, and the state Board of Education is considering a bylaw to prohibit smoking in all public school buildings.
The Evening Sun would like to know what you think. Should everyone be prohibited from smoking inside school buildings? Should employees be allowed to smoke in outside designated areas? Should smoking be banned everywhere on school property?
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Ghriskey expects corporate bonds to benefit from stronger U.S. economic growth, which would boost corporate fortunes. "We like corporates but are cautious about long-term corporate bonds because they carry more interest-rate risk. We're concentrating on intermediates," he says.
Legend Financial Advisors prefers high-yield bond funds over investment-grade funds because of the yield advantage, Holtzman says. With default rates so low for the low-rated companies that issue high-yield bonds, "You're not taking a lot of credit risk."
But he notes that junk bonds correlate very closely with stocks. So if equities fall, junk bonds likely will, too. And while default rates are very low now, "If economic growth stays slow, there could be default/credit troubles ahead for lower credit-quality companies," Sjoblom says. "You can't have much better fundamentals than now. Investors should keep that in mind."
Municipal bonds are free of federal taxes -- state taxes, too, if you live in the state of issuance. So munis are particularly appealing to people in high tax brackets. Investors anticipating tax increases next year have played a big role in the strong rally for munis recently, Ghriskey says.
"But we don't think it's wise to pay for that currently, especially when we see improvement in the domestic economy and interest rate risk on all bonds," Ghriskey says.
Sjoblom says that while those investing in bonds are piling into munis now, "Investors have been doing a poor job of timing moves in and out of the market," Sjoblom says. "There is no way that returns can continue like this with yields so low."
Several cities have declared bankruptcy over the past few years, adding an element of risk to the market. But most experts say the risk is manageable and that a wave of additional bankruptcies isn't coming.
A number of foreign markets offer higher yields and better principal protection than the U.S., Ghriskey says. Many investors are looking to emerging markets such as China and Brazil. Fund managers investing in foreign bonds there point to stronger economic growth than in the developed world and prudent fiscal and monetary policy, Sjoblom says. "But keep in mind that yields already are low in higher quality markets."
Be careful when investing in eurozone bonds, especially in the southern nations, as their economies are struggling.
Also check to see if the fund invests in local currency or dollar-denominated bonds. If it's local currency bonds and the fund doesn't hedge its currency exposure, you will be at risk of a loss if the currency of a bond in the fund falls against the dollar. As a shareholder, that will help you when the currency rises against the dollar but hurt you when it falls.
Given all the crosscurrents in the bond market now, you may want to invest in funds that, together, include all these sectors. All the uncertainty "shows how difficult it is to call the market and the need for a diversified portfolio, even with yields as low as they are today," Sjoblom says.
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(NOTE: Explicit language ahead.)
This is part of a transcript from the second segment of the June 24, 2007, episode of The Today Show on NBC.
MATT LAUER, HOST OF The Today Show: Thanks, Al. Last night, the Sacramento Kings shocked the world by defeating LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers 123-122 in overtime to win the NBA Championship in what's being billed as one of the greatest seven-game series of all-time. Joining us from Sacramento via satellite we have two key cogs from that extraordinary championship run, the head coach Eric Musselman and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Ron Artest. Eric and Ron, first off, congratulations. How's it feel to be the best in the world?
RON ARTEST: It's cool.
ERIC MUSSELMAN: You know, we're extremely excited to have gotten the opportunity to face off against a tremendous competitor in LeBron James and to do it in front of our home fans. The people of Sacramento are truly great, and they really deserve this.
ARTEST: Yeah, you know, no one said we could do it, you know, everyone said, you know, we're going to miss Bonzi. Well, we did miss Bonzi, but I bet he missed us more, because we got the ring, you know what I'm saying?
LAUER: Coach Musselman, talk a little bit about what Ron Artest means to this team. I mean, he's certainly been a polarizing figure in the league up til now.
MUSSELMAN: Ronnie is an extremely passionate man, and as a coach, you couldn't ask for anything more. I mean, in December, when he punched Raja Bell in the mouth because Raja Bell is a dirty player and an ass, that's the definition of passion. Ronnie hasn't always been popular to the pundits and to the talking heads, but he's always been very popular in his team's lockerroom.
ARTEST: And it's not because I be giving guys massages, either. You know.
LAUER: Um, right. You brought up that brawl with Raja Bell. This team hasn't been a stranger to controversy, going back to October, when you Coach Musselman were pulled over on suspicion of drunken driving. How was your team able to overcome these serious obstacles?
ARTEST: Hey man, that's old shit. Don't be giving Muss shit about that. That's old.
LAUER: Ron, we're on live television here, you can't say --
ARTEST: Don't you go calling me Ron, little bitch! I'm "Mr. Artest" to you, you know? An' don't act like I don't remember when you tried and hold me down after that shit in Detroit. I remember that, man. I don't forget.
MUSSELMAN: Ronnie, Ronnie, it's OK. It's OK. I'll respond to that, if I may, Matt. You know, I made a mistake, and I'm very regretful for that incident. However, I believe I've paid my debt to society through 50 hours of community service and a $500 fine, and I have learned my lesson. I will never drink and drive again.
ARTEST: An' he don't need suckas like you judging him, you know! And you call me "Mr. Artest" or "The Black Michael Jordan" from now on, you hear?
LAUER: OK, Mr. Artest. One of your teammates, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, has said he will not meet President Bush, as is customary for NBA champions. How do you feel about that?
ARTEST: Well, you know, Shareef's got his opinion and I respect that. Shareef's a man, you know. I ain't ever questioning anything Shareef does. He scored like 20 points a game against Tim Duncan in the playoffs, you know. Ever since we traded Kenny Thomas for Portland's first-round pick, you know, Shareef's been a man. But I, you know, I support the president. I'm going to talk some shop with him, about Team USA. Because I think I should get to try out for Team USA like everyone else did last year. I mean, I think I proved just now in the Finals that I can guard anyone in the world. You know, if I can shut down LeBron like that, like in overtime last night, I should be on the team. But I'll try out. I ain't got no problem with that. You know, I'm from the hood, I'm street, I'm gangster. I'll punch an Argentinian in the mouth, you know. I've done it. Tell me one player in the Olympics I can't guard. There ain't one. So, you know, I'm going to talk to the president about that, see if he can do something, you know. He's the president, man, and it's America's team. He should have control, you know.
LAUER: Do you think you'll get invited to play with Team USA this summer?
ARTEST: Yeah, I think after I talk to the president, Coach K and whoever will say, "Yeah, come on down to Vegas, Ron." And I know I'm the best player in the league, so you know, I'll be on the team. And I think Kevin Martin should be there, too, because he's scoring like 25 points in the Finals, you know? Every night. I think Kevin Martin should be on the team. Who better to represent America and freedom and liberty and red, white, and blue and all that shit than Ron Artest and Kevin Martin, you know?
LAUER: Coach Musselman, most pundits counted your team out before the season started. How much attention do teams pay attention to what the press is saying?
MUSSELMAN: You know, Matt, not a whole lot. I try not to read the columns too much. I talk to scouts and other coaches and people who are in the game, and I listen to them. But as a team, we try to ignore the papers.
ARTEST: And hey, you know, no one believed in us. No one's ever believed in me, you know? We never get anything handed to us. But I gotta say, there was only one pundit out there who said we had a good team and we could do it, and that's my boy Tom Ziller from SactownRoyalty.com! You know, he was like, I believe in Ron-Ron, I believe in the Kings, I trust them. He came up with my nickname "The Black Michael Jordan," you know? Man, that Tom Ziller guy knows what the fuck is going on!
LAUER: OK, well, we're out of time, Eric Musselman and Ron Artest of the World Champion Sacramento Kings --
ARTEST: Hey, hold up, before we go, I gotta ask, man, Matt, how'd you like my CD, man? You got the copy I sent you, right?
LAUER: You know, I don't think I received that.
ARTEST: Yeah you did, don't lie bitch. You know you got that and you bump it in the bedroom with your old lady, man, come on. You like that call-out I gave you?
ARTEST: Yeah, when I name-dropped you on the track. Hey Coach Muss, tell him what I said.
MUSSELMAN: I believe the line was, "Matt Lauer up on NBC, you look like a girl, don't talk to me."
ARTEST: Yeah, fucker!
LAUER: We're out of time. Um, thank you, Ron Artest and Eric Musselman. World Champion Sacramento Kings. Let's go to Ann with some news from the War in Iraq...
(fade to black)
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Linda Vista Revisited: East LA's Abandoned Hospital
Last year, while scouting for a short film that never came to fruition, some friends and I talked our way inside an empty, run-down hospital in Boyle Heights. The short was supposed to take place in a hospital, but after a few minutes wandering the halls of Linda Vista -- alone and decidedly creeped-out -- it became obvious that there was no way the place would work. It had been closed for twenty years, and it showed: there was dirt caked in layers on walls and mysteriously wet floors; windows were broken and doors hung off their hinges; ceiling tiles had fallen victim to moisture and gravity, and rats had chewed through the walls. We didn't have the money to make Linda Vista look like anything more than a horror movie -- a few of which had actually been shot there over the years.
I was only inside for 45 minutes or so, running through the place snapping photos on the fly with a crappy point-and-shoot. I featured some of them in this post from last year, but promised myself I would go back with a DSLR, a tripod and a few hours to kill, and really explore the place. Last week, I finally did.
Linda Vista was a railroad hospital. Originally known as Santa Fe Coast Lines Hospital, it was constructed in 1905 to care for Santa Fe railroad workers who had been injured on the job. I found this file on top of a scattered pile on the third floor -- it seems to be the admittance form for one Charlie S. Plunk, railroad conductor, born 1909, admitted October, 1972.
You can check out more Strange Geographies columns here.
More 'Strange Geographies'...
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Where I come from, places like Sighisoara just simply do not exist.
Ancient churches, a walled town center, thousands of years of history… you just don’t find that in the United States.
Which is perhaps why I enjoyed my two days in Sighisoara, Romania so much.
Sighisoara is a small city in the Transylvania region of Romania, with a history dating back to the 1100s. Back then, the Hungarian king was begging Saxons to move to this part of the world in order to help defend his borders. German craftsmen and artisans took him up on it, and what resulted is today a fairy-tale-like fortified city in the heart of Romania.
It’s no wonder this whole place is a UNESCO World Heritage site.
With cobbled streets, colorful buildings, and a pedestrian-friendly Old Town, it’s difficult not to fall in love with Sighisoara. Yes, it’s a touristy place. And yes, it can feel a bit crowded in the summer. But it’s still well worth a visit.
5 things to love about Sighisoara
So why did I enjoy this little city so much? Here are just five reasons.
(And, to help set the mood, have this playing as you scroll through the photos!)
1. The colorful streets
Sighisoara is INCREDIBLY colorful. It’s like a box of tropical-colored crayons just exploded all over the town, with bright oranges and yellows and pinks standing out on every street.
Even the windows and doors here are colorful:
2. The size
Sighisoara’s walled Old Town consists of roughly 3 main streets — meaning you can easily explore the whole place in an afternoon without any trouble.
3. The historical connections
Along with being an old Saxon city, Sighisoara also has another claim to fame: being the birthplace of Vlad III (also known as Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, and Vlad Dracula). Vlad’s father was ruler of nearby Wallachia, but was in exile in Transylvania when Vlad was born. Vlad’s birthplace is still there, marked with a placard and now home to a very kitschy restaurant called “Casa Dracula.”
In more recent history, Prince Charles has visited the town quite a few times and stayed here:
Sighisoara also has a handful of really good museums dedicated to its history, which include the museum in the Clock Tower, and a torture museum right next door.
4. The views
Climbing up the Clock Tower is an absolute must! It will cost you next to nothing, and the views are beautiful. Parts of this building date back to the 14th century, and I’m sure you can understand why it was built — as a lookout point over the city walls.
5. The gems among the rubbish
Sighisoara IS a touristy town. Meaning you’ll find plenty of kitschy tourist shops all selling the same magnets and Dracula t-shirts. But, if you dig a little deeper, you CAN find some wonderful gems here. If it’s hand-made crafts you’re looking for, check out the gallery inside the International Cafe. Here, a family of woodworkers and their friends produce and sell hand-carved wooden products and unique ceramics.
If you find yourself in this little Romanian city, it may at first seem like there’s not a whole lot to do. But you can easily fill a day or so here checking out the following:
- The Clock Tower, which not only has great views, but also a neat little museum inside.
- The Church on the Hill (which you walk up to via a cool Covered Staircase), which is an old Gothic-style church. Also check out the nearby German graveyard. Unlike Merry Cemetery, this graveyard IS a bit overgrown and solemn, but it’s alright for a quiet stroll.
- The Church of the Dominican Monastery (and it’s cool organ), which is centuries old.
- The Torture Museum and Weapon Museum also both come highly recommended.
What do you think of Sighisoara after this quick photo tour?
*Note: Intrepid Travel has graciously provided me with a complimentary 18-day tour through Eastern Europe. But all opinions, as always, are entirely my own.
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Jim Starkey wrote:
> Kevin Lewis wrote:
>> Jim Starkey wrote:
>>> Olav Sandstaa wrote:
>>>> Here is a quick summary of some possible solutions for how to solve
>>>> this problem that have popped up the last days.
>>>> First a summary of what the problem is: when determining if a
>>>> RecordVersion should be visible for a transaction we check the
>>>> RecordVersion's pointer to the transaction object. If this is
>>>> non-null we access several member variables of the transaction
>>>> object. At least one of the inconsistencies that I have seen occurs
>>>> when the transaction object is deleted (and overwritten) just as we
>>>> are using its member variables for determining the visibility of the
>>>> The list of more or less random ideas for how this can be solved:
>>>> 1. We can stop using the pointer to the transaction and instead
>>>> locate the transaction by searching for it using the transaction id.
>>>> Disadvantage of this: a) searching for the correct transaction
>>>> could become costly. b) we would likely have to introduce an extra
>>>> data structure for locating transaction (e.g. a hash table) and c)
>>>> we would need to acquire the shared lock on the
>>> We already have somebody who does that,
>>> TransactionManager::findTransaction. It doesn't use a hash table (it
>>> could), but whether it does or doesn't, it requires a shared lock and
>>> release. That's way too expensive for checking record visibility.
>> I agree that this is too expensive.
>>>> 2. We can avoid that the transaction object get deleted "behind our
>>>> back" by acquiring the shared lock on the committed transaction list
>>>> each time we call Transaction::getRelativeState and
>>>> Transaction::visible(). Disadvantage: a) a lot of access to this
>>>> shared lock, potential contention
>>> I agree. Squared.
>> Too much contention on the committed transaction list.
>>>> 3. An alternative to 2: we introduce a new shared lock for just this
>>>> purpose to avoid the contention on the committed transaction list
>>>> lock. When purging transactions we must acquire an exclusive lock on
>>>> this SyncObject (and we have to reduce the frequency of checking for
>>>> purging of transactions). Disadvantage: a new shared lock that needs
>>>> to be used by both the code checking for visibility and for purging
>>>> of transactions - could still become a hot-spot (I do not think this
>>>> is very different from cycle locking, but I have not thought too
>>>> much about it yet).
>>> I think we need to avoid both locks and interlocked instructions
>>> (increments and decrements) if we're going to keep performance up.
>> This suggestion is about a SyncObject in each transaction that is held
>> with a shared lock whenever another thread has a reference to it.
>> Normally, this is done in Falcon with a useCount and interlocked
>> instructions. The Transaction class does have a useCount. Why not
>> use it? This would be idea 3A. Transaction::addRef() could be called
>> for every RecordVersion added to the transaction in
>> Transactino::addRecord(). Then also for every stack based use of that
>> pointer, an addref and release should be called. I think this might
>> work without too much cost.
> There isn't much difference in cost between a lock(Shared)/unlock and
> addRef/release. Each requires a pair of interlocked instructions.
Right, the cost is there. How bad is it? This solution has a huge pile
of interlocked instructions associated with all the
RecordVersion::transaction pointers and the stack based pointers.
Compare that with one per thread using cycle locks. And that cycle lock
could also apply to other objects that are headed to the same purgatory.
If a call to purgeTransactions detaches all the records and then finds
that the useCount is still > 0, it must skip on to the next transaction.
That is a kind of purgatory right there. Each call to
purgeTransactions will get a chance to purge this old transaction as
soon as the useCount goes to zero.
>>>> 4. Avoid having to access the transaction object: "Duplicate" the
>>>> commit information (one integer) in every RecordVersion object. So
>>>> when committing a transaction, we update every record version with
>>>> the commitId of the transaction and all RecordVersion objects:
>>>> Disadvantages: a) duplication of information b) issues with doing
>>>> the commit as an "atomic operation".
>>> This is doable and would be my second choice. Making it visible
>>> across processors might be tricky.
>> I think this is too expensive. It makes the commit take longer
>> because the list of records attached to the committing transaction
>> need to be marked with this commitId. AND, this needs to happen while
>> both transaction lists are locked because that is where the commitId
>> is assigned to the transaction.
> I'm going to back off on my assessment of doable. Let's move this to
> the back burner for now.
>>>> 5. "Make it safe to access the transaction pointer and transaction
>>>> object": By never deleting the transaction object until all record
>>>> objects pointing to it have been deleted. This would also simplify
>>>> some of the code since we would always have the transaction
>>>> available. Disadvantages: a) foot print would increase since we
>>>> would potentially have a lot of old transaction objects laying
>>>> around (and we do not want to introduce chilling or backlogging of
>>>> transaction objects :-) ) b) The current scavenger (or a new
>>>> transaction scavenger?) would need to be able to determine when a
>>>> transaction object was ready for purging. I do not know this part of
>>>> the code, but it might be solvable by having a "record version
>>>> counter" in each transaction object. c) I do not know what extra
>>>> this would cost but I think it should be possible to do without any
>>> That's a lot of dead transaction objects. And it isn't just records
>>> that point to the transaction but also threads that picked up the
>>> transaction pointer and are waiting for someone to purge the
>>> transaction so they can crash Falcon. Evil little suckers, threads.
>> Well, this sounds doable to me also. Records would be detached from
>> these transactions by the scavenger, mostly. The exception is
>> releaseSavepoint() and rollbackSavepoint(). So records, while they
>> can still be used, will always have that transaction pointer. It
>> could be set to null in code that assures that no other thread is
>> using it. Pruning is like that. And records that are retired use an
>> exclusive lock on the recordLeaf and require the Record::useCount to
>> be 1. So I think we can exclude those other pesky threads with this
> Does that actually work? How does the scavenger know that another
> thread isn't using a record transaction pointer so it can delete the
> transaction object?
The more I think about this, it just makes the problem slightly less
likely because it takes more time to release records and purge the
transaction. Once the last record is scavenged, we still do not know
how soon to purge the transaction object. A client checking for
duplicates or a more recent version of that last record may need to be
scavenged for a savepoint. Both would cause a thread to look at that
record. That thread could grab the transaction pointer just before it is
pruned. So the problem still exists.
Whoever purges the transaction must know that no other thread is still
looking at it. Only useCounts, cycle locking, or eliminating the
pointers at commit time will help us, I guess.
>> Now, will the committed transaction list get too long? Maybe. But
>> this might also allow us to retire records sooner. The current
>> scavenger cannot retire Records until after they have been separated
>> from their transaction (purgeTransactions). But this would allow the
>> scavenger to do the separating, and retire records that are just not
>> needed by any other active transaction. So this solution has the
>> benefit of allowing records to be retired sooner. See the email chain
>> titled "Reluctant Scavenger" for a possible example of this problem.
>>>> 6. Kevin/Jim's proposal to use a cycle locking - I have not had the
>>>> time to consider this in detail but it might perform similar to
>>>> alternative 3 above.
>>> OK, I've got cycle locking on the brain. It doesn't cure everything
>>> -- it does nothing about the Palestine problem, for example. But
>>> it's a cheap, non-blocking solution to short duration pointer
>>> validity. It 1) makes it possible to compress intermediate versions,
>>> and 2) papers over problems of transaction pointer validation. Since
>>> everyone understands that the typical software sequence is 0 ... 1
>>> ... 2 ... infinite, there are clearly other places that a are just
>>> screaming for cycle locking.
>> But this change is a big deal. I plan to write up a separate email
>> with lots of questions about this.
> I don't think it is a big deal at all, so I look forward to your email.
> One thing that does need to be added, however, is a mechanism to release
> a cycle lock before going to sleep for a protracted interval, e.g.
> waiting on another transaction. I've got a version of CycleLock that
> uses thread specific data to do this.
That is exactly my big question at the moment. A call stack will have a
bunch of pointers to things in the current cycle. If that thread
releases the cycle, it cannot trust those pointers when it wakes up.
And we have a 50 second waitForTransaction! The cycle must be given up.
>> 7. Yes, I have another alternative. Probably the easiest of all.
>> Comment out this line;
>> This is new with Olav's dependency manager change and it causes
>> transactions to be purged much sooner than a scavenger cycle. It
>> extends the CPU cycles during the critical/serialized part of every
>> commit and may actually be to blame for a recent performance slowdown
>> in DBT2. (that is a big maybe! Not sure about that at all). But if we
>> leave the transactions around until the scavenge cycle, this error
>> might not happen any more...
> I don't understand how this fixes the problem. Doesn't this leave the
> race between picking up a transaction pointer from a record and deleting
> the transaction object persist? I'll grant you that it is less likely,
> maybe even highly improbable. But you need to demonstrate it works in
> all circumstances.
OK, it just a band-aid. But ouch-less, non-sticking, and has pictures
of the Flintstones!
>>>> I welcome comments and alternative suggestions.
>>>> My current "favorites" this far is 5 (simple, safe and almost
>>>> lockfree - but uses way more memory) and 6 (because it is a great
>>>> and general idea).
>>> Hmmm. Isn't that just throwing memory at the problem???? (where
>>> have I heard that before?).
>>> I like 6, of course.
>> I would like to try 7 first, then 5, then 3A, and then maybe 6.
> The theoretical problem is that there generally accessible pointers to
> transaction objects, so deleting the transaction object is problematic.
> I think the only solutions involve:
> * Eliminating the pointer to the transaction
> * A reference count of the transaction object held by the record object
> * A lock on the transaction object held by the record object
> * A lock on transaction existence for the duration of record
> visibility cycle
> I think the most fruitful place to look for a solution is the last
> alternative. The real question is the granularity of the lock (or
> implied lock). An ad hoc lock (nice rhyme) is too expensive. "Forever"
> is cheap but hard on memory. The scavenge cycle is tempting, but
> doesn't actually solve the problem.
> Maybe the first alternative has an answer. Suppose we had a reusable
> transaction id as an index into a transaction state vector. That would
> tie down only a byte per transaction rather than a large object. We
> would still need a mechanism to recycle the transaction ids, however.
> Something might take a day and think about this...
Sounds as big a change as cycle locking. Let's talk about wait states
with a cycle lock first...
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By RUTH MANTELL
Workers of America, be careful what you "like" and post on Facebook.
A U.S. district court in Virginia recently found that a sheriff's office employee "liking" a Facebook page was "insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection."
Several former employees claim they were let go after the sheriff found out about their support for a political rival through a Facebook "like," among other actions.
A simple click of Facebook's "like" button can also set in motion a surprising—and potentially negative—chain of events, as seen in the case of Peter TerVeer, a former Library of Congress employee.
According to his attorney, Mr. TerVeer endured harassment, discrimination and a hostile work environment after his former superior found out that Mr. TerVeer "liked" a group that supports gays and lesbians.
These recent cases highlight an important point: You may face repercussions at work for your behavior on sites such as Facebook. With Facebook users generating billions of "likes" and comments every day, there's plenty of potential for workplace problems.
While some employers monitor social-media use, in many cases Facebook "friends" and co-workers alert management about posts. Philip Gordon, an employment lawyer in Denver, cites one situation in which an employee photographed another whose underwear was showing, and then posted the picture on Facebook.
"One of the other employees was offended and reported it to human resources," Mr. Gordon says.
Some states protect employees from adverse actions in response to various forms of lawful, off-duty conduct. In the workplace context, the First Amendment generally applies only to public-sector workers.
Meanwhile, the National Labor Relations Act protects workers at most private-sector employers who discuss employment terms and conditions with co-workers, among other actions.
A growing number of companies are looking into creating social-media policies, says Gerald Maatman Jr., an employment lawyer in Chicago and New York. For employers, content and productivity are the main issues, he says.
"There are lots of employers that are thinking about amending employee handbooks and termination protocols because now more and more employees are on Facebook at lunchtime–it's water cooler conversation like never before," Mr. Maatman says.
Individual cases can be complicated, and workers aren't always protected. In one case, a respiratory therapist was fired from a children's hospital after posting on Facebook about a co-worker who was "driving her nuts" by sucking his teeth, according to a review by the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency focused on workplace rights.
She also wrote about her plans to "beat him with a ventilator." The NLRB found that the therapist's posts weren't protected because she was "merely complaining" and not suggesting that her employer take any action, among other issues.
That case contrasts with one in which a former administrative assistant was fired after complaining on Facebook about being reprimanded for her involvement in co-workers' work-related problems. The NLRB found that her activity was protected.
Because of the time and expense involved, many employers prefer not to police social-networking sites, and investigate only when problems emerge, according to experts. Still, it's safe to say the boss isn't going to be happy with a worker who uses Facebook to post invective-strewn rants, or to reveal proprietary, confidential or embarrassing information.
Lawrence Lorber, a Washington lawyer who represents employers, says a client recently dealt with an employee who posted on Facebook about an affair between a colleague and a supervisor. The company admonished the posting employee, without firing the employee, and created a social-media policy.
Companies, says Mr. Lorber, "are concerned about maintaining decorum in the workplace or preventing people from using social media in a way that is derogatory. Social media is speech with a pretty big megaphone."
Eric Jackson, an employment lawyer in McLean, Va., says one of his clients in the health-care industry is trying to train employees to be particularly careful about avoiding posts that mention client information.
"Social media is now so endemic and so casual that people forget there are underlying privacy issues that are part of their jobs," Mr. Jackson says.
Write to Ruth Mantell at [email protected]—Ruth Mantell is a writer for MarketWatch in Washington. Read more at marketwatch.com. Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page WSJ2
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Students Anne Marie Van Casterin and Aura Cruz spoke about the experience of having the final presidential debate at their university. Foreign policy was the main subject of the debate, though the candidates also discussed the economy. Even before the debate ended the spin began, from Republicans such as New Hampshire Senator Kelly Ayotte and Democrats such as Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
For Several Undecided Voters, Final Debate Makes Choice Clearer
A small panel of South Florida voters watched the final presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at NBC 6. Lori Behrens said she wants to hear everything before making a decision. James Pierre was interested in the candidates' foreign policy toward Haiti, and Joshua Jones was focused on education.
"Romney definitely has the facts correct with a clear and (US) Constitutional vision and view for these United States. A strong foreign policy is as important as domestic policy. A re-election of the president will result in regional, at the least, war in the middle east. It may go much farther than that. Look at the last four years and see if this ship of state is sailing in the direction of peace, stability and prosperity. Mitt Romney showed knowledge, leadership and vision for the above," Mike Williams wrote.
Monday was the last appearance on stage together for Obama and Romney before the Nov. 6 election.
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Background: The success of Pediatric AIDS Clinical Trials Group (PACTG) Protocol 076 in preventing vertical HIV transmission prompted intensive efforts to inform laypersons and professionals about the trial's results.
Objective: To explore community responsiveness to these efforts by assessing temporal, maternal, and health care factors associated with prescribed antiretroviral therapy before and after PACTG Protocol 076.
Design: Retrospective cohort study.
Setting: New York State Medicaid program.
Patients: 2607 HIV-infected women who delivered a living child between January 1993 and September 1996.
Measurements: Adjusted odds of being prescribed antiretroviral treatment in the second or third trimester for women who delivered in period 1 (during the trial [January 1993 to February 1994]), period 2 (after the trial's end and announcement of the results to publication of the results [March 1994 to November 1994]), and period 3 (after publication of the trial results [December 1994 to September 1996]).
Results: The adjusted odds of being prescribed antiretroviral therapy increased 21% per month in period 2 and decreased to 3% per month in period 3. In all time periods, the adjusted odds of being prescribed antiretroviral therapy were at least 60% greater (P < 0.05) for women who were treated at an institution that performed HIV clinical trials, received HIV-focused ambulatory care, or had adequate prenatal care visits. After the trial, women receiving methadone treatment had at least twofold (95% CI, 1.5- to 4.3-fold) greater adjusted odds of being prescribed antiretroviral therapy than women who did not take any illicit drugs. Latin-American women, older women, and women born in the United States had greater adjusted odds (P < 0.05) of being prescribed treatment in period 3.
Conclusion: Community practice responded rapidly to efforts to disseminate the results of PACTG Protocol 076; however, the absolute increase in prescribed therapy was greatest for women who had adequate prenatal visits or were receiving HIV-focused care, care at a site that performed clinical trials, or methadone therapy.
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by admin ·
UNITED STATES—A racially diverse group gathered in the living room of a stylish and well-appointed apartment earlier this week to enjoy various snack items, moderate amounts of low-calorie alcoholic beverages, and the company of other attractive young adults while watching a sporting event on a sleek new high-definition television.
Sources confirmed the group began to assemble roughly an hour before the sports broadcast, arriving at the apartment as happy, carefree singles or visibly affectionate interracial couples. They brought with them snacks, most of which were either dip-related or dips in and of themselves.
Many also brought beer, always of a certain specific brand.
Each arrival was greeted with instant recognition and genuine warmth, as those who had already made themselves comfortable offered to help with any unpacking of food or with snack preparation. Under no circumstances was a large interval of time allowed to elapse before any new arrival was offered liquid refreshment, which was invariably referred to by its full brand name and was consumed from a cup containing the logo of a favored sports team or directly from the original container.
All snacks were placed on a low table between the capacious, comfortable sofa and the large television set, which had already begun to display crystal-clear pictures of the upcoming sporting event, and good-natured, lighthearted arguments began as to whether the images were more notable for their sharpness or their color.
Participants reportedly dredged golden, perfectly triangular tortilla chips through thick, ruby-red salsa during the discussion, chasing the fiery saltiness down with ice-cold mouthfuls of crisp yet light beer before agreeing that the sharpness and color of the display were both of such excellence that no judgment could be made between the two.
After a brief interlude, during which one of the slender and vaguely exotic-looking women present emerged from the kitchen bearing in Pilates-toned arms a tray of her famous ginger-scented Asian delicacies, the discussion turned to the athletic competition itself.
Men explained the rules, regulations, strategies, and traditions of the sport to the women, a noble gesture that was turned on its head when one of the women present was revealed to possess a highly developed working knowledge of the game, such that she was able to correct the males on certain points and back up her observations by making references to past events. The histories of both teams were explored, and their rivalry debated, as was the likely outcome of the game the attractive group was about to witness.
A possible social minefield emerged with the disclosure that one of the people present was a fan of the opposing team, but the group’s long-standing friendship won out after mere seconds of awkwardness, and all seemed to agree that loyalty to one another, even while viewing a crucial and hotly contested sporting event, was far more important than loyalty to a team. The incident was punctuated by loud, vocal demands that the fan of the opposition be given a fresh cold beverage, which was of course referred to as usual by its full brand name.
Mere moments before the game was to begin, the sound of a doorbell diverted attention from the impressive television and caused a disruption of the seating order as the group rearranged itself to accommodate the late arrival. Various exclamations indicated the identity of this person could be guessed by the mere fact of his tardiness, a behavior evidently common on his part; however, all was forgiven when the assembled viewers saw the new person was holding a large metal tub filled with shaved ice and fresh bottles of the aforementioned name-brand beer.
The new arrival was accompanied by a large, effusively friendly golden retriever who wore his own custom-made jersey emblazoned with his name and the number zero. The golden retriever was also known to all by name.
At press time, the team favored by most of the attractive and diverse crowd had evidently just scored due to a sudden reversal of fortune, causing everyone in attendance to raise a beer aloft and shout while a cloud of snack items erupted into the air and the golden retriever barked in excitement. The exact location of the game in question, its final score, and even the sport being played remain unknown.
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Innovative Policy: Zoning for Health
Posted by The Situationist Staff on September 29, 2007
We often hear about new and allegedly innovative approaches to implementing public policy. The key word, of course, is “innovative.” By definition, it means the process of making improvements by introducing something new or — and particularly relevant to the following discussion — translating new ideas into tangible societal impact.
This year we’ve seen plenty of “innovative” approaches when it comes to public health. Some have attracted headlines. “Philadelphia follows New York in taking on trans-fat“; “Montgomery county declares war on partially hydrogenated oils in restaurants, supermarket bakeries, and delis.”
The city of Los Angeles will soon contemplate its own new and likely controversial proposal for innovative public health policy: “health zoning plans” for fast-food. As Tami Abdollah of the Los Angeles Times details, LA’s city council will be asked this fall to consider an up to two-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in South L.A., “a part of the city where fast food is at least as much a practicality as a preference.”
NPR’s All Things Considered outlines additional details on the proposed two-year moratorium. “In South Los Angeles, where 30 percent of adults are obese, activists and lawmakers are pointing to one possible cause: few dining-out choices except for fast food restaurants.” According to NPR, this particular low-income area, much like other low-income urban areas across the country, offers few healthy food alternatives, even fewer grocery stores, and fast food chains may be found just a stone’s throw away from each other.
Tami Abdollah describes the situation of many South L.A. residents this way.
* * *
Catalina Ayala, 23, who grew up in South Los Angeles, lives three blocks from a McDonald’s and a slew of other fast-food restaurants, and eats fast food about four times a week.
“By the time I go home, it’s already too late to cook food,” said Ayala, who works at LAX.
On a recent afternoon, Ayala and her husband were at a McDonald’s. Their 3-year-old son played in the indoor playground, which for some families serves as their children’s park.
But her husband, a 23-year-old construction worker in South L.A., said he avoids fast food.
“It’s not for me,” he said. “Later on sometimes, your son is too fat, he eats too much.”
That was one reason Terrah Cephas, 32, left South L.A. for the Valley about two years ago.
“It’s fast food on every corner, but it’s not enough wholesome restaurants,” she said. “You literally have to be willing to drive to Long Beach or Santa Monica, or Inglewood.”
That’s if you have a car.
Many South L.A. residents are “almost a captive audience for these restaurants, unfortunately,” Flynn said.
In South Los Angeles, 28% of people live in poverty, compared with 16.2% of the county, according to county figures.
South L.A. has lots of fast-food restaurants because these restaurants do well in areas where people might not want to spend $15 on lunch, said Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of Foodservice Strategies at WD Partners, a restaurant consulting firm that works with Red Lobster, Jamba Juice and Fatburger, among others.
But there also may be missed opportunities: According to a 2005 market study contracted by the city, South L.A. loses more than $400 million annually in general merchandise, grocery and restaurant sales to outside areas.
“The community has suffered for decades by an assumption that attracting business of any type is good, and it’s not true,” Perry said.
* * *
In a situation where fast food is available twenty-four hours (and in abundance), it should not be surprising that an overweight population arises. Yet as discussed in Broken Scales: Obesity and Justice in America, a law review article by Situationist contributors Adam Benforado, Jon Hanson, and David Yosifon, “obesity is only a symptom of the problem.” The “real problem” is the difficulty in recognizing and understanding “[roles] of unseen features in our environment and within us and too readily [attributing] responsibility and causation to the more obvious ‘personal choices’ of the obese.” In essence, assigning obesity to personal choices alone and not discerning the relevant situational forces results in “misdiagnosing” the true problem. With obesity at an all-time high throughout the United States, 47 states are above 20% and fifteen years ago no state was above 15%, pressure to implement “innovative” plans (that work) will substantially increase.
Los Angeles’ proposal enables a new term in policy, health zoning, which raises an important question: do policymakers have a responsibility to address public health problems generally attributed primarily to personal choice? More broadly, if people are moved largely by situation, and if situation is influenced by laws and policies, then should policymakers consider the situational consequences of their policies — intended and unintended.
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2010 Complete Election Coverage: Poll: Most don't know what GOP won
Fewer than half of all Americans know that Republicans will have a majority in the House next year but not the Senate, according to a new poll.
Only 46 percent of respondents in a Pew Research poll released Thursday knew that the GOP had taken over only the House, while a mere 38 percent can identify Ohio Republican John Boehner as the incoming speaker. Three times as many young people, under age 30, could properly identify Google's new phone software, Android, as could identify Boehner.Continue Reading
Additionally, 27 percent of Americans do not know if the Republicans won either chamber of Congress while 5 percent believe the Democrats kept both chambers. Fourteen percent said the Republicans won both chambers.
Most respondents said Republicans generically did better than Democrats this cycle. Seventy-five percent of all respondents regarded the GOP as "doing the best" in the 2010 elections.
The Pew poll was conducted Nov. 11-14, surveying 1,001 Americans.
Get reporter alerts
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Saturday, June 2, 2012
Book Review: Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
I can't tell you what Cutting for Stone is about, anymore than I could tell you what The Old Man and the Sea is about. It builds in layers, as chapters slip away and years pass, we know we're building toward something, but the narrator never lets slip what is coming; the moment always presses urgently in. Everything is subtly foreshadowed; we see the past repeated by the younger generation.
Cutting for Stone is about being a man; being at once a brother, a son, a doctor. It is about being profoundly broken and living anyway. I love stories that can contain their own immensity. Verghese makes that look effortless.
Above all, I think it's a book about relationships, and, for Verghese, relationships manifest as sex. There's a lot of sex in here: we meet two different nuns who have sex (in bizarrely dissimilar ways with bizarrely similar partners), the twins, their foster parents, the girl who grew up with the twins, her mother, and a former prostitute; I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting, but either way, that's fornication on a biblical scale.
Strikingly (I think) only the twins' foster parents have entered into any kind of marriage contract (and theirs functions more like an annual marriage lease). No one else has any sense of permanency.
As I was reading, I was struck again and again that if only the women had resisted sex, everyone could have lived long and happy lives. Verghese's men are either saints or atavistic, and neither group really has a choice in their sex lives. . One twin is abstinent, while the other cannot comprehend an emotional or spiritual component of sex.
It is the women who have all the control, from the nuns with their vows, to Hema (who reduces Ghosh to tongue-tied inaction), to Genet (who stands as Delilah to Marion's Samson again and again). It is a woman, a former prostitute who, well-intendedly, sets the novel's denouement in motion.
All this sex has consequences. I understand Verghese's aim, explicitly stated at several moments: to show how our actions produce consequences that follow us. As a proper tragedy, all our efforts to forestall those consequences only makes the retribution that much more spectacular. But within that is the story of a young man who grows up in a time and a place that is so dysfunctional that he doesn't realize how damaged everyone around him is, and he doesn't understand how that damage conditions him. Marion, as the narrator, can hardly talk about how bizarre the world is because it seems normal to him.
In a time of stunted possibilities, what do we do? We make choices, even if they are bad ones, ones that deny others the chance to make a choice, so that we can preserve some illusion of control.
Book 22 of my book a week challenge.
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Firms Team to Build Voice-Capable Municipal WLAN
Blanket Wi-Fi coverage for downtown section of Ontario hi-tech center is designed for robust wVoIP support.
Two Ontario-based companies earlier this week announced the fruition of a two year collaboration: a municipal Wi-Fi network with robust VoIP capabilities.
The deployment uses BelAir's wireless mesh networking gearspecifically nearly 30 BelAir100 and BelAir200 dual- and multi-radio wireless mesh switchesto blanket almost one square mile of the city's center.
Atria Networks, a community-owned telecommunications companywith an extensive fiber network in the Kitchener/Waterloo/Guelph area west of Torontoinstalled and will maintain and operate the network.
According to Phil Belanger, vice president of marketing for BelAir, Atria's plan deployed BelAir's gear "in a very high-capacity way." "They're anticipating a lot of demand for the service," Belanger told VoIPplanet.com. "They designed it in such a way that they can provide a good quality of service, including voice. That was one of the requirements," he said.
Steven McCartney, Atria's president and CEO, echoed this thought. "This deployment was really the last phase of nearly two years of work, making sure that we're comfortable with what will work, how it will work, what it'll cost." They took the time necessary "to test mobilitythe ability to roam between APs, to hand off calls from one Wi-Fi access point to another," McCartney said. "We also needed to get a sense of how much throughput was consistently generated and our ability to provide some QoS and some VLAN support."
So, Waterloo's Up Town Wi-Fi cloud is phone-ready, but is phone service actively available? Herein lies a tale.
As things now stand, the municipal WLAN will support telephony that originates or terminates with the local area network of any customer companywith the muni network acting as an extension of that LAN.
"Research In Motion is headquartered in our territory here," McCartney told VoIPplanet.com, "and they were kind enough to join us at the launch and demonstrate that one of their Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerries could, in fact, receive calls off the corporate local [LAN] through the network."
RIM's BlackBerry is the only device they've tried so far, but McCartney expects it to be the first of many. The BlackBerry is an advantageous platform, McCartney pointed out, since it has built-in security.
As for clients who want to have a separate mobile phone number assigned to a particular handheld device, that's currently up in the air, according to McCartney
"A choice we're still pondering is whether we want in fact to be the phone service provider," McCartney explained. "Recent regulatory in Canada suggests that if you're going to be a primary service provider, you're going to be a registered CLEC. We've spent the last few months determining whether we want to go that route. Or do we want to work with a CLEC and utilize their services through this network?" Atria expects to reach a final decision on this issue next month. "If we do decide to go ahead, we'd be targeting the summer of 2006," McCartney said.
Who is expected chat over Waterloo's municipal WLAN? According to Steven McCartney, most likely the heaviest users will be governmental employees. "We have two levels of municipal government operating in Waterlooregional and the city itselfand at both levels they're very interested in this service. They're the folks that seem to be the most keen on [voice] being part of the package. Either we provide the voice service, or they themselves will just extend the local [LAN] through VoIP," McCartney told VoIPplanet.com.
Again, which of those scenarios eventually plays out won't be clear until December, but some enterprising customers may already be using Waterloo's Wi-Fi cloud for mobile calling.
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“If you don’t care about quality, you can meet any other requirement”
(Gerald M. Weinberg)
Wasting Your Time By Not Writing Tests
Automation is the key to successful testing. This post explains why other ways of software verification are a waste of time.
If You Don't Test Then ...?
Even if you don’t write tests you surely perform some other operations to verify that your code works properly. In order to make sure sure that the code does what you expect it to do and to find bugs you can:
- have a debugging sessions (with help of your great IDE),
- add a lot of log messages so you can later browse log files,
- click through the user interface of your application,
- preform frequent code reviews.
All of the above techniques have their legitimate use. Visual inspection is useful. Debugger and logs can save your life sometimes. Clicking through GUI will help you feel like your user. Code reviews will help to find various weaknesses in your code. But if these techniques are the only ways you verify the proper functioning of your code then you are doing it wrong.
Time Is Money
The main problem is that all these actions are very time consuming. Even if your experience allows you to use debugger very effectively or you have strong Linux shell skills that makes finding stuff in tons of logs trivial it still takes some time. Clicking GUI can’t really be accelerated - you wait for application to fetch data, for browser to render them, and for your brain to locate the right place to click. And a decent code review can’t be done in two minutes.
The time factor is crucial. This simply implies that you will not have time to repeat the process. You will check once that it works and voila! - finished. After you go back to this code (i.e. to add/update functionality) you will skip the already tested part (because it simply hurts to think that you have to do the logs browsing again).
Remember, your time and skills are too precious to waste them on simple, repeatable tasks that can be done more effectively by machines.
Your Brain Is Not Good Enough, Sorry
The second problem is that you are trusting your senses, your judgement and your honesty here. This brings few problems:
- you can overlook something (e.g. omit a line of log files, forget to check everything that should be checked etc.),
- you can misunderstand or forget criteria of verification and accept failed tests as passed,
- you can cheat yourself that it works even if it doesn’t.
Yes I know, you don’t make mistakes so you can not possibly miss a single log line, and of course you are 100% honest to yourself… Well, but if you don’t make mistakes then how did the bug you are looking for happened in the first place? And about honesty… I can speak only for myself, but it happens that I see only things that I want to see and ignore any signals that speak against my wishful thinking. Has it ever happened to you? No? Good boy!
What makes it ever more painful is that clicking GUI again and again or browsing log files for the n-th time is so boring! Your mind will scream at you "get me out of here, I want to do some coding!" and it will likely tell you that "everything works fine" just to move to some more interesting tasks.
In short, verification methods that are not automated suffer from the following:
- they are time-consuming, and as such, they are first candidates to be abandonned when deadline is getting near,
- the criteria of verification might not be clear and the result of verrification can be skewed by human error,
- they are boring which makes people do them weakly or avoid them at all,
- might be hard to repeat them in exactly the same way (it is easy to omit some steps - in configuration or execution phase of test),
- is might be hard to deduce from log files where is the source of a bug and sometimes long investigation is required to find it,
- they are usually not included in build process and are run after some time the new features or changes were introduced into software which makes the feedback they give less valuable (in other words: it costs much more to repair the damaged parts that were not discovered right after they were damaged).
You Need A Safety Net Of Automated Tests
My experience is that the most of errors occur when the code is changed, not when it is written for the first time. When you implement a new functionality the list of requirements is usually clear. You simply implement them one by one, making sure that all works fine. This is easy. More problems emerge when you are asked to introduce some changes.
Ooops, the original list of requirements is long gone, the people who wrote the original code are not around anymore and your manager assumes that "adding this small piece of functionality shouldn’t take long, should it?". And then, if you don’t have a safety net of automated tests you are in trouble. While adding or changing new functionality you are likely to break something that used to work fine. They call them regression bugs. Automation of tests make it harder for them to creep in.
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- Special Sections
- Public Notices
Political Action Committees (PACs) are conducting phone surveys and sending out mailers—and may do other campaign activities in the future. These activities are independent of candidates, usually emotion-laden, and often misleading.
PAC activities are neither sponsored by, nor coordinated with, any candidate or candidate committee. By law, fundraising and spending by candidates must be transparent. Candidates report all donations and spending and reveal who paid for campaign activities. PACs act independently of candidates and collect money and spend it as they want.
I have had no contact with any PAC. I first became aware that PACs were active in this race when a local voter participated in a phone survey and questioned the slanted call criticizing my opponent. She emailed me. I assured her that my campaign was not responsible for the calls and that I deplored the technique. Soon after, others told me about phone surveys where similar techniques were being used against me.
It is disturbing to both candidates and voters to be subjected to inflammatory and misleading political ads. Unfortunately, I expect to see more such activities by PACs.
If you currently subscribe or have subscribed in the past to the Los Alamos Monitor, then simply find your account number on your mailing label and enter it below.
Click the question mark below to see where your account ID appears on your mailing label.
If you are new to the award winning Los Alamos Monitor and wish to get a subscription or simply gain access to our online content then please enter your ZIP code below and continue to setup your account.
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27 February 2012, 05:25
Episode nine of London360 is brought to you by presenter Tasha Mathur including features on racism in football, drugs in sport and inter-racial adoption.
Football and Racism
The subject of racism and football has always been a contentious subject and one that has divided opinion throughout. The recent race rows in the Premier League have put the issue back on the forefront. Abdullah Moallim investigates the issue further.
Chickenshed Theatre Company
Chickenshed have joined forces with the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation in a unique partnership, combining sports and theatre to tackle social issues important to young people. Rosa Doherty went to the launch to find out more about the partnership and see the powerful play Crime of a Century.
Olympic London – Drugs in Sport
Sport has long been hit by drug scandals. But London 2012 organisers have said that this year's Olympics will be the cleanest Games ever. How close is this to being a reality? Reporter Rose Manley went to find out how London's athletes feel about this issue.
There are over 65,000 children living in the care system in England and recent research has found that Children from multi ethnic backgrounds are waiting too long to be adopted. With London being such a multi cultural diverse city- Emily Jane Brown explores multi ethnic adoption with communities across the capital and asks why we should be questioning the needs of children in care.
Ever wondered what keeps London nightclubs and music events safe? The 696 form is a metropolitan police form, that assesses the risk of nights put on in the capital. Rosa Doherty explores the impact this form has had on the urban music scene and careers of reformed London gang members amongst recent claims it is unfairly targeting members of the black music community and young people.
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Rapid Globalization and Urbanization and the so called Modern-day lifestyle comes with its own backpack of health issues, occupational hazards and diseases that call for a modern armour of remedies. This is an age of ‘information explosion”, where we are bombarded by information on every subject imaginable. Findings from scientific research done all over the world is readily available at your fingertips, just waiting to be googled. With increasing awareness regarding ‘Health’ and ‘Nutrition’, there is a surge of information available these days that can often leave the layman confused, and perhaps even indifferent. The volume of information available leaves us at a crossroads, oscillating between ‘Facts’ and ‘Myths’ , unable to decide which way to go. But that, unfortunately, comes at a heavy price – your health.
E sanjeevani is an initiative to promote ‘Health’, ‘Wellness’ and ‘Nutrition’ among the masses. We provide you the latest, authentic and scientifically reviewed information on ‘Health’. Built to answer all your questions and dilemmas on health, food and fitness, this site is a one-stop solution to all your queries on health. Most importantly, this is developed with the idea of providing a reliable information source for the contemporary Indian. With knowledge and understanding comes greater compliance. Here, we will equip you with the required information to transform knowledge about the lifestyle changes you make into practices for greater long-term health benefits. Simply, trust E sanjeevani.
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Why are House Republicans opposed to protecting Native American women from abuse?
It is surprisingly the sticking point in getting the VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACT (VAWA) reauthorized.
Here’s everything you need to know about the GOP’s opposition to new protections for Native women on tribal lands:
1) Non-Native men will continue to receive a jurisdictional free pass for abusing Native women:
In response to the epidemic rates of domestic violence against Native women on reservations, the Department of Justice issued a legislative proposal that would restore Tribes’ ability to prosecute misdemeanor crimes of domestic and dating violence committed by non-Natives against Native women. This proposal also requires that the non-Native offender either live or work on the reservation and be in an existing relationship with the victim. DOJ statistics show that 3 out of 5 Native women had been assaulted by their intimate partners and 56 percent of American Indian women have non-Indian husbands.
Today on Indian reservations, the local governments don’t have the ability to respond to domestic violence crimes in their community if the perpetrator isn’t Native. Without this ability, non-Native offenders often go unpunished on tribal land because the only ones who can bring them to justice are federal prosecutors who are often hundreds of miles away and lack local resources to properly investigate and prosecute these crimes. The result, according to a recent National Institute of Justice (NIJ)-funded report, the offenders become emboldened, and the violence escalates to rape and in some cases homicide. On some Indian reservations, the homicide rate of Native women is 10 times the national average.
2) Republicans are more concerned with Non- Native perpetrators than Native victims:
So why do some Republicans like Cantor still have issues with a well-reasoned, narrowly-scoped DOJ proposal to reduce violence against Native women on reservations? An unbalanced concern for the rights non-Native men accused of these crimes. Even though the current Senate version of VAWA includes a full set of constitutional protections for suspects of abuse, including due-process rights and a right to counsel, Cantor and other Republicans continue to stall the VAWA Reauthorization because of baseless constitutional concerns for those accused of abusing Native women.
In the spirit of compromise within their own caucus, Issa and his colleagues proposed a powerful extra protection for defendants in their bill last week: a new right to remove the case to a federal court if the defendant’s rights are violated by a local tribal court. Although advocates for Native women would prefer to see the Senate version passed, this compromise is a reasonable way to get a deal done and improve the system of justice on reservations. It will clarify that all persons who commit a crime of domestic or dating violence on an Indian reservation will be arrested and held accountable, regardless of their race.
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Parks Canada Reaches Out to Non-Campers
Editor’s note: In an effort to better understand how other countries are managing their parklands, and to compare and contrast U.S. efforts to those from abroad, National Parks Traveler on occasion runs items from beyond U.S. borders. The following story is one example of that from Parks Canada which is an equivalent to the U.S. National Park Service.
Tent camping was once a popular activity in parks, but most of today’s visitors are more inclined to spend the night in a hotel or luxurious RV. Parks Canada hopes to entice more people to try tenting with a trial program that takes most of the roughing out of camping.
Unless you’re already a convert to tent camping, there are plenty of reasons to just stay in the park lodge: good equipment is expensive, smaller cars don’t have space for all that gear, sleeping on the hard ground doesn’t sound very appealing, and setting up and breaking camp takes time and effort.
Then there’s the knowledge factor: How do you build a campfire, much less cook a meal without a microwave – and what about keeping your food safe from bears or other raiders?
Despite those challenges, converts of camping will tell you there’s something special about sleeping under canvas – or nylon – where you can enjoy being closer to the natural world. It’s hard to hear the wind in the treetops when the guy in the next hotel room has his TV cranked up to the max.
Parks Canada is trying a program to lure a few more visitors into the campground, and it involves some upscale tents and even a few yurts. Everything is already set up for you, and if you’re new to camping, that’s not a problem. A park spokesman says, ”Those who are new to tenting can book time with a Parks Canada staff member who can spend up to an hour explaining camping basics – equipment, setting up, lighting and tending a fire, keeping a safe and clean campsite, as well as tips and tricks to being comfortable and having fun, including some hands-on practice with campfire cooking. There is no charge for the orientation program, but it must be booked in advance with a camping reservation.”
The latest test program is in Jasper National Park, located a full day’s drive north of the Alberta-Montana border. These comfortable tents aren’t the glitzy luxury versions used in the activity sometimes referred to as “glamping” (glamorous camping), but they’re certainly not your grandpa’s pup tent.
Three sites in the park’s Whistlers campground will be equipped with canvas-walled “cottage tents” that are set up on wooden floors. The 14-foot by 20-foot tents will be equipped with basic furnishings (one double bed and mattress, bunk beds with mattresses, and two fold-out lounge chairs that each make into a single bed.) The tents include electricity (two lights) and baseboard heat, which is described as “just to take the chill off; do not provide full heat.”
Basic gear for cooking for up to six people will be available, and since this is bear country, each site also includes a locker where cooking essentials and dishes are stored and another locker where campers can store their food. A cook shelter and split wood is located nearby – a great feature in several of the Canadian parks I’ve visited. Information from the park notes, ”For safety reasons, no cooking, storing or eating food is allowed inside tents. Upon arrival, campground staff will provide information on camping safely in bear country. Campers need to bring their sleeping bags or other bedding, food and other personal items. One of the tents is wheelchair accessible.”
Additional details about the tents, what’s provided and what visitors need to bring is available on the park website.
The tents will be available from May through October next year, and can be reserved through the Parks Canada online campground reservation system www.pccamping.ca or by calling (877) 787-6221. Rates for 2010 are still to be finalized, but are expected to run about $90 a night.
Information from the park sums up a key goal for this program: If your family has never camped or tented before and want to check it out without having to buy all the equipment and do set up – this might be for you…
Some purists will question whether a night in one of these tents really qualifies as “camping,” but that’s a term that clearly covers a lot of ground. These accommodations certainly get visitors closer to the natural world than modern RVs or park lodges, and this approach just might encourage a few newcomers to venture into a campground for the first time.
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After hijacking Gaza in a bloody 2007 coup, Hamas, as part of its long term strategy to destroy Israel, has now transformed Gaza into a hellish battlefield. Hamas has essentially taken Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants hostage by putting a higher priority on killing Israelis than on protecting Palestinians. The organization is using Palestinian civilians as human shields while it exploits their deaths as grist for its propaganda mill. Meanwhile, Hamas militants continue to hide among Palestinian civilians while launching rockets to kill Israeli civilians.
The United States must work to secure a resolution of the crisis that protects civilians on both sides from Hamas war crimes. Such an outcome requires the United States to back Israel's right to defend itself, block any one-sided resolutions at the U.N. Security Council, and mobilize international pressure on Hamas to stop its illegal rocket attacks. The U.S. goal should be to put in place an enforceable and sustainable cease-fire that diminishes the Hamas threat to Israelis, Palestinians, and regional stability.
The Gaza Graveyard
Hamas, a revolutionary Islamist movement, is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, and the European Union because of its murder of more than 500 civilians in Israel, including more than 20 Americans. On December 19, 2008, Hamas unilaterally ended its Egyptian-brokered six month cease-fire with Israel -- which it had frequently violated -- and escalated its rocket attacks, indiscriminately targeting civilians in southern Israel. Despite persistent Israeli warnings that such aggression would not be tolerated, Hamas remained defiant. Israel responded with an air offensive against the Hamas terrorist infrastructure on December 27 before launching a ground attack a week later.
Hamas has proclaimed that "Gaza will be a graveyard" for the Israeli army. The group seeks to duplicate Hezbollah's strategy from the 2006 war in southern Lebanon, building a network of underground bunkers and elaborate fortifications in Gaza. It hopes to lure the Israeli army into a protracted and bloody asymmetric war of attrition, fuel a media propaganda campaign, discredit the rival Palestinian Authority, undermine Arab governments that seek peace with Israel, and advance interests of its chief patron, Iran. Hamas is opposed not only to peace with Israel but to Israel's very existence. The revolutionary Islamist organization's long-term goal is to destroy Israel, along with moderate Arab governments, replacing them with extremist Islamist regimes.
Hamas therefore has rejected calls for a cease-fire with Israel, just as it rejected Egyptian appeals last month for extending the previous cease-fire. As long as Hamas continues to bombard Israeli civilians, no cease-fire is possible. Furthermore, outside powers should not pressure Israel to accept a cease-fire until Hamas, which provoked the crisis, finally signals its willingness to halt illegal attacks against civilians.
Those who argue that the Israeli military response is disproportionate to Hamas rocket terrorism make several errors. This argument equates the intentional crimes of a terrorist group that purposely target civilians with the defensive actions of a democratic government that seeks to protect its own civilians while going to great lengths to avoid accidentally killing Palestinian civilians. The goal of Israel's war with Hamas is victory -- not to match Hamas blow for blow or to employ the same tactics, such as indiscriminate bombardments or suicide bombings. It would be a gross strategic error to engage in a tit-for-tat conflict with a suicide cult that is only too willing to sacrifice the lives of its Palestinian hostages.
Criteria for Ending the Fighting
In order to stem the fighting, foreign leaders have flocked to the United Nations and to Israel. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, EU special envoy Tony Blair, and Karel Schwarzenberg, the Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic -- which assumed the EU presidency last week -- have met with Israeli leaders in efforts to defuse the crisis. Russia and Turkey have also mounted their own diplomatic efforts. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has reportedly spoken to 17 foreign leaders by phone but has wisely refrained from traveling to the region. No negotiated cease-fire is possible as long as both sides remain determined to fight: Israel to reduce the rocket threat and weaken Hamas and Hamas to transform a military disaster into a political victory. Hamas seeks to accomplish these goals through a propaganda campaign designed to fuel Arab anger, undermine moderate Arab governments, and strengthen like-minded Islamist extremist movements throughout the world.
The Bush Administration has blocked the passage of one-sided U.N. Security Council resolutions on the current Gaza crisis, such as a Libyan-sponsored resolution that puts the onus for stopping the fighting on Israel. Washington should continue to block such resolutions because they only encourage Hamas to prolong its hostage strategy.
Meanwhile, the United States should work behind the scenes with its Arab allies -- particularly Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia -- to pressure Hamas to accept a halt of its rocket terrorism in exchange for an Israeli halt of military operations. But any such agreement would be inherently unstable unless it includes the following conditions:
- A verifiable end to rocket attacks. A return to the status quo ante, in which Hamas and other extremist Palestinian groups were free to launch rockets at Israeli civilians with impunity, is unacceptable.
- A halt to cross-border arms smuggling. The previous cease-fire allowed Hamas to consolidate its control of Gaza and build up its rocket arsenal by using a network of more than 300 tunnels across the Gaza-Egypt border. Israel will undoubtedly seek to destroy these tunnels in the course of the fighting, but much stronger Egyptian cooperation is needed to prevent smuggling through new tunnels.
- Deployment of international monitors. To hold Hamas accountable for maintaining any cease-fire, a contingent of international monitors is necessary to verify that rockets are not being launched out of Gaza and that the tunnel network is not being rebuilt.
- Monitoring of humanitarian aid. Aid should be routed through border crossings controlled by the Palestinian Authority and distributed under the supervision of international monitors. This will ensure that Hamas does not divert humanitarian aid and other supplies to rebuild its war machine. Moreover, it will reassert the role of the more moderate Palestinian Authority and undermine Hamas's control over the welfare of Gazans.
Toward a Genuine Peace
International efforts to resolve the Gazan crisis should be aimed at shaping a postwar situation that restricts the ability of Hamas to threaten Israel or hold Palestinians hostage to its extremist Islamist goals. A cease-fire that allows Hamas to rebuild its military power and tighten its brutal grip on Gaza will lead to an unending series of crises that Hamas, its patron Iran, and other Islamist extremists will exploit. To restore stability to the region and rescue the dying hopes for a genuine peace, the United States and other powers must help defeat the Hamas strategy of hiding behind Gazans in its ruthless quest to kill Israelis.
James Phillips is Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.
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Queens, NY, US
Brooklyn, NY, US
The son of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers, award-winning illustrator Christopher Myers credits his appreciation of the importance of images to observing the objects and photographs his parents would bring home from auctions and flea markets: “little histories;” “other people's memories that get left behind.” His own family images have had quite an impact, as well - as in a black-and-white photograph of his grandfather with a telling smile on his face. “He was a storyteller. His thick, dark, calloused hands told stories. My father tells stories. I tell stories. I'm fascinated with work, what work is, who does work, how much our identities are wrapped up in what we do with our hands. Shoeshine boy, ditchdigger, painter. My grandfather laughed at my father's hands because they were too soft. Still I think he was proud of the fact that my father didn't have to work with his back. This is progress.”
Myers has made his career working with his hands in yet another way, creating his own images in collage, photos, woodcuts, and other artistic media. A graduate of Brown University, he has participated in the exclusive Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Studio Program. Myers began his children's book career doing research to help his father, and went on to illustrate the elder Myers' Shadow of the Red Moon. In 1998, the two collaborated on Harlem, which was named a Caldecott Honor Book as well as a Coretta Scott King Honor Book. Myers' solo effort, Black Cat, was also a Coretta Scott King Honor Book.
In addition to his fine art and illustrative work, Christopher Myers is a clothing designer. He makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.
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Creating the Olympic Guide cover artwork
Essential Fan's Guide to Olympics cover
When we set out to produce our guide to the cycling events at the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, we wanted to have a cover image that represented all of the disciplines and that was eye-catching. We turned to illustrator Simeon Elson to come up with a suitable image.
London-based Simeon has been running his own illustration business for the past seven years, having studied Multimedia at Westminster Kingsway College.
His stunning illustrations have been used by a wide variety of magazines, media and even on clothing. His skills have been employed by Penguin Books, Computers Arts, The Big Issue, Advanced Photoshop, Grazia Magazine UK, Anomaly USA, Whorrell Rogers Design Consultants, Miss Capital UK, Touch Magazine and Diesel.
"Whilst doing a HNC in Multimedia at Westminster Kingsway College I was introduced to Adobe Illustrator. I already was quite competent using Photoshop so I combined my skills in both programs and began to create illustration for house nightclub events in a 'Hed Kandi'
style," says Simeon.
In addition to using digital techniques Simeon also uses more traditional artistic skills. "I do incorporate mixed media techniques such as watercolours and hand-drawn elements," he says.
For our cover artwork, Simeon wanted to create a striking design, and set to work on including several key elements. "I knew that the illustration needed to have the cyclists in the forefront and be full of energy," he says.
"Using Adobe Illustrator I created the graphical portraits, making sure that they were very detailed, graphical and had a strong likeness to the cyclists. I then drew the velodrome and all the other featured elements before creating the textures, splatters, lighting and final composition in Photoshop."
Our final question: will you be watching the Olympic Games? "Yes, I will be watching the Olympics, I love sports!" Simeon confirms. "Particularly football, tennis, athletics and of course, cycling. Although I must say when the Olympics is on I pretty much enjoy all the events."
The Olympic cycling guide is available from Wednesday, June 13, at WHSmith, major supermarkets and all good newsagents priced £9.99. You can also purchase it online via the Cycling Weekly shop.
Simeon Elson Illustration
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Davey Gudgeon was mentioned by Remus Lupin, telling a lie about Whomping Willow, as a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the 1970s. He almost lost his eye trying to get close enough to the Whomping Willow to touch its trunk.
For their own safety (and possibly the Willow's as well), students were forbidden to go near the tree since that event occured. It is possible that Davey sustained other injury, because it is never mentioned that Davey did lose an eyeball.
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Mentioned only)
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Format: Trade Paperback
Religion - Christian Life
God is More than Enough by Tony Evans takes you through Psalm 23. I really wanted to love this book but I can’t say that I did. I liked it and Mr. Evans did a really good job going through the Psalm and explaining it. He used colorful and real live situations to illustrate the Psalm and to relate it to today’s living. I just felt like something “new” was missing. I have been through studies of Psalm 23 so maybe that’s why I couldn’t “love” the book. It would be a really good study guide for someone who wants to study this Psalm a little more deeply. He did bring out some really good points. I had never thought about God “making us lie down” to rest. And I used one of his illustrations in a bible study group when giving devotions. It was an illustration about a GPS and I won’t give it away but it really made me think. God is More than Enough is a short book and would be a good daily devotional to study Psalm 23. I don’t know that I would recommend buying it at the retail price of $10.99 which I think is a little steep for what I would consider a mini book. I would recommend this book though for an individual or small group study especially for newer Christians. I received this book at no charge from Booksneeze.com for an honest review.
Juvenile Fiction - Religious - Christian - Fantasy
Fiction - Christian - General
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TALLAHASSEE — Outside of some local, legislative and congressional races, Tuesday's primary election is a bit of a snoozer.
Unlike two years ago, when there were competitive primaries to pick Republican nominees for governor and attorney general and Democratic primaries for attorney general and U.S. Senate, there's only one statewide race on the ballot and even that's not stirring up much excitement.
The race to see which Republican will face Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson seems to be all but forgotten after four major candidates, including former Sen. George LeMieux, dropped out.
That leaves U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV as the heavy favorite against former U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, who doesn't have statewide name recognition or the money to effectively reach voters.
"There's hardly anything that's really driving folks to the polls at all," said Dan Smith, a University of Florida political science professor. "Having LeMieux drop out undercut some of the excitement among the Republicans. Dave Weldon's campaign was late to get in, slow to ignite and it does seem like a coronation of Connie Mack."
So that leaves local races and congressional and legislative primaries as the main driver to get people to the polls.
Perhaps the most talked about race is in Central Florida between Republican U.S. Reps. John Mica and Sandy Adams, a contest that guarantees at least one member of Congress will lose a job.
If history is any indication, turnout will be light.
In 2008, when there were no statewide races, only 17.7 percent of Florida's voters cast a primary ballot. And even in 2010, only 22 percent of voters cast primary ballots even though there were competitive statewide races involving both major parties.
Florida is a closed primary state. That means that only members of a political party can vote in primary races that include candidates from their own party. The exception is a race that would decide the seat before the November general election — then members of all parties can have a say. And all registered voters regardless of party also can cast ballots in nonpartisan races, such as for school boards and judgeships.
There are several congressional primaries that might boost turnout in some areas.
The Legislature redrew Florida's congressional maps this year and had to carve out two new districts. While doing so, they put Mica and Adams in the newly drawn District 7, a compact geographical area that includes a small part of Orlando and the area northeast of it.
Mica opted not to seek his 11th term in the new District 6, which is made up of a large portion of his current District 7.
Adams felt that the new District 7 was the core of her current District 24, which was essentially carved up. The result has been a brutal primary between two incumbents who vote alike on the vast majority of bills.
There's also a scramble for four congressional seats with no incumbents because of the two new districts, the seat Mack is giving up for his Senate run and the vacancy created by Adams and Mica seeking the same seat.
In Central Florida's District 9, four Republicans are competing to see who will face former U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson, who became known nationally after saying the Republican health care plan was to hope people die.
They are lawyer Todd Long, businessman Julius Melendez, businessman Mark Oxner and John Quinones, a former state representative who now chairs the Osceola County Commission.
In Southwest Florida's District 19, six Republicans are on the ballot seeking the seat that likely would have been Mack's had he sought re-election to it. Among them are state Rep. Gary Aubuchon, state Rep. Paige Kreegel, former radio talk show host Trey Radel and Chauncey Goss, son of former congressman and CIA director Porter Goss. The winner will be the heavy favorite to win the conservative district in November.
In District 22, former West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel faces Palm Beach County Commissioner Kristin Jacobs in the Democratic primary. The winner will face former state Rep. Adam Hasner, who dropped out of the Senate race to seek the seat.
Legislative races are more interesting this year because of the new political maps. There are 69 legislative races that have primaries, and some of them have turned into fierce contests that have attracted large amounts of spending by outside groups.
That includes the tight race for a Jacksonville-area Senate seat between state Rep. Mike Weinstein and former Rep. Aaron Bean.
Bean is among several legislators trying to make a comeback. Former legislators are trying to return after being forced out by Florida's term limits law.
That also includes former Senate President Tom Lee, who is being challenged by state Rep. Rachel Burgin to represent a Senate district in eastern Hillsborough County.
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Anything is bad in excess". What do you get out of teeny weeny pieces of food and abstaining from mouth watery, since childhood sought-after dishes? Of course, we need to be conscious of our health and take food that is nutritious. Living on scrimpy food does not help either. It will only lead to health deterioration!! So Beware!! How long do we spend in choosing a sari, a necklace, a car?? Do we spend a fraction of the time for our health. No!! What about this Hitler plan of working out,jogging, yoga etc etc., Exercise tightens your muscles and makes you look younger and firmer. But what help of it is going to be when you have it with fried foods soaked in oil. Not caring what oil you use for cooking, having junk foods, you would end up spraining yourself in course of the exercise Plan. Diet and exercise both should go hand in hand, according to me. Personally I avoided rice which adds lot of calories and took more of wheat made dishes which is healthier. Lots of fresh vegetables(cooked) and fish can work magic on your skin:-) Believe me. For me exercise is just a casual walk in the evening by our garden, inhaling fresh air and making space for myself. Remember, healthy mind in a healthy body. Also whenever i can, i walk short distances like to the nearby market, bus station to office. It works for me and will work for everyone!! So what are you waiting for??
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- THE MAGAZINE
- WEB EXCLUSIVES
The report was issued by Norbert J. Ore, C.P.M., chair of the Institute for Supply Management Manufacturing Business Survey committee. “February proved to be a good month in the manufacturing sector as new orders, production and employment contributed to a solid growth scenario. The inventories index showed significant reduction in manufacturers’ inventories for the second consecutive month, and the backlog of orders index is growing once again. While the prices manufacturers pay reached their highest level in five months, concern about prices is still minimal due to the small number of commodities indicated as up in price. The trend in manufacturing, as well as the overall economy, is for slow but continuing growth.”
The manufacturing economy returned to growth in February as the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) registered 52.3%, an increase of 3 percentage points when compared to January’s seasonally adjusted reading of 49.3%. A reading above 50% indicates that the manufacturing economy is generally expanding; below 50% indicates that it is generally contracting.
A PMI in excess of 41.9%, over a period of time, generally indicates an expansion of the overall economy. Therefore, the PMI indicates that both the overall economy and the manufacturing sector are growing. “The past relationship between the PMI and the overall economy indicates that the PMI average for January and February, 50.8%, corresponds to a 2.8% increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) annually. In addition, if the PMI for February, 52.3, is annualized, it corresponds to a 3.2% increase in real GDP annually.”
ISM’s Production Index registered 54.1% in February, 4.5 percentage points higher than the seasonally adjusted 49.6% reported in January. Manufacturers’ production is now growing following a one-month contraction in February. An index above 49.8%, over time, is generally consistent with an increase in the Federal Reserve Board’s Industrial Production figures.
ISM’s Employment Index registered 51.1% in February as the Index increased 1.6 percentage points when compared to January’s seasonally adjusted reading of 49.5%. February’s Index reverses a three-month trend of contraction in manufacturing employment. An Employment Index above 49.2%, over time, is generally consistent with an increase in the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data on manufacturing employment.
The delivery performance of suppliers to manufacturing organizations was slower for the 44th consecutive month in February. ISM’s Supplier Deliveries Index registered 50.8% in February, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points when compared to January’s seasonally adjusted reading of 52.7%. A reading above 50% indicates slower deliveries.
Manufacturers’ inventories contracted for the seventh consecutive month in February as ISM’s Inventories Index registered 44.6%, a 4.7 percentage point increase when compared to January’s seasonally adjusted reading of 39.9%. An Inventories Index greater than 42.4%, over time, is generally consistent with expansion in the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ figures on overall manufacturing inventories, in chained 2000 dollars, or real dollar amounts adjusted over time for inflation
The data presented herein is obtained from a survey of manufacturing supply managers based on information they have collected within their respective organizations. ISM makes no representation, other than that stated here, regarding the individual company data collection procedures. Use of the data is in the public domain and should be compared to all other economic data sources when used in decision-making.
The Manufacturing ISM Report On Business is based on data compiled from purchasing and supply executives nationwide. Membership of the Manufacturing Business Survey Committee is diversified by NAICS, based on each industry’s contribution to GDP.
The report is published monthly by the Institute for Supply Management. The full text version of the Manufacturing ISM Report On Business is posted on ISM’s Web site at www.ism.ws on the first business day of every month after 10:10 a.m. (ET).
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J. Michael Bishop won, with Harold E. Varmus, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 for their work on retroviral oncogenes. He is the chancellor of the University of California, San Francisco, and the director of the university's G. W. Hooper Foundation, which studies human disease. His recent research has focused on the molecular basis of cancer.
Daniel Callahan co-founded the Hastings Center in 1969 and served as its president for 27 years. Currently, he directs the center's International Program. He is also a lecturer at Harvard Medical School and a fellow at Yale University's Institution for Social and Policy Studies.
Eric Kandel shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2000 for his research on the physiological and molecular basis of memory formation. He is a professor of physiology and cell biophysics, psychiatry, biochemistry, and molecular biophysics at Columbia University, and the director of the Kavli Institute for Brain Sciences. His book In Search of Memory was published in March 2006.
Eric Topol is a professor of medicine and genetics at Case Western Reserve University. Previously, he was the chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, whose cardiology program has been consistently ranked as one of the nation's best. His research focuses on the genomics of coronary disease. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.
Atul Gawande is a practicing surgeon in Boston and an assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and at Harvard Medical School. He is also a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science, parts of which first appeared in the magazine.
Don't miss other great events from The New Yorker Festival 2006.
Want to listen to The New Yorker? Get the latest issue or subscribe and have new editions of The New Yorker delivered to My Library each week.
© and (P)2006 The New Yorker
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World Peace Pages
9/11 links below
Summary of this page:
"The first responsibility of the press is to use its freedom to protect the rights and liberties of all individuals. The press must speak out, and, if the occasion arises, raise bloody hell." - Herblock, 1957
There is no such thing, at this date in the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the street looking for another job.
If I allowed my honest opinion to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
You know it and I know it.
And what folly is this - toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.
We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance.
Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.
We are intellectual prostitutes.
The tiny brave TV station Al Jazeera (www.aljazeera.net/) had a studio in Kabul. It was originally financed by the US and stood for freedom of speech - until it was destroyed by American bombs in October '01. Why? It was too critical re. the American politics. This is a dangerous example of how the current politics deal with criticism. Read also about The End of Freedom in the US.
Please read also: "Missing: crucial facts from the official charge sheet against Bin Laden - What the Government's dossier against bin Laden doesn't say and can't say: One thing is missing from the document 'proving' Bin Laden's guilt – the proof. By Chris Blackhurst" on www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=98195
Independent media? Le Figaro is now owned by the Carlyle Group, the American defense contractor which employs George Bush Sr., and which had as investors the bin Laden family, until they sold their stake on October 26 (www.copvcia.com). Whom can we trust?
Aljazeera hosted a number of analysts to comment on the content of the tape which the US navy found in Afghanistan, according to Washington. [Note: the "find" has been variously attributed to the US Army, the Navy, the "military" and of course to the CIA, which is operating in military drag in Afghanistan, and which is undoubtedly the true source of this Crusade Production.--NY Transfer.]
One specialist in Islamic affairs, Hani Al Sibaei, described the video tape as "fabricated and a scandal for the greatest democratic country in the world."
In a telephone call with AlJazeera from London, he noted the congratulatory wishes on the tape and bin Laden's happy expression, and said that this segment of the tape was taken from a tape of Osama bin Laden being congratulated on the marriage of his child to the child of Aiman Al-Zawaheri -- an event that took place four years ago.
The expert said that it boggles the mind that an organization like AlQaeda would create such simple-minded videotapes and then leave them behind in a private home. He added that bin Laden has twice denied involvement in the attacks and said that he had sworn to Mullah Mohamed Omar, leader of the Talban movement, that the AlQaeda organization pledged it would not plan attacks against other countries from inside Afghanistan.
In contrast, Christopher Ross -- a consultant hired by the US State Department -- says that the tape is genuine and not a fabrication. In a conversation with AlJazeera, he acknowledged he had to replay the tape tens of times in order to hear the conversation because the sound was so bad. He also indicated that in order to improve the translation, he then replayed the tape another 50 times with the translator. He confirmed that the translation is not literal, because of the poor quality of the original tape's sound. Ross said that he considered the tape "proof" that bin Laden had considerable knowledge of the details of the attacks on America, and that he was shocked when he saw bin Laden rejoicing over the attack on the buildings and the murder of people.
Source: Al Jazeera Channel + agencies
"I have viewed exceprts from the "Smoking Gun" bin Laden video and I can't see how anyone could mistake the actor on the video for Usama bin Laden. It seems that UbL has been gulping down more than his fair share of the "food aid" that is being dropped because he is obviously carrying a few more pounds, mostly in the face, since the videos screened on Al Jazeera not long ago, reportedly recorded only a few days earlier. I seem to associate the actor on the video more with Will Smith than with UbL. It must further be mentioned that the parts of the audio that can be heard do not sound anything at all like the audio of bin Laden on the Al Jazeera broadcasts. In fact it does not even sound like the arabic spoken by an arab.
Haroon Sulaiman (from www.rense.com)
Please take a closer look at the video, please look at Ayman Al-Zawarih's lips when speaking, this is the only man in the video whose face appears towards the camera while actually speaking a long sentence, and guess what? Yup, the synchronisation of the voice and the video image of his lips was not in tune with each other!
Osama a few days earlier in an Al Jazeera videotape
"Osama" in the new CIA videotape "prooving" his guilt
On the same day they release this videotape, which we are supposed to believe was miraculously found by the CIA in a private home in Jalalabad, the US Government is refusing to release to the US Congress documents on all kinds of other criminal investigations -- unrelated to bin Laden-- which were subpoenaed by a bi-partisan group of Congressional representatives.
If anyone cares to look at their piece of embarrassingly bad video disinformation, go see it at - www.abcnews.com. Decide if you can hear it or, for that matter, if you can even identify the major player with any confidence as Osama bin Laden.
"There is clearly reason to doubt the tape. There is excessive noise on the audio track, making it impossible to really hear what is being said. Given that the tape was recorded in an area supposedly devoid of audio urban signature, there should have been little ambient noise, yet the speech is masked with a great deal of noise. Then there is that gap in the audio track, reminiscent of Nixon's missing 18 minutes, and the truths it once contained which are lost forever to history. Doubts have already been raised regarding the correct translation of Osama's words into "We", when his words could also mean "They"." Read the full article at: www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html
"The defence minister of the ousted Taleban regime in Afghanistan told the BBC that he was doubtful about the recording's authenticity, saying it was unlikely that Bin Laden would have been naive enough to say such things on a recording."
Remember: Osama Bin Ladin said in an interview with a Pakistani newspaper; "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle."
More comments on the December 2000 video on www.thisistherealtruth.net/knowledge/wtc/reactionstovideo.htm
- Adolf Hitler. Taken from www.island.net/~lbnews/9_11/9-11Files/9-11Files.html
[Please read Is history repeating itself? The rise of the Fourth Reich - amazing paralleles]
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
"Do not to listen to the media with regards to what is happening in America! The reason I believe this is so, is because somehow we are being programmed through the media, call it a subliminal program, that makes us feel compelled to know what is happening next. It is very subtle, but very powerful. The television had desensitized us. .....
"Our minds create our reality... . Lift your thoughts and vibrations to one of peace, harmony, sharing and abundance free of war and controls that limit freedom and our divine expression. It is no good praying for peace and then listening to the media matrix, as you are still focusing on that matrix.
"Do yourself a favour and turn off your radio and TV and see just how you feel. You will feel free and not stressed or emotionally tied in to these events. Instead
concentrate on the world of love, peace and sharing that you envision in the future.
Try the exercise of turning off your TV and radio for two days and go about your daily life without tapping into the events in America - you will notice a difference, like a psychic web has been cut from you. You will feel very different. The fact the web has been cut can be tangibly felt."
16 September [ from an anonymous email September '01 ]
A very critical overview with lots of background information about the "media mafia" at http://www.thisistherealtruth.net/Knowledge/media/media.htm
contact & e-mail details - top of page
World Peace Pages - home | Summary contents | 9 / 11 Updates | Do you value the information on this page?
Doubts: Planes & Air Force | Early warnings | Bombs in the World Trade Center? | Detailed list of questions
Understanding: US History | Inspiring thoughts | Why the US is hated | Money and War | US-UK. attack violates law | Opium Connection | Islam and Terrorism?
Foreknowledge: Events Time Line | The Oil | Stock indicator | CIA & FBI
End of Freedom? Media in Conflict | FEMA - Secret Government | Bush and 1984 | End of Freedom | US and Fourth Reich | US Critic William Cooper Killed | PC virus
Uncovering the Truth: Terror & Mass Persuasion by William Thomas | Real Perpetrators behind Sept 11 | Mike Ruppert's Expose 'Government Complicity' | Anthrax Manupulation | Ralph's Prediction
What to do? Concentrate on love & peace | Gandhi about Nonviolence | 100 Nobel Laureates Warn | ACTION & events | Comment | Truth Appeal
More: UK Situation | Peace Letters | Spiritual Wisdom | 9/11 Links | Ralph & Peace
Special Events | Spiritual Web Page | Healing & Health Page | Environmental Page | Cambridge Inter-Faith Group | Dances of Universal Peace
An Open Letter from God | International peace meditation | Prayers and Invocations
View Stats Rainbow Network - - View Stats 9/11 World Peace
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UPDATE: Politifact Florida rates Brogan's claim as half-true.
State University System Chancellor Frank Brogan had a quick anthropology lesson for Gov. Rick Scott this morning.
Scott has poked at the program while attempting to raise the profile of so-called STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and math.
But Rep. Alan Williams, D-Tallahassee, asked Brogan whether or not anthropology is a STEM subject.
"It is," Brogan said.
Williams also asked about the message Scott has sent by posting state salaries from the university system. Brogan said he worked in "arguably one of the most competitive industries known to man: higher education."
"Beyond money as we all know, we need to remember that the marketing - and I mean that in a good way - of our State University System right now is critical," Brogan said. "We want the best and brightest professors. We want the best and brightest students. But at the end of the day, we all recognize change needs to be made.
"But how that change translates to what the rest of the world hears can be a difficulty if you're not careful," he said. "So when it comes to what our people are teaching, how they teach, etc., great. We need to have those conversations. But we need to be careful that the message sent is that we are not a faculty friendly state. That just makes our job even more difficult in the 21st century."
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for Ukiah Daily Journal
"Last winter it was cold, so cold that I wanted to wear long underwear to keep my arms warm. I spend a lot of time in the basement of the bank with the computers. It's very cold down there," says Annie Gould, solutions specialist at the Savings Bank of Mendocino County.
"I realized that I could use old socks to keep just my arms warm without having to put on another entire layer. Once you have cut out the toe area, it's easy to slip them over your hands and up your arms to your elbow. Just pull your sweater over it and it looks like you have a turtleneck underneath, except they are much easier to take on and off. I wear them in layers and they really work for me on my job where I move from warm areas to cold and back again."
They look stylish enough and she calls her idea "resox" - for the homeless, the poor, the old and the cold. She started showing her idea to people and they told her she should start selling them on the Internet. That's not what it's about for her. Soon she was receiving donations to give to those who were cold. She shared them at work, at churches and with groups of friends. She says she has given out more than 100 pairs in the last year.
"It's a great way to deal with worn out socks. You don't have to throw them out. Donate them or wear them like that yourselves," says Gould. "Sometimes I get good socks in perfect condition and these of course can be worn for their original purpose."
Locally she hands them out at
"It's not only about handing them out but also putting the idea into people's heads that they can make their own. It really works to take the chill off," she says.
"Last year my friend was living in her car in the winter. She used double layers of these socks and it really kept her warm."
Walking downtown with a bag of repurposed socks in hand, Gould runs into a trio visiting in the warmth of the afternoon sun and asks each if they would like a pair of resox.
She shows Joseph Shadowwolf a pair of blue and green patterned socks and explains how he has to continue cutting out the foot area so he can get his arms into them. He responds, "Thanks, these are cool."
She explains to Chris VanKirk that they double as long underwear as she pulls a pair of butterfly patterned beige socks up his arms. "Nice," he says, "these will keep me warm."
She asks Tina Hoaglin Pike if she wants to try them on and pulls out a long black and white patterned pair and explains that she wears them all the time. "Thanks, nice pattern. Black, too. They go with everything and will pick up the heat and help with my arthritis. They will definitely come in handy tonight and they are long enough to use for leggings."
To donate socks, call the Manzanita Program at the Methodist Church at 463-0404.
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Henry blasts quality of public policy debatePUBLISHED: 14 Aug 2012 14:02:00 | UPDATED: 15 Aug 2012 04:05:18PUBLISHED: 14 Aug 2012 PRINT EDITION: 15 Aug 2012
Ken Henry says there is a lack of understanding about the nation’s challenges, including the high dollar and its impact on manufacturing and future generations. Photo: Arsineh Houspian
Jacob Greber Economics Correspondent
Ken Henry, one of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s top economic advisers, has slammed the quality of public policy debate and berated politicians for making big decisions on the fly.
“I can’t remember a time in the last 25 years when the quality of public policy debate has been as bad as it is right now,” said Dr Henry, who is heading a white paper taskforce into Australia’s role in the Asian century.
The remarks are significant as they hint at the growing frustration among senior Canberra policy mandarins about the nation’s troubled recent reform track record. Dr Henry said there was a lack of understanding about the challenges facing Australia, including the high Australian dollar and its impact on manufacturing and the careers of future generations.
“There’s a role for deeper thinking and there’s a role for a much higher quality of public debate and all of this needs to happen before governments make and announce decisions,” he said in a video posted online on Tuesday by the Australian National University.
The former Treasury secretary, who headed the department between 2001 and 2011, said the need for political point scoring meant governments were in the habit of “making policy announcements on the fly – it often leaves voters and experts alike scratching their heads in surprise”.
He contrasted the current failure of governments to explain their decisions with the experiences of the 1980s and 1990s, when support for economic deregulation and other reforms helped strengthen the economy.
Dr Henry said: “There was a time when we did have a better public understanding of the issues confronting Australia.”
He also took indirect credit for helping steer the economy through the 2008 global financial crisis, saying that Australia’s capacity to respond had been strengthened by its budget position.
“Fiscal policy actually led Australia’s response to the global financial crisis because the budget was in such good condition,” Dr Henry said.
Dr Henry is due to deliver in September the government-commissioned report on Australia’s future in the region.
“There are a lot of issues that we need to explore as we come to terms with our place in this century in this part of the world,” he said.
“We’re well placed, but there are a lot of things that we need to do.”
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The Australian Financial Review
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Adobe created a hole in the market when it admitted finally that it will be unable to create a version of its Flash that can run on mobile devices. Sibblingz is stepping into that hole to provide game developers with a platform that enables them to create web and iOS and Android mobile games at the same time.
“Mobile Flash blew up,” said Peter Relan, chairman of YouWeb, the incubator that created Burlingame, Calif.-based Sibblingz. “Now we have this new version of Spaceport to serve the developers who were otherwise depending on Adobe.”
Relan said in an interview that Spaceport 3.0 has been designed to be a drop-in replacement for Flash. For years, Flash ran fine by tapping a computer’s central processing unit (CPU). But in the mobile era, CPUs were too under-powered to run Flash properly. If Adobe had adapted Flash to run on graphics processing units (GPUs), it would have worked fine on mobile devices. But the company never did that.
As a result, developers can use Spaceport to create games that run on web sites, on iOS devices, or on Android phones. Relan said the work on this began after Sibblingz shipped Spaceport 2.0 in the spring. After that, developers offered their feedback for what they wanted in version 3.0. After that, Sibblingz created an applications programming interface (API) that mimicked the Flash API, making it a lot easier to take a Flash game and move it over to Sibblingz.
With the compatible API, game creators can still use their familiar Adobe PC content creation tools to create games for the Sibblingz platform. That is one of the main differences between Spaceport 2.0 and Spaceport 3.0. Spaceport 3.0 has a web service that automatically converts Flash animations created with Adobe tools into SWF files using Spaceport’s vector graphics. These are then rendered on iOS or Android devices by the GPU-based rendering engine.
“Adobe is a great tools company, but they failed to do this for the developer community,” Relan said.
Michael Cai, an analyst at market researcher Interpret, said that game developers are looking for alternatives like Sibblingz because of Adobe’s move.
In a side-by-side comparison, games rendered with Spaceport 3.0 run visibly faster on Android, compared to rendering via a Flash mobile plug-in. (See the video below for a comparison). Developers can use Spaceport with no upfront fees.
YouWeb has an interesting position in the mobile game market, since it has created both iSwifter and Sibblingz. iSwifter enables developers who continue to create PC flash games to get those games to run on iOS tablets via streaming technology. Sibblingz, meanwhile, lets game companies migrate from Flash to Spaceport.
Rivals include pure HTML5, which is slow and may be a couple of years away from having enough performance to run fast-moving games. Sibblingz is being used by CrowdStar and a couple of other game companies now.
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GSD Course Bulletin - Spring 2012 - SES-05212-00
05212: Field Studies in Real Estate, Planning & Urban Design: Redevelopment of the Port of Mumbai; Development of Village Center for Jacks Point in New Zealand (SES 0521200)
Urban Planning and Design
Lecture - 4 credits
Tuesday 3:00 - 6:00 Gund 318
Enrollment for this course is closed. An early lottery was already done for MDesS Students.
The Field Study course is intended to provide students an understanding of the dynamics and complexities of reality that create contemporary urban physical environments. The course emphasizes the integration of design and development aspects of projects that respond to realistic market demand, political, financial and other regulatory constraints. It is designed for real estate professionals, architects, urban/landscape designers and planners, to broaden their understanding of urban development issues and complicated problems, as well as to improve the applicability of their skills in either design or financial analysis in the context of urban developments.
This year's sites are:
- Mumbai Port Redevelopment – Mumbai’s historic port in the heart of Mumbai is the subject of this year’s REAI joint studio/field study. The main port has moved across the bay, opening up redevelopment of the 1400 acre area occupied by the historic port. Students will select sites within the port area that are of interest to them for redevelopment. Students will participate in Rahul Mehrotra’s studio which meets Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-6:00, and are eligible for an additional 4 units credit through independent study if they wish to fully take part in the studio. The Mumbai Field Study/Studio is a joint studio supported by the REAI with students from HBS, KSG, LAW, and GSD. All but the studio students will travel together in January. (note, Students must have a copy of their birth certificate to get a visa to India.)
- Resort Village Center in New Zealand – This field study will focus on the planning, design, and development of a village center for the new resort at Jacks Point near Queenstown. Queenstown is the major tourist city on the South Island and the closest to several of the most famous national parks. Jacks Point is home to one of the top golf courses in the country. The village center will serve as a magnet for tourists and for people living Jacks Point. It will include retail, entertainment, resort, residential, office, and government uses as well as open space and recreation uses. With breathtaking views of the mountains, the foothills, and Lake Wakatipu, the students will confront the problem of creating a new village center from scratch. Drawing on precedent studies of resorts around the world, students will address the full range of issues in new community development including site constraints, market feasibility, political feasibility, master planning, urban design, and financial feasibility. The owner/developer of Jacks Point is the sponsor of the field study and will be involved both in New Zealand and at Harvard in the progress of the class. The students’ visions and studies will inform the ultimate development of the village center.
Students will work in teams undertaking the field study projects sponsored this year by the Real Estate Academic Initiative for Mumbai and by alumni sponsors of New Zealand. Under the guidance of the professors, students will act as professional consultants to provide vision and solutions to the projects. Students will visit the sites during the January term. During the semester, investigations will include development feasibility studies (market, physical, environmental, and political), site planning, urban design, financing analysis, public/private joint-venture structures and other critical factors affecting the planning, design and development of the two projects.
GSD iCommons Website
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(read this entire article on sprinklers and how to adjust and set them! Don’t just look at the pictures ok?)
The biggest mistake homeowners make is not watering their grass correctly! I could tell you story after story of people who destroyed their lawns with improper irrigation.
You already know that you need to water your lawn to keep it green. You’ve read on other websites about watering and that you should lay down about an inch of water per week during the summer (two waterings, one-half inch each time). But how exactly do you do that and what type of sprinkler works best?
You want a sprinkler that will keep the water low to the ground and in large droplets. This cuts down on evaporation and drifting. Larger drops also mean more water is being put down so you don’t need to leave the sprinkler out as long.
You want a sprinkler that is adjustable to cover different sized and shaped areas of your lawn. Fixed, spinning sprinklers are great for the kids to play in, but they only cover a circular area and most lawns just happen to be square!
A rain gauge should be used to find out how long it takes to lay down one-half-inch of water based on your water output and sprinkler adjustment. You can get one at any garden center. Place it in the path of the sprinkler and check it often until it is up to the half-inch line. (you only have to do this once)
Remember, there is only so much water that your hose puts out, so if you buy a sprinkler that covers a huge area, be prepared to leave it in that one spot for many hours!
Sometimes, less is more when you get the right sprinkler that lays down the water in a smaller area, but low and heavy…
What’s the Best Kind of Sprinkler?
By far, the most efficient sprinkler on the market is the good old fashioned impact sprinkler, sometimes called an impulse sprinkler. They’re the ones that make that familiar sound you grew up with: “chk, chk, chk, chk, chk, st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st… chk, chk, chk, chk, chk, st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st,st”
You should buy these made of metal or brass with a metal base unless you have low water pressure, in which case you may need to buy the cheap plastic ones so they turn properly. I usually don’t like the ones that have a spike for a base because the spikes will bend in clay soil.
The key in adjusting impact sprinklers is in the screw that the arm actually hits against to make the unit turn. (see picture) The screw will interrupt the water flow just enough as to fan it out evenly across the area you are watering. If your impulse sprinkler throws the water far away and heavy only, turn that screw so it interrupts the water stream more.
In addition, impact sprinklers spray the water one way on the sweeping pass, and spray another way on the return pass, meaning you get even coverage.
Of course, there are other adjustments on the impulse sprinkler, such as the “stop rings” that allow you to direct the spray into a specific area of the lawn. There is also a metal deflector at the top of the impact area that can be used to direct the spray in a certain direction, but usually only the metal screw is needed to create the correct spray pattern.
Now that you have your impulse/impact sprinkler and rain gauge, set them out in an area of the lawn and see how long it takes to get ½ inch of water down.
In My Own Lawn, Here is my Watering Schedule and Habit
My impact sprinkler (pictured here) will lay down ½ inch of water in an area in 42 minutes. In order for me to cover my entire front yard, I need to move it around to 2 distinct positions or “zones.”
What this means is that I need to set aside about 80 minutes of time in order to water my entire front lawn with ½ inch of water. I do this two times per week, usually keeping the waterings 3 days apart. The only time I add more water to the schedule is during super hot and dry periods. I can usually tell I need to add a third day of watering when patches or areas of my lawn turn dark gray.
On a final note, if you use the every popular “oscillating sprinkler” (see picture) you may be able to cover a much larger area of your lawn, but you will need to leave the sprinkler out 3 times longer. My oscillating sprinkler can water my entire front yard on its full range, but takes 4 hours (240 minutes) to lay down ½ inch of water. In addition, because the water is pushed high into the air, and this being the “Windy City,” much of the water is blown into my neighbor’s yard or onto the sidewalk.
If this lawn advice on impact sprinklers was helpful, feel free to subscribe to my free updates by entering your email address in the box in the upper right sidebar. I won’t sell your info or spam you. You’ll just get my weekly lawn and landscape tips free!
Look here for a great book on building your own sprinkler system at home.
How to Build Your Own Sprinkler System
Wondering "what to" put on your lawn and "when to" put it down? Get my $7 Step By Step ebook and learn it! I am really proud of the results my readers are getting using this easy to follow lawn treatment schedule.
You can start at ANY time during the year... I wrote the book so it is easy to get into lawn care no matter what time it is... Just start NOW! Lawn Care, Step By Step
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Even More Eagle Scouts Return Badges To Protest Gay Discrimination
"It is not an easy thing to give up your Eagle. It sounds silly, but it’s very emotional, you know, if you’ve been in Scouts as long as most of us guys have," Bill DeVos, a former Eagle Scout master from New York State, said in a recent interview.
Like many other Scouts, DeVos decided to return his badges after the Boy Scouts of America announced last month that it's standing by its discriminatory rule banning openly gay members and leaders.
NBC News offers new details:
[DeVos] joined dozens of other Eagle Scouts who said in online postings that they have sent back their medals, badges or certificates... DeVos was hoping to remain part of the Scouts organization and push for change from within, but others who returned medals said they were done with the organization.
A spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America, Deron Smith, said 50,000 Scouts earn the Eagle rank every year, and that a “few” had returned their medals, badges or certificates since July 17. When asked for a precise number, Smith said it would be hard to say since there was no standard way to return the items.
"While a majority of our membership agrees with our policy, we fully understand no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society," Smith said in an email. "Naturally, we’re disappointed when someone decides to return a medal, but we respect their right to express an opinion in whatever manner they feel is appropriate."
Perhaps it's high time someone start a new organization to rival the Boy Scouts?
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The Gallery Barbara Thumm is presenting two female artists, Teresa Burga(born 1935 in Peru) and Anna Oppermann(born 1940 in Eutin, deceased1993), who methodically redefined artistic practice in the 1970s. Nowadays both positions are in their own way still and maybe more than ever considered as highly influential on contemporary discourses about how the dealing with subjectivity can lead to social approaches.
On Saturday, the 2nd of July, the following speakers will discuss the contemporary relevance of the two specific methodologies in the gallery: Teresa Burga,Miguel A. Lopéz(curator), Ute Vorkoeper(curator) and Iris Dressler(WürttembergischerKunstverein).
Since the mid-1960s Anna Oppermann had concerned herself with facets of and shifts in gazes, attitudes, light cast on human positions, relationships and problems, and had presented the complexity of perception and reflection in ways that could be directly seen and experienced in her so-called “ensembles”.
As Ute Vorkoeper who is an expert for Oppermanns oeuvre, writes: „The ensemble “Theory of emotions”, is now for the first time publicly exhibited in the gallery Barbara Thumm.
It is together with her photographic work documenting the ways in which Anna Oppermann reflected on her method, which developed gradually through the artistic process of creation, and was together with a group of self-portraits discovered only posthumously.
These photographic self-portraits in different poses, disguises and shifting arrangements were created from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. The artist herself kept them together as a group, but they were never made public. However, the artist’s shifts in role and perspective – sometimes drastic, sometime subtle – are so remarkable and touching that we have taken the decision to publish them posthumously.
Since spring 2010 the gallery Barbara Thumm is representing the estate of Anna Oppermann. They are pleased to announce that Oppermann will be part of the 30th Sao Paulo Biennial this autumn. The museum Abteiberg is currently displaying the new acquisition „KünstlerSein“.
To this day, the work of Teresa Burga (Iquitos, 1935) holds an exceptional position within Latin American discourse on art. From the 1960s onwards, Burga developed her pop and conceptual art in a country that was ruled by a nationalist military regime between 1968 and 1980, and thus she had to overcome significant obstacles in order to exhibit and become known. Accordingly, her artistic endeavours took a path parallel to populist demands of the time for a “Peruvian national” art. On this parallel course Burga developed her method of constructing subjectivity by using gestures and repetition in an extensive series of drawings, sketches and installations, completed during the 1970s.
Her most significant exhibition at this time was “Autorretrato. Estructura.Informe. 1972” (Self-portrait.Structure.Report. 1972). In this wide-ranging project, the artist used her own body to create a medical map of herself – using drawings of her profile and photographs of her face, an ECG and a light that displayed her cardiac function, and a biochemical haemanalysis.
“Autorretrato” wasn’t and isn’t just an ironic reflection on the traditional, pictorial concept of the “self-portrait”, but also engages critically with processes that seek to standardise the subject.
The juxtaposition of the two artists Burga and Oppermann is indicative for the programmatic interest of the gallery Barbara Thumm, hence to re-discover and re-evaluate groundbreaking and conceptual artistic practices from the 1960s to the 1980s.
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What is Taco bell meat made of
Taco Bell restaurants have many different menu options that include various types of chicken and beef, both grilled and ground. Their chicken meat is made from - you guessed it - chickens, and their beef options are made from cow meat. ChaCha on! [ Source: http://www.chacha.com/question/what-is-taco-bell-meat-made-of ]
More Answers to "What is Taco bell meat made of"
- What is taco bell meat made out of?
- If you knew the real answer, you may not eat there again. Sorry! to tell you this.
- Is taco bell's meat made out of cow brains?
- no,cow brains are saved for other things
- How to Make Taco Bell Style Taco Meat
- ･ 1 First, in a small bowl, pour even amounts of dehydrated onions & water. Let them soak while preparing... ･ 2 In a bowl, mix 1 1/2 to 2 lbs of ground beef, 1 packet of Taco seasoning (if you don't like it too... ･ 3 When the dehydrat...
Related Questions Answered on Y!Answers
- what is taco bell meat made out of?
- Q: so i have heard it is made out of flour and i have also heard it is made out of horse meat??help !
- A: If you knew the real answer, you may not eat there again. Sorry! to tell you this.
- what is taco bell meat made of?
- Q: i heard it was made out of dog food cus this one guyz dad used to work at this one company and he had a lot of receipts from them buying a lot of dog food
- A: Beef, I used to work at one.
- Should Taco Bell make an all meat (no beans) mexican pizza?
- Q: I think it would taste so much better.
- A: Me tooright now I smother that half with hot sauce !!!!!Your idea is an excellent one !!!! @@
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The first Park(ing) Day in Los Angeles is now history -- but what an effort. Over 40 sites were made in various communities, with the majority in the dense center of the city, which is likely a sign that Los Angeles has more of a center than most people give it credit for. Most of the sites were built or designed by artists, urban planning students/academics or architects. But a noticeable amount of plain old community folk got involved, including one neighborhood council, which was the only one in the city forward- thinking (and dare the Militant say, "militant") enough to create not one but two parking sites.
The Militant was involved in an unspecified number of "park"s on Friday, and though he cannot divulge which one(s), he can describe, via his network of operatives, which ones he knew of. One park in Larchmont Village was composed of sod and borrowed plants from a local nursery strategically placed in front of the City-owned parking lot which drew lunchtime visitors and children into its sketchbook. Another located near Wilshire and Western consisted of balloons on a patch of astroturf. A Thai Town "park" had a trailer and a makeshift astroturf campground while one not so far away in front of Los Angeles City College had a canopy, potted plants, a swinging bench and a kiddie pool. Some of the more ambitious sites were in Downtown, with one on Main Street comprised of native tall grasses and a bench made of bales of hay. The granddaddy of them all was one on Traction Avenue in the Arts District which took over an entire traffic island with sod and wooden pallets and invited kids from a Little Tokyo preschool to come play.
The problem the Militant found with the parks, including his own, was that though many passers-by supported the idea, they didn't quite get it. They didn't hang out in the parks, instead viewing it as something more akin to performance art or some sort of protest.
The day ended with an after-party at Public Counsel's parking structure (originally planned in the lot but moved to the structure due to the impending rain) in the Mid-Wilshire/Koreatown area. The party wasn't very happening, but the Militant was able to chat with fellow "park"-makers and see about three other "parks" re-located there (pictured left). A number of the partygoers decided to live out the childhoods they never really had by scrawling chalk drawings on the parking structure floor. Um, yeah. So unlike the Earth, Wind and Fire song, this 21st night of September wasn't that memorable.
Park(ing) Day was observed in over 40 cities across the United States, with Frisco boasting the largest number of parks (over 50), Los Angeles in an impressive second place with over 40 and NYC taking the bronze medal with over 20. In Seattle, the local press has already opened up the issue of funding for more parks in that city.
Today's Los Angeles Times Article on Park(ing) Day made much ado on the journalistic angle of conflict: white activists invading on predominantly Latino neighborhoods (which was largely true, but definitely not in the case of the Militant's park(s)); people in automobiles at odds with "park"-builders, etc.
But the media never reported the other stories: That the City of Los Angeles' Parking Enforcement did not cite any of the "park"-builders and in fact were keenly aware of the day's activities. Furthermore, according to an operative, one of the Parking Enforcement officers even said, "You oughtta do this twice a year!"
Movements usually start out small, awkwardly and with much criticism and derision. Park(ing) Day was no exception. But in the inevitably denser, more urban Los Angeles of tomorrow, planners and local governments will have to be more creative in re-defining the paradigm of public space. Granted, it probably won't come in the form of a parking space, but you just might be surprised.
Was it worth it? Hellyeah. And the Militant already has some plans for Park(ing) Day LA 2008.
Top photo courtesy of Militia member Blackbird.
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Farming is becoming more complicated by the day. I’m sure there are times when it seems like you’re trying to negotiate through a maze, and all the responsibilities you are juggling keep you from making any progress. The responsibilities and challenges aren’t going away, though, which means you have to sort it all out in a way that’s best for you, your family, employees and business.
There are four primary "hats" that producers wear every day. First, as plant and production manager, it’s your responsibility to make sure the crop is planted, sprayed and harvested, or, in the case of livestock, raised, cared for and marketed.
The second hat is the financial manager’s. Managing margins is the name of the game—and as we all know, that’s easier said than done.
The third hat is the marketing manager’s. Price volatility, worldwide supply, demand and production issues and weather can make everything else look like child’s play.
Finally, people management entails getting the right people with the right skills in the right place at the right time, with the right set of expectations and the right set of rewards. Even if you don’t have employees, working with family members is just as important and often more challenging.
I have never met a farmer who is good at wearing all four hats—and that’s OK. Understanding what you’re good at and honing those skills is more important than trying to do everything. Acknowledging what you don’t know or don’t like to do and hiring someone else to handle it can make farming easier, more profitable and more fun.
The challenge is sorting it all out and maintaining focus along the way. The diagram at left, provided by a Canadian company called Agri-Trend, depicts a holistic approach to a farmer’s top priorities. At first glance, the process looks simple. Executing it can be difficult, however.
Share the responsibilies. Hiring someone to help out in one or more of these functions is the common thread among highly profitable producers.
There are an increasing number of individuals and agribusinesses who provide niche services to help farmers who don’t have the resources, equipment, time or desire to tackle a particular job themselves.
How much should you spend, and what should you expect for a return on your investment? My rule of thumb is three to 10 times more. If you spend $5,000 per year to have someone help you and wear one of your hats as an adviser or employee, your bottom line should increase $15,000 to $50,000. If it doesn’t, it’s not a good investment.
Think about it this way: Would you do your own root canal? Of course not—you don’t have the skill set. The same can be said about your dentist; he can’t grow a crop like you can. Interdependence and dependence is where maximum bottom-line profits are realized.
Moe Russell is president of Russell Consulting Group in Panora, Iowa. He provides risk management advice to clients in 34 states and Canada. For more risk management tips, visit his website at www.russellconsultinggroup.net. To submit questions, call (877) 333-6135 or e-mail [email protected].
Take Your Operation to the Next Level
March 12 • Fishers, Ind.
Fishers Banquet and Conference Center
Learn how to execute variable-rate technology with Farm Journal Field Agronomist Ken Ferrie. Then integrate those agronomic benefits into your balance sheet with Farm Journal columnist Moe Russell and Top Producer columnist Chris Barron.
Early bird registration: $169 (before Feb. 19)
Regular registration: $199
To register, call (877) 482-7203 or visit www.FarmJournalProfitCollege.com
- February 2013
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Vincent Yu, File, Associated Press
BEIJING — North Korea's heir apparent Kim Jong Un has swiftly risen to power since being made a four-star general a year ago, but he is even more of an enigma than his late father was during 17 years of absolute power.
Within hours of news breaking Monday of leader Kim Jong Il's death over the weekend, the North's official Korean Central News Agency was reporting that the country, people and military "must faithfully revere respectable comrade Kim Jong Un."
The agency also referred to Jong Un as a "great successor" of the North's guiding philosophy of self reliance and a "distinguished leader of the military and people."
So far, Jong Un, Kim Jong Il's third son, has a thin leadership record — much less than the 20 years Kim Jong Il spent being groomed for power before he took over in 1994.
Despite a vigorous political campaign to install Jong Un as the new leader in the people's minds, he remains an enigma, even to those at home. It is unclear what direction he will take the nation of 24 million people, how much power will fall to the military and officials surrounding him, and what China's role will be with its ally.
The elder Kim unveiled Jong Un as his successor a year ago, putting him in top posts. Over the past year, Jong Un regularly accompanied his father on trips around the country. And Jong Un steadily built his political clout by reportedly becoming involved in domestic and foreign policy and securing a position in the ruling Workers' Party.
North Koreans are told he graduated from Kim Il Sung Military University, speaks several foreign languages, including English, and is a whiz at computing and technology. However, his birth date, his marital status and even the name of his mother — said to be Kim Jong Il's late second wife, Ko Yong Hui — are all secrets.
"There is a rumor that he is married, but officially we don't know," said Yoon Deok-ryong, an expert in North Korean economic reform at the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul.
Media in South Korea speculated that the four-star general orchestrated a deadly artillery attack on a front-line South Korean island last year that led to fears of war.
Because of his young age and inexperience, he might end up the figurehead for a government led by powerful, older relatives, Yoon said.
"Even though Kim Jong Un has been appointed as the successor, they may form a committee to rule the country at first," Yoon said. "His power succession is not completed yet."
Another big question is whether Jong Un will be able to secure the lasting support of Kim Jong Il's younger sister and her powerful husband, Jang Song Thaek.
A technocrat educated in Russia during Soviet times, Jang was a rising star until he was summarily demoted in early 2004 in what analysts believe was a warning from Kim against gathering too much influence. But Kim put Jang back at his side in 2006 and relied heavily on him after reportedly suffering a stroke in 2008.
John Delury, an assistant professor at Yonsei University's Graduate School of International Studies in South Korea, said Korean mourning traditions could require Jong Un to play a more peripheral role for some time, making it difficult to tell whether he is being sidelined.
"The question will be what's the role of the uncle, Jang Song Thaek," said Delury. "There's been talk of some sort of regency, so it's very possible that a small, leading group will emerge with Kim Jong Un as the leading person but especially in the first couple years using the tradition of mourning to actually somewhat take a little bit of a back seat."
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SACRAMENTO -- The deal in Washington to avoid the "fiscal cliff" will bring a reprieve to California's slowly rebounding economy, but uncertainty remains in part because Congress delayed action on federal spending cuts.
The agreement helps California avoid sliding back into recession, H.D. Palmer, finance spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown, said Wednesday. But economic forecasters said the two-month delay on the sequestration cuts could lead businesses to delay hiring or investments.
"To the extent that this agreement averts a national recession -- and the revenue loss associated with it -- then we will have dodged a bullet," Palmer said a day after Congress reached the deal.
One immediate benefit of the agreement is about 400,000 jobless Californians will receive extended unemployment benefits. The legislation also stops a 27 percent reduction in Medicare fees paid to doctors, and keeps in place a higher child tax credit as well as tax credits for college tuition, clean energy and small businesses.
While it raises taxes on the wealthy, the deal prevents most tax increases on the middle class. All taxpayers will be subject to an additional 2 percent Social Security payroll tax because Congress allowed that tax holiday to expire.
Individuals making $400,000 or more and couples making $450,000 or more will see an increase in their tax rate to 39.6 percent, up from 35 percent.
About 144,000 of the state's 14.6 million tax
Forecasters had predicted California would fall back into recession if all the federal tax breaks were allowed to expire and government spending was slashed.
Some observers still fear the two-month delay in negotiations about spending and the federal debt could cause businesses and investors to hold back.
"Part of the fiscal cliff was postponed for two months, so it's still there," said Jerry Nickelsburg, economics professor at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
The Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. projected that automatic spending cuts would have brought a loss of $22.7 billion in gross state product -- the annual measure of goods and services produced in California. It also could have meant the loss of 225,000 jobs statewide.
Kimberly Ritter-Martinez, associate economist at the organization, said the 2 percent payroll tax could still mean fewer movies and dinners out for many families, while higher taxes on the wealthy could mean they have less money to invest or spend.
The changes "seem like they're small or affecting just a small number of people, but each one of these things has an impact and it can multiply throughout the economy," Ritter-Martinez said.
State experts said it will take weeks to study the impact of the federal legislation on California's economy and state budget.
The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office warned that California also could have lost as much as $11 billion in tax revenue if the nation fell back into recession. That would wipe out the bulk of tax gains under Proposition 30, a set of temporary sales tax and income tax hikes voters approved in November.
The state relies heavily on high-income earners, who now will be hit with multiple tax increases -- at the state level under Proposition 30 and on the federal level because of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts. The analyst's office had projected a much smaller deficit of $1.9 billion for the next fiscal year on the assumption that Washington would avoid the fiscal cliff.
Additional data will be available as taxpayers make estimated payments this month and begin filing final returns or making extension payments between now and April.
"It will take months, in other words, to understand this aspect of the fiscal cliff better," said Deputy Legislative Analyst Jason Sisney.
On Wednesday, the California Employment Development Department said the state should be able to avoid an interruption to unemployment benefits if federal lawmakers don't make any significant changes.
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Picture yourself here: the HSBC Steps to University Program
When CJ Cromwell-Simmonds, a talented high school student from Toronto’s east end, was selected for an educational outreach program he had no idea it would change his life forever.
“My parents didn’t go to university and I didn’t have anybody in my immediate family who had gone either,” says Cromwell-Simmonds. “I had no idea what university was for or what it offered.”
But all that changed when Cromwell-Simmonds enrolled in the HSBC Steps to University Program.
The program, which HSBC recently renewed with a contribution of $375,000 as part of their almost $1.3 million contribution to U of T’s Boundless campaign, is designed to help youth who are not expected to pursue a university degree. Through the program, students in their final year of high school can take a first year Arts and Science course at the University of Toronto. The result: students receive both a high school credit and a first year credit that is recognized at all Canadian universities.
The outreach program is one of U of T’s most successful educational access programs, boasting an 81% retention rate and 79% success rate. Since 1991, more than 2,400 students have successfully completed the program; students who otherwise may never have enrolled in higher education.
“Before the Steps program I had a completely different mindset,” says Cromwell-Simmonds, who spent most of his time on the basketball court while growing up in Toronto’s under-resourced east end.
“I didn’t have a real goal or sense of direction.”
His success in the HSBC Steps program convinced Cromwell-Simmonds his true calling was off the court and in the classroom. Enrolling at the University of Toronto, he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and is now pursuing his PhD in sociology.
Along the way, Cromwell-Simmonds also discovered a love of photo and videography. After seizing every extra-curricular opportunity to experiment and upgrade his skills, he now heads TOportfolio, a media company that provides photo and videography services to a range of clients.
“Obviously, being able to take advantage of the resources at the University was so important,” says Cromwell-Simmonds. “But being there to make friends and connections and build self-confidence were all equally important.”
Today, Cromwell-Simmonds balances his academic life with a demanding work and volunteer schedule, working with several not-for-profit organizations in his community and heading up his own media company.
“It’s crucial to advocate for programs like the Steps to University Program,” said Cromwell-Simmonds. “The Steps program led me to university and I was the first person in my family to get a university education."
“The experience has changed my thinking and ultimately, my life.”
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I am learning about quantitative finance, and I am struck by how different it is from the techniques that make it into magazines and TV, particularly technical analysis. Specifically, if they say an indicator (RSI, TRIX, etc.) can predict even short term future prices, then you should be able to run some analysis to see if this was at least true in the past.
So my questions are:
If I wanted to learn the statistics used to calculate if there is any correlation between an indicator and any future price tendencies, what methods do I use?
Are any of these indicators known to have been verified quantitatively?
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CANTON — Town resident Margaret A. Hockett held a book signing at Brewer Bookstore on Saturday afternoon to promote her first novel, “Taking Hart.”
“I didn’t know what to expect. This is my first signing,” she said.
Several small groups gathered during the two-hour signing to hear Mrs. Hockett read excerpts from the novel, a modern thriller in which a teenager tries to uncover dangerous secrets from the War of 1812.
Debra L. Thornton, a former classmate of Mrs. Hockett, came from Toronto for the event.
“We went to school together,” she said. “Margaret was always smart, artistic and creative.
Mrs. Hockett grew up in Edwards. She moved in 1984 to California, where she spent much of her career as an editor for the Critical Thinking Co., a publishing company that produces educational books and software. She returned to the north country in 2006, and now lives in Canton.
It was after returning to the area that she first had the idea for “Taking Hart,” incorporating local history into an exciting story.
“I was looking at the fictional standpoint, which was kind of exciting. Then I saw all of the historical strands that I could weave in,” she said.
She worked with a historian to make sure the stories from 1812 were historically accurate.
The book, written under the pseudonym M.A. Noble, is set in a fictional small town in the Thousand Islands, founded by privateers after the War of 1812. The story is filled with references to people and places in the north country, both modern and historic, real and fictional.
“People like to read about things they know about,” Mrs. Hockett said.
Rather than working with a traditional publisher, Mrs. Hockett decided to self-publish the novel, producing it more quickly and releasing it in time for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.
The ebook became available on Amazon.com and elsewhere over the summer, and Mrs. Hockett is working through North Country Books Inc. to distribute the novel to local bookstores.
While her editing experience made self-publishing doable, Mrs. Hockett said, she needs to learn a lot about promotion and marketing before she can fully succeed as an author without a traditional publisher. This book signing was one of the first steps.
“I feel like I’m not doing nearly enough,” she said.
She recently wrote and self-published a book based on her father’s memories of growing up in St. Lawrence County during the 20th century, and is already at work on the sequel to “Taking Hart.”
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Carefully selected, highly-credentialed Reading tutors in Des Plaines, IL
" I started tutoring during my Senior year in high school, and have been tutoring on the side ever since. In addition to tutoring on a regular basis, I also have a lot of experience helping out friends with subjects that they have difficulty with. I enjoy solving problems, so helping someone with an extra math problem or with editing their paper is always a welcome activity. In addition to tutoring, I also dream up and start business and social entrepreneurial ventures!."
- Wheaton College - BS, Chemistry
Tutoring Subjects:Geometry, Chemistry, Algebra, Writing, Reading, Essay Editing, German, Trigonometry, Pre-Calculus
" I believe mentoring a student in this manner is just as crucial as teaching the concept itself. This strategy has been very effective in my teaching experiences, and I am certain that it will be effective with anyone who wants to do better in a subject area. My background in Biology began in 2004 and stretches through my time at Loyola University Chicago. I took Biology at an Honors and Advanced Placement level in high school and majored in it in college. But my level of expertise does not stop there--I have tutored students in virtually every subject from Kindergarten through 8th grade, and I have served as a mentor to many high school and ...
- Loyola University Chicago - BS, Biology
Tutoring Subjects:Chemistry, Middle School Math, Algebra, Phonics, Biology, Elementary Math, Reading
"As my skills progressed, I trained coworkers in animal nursing. Coworkers praised my patience and knowledge and recommended my teaching skills. While working as veterinary technician, I volunteered at a local private school assisting teachers in the preschool and elementary settings. My passion for mentoring students grew, and I found myself changing careers and now supervise students in the After School Care program. As supervisor, I assist students in their homework as well as help my own kids with theirs."
- Lake Land College - AS, Biological Sciences
- Southern Illinois University - BS, Zoology
Tutoring Subjects:Middle School Math, Reading, Anatomy, Phonics, Elementary Math
"I began teaching English at a public school in West Lafayette, IN and later moved to Chicagoland where I taught in Chicago as well as in the St. Charles, IL School District 303. I'm experienced in teaching over fifty novels, piloted and created new curriculum for school districts including over 15 different classes from "Basic English I" to "AP World Literature", worked as a Speech and Writing tutor during my undergraduate degree of English, and am known for my ability to deliver results for both the struggling learner or one that wants an edge in the classroom. My abilities are multi-faceted. I currently use my skills in Surgical Sales, ...
- University of Copenhagen, Denmark - Study Abroad Coursework, Literature
- Wabash College - BA, English
- State Certified Teacher
Tutoring Subjects:Writing, Reading, Grammar and Mechanics, Essay Editing, College Essays
"I am currently substitute teaching in Illinois Township High School District 214. I finished my fourteen week student teaching at South Elgin High School in South Elgin, IL. I also have student observation experience at schools in Champaign, Urbana, and Decatur, in Illinois. In addition to my teaching experience, I've also tutored for a year in the Champaign-Urbana area."
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign - BA, History, Social Studies Secondary Education
- State Certified Teacher
Tutoring Subjects:Economics, Writing, History, Essay Editing, Reading, College Essays
"It is for this reason that I have been tutoring students since I was in high school. I understand that often it is necessary to go beyond the home and family to get students the assistance they need. I have worked with children for many years. Also, having a sister and nephews who are quite young has given me the patience necessary to work with students of all ages, and to explain what they don't readily understand.."
- DePaul College of Law - JD, Law
- Morehouse College - BA, African American Studies
Tutoring Subjects:Writing, Reading, Middle School Math, Essay Editing, Elementary Math, Phonics
"Currently I'm a novelist, the head writer for an independent gaming studio, and a freelance carpenter. I've played jazz saxophone for fourteen years and garage punk bass for three. My skills would best be utilized by either a young child who needs general homework help or a high school student looking for extra support, with an added focus on assistance in writing college essays."
- Pomona College - BA, English
Tutoring Subjects:Essay Editing, SAT Writing, College Essays, Grammar and Mechanics, Elementary Math, Middle School Math, SSAT, Writing, SAT Math, SAT Verbal, History, Reading, PSAT, SAT
" The majority of my teaching and tutoring has been done with students in grades five through eight, which are some of my favorites. I also have a masters degree in gifted education, which taught me to strengthen higher levels of thinking and learning with students. I incorporate inferential thinking and logic into all of my tutoring sessions in order to give my students practice with skills that they will need throughout their lives. I also have an arsenal of test-taking tips and tricks that students can use to excel on standardized tests. Test-taking is generally not an inborn talent; it is a skill that must be learned." ...
- University of New Orleans - BA, Elementary Education
- Northeastern Illinois University - MA, Gifted Education
- State Certified Teacher
Tutoring Subjects:Reading, Geometry, HSPT Prep, Middle School Math, Algebra, Algebra, Phonics, Elementary Math, Writing
" I possess superb communication skills and am especially easy to get along with. Your needs as a client are most important to me, and the desire and need to uncover such needs is paramount and priority one with any of my clients. English and writing are often considered to be some of the most difficult subject areas to tackle, but I am here to assure you that it is quite the opposite. These subjects can easily be learned with assistance from the right tutor."
- Columbia College in Chicago - Bachelors of Arts, Journalism
- John Marshall Law School - Juris Doctor, Criminal Law
Tutoring Subjects:Essay Editing, Elementary Math, Middle School Math, Reading, Writing, History, Grammar and Mechanics, Phonics
"I have worked for two years as an English tutor and Writing instructor for Upward Bound, a federally-funded educational enrichment program designed to help students in low-performing high schools improve their college-readiness skills. As an Upward Bound tutor and instructor, I have grown comfortable working one-on-one and in small groups with high school students of varying personality types and academic abilities, and have frequently received positive appraisals from both my pupils and superiors. I would say my strengths as a tutor are that I am very patient and understanding of students' individual learning needs. I take ...
- The College of Wooster - BA, English
Tutoring Subjects:Reading, College Essays, Grammar and Mechanics, Essay Editing, Writing
Get Free Tutoring Info Now
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Anticipation builds for Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" release next month. But residents were especially star-struck in 1983, when Virginia began to actively court the film industry. For seven weeks during that summer, hundreds of Richmonders were extras in a made-for-TV miniseries, "Kennedy," starring Martin Sheen as the president (years before he played another president on "The West Wing") and Blair Brown as Jackie. Actor E.G. Marshall played Joseph Kennedy; John Shea was Bobby Kennedy and Kelsey Grammer played brother-in-law Stephen Smith.
But local celebrities also had parts. As Style reported in November 1983 (the publication was monthly at the time) that Pam Reynolds (arts leader), Ann Carneal (floral designer), Dale Mercer (Richmond socialite and the mother of New York socialite Tinsley Mercer Mortimer), George Bryson (Miller & Rhoads department store executive) and gallery owner Bev Reynolds) were among the extras.
Style reported in June 1984 that Mary Tyler Moore had been cast in "Finnegan, Begin Again" which was filmed here later that summer. Robert Preston and Sam Waterston joined the cast. Viewing the film today provides a startling time capsule of how shabby downtown Richmond looked in the early 1980s, especially East Broad Street, the 17th Street Farmers' Market and the yet to be restored Main Street Station.
In November 1987 Style wrote that actor Sam Waterston and his son "created a stir" when they appeared at Sunday morning services at St. Paul's Episcopal Church downtown. He played Abraham Lincoln in the miniseries "Lincoln," based on a Gore Vidal book, which was filming in Richmond. During the Civil War years, it was Confederate President Jefferson Davis who was worshipping at St. Paul's the same day Richmond was evacuated in 1865. Mary Tyler Moore played Mary Todd Lincoln in the televison series with John Houseman and Ruby Dee in other parts. Richmonders were received acting credits included Bev Appleton, Dick Cheatham, Helen Jervey and Tom Width.
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More than 200 Palestinians who fled their homes because of an Israeli offensive in southern Gaza sought shelter in a vacant U.N. school Saturday.
In a sign of the tensions, some of the displaced got into an argument over winning a spot at the shelter and gunfire erupted. Police said three officers were wounded in the melee.
"Living conditions are at a new low. It's a struggle to survive," said John Ging, the new head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza.
Ging warned that Israel's military campaign, prompted by the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier two weeks ago, has lead to a humanitarian crisis. "Water, food, electricity, sanitation; these are the problems. The situation doesn't get more basic than that," he said.
On Saturday, UNRWA oversaw the transfer of 235 people — or 36 families — who were moved from Shouka, a largely Bedouin area close to Gaza International Airport, to an elementary school in the southern town of Rafah.
Arriving with few possessions, the Bedouins crowded around a U.N. truck in the school's courtyard to receive mattresses. One group of men made tea in the courtyard, using a small gas canister.
"We fled our home near the airport because of tank fire and air fire. At one stage we were told by Israelis over a loudspeaker at night to leave our homes for our own safety," said Jihad Abu Zakkar, 45, the father of six children.
He said his children screamed through the night, and the family left home in the morning under a white flag.
Umm Issam, 50, said her family of seven left home every night in the past week to sleep under a tree, further away from the fighting. Issam said she decided to seek U.N. help when she realized her husband, who is ill, could no longer walk such distances each night.
The U.N. gave other Bedouin families who have livestock 18 tents to set up nearby so they could watch their cattle and sheep.
Israel launched its military offensive two weeks ago, after Hamas-allied militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier in a cross-border raid. Southern Gaza's long-closed airport was one of the first positions Israeli forces and tanks occupied. Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt have been largely closed during the crisis.
The closure and the destruction of Gaza's only power station by the Israeli air force have led to a humanitarian crisis in the area, said Ging, the UNRWA chief.
He urged Israel to open supply routes at crossings such as Karni in southern Gaza, where he said 235 containers of U.N. food were waiting to cross.
He said the border closure also was preventing the United Nations from shipping its empty containers out of Gaza to be refilled and returned.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
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| 0.979437 | 598 | 1.671875 | 2 |
The Christian ideal of marriage is under “great threat” from cohabitation, the disposable marriages of celebrities and the campaign to legalise same-sex marriage, a leading Australian bishop told an audience of thousands at the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin yesterday.
In his address, Dr Barry Hickey (pictured), Archbishop Emeritus of Perth, also said that the culture created by artificial contraception “has led to the separation of sex from marriage itself and has led to the proliferation of casual unions, to the exploitation of young women, to false hopes that sexual activity will lead to love, and to the abandonment of marriage by millions of people around the world”.
He said: “Increasingly marriage is being promoted as only one of the many options in human sexual relationships. Recent years have witnessed a sharp rise in cohabitation before marriage. These so-called partnerships are even taking the place of marriage.
“Adding to this is the pressure to change the very definition of marriage from a union of a man and a woman to a union of two persons of the same sex.”
And he said that children were the victims of the resulting problems.
He said: “The ideal of Christian marriage is under great threat. The much publicised romances and brief marital unions of so-called ‘idols’ of screen and television only contribute to the trivialisation of marriage.
“The availability of easy divorce undermines the strength of commitment that true marriage requires and encourages the view that marriage is no longer a permanent contract.”
He added: “One must be concerned about the increasing number of children who are born out of marriage and those who grow up in single parent families, often without a father. When the relationship breaks down the father is generally the one who has to live away from the children. While such a situation calls for compassion and understanding, it is not ideal.
“Given the stresses on modern marriage many children are sadly caught in the crossfire of hostility between their parents. This often does not cease if the marriage or relationship breaks down.
“In the search for happiness in a second marriage or in a ‘partnership’, success is not guaranteed either for the spouses or for the children. The breakdown rate of second and subsequent marriages is higher than for first marriages. Children are the victims of adult behaviour."
The result of this, he said, was that large numbers of children were taken into care by the State today because the family unit can no longer cope. The damage done to children who grow up in such dysfunctional families affected by violence or drugs had been catalogued many times.
The distress of children from such backgrounds manifested itself in mental illness, anti-social behaviour, and tragically, in suicide.
Studies have shown that cohabitation before marriage contributes to the early breakdown of marriage.
Archbishop Hickey also said that truth was “not respected when couples defy Church teaching on contraception”. This approach, when taken by couples set up “an inner conflict which undermines faith, and causes mistrust of Christ’s mandate to teach on matters of human sexuality”.
He said: “The wisdom of the world has chosen to ignore, even ridicule Catholic teaching on the matter of openness to children, and has taken a different and tragic path.
“Faced with this, the Church can either compromise and face irrelevance, or continue to teach Christ’s truth about marriage, life and love, and pray that the world will listen.”
He also warned that around the western world educators “to take over sex education from the parents because they want a complete break from the past”.
He said: “Teachers in one country I know are now telling young people before puberty to become sexually aware and to experiment.
“At puberty they are urged to become sexually active as soon as possible or they will grow up with inhibitions, fears of sex and will have psychological problems.
“They are to be fully instructed in contraception and abortion as ways of continuing to enjoy a full sexual life. They are told to prefer serial unions of choice rather than marriage, and to severely limit the numbers of children, as the world is overpopulated.
“They are to be trained to deny gender differences of male and female as these are only social constructs. They are told that homosexuality is a legitimate sexual outlet, and often preferable because children do not come from their sexual activities.”
“What we condemn is now being taught to children as the way to a happy sexually satisfied life.”
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| 0.96861 | 954 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Alfred Kibe, director of capital planning and pensions funding in the treasury Department of General Motors, says he is driven by the idea of challenge. It certainly had to be challenging for this Kenyan native, who earned a degree in electrical engineering at the University of Nairobi, to switch specialties and cross the globe to go for an M.B.A. in finance at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business. Kibe says General Motors gave him even more opportunities to challenge himself as the company’s program of rotating people in and out of positions had him managing bank relations, business development, auto finance and most recently capital planning and pension funding.
It was this latest assignment, Kibe says, that has been his greatest challenge. He recently led the negotiations to transfer some $26 billion in GM pension obligations to salaried employees into a lump sum and annuitization transaction with Prudential Insurance. The deal, completed on Nov. 1, is the largest such pension risk transfer on record and represents a huge reduction in pension liability risk for the world’s biggest automaker.
What was it GM did with the pension risk transfer?
We have a company that has about $130 billion in pension obligations, so any movement in interest rates generates enormous risk to our liabilities that can then flow through to the company’s P&L. The challenge was to reduce that risk in a way that works first for the retirees and second for the company. We had to leave the retirees in at least as good a position as before the change. The cost to GM was $2.6 billion on a cash basis, though after factoring in certain administrative savings, the net cost was $2.1 billion.
What was the key to the deal’s success?
The concept of a pension risk transfer was not new. These kinds of things had been done before, but never on this scale. Over the last 20 years, there have been many deals, but the total was in the $1 billion range. This was a $26 billion transfer. We found a company, Prudential, that was interested. But we had to complete the whole transfer in a way that would not expose the company to market risk between the time we announced the plan to shift the risk and the time we finalized it, which was a period of about five months. I can say that was a period of time during which we were closely monitoring markets.
Does GM’s transaction open the door to more big pension risk transfer deals?
It is already happening. Verizon has gone ahead and recently announced a similar transaction, about one-third the size of what we did. And CFOs and treasurers are looking at our transaction to see if it could make sense for them. But it will be different for each company. Many of our peers have been reaching out to us to ask about it. There is also a lot of interest among insurance companies. It’s a natural hedge for their life insurance business—sort of a giant annuity. With life insurance you pay people when they die, and with this pension transfer, you’re paying people while they’re alive.
Sure. In my prior assignment, we worked to put in place agreements with banks in North America during the fiscal crisis that would service our prime customers. Then in 2010, with the acquisition of AmeriCredit, now known as GM Financial, a captive finance unit, we were able to handle our subprime and leasing customers. What I learned in that work is that if you have the right team of people, you can solve your problems. In the case of the pension risk, we started out with a goal of transferring the risk. We weren’t sure there was a way to get it done, but working together with people at Prudential, we were able to put together a structure that worked for both sides.
What has been the key to your rapid career climb since graduating from the University of Nairobi in 1998?
The biggest thing is building relationships. I haven’t had a formal mentor, but throughout my career, I’ve cultivated relationships at all levels—both with senior people and with peers—and over time, those relationships have helped me build my career.
The other thing is I’ve always sought out challenging situations. GM has been good for that. With their structured rotational program, we get to take on a lot of responsibility within a relatively short amount of time. I’ve been very glad to be a part of this.
Has your electrical engineering training been of any use in your career in corporate finance?
I sure hope so! I worked hard for that degree. And actually, some of the analytical skills I picked up in engineering school are transferrable to finance: the critical thinking skills and the ability to break things down into smaller pieces.
Do you have any advice for people who want a career in corporate finance?
Seek out opportunities that help you to find challenges, and build relationships.
Are there any skills that you are still working on?
Sure, many. One of the challenges for us in finance is having the ability to “dumb down” our analyses to make sure that whatever we are communicating to people outside of finance is less technical and easy to understand. It’s something I continuously work on, to make sure I’m effective and can explain things.
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The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 1978
Herbert A. Simon
16 October 1978
STUDIES OF DECISION-MAKING LEAD TO PRIZE IN
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 1978 Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences to
Professor Herbert A. Simon, Carnegie-Mellon University, USA,
for his pioneering research into the decision-making process within economic organizations.
Simon's scientific output goes far beyond
the disciplines in which he has held professorships - political
science, administration, psychology and information sciences. He
has made contributions in, among other fields, science theory,
applied mathematical statistics, operations analysis, economics,
and business administration. In all areas in which he has
conducted research, Simon has had something of importance to say;
and, as a rule, he has developed his ideas to such an extent that
it has been possible to use them as a basis for empirical
studies. But he is, most of all, an economist - in the widest
sense of that word - and his name is associated, most of all,
with publications on structure and decision-making within
economic organizations, a relatively new area of economic
In older, traditional economic studies, no distinction was made between enterprises and entrepreneurs, and it was assumed that the entrepreneurs had only one goal: profit-maximizing. The purpose of this classic and rather rudimentary theory of the firm was primarily to serve as a basis for studies of total market behaviour and not of the behaviour of the individual firms. As long as these companies consisted of small, patriarchally-run units, their activities remained relatively uninteresting. As companies grew in size, however, as running them became separated more and more from owning them, as employees began to form labour unions, as the rate of expansion increased, and as price competition between many was replaced by competition with regard to quality and service between few, the behaviour of the individual companies attained quite another degree of interest.
Influenced by the organizational research that was being conducted in other social sciences, however, economists in the 1930s began to look at the structure of companies and at the decision-making process in an entirely new way. Simon's work was of the utmost importance for this new line of development. In his epoch-making book, Administrative Behavior (1947), and in a number of subsequent works, he described the company as an adaptive system of physical, personal and social components that are held together by a network of intercommunications and by the willingness of its members to cooperate and to strive towards a common goal. What is new in Simon's ideas is, most of all, that he rejects the assumption made in the classic theory of the firm of an omniscient, rational, profit-maximizing entrepreneur. He replaces this entrepreneur by a number of cooperating decision-makers, whose capacities for rational action are limited, both by a lack of knowledge about the total consequences of their decisions, and by personal and social ties. Since these decision-makers cannot choose the best alternative, as can the classic entrepreneur, they have to be content with a satisfactory alternative. Individual companies, therefore, strive not to maximize profits but to find acceptable solutions to acute problems. This might mean that a number of partly contradictory goals have to be reached at the same time. Each decision-maker in such a company attempts to find a satisfactory solution to his own set of problems, taking into consideration how others are solving theirs.
Simon's theories and observations about decision-making in organizations apply very well to the systems and techniques of planning, budgeting and control that are used in modern business and public administration. These theories are less elegant and less suited to overall economic analysis than is the classic profit-maximizing theory, but they provide greater possibilities for understanding and predictions in a number of areas. They have been used successfully to explain and predict such diverse activities as the distribution of access to information and decision-making within companies, market adjustment to limited competition, choosing investment portfolios and choosing a country in which to establish a foreign investment. Modern business economics and administrative research are largely based on Simon's ideas.
Simon has been awarded this year's prize in economics for his research into the decision-making process within economic organizations, but he has also made other important contributions to the science of economics. For example, his interest in simplifying and understanding complex decision-making situations led him at an early stage to the problem of breaking down complex equation systems. His studies of "causal order" in such systems have been of particular importance.
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| 0.973319 | 943 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Everyone who has been staying in Hong Kong and traveling with the MTR will notice the following sentences: “Please stand behind the yellow line. The train to Hung Hom is approaching. Please let passengers align first. Thank you for your cooperation.” Then you will hear the typical “beep beep beep beep” before the doors are closing. Sometimes the beep beep beep sound is a signal for locals to show off their running and time coordination skills. No matter how packed the MTR is, there is always someone running at the beep beep closing sounds, jumping in at the last beep and squeezing into the already crowded MTR train. This behavior belongs to Hong Kong and the MTR as well as the announcements and sounds. Although, we can’t provide you with the packed train or people squeezing in in an already fully packed MTR, we can help you out with the sounds of the MTR. All you need is a QuickTime player and you can enjoy the sounds of the MTR no matter where you are in the world. The website in only available in Chinese and –as it seems- is made by and for real train lovers. The last recordings have been added in 2005. Saying this, we conserved some of the sounds from the former KCR (Kowloon Canton Railway), which is now known as MTR East Railway and MTR West Railway. There have been several changes at the MTR such as adding new lines or changing terminal destinations. Hearing these sound recordings is like traveling back in time and bringing memories of old times alive. For all of you who have been to Hong Kong and are missing the sounds, try to check out the links below. May be you can add it to your cellphone and show your love to Hong Kong.
East Railway Sounds:
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| 0.970182 | 374 | 1.703125 | 2 |
The surging BYOD trend could contribute to major bill shock for enterprises as employees become less concerned with the cost of connectivity.
More employees are now using their smartphones for work, according to a report by iPass Inc., but they are also ranking connectivity cost as the least important factor when choosing a mobile network. This creates a risk for bill shock among companies that do not have cost control policies incorporated into their BYOD plans.
“With more workers turning to their smartphones for work, data usage is growing rapidly across multiple devices," said Evan Kaplan, chief executive officer at iPass. "As this BYOD trend continues to explode, not just in the U.S. but around the world, enterprises are seeing the effects both in rising productivity and in rising network costs."
Kaplan added that a lack of employee sensitivity for cost could impact corporate budgets; therefore, to gain benefits from the increase in consumer-driven IT, enterprises must provide cost-effective connectivity for mobile workers.
The proportion of workers' smartphones provisioned by employers decreased from 58 percent to 33 percent in the past year, according to the report. In addition, self-provisioning increased from 42 percent to 46 percent.
Findings also indicate that the smartphone is "the center of the mobile workers' universe" because it ranks just behind wallets and keys as most important items in workers' lives.
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| 0.961789 | 278 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Tipping in China
In Mainland China, tipping or gratuities are not common practice in most sectors of life, although it has become the norm to tip the tour guide and driver, hotel bellboy in recognition of their good service. It is not customary to leave tips at local restaurants. Of course you don't have to. However, anything you do give will be much appreciated. While in Hong Kong and Macau, tipping is the way to make things go. Below are some practical tips for tipping in China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
Tipping is not widely expected or required in Mainland China. However, at superior hotels and restaurants catering to western tourists, porters, room service and wait staff may have become used to receiving small tips. You can tip in cash, some small gifts brought from your country would also be appreciated, such as music CDs, books, perfumes, candies, etc.
In general, US$ 2 or 3 should be enough for the room attendant if you stay at the same hotel for a couple of days. For the porter, US$ 1 for each piece of luggage carried for you may be appropriate. Tipping at hostels or inns is not expected.
You don't need to tip at fast food restaurants or roadside stands. At fine restaurants in larger cities, if you are satisfied with the service, you can leave small changes to your waiter, or give one or two dollars as a tip. It depends entirely on how you rate the service. Leave more if you are happy with the service or none if you are not.
You don't need to tip the taxi driver. However, if the driver helps you with heavy luggage or takes special ways to reach your destination on time, then one or two dollars will be ok.
Tour Guides and Drivers
We pay our guides and drivers a base salary plus a performance bonus however we realize that some people might like to tip guides or drivers for their service. The amount of your tip is your decision. As a guideline 80-150RMB/day would be usual for the guide and half amount to a driver, given separately to each person is preferable. Remember tipping is at your discretion.
Hong Kong and Macau
For hotel porters, HK$10 for per piece of luggage carried for you is appropriate. 2% of the daily room charge will suffice for the room attendant.
For waiters and waitresses, HK$ 5 – 10 at inexpensive restaurants, and 10 – 15% of the bill at fine restaurants, where deserved.
For taxi drivers, please round the fare up to the next convenient bill size, or you can tip a few extra dollars, if the driver helps with heavy luggages or takes special efforts to get you to your destination on time.
For your tour guides and drivers, US$15 – 20/day for a tour guide and half that amount for a driver when in a private tour, US$8 – 10/day for a tour guide and half that amount for a driver when joining in a seat-in-coach tour.
Tipping in Macau Casinos
Tipping is not mandatory in casinos in Macau. Usually, the croupier keeps 10% of the winning. No entry fee is charged at the casino, however, as a foreigner you must be over 18 years old to get admission.
- Best Times to Go
- Traveler Types
- Disabled Travelers
- Traveling with Kids
- Women Travelers
- GLBT Travelers
- Student Travelers
- Senior Travelers
- China Visas
- China Tourism
- Shopping in China
- China Transportation
- China's Weather
- Chinese Money
- Phone and Internet in China
- Media in China
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| 0.941937 | 771 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a unanimous court swatted away the government’s claim that the Lutheran Church did not have the right to fire a “minister of religion” who, after six years of Lutheran religious training had been commissioned as a minister, upon election by her congregation.
The fired minister -- who also taught secular subjects -- claimed discrimination in employment. The Obama administration, always looking for opportunities to undermine the bedrock of First Amendment religious liberty, eagerly agreed.
There was just one big problem standing in the way of the government's plan: the U.S. Constitution. For a long time American courts have recognized the existence of a "ministerial exemption" which keeps government’s hands off the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers or clergy.
Here, in this case, the Department of Justice had the nerve to not only challenge the exemption’s application but also its very existence.
But, Chief Justice Roberts pushed back hard, telling the government essentially to butt out:
“Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the free exercise clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the establishment clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.”
Citing well-known legal precedent dating as far back as Reconstruction, the court made it clear that it is not up to the government to contradict a faith’s determination as to who should -- and should not -- be performing religious functions.
The Supreme Court clearly announced Wednesday that the First Amendment itself gives special recognition to the rights of religious organizations and rejected the government’s view that the Religion Clauses of the Constitution don’t apply to religious organizations’ freedom to select their own ministers, priests, rabbis and imams.
The Court also took aim at Plaintiff’s Cheryl Perich’s claims for back pay finding that such relief would operate as an unconstitutional penalty against a religious institution for terminating an unwanted minister and exercising its constitutional right to make decisions about internal church governance. Unfortunately, the federal government has become expert in imposing penalties for practicing one’s faith.
As the new year rolls on, Americans face even greater issues in their desire to retain their religious freedom. The mandates of ObamaCare -- with its narrowly tailored if not measly conscience exemptions protecting some religious orders from compliance -- will mandate thousands of other religious organizations ranging from educational institutions to insurance companies to insure and/or provide procedures like free sterilization and abortifacients like Plan B known to be violative of many Christians and Jewish faiths.
Will the government continue to test the bounds of religious liberty?
Will the government continue to pick fights against religious freedom?
Will the government continue to demand that Americans violate their faith tenets or worse from an intolerant government? Only time will tell.
But for today, the founding fathers are smiling down at a Supreme Court that could not agree more about how wrong-headed our government is in trying to hijack our constitutional right to religious liberty.
Peter Johnson, Jr. is a Fox News Legal Analyst and attorney.He has also successfully litigated issues with regard to the rights of religious organizations.
Peter Johnson Jr. is a lawyer and Fox News legal analyst.
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Council on Postsecondary Education
536 high school juniors earn $1,000 college scholarships
UPDATED 3/28/12: Scholarship recipients were members of the 2008 cohort of GEAR UP Kentucky. Their eligibility for the scholarships was based on reaching the benchmark in at least two of the subject areas of the 2010 PLAN assessments.
Hundreds of high school juniors from across Kentucky earned $1,000 academic scholarships in the “Drive the Dream” program, sponsored by GEAR UP Kentucky and the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority.
A total of 536 students earned the scholarships and were recognized during a ceremony Friday at Western Kentucky University’s Knicely Conference Center in Bowling Green. GEAR UP, Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, works with Kentucky schools, colleges, business, communities, and non-profit organizations to mentor and improve the skills of middle school and high school students with the result of making them college and career ready.
”These are among our best students, but it is a bittersweet moment for me, because this is the last in this series honoring scholarship winners,” said Yvonne Lovell, executive director of GEAR UP Kentucky. “Today represents the culminating event for this GEAR UP program. Although this program is concluding, another will begin, serving a new group of more than 10,000 students across the state.”
To be eligible for the scholarship, students must attend a school in the GEAR UP Kentucky program, participated in all the EXPLORE and PLAN assessments and reached the benchmark in at least two of the subject areas of the 2010 PLAN assessments. They also needed to maintain at least a 2.5 grade point average, and submit an essay and references. Students will receive the scholarships when they enroll in an accredited Kentucky college or university.
Part of the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, GEAR UP is a federally funded program that works with schools and families to create college-going cultures in communities where more than 50 percent of the enrolled students come from low-income backgrounds. GEAR UP Kentucky has sites hosted by partners in seven regions across Kentucky, including Fayette County, Hazard Community and Technical College, University of Louisville, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky Council of Education partners and Western Kentucky University.
We believe in the transformative power of postsecondary education. Stronger by Degrees, the strategic agenda for Kentucky’s colleges and universities and adult basic education, is powering a stronger Kentucky economy and improving the lives of Kentuckians. To learn more about Stronger by Degrees, visit http://cpe.ky.gov/strongerbydegrees. Follow us on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/CPENews.
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Patricia Blattman grew up in Denver, Colo. and began her career in education as an elementary school teacher there. Her husband was in the Air Force and the Blattman family moved from Illinois, to Germany, to Oklahoma, and finally to San Antonio in 1970.
Blattman began her Northside career in 1974 as a teacher at Oak Hills Terrace Elementary School. After serving as the District's first Gifted and Talented Coordinator from 1983-84, Blattman was appointed Principal of Sunset Hills Elementary School (now Glass Elementary) and Colonies North Elementary School. In 1992, she moved to administration, serving as Executive Director for Elementary Administration, then Assistant Superintendent for Elementary Administration, and finally Deputy Superintendent of Instruction. Personal accolades include the Teacher of the Year Award by the Northside Independent Teachers Association, and the Northside Distinguished Achievement Award for Student Relations.
She retired at the end of the 2002 school year after a distinguished 34-year career in education, including 28 years at Northside. During her tenure as NISD's instructional leader, the District became the largest Recognized District in Texas, had major increases in the number of Recognized and Exemplary schools, and seven National Blue Ribbon Schools.
Major improvements that occurred under Blattman's leadership included the implementation of academic performance standards, the dual language immersion program, increased credit-taking opportunities for high school students, major expansion of the instructional technology program, and significant improvements in the Career and Technology Education program.
Blattman continues to remain active in the Northside community as a leader of the NISD School Museum Association.
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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Creatine level of 3.5 and on chemotherapy
My husband was on chemotherapy until two weeks ago. He has advanced mesothelioma. His creatine level is now 3.5. He is drinking a lot of liquids. How dangerous is this, and what can be done to lower the creatine level?
A creatinine level of 3.5 is very concerning. Was his creatinine level normal before? Possibilities are that his kidneys could have been injured by the chemo agents (for instance if he's received one called cisplatin), or by medications he's taking that are not chemotherapy agents (such as antibiotics, nonsteroidal meds for pain, or even certain blood pressure medications), or by the tumor itself, or by high blood calcium levels caused by the tumor, or by dehydration resulting from nausea, vomiting, and not eating after chemotherapy. Please ask your doctors to explain what they think is going on, and what they feel can be done about your husband's kidney function. Most likely more tests will be needed for them to determine what's happening with his kidneys.
Mildred Lam, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine
School of Medicine
Case Western Reserve University
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Machan’s Archives: In Defense of the Right to Assisted Suicide
Machan’s Archives: In Defense of the Right to Assisted Suicide
Tibor R. Machan
[From Criminal Justice Ethics, Summer/Fall 1985]
Should aiding suicide be illegal? That is the question which faces legislators who are being urged to repeal statutes which state, basically, “Every person who deliberately aids, or advises, or encourages another to commit suicide is guilty of a felony.” I will argue, ever so briefly, that not all cases should aiding suicide be illegal, although the severest onus of proof of justification would be required in such cases.
The issue here is fairly clear, despite many complexities which surround it. Ordinarily it is wrong and should also be illegal to deliberately take another person’s life without a just cause such as self-defense or the defense of one’s community. Even in cases in which ultimately the taking of human life is deemed legally justified, the agent of such action is responsible to show that he or she was justified by standards which a just legal system must respect.
But what about aiding suicide? As Joseph Piccione puts it,
“[Human] Life, as seen in the context of the documents of the nation’s founders, must be affirmed as a bedrock value, and even a foundational right upon which other fundamental rights are based. From the initial words of the Declaration of Independence, the value placed on life is unsurpassed….”
It is undoubtedly true that the American political tradition more than any other places paramount value upon each individual human being’s right to life. The Declaration of Independence does and the fifth and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution unambiguously affirm this right and, in the words of the fifth, no person may be “deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process law.”
Yet there is a clear distinction between affirming the right to life and life itself. The American political and legal tradition does not so much affirm life as the right to life “as a bedrock value.” (In this respect Mr. Piccione overstates his otherwise sound point!) It may be true that the ultimately ethical basis for such a right must be the imperative to live one’s life for every individual. But the law does not have as its central goal to secure such moral conduct, only the conditions for choosing to pursue a flourishing life, that is, the official securing of the right to life. But that right does not itself obligate everyone to respect life or preserve it only not to deprive others of it. For example, within the framework of a legal system based on the (natural) human right to life, all the individuals must also be protected in their freedom either to enhance or to waste their lives. In other words, to value life is an ethical imperative, something one ought to do as a matter of one’s moral responsibility but the law, which should and in the American tradition does recognize the corollary value of (negative) liberty, cannot do for individuals what individuals ought to do for themselves. (The well known Kantian philosophical slogan “ought implies can” also tells us this: If we ought to value and enhance life, we must be free to either do so or not do so. If the law forced us to value life, then it would no longer be possible to gain moral credit for doing so and moral demerit for failing to do so.)
Now the question is, given that everyone has an inalienable right to life, may the legal system permit suicide? The answer is that it may, indeed must. In other words, the legal protection of the right to life implies the protection of the exercise of this right, which may be manifest in suicide. The right to life means that the possessor of life may not be interfered with in his or her choice and action to squander his or her life. (Of course suicide may be made illegal by means of the prospective suicide’s prior willing commitment to perform certain actions, to fulfill certain obligations–for instance, to support a family, to repay a debt, to perform any other contractual obligation.)
But what about aiding and abetting suicide? This is a more difficult matter. If there is one thing the right to life means, it is that no person is morally justified in, and any person may be prevented from, intentionally initiating the killing of another person (which, of course, does not mean that one may not intentionally react in a way that leads to another’s death, as when one reacts to violent aggression from another person.) If this is so, how could one ever consider aiding and abetting a suicide anything but a kind of wrongful killing or murder?
The answer to this is that under certain extraordinary circumstances a person may obtain permission to kill another, which the law should honor and protect against interference. The right to life means not initiating the killing of another, but this could be adequately qualified by being asked to kill another by that other, when that other demonstrably wants to kill himself or herself but is incapable of doing so or could not do so without incurring intolerable hardship and pain.
This point may be made morally plausible by nothing that one may obtain permission from another to act in ways that place that other’s life in great jeopardy, as when one enters the boxing rink and is permitted to physically assault another in a way that would without such permission be a clear case of assault and battery. Knife throwers, acrobats, mountain climbers, surgeons, and many other persons place willing other persons at grave risk of or injury or even losing their lives. When these willing others do lose their lives or suffer injury in part due to the actions of another, the main question that faces us is whether consent was involved, and if the answer is in the affirmative, the person partly instrumental is not held liable or responsible for the death or injury (unless negligence or some ulterior motive can be proven).
It seems to me then that, under certain rare circumstances, aiding and abetting suicide can be legally justified. I base this view on the existence of a right of every person to use or dispose of his or her life and to consent to another person’s acting in a way that will give the choice to end life practical significance. (Under very rare circumstances, once one’s life by all reasonable estimate can no longer contain any but the most negative meaning–such as relentless pain and agony–the basic moral imperative to maintain and enhance life could only be translated to mean to end it.)
None of this means that involuntary euthanasia should be legal or that someone should be given legal protection when hired simply to kill another who has consented and indeed sought the “service.” The law must protect individual human rights, including the right to life. It must not weaken this protection. Only when it is as clear as possible that under the circumstances an individual’s choice not to live could only be carried out through another person’s solicited aid or support, would it be justified for the law to protect such homicide.
Comments are closed.
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eHelpfulTips™ How To Advice & Thrifty Tips
How To Help Your Dog Get Used To A Roomba Vacuum
By Shelly C.
Here are some tips on how to help your dog become adjusted to a new Roomba vacuum.
Robotic vacuums like the Roomba are becoming more and more popular and some dog owners are finding that their pets do not like sharing the home with them.
Dog's don't know what to make of Roombas. They don't smell like a animal or look like a toy but they move on their own and seem to be alive.
As a full time dog trainer I have heard from more than one client stories about dogs having "issues" with the Roomba. Here are some things you can do to help your dog adjust to a new Roomba.
Don't Make A Big Deal About The New Vacuum
First make sure the dog has had their daily walk or play time session with you. Next, with your dog in the room, offer them a treat and then their favorite toy as you begin to assemble your new robot vacuum. Let your dog smell it and watch you put it together but don't make a big deal about it. After you have assembled the Roomba and are ready to start it up, choose a small room such as the kitchen. Not allowing the vacuum to take off across the whole house will help your dog feel less threatened. Do this when small children are not present since some breeds may feel that they need to protect the child from it.
Allow the dog to sniff the Roomba but give them a verbal correction if they try to paw at it. Ignore the vacuum and begin another task, such as sweeping and call your dog from time to time and offer them a treat. Show them by example that it is not something to pay much attention to as you sweep or work in another part of the kitchen and offer the dog a treat periodically when they are behaving well.
Praise them and give them treats when they are being good and give a firm verbal correction if they try to chase or paw at the vacuum.
One client that I had in Denver told me that she would put a dog treat on top of the Roomba and let the dog take it after turning the vacuum on.
If the dog had a good experience with you using the Roomba then end the vacuuming session and try it again in a few hours. Again, don't make a big issue of it and don't leave the Roomba and dog unattended until they are used to it. Schedule cleaning sessions for when you are home.
If all of this fails and you can't stop your dog from chasing the Roomba consult a dog trainer. They may suggest other strategies to help you stop your dog from chasing the Roomba, such as working with the dog on a leash while the Roomba is operation. Dogs such as Border Collies and other herding breeds may be especially prone to chase a Roomba vacuum. They see it as something to herd or control while smaller breeds or insecure dogs may see it as a threat and want to attack it. Other breeds may see the vacuum simply as a plaything, especially if they are bored.
Regardless of what breed of dog you own you need to make sure that they have plenty of exercise and play time with you. Make sure your dog has a daily walk or play session before using the Roomba around the dog. A bored dog is more likely to want to play with or attack the Roomba vacuum.
Finally, avoid using negative reinforcement. Don't hit or yell loudly at your dog if they bother the Roomba and don't tie them up or crate them while the robot vacuum is working nearby. Tying your dog up or crating them will only increase their anxiety while the Roomba is operating.
Use Only Positive Reinforcement
A firm verbal correction followed by a diversion, such as a toy or asking the dog to come and sit or lay next to you is best. If all else fails to stop your dog from chasing the Roomba, crate your dog in another room or let them play in a fenced yard while the robot vacuum is operating. Not all dogs can get used to a Roomba but most eventually do make peace with them as time goes by.
Thank you for visiting our site! Copyright © eHelpfultips.com No use of any material on this website is allowed without permission.
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We're using ArcGIS 9.3 but for reasons beyond the scope of this question we have to stick with personal geodatabases (MS Access .mdb's) and multiple users. How can we set this up so only a limited few have write access and still allow the bulk of the users to use it?
You are in for a world of hurt (but I know that part of the answer doesn't help). If you don't mind the reduced speed - put it on a network share where only a few users have write permissions to the file and the others only have read.
From ESRI-L (in the comment below)
Give all users full file permissions to the folder (allowing them to create, read and modify the .LDB locking files), but set permissions for the Access database file itself to allow only the GIS Editors group to modify it.
I don't have a lot of faith in my answer but it is worth a shot :)
Access based personal geodatabases are limited to a single editor at a time, however other users will still be able to view the data while it is being edited. And anyone who has the correct permissions (Read/write/change I think) will be able to edit. This is the same for file based geodatabases. in the Esri realm Personal SDE is the lowest level of personal geodatabase that supports true multi-user editing (although very limited). Personal SDE is included with Dekstop Info and Editor(not positive) and uses MS SQL Server Express as its storage engine.
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The young are the restless
By Mary van der Heijde, Doug Norris
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) introduces new restrictions on insurers’ ability to use demographic variables to price policies in the individual and small group markets. Gender, age, and other community variables have long been used for premium price differentiation. However, beginning on January 1, 2014, rates may not differ based on gender, and must adhere to a maximum 3:1 ratio when comparing the premium for the most expensive adult age group and the least expensive adult age group.
These new regulations will increase the difference between healthcare costs and what insurers are allowed to charge in premiums, raising the potential for adverse selection as traditionally less expensive demographics, such as young males, seek other health insurance alternatives. Plans will also be allowed to vary rates by area, tobacco use, and family size, but those factors are unlikely to offset this effect. Although much of the recent focus on the implications of this change is on the age limitations, in reality much of the restriction’s impact is caused by moving to unisex rates.
See the full article here.
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Office of the Director
Maintain or improve the quality of life for Missouri citizens.
The Department of Social Services is administrated by a director who is appointed by the Governor and approved by the state Senate. This department director, in turn, appoints the division directors. There are 7,355 budgeted employees in the department largely selected from registers...some employees, however are exempted by law. The total budget for the Department is $8.1 billion.
The Department of Social Services is responsible for coordinating programs to provide public assistance to children and their parents, access to health care, child support enforcement assistance and to provide specialized assistance to troubled youth. While many programs give needed financial assistance and services, other units work toward reducing financial dependency of the citizens on government.
The Human Resource Center (HRC) guides the overall human resources management system for 7,355 budgeted employees within the department. The center is responsible for ensuring compliance with merit system rules and coordinating activities in the areas of personnel law, labor relations, recruitment, selection, classification, compensation and training. HRC is also responsible for union negotiations, resolution administration, administering the employee grievance system, all aspects of equal employment opportunities, and provision of equal services and benefits to all DSS clients.
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| 0.947285 | 253 | 1.75 | 2 |
The piece below is the best synopsis I have read on the Klein years in New York Schools. Priceless. From The Answer Sheet:
By Valerie StraussThis was written by Marc Epstein, a history teacher at Jamaica High School in Queens, N.Y., for the past 15 years, and a former dean of students. His articles on school violence, curriculum, and testing, have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers and he blogs for the Huffington Post. Epstein earned a PhD in Japanese - American Diplomatic history.
By Marc Epstein
If you’ve been watching the news you can’t help but notice the tough time Mayor Michael Bloomberg had with the Christmas blizzard that hit New York City.
After days of telling angry New Yorkers’ to consider taking in a Broadway show and stop complaining, the mayor’s vaunted PR machine demonstrated that it was no substitute for a snowplow. Consequently, the mayor’s approval rating dropped from 55% to 37%. Bloomberg discovered the truism of the old TV commercial that used to end with “You can’t fool Mother Nature.”
The blizzard interrupted another “snow job” that was dumped on New York by Joel Klein before the real snowstorm hit.
In a series of interviews, a valedictory letter to his principals, a segment on the PBS News Hour, and a scrapbook full of clippings from the editorial pages of the New York press, Klein was variously described, and described himself, as America’s most significant educator, a radical, an innovator, and a transformational figure. For the past eight years he has claimed historic academic achievements for the nations’ largest school system that were reflected in higher test scores and record graduation rates!
So with all those seeming accomplishments his sudden departure remains something of a puzzle. His stated goals were to eliminate civil service seniority practices, teacher tenure, close “failing” schools, terminate teachers from closing schools, and expand privately managed funded schools. Klein enjoyed carte blanche from the mayor to pursue these policies and high praise from the president himself. So why end this quest now?
My guess is that it is because Klein’s and Bloomberg’s proud boasts of “historic” success dried up once The New York State Department of Education recalibrated the tests scores and New York City’s results fell like a lead balloon. Overnight, Klein’s claims of pedagogical wizardry evaporated. And with that admission, the New York City “Miracle” went up in smoke.
As a result of this legerdemain, a generation of school children will have passed through the system with marginal literacy skills, when the billions lavished on outside consultants and malfunctioning computer systems designed to track their meaningless “progress” were put in place.
We now know that New York City’s gains on the state tests were illusory. The proportion passing the state reading tests fell from 68.8% to 42.4%, and Klein’s beloved charter schools had pass rates no different from the regular public schools.
The inflated graduation rates have been exposed too. With the recent news that 75% of the high school graduates require remedial reading and math when they enter community college, the Klein Era diploma has been rendered meaningless. So ill prepared are these students that the percent who graduate from college is in the single digits.
Despite the collapse of the New York City scores, the pundits and the chattering classes continue to heap praise on Klein. In their complete indifference to facts, the media sound like a claque that talks only to one another. The truth is what they say it is, with hardly a word of dissent tolerated or printed on their Op-Ed pages or in their news reports.
Most of those celebrating the progress made in the schools know about as much about the inner workings of a New York City public school as they the do the interior of a Sea Wolf class nuclear submarine.
They have unquestionably bought Klein’s self-congratulatory narrative about public education, as well as his narrow-minded views about teachers and unions. This narrative, as airtight as the most intricate Ptolemaic treatise, posits that a sclerotic dysfunctional bureaucracy ran the school system, and its classrooms were filled with incompetent teachers. That accounted for the dismal graduation results prior to mayoral control.
The Klein "spin machine" managed to convince his boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with New York’s opinion makers, that only he was capable of rescuing public education from the clutches of entrenched union and political interests before it was too late.
He accomplished this feat by appealing to liberal, conservative, and libertarian interests that love the rhetoric for their own particular ideological reasons, and don’t want to be bothered with the details.
. . . .
The question a good reporter should be asking was how did Klein manage to pull the wool over eyes of so many? Was it Bloomberg’s vast media machine or the power of Bloomberg’s fortune shrewdly integrated with the power of the political office he holds?
In part he succeeded because the media was not interested in the details of education administration and were willing to buy the myths spun by a Bloomberg PR machine that would be the envy of most heads of state.
Fail to clear the snow, threaten to close firehouses, or reroute a subway line, and the public outcry is deafening. But restructure the largest bureaucracy in the state four times and the press scarcely manages a yawn.
. . ..
For those on the left, the promise of a Peace Corps-like army of Teach for America volunteers and Teaching Fellows joining hands to close the Achievement Gap, the “civil rights issue of our day,” combined with a kaleidoscope of educational “choice” for disenfranchised students, made Klein’s spiel seductive music to their ears.
Any failures that popped up were airily dismissed because Klein was fine-tuning the mechanism. All Klein had to say to stave off criticisms as one reorganization followed another was that he was bringing accountability to a system that had been unaccountable for decades. Editorial hosannas would follow, drowning out reports of chaos and bewilderment that leaked out from those working inside the system.
Whether or not any of the several reorganizations accomplished anything went largely unexplored. The increase in the annual education budget –from $12 billion to $23 billion—more than the entire economy of some nations—went unnoticed.
As the reorganizations were implemented the school system lurched from tight centralization to extreme decentralization, the lines of communication between schools and central administration became increasingly frayed. Outside evaluators from England would evaluate schools. The pedagogy emphasized bulletin boards, students working in groups with differentiated “footprints,” teachers acting as facilitators, and computer tracking of student progress.
In short, classroom “reforms” represented every combination of a pedagogical game of pick-up sticks one could ever conceive of. Klein left behind a school system in which academic gains have been meager, parents have been shut out, and graduation rates are meaningless. The annual budget has nearly doubled, low-scoring students are shuffled from school to school, discipline problems are hidden, teachers are demoralized, and principals are scared of every twitch in the data, as incompetents rule the administrative roost. What is there to celebrate?
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Extend TV functionality with connected devices
Consumers are increasingly using companion devices such as tablets and smartphones while watching TV in order to find further information about a show or to discuss aspects of the show using social media applications such as Twitter or Facebook. The Multiscreen TV market has rapidly evolved in response to this new consumer behaviour. For some, this simply means treating companion devices as another screen to broadcast to. ANT, however, sees value in a far more unified end-user experience. If a companion device application is aware of the content on the main TV in real time, a wide range of value can be added through the use of the second screen. Recommendations, additional information about the current show, relevant links to social media, and advertising all take on new value when the TV and companion device are connected to each other and can share information.
Television is often a shared experience, with several people watching the TV at the same time. While one person may want to view the EPG, find additional information or interact with an enhanced TV application, other people in the room often want to continue watching without interruption. The second screen can be used to view an EPG, manage recordings, or access additional programme related information without disrupting the main TV experience, thus avoiding frustration for both those wanting additional information and those who just wish to watch the show.
For broadcasters and operators, companion device applications can add value to existing services by more closely integrating the different social and web content associated with a show, while in a FTA retail environment they provide device manufacturers with significant product differentiation as well as new revenue opportunities.
ANTís companion device strategy and products are built around a close interaction between the TV or set-top box and one or more companion devices. These ANT products enable second screens to control the primary screen, stream content to companion devices (including live broadcasts or recorded content), and even provide the consumer with the ability to drive third party services using information from broadcast programme metadata.
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| 0.936349 | 400 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Beijing, Sep 20 (IANS): China's coal output in the first eight months hit 2.57 billion tonnes, up 4.4 percent, although its coal output growth rate fell 7.9 percentage points year on year during the period, the China National Coal Association (CNCA) announced Wednesday.
During the same period, sales reached 2.47 billion tonnes, up 4 percent. However, the growth rate also slumped 10.7 percentage points, according to CNCA data.
The CNCA attributed the drop to a slowing domestic economy, which grew 7.6 percent in the second quarter, marking the slowest pace of growth in more than three years.
At the end of August, coal firms' stocks stood at 87.85 million tonnes, up 69 percent year on year. The figure represented a 6.8-percent increase from July.
The CNCA said downward pressure in the coal industry also weighed on prices. Coal prices at the Qinhuangdao port stood at 620 to 630 yuan per tonne as of end of August, down 200 yuan year on year.
It predicted that supply will continue to outweigh demand for the full year, adding that a recovery for the sector has yet to arrive.
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Speech coaches criticize Marco Rubio errors
Sen. Marco Rubio’s water bottle incident got pundits and politicians laughing — but public speaking coaches say there’s plenty to learn from his mistakes.
Communication experts say that the cotton mouth the Florida Republican experienced Tuesday is common when someone is experiencing levels of anxiety and is a result of the auto-nervous system reacting to the adrenaline that leads to a stellar performance. The problem lies more in Rubio’s execution.Continue Reading
Christine Jahnke, a speech coach and media trainer, said Rubio had the “classic deer in headlights” look, and told POLITICO, “what makes that sip so awkward is that he moves nearly out of the frame.”
“Right at about the four minute mark you can tell that he’s thirsty already because he starts to lick his lips…and it’s not until 10 minutes into the speech that he finally takes that sip of water. If you watch closely [he’s] licking his lips and wipes sweat from his face, which is a distraction…[as] his hand goes over his mouth,” Jahnke said. “So what he should’ve done earlier on, right away when he started to feel cotton mouth is he should’ve just taken a sip of water right then. Because he waits his entire performance suffers.”
Matt Eventoff, a communication and messaging strategist, told POLITICO that Rubio should have had a glass of water “in direct reaching distance.”
“He was put in an awkward position where the water was across [from] the body, below the waist,” Eventoff said. “You really want the water somewhere between elbow and shoulder height, really between elbow and bicep height, especially in…when you know that the frame is going to capture you from a certain position.”
Susan Miller, a vocal coach, agreed, saying Rubio was fortunate not to choke during his awkward sip. Rubio’s insistence to hold eye contact with the camera didn’t make it any better as it seemed as he was asking for permission to drink, as opposed to just excusing himself to do something completely natural. That and the fact that he had to reach for the water as “awful,” the vocal coach said.
“He needed to finish his thoughts and deliberately take that sip and continue on, like it was just another pause,” Miller said. “It would’ve been awful had he choked. When you move that fast it’s really easy to have [the water] go down your windpipe as opposed to esophagus.”
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Palestinians beat back Gaza attack
By ANDREW POLLACK
When a ceasefire agreement ended (for no-one knows how long) Israel’s latest murderous assault on Gaza, Palestinians in the besieged area poured into the streets to celebrate their victory. But how could this be, after at least 160 Palestinians had been murdered, at least 40 of them women and children, and a thousand injured?
How could it be when everyone knew the clause in the ceasefire agreement about loosening restrictions on movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza only provided for discussions of the issue, discussions almost guaranteed to go nowhere? How could it be when everyone knew that Israel was guaranteed to break this ceasefire as it had all others in the past, unilaterally and without provocation (except for the provocations arranged by Israel itself)?
The celebrations came because Palestinians knew that they had proven once again to the entire world that no attack by Israel, however murderous, no government and media campaign of lies, no attempt to force psychological submission could stifle their almost century-long resistance to Zionist colonization.
And this time around, that word “resistance” was key. Despite attempts to portray Palestinian missiles as the cause of Operation Pillar of Cloud, more and more people around the world had come to learn that Israel’s siege, its repeated unprovoked assassinations, and its 65-year-old campaign of ethnic cleansing are at the root of the endless series of wars launched by Israel.
What’s more, just as education during the 2008-9 aggression (“Operation Cast Lead”) convinced many in antiwar and solidarity movements that the right of return of refugees must be supported and that a two-state “solution” was a farce, now exposure of the roots of Operation Pillar of Cloud in Israel’s policies, indeed its very nature as a colonial state, has convinced wider circles that they must uphold the right to resist of the Palestinian people.
During the attacks, many progressive activists and authors refuted official claims about the timetable of who attacked whom when, and about whether the attacks were “disproportionate.” More importantly, this refutation opened the door to a discussion about the non-equivalence between the actions of the oppressed and the oppressor, between those resisting and those ruling. The very attempt to assess “proportionality” is ludicrous, as the right to self-defense cannot be measured in the same scales as violence committed to maintain an illegitimate regime built on a century of theft and murder.
By the same token, the reappearance in the media of pictures of murdered infants and children, parents, and grandparents was an occasion to point out that not just civilians, but anyone killed while exercising their legitimate right to resist, including by force of arms, must be considered a victim of aggression.
Such discussions of course led to deepened education about the inherently murderous and expansionary nature of the settler colonialist regime, which owes its origin to the first violent and illegal seizures of land decades before 1948. An admission of that was stated by David Ben-Gurion in 1948 when he said, “[we must] strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise the reaction is inefficient.”
Other crucial facts exposed have been the desperate poverty and malnutrition and the resulting stunting of children’s growth in Gaza imposed by the Zionist siege; the falseness of its claims to have “disengaged” when Israel in fact maintains control over the land and population, making it the world’s largest open-air prison; and the billions of aid given by the U.S. to Israel every year to buy weapons.
What’s more, the discussion about these underlying causes led away from superficial analyses which saw behind the latest attack such factors such as the upcoming Israeli elections, the need to test the U.S.-funded anti-missile “Iron Dome” apparatus, the desire to send a warning signal to Hezbollah and Iran, or to halt Abbas’s farcical UN “recognition” bid.
And this attack, coming after the regional Arab uprising, was an occasion for Palestinian revolutionaries around the world to educate about the role of Palestinian liberation within the broader Arab revolution (and the debt owed the former by the latter), and about the role of that revolution in the growing global battle between imperialism and its victims.
In these new circumstances it is instructive to look at the contrasting role during the attack on Gaza of Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi and of that country’s workers and youth. Morsi used his newfound diplomatic maneuvering room to work with the U.S. to get a ceasefire agreement in place before an imminent Zionist ground invasion—but took no serious steps during the assault to side with those under attack in Gaza. Having worked previously with Israel to maintain the siege, to destroy tunnels through which life-saving food and medicine flow, Morsi—desperate to maintain billions in U.S. funds and IMF loans—never even threatened to abrogate the peace treaty with the Zionist entity which allows such massacres to occur, much less threaten Tel Aviv with entry into the war on the Palestinian side. Revolutionaries in Egypt in contrast organized a delegation of over 500 to visit Gaza while the bombs were dropping, as well as groups of medical volunteers.
Rallies around the world were called almost as soon as Israel’s first bombs dropped to demand an end to the aggression. Widespread protests broke out in the West Bank and among Palestinian students at universities in pre-1967 Israel. The organizers of these rallies called for increased efforts to end U.S. and other imperialist aid to Israel, and for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against all Israeli institutions and any institution supporting them.
Most significantly, which brings us back to the question posed at the beginning, solidarity actions increasingly raised the call to support Palestinian resistance in all its forms—from hunger strikes to BDS to popular mobilizations to armed struggle – on its own terms. For instance, a statement endorsed by a broad spectrum of Arab and solidarity groups in the New York region declared that “international law guarantees all people, including Palestinians, the right to resist.” Signers included groups who previously would have insisted on referring only to “nonviolent” forms of resistance.
By the same token, the very first sentence of a statement by the United National Antiwar Coalition declared that “UNAC supports the Palestinians’ right to resist tyranny.” This resistance will be tested again and again. Palestinians know it’s only a matter of time before the ceasefire is broken by Israel—as promised by racist politicians who talk of “mowing the lawn” every few years.
While such murderous rhetoric has been a staple of Zionist politicians from before 1948 (see again the quote above from Ben-Gurion), the daily, casual issuance of such barbarous sentiments has come to define mainstream Israeli rhetoric. For example, writing in the Jerusalem Post during the attack, Gilad Sharon declared that “we need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima—the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki too.” Israel shouldn’t worry about innocent civilians in Gaza, he said, because there are no innocent civilians in Gaza: “They elected Hamas … they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.”
Palestinians know that in between this ceasefire and the next war, more Palestinians will be shot down. Nearly 3000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since 2006, as against 47 Israelis by Palestinian fire.
And they know a new war is inevitable, because however limited and hypocritical was the Zionist easing of control over Gaza in 2005, any sign of self-governance on the part of Palestinians in Gaza was seen as a mortal threat to the colonial-settler regime as a whole, because of the example it set of truly liberated Palestinian land. The sight of Palestinians with guns staffing entry and exit sites in Gaza, instead of Zionist thugs, sent shivers up Tel Aviv’s spine for fear of the example it set. Similarly, the elections won by Hamas tore apart the notion that Israel can impose with impunity its own regime or puppets beholden to it.
They know also that because the overwhelming majority of Palestinians will not rest until their land is free from the river to the sea, until every Palestinian who wants to return to their original home can do so, Israel is bound to continually launch new wars to maintain its existence as an apartheid state that functions as the long arm of U.S. imperialism in the region.
As we go to press a little over a week after the ceasefire began, there have been no serious talks on the border-crossing question raised in the agreement. Meanwhile, Israel has resumed shooting Palestinians who approach the “no-go zone” established by Israel on the Palestinian side of the border and at boats who approach the arbitrarily imposed and illegal Israeli limit on sea travel.
Just three days after signing the ceasefire agreement, Israeli soldiers killed one Palestinian and wounded more than 19 for approaching the “no-go zone” on the Gaza side of the Israeli fence. And hardly had the ceasefire come into effect before Israel raided the West Bank to round up more than 50 Hamas supporters, while Netanyahu warned that Israel “might be compelled to embark on a much harsher military operation.”
Knowing that another attack is inevitable—whether on Gaza, on Iran, on Sudan or elsewhere—the renewed self-confidence of the Palestinians will inspire preparation for it as well as deepening opposition to Abbas’ quisling regime. Supporters of Palestinian liberation must use the precious time before the next attack to organize ongoing solidarity and to mobilize against aid to the Zionist regime.
Egypt: Morsi Decree Brings Millions Back to Streets
The day after the ceasefire in Gaza went into effect, Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi, the key link in the diplomatic chain which forged the agreement, issued a decree granting himself virtually unlimited power without recourse to challenge by anyone, including especially the country’s judges. Justified as a move to get around the mostly-Mubarak appointed judiciary, which—with his own connivance—has failed to bring to justice those responsible for killings and torture before, during and after the revolution, Morsi’s moves were immediately recognized as a brazen attempt to maintain power for the Muslim Brotherhood and the capitalist forces behind it.
The decrees included new means to stack elections in “official” trade unions, and are a warning to independent unions to quiet their dissent over the Morsi regime’s failure to take any measures to improve conditions for the country’s workers and peasants. Stifling such working-class dissent is also key to maintaining U.S. aid, imperialist investment, and IMF loans. In fact, right after the decree was issued, IMF officials said explicitly that their loans were contingent only on Morsi’s keeping his promise to guarantee repayment through austerity programs, and that the IMF had no interest in the means, democratic or not, by which Morsi imposed such programs.
Nor did Obama issue a word of criticism of Morsi’s moves. This was a given, considering how Morsi had just finished working so diligently with the U.S. and Israel to broker a ceasefire in the Zionist attack on Gaza, a ceasefire unlikely to last long and addressing none of the demands of Palestinians in a serious way.
But the reaction of the Egyptian masses was swift and massive. Millions poured into the central squares of Cairo, Alexandria, and many other cities and towns, in numbers rivaling some of the largest protests against Mubarak. Thousands have stayed around the clock. The Muslim Brotherhood threatened to call its own rally in Cairo’s Tahrir Square for Saturday, Dec. 1, sparking fears of civil war, but in the face of such huge numbers already filling the square against Morsi, the Brotherhood backed down and announced they would choose an alternate location for their rally.
Revolutionaries in Egypt, while denouncing Morsi’s decree, made clear that opposition to it could not include the “feloul,” the supporters of the Mubarak regime. The Revolutionary Socialists for instance declared that “we will not accept remnants of the old regime returning to the revolutionary scene under the pretext that ‘we are all against the Brotherhood.’ We will not work with anyone who worked hand in glove with the deposed dictator. … We call on our comrades in the revolutionary march to step back from this game of shuffling the decks of cards. We call on people to come out into the streets with the slogans: bread, freedom, social justice.”
Supporters of the Egyptian Revolution must be ready to stand by the masses who have returned to the squares to advance their cause.
Photo: Tony Savino / Socialist Action
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The phone line cracks and loud whirring noises can be heard in the background. Shahira Amin, the former Egyptian state TV anchor, is stuck in traffic on her way to interview the EU Special Representative for the Southern Mediterranean researching reported crackdowns on NGOs in Egypt.
Amin made international headlines when she resigned from her prestigious post at state-run Nile TV a year ago over the network’s coverage of the Egyptian unrest. She walked out after being told to read press releases with no mention of the revolution happening on her doorstep.
“I wasn’t allowed to go out to Tahrir – and I thought, what’s the point of being a journalist if you can’t report the story when it’s in your own back yard? When it’s history being made and you’re not allowed to be part of it?” she said.
She thought the move would spell the end of her career, but she now continues to practice as a journalist, albeit freelance, rather than for a national broadcaster.
But she says a year on from the resignation of Honsi Mubarak and the collapse of his regime, journalists – women in particular – are still being deliberately targeted in a bid to censor impartial reporting.
Amin believes that in many cases the censorship of the media is worse than under the rule of Mubarak: editors are still advised how to report, investigations into news reports are still carried out and programmes are being reviewed before they are being aired.
“They are reviewing my programme before airing it – this wasn’t happening before,” she said.
“The military council is intimidating journalists. People get attacked and beaten. It’s the same old tactics, but even worse.”
The attacks, she says, are a means of intimidation by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).
“It’s the journalists who get targeted – especially women journalists. They get sexually assaulted,” she said.
“Things don’t work the old way any more, so they [SCAF] are trying to keep the system as it is, trying to clamp down on journalists.”
What she has experienced bears similarities with the attack on CBS reporter Lara Logan the evening Mubarak stepped down. And in November of last year, two other foreign correspondents were also reportedly sexually assaulted. In November press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders issued a warning to female journalists trying to cover Tahrir Square.
The crackdown on journalists across North Africa and the Middle East has taken its toll. Egypt fell 39 places, to 166th, in the Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index 2011. According to the report, the SCAF, in power since February, has “dashed the hopes of democrats by continuing the Mubarak dictatorship’s practices.”
And the International News Safety Institute ranked Egypt the 11th most deadly country in the world for journalists in 2011.
But Amin remains optimistic. She says that recently, a correspondent for a main Arabic news channel denounced state TV while reporting on a council election. And three weeks ago a sit-in at the Egyptian State TV building to protest the censorship of a documentary which professed to show brutality of security forces against protesters was successful. The documentary was aired the following night.
“It has been a year of emotional upheaval. One day you will feel really happy, the next you feel the restricted climate and it’s like banging your head against a brick wall,” says Amin.
Shahira Amin is a contributor to ‘No Woman’s Land: On the Frontlines with Female Reporters’, a collection of anecdotes and interviews by female journalists working in danger spots around the world. It is published by the International News Safety Institute and is being launched on 8 March, International Women’s Day.
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Subject: Math Test
1. Johnny has an AK-47 with an 80-round clip. If he misses 6 out of 10 shots and
shoots 13 times at each drive-by shooting, how many drive-by shootings can he attempt
before he has to reload?
2. Jose has 2 ounces of cocaine and he sells an 8-ball to Jackson
for $320 and 2 grams to Billy for $85 per gram. What is the street value of the balance of
the cocaine if he doesn't cut it?
3. Rufus is pimping for three girls. If the price is $65 for each
trick,how many tricks will each girl have to turn so Rufus can pay for his $800-per-day
4. Jarone want to cut his ? pound of heroin to make 20% more profit.
How many ounces of cut will he need?
5. Willie gets $200 for stealing a BMW, $50 for a Chevy, and $100
for a 4X4. If he has stolen 2 BMWs, 3 4X4s, how many Chevies will he have to steal
to make $800?
6. Raoul is in prison for 6 years for murder. He got
$10,000 for the hit. If his common law wife is spending $100 per month,
how much money will be left when he gets out of prison and how many years will he get for
killing the bitch that spent his money?
7. If the average spray can covers 22 square feet and the
average letter is 3 square feet, how many letters can a tagger spray with 3 cans of paint?
8. Hector knocked up 6 girls in his gang. There are 27 girls
in the gang. What percentage of the girls in the gang has Hector knocked up?
9. Thelma can cook dinner for her 16 children for $7.50 per night.
She gets $234 a month welfare for each child. If her $325 per month rent goes up
15%, how many more children should she have to keep up with her expenses?
10. Salvador was arrested for dealing crack and his bail was set at
$25,000. If he pays a bail bondsman 12% and returns to Mexico, how much money will he lose
by jumping bail?
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\ \ \ TANKSHOTS (4) \ \ \
In 2009, nobody wanted this dismal concrete box in the Denny Triangle area of downtown Seattle:
But by 2012 it was lovingly adorned with crisp red stripes and anointed with a new reason for existence: storing people’s stuff:
How is it possible that self storage could be the best use of an office building located one of the hottest real estate markets in the country (notice the new Amazon building in the background)?
Seattle’s current average rental rate for office is $2.33 per square foot per month. In comparison, a 4×5 storage space at Seattle Vault goes for $60/month, which is $3 per square foot. Their larger spaces rent for less per square foot, and sure, the building is a dog, but the remarkable reality seems to be that even in a high rent big city downtown, storing people’s excess junk can be economically competitive with storing screen-staring office workers. Stuff is us.
Photos by the author — click ‘em to enlarge. This post is part of a series.
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| 0.938161 | 231 | 1.632813 | 2 |
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