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The Iowa Association for Justice (IAJ) educates and empowers attorneys who fight for justice in our courthouses and communities, and defends the legal rights of Iowans who seek justice in our courts. IAJ serves the legal profession and the public through its efforts to preserve and strengthen our justice systems, to promote injury prevention, and to foster the disclosure of information critical to the health, safety and financial well being of all Iowa families.
The Association was established in 1973, in pursuit of the following objectives…
- To uphold and defend the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Iowa;
- To advance the science of jurisprudence;
- To train attorneys in all fields and phases of trial advocacy;
- To promote the administration of justice for the public good;
- To uphold the honor and dignity of the profession of law;
- To advance the cause of those who are damaged in person or property and who must seek redress therefore;
- To encourage friendship among members of the bar; and
- To uphold and improve the adversary system and the right of trial by jury.
During each session of the Iowa General Assembly, IAJ works to defend our justice systems and to extend the reach of justice in Iowa, as follows…
- IAJ vigorously opposes legislation that would immunize wrongdoers or limit their liability.
- IAJ works aggressively to extend rights to Iowans who are denied appropriate access to our justice systems.
- IAJ also works to remove litigation barriers and obstacles that unduly burden Iowans who are pursuing justice in our courts.
Throughout the year, IAJ provides top-flight continuing legal education programs for Iowa attorneys. The Association’s annual seminars on automobile collisions, criminal law, family law, personal injuries, professional responsibility and workers’ compensation attract hundreds of attorneys each year. In November, hundreds more attend the IAJ Annual Convention, which is solidly established as the premier trial practice seminar for Iowa trial lawyers.
IAJ also networks Iowa trial lawyers and helps them deepen relations with their peers, while learning from one another. Hundreds of members interact on-line via the Association’s electronic exchanges, where/whence they share information, impart expertise and swap practice pointers. IAJ members also bond together and mentor one another during myriad association events over the course of each year.
IAJ serves as a springboard for professional development and career advancement, so that aspiring members are able to reach the pinnacles of the legal profession. IAJ members are also leaders in their communities and surpassing numbers of them are/have been heavily involved in public service at every level. They serve on numerous boards and commissions and many of them hold elected and appointed positions at all levels of government, from school board to city council, from the statehouse to Congress –– and the Cabinet too –– and throughout our judiciary as well. Below are just a few examples of IAJ alumni (past presidents one and all) who have been called to public service one way or another.
Tom Vilsack, Past President (1986-87)
Former Iowa Governor, 1999-2007
Current U. S. Secretary of Agriculture, 2009-present
Bruce Braley, Past President (2002-03)
Current U. S. Representative, 2007-present
David Wiggins, Past President (1985-86)
Current Iowa Supreme Court Justice, 2005-present
Daryl Hecht, Past President (1993-94)
Current Iowa Supreme Court Justice, 2006-present
Started in 2008, IAJ’s Justice In Deed initiative mobilizes Iowa attorneys to help meet critical needs in communities across Iowa. This project partners with community service organizations to help meet the needs of local families who’ve been met with hardships.
A few of IAJ’s recent projects include:
- Mar 2012 - IAJ members who attended a Workers' Compensation Seminar in Des Moines raised money to assist underserved northwest Iowans, donating over $2,000 to the Siouxland Community Health Center.
- Sep 2011 - IAJ members who attended a Workers' Compensation and Criminal Law Seminar in Iowa City donated loads of school supplies for local students. The school supplies, along with a monetary donation to the Lucas school supply fund for teachers, were delivered to children in need at Robert Lucas Elementary School in Iowa City.
- Jun 2011 - IAJ members with the Workers' Compensation Section helped install siding and do other finish work on three Des Moines homes with the Greater Des Moines Habitat for Humanity. The trial attorneys also pitched in to donate over $3,000 to Habitat.
- Apr 2011 – IAJ members raised funds to help victims of the tornado in Mapleton. IAJ supplied the Mapleton community center with Shop-Vacs, power drills and safety gear to assist residents in rebuilding their homes. And IAJ members and staff helped crews clear debris from their property.
- Feb 2011 – IAJ members who attended IAJ’s Annual Workers’ Compensation seminar re-launched the Byard Braley Scholarship Fund. This fund will grant scholarships to assist injured workers or their family members in the pursuit of further education.
- Nov 2010 – IAJ members who attended IAJ’s Annual Convention donated new and gently used coats, mittens and hats to schoolchildren at Martin Luther King, Jr Acadamy in Des Moines.
- Sept 2010 – IAJ members donated backpacks and school supplies to Cedar Rapids area students.
IAJ is a full service organization for Iowa’s trial lawyers, with a public interest mission that benefits all Iowans! For more information about association programs and services contact [email protected].
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It’s funny how drastically different this spring season is compared to last year’s. We enjoyed such a mild winter and early spring last year, we were able to get a lot done. The only reason we waited until May 2 to plant our tomatoes last year was because we hadn’t yet acquired the land for them. This year has been so cold and wet that a lot of things have been delayed.
Along with tomatoes in the back section of our Iowa Ave. garden we also transplanted some pepper plants last week. Because of the invasive grass, we planted the peppers in holes we cut through burlap coffee bags and lined all the paths between plants with burlap and straw.
We also started a new tomato container garden in the section by the west fence where we were growing nothing but tall grass and weeds. To keep the grass out, we laid out a tarp and plastic sheeting before placing the pots and topping with wood chips. This method worked well for us in a different section last year.
Besides dealing with the terrible grass, we’ve also found evidence of pest damage to some of our newly-sprouted bean plants (above is an Italian pole bean seedling). It happens every year, the beans and peppers are the first to be eaten. We’ve used Dawn dish soap in the past but this year I got some Dr. Bronner’s castile soap- more natural. Mixed with water, I’ve been spraying the tops and bottoms of the leaves and stems of all of our bean plants, and the damage has been limited.
We have two new raised beds at Iowa Ave. (as seen in our garden outline) this year. I planted horseradish, mustard, and kale in one, and Eric planted ginger (pictured above) in the other. We grew ginger last year in our side yard after sprouting it in shallow pots first. This year we direct seeded- the smaller pieces are our ginger from last year, the bigger pieces are organic ginger from Local Harvest.
The other thing keeping us busy this spring is setting up a new garden space at Eric’s sister’s new house. She found a house in the city with a 1/4 acre lot, and she’s letting us farm it (thanks Amy!). We tilled up this section of her yard literally the same day she closed on the house, May 1.
After several hours, Tom had mowed the overgrown grass and tilled up these two big sections for us. Unfortunately we were losing daylight, so he was only able to pass over each area once with the tiller.
To really remove all the grass, we needed it tilled again. Of course it rained for the next four days straight, so it took a week before Tom was able to come out to finish the job. As he tilled we worked to pull out grass clumps, and we returned yesterday to continue pulling them out.
Today I applied some fertilizer and crushed gypsum to the longer, thinner section where we’ll plant tomatoes, then covered with a layer of free compost. Eric is planning to return tomorrow with our little tiller to work the compost in and space out our mounded rows, then plant tomatoes and peppers! We’re also hoping to install a drip irrigation system to help with watering.
The weather has really forced us to be super productive in the short periods of time between rain. The forecast for this coming week looks pretty clear, thankfully. Lots of work ahead of us!
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THERE'S a great piece of viral satire working its way around the Internet, an ad for Ben Stein's new movie, "Expelled." It's a music video featuring animated representations of prominent atheists rapping about their intellectual superiority over the majority of mankind that still has doubts about Darwinism as an all-purpose, infallible explanation for everything.
The video is funny, but nowhere near as funny as some of the crusading atheists' responses to it.
At the Web site of celebrity God-hater Richard Dawkins, both host and acolytes spent more than a day - and wrote hundreds of posts - praising the video because they construed its smug lyrics ("He's smarter than you, he's got a science degree!") as supporting their cause. The satire sailed right over their heads.
And so it is with "Expelled" itself - a searing satire whose critics have largely failed to recognize it for what it is. Instead, they fume over what they perceive as Stein's unfair treatment of them.
They resent, for example, that Stein's movie repeatedly associates the unequivocally godless with images of the Berlin Wall, the USSR and even Josef Stalin. They protest the suggestion that evolutionary absolutism poses a dire threat to America's most-cherished rights. And they decry Stein's charge that Darwinist thinking led - and naturally leads - to evils like eugenics and Nazism.
Which is to say, they miss the point.
Stein's film is part parody of, part rebuttal to, the
Is it unfair to liken all Darwinists to communists? Of course, but no less so than likening all believers to al-Qaida and the Taliban - a popular trope among the New Atheists.
Is it a stretch to argue that academia's hostility toward skepticism about the Gospel of Darwin imminently imperils freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom itself? Certainly. So is the claim that scientists who detect hints of design in their research are "anti-science," and that those who resent the teaching of atheist dogma as fact in public schools are attempting to impose a "theocracy" on us all.
And yes, it's a cheap shot to pin the wickedness of Adolf Hitler on Charles Darwin's writings from a century earlier. But, then, so is blaming every abuse committed in the name of God on religion itself.
For 90 minutes, "Expelled" puts its targets in the same uncomfortable, unfair position in which believers have long found themselves in academia and the media. In turning the tables this way, the movie reveals, cleverly and amusingly, that you don't need to believe in God to be a zealot.
Stein profiles several scientists who have suffered professionally for suggesting that just maybe there's more to creation than chance. For uttering this heresy, these scholars find themselves ridiculed and punished by their peers, not for the quality of their work, but for the implications it contains.
These are not "creationists" or biblical literalists, mind you. They are just scholars who cite extensive research to suggest that a purely random explanation for all of creation is, at best, implausible. They accept the scientific evidence for evolution - specifically, its role in the development of species - but reject the ideological claim that natural selection rules out the possibility of God.
For this deviation, they are pilloried by a stridently atheistic establishment that fears questioning this over-reaching take on evolution more than any medieval theist ever feared the notion of heliocentrism. Thus academia has slammed the door on the very open debate and free inquiry that are crucial to the pursuit of knowledge it claims.
Crusading atheists do this, they insist, in the name of science. But when Stein presses them on how life first began, their responses quickly devolve into the decidedly unscientific.
One posits, without evidence, that life sprang up "on the backs of crystals." Another says that earthly beings may have been "seeded" by an alien race from another planet - an explanation in which Dawkins, Dr. Rational himself, places some credence. (Anything to avoid the possible hint of You Know Who.)
To which Stein wryly asks, "Is this science or science fiction?"
At this point, the crusading atheists no longer need Stein. They have entered the realm of self-parody.
Chris Weinkopf is the Daily News' editorial-page editor. Write to him by e-mail at [email protected].
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Roleplaying GamesThe all-purpose forum for general advice or system-independent (or multi-system) discussion. Come discuss adventure plots, gamemastering dilemmas, or player advice here. For ruleset-specific discussions, see the subforums.
The Pathfinder Beginner's Box got a lot of praise for its accessibility and informative introduction to Pathfinder (3.X variant).
D&D 4th Edition is overall a much easier system to learn than the other editions. The D&D Roleplaying Game Starter Set is 4th Edition's "Beginner Box" equivalent. It's out of print and very expensive now, though.
Make them a character that does a little bit of everything, ask them to roleplay (and make their own backstory, etc), then nudge them endlessly until they are equal parts RP and mechanics savvy.
It will be infuriating, but try to keep the annoyance on your side alone. D&D is rather complex so being annoyed AND not understanding things might convince them that they can't have fun so they just give up.
If necessary, get a shill to help boost their confidence and offer an enthusiastic partnership. The stooge can help play the new person up (so it seems they are 'winning' at their main focus) and take care of other things so you, as the DM, don't have to directly coddle them.
A pickle shifts uneasily under the bun. I give you a hamburger.
Are you introducing them to an already existing group?
In that case, I would advise running a separate session for them so they can learn the feel of the game. It can be very hard to work up the courage to roleplay if you have seasoned players around you.
Are you forming a new group with them?
I assume this is the case. Depending on what system you will play, it might be a good idea to skip combat the first session. Let them get a feel of their characters and roleplay a lot, and maybe have a simple combat that makes them feel like they're being awesome.
The first impression a player gets is often the most important.
(Forgive me for any typoos or the length of my post. I am writing this while working)
When doing so myself, I would grab the player's handbook, and make them a character to start with.
Ask them what archetype they want the character to fit-Warrior, Archer, Sneak, Mage, so on-then build a basic version of that. Put them through a fairly simple scenario, preferably one that draws on the character's out-of-combat skills, and generally ease them into what the character is capable of.
As a disclaimer, I haven't yet done a great job after 'build them a character', so take it with whatever amount of salt you find appropriate.
If you make them a character, I'd try filling out the sheet in front of them and explaining everything as you do, that way they don't start the first session not even knowing what saves and BAB are.
I'd also make a list of feats they would want and let them choose, that way they're not looking through the whole book at level 3 but do actually get input in making their characters. The main frustration of my first party was me spending hours trying to figure out what to take for my Sorcerer while our Ranger was annoyed about the co-GM having chosen bad lvl 1 feats. It's better to try to find a medium, because some people really need hand-holding at the start when others don't. If they have an idea of what playstyle they want to do, that's great, but make sure they know what they're picking. The Paladin should know about his Code, the Rogue should know that they need friends to flank, the Fighter should know he's there to do damage and support, not just one, and the Wizard should know how prepping spells works.
Jace & Zebes by Tinymushroom
Exaltatar by Lord Raziere
[Sorry, Boss, but now, as always, I get the last word.]
The Community episode about D&D is a very accessible introduction to the hobby. It provides a few good role-models and some bad ones, and really communicates the feel of the game to a beginner. I don't advocate their particular play style, but it serves as enough of an introduction to build off of. It's amazing how many unspoken assumptions are outlined in the episode which help later when the beginner sits down at the table.
As far as teaching the game, it's easy if the player wants to learn. There are many good guides for introducing players to the game though, and I'm tired, so I'll leave it at that. Good luck.
Perfectly sane, for a given definiton of sanity.
I'd also say, ask them "Who do you want to be?", and tell them they can name any character from movies, books, or shows. Try to refine what defines these characters, and you essentially already have a character, and a role-model for the new player, too.
Tell them to think like their example: what would Luke Skywalker do? How would Indiana Jones react?
I initiated a friend into D&D (and re-initiated another) basically by giving them pre-made characters and saying "just tell me what you want to do, and I'll tell you what roll/check you need to make."
I think that's an excellent idea.
Si non confectus, non reficiat.
if it were me ,i would first ask them about charactors in cinema, like Conan, merlin, excaliber, beast master, Xena, hercules, even charactors that are not specifically Fantasy but would be a good role to play like Richard decker from BladeRunner. show them how to flesh their charactor out as far as goals and dreams quirks. Mechanic will come Role Playing takes work. It is ok, not to have a "perfect charactor" flawed charactors is fun. Emmerse them into a charactor then play the mechanics.
It is easy to say roll a d20 or great axe is a d12. roleplaying is the hard part. Tell them to HAM it up and go alittle over board.
+1 on the Community D&D episode. Somebody associated with that show gets it... Much of the advice regarding character creation seems sound--I think having some pregens available is not a bad idea--if one of the new players is hitting a creative/understanding block, you have an out (how about one of these fine, archetypical characters?).
But whether or not you give them pregens or walk them through character creation, I think keep character creation to no more than 30 minutes. If this means limiting choices a little, remember that they do not yet know what they are missing. 3.5/4th/PF all are complex enough that a new player needs a taste of character creation, but then needs to start playing. Have a dramatic opening scene that ends with a question like "What do you do?" or "Roll initiative.
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Explore Central Honshu
Matsumoto’s castle is the main attraction, but on the way there from the station be sure to walk down Nakamachi-dōri, which runs parallel to the southern bank of the Metoba River. Along this attractive street of black-and-white-walled inns, antique and craft shops and restaurants, you’ll find the Nakamachi Kura-no-Kaikan (中町蔵の会館; daily 9am–4.30pm; free), a beautifully restored sake brewery with a soaring black-beam interior and traditional cross-hatching plasterwork outside.
Opposite here, at Geiyukan (芸游館), there’s performances every Sunday at 1.30pm and 3pm on the classical Japanese string instrument, the shamisen; the ¥700 admission includes green tea. Cross the river by any of several bridges and return to Daimyō-chō-dōri via the colourful market street Nawate-dōri; the castle grounds are just a couple of hundred metres north of here.
Matsumoto-jō (松本城) remains hidden from view until the very last moment, making a sudden dramatic appearance as you enter the outer grounds and approach the moat. Also known as Karasu-jō (Crow Castle) because of its brooding black facade, the sixteenth-century fortress includes the oldest keep (donjon) in Japan. From the donjon’s sixth storey (it has the traditional hidden floor of most Japanese castles), there’s a fine view of the town and surrounding mountains. Entrance to the castle also includes access to the quirky Japan Folklore Museum which is just before the moat. Inside, the displays include a good model of how Matsumoto looked in feudal times. Around 500m north of the castle is Kyū Kaichi Gakkō (旧開智学校), the oldest Western-style school building in Japan, dating from 1876; the pretty pale-blue and plasterwork facade is worth a look.
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A slowdown in expected demand for oil products has led to falls in crude prices recently, which could mean further fluctuations in the price of heating oil. While prices had risen slightly at the end of the last trading week, warnings that the traditional summer upswing in fuel sales as more people take to the roads may not materialise due to higher prices caused a fall in crude costs.
This was reflected in the price of a gallon of heating oil, which fell by one per cent on Tuesday, while the UK oil industry warned newly proposed taxes on firms operating in the North Sea would be an added burden for companies. Further volatility was caused by uncertainty in the currency markets following the arrest of the head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn in New York at the weekend.
Meanwhile red diesel continues to be a valuable target for thieves, along with heavy machinery, with reports stating that farmers in Essex have been forced to turn to private security firms to protect their stockpiles, while the county continues a drive to encourage rural homeowners to make their properties more energy efficient.
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Europe faced the prospect of annual wheat demand of more than 1m tonnes coming back onstream as the £300m Ensus ethanol plant confirmed speculation that it is to reopen.
The UK site, Europe's biggest biorefinery, said that it would restart later in August, 15 months after being mothballed in a move blamed on cheap imports of US ethanol.
The move, which comes four days after Agrimoney.com was told that "no formal decision" had been made on a restart, will bring some 100,000 tonnes a month of wheat consumption back online once full capacity is reached "within the next two months".
"Everyone is absolutely delighted that things are moving in the right direction once again and we are in a position to restart," Ensus chief executive Peter Sopp said.
Ensus, whose ethanol is sold to Shell, said its decision followed an "improvement of market conditions" in Europe since the European Commission acted to close a loophole which allowed exporters, largely US, to export ethanol to the region at reduced tariffs.
By mixing ethanol with gasoline, it was imported as a chemical rather than a biofuel, which attract duties roughly three times as high in the UK, and even higher rates in countries such as France and Germany,
US ethanol has also lost export competitiveness thanks to the country's decision at the end of last year to allow a tax credit of $0.45 per gallon for blenders to lapse.
Meanwhile, US ethanol prices have been inflated by the surge to record highs in values of corn, the main feedstock for American plants.
UK-based sugar and ethanol consultancy Czarnikow last week, flagging "an increasing possibility" of Ensus restarting, highlighted that ethanol imports were "currently priced out" of the European market.
"Import margins into the European Union are now closed," Czarnikow said.
The announcement comes amid prospects for a disappointing UK wheat harvest, thanks to persistent and heavy rains, although the poor weather could underpin supplies of the feed grain which Ensus uses in seeing downgrades of milling grain to lower grades.
UK grain traders, with links to Ensus, said last week that results from the UK harvest "so far have been variable with specific weights being very poor in many samples.
"This raises doubts about how much of the UK milling crop the millers will be able to use."
Meanwhile, UK demand for the grain is also set to be boosted later in the year by the opening of the Vivergo site, of a similar size to Ensus, which a spokesperson confirmed to Agrimoney.com on Tuesday is scheduled for opening in the October-to-December quarter.
The UK typically exports some 2.5m tonnes of wheat a year.
London wheat futures for November delivery stood 0.8% higher at £196.00 per tonne in lunchtime deals.
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Apple Maps, Google, and cars on auto-pilot...
Last night at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, Google's Eric Schmidt said some interesting things, one of which faulted Apple for not sticking with Google Maps in iOS 6. He points to the hundreds of millions Google has spent developing Google Maps and says doing mapping well is very difficult. True.
Thing is, since Google refused to permit turn-by-turn on the iOS in order to give Android a leg-up, Apple had no choice but to move on. Mapping software on a smartphone without turn-by-turn is about as useful as an ejection seat on a helicopter. I don't fault Google for withholding this from the iOS. This sort of move is Apple's specialty. But Schmidt's faulting Apple over cutting the cord is dumb bordering on deceptive.
More interesting is the hint of the future in Schmidt's eyes lighting up when someone asked about Google's auto-pilot car. I've followed the work on auto-piloted cars for a few years and I'm quite excited about what's coming. Apparently, Schmidt is also.
No one wants to give up the wheel of his F150, M6, or WRX, but it's inevitable. Once a bunch of us have embraced auto-piloted cars, the danger posed by the romantic individualist will require him to cede control of his machine.
Think about it. Commercial jets are on auto-pilot the vast majority of time... and it's safe--safer than men. If the flight jockey can be convinced to cede control of his airplane, Country Joe in his F150 and Master of the Universe in his M6 can be convinced, too. And what will convince him?
Cell phones now, but finally the web. As everyone debates whether or not to allow any cell phone use by drivers, ubiquitous speedy internet access will spread across the country; and wanting to work in the car will overcome our desire to shift, steer, and put the pedal to the metal. Plus our mileage will be better and accidents will be extremely rare.
Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, was riding with him one day when they arrived at the edge of Oxford Square. Tolkien looked over at Carpenter and said, "Charge them and they'll scatter!" Then he floored it.
("The Magic Roundabout" Swindon)
Maybe Tolkien learned to drive in Boston where using a turn signal to indicate a lane change is considered hard evidence of a major character flaw.
Anyhow, I'm sure Carpenter would agree that Google will be doing the world a favor when it perfects auto-piloted cars to the point that we're all able to vote Tolkien and his progeny back to the sedentary state any time they're seated in their car.
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Growing Celery in Raised Beds
27th Jan 1999
One vegetable that performed well for most growers last year was celery, the dismal damp, even wet Summer seemed to be to it's liking and there was a lot less talk of heart rot around. Personally I could have done with a lot more sunshine relying on myself to make sure that the plant had enough moisture at the roots to maintain even steady growth.
My celery grew in two newly constructed raised beds last year and this proved to be a slight problem as the concrete blocks forming the beds weren't completed until late March. This meant that the soil composition wasn't quite what it should have been even though plenty of well rotted horse manure was worked into the top spit.
The bed took a while to get established after the plants went out during late May and what I staged as part of my vegetable display at Shrewsbury was very light to what I have normally staged in the past. Interestingly though last year, from a normal sowing that I do around the middle of February, I could have staged a few heads during the middle of November as none of them had heart rot and none had gone to seed. Indeed the ultimate size of the plants were tremendous with the bulk of this growth being achieved from August onwards as the root system seemed to find plenty of nourishment further down the bed formation.
I'm certainly pleased that I have created a raised bed method of growing the plants with the inspiration coming from the way that Bob Herbert from Mosborough grows his, and we all now how good his celery can be. This year I'm hoping that they will be a lot better as the beds have been prepared much earlier giving the soil plenty of time to settle down.
My first show after Chelsea is always the County show here on the Isle of Anglesey which is held on the Tuesday and Wednesday during the middle of August, in order to have really good heads for this event, the seed needs to be sown before the end of this month.
The main variety is a re selection of the Ideal strain that I was given by Bob Herbert, this seems to have a lot of weight about it and is the variety that's winning on the tables at the moment.
I am however trying to change this varieties grip on the show scene by having my own F1 hybrid variety bred for me. Of course breeding vegetables is quite an intricate affair and needs a lot more knowledge and know how that I can muster so I have teamed up with Dr Peter Dawson from the seed company Tozers who are well known in the breeding of various varieties of self blanching celery. I currently have a little seed from two new hybrids that have been crossed with Ideal as the main parent, the idea eventually is to introduce a little bit more colour into the stalks whilst at the same time trying to improve on the general quality all round.
Of course it is early days yet but there's nothing more exiting than being at the start of the creation of what could be a brand new selection in a few years time and I shall certainly look forward to hearing from some of the growers that I have given a pinch of seed to as a trial. If Dr Dawson is going to be able to breed a brand new variety that is good enough for general release, then it will be the first F1 hybrid trench celery that will have been crossed from the ideal strain.
I shall be sowing both the ideal selection and a pinch of the two new crosses this coming weekend and if you are going to have a go, do make sure that you have sufficient heat to germinate the seed. Mine will be sown in 3 parts Levington F2 mixed with 1 part fine Vermiculite which certainly helps towards giving a more vigorous root system and together with it's water retaining capabilities will prevent the young seedlings from becoming under stress during what is probably every plants most crucial development period, at the seedling stage.
The seed will be finely scattered on top of the lightly flattened compost and using a flat piece of plywood that I have had made to fit the various different seed trays that I use, the seed will be pressed into the top surface and the seed tray placed in my electric propagator. Last year I used George Armstrong's advice and never covered the seed at all; not with finely sieved compost or with a pane of glass and the ultimate germination rate was superb. All that needs doing is make sure that the seed on top of the compost never dries out, this is vital, and best achieved by spraying the compost daily with a fine mist spray from a hand sprayer. Germination will take between a fortnight and three weeks with the young seedlings ready for transplanting in a further three weeks to a month.
Did you know that celery seed is the smallest of all the vegetable seed, so small that it takes 70,000 seed to make an ounce and as small as lettuce seed are, you only need 20,000 thousand to make an ounce.
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The article outlines some specific criteria for hiring your children and discusses under what circumstances you can avoid FICA and FUTA taxes. Also, it exposes the limits to the tax free money your children can earn, and sheds a very understable reason for this.
So, how can you pay your children money and avoid payroll taxes? Well, if you employ them via a good legal entity (Corporate, LLC, LP, etc), then you are out of luck. Further, if your business is a unicorporated partnership, the partnership must be 100% owned by the children's parents. If you avoid these situations, congratulations, you do not have to pay Social Security, Medicare, or Unemployment taxes to hire your child! If you do fall into one of these categories, however, there may still be hope. As with any risky business, I would always recommend that you use good legal entities to structure your business. But, how can you do this and still bypass FICA and FUTA? You can personally run a sole-proprietorship that provides services to your legal entity. This is still pretty safe, if you only provide services for your entities, and do not solicit business elsewhere. For instance, your sole-proprietorship could provide staffing for your entities. Your children would be an employee of your sole-proprietorship staffing agency, and they would perform work for your legal entity. The entity would pay your sole-proprietorship, and you would pay your child from your sole-proprietorship.
So, now that you have established that you can find a way to hire your children and receive great tax savings, you must determine their pay. First, and foremost, the IRS has stated that you must pay a reasonable amount to your children to perform the work. What would you pay an outsider to perform the tasks? You better be in the right ballpark. Further, you had better abide by child employment restrictions. For instance, they must not work beyond the limit for their age and whatever hourly restrictions are in place when school is in session.
Now that you can hire them, and you understand your obligations, how much can you pay them without having to fork over income tax? We look to the standard deduction for this. Simple, eh? In 2005, the standard deduction was $5000. And since it is adjusted for inflation, this amount will continue to rise. For 2006, the standard deduction for an individual is $5150. So, if your child earns less than this, and does not exceed $250 in unearned income (dividends and interest), then your child has no tax liability. And, if your child contributes to a Traditional IRA, then that amount increases by up to $4000 per year, through 2007, and $5000 a year beginning in 2008.
So, how do you pay your child? For purposes of legitimacy, regularly. If you pay hourly employees bi-weekly, then pay your child bi-weekly. If you only employ your children, then setup an appropriate schedule for payments. Some states have various guidelines, such as a minimum of semi-monthly. If the IRS notices a lump sum payment at the end of the year, this could signal that you are avoiding taxes, which is legal, but the IRS may want to get into your business.
So, where should your children's money go. Remember, you are a parent and you are not subject to your child's will. However, give them a little freedom, and teach them well so that they can make good decisions on their own. If college is in your child's future, a Coverdell ESA is a good place to stick some money. This is an IRA-style account that mimicks a Roth. You use after tax funds to seed the account, which means nothing since your child's tax liability is zero, and withdrawals are tax if used for qualified educational expenses. These can be for college, or even earlier. The limit in 2006 for a Coverdell ESA is $2000 per beneficiary. Beyond that, a Roth IRA is a very good place to sock away funds. Getting your child in the habit of retirement investment is very good, and the earlier savings are started, the longer compounding has to work its magic. Further, contributions can be withdrawn for any purpose, however earnings must remain until age 59 1/2. This means your child could buy a home after college, all with funds that were never taxed.
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Winard Harper was born Hiram Winard Harper on June 4, 1962 in Baltimore, Maryland and started beating on cans at age three and his natural affinity was encouraged by his father. By age five he was making guest nightclub appearances with his older brother Danny’s band. It was his hearing of the Clifford Brown/Max Roach recording that sealed his inspiration to play jazz.
Harper’s first major gig was in 1982 with Dexter Gordon, followed by Johnny Griffin and then spent four years with Betty Carter. It was with the later that he learned much about the music business, preparing him to be a bandleader and giving him the inside track on bookings. This experience gave him the foundation to launch The Harper Brothers along with his brother Philip, and a few of the hottest young talents of the Nineties – Justin Robinson, Javon Jackson, Walter Blanding, Kioshi Kitagawa, Stephen Scott, Kevin Hayes, Michael Bowie and Nedra Wheeler.
The Harper Brothers recorded four albums prior to the dissolution of the band and Winard went on to record seven albums to date as a leader. He has played the sideman to Avery Sharpe, Ray Bryant, Abdullah Ibrahim, Pharoah Sanders, Clifford Jordan, Steve Turre, Joe Lovano, Frank Wess, Jimmy Heath and Wycliffe Gordon. Since the turn of the century the drummer, composer and bandleader continues to perform, tour and record with his own sextet.
More Posts: drums
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Conditions of Use
My Favorite Book
One of the books that I have read recently was Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Although this was a shorter version of the story, it is still a great book. The book is about a man who just loves reading about knight errantry and “becomes” a knight. At his side there is Sancho Panza, his squire that was promised to receive an island to govern after Don Quixote finishes his quest. Don Quixote seeks to see Dulcinea, which is the person that he loves. He also attacks windmills, groups of sheep, and other random objects. At the end, he dies after he was defeated. I like this book because I learned new Spanish words. It was also funny.
Article posted October 11, 2011 at 08:25 PM •
comment • Reads 1405
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About the Blogger
My favorite sports are football and soccer.
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(CNN) -- A 70-year-old man has married a 15-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia, human rights workers said Tuesday.
CNN interviewed the man, who said the girl's parents sold her to him for the equivalent of $3,000. The marriage came to light when the man filed a court complaint, saying the girl's family had taken her back and he'd been ripped off. He refused to provide his name to CNN.
His account is countered by human rights workers looking into the case. They believe there was a fight between the teen and the man, and she ran back to her family.
Her father is believed to be Yemeni, her mother Saudi.
She is from Al-Hurath province in Jizan, the southern part of Saudi Arabia near the border with Yemen, according to Dr. Hadi Al-Yami, the head of the Asir branch of the Human Rights Commission. The commission is supported by the Saudi government.
The organization sent an investigator to the courthouse in Al-Hurath where the man filed his complaint, Al-Yami said. The organization is planning to offer the girl as much help as she's able to receive, particularly legal help in case the courts require her to formally dispute the marriage.
There is no law stipulating a minimum age for marriage in Saudi Arabia, though there has been a push in recent years to pass a law making the minimum age 18. Religious groups have generally opposed the change.
Messages on social media reflect frustration, and are trending at hashtag #childmarriage.
Prominent Egyptian activist Mona Eltahawy tweeted, "It's only when there's enough public outrage that we can fight #childmarriage. We are not angry enough to help that 15 y/o & others like her."
Prominent Yemeni activist NoonArabia tweeted, "#ChildMarriage is a violation of human rights http://www.humanrightsdefence.org/child-marriage-as-an-human-rights-issu... ... #RunAwayBride #PTs."
Other Egyptians took to the Web.
Kareem Bassem tweeted, "#ChildMarriage is a result of dehumanizing female humans and degrading them to 'treats' in alleged paradise. Fight dehumanization!"
Dr. Suhaila Zein al-Abedin, a member of the Saudi National Association for Human Rights, is outraged about the case.
"When you consider the very large difference in age, it looks more like this was not a marriage, but like the girl was sold," al-Abedin said. "The girl's parents need to be held responsible for this."
-- CNN's Salma Abdelaziz contributed to this report.
™ & © 2013 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.
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Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta, far right, escorts Afghanistan's Minister of National Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak (center) and Minister of Interior Gen. Bismillah Khan Mohammadi (left) in the Pentagon.
The bulk of the U.S. military force in Afghanistan is slated to leave the country by 2014. But the Pentagon is willing to keep some Americans there to train Afghan forces, according to a report by NPR's Tom Bowman.
Here's Tom's report for NPR's Newscast:
"Afghan Defense Minister Adbul Rahim Wardak says his country is looking for an enduring long-term relationship with the United States. And part of the relationship centers on training and equipping Afghan soldiers and police."
A North Korean soldier stands guard in front of the Unha-3 (Milky Way 3) rocket on a launchpad at the West Sea Satellite Launch Site, during a guided media tour by North Korean authorities northwest of Pyongyang on April 8.
Mosaics of the two late North Korean leaders — Kim Jong Il (right) and Kim Il Sung, the country's founder — are unveiled Monday during celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth, in Pyongyang, North Korea.
As North Korea gears up to launch a long-range rocket, political changes are afoot, too: Pyongyang has consolidated its succession process, giving a new title to its new leader, Kim Jong Un, who came to power in December after his father's death.
The rocket launch, which could come as early as Thursday in North Korea, has been condemned by the international community as being in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. So why now?
The fallout from the consumer backlash to so-called "pink slime" continues to hurt meat sales. Now, some companies are taking steps to label the product they call "lean, finely textured beef" in hopes that they can earn back consumer trust.
Tyson and Cargill, two multinational firms that sell ground beef containing the processed trimmings, say they have submitted labeling requests to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in hopes that some customers will feel better about buying ground beef containing LFTB if it's labeled.
The Federal Reserve's policymakers seem to be reluctant to consider any more efforts to inject a monetary stimulus into the U.S. economy — but that doesn't mean you should expect the central bank to raise interest rates any time soon.
In Bahrain, demonstrators are demanding the release of imprisoned activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja. He has been on hunger strike for more than two months and his family now fears for his health. Guest host Viviana Hurtado speaks with his daughter, Zainab al-Khawaja and Middle East expert, Joshua Landis.
This is TELL ME MORE, from NPR News. I'm Viviana Hurtado. Michel Martin is away. She's visiting Syracuse University and member station WRVO is Oswego, New York. Still to come, we take a look at some of the political upheaval in the Middle East. As another deadline has come and gone, the violence continues in Syria. More on that in a few minutes.
After hearing that football coach Bobby Petrino had not only lied about who he was with when he had a motorcycle accident on April 1, but that he was also having an affair with that young woman, had paid her $20,000 and had arranged for her to get a job with the university, Arkansas Razorbacks fans are saying they agree with the decision to fire him.
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Attack: Mechagodzilla flew off of the ground and landed a few thousand yards away from Godzilla. Once he was steady he did a damage assessment and found that his arms and head had sustained major damage. He would need to end this now then, before he started loosing limbs. He opened up all weapons and barraged Godzilla with his ultimate move- All Out Assault.
Miss! (The attack has missed. The opponent must acknowledge that the attack missed and may begin the next attack. Remember to begin the whole post with the word: Attack)
8 Successful Hits (or Equivalent)!
If you have nothing to lose, than you have nothing to fight for.
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Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad rejected claims that he is anti-Islam for not implementing hudud when he was in power, as he had in his time declared Malaysia an Islamic state.
As such, he said, he cannot be equated to the DAP, which some Islamic scholars have deemed haram (forbidden) for Muslims to support due to its anti-hudud stance.
“There are two things, not agreeing with the hudud and not agreeing with Islamic state.
“I declared Malaysia an Islamic state and we are now acknowledged by everyone as such, including in Palestine,” he told reporters in Kuala Lumpur today.
Mahathir added that his objection is not for hudud per se , but hudud as “interpreted by PAS”.
“That, I cannot support,” he said at a Perdana Global Peace Foundation event to symbolically commemorate the sending of 750,000 litres of clean water to Gaza, Palestine.
Mahathir said that in his view, hudud should be fair and not be driven by “desires”.
“Like those pictures we saw of the woman who was shot for allegedly committing adultery. That is not fair, but driven by desire ( nafsu ),” he said.
He was referring to a video published by Al-Jazeera of a woman being shot, to cheers from the crowd, by a man whom officials confirm is part of the Taliban.
The man cites a verse from the Quran, which states that adultery is a sin.
Yesterday, PKR de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim questioned why scholars are singling out DAP for its anti-hudud stance when Mahathir, too, did not want to implement hudud.
Umno-owned daily Utusan Malaysia had on Wednesday and Thursday front-paged religious scholars who say that it is haram to support the DAP.
Commenting on these views, Mahathir said that it is up to Muslims to decide whether to accept these views or not.
“These are the views of those with knowledge, I can’t say whether they are right or wrong as I am not that knowledgeable when it comes to religion.
“But Muslims are not even following what is stated in the Quran, which is Allah’s orders, so I suppose not many will follow what these religious people say,” he said.
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Most interviews make you feel like the interviewer is putting you under a microscope. In this article, we suggest you put yourself under a microscope following an interview to evaluate your own performance. If you find there are some areas where you fell short, improve them prior to your next interview. Doing this after each interview will improve your performance over time.
How do I evaluate myself?
Evaluating yourself doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does require you to be honest. Start with the basics. When was the interview scheduled? Were you on time? Were you dressed appropriately when compared to the interviewer and other employees you might have seen? Were you prepared with adequate research about the company? Did you sit up straight, fidget with your shirt or tie, or twiddle your fingers? If you answer no to any of these questions, these are areas you can improve in the future.
So what about going beyond the basics? Write down as much as you can remember about the interview. What questions were asked, what were your responses, and which questions made you feel uncomfortable? If you found yourself feeling uncomfortable or rambling on to particular questions, it is an indication that you were not prepared for the question, or did not have an appropriate answer. Be prepared for the next time this question is asked. Chances are if one employer asked the question in the past, another employer will ask you the same question in the future.
The last areas to think about are personal to the individual being interviewed. Do you feel like you discussed everything that you wanted to and shared all the relevant information? If not, make a note of it. Most employers provide you an opportunity at the beginning of the interview to tell them a bit about yourself. If an area you want to discuss continually gets overlooked, this would be a good time to bring the subject up. This is also true of the opportunity for the interviewee to ask questions at the conclusion of the interview.
Finally, how do you feel about the company and position? Is this the job you envisioned when you applied for it? If not, then maybe you are applying for the wrong types of jobs. If you continually conduct post-interview evaluations, your confidence will continue to grow, both your verbal and non-verbal communication skills will improve, and you will learn a considerable amount more about "who you are."
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WASHINGTON D.C. (WTAQ) - Wisconsin’s two U.S. senators were on opposing sides, when their colleagues failed to ratify a United Nations treaty to protect the rights of those with disabilities.
Republican Ron Johnson voted against the treaty Tuesday. Democrat Herb Kohl was among 61 senators voting yes – but it was not enough for the required two-thirds majority.
Tom Masseau of Disability Rights Wisconsin said it was disappointing that advocates could not round up enough votes to ratify the treaty. He said it previously had the support of Republicans like Bob Dole and former President George Herbert Walker Bush.
The treaty was first drafted in 2006. It encourages other nations to adopt American standards for disability rights. But some conservatives believe it would let UN violate the rights of parents with disabled children.
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SCENTS AND SENSIBILITY: A new exhibition at the Fondation Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent in Paris showcases the paintings of French artist Jacques-Émile Blanche, who documented the key artistic figures of the Belle Époque.
A pillar of high society himself, Blanche painted some 1,500 portraits in his lifetime of friends and acquaintances ranging from Marcel Proust and Jean Cocteau to Auguste Rodin and Vaslav Nijinksy.
The exhibition, which runs until Jan. 27, is the first dedicated to the painter to be held in Paris since 1943, the year after his death. His work featured most recently in an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Rouen in 1997.
The foundation’s exhibition space has been redesigned for the occasion by Nathalie Crinière to resemble a turn-of-the-century Paris salon. It features an interior design by Jacques Grange, who also decorated Bergé and Saint Laurent’s former weekend home in Normandy, Château Gabriel. Wafting through the space is a scent especially designed by Francis Kurkdjian. The perfumer said he forced himself to work only with ingredients that would have been available in 1912 to compose the floral oriental fragrance.
“All I can say is that it’s a relief I’m not working in 1912, because 100 years ago, there was not much available. All the natural ingredients were there, but there were practically no synthetics. You had maybe 20, whereas nowadays I have around 1,000 synthetic notes to play with,” he said.
Kurkdjian said he conceived the perfume as a scent trail left by an elegant woman in a high society salon of that period. The scent is released in the venue through two diffusers and unlit scented candles, which can be purchased in the foundation’s gift shop for 25 euros, or $32.50 at current exchange, for a set of three.
“The idea was not to be overpowering, and there was also a technical issue. These paintings were created 100 years ago, and the varnish is not yet sufficiently dry, so it is permeable,” Kurkdjian noted. “We had to be excessively careful regarding the formulation of the perfume and the quantity scattered through the air, so that it did not degrade the canvases.”
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About two decades ago, two immigrants from El Salvador started a gang in Los Angeles that would evolve into one of the most ruthless criminal enterprises in U.S. history.
The gang called itself Mara Salvatrucha. Today, with an estimated 10,000 members and an operation that engages in murder, extortion, prostitution, kidnapping, and smuggling in 46 states, the gang goes by the shorter name MS-13. It has elevated killing and mutilation by machete and other forms of stabbing and hacking to a gruesome art.
At the behest of the Obama Administration, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has designated MS-13 an international criminal group. That lays the groundwork for the systematic targeting of the cartel’s criminal profits and finances.
Millions of ill-gotten dollars that MS-13 seeks to launder in U.S. banks and foreign financial institutions can now be seized. The administration wants to make the gang’s cost of doing business in the United States prohibitively high.
Any American institution or business that launders or hides money on behalf of the crime organization can have its assets frozen. Sending profits made in the United States back to El Salvador, where its leaders are holed up, will become progressively more difficult.
The gang is especially effective in communities with large Salvadoran populations, but expands anywhere an illegal buck can be made. The Obama Administration’s decision to throw federal resources into smashing MS-13 is a sign that the gang’s reign of terror and intimidation may be coming to an end.
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Today was the last day to provide a submission and input to the Australian Government’s discussion report on “Access to Electronic Media for the Hearing and Vision Impaired: Approaches for Consideration”.
The report explains the Australian Government’s existing regulatory framework for accessibility to audio-visual content on TV, digital TV, DVDs, cinemas, and the Internet, and provides an overview about what it is planning to do over the next 3-5 years.
It is interesting to read that according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics about 2.67 million Australians – one in every eight people – have some form of hearing loss and 284,000 are completely or partially blind. Also, it is expected that these numbers will increase with an ageing population and obesity-linked diabetes are expected to continue to increase these numbers.
For obvious reasons, I was particularly interested in the Internet-related part of the report. It was the second-last section (number five), and to be honest, I was rather disappointed: only 3 pages of the 40 page long report concerned themselves with Internet content. Also, the main message was that “at this time the costs involved with providing captions for online content were deemed to represent an undue financial impost on a relatively new and developing service.”
Audio descriptions weren’t even touched with a stick and both were written off with “a lack of clear online caption production and delivery standard and requirements”. There is obviously a lot of truth to the statements of the report – the Internet audio-visual content industry is still fairly young compared to e.g. TV, and there are a multitude of standards rather than a single clear path.
However, I believe the report neglected to mention the new HTML5 video and audio elements and the opportunity they provide. Maybe HTML5 was excluded because it wasn’t expected to be relevant within the near future. I believe this is a big mistake and governments should pay more attention to what is happening with HTML5 audio and video and the opportunities they open for accessibility.
In the end, I made a submission because I wanted the Australian Government to wake up to the HTML5 efforts and I wanted to correct a mistake they made with claiming MPEG-2 was “not compatible with the delivery of closed audio descriptions”.
I believe a lot more can be done with accessibility for Internet content than just “monitor international developments” and industry partnership with disability representative groups. I therefore proposed to undertake trials in particular with textual audio descriptions to see if they could be produced in a similar manner to captions, which would make their cost come down enormously. Also I suggested actually aiming for WCAG 2.0 conformance within the next 5 years – which for audio-visual content means at minimum captions and audio descriptions.
During last week’s LCA, Jan Gerber, Michael Dale and I gave a 3 hour tutorial on how to publish HTML5 video in an open format.
We basically taught people how to create and publish Ogg Theora video in HTML5 Web pages and how to make them work across browsers, including much of the available tools and libraries. We’re hoping that some people will have learnt enough to include modules in CMSes such as Drupal, Joomla and WordPress, which will easily support the publishing of Ogg Theora.
I have been asked to share the material that we used. It consists of:
Note that if you would like to walk through the exercises, you should install the following software beforehand:
- apache2 or a Web server of your choice
- firefogg plugin
- firebug plugin
- vlc, mplayer, totem or xine
- kino or pitivi or another video editor that exports Theora, e.g. iMovie with XiphQT
The exercises include:
- creating a Ogg video from an editor
- transcoding a video using http://firefogg.org/
- creating a poster image using OggThumb
- writing a first HTML5 video Web page with Ogg Theora
- publishing it on a Web Server, with correct MIME type & Duration hint
- writing a second HTML5 video Web page with Ogg Theora & MP4 to cover Safari/Webkit
- transcoding using ffmpeg2theora in a script
- writing a third HTML5 video Web page with Cortado fallback
- writing a fourth Web page using “Video for Everybody”
- writing a fifth Web page using “mwEmbed”
- writing a sixth Web page using firefogg for transcoding before upload
- and a seventh one with a progress bar
- encoding srt subtitles into an Ogg Kate track
- writing an eighth Web page using cortado to display the Ogg Kate track
For those that would like to see the slides here immediately, a special flash embed:
Vimeo started last week with a HTML5 beta test. They use the H.264 codec, probably because much of their content is already in this format through the Flash player.
But what really surprised me was their claim that roughly 25% of their users will be able to make use of their HTML5 beta test. The statement is that 25% of their users use Safari, Chrome, or IE with Chrome Frame. I wondered how they got to that number and what that generally means to the amount of support of H.264 vs Ogg Theora on the HTML5-based Web.
According to Statcounter’s browser market share statistics, the percentage of browsers that support HTML5 video is roughly: 31.1%, as summed up from Firefox 3.5+ (22.57%), Chrome 3.0+ (5.21%), and Safari 4.0+ (3.32%) (Opera’s recent release is not represented yet).
Out of those 31.1%,
Given these numbers, Vimeo must assume that roughly 16% of their users have Chrome Frame in IE installed. That would be quite a number, but it may well be that their audience is special.
So, how is Ogg Theora support doing in comparison, if we allow such browser plugins to be counted?
With an installation of XiphQT, Safari can be turned into a browser that supports Ogg Theora. The Chome Frame installation will also turn IE into a Ogg Theora supporting browser. These could get the browser support for Ogg Theora up to 45%. Compare this to a claimed 48% of MS Silverlight support.
But we can do even better for Ogg Theora. If we use the Java Cortado player as a fallback inside the video element, we can capture all those users that have Java installed, which could be as high as 90%, taking Ogg Theora support potentially up to 95%, almost up to the claimed 99% of Adobe Flash.
I’m sure all these numbers are disputable, but it’s an interesting experiment with statistics and tells us that right now, Ogg Theora has better browser support than H.264.
UPDATE: I was told this article sounds aggressive. By no means am I trying to be aggressive – I am stating the numbers as they are right now, because there is a lot of confusion in the market. People believe they reach less audience if they publish in Ogg Theora compared to H.264. I am trying to straighten this view.
You probably heard it already: Linux.conf.au is live streaming its video in a Microsoft proprietary format.
Fortunately, there is now a re-broadcast that you can get in an open format from http://stream.v2v.cc:8000/ . It comes from a server in Europe, but relies on transcoding here in New Zealand, so it may not be completely reliable.
UPDATE: A second server is now also available from the US at http://repeater.xiph.org:8000/.
Today, the down under open source / Linux conference linux.conf.au in Wellington started with the announcement that every talk and mini-conf will be live streamed to the Internet and later published online. That’s an awesome achievement!
However, minutes after the announcement, I was very disappointed to find out that the streams are actually provided in a proprietary format and through a proprietary streaming protocol: a Microsoft streaming service that provides Windows media streams.
Why stream an open source conference in a proprietary format with proprietary software? If we cannot use our own technologies for our own conferences, how will we get the rest of the world to use them?
I must say, I am personally embarrassed, because I was part of several audio/video teams of previous LCAs that have managed to record and stream content in open formats and with open media software. I would have helped get this going, but wasn’t aware of the situation.
I am also the main organiser of the FOMS Workshop (Foundations of Open Media Software) that ran the week before LCA and brought some of the core programmers in open media software into Wellington, most of which are also attending LCA. We have the brains here and should be able to get this going.
Fortunately, the published content will be made available in Ogg Theora/Vorbis. So, it’s only the publicly available stream that I am concerned about.
Speaking with the organisers, I can somewhat understand how this came to be. They took the “easy” way of delegating the video work to an external company. Even though this company is an expert in open source and networking, their media streaming customers are all using Flash or Windows media software, which are current de-facto standards and provide extra features such as DRM. It seems apart from linux.conf.au there were no requests on them for streaming Ogg Theora/Vorbis yet. Their existing infrastructure includes CDN distribution and CDN providers certainly typically don’t provide Ogg Theora/Vorbis support or Icecast streaming.
So, this is actually a problem founded in setting up streaming through a professional service rather than through the community. The way in which this was set up at other events was to get together a group of volunteers that provided streaming reflectors for free. In this way, a community-created CDN is built that can deal with the streams. That there are no professional CDN providers available yet that provide Icecast support is a sign that there is a gap in the market.
But phear not – a few of the FOMS folk got together to fix the situation.
It involved setting up Icecast streams for each room’s video stream. Since there is no access to the raw video stream, there is a need to transcode the video from proprietary codecs to the open Ogg Theora/Vorbis format.
To do this legally, a purchase of the codec libraries from Fluendo was necessary, which cost a whopping EURO 28 and covers all the necessary patent licenses. The glue to get the videos from mms to icecast streams is a GStreamer pipeline which I leave others to talk about.
Now, we have all the streams from the conference available as Ogg Theora/Video streams, we can also publish them in HTML5 video elements. Check out this Web page which has all the video streams together on a single page. Note that the connections may be a bit dodgy and some drop-outs may occur.
Further, let me recommend the Multimedia Miniconf at linux.conf.au, which will take place tomorrow, Tuesday 19th January. The Miniconf has decided to add a talk about “How to stream you conference with open codecs” to help educate any potential future conference organisers and point out the software that helps solve these issues.
UPDATE: I should have stated that I didn’t actually do any of the technical work: it was all done by Ralph Giles, Jan Gerber, and Jan Schmidt.
I am a very happy camper today! Not because of the New Year – well, yes, there are new opportunities and challenges for the New Year. But I’ve just received an email from Philip J
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While the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been busy attacking syndicated columnist Cal Thomas recently for supposedly "Islamophobic" comments, the media-hungry group did not condemn the foiled terrorist plots in London or the successful one in Glasgow, Scotland.
Though CAIR's Web site has a video clip of the Chicago chapter director lamenting the events in Britain and the group helped coordinate a St. Louis press conference of Muslim doctors who spoke out against the terrorists, CAIR itself did not condemn the actions of the Islamic terrorists in Britain.
Given that CAIR played a role in promoting its Chicago director and the Muslim doctors, some might wish to give the benefit of the doubt. The organization's history, however, shows that this artful dodge is simply part of its modus operandi.
CAIR has mastered the art of appearing to oppose terrorism, while at the same time leading the charge against those who seek to thwart it.
A case in point is its curiously neglecting to condemn Britain's Islamic terrorists, while during the same week blasting as "Islamophobic" Mr. Thomas' remarks on local radio station WTOP expressing concern about fundamentalists from the "Middle East and South Asia" who are integrating into the broader Muslim society.
In a story for WTOPnews.com, WTOP quoted CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper claiming, "We condemn extremism. We've condemned terrorism... We've issued dozens of condemnations on dozens of terrorism attacks."
CAIR has, in fact, condemned what it considers to be extremism and terrorism — when targeted at Muslims. If a Muslim is the victim of a possible hate crime or has been subjected to a religious slur, CAIR is there. There is nothing wrong with that, of course. And the group is well within its rights when it routinely rails against the United States and Israel.
What CAIR does not do, though, is denounce Islamic fundamentalists who promote a paranoid worldview in which America and Israel are the enemies of Islam, achieved by manufacturing mythical massacres that whip their followers into a lather.
During Israel's war last summer with Hezbollah terrorists, CAIR was firmly on the side of the fundamentalist Islamic propagandists. The organization issued at least eight condemnations of America and the Jewish state — but not one against Hezbollah.
Never in its history has CAIR specifically condemned Hamas or Hezbollah by name.
To its credit, the group did denounce the Netanya Passover Massacre in 2002, though it avoided criticizing Hamas, which perpetrated the attack. Bizarrely, CAIR couldn't bring itself to acknowledge that the innocent victims were murdered in Israel — perhaps because CAIR hews to the Hamas party line refusing to recognize the Jewish state — noting instead that the bombing happened in "the Middle East."
In December, CAIR Executive Director and co-founder Nihad Awad refused in an interview with Newsweek to condemn Hamas, claiming that the question was "the game of the pro-Israel lobby." Of course, Mr. Awad knows that whether or not one backs Hamas is not a "game," as he willingly declared at a speech in 1994: "I'm in support of the Hamas movement." (Transcript provided by the Investigative Project.)
Rather than seize opportunities for unambiguous denunciations of Islamic terrorism, CAIR shrewdly offers up what it labels condemnations, but in fact are not.
Emblematic of CAIR's elaborate deception is the much-hyped fatwa against terrorism and extremism. Both terms are left intentionally undefined. Fundamentalist Muslims who wish harm upon the United States and Israel do not consider themselves "extreme." Nor do Hezbollah and Hamas believe that they are terrorists.
For that matter, neither apparently does CAIR. Chairman Parvez Ahmed this spring authored a lengthy policy paper-posted on CAIR's Web site — in which he implicitly argued that Hamas and Hezbollah were not "terrorist" entities: "Unlike al-Qaeda they do not embrace such violence as a matter of policy. These groups have not targeted people who are outside the land they view as occupied territories."
Since both terrorist groups have repeatedly murdered innocent civilians inside the pre-1967 borders of Israel, the only possible justification Mr. Ahmed could have for not taking issue with Hamas' and Hezbollah's propaganda is that he, too, considers all of the Jewish state to be "occupied territory."
Refusing to recognize the right of the Jewish state to exist is in keeping with the group's roots. Founded in 1994, CAIR was spun off from the Islamic Association of Palestine. Whereas IAP was widely seen as a Hamas front, CAIR was designed to be a kinder and gentler "civil rights" organization. It was a smart move. A federal civil-court judge in 2005 found CAIR's founding organization liable for providing material support to Hamas on the basis of "strong evidence that IAP was supporting Hamas."
Spokesman Ibrahim Hooper did not return a call seeking comment, but CAIR undoubtedly would point to the video clip on its Web site in which its Chicago director, a Mr. Rehab, in a local TV interview, said, "Islam wholeheartedly condemns this type of behavior."
While admirable, it is not the same as the group actually condemning Britain's Islamic terrorists. Considering that CAIR put out roughly 20 press releases in the week following the terror incidents, including several "condemnations" of non-terrorists, it is hard to give the group of the benefit of the doubt.
CAIR's history makes it simply impossible.
Joel Mowbray occasionally writes for The Washington Times.
By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
A politically conservative and morally liberal Hebrew alpha male hunts left-wing viper
A collection of communities writers columns on Benghazi
Positive propaganda for a nation in peril.
Benghazi: The anatomy of a scandal
Vietnam Memorial adds four names
Cinco de Mayo on the Mall
NRA kicks off annual convention
California wildfires wreak havoc
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In a unanimous decision of the World Intellectual Property Organization, a three member Panel denied the complaint of Johnson and Johnson in a domain name dispute filed against Webquest, Inc., the owner of the descriptive word domain name, Tucks.com. The decision came as a vindication of the rights of professional domain name investors, who register dictionary word domain names for their value as generic terms, and not for their association with known brands. Notwithstanding the proliferation of new gTLDs and the anticipated launch of new TLDs by ICANN, .com domain names remain the hottest commodity on the market. In a world where companies choose dictionary words and last names as product names, and there exists a dispute resolution process that can be subjective, domain investors often find themselves on the receiving end of administrative proceedings. Panelists are paid very little to sift through piles of evidence and conflicting arguments. Perhaps as a result, decisions can often be formulaic and interpretation of the Policy overly rigid. In this case, however, the Panel gave thoughtful consideration to the evidence, or lack thereof, in finding that the Complainant had failed to demonstrate bad faith on the part of the Respondent.
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About William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce’s whole life was animated by a deeply held, personal faith in Jesus Christ.
Wilberforce had a deep sense of calling that grew into conviction that he was to exercise his spiritual purpose in the realm of his secular responsibility.
Wilberforce was committed to the strategic importance of a band of like-minded friends, devoted to working together in chosen ventures.
Wilberforce believed deeply in the power of ideas and morality to change culture through a campaign of sustained public persuasion.
Wilberforce willingly paid a steep cost for his courageous public stands and was remarkably persistent in pursuing his life’s tasks.
Wilberforce’s labors and faith were grounded in a genuine humanity rather than a blind fanaticism.
Wilberforce forged strategic partnerships for the common good irrespective of differences over methods, ideology, or religious belief.
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3. Choosing Refinishing Options for your Vintage Furniture Piece
Before choosing your refinishing material (wood stain vs paint) it is wise to make the decision whether any flaws in your piece will be determining the finish, or if you will be replacing any parts with flaws.
Example: The dresser I am currently working on had a large stain on the surface of the top of the dresser. From just looking at it, I couldn’t determine whether it was a surface flaw (i.e. could be sanded out) or a penetrated flaw ( goes deep below the wood surface) and I would have to replace the top panel in order to fix it.
It turns out the large stain on top of the dresser is penetrated deep into wood. Meaning, unless I plan on painting the piece, the wood panel needs to be replaced in order to fix the issue.
When choosing a finish, it is wise to look at many samples. Paint changes color under different lighting conditions (day lighting, incandescent, fluorescent) and so look at the colors under the lighting you will see it in everyday. If staining, rubbing the wood with a wet rag will show you what the wood looks like with only polyurethane on it. Stain on top of it will change the color from that hue.
I love to use accent colors on pieces. The particular piece I’m working on has some wood trim with a strip that would easily benefit from a contrasting color. I’m thinking of using that for my accent. For less ornate pieces, stencils can add some flair to the piece.
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Dr. Sandy to address backpack safety and other weighty health and wellness subjects with new blog
Hi! I’m Dr. Sandy Rebrovich and I am very excited to be blogging about health & wellness for the Elk River Star News.
Here are a few things you should know about me. I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and Psychology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and my Doctor of Chiropractic degree from Northwestern College of Chiropractic. My husband and I have been practicing in Elk River for 10 years. We have three wonderful boys TJ (7), Jack (5), & Nick (3) and live the wellness lifestyle we teach our patients.
I am also an Associate Clinic Faculty member in the Clinical Education department of Northwestern College of Chiropractic.
I am so looking forward to the stimulating dialogue this blog will surely create. Please feel free to submit health related discussion topics that are important to you and your family.
Since it is just about back to school time, I think a great initial topic to get the ball rolling is backpacks.
Did you know that more than 200,000 children a year suffer from backpack injuries? These injuries range from bruises, to sprains and strains to the back and shoulders, as well as fractures.
Backpacks can also negatively influence your child’s posture, especially in younger students.
Why are so many children getting hurt? The answer is really quite simple. Children are wearing backpacks that are too heavy and too big.
How much does your child’s backpack weigh when he/she heads off to school in the morning? Do you know? It’s okay if you don’t. The truth is most parents don’t know, but you need to. A backpack weighing more than 15 percent of your child’s body weight can damage their developing spine.
It is very important that your child wear the right size backpack for his or her body. Unfortunately, that superhero or cartoon backpack might not come in a size appropriate for your child. Don’t sacrifice a proper fit for a fashion statement.
A good rule of thumb is to make sure that the bottom of the backpack is two inches above the waist and resting in the curve of the lower back.
This school year, keep a watchful eye on how heavy your child’s backpack becomes. Keeping the backpack light and properly positioned will ensure a healthier school year.
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Gilead Sciences, a research-based bio pharmaceutical company, recently announced that it will be buying Canada’s BioSciences, Inc. for access to a second experimental drug for treating a rare immune and blood cell disorder.
Gilead said this new venture will cost the company about $510 million.
According to NASDAQ, shares for Gilead closed down 0.14 percent at $76.23, while YM BioSciences’ U.S listed shares closed up 77 percent at $2.88 – just under offer price of Gilead. CYT387, the only drug provided by YM BioSciences, is being tested on patients who have myelofibrosis, a blood disorder which has limited treatment options.
Alternately, Gilead is also conducting the mid-stage testing of its own drug for this blood and immune cell disorder. With this view, Gilead is planning to buy YM’s experimental drug for the blood disorder at a cost of $510 million.
Company officials reported that they’ll begin the important late-stage clinical testing of CYT387 by the second half of 2013.
On the news of Gilead buying YM BioSciences to have access to the blood disorder drug formulated by the latter, shares of Incyte Corp, which sells the only approved drug for treating myelofibrosis, closed down 6 percent at $16.75.
During the months of July to September, Incyte Corp bagged $43.7 million from the sale of Jakafi, the only approved treatment drug for myelofibrosis in the United States.
In the year 2010, YM BioSciences bagged the experimental drug CYT387 with its acquisition of an Australian bio pharmaceutical company, Cytopia Limited. Now, it’s time for Gilead to acquire YM for the treatment drug for the rare blood and immune cell disorder.
Christian Glennie, research analyst in Edison Investment, said it is a profitable outcome for YM as they bought the drug at a relatively modest price, and now Gilead is buying it at $510 million. At the same time, this acquisition is a perfect fit for Gilead’s strategy to broaden its medicine portfolio – especially in oncology.
Gilead reported that it will pay $2.95 per share of YM BioSciences, and plans to fund the new acquisition with cash. The deal would be finalized at $465 million based on the outstanding shares of YM, excluding the options.
As of September 30, 2012, YM featured short-term and cash deposits of $125.5 million Canadian, as stated in a filing. In this context, Brian Abrahams, Wells Fargo Securities analysts, said that despite the valuation coming less than $4-5 fair value assumed for YM, there’s a lower probability of any other party entering with a higher bid.
It is expected that the transaction will be closed by the first quarter of 2013, after which Gilead will start with its later-stage clinical testing of CYT387 drug.
Gilead Sciences is a research-based bio pharmaceutical company that discovers, manufactures and markets innovative medicines in the areas of rare or unfulfilled medical needs.
Edited by Braden Becker
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Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life
When the 13 Islamic scholars arrived, their suitcases were
packed with misconceptions: American Muslims are repressed; Jews control
foreign policy; America is a godless society.
Religious diversity was no small concept for the men and
women who live in predominantly Muslim countries amid frequent anti-American
rhetoric. But by the end of the month-long Fulbright American Studies
Institute, hosted by the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public
Life at Boston College, a Bangladeshi was marveling that American religious
factions disagree without bloodshed; a Nigerian was planning an association
of Christian and Muslim Nigerians to “spread a more positive message
about America”; and a visitor from the West Bank was thinking
of starting a center for dialogue and religious studies in Ramallah.
When University Trustee Geoffrey T. Boisi ’69 and
Rene (Isacco) Boisi ’69 endowed the Boisi Center in 1999 with a
$5 million gift to encourage the study of religion’s impact on public
policy, they probably wouldn’t have predicted that the U.S. Department
of State would come calling only three years later. The State Department
contacted Boisi Director Alan Wolfe and Assistant Director Patricia Chang
to seek their help with the Fulbright program, “Religion in Contemporary
America: Church, State, and Society.”
complex world we live in demands that we educate our young people
not just to excel functionally in careers, but also equip them to
make choices that are ethically solid, forming leaders with true
character. Committing oneself then to take responsibility for a
more just world is part of the vision upon which BC’s Center
for Religion and American Public Life was founded, and one, we believe,
BC is uniquely qualified to pursue.”
GEOFF ’69 AND RENE ’69 BOISI
One goal of the Fulbright program was to teach Islamic scholars
how religious plurality works in a democracy. “In the United States,
religion is pushed to the private realm,” says Peter Benda of the
State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. “In
Muslim countries, it’s really a way of life.” The State Department
hoped the participants, influential in their own countries, would unlearn
erroneous stereotypes and take home accurate information about America.
The guests—from India, Indonesia, Turkey, the Palestinian
Authority, Jordan, Malaysia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Pakistan, Tanzania,
Nigeria, and the Philippines—attended lectures and scholarly discussions;
visited mosques, churches, and synagogues; studied the democratic process;
and even sat down with rabbinical students at a California seminary to
compare the story of Noah in the Koran and the Old Testament. Some preconceived
notions, particularly about Jews and Israel, were difficult to deflate
in a month, but others were eroded, especially those related to the lives
of Muslims in America.
The State Department considered the Fulbright seminar so
successful that it scheduled a repeat performance for June 2003. It is
one of many programs hosted by the Boisi Center, which sponsors visiting
scholars, student-faculty reading groups, and speakers and conferences
that have promoted public discussion of subjects ranging from genetics
to Mideast peace. In post-9/11 America, however, little seems more relevant
than efforts to encourage understanding between Islam and the West.
One Indonesian university lecturer, Mun’im A. Sirry,
said the experience gave him “crucial understanding” about
religious diversity and the “reciprocal influence” of religion
and democracy. That understanding came in handy as soon as he went home.
On the final day of the Fulbright seminar, an explosion killed nearly
200 in a Bali nightclub. Sirry found himself with an immediate task: to
dispel rampant rumors that Americans were behind the bombing.
After what he learned at the Boisi Center, Sirry says he
feels compelled to cultivate a respect for human rights, democracy, and
intercultural understanding. “When I returned to my country,”
he said, “I really felt it was my moral obligation.”
Photo at top of page: Sadia Mahmood of Pakistan (left),
and Farhat A. Husain of Boston College.
Inset photo: Rene Boisi and Geoffrey T. Boisi.
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John Huff, the inventor of the Floating Bed thought, "What would the ideal bed look like, feel like, and what benefits would it provide?" What features would make everyone really LOVE their bed?"…
After considering the special relaxation of a gentle rocking motion, which has been scientifically proven as beneficial to us, but ruling out the back bending, and unstable, poor solution that is the hammock, the waterbed and the four point hanging bed–all of which Huff deems as “simply not that good to sleep on, because their motion is all wrong”–the inventor realized that the key to the ideal bed was the Omni-Pendulum or “Floating” Motion.
Though this bed is aesthetically kind of cool, it was not designed only for it’s looks, as it’s form came from its function; A one-point overhead suspension provides gentle motion, the flat net under-support has adjustable firmness, and the height is easily adjustable.
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With the option of an indoor or an outdoor Floating Bed™, its not just a place to sleep, but a fun place to hang out and chat with friends or the kids, to relax peacefully with a good book, or to gaze at the view with a refreshing cocktail in hand.
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And on that day a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the multitudes with one accord gave heed to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs which he did. For unclean spirits came out of many who were possessed, crying with a loud voice; and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.
On January 9, 1985, Pastor Hristo Kulichev, a Congregational pastor in Bulgaria, was arrested and put in prison. His crime was that he preached in his church even though the state had appointed another man the pastor whom the congregation did not elect. His trial was a mockery of justice. And he was sentenced to eight months imprisonment. During his time in prison he made Christ known every way he could.
When he got out he wrote, "Both prisoners and jailers asked many questions, and it turned out that we had a more fruitful ministry there than we could have expected in church. God was better served by our presence in prison than if we had been free." (Herbert Schlossberg, Called to Suffer, Called to Triumph, p. 230)
God Rules over Persecution and Suffering
There are thousands of stories like this to tell today. And even more over the centuries of Christian history. The lesson comes true again and again: God uses the persecution and suffering of his people to spread the truth of Christ and to bless the world (cf. Luke 21:12–13). Everyone I know in this church who has been to jail in the cause of defending the life of the unborn would say that great good came from it. And I don't doubt that the suit against us as a church and against some individuals will serve to advance the cause of Christ and his kingdom.
I want to encourage you this morning from Acts 8:1–8 that God rules over the sufferings of the church and causes them to spread spiritual power and the joy of faith in a lost world. It is not his only way. But it does seem to be a frequent way. God spurs the church into missionary service by the suffering she endures. Therefore we must not judge too quickly the apparent setbacks and tactical "defeats" of the church. If you see things with the eyes of God, the Master strategist (who cannot lose because he is omnipotent), what you see in every setback is the positioning for a greater advance and a greater display of his wisdom and power and love.
Four Encouraging Facts About Our God and Mission
This is the main point of Acts 8:1–8 (probably of the whole book of Acts). Let me break it down into four parts: four tremendously encouraging facts about God's way of guiding the church in its mission.
1. God Makes Persecution Serve Mission
First, verse 1b shows us that God makes persecution serve the Great Commission. "On that day [the day of Stephen's murder] a great persecution arose against that church in Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles."
Moving into Judea, Samaria, and Beyond
Up until now in the book of Acts all the ministry has taken place in Jerusalem. No one had moved out to Judea and Samaria. But Jesus had said in Acts 1:8 that the coming of the Holy Spirit was to empower missions in Jerusalem and beyond. "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
Now Acts 8:1 uses exactly those two unreached areas in that order: " . . . they were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria." So whether the church may have awakened to her calling eventually without persecution, the fact is that God used persecution to move his people into the mission he had given them.
To confirm this missionary purpose of the persecution, look at Acts 11:19. "Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews." But in Antioch some spoke to Greeks also. In other words, the persecution not only sent the church to Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1) but also beyond to the Gentiles (Acts 11:19).
The Danger of Comfort, Ease, and Prosperity
I think there is a tremendous lesson for us here. The lesson is not just that God is sovereign and turns setbacks to triumphs. The lesson is that comfort and ease and affluence and prosperity and safety and freedom often cause a tremendous inertia in the church. Inertia is the tendency of something that is standing still to stay standing still and of something moving to keep moving. The very things that we think would produce personnel and energy and creative investment of time and money in the cause of Christ and his kingdom, instead produce, again and again, the exact opposite—weakness, apathy, lethargy, self-centeredness, preoccupation with security.
The Star Tribune had an article on Friday (May 3, 1991, p. 2A) showing that the richer we are, the less we give to the church and its mission proportionate to our income. (The poorest fifth of the church give 3.4% of their income to the church and the richest fifth give 1.6%—half as much as the poorer church members.) It's a strange principle, that probably goes right to the heart of our sinfulness and Christ's sufficiency—the principle that hard times, like persecution, often produce more personnel, more prayer, more power, more open purses than easy times.
I know it's true, from Jesus' parable of the four soils, that some fall away during persecution because they have no root. But it seems to be true that even more people are like the third soil—"the cares of the world, and the delight in riches, and the desire for other things enter in and choke the word and it proves unfruitful" (Marks 4:19).
Persecution can have harmful effects on the church. But prosperity, it seems, is even more devastating to the mission to which God calls us. My point here is not that we should seek persecution. That would be presumption—like jumping off the temple. The point is that we should be very wary of prosperity and excessive ease and comfort and affluence, and we should not be disheartened but filled with hope if we are persecuted for righteousness' sake (Matthew 5:10). Because, as Luke shows us here: God makes persecution serve the mission of the church.
2. Stephen Is Honored, Not Blamed
The second encouraging thing to see in this text is that Stephen is honored and not blamed. The persecution in Jerusalem started because of Stephen. That's clear here; and it's clear in Acts 11:19—"the persecution that arose over Stephen."
I can imagine some cautious and prudent and well-meaning believers in Jerusalem saying: "Stephen's speech was utterly uncalled for. There are other less inflammatory ways to defend the truth than to call the Sanhedrin 'stiff-necked people who always resist the Holy Spirit' (Acts 7:51). It's always hotheads like this that get the church into trouble. Now the whole city is against us. Look at the waste of life and property and time. Look at the families that are being broken up. Look at the homes being lost and the children being taken away from all their friends. Now we have to live like refugees and exiles in Judea and Samaria. Why didn't Stephen think before he spoke?"
But when Luke tells God's version of the story, Stephen is a man full of grace and power (Acts 6:8). When he spoke his final words that enraged the council, Luke says he was filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:55). And here in Acts 8:2 Luke says that "devout men buried Stephen, and made great lamentation over him." Stephen is honored not blamed for the persecution—at least by devout men. Worldly people might be more worried about goods and kindred and status. But the devout people, who think the way Jesus thinks about life, they "let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also; the body they may kill, God's truth abideth still."
So the second encouraging truth here is this: when persecution comes because of courageous, faithful, God-honoring obedience, godly people don't blame the servant of the Lord. They give honor.
3. Adversaries Can Become Advocates
The third encouraging thing to see here is that sometimes our worst enemies become our best friends. Verse 3: "But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." This Saul is the one who would be dramatically converted and become the best friend and advocate Christianity ever had.
We need to live in this hope again and again: fearsome enemies can become precious friends. Adversaries can become advocates. Critics can become comrades. For most of us it's pretty easy to believe that an intimate disciple can become a deadly betrayer, like Judas. That's the way the world is. But we need to remember that a deadly persecutor can also become a great ally and partner in the cause of Christ. That's the way God is. That's the kind of power he has.
Look on your adversaries with the eyes of faith—that someday, by the power of God they could experience a turn-around as amazing and unexpected as Saul's.
4. The Word of God Is Good News and Brings Joy
Finally, the fourth encouraging thing in this text is that even though the Word of God brought persecution and exile, it is still good news and brings joy.
The paragraph that begins with verse 4 ends with verse 8. Verse 4 says that the scattered, persecuted Christians preached the Word wherever they went. They announced the very Word that brought persecution as good news (euanggelizomai). And verse 8 confirms that it was good news because it says, "So there was much joy in that city." The Word that brings persecution also brings joy—and the joy it brings is so much greater and longer than the trouble it brings that the trade-off is worth it.
Why? Well, verse 7 says that unclean spirits were coming out of people and leaving them free and whole and pure. It says that many that were paralyzed or lame were being healed. But the main reason there is joy is what we read in verse 5: "Philip went down to a city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ."
Christ alone has the power to deliver from Satan and all his evil. Christ alone has the power heal our bodies now and finally in the resurrection. Christ alone has the right and power to forgive our sins and make us right with God (Acts 10:43). So if you have Christ, if you know him and trust him, then no matter how severe the persecution is, no matter how great the suffering of life, you have hope and you have joy. "There was much joy in that city" because Philip preached Christ.
So I urge you this morning to put your faith in Jesus Christ. Because if you do then all these reasons for encouragement become very personally true for you and not just generally true.
- God makes persecution serve the unstoppable mission of the
church—your mission, your ministry.
- If your faithfulness brings
trouble to the church (like Stephen's did), you will be honored and
not blamed—at least by the godly.
- Your worst critics can become
your precious comrades by the power of Christ's converting grace.
- And the very Word—the gospel—that brings persecution sometimes, brings joy always and forever.
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"I have been doing some research on this as well. chekc out my website:
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"We just did a heavy metal cleaning on our bodies, testing before and after. We should have the results in a few weeks . Our old house had dangerously high levels of lead paint on it and the EPA said to cover it with some siding so the paint could…"
i was recently reading in the local newspaper about the discovery of heavy metals in the soil of our community gardens. well, i'm sure that this is no new reality - yes, this city has relied heavily on industry and yes, there are still quite a few nasty factory plants around. however, i know that this is by no means a unique situation. i have dabbled in reading about bioremediation and phytoremediation, but am not very science-minded. yes, the chemistry, etc makes enough sense to me, but i want…See More
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Quick Weight Loss Tips You Should Try
Natural weight loss for most people is not easy because to be successful you need willpower, determined effort and, above all, patience.
It's very easy to feel intimidated when you first begin your natural weight loss diet. There is so much conflicting advice available on the internet these days that it's difficult to know where to start. Especially when new diet plans, weight loss pills and diet meals are continually thrust in front of you on your television and computer screens.
The truth is, there are some very basic dieting rules that when followed will give you the natural weight loss results you are looking for. There is no greater motivator than seeing positive results.
Natural weight loss is best done gradually. Ideally weight reduction should be planned on a gradual, steady basis resulting in permanent loss and a stabilized weight. Unfortunately most overweight people think in terms of taking off x number of pounds for a special event or purpose in the shortest amount of time. This approach can seriously harm your health and lead to yo-yo dieting.
The first thing you should do for natural weight loss, especially if you're new to dieting, is start a food journal. Write down all of the foods that you eat each day, what times you eat them and how many calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat grams are contained in them. This will help you to see exactly what you're eating each day and what changes you need to make to maximize the effects of your natural weight loss.
The next thing your should do is analyze how active you are. Do you have a sit down job? Or are you on your feet all day? Do you do strenuous activities or are you sitting or standing still most of the time?
An analogy is to see your body as a machine and the food you eat as fuel. If you consistently add 10 litres of fuel daily and your machine only burns 8 litres a day then your tank is going to overflow unless you find somewhere else to store the excess fuel. This is exactly what your body does.
The good news is that there is a way to detox and lose weight which will not only keep the weight off, but insure you get maximum health benefits... For example, if you do a detox correctly, you can expect to see your skin clear up, cellulite and fat will start to melt away, you should have very restful sleep, and strong, sustained energy throughout the day. Let's learn more about this very specific weight loss detox, not to be confused with the other fads and scams out there right now. It follows two steps...
To give your body the tools it needs to detoxify, cleanse and regenerate, a weight loss detox diet must give the body even more vitamins, minerals and nutrients than normal. This means that fasting is NOT a good choice. You want to eat foods rich in essential nutrients and antioxidants that enable your body to flush the toxins and pollutants that have accumulated over your lifetime. By eating these foods, you will detox safely and also lose weight. The foods you will be eating are rich in nutrients, high in fiber, and low in fat. You can expect to lose between 3-7 pounds over a 7-10 day period. And, you will not gain the weight back. Why? Because, you aren't starving yourself. Your body will be relinquishing the fat in a healthy way. The best part is that you will see many other benefits besides weight loss. You will also lower your cholesterol, blood pressure, boost your immune system, have much more energy etc...
A great example of this is Vitamin C. Vitamin C has been shown in many, many studies to help in weight reduction. According to researchers from Arizona State University, individuals consuming sufficient amounts of vitamin C oxidize (burn) 30% more fat during moderate exercise than those who consume insufficient amounts. In addition, too little vitamin C in the bloodstream has been shown to correlate with increased body fat and waist measurements. This is the best source of whole food, all natural vitamin C anywhere. Please, see The Weight Loss Detox Diet below to learn more...
Fat Burning Furnace is the very popular new fitness program written by Rob Poulos that claims to allow you to shed quite a bit of fat while exercising only 45 minutes per week.
The Truth About Six Pack Abs is primarily about simple ways to stay in fit and to get a trim, toned body.
Visual Impact Muscle Building is definitely an popular training program today. Visual Impact is a body transformation workout program designed to give you that Hollywood star or fitness model build.
7 Minute Muscle is a unique body building program which is named that way because if you follow the program you will need to work out only 7 minutes every day to build muscles.
Muscle Gaining Secrets is a comprehensive program by Jason Ferrugia that teaches muscle gain techniques through weightlifting and nutrition.
If you want the shortest, fastest, straightest path to muscle building and fat burning success, you need a guide…a plan, a roadmap… and the Holy Grail Body Transormation by Tom Venuto e-book is it.
The Dark Side Of Fat Loss by Sean Croxton includes TEN chapters of truth bombs about how you can lose fat and get 100% healthy!
Cheat Your Way Thin is developed by Joel Marion who is an anti-diet fat loss expert. Joel has been touting his Cheat Your Way Thin on such television networks as ABC, NBC, and CBS, SIRIUS satellite radio, and on the pages of more than 20 popular magazines such as Woman’s Day, Muscle & Fitness, and many more.
The 1000 Calorie Challenge program has a detailed eating plan that includes some low calorie days to increase the calorie deficit. It’s important to note that these low calories days are not all of the days and that the other days allow a greater calorie intake.
Tacfit Commando Bodyweight workout routine is really a very revolutionary method created by one of the most popular workout professionals worldwide, Scott Sonnon.
In the Final Phase Fat Loss program, John Romaniello teaches you how to workout in order to get rid of those last few stubborn pounds.
Fit over 40 Pdf is a downloadable E-book. The authors of the Fit Over 40 e-book are so confident that this book will benefit your life that they are offering you a 100% unconditional money back guarantee!
Burn The Fat Feed The Muscle by Tom Venuto will suit anyone looking to lose weight or wanting to get in better shape. And It is designed for both men and women.
The Acid Alkaline Diet, written by Swiss detoxification specialist and Naturopath doctor Christopher Vasey, is an excellent guide to understanding how an acidic diet may result in a wide range of health problems ranging from minor skin irritations, ulcers, chronic fatigue, back pain and arthritis, to ulcers and osteoporosis.
The Diet Solution Program by Isabel De Los Rios combines all possible aspects of weight loss and healthy living and comes as a complete package.
Double Edge Fat Loss is a unique fitness program designed by Doctor Kareem Samhouri, a physical therapist and metabolism expert who decided to create the ultimate online video fitness plan. Inside the program, he has created a video exercise database with over 600 exercises shown in videos.
Fat Loss 4 Idiots shows how to provide your body with different types of calories at different point of times to confuse it’s metabolism and thus allowing the secretion of greater number of fat burning hormones resulting in fat loss and ultimately weight loss.
Every Other Day Diet is a unique weight loss plan which was created by Jon Benson with the help of Holly Rigsby.
The Firm and Flatten Your Abs ebook is an online program for people who wish to lose belly fat and flatten their stomach.
Josh Bezoni is the author and creator of the 7 Day Belly Blast Diet, a program that teaches you how to eat in order to shed belly fat fast and flatten your abs.
Fat Loss Factor is a great fat burning guide designed by Michael Allen. While it is true that he isn’t an expert in the field, he certainly does have the experience when it comes to burning fat.
Eat Stop Eat is a weight loss plan by nutritionist Brad Pilon, Eat Stop Eat teaches “intermittent fasting,” a technique of fasting for a 24 hour period 2 days a week while eating normally the other 5.
The Xtreme Fat Loss Diet is where your diet and workouts work together in a strategic synergy, resulting in the fastest fat loss possible, maintenance (or even an increase in) of your highly metabolic muscle mass, and a boost in your metabolism.
24/7 Fat Loss Rapid Fat Loss System is 8-week program has 9 components that will help boost your fat burning rate. The first component is The Diet Manual, which tells you exactly which foods to eat, and which ones to avoid in order to achieve a fat-burning body.
Eating For Energy will show you how to change your way of eating so you can slow down the aging process and live a disease-free life. You’ll also learn how to burn off fat, boost your energy doing easy daily tasks, how to improve your digestive health and much more.
14 Day Rapid Fat Loss Plan developed by Shaun Hadsall provides you the adaptability to eat the foods that you simply love while wisely using sugars, and many types of your preferred deceive foods, as strategy to quickly improve your metabolic process, keep muscle, and get rid of a wild amount of extra fat – all while offering you simple power.
The Anything Goes Diet is a weight loss program by John Barban, a nutrition specialist and researcher with experience as a personal trainer and a sports trainer.
Total Wellness Cleanse Ebook is designed to help people achieve that purge over a thirty day period with the help of a package of materials including e-books and telecourses created by Yuri Elkaim and his partner Amy Coates who is also a Registered Holistic Nutritionist.
The Turbulence Training Program was developed by Craig Ballantyne, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS).
The 7 Minute Diet is a new weight loss program co-authored by Jon Benson, creator of the well known Every Other Day Diet, and a well known nutrition expert.
The Body of F.I.R.E. program is no different as it has already received numerous positive testimonials from fitness experts and the men and women who’ve used it to lose fat themselves.
The 31 Day Fat Loss Cure offers a fantastic approach to fat loss, utilizing a variety of effective techniques, including fun bodyweight exercises you can do right at home.
Full Throttle Fat Loss is an advanced fitness program designed for women and men who are eager to burn off body fat quickly.
The Muscle Maximizer is a brand new and unique approach to anabolic nutrition. The Muscle Maximizer is an evolutionary breakthrough nutrition system that is combined with a weight training program to enable rapid pure muscle building without any fat.
The Fit Yummy Mummy diet has been proven to help women shed those extra pounds more effectively than most.
Lean Hybrid Muscle Reloaded is a very popular muscle building system online right now. Created by Mike Westerdals and Elliott Hulse, two respected and famous fitness experts, Lean Hybrid Muscle Reloaded is a step-by-step system that was developed to help users gaining muscles and burning fat at the same time.
The second step is to use some powerful, organic superfoods and herbs to speed up and magnify the process of detoxing and losing weight. Use the highest quality herbs well known for their ability to increase the metabolism and remove fat from the body. Specific herbs are able to lower blood pressure and build strength in the walls of the veins and arteries which is very important for protecting the heart from excess fat. The combination of herbal formulas that can help the body lose weight and protect the heart are ideal for a weight loss reduction program. Please, see below to learn more...
The individual can be using the same strategies for exercise, strength training, and for diet, but they no longer work. This is obviously frustrating and can create a cycle that is difficult to break, and can even cause a loss of motivation, with the result being that some individuals simply abandon their weight loss goal altogether.
What Causes a Weight Loss Plateau?
Several factors contribute to create a weight loss plateau. In part it is due to a decrease in the body's metabolism, which drastically slows down the loss of fat from the body. Adaptive thermogenesis, also called the 'starvation response', occurs when the body responds to receiving fewer calories by losing less fat as a way to survive. This is especially true when the body mass index comes down to a little above 10 percent, which is classed as below "good" BMI.
With less body mass, your body needs fewer calories. However, many individuals eat the same way and the same amounts as they did before they lost weight. The problem is that a smaller body does not require as many calories on a daily basis.
Exercising with less body mass burns fewer calories. So, an exercise program that took off weight in the initial stages of the program will not remove the same amount of weight when the body is smaller.
The under-reporting of caloric intake can also cause a weight loss plateau. Studies have shown this to be very common, and calories can be under-reported by as much as 50 percent. Inevitably, when a person consumes 1800 calories each day but reports the total as 1200, there will be far less weight lost.
Breaking Through the Weight Loss Plateau
There are several strategies available to break through the weight loss plateau and resume weight reduction. These involve a combination of making changes to both the diet and exercise programs to create a deficit in calories, which stimulates the body into burning more fat.
However, at the beginning it is often advisable to allow the body a respite before commencing in earnest. This offers a mental reprieve that can restore motivation, but more importantly, it allows the body to respond quickly when the program begins again. This physiological and psychological break is a strategy advocated by many in the weight loss industry as a method to help break through the weight loss plateau.
At this stage it is especially important to count the exact calories consumed. Once the break is over, and it should last no more than a week, resume eating and exercising but with a different approach. Keep a food diary, and accurately record the exact quantities of caloric intake as a way to ensure the daily level is not under-reported.
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As spectators lined Ocean Beach to snap photos and watch, the amphibious vehicle hit the shore around 10:15 a.m. to help kick off this year's San Francisco Fleet Week. It left in a cloud of sand and ocean spray about 45 minutes later and returned to its mother ship, the USS Makin Island.
The Navy was showcasing the hovercraft, also known as a Landing Craft Air Cushion or LCAC, and its mobile surgical center to city emergency management officials as well as San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.
Officials say the LCAC can deliver supplies, equipment and personnel to San Francisco and other U.S. cities if a major earthquake or other disaster takes out roads, bridges and other transportation infrastructure.
The hovercraft has been used to respond to humanitarian crises such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
"The LCAC gives us the ability to bypass the obstacles of broken bridges and overpasses and all those other network and roadway problems," said Maj. Gen. Melvin Spiese, who heads the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade.
City emergency management officials and medical providers had a chance to check out the Shock Trauma Platoon, a group of medical tents set up in a parking lot next to Ocean Beach.
"It's basically a mobile
Fleet Week continues through this weekend with popular events such as the Parade of Ships and the Blue Angels air show.
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The Christian Four-Letter Word
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” —Jesus
Judgmentis not a four-letter word. But if you use it in some Christian circles, people are going to act like you're swearing right there in front of God and everybody. Sure, we all prefer words like love, forgiveness, and acceptance. Does judgment have a place in the Gospel of grace? Yes! Because it’s a real, future event. According to 2 Corinthians 5:10, we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and 2 Corinthians 4:13-15 says that the Father Himself is going to take us there:
It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
We will be raised with Jesus. We will be presented to God. That is a remarkable element of our destiny—and it's worth pondering; it's worth imagining; it’s worth planning. But most importantly, it's worth putting it into a biblical perspective, because the Bible has a lot to say about it.
One of the things the Bible says—and this probably goes against everything we are inclined to feel—is that this judgment seat of Christ is good for us.It's for our “benefit” and it causes “thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” My guess is that those are facets of God’s judgment that you never really considered before. But there they are, in black and white in the Bible. Our judgment will be good for us, our judgment will glorify God.
But how can this be? Is it because of our successful performance and religious duties? Is it because we somehow purify ourselves and make ourselves worthy? Is it because we somehow avoided the big “no-no” sins successfully through our life?
Not a chance. Check out the verse again. What will make your judgment beneficial and glorifying? It is “the grace that is reaching more and more people.”
Jesus, I need You to break some of my preconceived ideas right now. In the world, the judgment we receive from other people is never beneficial nor glorifying. Touch my heart right now, so that I might be able to consider Your judgment through the power of Your grace. Amen.
Listen to Pete, Jill & Stuart Briscoe on the Telling the Truth broadcast at OnePlace.com
God is great. God is good. It’s sung as a hymn and taught to children as a prayer. But we’re not always sure we believe it! Why? Because of suffering. We see real devastation in our own families and across the world and think, “Either God is not so great, or He’s not so good.”
In this 2-message series called Making Sense of Suffering, Stuart and Jill Briscoe turn to Scripture to show you why God allows suffering, what good can come from it, and what happens when you accept the unacceptable.
Making Sense of Suffering is our gift to thank you for helping others experience real Life in the midst of their suffering. So please request your copy when you give to Telling the Truth today.
We want you to truly experience Christ's peace!
We all face challenges in relationships, finances, health, or other aspects of our personal world. Yet the Bible teaches that peace is not only possible – it’s what God desires for your life! That’s why Stuart Briscoe wants to send you his book, A Peace of My Mind. This special resource is our gift to thank you for generously supporting Telling the Truth, so please request yours when you give a gift this month.
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While broadband providers would prefer you pay bills by direct debit, there are often alternative payment options available. Unfortunately, with the exception of the Post Office, they may end up costing you more than you like.
Find out if your provider lets you pay by cheque, credit card or in cash, and if they'll charge you for doing so.
Alternatives to direct debit
The Post Office (www.PostOffice.co.uk) is the only broadband provider that allows customers to pay their bills in cash without incurring additional charges. Customers can pay over the counter in branches, making it both simple, and a great solution for those on a tight budget. You can also pay by credit card, cheque, and of course, if you want to pay by direct debit you can do that too.
BT (www.BT.com) accepts individual bill payments by credit card (online and over the phone), cheque and cash (via PayPoint outlets in shops and garages). BT will charge a processing fee for not paying through direct debit. In some cases, you may be able to pay bills through bank transfers. You'll need to check with your bank and BT to see if this is possible.
Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com), also accepts credit card, cheque and cash payments for individual bills. Credit card payments can be made online or over the phone, and cash can either be paid at PayPoint outlets (look for the yellow sign on shops and petrol stations) or at the bank. Be aware that paying any other way than direct debit will cost you a considerable amount extra each year.
Plusnet (www.Plus.net) customers can pay using credit and debit cards, and also cheque. These methods will incur an extra fee, and cheques can only be used if you pay in quarterly of annual instalments.
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After several years "on the market" there are now multiple Business Model Canvas adaptations floating around. People sometimes ask me about them. This blogpost provides an answer by explaining the Canvas through the analogy of a Theater (watch the video). It shows why we got it right and why most adaptations are broken.
When Yves Pigneur and I set out to find a better way to describe business models we had the following objective in mind: What are all the most important decisions you make when you design your business. We were not interested in operational or organizational issues, but aimed to find a way to describe the blueprint of your business strategy, the core elements that constitute the heart of how your business works.
Our research (i.e. my Phd dissertation) led us to the nine building blocks that now constitute the foundation of the Business Model Canvas. If you take away one block, you actually lose the big picture. You lose the overview of ALL the elements that compose your business logic. It will be incomplete. The following video from Strategyzer.com, our online business model tool, illustrates this nicely by comparing the Canvas to a Theater:
A theater has a front stage and a back stage. People don't really care about the back stage, but it is necessary to make the front stage possible. The front stage is what people are interested in and it is what they are willing to pay for. The backstage enables the front stage and it is what costs money. Like a theater, a business model has a front stage (which leads to revenues) and a backstage (which makes up for the costs). Eliminate any of the elements of the Business Model Canvas and you lose the big picture... Hundred thousands of people around the world have come to value this.
By the way, if you liked the video above you should sign-up for Strategyzer.com. As an early adopter you will get 50% discount and only pay $150.- USD instead of $300.- USD. In a couple of weeks or a few months we will probably upgrade to Beta and drop the discount. Besides a really cool and collaborative business model tool you will find an increasing amount of content like the above video inside our Strategyzer Academy.
FYI: A prototype version of this video was posted on this blog earlier last year.
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The Irish Republic’s Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport has announced that more church genealogy records will become available in June 2010.
The remaining pre-1900 Church of Ireland (Protestant) baptism, marriage and burial records for Dublin City and Counties Carlow and Kerry are soon to be added to the free Irish Genealogy website. In addition, a subset of the Roman Catholic records in the Diocese of Cork and Ross is being added.
These records along with digital images will be launched by Mary Hanafin, TD, Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport and the Archbishop of Dublin, The Most Rev. Dr. John R.W. Neill. This event will take place on Wednesday 16th June at 6.00 pm in St Werburgh’s Church (near Christchurch), Dublin 2, Ireland.
Work has begun on the completion of the computerisation of the remaining available Roman Catholic records for Dublin and the Diocese of Cork and Ross (which covers Cork City and all of the parishes in West Cork). It is intended to have elements of this project completed and available online by the end of 2010.
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I am just back from Orlando, Florida, which is one of my favorite trips of the year as I participate in Student Leadership University. I did a series on worldview issues as well as answered questions for students, and one of the questions asked was “If you can’t see God, how can you really know that God exists?”
It is not uncommon for skeptics to suppose that we as Christians are irrational for believing in a God that we simply cannot see. In reality, it’s irrational for skeptics to presuppose that what cannot be seen doesn’t exist! The fact that something that cannot be seen does not presuppose that something doesn’t exist. We know black holes, electrons, the laws of logic, and the law of gravity all exist despite the fact we can’t see them! Indeed even a full blown empiricist holds fast to the law of gravity if he is standing on top of the Eiffel Tower.
Not only that, but as King David exudes, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1). Or in the words of the apostle Paul, “God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that men are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). If you want to put it another way, the order and complexity of the visible, physical, universe eloquently testify to the existence of an uncaused first cause.
One final point, God can be seen through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul explains that “in Christ all the fullness of Deity lives in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9). Indeed, it is the incarnation of Jesus Christ that is the supreme act of God’s self-revelation. Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we experience the power and the presence of God in a way that is more fundamentally real than even our perceptions of the physical world in which we dwell. Now we see but a poor reflection, just like in a mirror; but then one day in heaven we’re going to see face to face. Now we know in part, then we’ll know fully just as we too are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12).
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of the biggest Hollywood stars started out on stage, in live theatre.
Many movie actors like to return to the theatre every now and then, to sharpen their acting skills. You can see these entertainers live on stage, at the Los Angeles Music Center.
The Music Center of Los Angeles County stands like some modern day Acropolis, atop a hill in downtown L.A. Created in 1964, the Music Center sprawls over seven acres, and contains three major theatres: the massive Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (to the south), the Ahmanson Theatre (to the north), and the small Mark Taper Forum in the center of the complex.
The elegant Dorothy Chandler Pavilion is the largest and grandest of the three auditoriums, its entrance way framed by spectacular fountains. With 90-foot-high columns, the Pavilion's dramatic glass & stone facade masks a palatial foyer with elegant white marble walls, 17th century tapestries, a 24-karat gold-leaf dome, sparkling crystal chandeliers, renowned sculpture, and a grand, sweeping, marble staircase. It's gorgeous.
Dorothy Chandler seats 3,197 and boasts one of the largest stages in the
nation: one gold curtain alone (on the main stage) weighs 3,000 pounds.
Oddly enough, though, the Pavilion doesn't host the popular Broadway musicals
that attract so many to the Music Center. Instead it is the winter home
to the Los Angeles Philharmonic from October to May, offering 260 concerts
each year. (During the summer months, the L.A. Philharmonic performs at
the outdoor Hollywood Bowl.) The Pavilion is also home to the renowned
Joffrey Ballet, as well as the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Los Angeles
Music Center Opera.
1998 saw such productions as "Rent,"
"Bring In 'Da Noise, Bring In 'Da Funk," "Chicago"
(with Jasmine Guy) and "Barrymore" (with
Black & white photos of the many stars who have performed here are on display in the lobby, as is a special quilt bearing the signatures of celebrities, such as Charlton Heston, Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison, Katharine Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, Ingrid Bergman, Carol Channing, Angela Lansbury, Glenda Jackson, Vanessa Redgrave, Peter Ustinov and Mary Martin. The interior of the theatre is plush enough, with dark red seats and sleek black walls; even seats in the back row of the lower level offer a good view of the stage.
If you prefer drama to musicals, the Music Center also offers you the tiny Mark Taper Forum, which offers theatre-goers a chance to see some of Hollywood's favorite actors strut the boards. The Mark Taper is located in a round building between the two other giant auditoriums. With only 752 seats, it specializes in small, intimate drama, staged by the Center Theatre Group. This is not a theater-in-the-round, mind you, but rather a semi-circular arrangement, with a unique aperture-like series of metal screens which allow the stage to be reshaped at will to fit the production. When Hollywood actors (such as Charlton Heston) get a yen to return to the live stage, the Mark Taper is often their forum of choice. Recently, Richard Dreyfuss and Christine Lahti headlined there in "Three Hotels," as did Molly Ringwald in "How I Learned To Drive," and Carol Burnett & Bronson Pinchot in "Putting It Together."
Frasier's own Kelsey Grammer starred in a reprise of the musical "Sweeny Todd," in March of 1999 at the Ahmanson. Three months later, Al Pacino took to the stage in "Hughie" for a five-week run at the Mark Taper Forum.
The Music Center also offers free guided tours of the complex, from 10 AM to 4 PM, tours which take you inside the major theatres. The guided tours aren't available on all days, though. Phone ahead (213) 972-7483) for the exact days and hours of these tours (and be warned that the guides are not exactly punctual). Tours meet outside the box office of the Dorothy Chandler.
(Also see the separate webpage about theatrical
Getting there: The Music Center is located in downtown L.A., bordered by 1st Street (on the south), Temple Street (on the north), Grand Avenue (on the east) and Hope Street (on the west). / From Hollywood, take the Hollywood (101) Freeway south to the Temple Street exit, then go east one block to Grand Avenue; turn right (south) on Grand Avenue and the center will be on your right (west) side. Turn right again into the Music Center's underground parking garage.
Looking for something in particular? Search the Seeing-Stars website!
[Note: Double-underlined GREEN links are paid advertisements.]
Click Here to Return to the Main Menu
Advertise on seeing-stars.com
Copyright © 2013-Gary Wayne
All Rights Reserved
This webpage is not associated with any business described in the article above, and does not constitute an
endorsement of this or any other business. The photos of celebrities on this page also do not constitute
endorsements by them of any kind, and are used by the author solely to illustrate this online article.
(Click here to read other disclaimers)
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Equipment Maintenance Vendors
Do you and your team know what equipment manufacturers recommend when it comes to maintaining equipment? It seems so simple: Wipe down the display, the pads and all surface areas of the machine using the recommended material; clean and lubricate the guide rods; vacuum around and under the machine; clean and oil the chains. It's pretty straightforward, if you have a little bit of mechanical know-how. But is it enough? If it is, why are you paying a contractor to come in and perform regular preventive maintenance on your equipment?
Beyond the manualMost manufacturers will agree that a primary factor in adding years to a machine's life is simply keeping the machine and the area around it clean. That appears to be simple enough, right? Not really. What happens to the dust and dirt that gets into your machines before you have a chance to stop it? It builds up. It gets on sensors, it imbalances treadmill rollers, it creates drag on guide rods and starts to wear down your equipment. This is why you get someone else to come in and perform maintenance on your equipment. If they're good, they'll go above and beyond the manufacturer's guidelines.
Hiring maintenance vendorsThere are certain things to consider when choosing an equipment maintenance vendor, or when you are evaluating your current provider.
What kind of contract is in place? Are the vendor's visits monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly? Do you feel as though the frequency of visits matches up to your usage levels? Does the contract account for equipment turnover?
One of the most important things to look for is whether the contract specifies what is to be done with each piece of equipment. Saying that primary maintenance (PM) will be performed on all cardio pieces is not enough. If you know nothing about equipment, you should still be able to pick up a PM contract and determine if it is being fulfilled. How are you being charged, by the unit or by the hour? This can make a big difference in the event of equipment changes.
What are they doing? Take the time to monitor what the preventive maintenance technicians are doing. Ask questions. Are they doing what they say they are doing? Watching and asking questions will not only tell you if you are getting your money's worth, it will educate you on the inner workings of your equipment. Knowing your way around the inside of your equipment could result in your being able to quickly remedy an issue and minimize downtime.
How are repairs addressed? If, during a preventive maintenance visit, the technician finds a problem with a piece of equipment that falls outside the scope of maintenance, how is it addressed? There are two options. In one, the preventive maintenance technician quotes a price and fixes it on the spot. The upside here is that you get the issue taken care of immediately. The downside is, you have to make a decision on the spot and don't get the opportunity to price shop the repair. The second option is that the technician notes the issue and provides a quote for the repair. You may need to wait a little longer for the issue to get addressed, but you have the opportunity to make a more informed decision.
Is documentation complete? Keeping accurate, detailed records of preventive maintenance and repairs is a must. Each machine should have its own history. Having good, detailed records will help you pinpoint machines that have regular issues, and others that may be under-used. Maintenance providers should be able to provide this after every visit.
Create a planEquipment is a major investment, and mainstream manufacturers develop it to ensure that you get a good return on your investment. But it doesn't end there. You have to know your equipment and what it needs to keep running for a long time. Reinvest in your equipment with a good maintenance plan that is executed properly.
Facility of the Week
Ithaca College Athletics and Events Center
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As a new writer for the Fluffy Economist, I thought I ought to set out some of the basics of my thinking, though it might help to know that my political co-ordinates are: -9.00, -7.54. You can read more of me at Bartlett’s Bizzare Bazaar, and, coming soon, The Sharpener.
“[W]hen we act, we create our own reality”; unnamed aide to President Bush, 2004.
Like giants, ogres and gnomes, Homo economicus is a mythical species of humanoid. Or rather, it once was. Unlike giants, ogres and gnomes, many educated, modern people have believe that Homo economicus, the monster-man who lives only by a calculation of personal material interests, not only exists, but that it is in fact Homo sapiens, the thinking-man, the man of sense, who is the fantasy.
Possessed by this belief, and possessing great power over the organisation of our society, this group of fantasists have, through human action, made their legends real. In ‘on your bike’, the attempt to disguise labour mobility as a virtue, people are told that there is no value to be found within the communities that they live and work. ‘Flexibility’, rendering jobs temporary, transient and often, precarious, erodes the notion of loyalty to and pride in anything greater than the individual economic unit.
This is presented as inevitable. But it is the product of human action. Homo economicus is presented as the natural form of existence for mankind. Why then, does it require thousands of years of social development to reach this form? Neo-liberal economic policies are the deliberate attempt to transform Homo sapiens, attached to place and people, culture and tradition by bonds that cannot be quantified, altering the environment so as to force evolution into Homo economicus.
The Marxist heritage of the leading proponents of neo-liberalism is patent. Marx and Engels wrote in The Communist Manifesto that “[t]he bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and with them the whole relations of society”. “All that is solid melts into air”, leaving, as the only “nexus between man and man… naked self-interest… callous ‘cash payment’”. Everything is swept aside leaving only “egotistical calculation”. “[P]ersonal worth [is transformed] into exchange value” and freedoms have been replaced by Free Trade. Veiled exploitation is substituted by “naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation”.
What men like Thomas Friedman have forgotten is that ‘making the world flat’ is not conducted in the interests of the poor and the powerless, people whose difference is their only defence against exploitation. Like so many liberals, ex-New Left and now the New Right, what is always missing from their analysis, and is apparent in their blind faith in the market and the United States Marine Corps., is the central importance of power in human relations, even those apparently, at least to the myopic, equal relations of the market, even the market of ideas. Yes, making the world flat might, and only might, strip away the rationale for tribal conflict and gender inequality. But it undoubtedly is the painless, liberal way of describing the way that capital kicks through barriers and establishes its dominance, in the process transforming human-kind into the rational, but uncivilized monster-men of Milton Friedman’s dreams.
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For our first Africa trip we're visiting South Africa and Namibia this September and October. We have a week in Kruger planned, and I'm sure we'll spend time in other SANParks. I'd appreciate recommendations for good butterfly watching sites, especially in the parks. I already have a copy of Woodhall's book.
Joined: Tue Jun 07, 2005 8:47 pm
Location: meandering between senility and menopause FAC Member (2011)
Baja, I wish you well on your trip. The area where I had the most impressive butterfly experience was on the S3, close to Pretorius Kop. That was in January though, so I am not sure if it will help you.
There were hundreds of little yellow butterfies congregating around buffalo dung. It was very beautiful to watch.
Pieter Steyn used to post some lovely butterfly pictures on the forum. I have not seen him around lately. Perhaps you could pm him and ask his advice.
The bird doesn't sing because it has answers, it sings because it has a song.
Joined: Wed Oct 15, 2008 6:42 pm
Location: Waar die enigste slang 'n tuinslang is...Joburg
You'll find butterflies everywhere you go, so I can't really recommend any specific good spots. However, I'll mention a couple of species which should be common in September/October, and this will determine were you look for them. October is a great month for the swordtails (Graphium sp), and in particular the large striped swordtail (G.antheus), and these can be found in massive numbers near any water source where the males congregate en masse to drink fluids and dissolved minerals from the mud. There should also be a good number of whites around (family Pieridae), as these can be found virtually anywhere throughout most of the year. The whites also congregate at mud.
So I would recommend spending a bit of time near the water courses, but flowering bushes will also be worth spending some time at! I did some butterfly surveys for the KNP in March 2009, and all along the roads near the rivers (east of Skukuza), there were litterally hundreds of butterflies. On the days that I didn't have a ranger with me and had to stay in the car, I easily managed to get 30-40 species in almost every stretch of road I drove. So good luck!
"If you can only visit two continents in your lifetime, visit Africa.... TWICE" - R.Elliot
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AerospaceFan From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 18 hours ago) and read 2277 times:
Let's imagine that futurology is a widely accepted field science. I'm not going to explore whether it is or not. Let's just say it is.
The most intimate decisions made by homo sapiens sapiens often relate to who to f*ck, and when to do it. Further, we do so under the cover and the gloss of love, supposedly the most elevated of emotions, particularly pertaining to the love that gives no regard to self.
Comes now, the idea that even the most human, the most personal of emotions, may be reified in some way by mechanical means. And I'm not talking about sex toys.
To cut to the chase, gentlepersons: Humanity, to say nothing of sex, as we know it, will not exist only in its present form in two centuries.
In their work Beyond Humanity: Cyberevolution and Future Minds, evolutionary biologist Gregory Paul and artificial intelligence expert Earl D. Cox put the case for human extinction rather succinctly: “First we suffer, then we die. This is the great human dilemma.” As the extinctionists see it, the problem with human life is not simply suffering and death but the tyranny of desire: “I resent the fact,” says Carnegie Mellon University roboticist Hans Moravec, “that I have these very insistent drives which take an enormous amount of effort to satisfy and are never completely appeased.” Inventor Ray Kurzweil anticipates that by 2019 virtual sex, performed with the aid of various mechanisms providing complete sensory feedback, will be preferred for its ability “to enhance both experience and safety.” But this is clearly only the beginning of the story:
["]Group sex will take on new meaning in that more than one person can simultaneously share the experience of one partner … (perhaps the one virtual body will reflect a consensus of the attempted movements of the multiple partners). A whole audience of people—who may be geographically dispersed—could share one virtual body while engaged in sexual experience with one performer.["]
Mir From United States of America, joined Jan 2004, 19719 posts, RR: 56 Reply 6, posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 17 hours ago) and read 2239 times:
Well, if you really want to wait until 2019 to get some (albeit virtually), be my guest. However, I would offer that the quote below is an indicator that you may find it advantageous to get in the game sooner rather than later:
Quoting AerospaceFan (Thread starter): Further, we do so under the cover and the gloss of love, supposedly the most elevated of emotions, particularly pertaining to the love that gives no regard to self.
Love as "gloss" or "cover"? Methinks you need to get out more.
7 billion, one nation, imagination...it's a beautiful day
Deskflier From Sweden, joined Jan 2007, 537 posts, RR: 0 Reply 16, posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 2154 times:
And why would robots want to "do it" with us? I can see how you could use a computer program in a game console to your pleasure, but why would robots want to have intercourse, or even petting, with frail and stupid humans?
How can anyone not fly, when we live at a time when we can fly?
AerospaceFan From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 17, posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 2147 times:
Quoting Deskflier (Reply 16): And why would robots want to "do it" with us? I can see how you could use a computer program in a game console to your pleasure, but why would robots want to have intercourse, or even petting, with frail and stupid humans?
I think that the premise is that since human beings will initially be cyberneticized, as the process has already been begun through the use of prosthetics, orthotics, and the like, the robots spoken of would essentially be us. The replacement of biological parts would continue along a path toward neural subsitution. Work has already begun toward various analogous ameliorative and other neurological interfaces.
Kurzweil and others have also spoken of the "uploading" of our intelligence to machines in order to prevent us from dying when our bodies fail for reasons of old age.
AerospaceFan From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 19, posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 2132 times:
Quoting Deskflier (Reply 18): As an avid motorcyclist, I don´t give that possibility much thought. It would actually be a nice surprise if old age turns out to be the reason for my death.
I admire you for your courage and dedication.
The article, I think, addresses the desires of those who might think that a nearly complete fusion of man and machine could occur in the intermediate future -- one that, because of its scale, will involve neither you, nor me.
It is virtually certain that none of us currently posting on the Internet, no matter how young, will be alive when the full implications of the futurology I cited become clear.
SlamClick From United States of America, joined Nov 2003, 10062 posts, RR: 71 Reply 20, posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 2112 times:
Every compliment paid to this idea, every argument in support, every opinion to the effect that it is inevitable is inextricably rooted in the concept that the individual self is more important than all other selves combined. Narcissm and self indulgence to triumph over the entire biosphere.
Quoting AerospaceFan (Thread starter): I resent the fact,” says Carnegie Mellon University roboticist Hans Moravec, “that I have these very insistent drives which take an enormous amount of effort to satisfy and are never completely appeased.”
All of these are engineered by evolution (or intelligently designed by a white, blue-eyed God) to advance THE SPECIES. To the species the individual simply does not matter as long as there are lots of individuals. Don't believe that - just have a pet rabbit some time. Rabbits have many offspring because most of them die young.
Now here we are conquering one disease after another and not about to come up with any good ideas about what to do with all the excess human beings overgrazing the planet and everyone, it seems, with a soapbox to stand on now wants to be immortal and is willing to be frozen or become a machine to do it.
Sorry folks but this whole concept is porn. Interactive, but serving porn purposes and, thus, precisely equal in merit to chewing gum. It is a way to pass time.
Happiness is not seeing another trite Ste. Maarten photo all week long.
AerospaceFan From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 21, posted (6 years 4 months 2 weeks 16 hours ago) and read 2108 times:
SlamClick -- excellent points! Very good, indeed.
The question now in my mind is whether the desire for immortality is meritorious. It is certainly interesting in a detached sort of way to be able to see the universe progress in the fullness of time, to see galaxies rise and fall, and to see the fate of all there is. But -- from the standpoint of a single consciousness, a single perceiver? All alone, in the dark? For aeons that pass, one second at a time?
This question of immortality isn't answered by any religion, any more than by science, save as to those that place nirvana at the center. As I understand it, the achievement of same is not that of self, but of a selfless merger into the greatness of the universe. It's certainly an opposite pole from the idea that one must live forever.
As once I must have read: Heaven must be boring, because, there, we are condemned to live.
Quote: Let's imagine that futurology is a widely accepted field of science.
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Obama says he’s taking oath of office in ‘midst of crisis’
Washington Stepping into history, Barack Hussein Obama grasped the reins of power as America’s first black president on Tuesday, declaring the nation must choose “hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord” to overcome the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.
In frigid temperatures, an exuberant crowd of more than a million packed the National Mall and parade route to celebrate Obama’s inauguration in a high-noon ceremony. Waving and cheering in jubilation, they stretched from the inaugural platform at the U.S. Capitol toward the Lincoln Memorial in the distance.
With 11 million Americans out of work and trillions of dollars lost in the stock market’s tumble, Obama emphasized that his biggest challenge is to repair the tattered economy left behind by outgoing President George W. Bush.
“Our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed,” Obama said. “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin the work of remaking America.”
It was a day of high spirits — jarred by sudden concern about the health of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, a legendary Democrat who is suffering from brain cancer. He suffered an apparent seizure at a Senate luncheon in honor of Obama. “This is a joyous time but it’s also a sobering time,” Obama said. “And my prayers are with him and his family and (Kennedy’s wife) Vicki.”
As Kennedy was put into an ambulance, he told Senate colleague Chris Dodd, D-Conn., “I’ll be OK, I’ll see you later,” according to Dodd.
Obama wove a thread of personal responsibility and accountability through his inaugural address. He spoke of a “new era of responsibility” and alluded to the inability — or unwillingness — of Americans to adjust to the passing of an industrial-based economy. “Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age,” he said.
After four hours of pomp and ceremony at the Capitol, Obama and his wife, Michelle, rode in a tall, heavily armored Cadillac limousine along the 1.5 mile parade route to the White House. There was a heavy police and military presence along the way, and thousands of onlookers waving from the side.
Two years after beginning his improbable quest as a little-known, first-term Illinois senator with a foreign-sounding name, Obama moved into the Oval Office as the nation’s fourth-youngest president, at 47, and the first African-American, a barrier-breaking achievement believed impossible by generations of minorities.
He said it was a moment to recall “that all are equal, all are free and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.” In another racial reference, he paid tribute to workers in the past who “endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.”
Obama’s election was cheered around the world as a sign that America will be more embracing, more open to change. “To the Muslim world,” Obama said, “we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”
Still, he bluntly warned, “To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society’s ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”
“To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist,” Obama said in his address, which ran 18 1/2 minutes.
A mighty chorus of cheers erupted as he stepped to the inaugural platform, a midday sun warming the crowd that had waited for hours in the cold. There were some boos when Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney came onto the platform.
The dawn of the new Democratic era — with Obama allies in charge of both houses of Congress — ends eight years of Republican control of the White House by Bush, who leaves Washington as one of the nation’s most unpopular and divisive presidents, the architect of two unfinished wars and the man in charge at a time of economic calamity that swept away many Americans’ jobs, savings and homes.
Obama called for a political truce in Washington to end “the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
He said that all Americans have roles in rebuilding the nation by renewing the traditions of hard work, honesty and fair play, tolerance, loyalty and patriotism.
With the economy in a long and deepening recession, Obama said it was time for swift and bold action to create new jobs and lay a foundation for growth. Congressional Democrats have readied an $825 billion stimulus plan of tax cuts and spending for roads, bridges, schools, electric grids and other projects.
Contradicting the objections of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to big government, Obama said, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works.”
After the ceremony, Obama and his wife escorted Bush and his wife to a helicopter on the East Front of the Capitol for the trip to nearby Andrews Air Force Base and a flight back home to Texas.
In his remarks, Obama took stock of the nation’s sobering problems.
“That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood,” he said.
“Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened. ... Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.”
Outlining goals abroad and putting foes on notice, he declared:
“We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken. You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”
It was the first change of administrations since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush — following tradition — left a note for Obama in the top drawer of his desk in the Oval Office.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said the theme of the message — which Bush wrote on Monday — was similar to what he has said since election night: that Obama is about to begin a “fabulous new chapter” in the United States, and that he wishes him well.
The unfinished business of the Bush administration thrusts an enormous burden onto the new administration, though polls show Americans are confident Obama is on track to succeed. He has cautioned that improvements will take time and that things will get worse before they get better.
Culminating four days of celebration, the nation’s 56th inauguration day began for Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden with a traditional morning worship service at St. John’s Episcopal Church, across Lafayette Park from the White House. Bells pealed from the historic church’s tower as Obama and his wife, Michelle, arrived five minutes behind schedule.
The festivities weren’t ending until well after midnight, with dancing and partying at 10 inaugural balls.
By custom, Obama and his wife, and Biden and his wife, Jill, went directly from church to the White House for coffee with Bush and his wife, Laura. Michelle Obama brought a gift for the outgoing first lady in a white box decorated with a red ribbon.
Shortly before 11 a.m., Obama and Bush climbed into a limousine to share a ride to the Capitol for the transfer of power, an event flashed around the world in television and radio broadcasts, podcasts and Internet streaming.
Just after noon, Obama stepped forward on the West Front of the Capitol to lay his left hand on the same Bible that President Abraham Lincoln used at his first inauguration in 1861. The 35-word oath of office, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts, has been uttered by every president since George Washington. Obama was one of 22 Democratic senators to vote against Roberts’ confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2005.
The son of a white, Kansas-born mother and a black, Kenya-born father, Obama decided to use his full name in the swearing-in ceremony.
To the dismay of liberals, Obama invited conservative evangelical pastor Rick Warren — an opponent of gay rights — to give the inaugural invocation.
About a dozen members of Obama’s Cabinet and top appointees were ready for Senate confirmation Tuesday, provided no objections were raised. But Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas indicated he would block a move to immediately confirm Secretary of State-designate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Still, she is expected to be approved in a roll call vote Wednesday.
More than 10,000 people from all 50 states — including bands and military units — were assembled to follow Obama and Biden from the Capitol on the 1.5-mile inaugural parade route on Pennsylvania Avenue, concluding at a bulletproof reviewing stand in front of the White House. Security was unprecedented. Most bridges into Washington and about 3.5 square miles of downtown were closed.
Among the VIPs at the Capitol was pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, the hero of last week’s US Airways crash into the Hudson River.
In an appeal for bipartisanship, Obama honored defeated Republican presidential rival John McCain at a dinner Monday night. “There are few Americans who understand this need for common purpose and common effort better than John McCain,” Obama said.
Young and untested, Obama is a man of enormous confidence and electrifying oratorical skills. Hopes for Obama are extremely high, suggesting that Americans are willing to give him a long honeymoon to strengthen the economy and lift the financial gloom.
On Wednesday, his first working day in office, Obama is expected to redeem his campaign promise to begin the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq under a 16-month timetable. Aides said he would summon the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Oval Office and order that the pullout commence.
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Report: U.S. housing stock ready for improvement
After languishing for several years, the U.S. remodeling industry appears to be pulling out of its downturn and a renewal of the nation’s housing stock is under way, according to a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
Foreclosed properties are being rehabilitated, sustainable home improvements are gaining popularity, older homeowners are retrofitting their homes to accommodate their evolving needs, and the future market potential is immense, as the emerging echo boom generation is projected to be the largest in our nation’s history, according to the report.
“As baby boomers move into retirement, they are increasing demand for aging-in-place retrofits,” Remodeling Futures Program director Kermit Baker said in a statement. “A decade ago, homeowners over 55 accounted for less than one-third of all home improvement spending. By 2011, this share had already grown to over 45 percent. And generations behind the baby boomers will help fuel future spending growth since echo boomers are projected to outnumber baby boomers by more than 12 million as they begin to enter their peak remodeling years over the next decade.”
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The Rev. Jesse Jackson is visiting Aurora to meet with theater shooting victims and renew his call for a ban on assault weapons.
Jackson visited the apartment building of James Holmes, who is accused in the mass shooting, and said Thursday it shouldn’t be legal for someone to be able to arm himself more heavily than police.
Jackson planned to meet privately with a victim’s family and to visit a memorial outside the theater where 12 people were killed July 20.
Jackson dismissed arguments that debating gun control wrongly makes the tragedy political. He says it’s time to go from “mourning to marching” to address gun violence.
He says even people legally carrying concealed weapons wouldn’t have a chance against a shooter armed with a semi-automatic weapon
article courtesy of TheBelleRepoet.com
Help PraisePhilly Get To 50, 000 Likes On Facebook!
Originally seen on http://praisecleveland.com/
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Property and management of Portuguese families, the Heritage Lisbon Hotels are installed in old houses and small historic buildings in the historic center.
The Heritage Lisbon Hotels were created with the idea of promoting charming hotels that reflect Portugal's and Lisbon's tradition and culture as in a friend's home in Lisbon.
These small hotel units offer an intimate and welcoming environment . A special balance has been struck between local traditions and modern-day requirements thus creating an alternative to large luxury hotels.
The hotels' location in Lisbon's historic center facilitates immediate contact with the most genuine aspects of the city, ranging from its monuments to the local lifestyle.
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HOMESTEAD, Fla. — Two months after Hurricane Andrew twisted this city and much of the surrounding area into the ruins of what is called the worst natural disaster ever to strike the United States, the patient is on the mend.
Electrical power has been almost completely restored, about 30% of businesses are open and, with the tents and field kitchens gone, the park across from City Hall could soon see a baseball game again.
City Manager Alex Muxo said: "The demand for housing is so great that property values have even gone up by 5% to 7%."
Still, Muxo is the first to admit that in Homestead, as in much of southern Dade County, the nightmare lingers. In bombed-out neighborhoods, in former trailer parks now bulldozed clear of rubble and in schools still sharing space with Red Cross clinics and food distribution centers, life is far from what it was before Aug. 24 and two hours of 175-m.p.h. winds.
A 10 p.m. curfew remains in effect and, without street lights, vast areas that once bustled with life have taken on an eerie, haunted look that will last well beyond Halloween.
In Homestead, 85% of the homes were either destroyed or severely damaged, and two out of every three residents are gone, many for good. The current population is estimated to be 9,000, down from 27,000.
"Obviously, it's never going to look like it did before," Muxo said. "Remember, we had no water, no electricity and no food--the essentials. It was frustrating, disheartening, but it was reality: We became a Third World country overnight.
"Now at least people aren't hungry; there's plenty of help out there."
Nonetheless, there is often an air of uncertainty that seems to drift through the minds of hurricane survivors like so much smoke from one of the many open debris incineration pits. Even longtime civic boosters feel it.
"There is some lack of confidence, and it ranges into despair," said Ray Goode, president of We Will Rebuild, a coalition of community powerbrokers that has raised $20 million to spur reconstruction and help strained social service agencies. "We have a job creating optimism."
The magnitude of the hurricane's destruction almost defies measurement. Last week, insurance companies bumped their estimate of damage claims to a world record $10.2 billion, up 40% from earlier figures. Throughout the county, 175,000 people were left homeless. Lost jobs totaled 90,000.
According to county planners, the area faces a painstaking, two-tiered recovery, with south Dade an economic basket case. Overall, employment is expected to rebound in three years. But the number of jobs won't climb to pre-storm levels until well into the 21st Century.
Major employers such as Burger King and American Bankers Insurance Group suffered heavy storm damage to their corporate headquarters, and operations have been temporarily moved elsewhere.
With its 160 stores, the Cutler Ridge Mall was the commercial center of south Dade County. It remains closed, and while the Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. has promised to reopen, shopping before this Christmas seems unlikely.
Other losses cannot be quantified. "We're seeing a lot of delayed stress reactions now," said psychologist Darrell Downs, clinical director of south Dade's Community Mental Health Center, which deals with up to 45 crisis cases a day. "People are finally letting go of the survival mode they were in and falling into depression. To many, it just seems like it will never end."
All but a handful of the more than 24,000 U.S. troops have pulled out of the area, most traffic signals are operating and, with grocery stores open, people are no longer standing forlornly in long, shadeless queues for boxes of canned goods. The temperature has dropped, and even the mosquitoes have abated.
But it is not necessary to travel far from the now-cleared streets of downtown Homestead to find storm survivors living in conditions that resemble horrific scenes from post-nuclear holocaust movies.
For example, scattered through the community called Naranja Lakes--a once-pleasant subdivision that used to be home to 4,000 people--perhaps 100 survivors are holed up in the remains of a trash-strewn ghost town. Three of the 17 deaths attributed directly to the storm happened here.
"This is like being on a camping trip with a tent that leaks," said Ira Shear, 79, who with his wife, Shirley, is the sole occupant of Court 68, a block of 10 units. The the wind whistles through the exposed rafters, plaster drips from the ceiling with the rain and eight cats step lightly over the broken glass as they come and go through the shattered front window.
"We stay because there is no place to rent within 20 miles, and we couldn't afford it anyway," he said.
Half a mile away, Troy Curry, 19, his girlfriend, Missy Tkaczuk, 15, and six other young people live in a state of "Blade Runner" future shock amid the debris of Court 56. There is no electricity, and the walls are crumbling.
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So far, I’ve not written about the "lost" next-generation iPhone story. I’ve been a fascinated lurker in this case, and I have very mixed feelings about it all.
An Apple engineer named Gray Powell, who was reportedly one of many employees allowed to test the next-generation iPhone outside the company’s secretive walls, apparently left his phone on a barstool in a Redwood City, Calif., bar one evening. The phone was found by persons unknown, who initially attempted to contact Apple through its tech support phone lines without success.
These people then apparently contacted both Engadget and Gizmodo, two top gadget blogs. Engadget wound up posting photos of the phone, while Gizmodo wound up with the phone itself, admittedly shelling out $5,000 for the privilege. Gizmodo did give the phone back to Apple, but only after making the company formally request its return.
On Friday, members of a special California computer crime task force served a search warrant at the home of Gizmodo reporter Jason Chen, who wrote the main story. The officers removed computers and other materials from his home. Executives from Gawker, which owns Gizmodo, are saying it was a violation of California’s shield law, and that the warrant was improper. Police are taking that under consideration, according to one report.
So why do I have mixed feelings about this? Gizmodo’s story was a terrific scoop, but it may have been obtained by unethical and possibly even illegal means. The "lost" iPhone may be considered stolen under California law, and in that case, Gizmodo may have purchased stolen property.
As a journalist, I think shield laws are important for protecting sources. And yes, I consider bloggers who actively report and provide information to the public on a regular basis to be practicing journalism. But California’s shield law, which is part of its Constitution, is designed to protect the sources of journalists – it’s not blanket immunity for crimes committed by journalists. If the legal system determines that Gizmodo broke laws by its purchase of the "lost" iPhone, that action isn’t protected.
And several people have asked me what I would have done, had I been approached by the people who "found" the next-gen iPhone. I certainly would not have paid for it, and I would have encourage the finders to return the phone to its owner, which apparently is Apple.
So, what do YOU think? I’m interested in seeing what the TechBlog community has to say about this case. Please leave a comment.
Update: The Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal is reporting that the police investigation was triggered by Apple’s report of a theft.
[San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve] Wagstaffe said that an outside counsel for Apple, along with Apple engineer Powell, called the District Attorney’s office on Wednesday or Thursday of last week to report a theft had occurred and they wanted it investigated. The District Attorney’s office then referred them to the Rapid Enforcement and Allied Computer Team, or REACT, a multi-jurisdictional, high-tech crime task force that operates under the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office.
Note that REACT works with a steering committee made up of high-tech companies in the SiliValley area, including Apple.
The same story also says police have identified and talked to the person who found the lost iPhone.
Investigators said they have identified and interviewed the person who took the phone from the Gourmet Haus Staudt on March 18 after it was left there by Apple engineer Gray Powell following a birthday celebration.
Officials were unable to tell the Business Journal whether that person, whose name has not been released, was the same person who eventually sold the phone to tech Web site Gizmodo.com. . . .
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It has been four years since the federal government announced a strategy to reform the RCMP, but the news Canadians are hearing out of headquarters is that the heavy lifting hasn’t even begun. Don’t blame the RCMP for that. Blame its political masters.
The fact that the Prime Minister and his buddies swagger like frontier sheriffs, jawing about the need for law and order, makes it all the more strange that they are starving Canada’s national police service of the infrastructure and resources needed to enforce the law.
Let’s start with money. Every report published over the last decade on the need for RCMP reform has been blunt about the fact that the RCMP is understaffed, that too many officers are burning out and that the Canadian public is never going to get the policing it deserves without a significant funding increase.
The latest report, released last month, was co-authored by Linda Duxbury, a Carleton University business professor who has been studying the RCMP for years. It concludes that personnel shortages and onerous off-duty responsibilities, in conjunction with an intolerant corporate structure, are destroying the family lives of police officers across the country.
That shouldn’t be news. The Senate committee on national security and defence concluded a couple of years ago that the RCMP needs another 5,000 personnel to perform the roles that politicians keep piling on. David McAusland, who was chair of the RCMP Reform Implementation Council, pointed out repeatedly in his reports that the RCMP reform process wasn’t going anywhere unless the government came up with a bundle of cash.
Instead, the government is subtracting rather than adding. The RCMP is going to undergo the same kind of cutbacks that other government departments are currently being subjected to.
How a law-and-order government determined that cutting back on its national police service — while expanding that service’s responsibilities — fit within its ideological drive to shrink government is beyond me. Ditto for shrinking police capacity while spending $8-billion to expand prisons.
Even before the cutbacks come into play, RCMP attrition appears to be outstripping recruitment. The RCMP expects to recruit 736 members a year for the next three years. Unfortunately, one estimate has it that the service will lose close to 1,000 members a year over the same period.
Obviously, the resources just aren’t available to deal with the kind of stress that Duxbury and her colleagues have documented. In 2010, the RCMP decided to go ahead with a pilot project modelled after a Canadian Forces program — Operational Stress Injury Social Support (OSISS). That program helps rehabilitate soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Dr. Greg Passey of the British Columbia Stress Injury Clinic has been quoted as saying that more police officers suffer from PTSD than do soldiers.
Guess what? The RCMP has announced that it has cancelled its plans for the pilot project, arguing that it “has in place policies and programs that promote a healthy and safe work environment.” Really? That’s certainly not the kind of environment we’ve been hearing about in the headlines. No money available — that’s my guess.
Money isn’t the only problem. Report after report has called for structural reform that would remove the RCMP from the bureaucratic maze in Ottawa while at the same time subjecting it to independent civilian review to assure the public that officers are under control.
Last month, both RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson and his British Columbia deputy, Craig Callens, publicly begged for the power to fire rogue officers with cause, or to at least suspend them without pay. But because the RCMP is treated as just one more department in the federal bureaucracy, officers with blatant misconduct records get paid to hang around forever.
Bureaucrats who know nothing about policing pull the strings on how the nation’s police service deploys its resources and manages and disciplines its employees. Expert after expert has recommended that the RCMP become a separate employer from the government, to no avail.
Neither internal nor external complaints against rogue officers tend to get them fired, because the Commission of Public Complaints Against the RCMP is toothless. Instead of strengthening this commission or setting up a new independent civilian review body, the government fired the CPC’s last commissioner for telling the truth about his office’s impotence. As Helene Desabrais (a former RCMP officer who quit after repeated harassment), remarked last month, “As long as the RCMP is investigating itself, nothing will ever change.”
The class action suits that are starting to mushroom paint a picture of a police service that is riddled with unfairness, particularly toward women and minorities.
Expand the prisons. Shrink the police. Fail to act on needed reforms. There’s a formula for justice that’s bound to baffle the civilized world.
Colin Kenny is former chair of the Senate committee on national security and defence.
Do you have an opinion to share with other readers? Then send us a letter.
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Learning to Cook, HELP!
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Cheryl - posted on 08/23/2011
I agree with Mimi, Crock pot will be your best friend and they are so affordable.The internet is a wealth of recipes. Nice thing too is you can take a cheaper cut of meat and after it cooks all day it is moist and tender.
Michele - posted on 08/14/2011
yes allrecipies.com and cooks .com are good I am a Chef, Do not be afraid to cook just follow the recipes and soon you will be making things with out them and trying new things and learning as you cook to figure out what flavors go with each other. Good luck and have fun
Sandi - posted on 08/14/2011
I found my cooking speed and skill really improved when I learned how to use knives properly. A sharp knife is essential, it keeps it from slipping off the item you're slicing and cutting YOU. I should start posting videos, I'm fanatic about proper knives!
Lorena - posted on 07/28/2011
A box of Penne Pasta, a jar of Ragu Cheesy Alfredo Sauce and a little Lawry's Seasoning and you have Alfredo!! So easy and so inexpensive!! I've also added cubed chicken, diced mushrooms(kids didn't even realize what they were eating), and bell peppers!! Hope your family enjoys!!:)
Lorena - posted on 07/28/2011
For an easy and super quick meal, I take a box of penne pasta(1.00), cook and drain it, then a jar of Ragu Cheesy Alfredo Sauce and some Lawry's seasoning. My family LOVES it!! Plus it is so inexpensive!! You can also add cubed chicken, bell peppers, mushrooms!! Hope your family enjoys!!:)
Kristin - posted on 07/24/2011
Check out my blog! cuisinedekristin.blogspot.com. My recipes are all really easy and have only a few ingredients. You can scroll through by date or use the search button for a certain ingredient (ex: chicken or pasta). Also, allrecipes.com is a good site.
Alison - posted on 07/21/2011
Delish.com is a good site to find some simple but yet delicious recipes. But like alot of the ladies were suggesting find some simple things to start with. I subscribe to Better Homes and Gardens, along with Southern Living. As I have progressed through my cooking career I've done alot of experimenting. Start small and before you know it you'll be finding out what types of herbs and spices go with which dish. Coming from a cook in training to be a chef...: )
Tamara - posted on 07/21/2011
I have found many great recipes on www.allrecipes.com. I One idea I have for spring/summer time when everyone likes to grill is to grill multiple kinds and packages of meat. For example, I'll marinate chicken (breasts and tenders) in Italian dressing for 24+ hours and then grill that, burgers, hot dogs, Italian sausage and/or anything else we've gotten for the grill. We then have enough meat to eat on for several days, and you can eat something different each day. All you have to do is add your favorite sides, and in summertime, baked fries and a salad or fruit are simple and yummy. We grill like this on the weekends mostly so that we have quick food if we're on the run or coming in from church and kids are starving. You can then take the chicken and cut up over salads or chop up left over burgers and put in spaghetti sauce.
Alison - posted on 07/18/2011
No-Peek Stew: 1 1/2 lbs raw stew meat (already cut up), 1 envelope Lipton onion soup, 4 medium potatoes peeled and dice, 1 baby baby carrots cut in half, 1 can green beans with juice, 1 can cream of mushroom soup. Layer 1st five ingredients in order, then pour soup over top. Put lid on and bake for 4 hours at 325 degrees F. Great to get ready and put in after lunch, before church etc.
Callie - posted on 07/16/2011
Well most of the time i improvise will cooking, and it turns out great most of the time, and plus my husband is Liberian and we eat alot of his national food and i learn mostly from him, and its not as hard as it may taste.
Charleen - posted on 07/14/2011
easy easy dish it is called pancit. It is a filipino noodle dish. This is how you do it. Cook chicken in a pan very little oil cut it into cubes set aside. add a little more oil and fry up some veggies (onions carrot cabbage and corn or peas green beans) make sure you have the cabbage and carrot and onions the other is optional. then get some top ramen noodles or rice noodles or spaghetti noodles( usually made with rice noodles ) and then add them all together with minced garlic and then add about a 1/2 cup soy sauce or to taste then serve
Tiffany - posted on 07/12/2011
I know it's summer, but soup is something anyone can make (gazpacho, ginger-carrot and cucumber soups are good in summer) and the great thing about it is you can't screw it up and can customize it to your preferences. Smoothies, salads, stir-frys are also basics to start on without need for a recipe (except maybe find a great dressing and a go to sauce for your stir-fry). Remeber, a salad doesn't have to be iceberg lettuse and carrots. You can use different grains (quiona, couscous and wild rice are all good choices), fruits, proteins (i like beans), and veggies (love to add grilled or pan fried veggies to a bed of fresh dark leafy greens). Panzenela salads are great summer fare too. Slice up some tomatos. Drizzle some olive oil and spike it with garlic. Bake it up. Add some day old bread and diced cucumbers a little sherry vinegar, sea salt and pepper and there you go! You can go Mexican by adding avacados, salsa, black beans, and grilled or pan fried peppers to your salad. You can go Mediteranian by adding any of the following: lentils, chickpeas, prepared tabouli, couscous and hummus or lemon tahini as your drssing. Just have fun with it. If you by jarred tomato sauce you can add pureed or grilled veggies and proten to your pasta/sauce.
Shannon - posted on 07/09/2011
You can find recipes anywhere online, even local grocery store websites. I first started cooking when i got a Land o lakes cook book. but to find recipes think of some of your favorite or most often purchased brands at the store like pillsbury, kraft or velveta.
Constance - posted on 07/08/2011
Try sites like www.foodnetwork.com Thousands of recipes and step by step videos. Look for recipes from Paula Deen, Racheal Ray, 5 ingriedent fix. Tons and tons of information.
Also if you looked around your area you can usually find cooking classes.
Jane - posted on 07/08/2011
Go find a step-by-step cook book with lots of pictures - that way you can learn what various terms mean and how to do certain procedures. Once you have that down, then you can start collecting recipes or using online sources such as Allrecipes.com or epicurious.com.
Alternatively, if you have a friend or relative who is a good cook, perhaps ask them to come help you cook as an informal cooking class. The reward, of course, is a good meal.
Brittany - posted on 07/08/2011
To figure out how to make my own pasta sauce I would buy the jared sauce that I really liked. I would taste it and try to figure out what I liked about it and what I thought it needed. Eventually I found that I didn't need the jar at all, I could get a can of tomatoes and make a sauce. I found that I like mine with lots of fennel seeds and garlic. I use dried basil, but fresh is better (really wish I could find a basil plant). I also found that I didn't like the sugar in my sauce (unless I'm making pizza then it's only 1/4-1/2 tsp depending on how much I'm making).
Mimi - posted on 07/08/2011
Learn to love the crock pot, its the easiest thing in the world. Throw a roast in for 5-6 hours on low then shred and mix with bbq sauce and a little vinegar you've got bbq sandwichs. Or cook the roast the same way with potatos,carrots onions and celery. You can make vegetable beef soup in the winter in it. Throw in chunks of steak,vegetables 1 small can of beef broth and 1 small can of tomato soup.
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In a move that has sent shockwaves of disbelief throughout the "fair trade" industry worldwide, Fair Trade USA (until recently TransFair USA), is separating from FLO (Fairtrade Licensing Organization) and the Fairtrade International movement.
The primary reason (the actual decision-making process was done behind closed doors and FTUSA does not feel "comfortable" releasing the names of those involved in the process: So much for transparency!) for the schism appears to be a disagreement over the inclusion of hired labor organizations (i.e., estates and individual farms) in the coffee industry into the fair trade souk.
At the moment, all of the producer entities who have Fairtrade certification - in coffee - are SPOs (small producer organizations). There are other products that already allow estates that use hired labor to "enjoy the benefits" of Fairtrade certification - bananas is one (cocoa is not, for now, included in FTUSA's push to embrace hired labor organizations). FLO/FI does not want to extend certification to hired labor organizations in coffee; FTUSA does. FTUSA's rubric for their new movement is "Fair Trade for All."
Who could possibly object to "Fair Trade for All?" But, of course, there are those who do. [My opinion is that the fairtrade business model is fundamentally flawed and there are better ways to achieve address systemic issues than the premium "aid" model, which, in practice, acts to extend Western economic imperialism.] There are arguments on both sides ... that are convincing to the supporters of their respective positions. In the end, no-one knows what the schism will mean in practice, either for their respective movements for consumers, or producers. But I have a sinking feeling that I know who will lose out: the very people whom "Fair" trade is supposed to help.
I have one more prediction - and I would like to hear the thoughts of members of TheChocolateLife community about the split.
My sense is that this can only be confusing to consumers who will now have to understand and recognize the differences between FTUSA certification and FLO certification. FTUSA has to come up with an entirely new logo and convince their current sub-licensees to switch to the new system. Products with the FLO symbol will continue to be imported into the US and there is every likelihood that an "official" FLO organization will arise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of this (unfortunate but ultimately fated) implosion.
Perhaps most unfortunately is that monies that should be going to help people who need the help (growers and producers) will now be going to designers, printers, and PR and marketing firms to educate the buying public on the need for the change, to (try) to reduce the confusion in the marketplace, and to convince people that the new logo can be trusted.
Once again I ask: "How is this 'fair?'" In the end, the millions and millions of dollars that will be spent on this will be ill-spent; a testament to massive organizational hubris and naught else. Who will benefit most in the end? FTUSA and ad agency/PR executives who sit in air-conditioned offices and drive around the San Francisco Bay area in "PC/environmentally friendly" cars pulling down hefty six-figure salaries.
Not subsistence farmers who do not (and cannot) earn a living from the fruits of their labor.
It's part of the bigger picture where any organisation can get only so big before it doesn't 'serve' it's original intended purpose anymore...we have to trust in the power of the people to organise themselves (like the Chocolate Life community) and other small farm co-operatives...and through word-of-mouth communication, we help each other to succeed despite corporations and organisations that got too big to be any good. Power to the People through grassroots movements!
I was substituting in a high school in NYC today and one of the classes was working on this exact issue. Each student was looking at FTUSA, FLO and other related issues. Each student had a different commodity and I didn't realize that there is fair trade rice and other products not produced for export on a small scale. I was discussing the SPO oranizations I am familiar with as at applies to coffee and cacao without even knowing it. I will share this information with the teacher. Thank you Clay.
You're right, it is a very sad story and this should have been avoided. I think it mainly has to do with too big ego's forgetting what it was all about. Fair Trade as a movement was started to offer small scale farmers access to the international markets in order to be able to export their produce to the market, avoiding intermediation and thus obtaining a better price. A lot has changed and power-play came into it. Worker rights are in a way protected by law in many countries, espcially on those estates that are interested in the Fair Trade logo, so what is the benefit?
Would be interesting to see how this would work out for cocoa estates...
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Writing Norman Mailer's obituary is something like writing the obituaries of five or six very different people all at once. He began his long career with a bulky, partly autobiographical novel about World War II. That book, "The Naked and the Dead" made him famous in 1948—he was 25—and after that he was never not bathed in celebrity's spotlight. The novels kept coming ("Barbary Shore," "The Deer Park"). So did the essays, the plays, the movies, the nonfiction novels and the prizes that come to a writer who is—and there truly is no point debating this now, is there?—one of the very greatest authors of his time.
Of course, American writers do not claim the spotlight merely for being writers, at least not for long, and the contents of Mailer's fame was a dog's breakfast. He was famous for slugging Gore Vidal, famous for stabbing his second wife Adele Morales (one of his wives—he had six), famous for negotiating the release from prison of a man named Jack Henry Abbott who hardly breathed the air of freedom before he had killed another man. The salient point here is that while Mailer eventually became famous merely for being famous—the most damaging kind of fame—it never derailed him. He barreled on, writing on every conceivable subject (Gary Gilmore, Lee Harvey Oswald, Jesus Christ, Marilyn Monroe, Adolf Hitler) and in every conceivable genre, from noir potboiler to historical epic. The writing was sometimes beautiful, sometimes abysmal—often on the same page. But it was never predictable or tedious. And he never stopped trying. At his death—Friday, Nov. 9, acute renal failure, Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City, at age 84—he was working on a sequel to his last novel, "The Castle in the Forest," a fictional account of the young Hitler, while his most recent work, "On God," a collection of dialogues on religion, had barely arrived in book stores.
Suffice it to say that no writer—hell, nobody—was ever more ambitious: he once ran for mayor of New York on a ticket whose slogan was: "Vote the Rascals In." Certainly no writer ever tested the limits of outsized ambition more often than Mailer did. To be ambitious in this way means that one must be willing to fall on one's face, and from a very great height, and Mailer's literary stumbles are a matter of record. He was no Flaubert, grinding away at the perfect book. He went at a subject, whether it was graffiti or the CIA, said what he could as best he knew how, and moved on. It was a mark of his mercurial intelligence that he could manage to be interesting even when he was spouting nonsense.
A reader, even an ardent fan, eventually chose one Mailer among the many to cherish. There are still people—all right, men—who will buttonhole you late at night when the bar is about to close and preach the glories of "The Naked and the Dead" as the greatest war novel ever written. "Ancient Evenings," his mammoth novel of ancient Egypt, likewise has its diehard fans. So does "Why Are We in Vietnam?," a novel that not once, past the title, mentions Vietnam. But finally-and the temptation to play the fair-minded, evenhanded critic is here almost overpowering, when really it's just preference talking—there is no getting around his two most magnificent works of nonfiction: "The Armies of the Night" and "The Executioner's Song," two works on which the Pulitzer committee got it dead right when it came time to hand out awards.
Willie Morris got fired, at least in part, because as editor of Harper's, he devoted one entire issue to "The Armies of the Night," Mailer's account of the 1967 march on the Pentagon. Time has proved that Morris knew exactly what he was doing. Writing in the third person, Mailer thrust himself into the story. We are constantly aware of him in the midst of everything that transpires. And yet, we are perfectly aware, because as self-involved as he was, he was also tuning-fork sensitive to everything going on around him. The book is an emotional and intellectual journey to the heart of the '60s, with everything that was good and bad about that time trapped like lucent amber right there before you on the page.
"Armies of the Night" was a baroque masterpiece, a word man's lush holiday. "The Executioner's Song," Mailer's massive account of the life and death of convicted murderer Gary Gilmore, is that early book's counterweight: quiet, almost sedate, magisterial. You have the feeling, on page after page, that the people in this story are doing the telling, that there is no narrator, no guiding intelligence that sees it all whole. For pages at a time, Mailer vanishes. Or so it seems while you're reading. Only in recollection does the sum of his achievement become clear, because nothing with this kind of inexorable velocity happens by chance.
Somehow, Mailer manages in this book to perfectly attune his writing to the thoughts and sensations of the characters he is writing about: he is their channeler, as in this passage right after Gary gets out of prison at the beginning of the book: "In the mountains, the snow was iron gray and purple in the hollows, and glowed like gold on every slope that faced the sun. The clouds over the mountains were lifting with the light. Brenda took a good look into his eyes and felt full of sadness again. His eyes had the expression of rabbits she had flushed, scared-rabbit was the common expression, but she had looked into those eyes of scared rabbits and they were calm and tender and kind of curious. They did not know what would happen next."
So there is no summing up Mailer. There is only contending with him, with what he wrote, the bad and the beautiful and everything in between. He would have had it no other way—you're paying attention to me, right? You can almost hear him laugh. He delighted in contradiction, but really he couldn't help it. It was his genius: to take chances, to change selves, to shuck one identity for another. Every time you thought you had him pegged, he popped out of another hole. There was just no telling. He was brave, he was bold … and he did the crossword puzzle every morning-in pencil. Go figure. But give him the last word on that, on everything, really, from the forward he wrote to an anthology of his own work: "There are only three words to cover this equation: nobody is perfect."
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Take a Close Look Your Home’s Electrical and Wiring
When we think about renovating a home we tend to think about the “fun stuff.” We spend hours finding the perfect paint color, matching carpets with tile, fixtures with cabinetry. All of this is cosmetic, and is important because the renovation reflects our personal tastes. Yet while changing that dull pink guest room to a bold shade of teal, consider taking a look at how many electrical outlets are available, and where they are placed.
Master bedrooms are notoriously overlooked. Ideally, the master bedroom should have at least one outlet on either side of the bed. Too often bedmates end up sharing one that is dead center behind the headboard, and not at all convenient to reach. Master bathrooms need “his and hers outlets” along with plenty of counter space to hold the appliances and their cords. Placing these items in the sink is never a good idea. Kitchen islands are a wonderful way to add workspace to your kitchen, but make sure they are wired. You have to have some place to plug in the food processor or coffee pot.
Heat registers are another issue. Ideally there should be at least one per room. Large rooms should have more to distribute the heat quickly and evenly. If you have a vaulted ceiling, it should have a ceiling fan. Remote controls are a big plus. Entertainment centres are a big draw, so wiring the front room and maybe one or two more with cat-5 cable is a great idea. No need to wire the entire house because of wireless Internet service.
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I am pretty sure that all of you have heard the term Performance Tuning and some of you have actively worked on tuning your applications to make it faster and scalable. Unfortunately or fortunately I had opportunities to work on projects where stabilizing and improving the scalability of the application was our primary goal.
- During planning stage- including all performance requirements for an application is as important as including user Login/Authentication requirements. Still we forget it; as NFRs (non functional requirements) are treated as a second class candidate at the inceptions phase and at the end they cause huge damage. We should allocate % of total time to all NFR items and total cost should also include them. Having an SLA on performance requirements for every application you build always helps.
- Early and Continuous – There are cases where EARLY testing of the application from end to end becomes almost impossible as the different modules or external services are on dev and could not be integrated. This can be overcome by putting the contact first and interface base development in place and getting the the entire application skeleton ready and running with stubbed out services etc. This will allow us to do early end-2-end testing and find out problems in chosen infrastructure and communication protocols. Set up the load test environment as early as possible and continue doing that until the application is deprecated.
- Load testing- Simulating the production load before actually turning the application ON is a must do. There are functional tools available to automate and perform these AND you know what, in one of my past projects we had a httpClient written on our own that spawned multiple threads and requested different services from the system simultaneously. It was not complete but it was a trust worthy tool at that point of time. So use anything, but do it. Schedule these test to run periodically so that any performance problem can be noticed as it comes up.
- Analyze and Profile-To identify problem area(s) we need to do some analysis and profiling. In my previous projects we used to
- take JVM Thread dump time to time and analyze.
- use profiling toold to find out any possible problem and fix it. One must do item is measuring the execution time for service methods by logging delta of method exit and entry time, irrespective of having a profiling tool in place.
- check memory usage pattern in the TEST/STAGING servers specially look for GC statistic
- One thing at a time- depending on the results from analysis and profiling or just out of your experience; changes should be made in step wise fashion so that we can find out how much throughput we gain out of a change. This metric will be useful for any future decision making.
- In SWAT mode-this is more of a common scenario. In most of the cases you will be asked to fix performance problems after implementation or deployment. So, be calm when you are in a that kind of a situation. I would recommend you to do the following:
- Setting the expectation and chalking out a quick action plan is very important. So that everyone knows what are the different things we are going to do and when should they expect to hear results out of it. Believe me, it is important because in this stage you will be under the radar and all Big Bs expect something to hear from you or the group.
- Prepare a quick note of all application server and database server configuration parameters like (allocated memory, min and max heap size, max DB connection pool, etc.)
- Get a Thread dump and analyze it.
- Identify possible problem areas and start applying fix in following order (it’s not a rigid rule though).
- If you think there are server configuration param issues then you can win big with small changes, so go ahead a do it
- If you think its more of a hardware issue and the app needs more hardware support than software then raise that concern.
- If above are not the case then you must have Load testing planned on your TEST environment. So that you can test any change you make in code before actually going to production.
- Freeze all code – don’t deploy any new feature at this stage.
- If there are resource utilization issues, deadlock, contention, etc. and you need to make change in the code then do it in a very tight and well monitored way. Don’t forget to run regression test after any change, as we should not break any functionality while improving performance.
- Deploy and load test in TEST environment.
- If satisfied then move to production.
- You might need quite a few fix-test-deploy cycle to get to a desired point.
- Bottom line is there is no Cure All type of solution for it. Depending on your performance requirements and environment, different strategies can be used.
- Architect: choosing the right architecture that can meet the performance need and capacity planning help developers.
- Developers: design and implement in a way so that the code is responsive and scalable.
- Manager: monitor if the Performance requirements are met at different project milestones.
- QA: run tests to see if performance requirements are met throughout the project life.
- In case performance requirements are very stringent, should we add a dedicated person (Performance Engineer?) who SHOULD NOT take away the responsibilities from people mentioned above but WILL spend full time to collect metrics, co-ordinate with the team, raise concerns as and when any performance issues pops up? It can be a good option.
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Special Ed Costs Increase by $600K in Bedminster
District will need to find $800K for out-of-district placements in the 2013-14 budget.
The Bedminster Township School District is beginning to prepare a 2013-2014 budget—and already looking at $800,000 in extra costs for special education.
“It is over a 100 percent increase from this year,” said board of education vice president Jeffrey Reaves at a recent board of education meeting.
Business administrator Phil Acosta said the district is currently facing many budgetary challenges because of this increase.
“We have had some pretty major unexpected expenses, which will carry into the 2013-2014 budget,” he said.
These unexpected expenses are all about additional special education costs, that are rising from $280,000 allowed for in the 2012-2013 budget to $800,000 needed in the upcoming budget.
Superintendent Carolyn Koos said this is unexpected, but there is no control over it.
“Every year we have unexpected expenses, but this was extraordinary,” Acosta said. “These are for out-of-district placements.”
And the state is not contributing as much money as it has in the past to aid in the costs.
Currently, Acosta said, the school district receives special education funding based on the number of special education students as of the preceding Oct. 15. If students needing special education services move to the district after that, they are not included in the calculation for special education aid.
“If they remain in our school until the following Oct. 15, then they will be included,” he said. “But it will be two budget years after they moved into the district.”
“To make matters worse, the district they came from will receive special education aid for them even though they no longer attend their school,” he added.
Still, board member Brian Haggerty said, they have to take care of these kids.
“The state had at one point supported local districts financially in those matters, and they stopped doing that,” he said. “We are still dealing with helping families that need it.”
Haggerty said the district has made a commitment to maintaining special education opportunities for students. And most of these additional costs are coming from having to send students out of district for special education requirements according to their individual IEPs.
“We have to take care of these kids, and we can’t leave them to their own devices,” he said.
But at this point, Acosta said, they are having to prepare the budget with these additions before certain deadlines arrive.
The state aid figures are expected from Gov. Chris Christie around Feb. 28, and Acosta said they are expecting them to be flat.
“So essentially by the end of February, we really have to have the budget pretty much in place as far as recommendations from the superintendent and approval from the board,” he said.
And if state aid numbers change, Acosta said, they will have to move quickly to make changes.
A preliminary budget is due to the county superintendent by March 7, Acosta said.
“And we have to have a board meeting and public hearing to be ready for that,” he said. “That only gives us a week after the state aid figures come through.”
“And then we have until the end of March to finalize the budget,” he added.
Reaves said they are still trying to stay under the 2 percent cap for the budget, but right now, the district is way above that to accommodate all the unexpected special education costs.
“We’re above that by quite a bit right now, so everything has to be looked at with a fine-toothed comb,” he said. “We will be revisiting shared services with Somerset Hills and the township.”
“All feedback and comments throughout this time will be solicited,” he added. “It is going to be a very intense period.”
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By Stephanie Levine, DO, FAAP, Member of the Board of Directors at Keeping Babies Safe.
One of the most common questions I am asked at baby’s first visit is, “How do you feel about pacifiers?”
I tell grandparents and parents that pacifiers can be very useful. There are positive and negative aspects of pacifier use. [...]
By Joyce Davis, President of Keeping Babies Safe
As the number of grandparents serving as primary caregivers for grandchildren under 18 have risen from 2.4 million in 2000 to 2.7 million in 2011, according to a U.S. Census survey. Since grandparents’ care for babies and children are on the rise, we know grandparents have [...]
By: Joyce Davis, Co-Founder and President of Keeping Babies Safe
Grandparents and Parents alike know the importance of making the most informed decisions when it comes to keeping their grandchildren and children safe in their nursery. There are so many products on the market today that may or may not be safe, so informed decision [...]
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There is currently a war going on in our fair city in the most unlikeliest of places. You see metro Toledo currently has an amazing six Catholic high schools in the midst of rapidly increasing education costs and a rapidly declining school-age population. Four of the schools are devoted to a single sex environment, two are currently co-educational. At some point, there has to be some attrition, one would think.
One of the co-ed schools, Cardinal Stritch, opened an affiliated pre-K – 8th grade program a few years ago. This keeps a stream, however small it may be, in their school. The high school does try to attract students leaving elementary, and I believe they are somewhat successful in that mission, but it was obviously not enough to keep them afloat. I believe that this system, called Kateri Catholic Schools, is operated by the Diocese of Toledo.
St John Jesuit (boys), Notre Dame Academy and St Ursula Academy (both girls) opened middle schools over the course of the last couple of years. The Diocese placed some large restrictions on each. They were restricted in the numbers of students they could enroll from any particular Catholic elementary school, they are required to provide wholly separate facilities for the middle school and they are required to charge tuition equal to that charged to students of the high school. Whatever reasons each of these schools cites for opening these middle schools, the plain reason is to bolster enrollment across the board.
Central Catholic High School is operated, like Kateri, by the Diocese of Toledo as is each of the elementary schools run by parishes throughout the Diocese. While the Diocese has held meetings, both public and private, regarding consolidating the various parish middle schools into one or more Diocesan middle school, it hasn’t really done anything concrete as of yet. St Francis de Sales High School is run by the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales. The oblates started a non-religious charter middle school several years ago. This school is run with a completely secular curriculum and caters toward students who need enrichment. Many continue on to the high school, but the word in the community is that many ultimately can’t cut the rigors of the program. By way of comaprison with the other single sex schools, the charter school is not the enrollment enhancer that the other middle schools are.
As it is today, each of the six schools fight like hell over every single 8th grader. Each school has its own methods, several are now using free or reduced iPads, MacBooks and the like to entice students. It really has gotten cut throat. Each school claims that it’s not going anywhere and is in it for the long haul.
So now we turn to parish schools. As long as the rolls of the Catholic Church continues to fall and the population of school-age kids decreases, the parish schools are fighting to stay alive as well. Any move by the Diocese to remove the middle school from each strikes a potential death. It would seem that the Diocese would be better served to leave some of the larger parishes alone or let them work out a consolidation on their own terms. That may ultimately happen, because as I’ve stated previously, the Diocese has yet to strike the blow.
One school isn’t waiting.
St Joseph’s School in Maumee, already rumored to have cut ties to the other Catholic High Schools, has gotten into bed with Central Catholic. I know, lousy metaphor, right?
St Joe’s is going to operate a middle school at its parish campus, but the school is going to be affiliated with Central Catholic. Students will receive iPads. A computer lab will be stocked with MacBooks. For this the students will be surcharged a bit on the tuition front to the tune of several hundred dollars. But a far cry from the $10,000 charged to the middle school students at the academies.
Let’s dissect this deal for a second. According to a teacher at the school, St Joe’s this year currently has 21 8th graders. The plan for this “new” middle school is 25 in each of the three middle school grades. Beside the technology, Central’s contribution is going to largely be curriculum based. Interestingly enough, the Diocese has a curriculum for its parish schools that each is mandated to follow. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that the “new” curriculum cannot be all that different from what’s there now. No. No. The naked motivation of this whole deal is steer kids to Cherry Street for high school while keeping St Joe’s afloat.
There are two or three larger and probably more effective parish schools within a short distance of St Joseph. If the middle school is flailing along, why not affiliate with one of these other schools?
I’ll tell you why not. Because they are in competition with them. I know. It boggles the mind.
And what about Central Catholic and its wolf-in-sheep’s clothing approach? The school has rich alumni willing to donate millions. Together with St Vincent Mercy Hospital, they’ve really fixed up the neighborhood on Cherry Street by bulldozing most of the neighborhood. The result of this effort has been to essentially anchor the school to the inner city. They’ve spent too much to move. So the school now has to come up with the illusion that they aren’t an inner city school.
The school is currently constructing a baseball stadium in southwest Toledo, miles away from the inner city. With this new affiliation in Maumee, the school has spread its presence into the suburbs. So the result is that school can maintain its location while at the same time appearing as if it’s located in suburbia.
An interesting side note is that St Francis de Sales held its annual fundraising carnival this past weekend and distributed fliers for inclusion in each elementary school’s correspondence system. Rumor is that all schools complied with the request to which only St Joseph’s refused.
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Neoliberalism has become an increasingly popular word in contemporary critical thought and philosophy. Its popularity has come at a cost, however, as the meaning of the word has been reduced to a few vague inclinations about the truly bad kind of capitalism held together by invocations of competition, markets, and individualism. It has become what Althusser called a descriptive theory at best, and at worse a way to speak about capitalism without speaking about capitalism. In the worse case it became the name for a kind of nostalgia for an earlier kinder and gentler capitalism, one that we could get back to as soon as the full impact of the recession was felt and people started really paying attention to Paul Krugman.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Sunday, May 05, 2013
Having written something about the first two Iron Man films on this blog in the past I felt obligated to write at least something about the third. My thoughts on this film are framed by Hassler Forest's assertion that the superhero film is a post 9/11 cultural form; the genre not only emerges after that historical event but it provides sufficient fantasy difference to confront both historical trauma and to legitimate the emerging historical security state. It makes large scale destruction, often of New York, palatable and it, more importantly, it makes generalized surveillance and extra-judicial forms of enforcement not only acceptable, but cool.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Paper was originally presented at the Futures of the Common conference at the University of Minnesota in 2009. Some of this has been taken up into my current work, and some of it has been abandoned. I am posting it here for the gnawing criticism of digital mice.
The common has become a central term for political action and philosophical reflection. At first glance this would seem paradoxical; after all, Marx argued that capitalism confronts us as immense accumulation of commodities, as a situation in which all that exists, exists as a commodity, as private property. The attention to the common would then seem to be the worst sort of nostalgia, a lost Eden before the fall of primitive accumulation. Proponents of the concept, however, argue that the term does not just shed light on the origins of the capitalism, on the destruction of the agrarian commons that constituted the necessary condition for the emergence of labor power, but reveals its current function, as capital appropriates not just the commons in terms of land and resources, but the common, understood as the collectively produced and circulated knowledges, habits, affects, and concepts that produce our cultural life. It is worth noting, however, that this distinction between past and present, material commons and the immaterial common, is not that rigid.
Sunday, April 07, 2013
Draft of Paper Presented at University of Memphis
The current economic crisis has returned the economy to the center of politics. The economy no longer functions as the silent backdrop of political contestations over rights and responsibilities, but has itself been politicized, at least in terms of rhetoric. Central to this new rhetoric of politics is the status of work, albeit in an ambiguous and contradictory manner. Occupy Wall Street, and the various occupations around the globe, framed the question of work, to the extent that they addressed in, in terms of a divide between Main Street and Wall Street, a divide between those who work, producing goods or at least services, that could be useful and beneficial to society, and those who only exploit this labor, whose elaborate and complex formulas for generating debt, and thus have no productive value or worth in society. It is a division between productive labor and unproductive labor, workers and parasites. This division is mirrored, which is to say reflected and inverted, in the rhetoric surrounding various government programs for austerity, cutting social services and programs, which are almost always framed in terms of “putting people to work” of ending the “entitlements” which have coddled the retired, disabled, or lazy, allowing them to parasitically live off of the hard work of others. We are no longer haunted by the spectre of communism, but by the spectre of the free-loader, but the identity of this free-loader is shifts across the political spectrum. Work is thus the basis for a left populism or right populism, in each case “work” represents the people, the masses, the majority, whose interest and efforts need to be defended against a parasitic minority of either venture capitalists or state employees, the unemployed, and retired. Between this war of competing populisms there is the social and technological transformation of work, the growing realization that the jobs, especially those that sustained the idea of a “middle class” jobs that provided a degree of comfort, security and stability, might be gone for good, replaced by some combination of technology and outsourcing. (When the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat imagines a world without work things have gotten very weird). Work is placed at the center of political life, defining the people, and the exact moment when its technological and political conditions are radically changing.
Friday, March 29, 2013
I have always been more on Team Anti-Oedipus than Team A Thousand Plateaus. Partly this is autobiographical. I read Anti-Oedipus at a very impressionable time, too soon--in undergrad. I picked the book at City Lights in San Francisco partly because Hampshire Professor Margaret Cerullo had a blurb on the back. (This was the old Minnesota copy with the cover designed by Harold and the Purple Crayon.) At the time I was trying to navigate the world of "theory," designing my own major which combined anthropology and philosophy. I was positioned to understand less than a quarter of it, but the rest I thoroughly enjoyed. I stayed up all night on a red eye reading it. The other reason that I have continued to gravitate towards Anti-Oedipus, writing on it and teaching it, is that I felt that I could do more with it, plug it into my various conceptual machines, producing readings of primitive accumulation and Marx's ontology. In contrast to this A Thousand Plateaus seems to descend down so many rabbit holes that I cannot follow. I just don't know enough about birdsong and geology (another reason that I will never be a speculative realist, I suppose).
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
I was introduced to David Lean's A Brief Encounter by Slavoj Zizek and Sophie Fiennes A Pervert's Guide to Ideology. The film is about a married doctor and a woman (also married) who meet in a train station and fall in love. The film documents their brief affair against a stifling atmosphere of propriety in Post-World War Two England.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Steven Soderbergh is a somewhat mercurial director. He more or less started "independent film" with Sex, Lies, and Videotape in 1989, but then went on to spend subsequent decades making everything from Julia Robert's star vehicles to a two part epic about Che Guevara. Soderbergh seemed to be at times deliberately avoiding the trappings of the auteur to cultivate the idea of a jack of all trades that shifted from the bloated star vehicles of Ocean's Eleven to the intentional obscurity of Bubble, adapting everything from Elmore Leonard to Franz Kafka in between.
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Lately I have been interested in the question of gesture. This interest is framed by two different lines of inquiry. The first, and dominant, one is in the transindividual dimension of gestures, or, perhaps gesture as a way of both illustrating and examining transindividuality. While gesture is not specifically named by Gilbert Simondon, the dominant theorist of transindividuality, there is a great deal of interest in it by Paolo Virno, Bernard Stiegler, Yves Citton--although only the last specifically names it as such. The general problem is the same, however, gestures, habits, and comportments are both the constitution of collectives and individuals. Gestures mark one's historical moment, one's class, nation, and other groupings, but also define and delimite a singular way of inhabiting the world.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Hegel wrote that all events in history occur twice, he forgot to add: the first time as theory, the second as reality. This is of course not the famous passage from Marx, but it did occur to me in thinking about contemporary politics. For decades, at least throughout the eighties and nineties, there was a great deal of attention paid to "the imaginary." This imaginary was approached from multiple angles, with multiple theoretical sources, Lacan, Spinoza, Castoriadis, and qualified alternately as social, political, and historical. However, this work, the work on the politics of the imaginary was left to comparative literature departments and continental philosophers. Real politics, it was claimed, were always elsewhere, where competing interests and perspectives debated.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
A combination of vacation travel reading and gifts made it so I read Dan Hassler-Forest's Capitalist Superheroes: Caped Crusaders in the Neoliberal Age and Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story over the same few weeks. At first glance these books could not be more different. Hassler-Forest's book deals with the superhero film viewed from the perspective of the political and cultural transformations of the post 9/11 era. In sharp contrast this treatment, Howe's book is a kind of "inside baseball" look at the history of Marvel Comics. Hassler-Forest's book is an entry in Zero Books catalogue, which seems destined to single-handedly rescue cultural analysis from the excesses of cultural studies and the dismal "philosophy and [blank]" series at Open Court. Sean Howe is an entertainment journalist of a more traditional variety, albeit one whose "Deep Focus" series on films also tries to traverse the no man's land between the popular and the scholarly. Despite these differences of perspective and approach, the two very different books converge on a singular object of inquiry, that of a dominant cultural form, the superhero comic and film.
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“What visitability is, is a one-step entrance on an accessible route at the back, side or front of a home or through a garage,” he said to a group gathered for the Milton Disability Awareness Committee’s Community Link series.
Frazier, who has been a quadriplegic since an accident when he was in his 20s, said visitability also includes having a bathroom on the main floor, halls wide enough for a wheelchair to get through and other access features throughout the home.
Realtor Michelle Miralles has helped Frazier in a journey to find accessible housing and to change the way builders, lawmakers and investors think about housing for the disabled.
Miralles said she was used to volunteering but her direct involvement started when she had a neighbor who was in a wheelchair who came to Miralles to find a
“She wanted it to be normal; she didn’t want it to be identified by any kind of ramp in front of the house,” she said.
Miralles said she became frustrated when she had a hard time finding a house for her neighbor and had no resources to help her.
Since they have teamed up, Miralles and Frazier are trying to educate builders and lawmakers about how important accessibility and visitability are when building new houses.
“It’s really very affordable if you do it on the front end,” Frazier said of building a house with good visitability.
He also said there needs to be a mindset change to remove the stigma that wheelchair-accessible houses are less sellable.
“Trust me, if you do it right and if you build it right in the first place it’s going to be more desirable,” he said.
Miralles said it’s all about the marketing and the houses will sell when the benefits are relatable to all people.
“Let’s take away all handicap, all disability labels and let’s just say, ‘We built this house with wide doorways. Look at how nice and accessible this is to get your furniture in the house,’” she said. “Anyone who is looking for a home because they need the wide doorways will recognize it because they know what they’re looking for.”
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Theo Chocolate's union-busting exposed
(Source: Teamsters Local 117, February 19, 2013)
SEATTLE — The "fair" in fair trade has a shallow meaning when it comes to Theo Chocolate, a Seattle-based chocolatier, that despite its "fair trade" certification, engaged in a vicious anti-union campaign during a Local 117 organizing drive in 2010.
Once it heard that a majority of its workers wanted to join the Teamsters, Theo hired a union-busting consulting firm, terminated a union leader, held workers in captive audience meetings that lasted up to four hours, and said that they would rather shut down the Fremont-neighborhood factory than sign a union contract.
Typical stuff from a company without a conscience, but from "fair trade" Theo's?
Full story: Teamsters Local 117
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
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Moncrief gift of $3 million to have dramatic impact on future research at The University of Texas at Austin
October 24, 2005
A $3 million gift by W.A. “Tex” Moncrief Jr. to help fund three faculty chairs at
The University of Texas at Austin will have a dramatic impact on future scientific advances at the
university in areas including medicine, national security, transportation, communication and the
manufacturing of new materials, Associate Vice President for Research J. Tinsley Oden said.
Retrieved from The University of Texas at Austin website on October 6, 2006 from
Moncrief, a former member of The University of Texas System Board of Regents, donated the gift to
the university’s Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) to be used in
recruiting and retaining leading scholars who are at the top of their fields nationally or
internationally, said Oden, holder of the Cockrell Family Regents’ Chair in
Engineering #2 at the university.
Oden said Moncrief’s gift is allocated in amounts of $1 million each for the W.A.
“Tex” Moncrief Jr. Chair in Computational Life Sciences and Biology, the W.A.
“Tex” Moncrief Jr. Chair in Computational Materials, and the W.A. “Tex”
Moncrief Jr. Chair in Distributed and Grid Computing. Moncrief offered the gift after an anonymous
donor issued a challenge for the funding of four chairs by providing gifts of $1 million, to be
matched with $1 million, thereby establishing the chairs at the $2 million level.
Moncrief’s gift will support the creation of more advanced computer models to help
scientists use simulations in evaluating the many possibilities within the realm of their
research, Oden said.
“Some of the most exciting advances in the near future will be computer models of the
human body that will lead to patient specific therapies, surgical procedures and a deeper
understanding of the functions of each individual’s body,” Oden said. He said a
better understanding of the human body will help researchers design new drugs and drug delivery
systems to help people with cancer and other illnesses.
“Simulation is becoming more and more an integral part of the manufacturing of these systems,
” Oden said. “Tex Moncrief’s gift will substantially strengthen our faculty in
several dynamic and powerful areas of research,” said Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, president of
The University of Texas at Austin. “He has shown great vision, once again, by giving his
support to researchers who will improve the lives of Texans and many others around the world.
Moncrief said, “President Faulkner and Dr. Oden made a very strong case for support of the
ICES program, and I am grateful for the opportunity to invest in faculty endowments associated
with this extraordinary enterprise.”
Oden said he is pleased with Moncrief’s enthusiasm for the interdisciplinary programs at ICES and the fact that Moncrief “appreciated their significance to the university, the state and, more broadly, the nation.”
“His generous donation will be a great help to the university in achieving a leadership role
in these critically important areas of science and technology,” Oden said.
He said the establishment of several special ICES endowments is critically important to the
fulfillment of the institute’s mission of providing the infrastructure and intellectual
leadership for developing outstanding interdisciplinary programs in research and graduate study
in the computational sciences and engineering and in information technology.
The ICES plan was that four faculty chairs would be created to recruit and retain leading scholars
who are at the top of their fields nationally or internationally.
The first to be funded was the chair in computational geosciences, through a gift establishing the
John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Chair in Computational Geosciences held by Professor Omar Ghattas.
He has been appointed director of the Center for Computational Geosciences within ICES.
One of the chairs funded by Moncrief, the ICES Chair of Computational Materials, was filled
earlier this year with the appointment of Professor James Chelikowsky, who holds joint
appointments as a professor of chemistry, physics and chemical engineering. He is director of the
Center for Computational Materials within ICES.
Oden said the university is recruiting top candidates for the two open chairs and hopes to have
them filled by the end of this academic year.
Moncrief, an alumnus from the university, has contributed nearly $10 million in gifts to the
university over the years to support a variety of areas, including architecture, athletics,
the Center for American History, engineering, financial aid, fine arts, the law school,
the business school and natural sciences. In recognition of his financial support of the athletics
department, the university in 1997 named its athletic center the W.A. “Tex”
Moncrief Jr.-V.F. “Doc” Neuhaus Athletic Center.
Moncrief’s interest in University of Texas at Austin athletics dates back to the late
1930s, when he was the No. 3 golfer on the university’s golf team. He was graduated in
1942 with a degree in petroleum engineering and went to work as an engineer for Standolind Oil
and Gas Co., the forerunner of Amoco. In 1943, Moncrief left the company to serve in the U.S.
Navy, where he was commissioned as an officer in the South Pacific Theater. After the war, he
joined his father’s oil business, which had interests in Texas, Wyoming and Florida.
Moncrief has been president of Montex Drilling since 1946 and is now president and owner of
Moncrief Oil. His accomplishments as an engineering alumnus were recognized in 1983 when he
was honored as a Distinguished Engineering Graduate.
Moncrief’s interest in higher education led to his appointment to a six-year term on The
University of Texas System Board of Regents by Texas Governor Bill Clements in 1987.
The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES) is an interdisciplinary research
center for faculty and graduate students in computational sciences and engineering, mathematical
modeling, applied mathematics, software engineering, and computational visualization. Organizationally,
ICES reports to the vice president for research, and draws faculty from 17 academic departments.
The institute supports five research centers and numerous research groups, but new research units
in distributed and grid computing, computational biology, biomedical science and engineering,
computational materials research and many others are planned over the next four years. It also
supports the CAM Program, a graduate degree program leading to the master’s and Ph.D.
degrees in computational and applied mathematics.
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How do these women do it? How can they take items with humble beginnings and make them into the most desirable of creations?
Simply put, these women celebrate beauty, charm, and loveliness in everything they see. They relish each and every sense they come in contact with during their day. No experience is unworthy to them! They practice greeting everyday happenings with joy.
In her book The Woman You Want to Be, Margery Wilson list several ways in which we can become lovely quickly and regain a joyful innocence in our lives:
- ...Cultivate the acquaintance of some deep and lovely mind- some woman whom you admire, some man whose life as been full and rich and mellow, some graceful and charming girl. It may be a neighbor's daughter grown now to a natural, uncanny poise, instinctivly being a high type regardless of environment. It may be a child, a teacher, a minister, or some new friend.
- Have no traffic with pessimists. Remember a pessimist never built a bridge- he knows all the reasons it couldn't be done
- Dislike no one- even someone who has injured you- or whom you have injured!
- Don't think too much of your own failures. Every bright person has at least one eating frustration, one agony of unfulfilment. This state of affairs cannot be prevented. I shouldn't like to be so dull that my mind did not race ahead of my performance.
- Drink in beauty and charm from every possible source.
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A new law that was introduced by Rep. William L. Owens, D-Plattsburgh, and takes effect this week removes a federal mandate requiring car dealers to make available a booklet on motor vehicle insurance costs.
The law swept away regulations compelling the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to print an annual booklet titled Relative Collision Insurance Cost Information.
The NHTSA previously had to send an updated version of the book every year to auto dealers across the nation, who likewise were required to make it available to customers or face fines of $1,000 per violation.
Mr. Owens said the book contained information thats not really relevant to car buyers.
Car dealers agree.
Its been years since anyones ever looked at it, said Lynn L. Blevins, owner of Blevins Bros. Chrysler and Dodge dealership in Ogdensburg.
Mr. Blevins said the book basically offers a cost comparison for how much insurance fees would amount to on different car models.
You can figure out how much your insurance payment will be, for instance, between a Dodge Dart and a Ford Focus, he said.
Michael J. Viskovich, owner of Fay Motors in Massena, said no one has ever requested to see the book.
Never, ever, ever, ever. Its immaterial, he said.
Mr. Owens said in an announcement the law will save a couple of thousand dollars per year per dealership.
Mr. Blevins said he doesnt think it will save him that much money. But he said it will save the federal government lots of money on printing fees.
Its a good thing that he did it, Mr. Blevins said. Ultimately, if government continues to find small cost savings like this, the consumer will see the effect, he said.
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A fire begun and nourished by oxygen generators was the cause of the crash of a Valujet plane in the Everglades 15 months ago, but ultimately the accident, which killed all 110 people aboard, occurred because of supervisory failures by the airline and by the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board said today.
James E. Hall, the board chairman, said, ''The Valujet accident resulted from failures all up and down the line, from Federal regulators to airline executives in the board room to workers on the shop room floor.''
The aviation agency has taken some corrective actions. But board members said today that some steps, like requiring smoke detectors and fire suppression systems in cargo holds, were not being carried out fast enough and that the agency was not acting in other areas. The agency has pointedly declined to investigate whether individuals in positions of responsibility with Valujet Airlines or the F.A.A. broke any laws, as safety board officials suspect.
It has been clear for months that the Valujet plane crashed on May 11, 1996, because oxygen generators from three other planes activated in flight after being improperly packed and mislabeled by a contractor -- Sabretech -- and loaded in the cargo hold of the jet. The safety board gave new details today of how the generators had started a fire that reached over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt steel.
But in its final meeting today on the crash, the board's main finding was that the system of self-checking within the industry, and of Government surveillance to insure that quality controls were in place, had fallen apart in the case of Valujet. And Valujet needed supervision most, board members said, because it did not use the traditional system of performing its own maintenance work, but instead farmed out almost everything.
Most of the technicians who first mishandled the generators, as they were removed from other planes, were not Valujet employees or even employees of Sabretech; they were contractors hired by Sabretech. Two-thirds of them were unlicensed.
Valujet had only one employee to check the work of the technicians, so it hired two other individuals on temporary contracts to help monitor the technicians. A more well-established airline, board experts said, would have had three company employees monitoring each shift.
An aviation agency inspector who was supposed to check on Sabretech had 19 other shops to supervise as well as several small airlines. Another F.A.A. inspector, in charge of Valujet maintenance, recognized that the airline had problems but did not bother with Sabretech because it was not owned by Valujet. The two F.A.A. inspectors seldom spoke to each other about Valujet. And the F.A.A. had concluded that the regional office with responsibility for Valujet was overstaffed.
A single licensed Sabretech mechanic, who probably worked not much more than eight hours a day, signed off on the work of 72 people who worked around the clock, the board's investigators said. One board member suggested that it was not possible for one mechanic to have overseen all such work.
''We have a falsification issue here, which I'm very surprised the F.A.A. didn't pursue,'' said the board member, John Goglia, an aircraft maintenance expert.
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Bouncy houses cushion bear’s fall from tree
CONWAY, Ark. – When a black bear climbed a tree in a central Arkansas city and refused to come down, authorities turned to unconventional rescue tools: bouncy houses.
Conway Police spokeswoman La Tresha Woodruff says Foster the Bear is named for the residential street where he holed himself up in a tree, straddled a branch and wouldn’t budge.
She says officials shot Foster with tranquilizer darts late Monday, causing him to fall asleep. They inflated two bouncy houses - usually reserved for children’s parties - beneath the tree. And then firefighters let loose with water from a fire hose, knocking the bear from his perch.
The edge of the inflatable houses broke Foster’s fall.
Woodruff says Foster wasn’t hurt. Wildlife officials plan to release him back into the wild.
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Via: Posted by Dallas Lawrence, 2/2/2012, at mashable.com
Dallas Lawrence is the chief global digital strategist forBurson-Marsteller, one of the world’s leading public relations and communications firms. He is a Mashable contributor on emerging media trends, online reputation management and digital issue advocacy. You can connect with him on Twitter@dallaslawrence.
If an individual or activist group broke into an organization’s office, raided confidential materials and then burned the building to the ground, local, state and federal officials would have swarmed the crime scene in an all out effort to bring the perpetrators to justice for an act of terrorism. Meanwhile, savvy online audiences and members of the media almost dismissively refer to the online versions of these raiders as “hacktivists,” conjuring up images of harmless school kids having fun pushing the boundaries of online security.
As we saw this morning with the Susan G. Komen Foundation website hack -– and again as “Anonymous Brazil” signaled they had successfully “taken down” the website of Brazil’s largest state bank — these groups are anything but harmless. One study from 2011 identified the average financial impact of these types of breaches to be just north of $7 million per incident.
Whether you are a respected non-profit with a decades-long track record, or a state-owned financial institution in Latin America, organizations must diligently prepare for inevitable online intrusions and the challenging communications demands that result. There are four key considerations for organizations seeking to retain credibility and confidence as trusted stewards of information before and after a breach.
1. Think Ahead and Anticipate
The best offense is often the best defense — and this is certainly true in the online security game. Every organization involved in any form of data (online contributions, email petitions, online sales, social gaming, employee data, etc) is vulnerable to attack. Smart organizations are using their pre-hack peacetime wisely to invest in a forensics security assessment and to address identified weaknesses. In addition to the technical diligence, organizations must ensure their corporate communications, IT and legal teams understand who will be responsible for managing breaches and have a well planned rapid response crisis program in place.
2. Say Something
In the immediate aftermath of an attack, the lack of information can cause severe organizational paralysis. This paralysis hampers communications efforts, ultimately allowing external forces to shape the lens through which a response is viewed.
Identifying immediately what you know for certain and what you don’t know is critical. For example, organizations need to be prepared to address questions and concerns about the security of the system. Even though an activist may hijack a site to make a political point, it highlights a deeper potential for vulnerability that must be addressed.
Importantly, saying something does not mean saying everything. The rush to respond can have equally devastating consequences for the ill-informed and unprepared. Communicating what you know for certain and what you are doing to investigate — and even what you are still trying to determine — demonstrates responsiveness and transparency to stakeholders that rightly feel equally violated by the breach. Creating a direct response channel for those exposed — via an online registration system or a 24/7 call center — is another important sign of responsiveness. Total silence creates a vacuum of frustration that antagonists are only too happy to fill.
3. Know the Law
Every single state in the Union has separate reporting rules and regulations for what constitutes personally identifiable information (PII). These rules also govern when organizations that have been the victim of a breach must notify the public. Attempting to unravel this multi-state patchwork for the first time with your stakeholders, the media and law enforcement officials all demanding answers can be crippling.
Ensure that your team understands the regulations in each state — and country — you operate in, and make sure your compliance team is fully integrated with your communications team. Often, you will not be the arbiter of when to go public with news of your breach. The worst thing an organization can do from a reputational standpoint is to allow the narrative to shift from being the victim of an attack to the villain who failed to notify and protect those individuals whose data may have been compromised.
4. Remember, You’re Not Alone
In almost every case of online breaches, the “victims” number in the thousands — if not millions. It is not just the organization that has been violated, it is every employee whose social security number may have been exposed, every charitable donor who supported a cause, every business partner that shared data and every consumer who purchased a product. Keep these important groups informed and at the forefront of your communications efforts. They can be powerful advocates. Engaging quickly with local and federal law enforcement officials shows transparency and responsiveness — don’t be afraid to tell that story of cooperation.
In 2012, data will continue to emerge as the new form of global currency, and hacking will continue its evolution as the new face of popular protest. The fundamental reality for every business or organization is that everyone is now in the business of data — and its protection.
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TO: Parents/Guardians, Teachers, Staff and Support Groups
FROM: Tom Fryman, Maintenance Supervisor – Sugarcreek Local Schools
RE: Annual Notification of Availability of Asbestos Management Plan and Update of Activities
DATE: December 9, 2008
On October 22, 1986, President Reagan signed into law the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA, Public Law 99-519). The law required the EPA to develop regulations which provide a comprehensive framework for addressing asbestos problems in public and private elementary and secondary schools. This law requires school districts to inspect for friable and non-friable asbestos in school buildings, develop Management Plans that address asbestos hazards in school buildings, and implement response actions in a timely fashion.
Although the majority of asbestos has been removed from our buildings, we are still required by law to annually notify parents, teachers, staff, and support groups of the availability and location of the school building's Management Plan. The Management Plans for the schools in our district that may contain asbestos are located in the main office for the schools in our district, along with a duplicate copy located in the Designated Person/Program's Manager's office. Also, please be advised that information regarding any inspections/re-inspections, surveillances, response actions, and post-response action activities are included in the Management Plan and available for your review.
The buildings that are required to have a Management Plan include:
Tom Fryman is the Designated Person/Program Manager for the Sugarcreek Local School District. Accordingly, should you have any questions regarding these Management Plans, or wish to see a plan, please contact Mr. Fryman at (937) 848-5003. You may view the plan during normal business hours (7:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m., Monday through Friday) by appointment. Copies may be obtained for $.25 per page.
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| 0.945223 | 394 | 1.710938 | 2 |
The Quest for Forgiveness
Author: J. L. Rothdiener
Publisher: Navigator Books (2011)
Binding: Paperback, 304 pages
From orphan to superstar... Singer-songwriter Briana Bays rose from obscurity to the center spotlight. She had everything... fame, talent, beauty, and one of the most successful music careers in history. The world was her stage, but the screaming adulation of her fans could not fill the hole in her heart. Her past was shrouded in shadows, some of her own making, and some of which she was trying desperately to pierce. No amount of success could bring her the one thing she needed most... forgiveness...
In her late teens, Brianna Bays is an international singing sensation with everything she could possibly want, but fame and fortune feel hollow compared to the longing inside her tired heart. She's lost and alone in her luxury, and seeks to fill the emptiness. In her quest for answers, she comes to realize the importance of forgiveness.
J. L. Rothdiener's novel, A Quest for Forgiveness fully embraces the Christian faith from page one, witnessing and advocating redemption, religion, and salvation in the Lord. It stresses the importance of forgiving to be forgiven, coming to terms with one's past sins, and accepting the Lord's message into one's life.
Rothdiener successfully tells a tale of a family torn apart by fear, distrust, jealousy and deceit and one girl's search for truth and forgiveness on her path to accepting Christianity as the one true religion.
Devout Christians are sure to find this novel inspiring, appealing, and appropriate for all ages.
Reviewed by: Sandra Linhart (2012)
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The term "banner blindness," while alliteratively catchy, is a thorn in the side of online advertisers entrenched in many CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) campaigns. Advertisers paying for real estate on web pages want their impressions to matter; they want their ads to be seen (even if briefly) and their brand awareness to grow. They know not all of these ad impressions will be dutifully read by their audience, but that's often the accepted nature of CPM. As long as an ROI is met, no harm done, right? Perhaps. But is there a better way?
As many of us know, those pesky web surfers - i.e., our intended audience - are becoming increasingly adept at ignoring these display ads. Banner blindness is by no means a new phenomenon, having been first coined in 1998(!) by a pair of Rice University researchers. But research from comScore is showing it could be getting worse, because paying for ads that don't have the chance to be seen is even more troublesome than ads that are at least visible on your audience's web page (i.e., above the fold). In short, CPM is a tricky beast that can produce murky results.
The CPC (cost-per-click) ad model is the most common alternative to CPM, but there's a swell of new traction around cost-per-engagement (CPE). The CPE ad model is as it's described: advertisers are paying for a certain level of demonstrated engagement with your ad. What that level of engagement it depends on the advertiser and the ad network they are using, but the possibilities are more varied (and often yield more creative ads) than what you could expect from a CPC or CPM campaign. Some examples of engagement with an ad include the target audience taking a survey, tweeting a link about the brand, watching a video to completion, or submitting their email address. If your audience does one of these actions as part of your ad, you'll pay for that engagement. If not, you won't.
If the thought of getting someone to happily interact with an ad sounds far-fetched, you're right. But the trick with CPE is that your audience is often getting something in return for that engagement. Examples include trading this engagement action for goodies like premium content, free services (such as Wi-Fi access), or discounts on products they are already showing an interest in.
CPE figures to be more expensive than other digital ad formats, but it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process. After all, you know what you're paying for, and you're only paying for what you actually get. This really contrasts with the incumbent CPM and CPC models, where you generally either hope for clicks (or at least eyeballs) on a high volume of impressions (as with CPM), or hope for conversions on the clicks you're paying for (as with CPC).
Each ad model has its strengths and weaknesses, but it'll be interesting to see where, in a few years, CPE stands in comparison to its longer-tenured counterparts. Will the higher cost of CPE ad campaigns deter advertisers? Can advertisers find a way to combat banner blindness with better ads or more eye-catching page placements for their CPM campaigns? Will another model, outside of these three, emerge as the premier way to serve ads with transparent benefits and attractive cost points? I don't think anyone has the definitive answer yet - we'll see how advertisers, ad networks, and publishers work together to shape the future of digital ad serving.
Jeff Lerner, vice president, digital media, joined full service digital marketing firm Prime Visibility in 2011 after spending seven years at Google working across all digital media platforms. At Google, Jeff managed the digital advertising spend of the top TV networks and sports leagues, including NBC, ABC, ESPN, the NFL, and Major League Baseball and was responsible for the launch of the advertising sales team in the newly-created Google Brazil office. During his tenure at Google, Jeff has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Sales Excellence Award, Industry Expertise Award, and the Google Impact Award. Jeff holds a BA in sports marketing from George Washington University.
Prime Visibility is owned by blinkx (BLNX), the world's largest and most advanced video search engine, with headquarters in San Francisco and the U.K.
May 22, 2013
1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT
June 5, 2013
1:00pm ET / 10:00am PT
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the explanation of the phone trick from video 3:
try if you can see it:
1: he looks at the cards in the deck while he is speaking (distraction) (before the trick starts you can see it in the video) and searches for
the 7 of diamonds. now he knows where the card is in the deck of cards. then he is positioning the card and makes a little break right over
the 7 of diamonds through a slight sepperation of the deck (wich can only be seen from his viepoint).
2: he pretends (through letting the cards fall into his left hand wich gives the impression of free choise) that the
spectator (in this case the woman and the audience in the studio and at home) the woman (Ellen) has the free choise
in picking any card
to make the impression even stronger that she has the free choise he says "just say stop when ever you feel like it"
notice the exact moment the magician is saying this words. he has already started to let the cards fall into his left hand when he
says this words . what he is doing in that moment is is called "force". he forces the woman to say stop exactly at the point when the
7 of diamonds is falling as the last card. the way he is doing this is through contolling the speed in wich the cards fall into his left hand.
he stops exactly at the monent where the break in the deck is located. he is feeling it with his right hand.
3: she takes the card. he says "actually it doesn't matter if I can see the card because I already know it is the 7 of diamonds".
and the audience goes wooow
and thinks "how did he do this" or "that's impossible". the magician picked the card
she is going to choose from the get go as you can see in point 1 and 2. so there was never ever a free choise and the magician
knew from the start that she will pick the 7 of diamonds.
4: now he is asking the woman to sign the card. he takes the card and says "there is only one card like this correct? this magic
is so fast I'm going to tell you exactly what is going to happen before it happens.your card the 7 of diamonds is going to end
up in my phone. so all you have to do is to make sure that the card doesn't actually get to the phone"
. the whole sentence
is a suggestion wich he implants into the mind of the audience. to make the suggestion even stronger he tells the woman to put
her hand over the phone all the while everyone can still see the signed card! Now the minds of the people will think that it is complety
impossible that what he has said that is going to happen can actually happen.
5: in the moment when he is saying "can you put your hand on top of the phone so that I can't actually touch it", he is making what is
called a "card switch". he misdirects the attention of the audience through his hand movements and speech
(he points to the phone with his hands ) to look at the phone that the woman is covering with her hands.
now at exactly the moment the minds of the people are misdirected to look at the the phone and then he makes the card switch.
his right hand with the signed card goes to his left hand were all the other cards from the deck are. he switches the cards. he brings
the signed card to the card deck in his left hand and switches the signed card with a random card of the deck (in this case 2 two of clubs).
it is very important that all the movements he is doing and his speec looks and feels very natural to the viewer.
6: now he has the 2 of clubs in his right hand, but the audience still thinks he has the 7 of diamonds in this hand. as explained in
point 5 the signed card is now actually in his left hand behind the deck of cards. now he goes over the phone and turnes over
the 2 of clubs with a sound
he is producing with the card. the sound is important because it is part of the subtle suggestion.
the audience is perplexed and thanks to the sound
he produced, the speech
and body movements
of the people are implated with the thought that the card has vanished and is now in the phone.
7: at the moment he switched the two cards in point 5 and is doing point 6 he is at the same time folding the 7 of diamonds in his left
hand behind the other cards in the deck. point 5,6 and 7 are all happening in a view seconds.
8: at the moment he is asking "did I touch your hand or went anywhere near the phone?" the 7 of diamonds is already completly foldet
in his left hand behind the other cards. now he shows his empty right hand and goes to the phone and is shacking it. the picture of a
a 7 of diamonds appears. and the audience again goes "wooow that's impossible". he made a picture of a 7 of Diamonds before the
show and is activating it to appear on the screen of the phone either because of the shake itself or a button wich is located on the site
of the phone.
9: he again shows his empty right hand and suggest through his speech and body movements that the card is now inside the phone (
wich is not true at that moment). again a lot of misdirection. now he takes the phone with his right hand and puts down the deck
of cards (in his left hand) wich covered the folded signed card on to the table. now he has only the folded signed card in his left hand
and the phone in his right hand. now he slides the cover of the battery case of (very quickly) and puts the card inside and closes
it again .the screen is facing up and the battery case down so that nobody can see this move.
now he opens the battery case so that everybody can see, and there it is, the signed card inside the phone !
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| 0.981985 | 1,285 | 1.804688 | 2 |
This is a business that never met a border it not only didn’t respect, but wasn’t downright terrified of.
Think about it: Fashion stores like H&M and Zara have invaded the United States with a fervor and enthusiasm that would make George Patton jealous.
Likewise, American apparel stores like Gap, Abercrombie and Anthropology have moved into Europe and elsewhere in ever-increasing numbers.
And the big, high-falutin’ fashion houses like Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Hermes are all over the place, having conquered more countries than Napoleon.
But home stores are an entirely different matter. Sure, the American giant Bed Bath & Beyond has moved offshore, or at least crossed the border: It opened its first stores in Canada a few years ago and has a whopping two units in Mexico. (Even worse, the Mexican operation is a joint venture and hasn’t grown beyond those two stores since it launched last decade.) Europe or Asia? Way Beyond its horizon right now.
But that puts Bed Bath significantly ahead of most of the guys out there. Home Depot has six stores in China. The problem is that it entered the Chinese market in 2006 by buying a local operation that had 12 units. So, in just a few short years it had worked that down by half. Last summer it abandoned the Beijing market to focus on two other cities. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of a growth strategy.
Depot’s move came only months after Best Buy did pretty much the same thing, shutting its nine branded stores in China. Now at least Best Buy has a Plan B, having bought the local Five Star consumer electronics retailer years ago. Today Five Star is nearing 200 units and Best Buy has outlined an aggressive new store program for the future. But not under the Best Buy name.
This pattern basically repeats itself around the globe and while there are some valid reasons for the phenomenon, some of the excuses for why this is happening (or not happening, depending on your point of view) are just plain dumb.
People come in basically the same sizes around the world, even if those sizes are called by different names or numbers in different places, but for some reason, beds don’t. So if you’re trying to sell a product like sheets, every country has its own size beds, requiring suppliers to localize the assortment. That creates some enormous problems if you’re trying to take advantage of economies of scale.
There are also local peculiarities when it comes to cooking and food. Asians want rice cookers, a product you couldn’t give away in the Western world. Americans would barbecue salad if they could figure out a way to make it not stick to the grill, but many other cultures don’t adhere to the outdoor cooking principle once they put a roof over their heads.
There are different electronic systems, formats and giggawats all around the world so you can’t stock the same products at stores away from your homeland.
But it’s when you start talking about fashion and design that the conversation quickly bogs down. While there used to be wild disparities in preferences for color, pattern and motif in different parts of the world, they have largely being homogenized, thanks to a long process that began with MTV and Vogue, and is currently being Facebooked, Tweeted and YouTubed to infinity and beyond.
The assortments at stores like Zara take some local tastes into consideration, but they are remarkably the same whether you are shopping in Düsseldorf or Paramus.
The same thing is happening in home design. Paisleys are popular everywhere. If you like modern it’s clean and contemporary east, west and everywhere in between.
Pretty soon we’re going to see proof of that. Both H&M and Zara have launched home stores in Europe and at least the former says it will bring the format to the U.S. later this year, first online and conceivably in-store at some point afterwards.
H&M Home is the most unusual retailing format to come along in quite some time. The merchandise itself is true to form: young, contemporary and inexpensive as befits the store’s core customer. The soft home-dominated assortment has lots of neutrals punctuated by touches of pink, red and orange.
But it’s the merchandising that is different. At a store in Frankfurt I recently visited, merchandise is displayed on walls and vignettes much like a wholesale showroom. But there is no inventory on the floor. Instead there are small magnetic tiles arranged on hooks around the product displays. Shoppers grab a tile that has an image and details of the specific item they want and place it on a magnetic panel in the shape of a house. Once all the selections are made they are brought to the checkout desk where a clerk goes into the backroom and gets the goods.
Yes, those with long unhappy retailing memories may recall the late, unlamented catalog showroom, which had a somewhat similar convoluted checkout process. We know how well that went over with shoppers.
But this is a different time and a different customer. This consumer is used to dropping things in her Amazon basket and then checking out. Is the H&M experience any different? Maybe, maybe not.
What’s fascinating here is that somebody is trying something different, and trying it in a format that could work anywhere in the world.
So can home furnishings retailers succeed around the world? It’s a good question, the answer to which remains to be seen.
One last thing: Ignore everything you’ve just read. It’s all a bunch of crap. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you IKEA. The Swedish based company has over 300 stores around the world and does more than $20 billion a year in virtually every home furnishings classification. The 10,000 IKEA products are remarkably the same from Bayonne to Beijing. The layouts are the same. The prices are the same.
The meatballs are the same.
IKEA is the exception in that doesn’t prove the rule, it damn near blows it up. Home furnishings stores should be able to go global. Indeed they should be falling over themselves to do so.
There isn’t a reason in the world not to.
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| 0.953519 | 1,324 | 1.59375 | 2 |
One of the rewards of time is that eventually everything becomes public. While the 1973 disruption of the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite has been known for years, much of it has not been made public until now in esteemed author Doug Brinkly's new best seller Cronkite.
Sunday on CNN Don Lemon interviewed Brinkly on the book (link below). His last question: "Are there any surprises in the book?"
He mentions the disruptions and my friendship with Walter which followed, but for the first time it is revealed that CBS news executives under the direction of Walter then took steps to assure the fair and unbiased coverage of the gay and lesbian community. In a sense I became a consultant to CBS news and Walter on the subject. It is also a time stamp for gay history since it was the first time attitudes in broadcast media began to change. This was LONG before Ellen or Will and Grace . . . it was a time when there were no LGBT characters on TV or only negative news. GLADD hadn't even been founded. This was the beginning of that change, and Brinkly captures it well. Check out a click from the interview and an excerpt from the book after the jump. Hope you enjoy.
A section of the book printed with Doug Brinkly's permission:
The days of lax security at CBS News abruptly ended on December 11, 1973, when twenty-three-year-old Mark Allan Segal, a demonstrator from an organization called the Gay Raiders, with accomplice Harry Langhorne at his side, interrupted a Cronkite broadcast, causing the screen to go black for a few seconds. Cronkite was delivering a story about Henry Kissinger in the Middle East when, about fourteen minutes into the first "feed", Segal leapt in front of the camera carrying a yellow sign that read, "Gays Protest CBS Prejudice." More than sixty million Americans were watching. Segal had insinuated himself into the CBS newsroom by pretending to be a reporter from Camden State Community College in New Jersey. He had been granted permission to watch the broadcast live in the studio. "I sat on Cronkite's desk directly in front of him and held up the sign," Segal recalled. "The network went black while they took me out of the studio."
On the surface, Cronkite was unfazed by the disruption. Technicians tackled Segal, wrapped him in cable wire, and ushered him out of camera view. Once back on live TV, Cronkite matter-of-factly described what had happened without an iota of irritation. "Well," the anchorman said, "a rather interesting development in the studio here - a protest demonstration right in the middle of the CBS news studio." He told viewers, "The young man identified as a member of something called the Gay Raiders, an organization protesting alleged defamation of homosexuals on entertainment programs."
Segal had a legitimate complaint. Television - both news and entertainment divisions - treated gay people as pariahs, lepers from Sodom and Gomorrah. It stereotyped them as suicidal nut jobs, flaming fairies, and psychopathic villains. Part of the Gay Raiders' strategy was to bring public attention to the Big Three networks' discrimination policies. What better way to garner publicity for the cause than waving a banner on the CBS Evening News? "So I did it," Segal recalled. "The police were called, and I was taken to a holding tank."
But both Segal and Langhorne were charged with second-degree criminal trespassing as a result of their disruption of the CBS Evening News. It turned out that Segal had previously raided The Tonight Show, the Today Show, and The Mike Douglas Show. At Segal's trial on April 23, 1974, Cronkite, who had accepted a subpoena, took his place on the witnes stand. CBS lawyers objected each time Segal's attorney asked the anchorman a question. When the court recessed to cue up a tape of Segal's disruption of the Evening News, Segal felt a tap on his back - it was Cronkite, holding a fresh pad of yellow-lined paper, ready to take notes with a sharp pencil.
"Why," Cronkite asked the activist with genuine curiosity, "did you do that?"
"Your news program censors," Segal pleaded. "If I can prove it, would you do something to change it?" Segal went off to rattle off three specific examples of CBS Evening News censorship, including a CBS report on the second rejection of New York City Council gay rights bill.
"Yes," Cronkite said. "I wrote that story myself."
"Well, why haven't you reported on the twenty-three cities that have passed gay rights bills?" Segal asked. "Why do you cover five thousand women walking down Fifth Avenue in New York City when they proclaim International Women's Day on the network news, and you don't cover fifty thousand gays and lesbians walking down that same avenue proclaiming Gay Pride Day? That's censorship."
Segal's argument inmpressed Cronkite. The logic was difficult to deny. Why hadn't CBS News covered the gay pride parade? Was it indeed being homophobic? Why had the network largely avoided coverage of the Stonewall riots of 1969? At the end of the trial, Segal was fined $450, deeming the penalty "the happiest check I ever wrote." Not only did the activist receieve considerable media attention, but Cronkite asked to meet privately with him to better understand how CBS might cover gay pride events. Cronkite, moreover, even went so far as to introduce Segal as a "constructive viewer" to top brass at CBS. It had a telling effect. "Walter Cronkite was my friend and mentor," Segal recalled. "After that incident, CBS News agreed to look into the 'possibility' that they were censoring or had a bias in reporting news. Walter showed a map on the Evening News of the U.S. and pointed out cities that had passed gay rights legislation. Network news was never the same after that."
Before long, Cronkite ran gay rights segments on the CBS News broacast with almost drumbeat regularity. "Part of the new morality of the '60s and 70s is a new attitude toward homosexuality," he told millions of viewers. "The homosexual men and women have organized to fight for acceptance and respectability. They've succeeded in winning equal rights under the law in many communities. But in the nation's biggest city, the fight goes on."
Not only did Cronkite speak out about gay rights, but he also became a reliable friend to the LGBTQ community. To gays, he was the counterweight to Anita Bryant, a leading gay rights opponent in the 1970s: he was a heterosexual willing to grant homosexuals their liberties. During the 1980s, Cronkite criticized the Reagan administration for its handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and later criticized President Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays in the military. When Cronkite did an eight-part TV documentary about his storied CBS career - Cronkite Remembers - he boasted about being a champion of LGBTQ issues. And he ended up hosting a huge AIDS benfit in Philadelphia organized by Segal, with singer Elton John as headliner.
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Recreation and Leisure Studies Experiential Learning
The Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies provides students with multiple opportunities for experiential learning. Students complete a semester-long programming fieldwork as well as an administrative fieldwork. Other courses provide opportunities for students to interview practitioners in the field and work firsthand with people in the community. Additionally, students complete a 12-week internship before entering the profession.
By the time students complete their studies, they have a clear idea of what they would be doing professionally once they graduate -- and they have several field placements to include on their resumes.
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- Activist preacher and editor of the leftwing Christian magazine Sojourners
- Democratic Party operative
- Apologist for communist atrocities in Cambodia and Vietnam
- Dedicated foe of capitalism
- Contends that Biblical scripture calls for large central government to aid the poor
A self-described activist preacher, Jim Wallis was born into an evangelical family in Detroit, Michigan in June 1948. In the 1960s his religious views drove him to join the civil-rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. His participation in peace protests nearly resulted in his expulsion from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, a conservative Christian seminary where he was then enrolled. While at Trinity, Wallis founded an anti-capitalist magazine called the Post-American which identified wealth redistribution and government-managed economies as the keys to achieving "social justice." He also railed against American foreign policy and joined the Students for a Democratic Society.
In 1971 Wallis and his Post-American colleagues changed the name of their publication to Sojourners, and in the mid-1970s they moved their base of operation from Chicago to Washington, D.C. Wallis has served as Sojourners’ editor ever since.
In parallel with his magazine's stridently antiwar position during the Seventies, Wallis championed the cause of communism. Forgiving its brutal standard-bearers in Vietnam and Cambodia the most abominable of atrocities, Wallis was unsparing in his execration of American military efforts. Demanding greater levels of "social justice" in the U.S., he was silent on the subject of the murderous rampages of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. Very much to the contrary, several Sojourners editorials attempted to exculpate the Khmer Rouge of the charges of genocide, instead shifting blame squarely onto the United States.
Giving voice to Sojourners' intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called
the U.S. "… the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and
destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its
totalitarian claims and designs.”
Following the 1979 refugee crisis in Vietnam, Wallis lashed out at the desperate masses fleeing North Vietnam's communist forces by boat. These refugees, as Wallis saw it, had been "inoculated" by capitalist influences during the war and were absconding "to support their consumer habit in other lands." Wallis then admonished critics against pointing to the boat people to "discredit" the righteousness of Vietnam's newly victorious Communist regime.
In 1979, Time magazine hailed Wallis as one of the "50 Faces for America's Future." That same year, the journal Mission Tracks published an interview with Wallis, in which the activist evangelical expressed his hope that "more Christians will come to view the world through Marxist eyes."
Wallis blamed America entirely for the political tensions of the Cold War era. "At each step in the Cold War," he wrote in November 1982, "the U.S. was presented with a choice between very different but equally plausible interpretations of Soviet intentions, each of which would have led to very different responses. At every turn, U.S. policy-makers have chosen to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts."
In the 1980s Wallis embarked on an editorial crusade in Sojourners to undercut public support for a confrontational U.S. foreign policy toward the spread of Communism in Central America. He published bitter denunciations of the American government's sponsorship of anti-Communist Contra rebels against Nicaragua's Sandinista dictatorship. After visiting Nicaragua in 1983, in the company of the pro-Sandinista group Witness for Peace, Wallis and then-Sojourners associate editor Joyce Hollyday co-authored several articles in which they whitewashed the brutality of the Sandinista government while condemning the United States for waging an "undeclared war" against "the people of Nicaragua."
Under the sway of leftist evangelical movements like liberation theology, Wallis invited the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) -- the public relations arm of the El Salvadoran terrorist group the FMLN -- to take part in a number of initiatives with Sojourners. Among these initiatives was the so-called “Pledge Of Resistance,” a blueprint for mobilized protests and acts of civil disobedience to be carried out in the event that the United States were to launch an invasion of Nicaragua.
Wallis later expanded the Pledge to include opposition to any U.S. military action anywhere in Central America. It was not until 1999 that he would admit to second thoughts about his unquestioning support for the Sandinista regime. In the course of an editorial decrying both the U.S. bombing campaign against Iraq and its sanctions against Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad, Wallis conceded: "The Sandinistas were responsible for serious mistakes and violations of human rights, which led to their downfall no less than U.S. aggression did."
To this day, Wallis remains fiercely opposed to capitalism and the free market system. In many interviews, he has stressed his belief that capitalism has proven to be an unmitigated failure. "Our systems have failed the poor and they have failed the earth," Wallis has said. "They have failed the creation."
In 1995 Wallis founded Call to Renewal, a coalition of religious groups united in the purpose of advocating, in religious terms, for leftist economic agendas such as tax hikes and wealth redistribution to promote “social justice.”
Asked in a January 2003 interview with the Harvard Political Review about the then-looming Iraq War, Wallis stated that because the United States had previously supported undemocratic regimes, it now had no right to preemptively oppose one in Iraq. "Saddam Hussein is an evil man," Wallis said, "but so are many rulers around the world. Other human rights violators just as bad have been on the U.S. government's payroll. … We have a history here that isn't very admirable."
More than a mere religious leader, Wallis, a registered Democrat, is also an adroit political operative, publicly portraying himself as a politically neutral religious figure whose overriding allegiance is to God. Always with the disclaimer that neither major political party can claim to authoritatively represent the values of religious faith, Wallis passionately contends that Republican policies tend to be immoral and godless.
After the 2004 presidential election, Wallis acknowledged that he had cast a vote for the Democratic candidate, John Kerry. Owing to the popular post-election consensus among Democratic Party members that their defeat could be attributed to their party's disconnect from religious voters, Wallis became an overnight celebrity within Democratic ranks. Democratic strategists and politicians turned to him as the man who could sell their party to the coveted religious demographic. In January 2005, Senate Democrats invited Wallis to address them in a private discussion. Meanwhile, some fifteen Democratic members of the House made Wallis the guest of honor at a breakfast confab whose subject, according to The New York Times, was devising ways to instill support for the Democratic Party into the hearts of the religious faithful.
On December 14, 2005, Wallis organized an event where some 115 religious activists protested a House Republican budget plan's spending cuts (of about $50 billion over a five-year period) by refusing to clear the entrance to a congressional office building. "These are political choices being made that are hurting low-income people," said Wallis. "Don't make them the brunt of your deficit reduction and fiscal responsibility." Wallis and his fellow demonstrators were arrested for their actions.
According to a March 10, 2007 Los Angeles Times report, in recent years Wallis has sought to re-brand traditional slogans of the religious right, like "pro-life," to refer to such leftist agendas as working with AIDS victims in Africa or helping illegal immigrants in America achieve legal status so they can continue to live with their U.S.-born children.
Wallis's affinity for Marxism and socialism is evident in many things he himself has said. For example, in 2005 Wallis stated that private charity to help the poor was insufficient, and that true social justice could be achieved only by an omnipotent central government empowered to redistribute wealth: "We have to be very clear about this. Voluntary, faith-based initiatives with no resources, no resources to make any serious difference in poverty reduction, is not adequate. That's a charity that falls far short of Biblical justice."
In a January 13, 2006 radio interview with Interfaith Voices, Wallis was asked, "Are you then calling for the redistribution of wealth in society?" He replied, "Absolutely, without any hesitation. That's what the gospel is all about."
In a January 21, 2010 interview, Wallis recounted his first meeting with the Marxist Dorothy Day (founder of the Catholic Worker movement), whom he greatly admired. He said: "My Dorothy Day story happened in Chicago. She was just leaving ... We were living in Chicago ... So I ran 20 blocks [to meet her], and I'm in the parlor of Catholic Worker, and in walks the great lady. Dorothy wrote a book about her life called Love Is the Measure. But she wasn't ever soft ... very tough. [She said] 'So, you were a radical student like me, right? You were a Marxist like me, right?' [I said] Yeah."
Wallis criticized the Tea Party Movement and derided the Libertarian values upon which the movement was based: “The Libertarian enshrinement of individual choice is not the pre-eminent Christian virtue. Emphasizing individual rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition.” According to Wallis, “anti-government ideology just isn’t biblical.” Wallis also smeared the Tea Party Movement with the charge of racism:
“There is something wrong with a political movement like the Tea Party which is almost all white. Does that mean every member of the Tea Party is racist? Likely not. But is an undercurrent of white resentment part of the Tea Party ethos, and would there even be a Tea Party if the president of the United States weren’t the first black man to occupy that office?”
After U.S. Navy SEALs had tracked down and killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011, Wallis said:
"Pumping our fists in victory or celebrating in the streets is probably not the best Christian response to anyone’s death, even the death of a dangerous and violent enemy. The chants of ‘USA, USA, USA’ are also not the best mantra for believers who should know that they are meant to be Christians first and Americans second.”
Wallis also chastised U.S. Christians for having valued innocent American lives “more than the innocents who were in the way of our wars in response to the attacks against us.” Moreover, he asserted that the “violence of terrorism, the violence of war, and even the violent reprisal against Osama bin Laden on Sunday should all push us to deeper reflection, and even repentance, for how we have allowed the seeds of such destruction to take root and grow in our hearts and in our world.”
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| 0.970062 | 2,345 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Activision first published the video game Skylanders in 2011 with Skylanders Spyro’s Adventure. This video game was interesting because it combined typical video game play with real world action figures. The game has a little portal that plugs into the game console via USB.
With that portal connected to the game console, players can take the Skylanders and action figures and set them on the portal to get virtual copies of the action figures into the game to play. Activision has announced that data from research firm NPD Group has shown that sales for the franchise have passed $500 million in the US.
That sales figure includes accessory packs and figures. Activision says that Skylanders have outsold the top action figure lines in the category for the US including Star Wars, WWE, and others. Activision also brags that the latest game in the franchise, Skylanders Giants, made more money in retail sales than the domestic box office sales for top holiday children’s films including Wreck-It Ralph and Rise of the Guardians.
Skylanders Giants generated $195 million in US sales during 2012. This is an interesting game because not only does it generate sales for the game software and hardware to begin with, it also generates sales with the purchase of additional action figures. The action figures are typically sold in the video game section allowing players to purchase new characters for use in the game and for play in the real world.
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| 0.951341 | 284 | 1.507813 | 2 |
by Jeremy Leaming
For decades Religious Right activists have cultivated a wobbly narrative, championed by pundits like Bill O’Reilly, of a secular America striving to erase Christianity from the public square.
These activists, such as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association and televangelists like Pat Robertson and the late Jerry Falwell, often blamed the Supreme Court for leading the way.
First, they have argued the Supreme Court yanked prayer and Bible readings from the public schools in the cases Engel v. Vitale and Abington v. Schempp. But neither of those cases did such things. Instead the Supreme Court in those cases prohibited organized religion in the public schools. In other words public school teachers and administrators had to stop leading students in religious activities. Those cases did not outlaw prayer or religion in the public schools; they just found that such activities must be truly student initiated.
There’s also the annual farce dubbed the “war on Christmas,” where, supposedly, secularists roam city halls and public squares demanding the removal of all vestiges of religion. There are also Supreme Court cases involving these clashes between government officials and individuals bent on festooning public spaces with religious and non-religious symbols. The cases can seem a bit absurd, but a takeaway -- if public officials open their public buildings and spaces to say a nativity display they’d better be prepared to open them to displays of other holidays celebrated during the winter and some secular symbols too, like giant candy-canes or snowmen. For too many Religious Right activists, however, it’s not enough to decorate churches and private homes with religious symbols of the holiday season, they must also adorn government buildings with them and if government officials don’t comply they’ll point to a “war on Christmas.”
Then there are government meetings and activities. From coast to coast there are city and town councils and other government bodies that like to open their public meetings with prayer. The use of prayer in government work has a long history. On the federal level, both chambers of Congress open each day with chaplains providing invocations and a marshal opens Supreme Court sessions, with “Oyez, oyez, God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”
As the nation has evolved, however, and become more diverse, unsurprisingly you’ve had more and more people question the use of prayer during government sessions. And here again, you have a ripe opportunity for Religious Right zealots to complain about attempts to force government officials to either forgo prayer altogether at their official functions or mix it up and include invocations from all kinds of religious groups.
The Supreme Court has touched upon prayer during government sessions, and today the Roberts Court agreed to consider a case – Town of Greece v. Galloway – that allows the high court to revisit precedent on government and prayer. The case arises from Greece, N.Y. where Christian prayer has frequently been used to open town board meetings. As The New York Times’ Adam Liptak reports the town’s prayer policy has been in place since 1999 and town officials have said that people of all faiths, including atheists, can offer invocations.
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- What is TSA?
- Join TSA
- Events & Conferences
- TSA Directory
- For Students
- For Adults
TSA is partnering with the Verizon Foundation to offer the Verizon Innovative App Challenge, a creative competition for middle and high school students. Working with a faculty advisor, teams of 5 to 10 students will develop and submit online an original mobile app concept that incorporates STEM and addresses a real need or problem in their school or community.
One middle school and one high school team from each state will be determined as “Best in State” – receiving local recognition and an invitation to participate in a webinar featuring STEM industry experts. Judges will then select ten overall national winning teams from the top “Best in State” teams.
Each of the ten “Best Overall” national teams (five middle and five high schools) will win $10,000 for their school to promote STEM education; a Samsung Galaxy Tab (tablet) for each team member; and receive professional support in building and bringing their app to market. Additionally, the “Best Overall” teams that develop and bring their app to the marketplace by June 7, 2013 will receive complimentary conference registration, travel and two night’s lodging for two team representatives and an adult chaperone to attend the 2013 national Technology Student Association conference in Orlando, Florida in June where they will present their winning app.
Registration opened October 15 and the submission period for entries was December 1, 2012 to January 18, 2013. Registration is now closed.
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| 0.961844 | 314 | 1.5 | 2 |
Here in New Orleans, we are always talking about growth in terms of property, rebuilding of houses, complex zoning issues and, most recently, the census. These issues can seem hopeless because behind each blighted property or each home in need of repair, there is another. The Ninth Ward Community Garden at 1301 Desire Street represents a tangible growth worth celebrating. Nevermind its prolific pecan tree, above-ground garden beds, composted soil and park-like atmosphere, the garden produces fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs in a neighborhood that does not have a grocery store. You can taste this growth. The Ninth Ward Garden Grand Opening will be celebrated on March 26 at 1301 Desire Street from 1PM to 5PM. There will be membership signup, a presentation by those who made this garden possible, and NOLA Green Roots beloved baby back ribs! The garden is made possible by the Dairy Farmers of America, Inc.—DFA is the chief benefactor and physical builder. Dairy Farmers of America volunteers built the garden in three hours. Talk about initiative! DFA is a cooperative of nearly 17,000 dairy farmers who have banded together to become one of the largest producers of butter and cheese in America. If anyone knows about unifying around supplying food to our community, it’s this group. Built on values such as integrity, quality and passion, DFA set the tone for the Ninth Ward Garden to succeed naturally and with dignity.
We invite the entire community, NOLA Green Roots members and their families, and any one who likes food, fun and New Orleans hospitality for a good cause! Please RSVP here: http://nolagreenroots.com/projects/view_project.php?project_id=7
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My 17 month old is currently being evaluated for Austim, I'm stressing out of couse. Her Pediatrican was concerned cause she was going backward with her speech, at 12 months old, she was saying was "da-da" and "bye-bye" then stopped all of a sudden. Now at 17 months she sayin "da da" again, but nothing else. she has a very short attention span, but makes great eye contact and jabbers ALL the time. she mostly just bangs toys to make noise, but she does pay attention to cartoons...so, she's showing some signs according to people...but I really dont think she has Autism, or maybe im in denial.
Posted: 06/09/2011 by a BabyCenter Member
Sort by: best answers | most recent answers
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One of the precursors is delayed speech. Honestly I would have the evaluation done, because even if they come back with a "not at this time" you still want the avenue to be open for some speech therapy which I would say is needed at this point though I have to say not to drop your guard because I do see other developmental delays.posted 06/21/2011 by BubbasDad
Answer this question
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| 0.982106 | 259 | 1.757813 | 2 |
(CNN) -- Thor Heyerdahl said he had fish practically leaping onto the Kon-Tiki during his cross-Pacific voyage in 1947, but the bounty from the sea hasn't been so rich for the crew of the Plastiki.
With only three fish caught to date, they've been relying on their larder for provisions. But it's not a diet of ship's biscuits, limes and rum rations for David de Rothschild and the crew; their galley is complete with meals that would not look out of place at a chic San Francisco restaurant.
In keeping with the ethos of the expedition, all the Plastiki's food is sustainably sourced and where possible, organic. From beef bourguignon to lamb ragout and Thai chicken curry, the meals were devised by San Francisco-based foodies Jennifer Tuck and Nona Lim.
Tuck and Lim are the gourmands behind Cook!, a home-delivery sustainable food company.
"Our mission is to bring joy and fun back to your kitchen, or in your case, the galley," said Lim and Tuck in their specially devised food guide for the Plastiki.
"In sum, these ingredients and meals hold lots of care and intention for the crew."
Keeping the crew buoyant and healthy are hundreds of pounds of fresh kale, cabbage, leeks, beets, chilies and other greens and many fruits. All were dried and packed before setting off.
All the meats and meat dishes aboard come from grass-fed, sustainable livestock raised close to San Francisco. The meat was cooked alone or as a stew with very rich stock then placed in hot sterile jars and pressure-cooked to ensure freshness and preservation. The crew have more than 110 of these ready-meals to keep them going through the long journey.
The crew might be more familiar with riggings than roulades but Lim and Tuck have a simple message for them when it comes to cooking: "We encourage you to follow this bit of sage advice from Julia Child: 'Learn how to cook -- try new recipes, learn from your mistakes, be fearless, and above all have fun!'"
Plastiki also is supplied with a nutritional guide for the crew advising them on what to eat and how to build meals that support the periods of high-level activity during the voyage.
"Incorporate protein steadily into all your meals, especially with breakfast. This will help keep your energy stronger and steadier, and help control your blood sugar levels throughout the day as well," is a central piece of advice from the guide.
Of course the all important rule is all on board is to hydrate well, something the crew discovered toward the end of the first leg of the journey, when water levels on board were so low not enough could be spared to keep the on-board hydroponic garden alive.
"After 20 days at sea we realized we were using more water for the plants than we anticipated and we were slightly concerned about our own water intake," David de Rothschild told CNN.
"We took the decision to drink the water ourselves [instead of water the garden]. It was a sad day when the last of our kale wilted but we had a very good spinach omelette and said a fond farewell to it."
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| 0.968519 | 678 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The flight of the Holy Family to Egypt:
"And when they [the wise men from the east] were departed , behold the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream , saying , Arise , and take the young child and his mother , and flee into
, and be thou there until I bring thee word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him . When he arose , he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed into Egypt; and was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet , saying , Out of Egypt I called My Son" (Matt . 2:13-15) .
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| 0.979704 | 141 | 1.796875 | 2 |
When families farm and ranch together, there are often communication issues. To help local farm and ranching families figure out how to communicate and work together well, and plan for succession of their farms to the next generation, Colorado State University Extension has invited Dr. Ron Hansen, a professor of agriculture economics from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, to present easy-to-understand, common-sense solutions to these issues.
Dr. Hanson was raised on an Illinois family farm and was educated at Western Illinois University and the University of Illinois. He has counseled Nebraska farm families for more than 30 years, helping them create succession plans for their farms, and helping resolve family conflicts in a positive manner, and improve family relations through better communication. Dr. Hansen is a widely-traveled national speaker who shares his experience and knowledge with audiences in an entertaining and motivational way.
The program, "Keep Your Family Farm or Ranch in the Family — and Improve Communication!" will be held Saturday, Jan. 21, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., in Grand Junction at the Grand Vista Hotel. The program cost is $30 per person and includes continental breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack, and all program materials. Program topics include: "Harmony and Conflict in Multi-Generational Farming," "Improving Communication in Farm Families," "Tools for Farming and Ranching Women to Manage Family Relationships and Stress," and "Farm Family Business Ownership Succession."
Please register by Jan. 17 to ensure lunch is reserved for you. For more information, or to register for the program, call Colorado State University's Delta County Extension office at 874-2195.blog comments powered by Disqus
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Based in Portland, Oregon, Dan Stiles is an iconic designer/illustrator. He’s probably best known for his poster work. Collaborations have included music artists from the likes of Hot Chip, St Vincent, Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs – to name just a few!
He states the influence for his work being a combination of the many different roles he’s had in his education/work life and the various pop-culture environments he has invested an interest in. This range includes old comic books, skate board graphics, modern art, Japanese design and art movements like Art Deco and Art Nouveau.
Now here, he shares some influential responses (especially when it comes to underwear) to the INDIGITS A8!
1. What would you say is the most important theme in your work?
I try to keep it clean and direct. Even the complex stuff is clean.
2. What’s most inspiring to your working process?
I enjoy the sense of discovery that comes from experimentation. I never have enough time to sit and play, but when I do I usually find the results to be both educational and useful for future projects. It’s something I need to make more time to do.
3. Have you any strange talents that influence the work you produce or the way you produce it?
Talents? No. But I do however have a lot of experience in various things that inform how I work. I spent most of my childhood drawing cartoons, so I understand line and motion. I spent my later youth drawing the symbols and typography of punk rock, so I have a good handle on those themes as well as the typographic skills that came from copying all those band logos. Once I started doing posters I taught myself how to screen print. That informed the way I created work with minimal colors and simple bold shapes. Later I worked in digital pre-press where I gathered an array of computer design skills, that was when I ditched brush and ink and went over to working at the computer. After design school I worked doing logos for a few years, that taught me how to pare an idea down to it’s essence and how to convey those ideas in a simple and easy to understand fashion. I would say the sum total of all these experiences created the way I work today. None of these are special talents though, they’re just skills I picked up through hard work.
4. Which artist of the past would you resurrect to collaborate with and why?
There are so many. There was a period between about 1930 and 1970 when so much creative goodness happened. Before the arts were so clearly defined. Graphic designers used to know how to draw, illustrators used to know how to handle type, painters knew how to sculpt. Boundaries are so much more rigid now. I would love to have watched Picasso or Warhol do their thing, or to have interned with Saul Bass or Paul Rand, or been a student at the Bauhaus, or worked with the Eamses’ or Girard. However as rule I’ve found that it’s a bad idea to meet your heros. They’re usually assholes or even worse, totally boring. I prefer to admire their work from afar and not deal with them in person.
5. Do you think your work is understood or misinterpreted and why?
I work really hard to make sure my work is understood. I’m a designer, my job is to convey a message to people that they can understand. If I leave them scratching their heads I’ve failed. There are no little cards hanging next to my work with an artist’s statement that gives people clues as to what I’m talking about. Have you ever seen Piet Zwart’s logo? It’s a little guy taking an arrow in his eye. That’s the job of a designer.
6. If you could decorate one place in the world what would it be and how would you do it?
It would be fun to paint Bob Burnquist’s mega-ramp.
7. What to date has been your ‘cherry on the cake’ moment and what was it that got you there?
I recently finished a huge project for the X Games, that was pretty cool. I grew up in the world of skating and punk in the 80′s. On the one hand I’m sad that none of that stuff is underground anymore, but I’m happy to see that those sports now have their own Olympics. People used to throw bottles at us when we were out skating, now skaters are rock stars. I get to do posters for bands I admire pretty often as well, that’s always nice.
8. What we ask everyone! Does your artistic style influence your underwear?
The older I get the more conservative I get with my clothes. Nobody wants to see anyone over 30 dressing like a teenager. On the other hand I don’t want to wear the adult uniform of khaki dockers and a polo shirt either. I stick to jeans and black Tshirts. However my underwear is still an item of creative expression. I have several pairs of boxers with little devils on them. Also radios, chickens, skulls, etc. So I guess the answer is yes. Unless this is a question of fit, because I prefer boxers, but my style is anything but loose.
More info www.danstiles.com
Images courtesy © Dan Stiles
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It depends on what flags are set by the Makefile when you run make. You can override these flags for better optimizations, BUT... it's not recommended. Optimizations CAN break functionality and introduce bugs. If the creator of the code didn't test his code with those optimization flags set, then you can't expect the code to work exactly like you think it should. Your safest bet is to just "./configure && make && make install" rather than trying to set optimizations the code hasn't been tested with.
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Center for Creative Leadership
How To Leave A Great LegacyJohn Ryan, 08.25.10, 12:35 PM EDT
Follow these four rules.
Having spent three decades in the military and then 12 years as a leader at several educational institutions, I've been privileged to work with and observe many prominent leaders in government, academia, corporations and nonprofits. It seems the best of them, regardless of their field, start out with one thought in mind: What would I like the headlines to say when I depart?
All of us, as those very headlines remind us each day, are susceptible to a lack of humility--and it can poison our legacy. We see prominent politicians demand and receive special treatment. We watch CEOs with great track records get dismissed for lapses in ethics. We listen as star athletes tout their exploits at the expense of their teammates' contributions. These episodes of egomania rarely end well for the individual offenders or their organizations. The best defense is people who are willing to burst our bubble when necessary, whether it's a truth-telling spouse, parents, siblings, coaches, mentors or close friends. They have come to my own aid on more than one occasion. The next best defense: our own daily efforts to cultivate a positive legacy.
That work starts first with our attitude. Are we willing to listen to good advice and change our mind and actions because of it? How teachable are we? Kurt Warner retired from the Arizona Cardinals last season as one of the more accomplished quarterbacks in National Football League history. In his final home game, he threw for 379 yards and five touchdowns in a thrilling playoff win against the Green Bay Packers. Many of us forget that just a few years earlier his career had been left for dead. He had been a Pro Bowl player and Super Bowl MVP before injuries and on-field mistakes sent him into a tailspin. Most teams gave up on him. But Cardinals Coach Ken Whisenhunt thought he could reclaim his magic. He told him quite bluntly how to do it: Stop committing so many turnovers and getting sacked so often. A lot of players with Warner's credentials might have blamed their misfortune merely on bad luck or poor teammates and ignored Whisenhunt's advice. But Warner was known to be a very teachable player, a guy who liked to learn, to challenge himself and improve. He proved it by listening to Whisenhunt and retooling his approach. Together, they led Arizona all the way to the 2009 Super Bowl.
If an ability to act on well-intentioned advice is a good start, a willingness to seek out the views of people known to disagree with us represents a big second step--in fact, a leap forward. That was what Abraham Lincoln, one of my personal heroes, insisted on. It wasn't an accident that he was able to lead the U.S. through the most tumultuous period in its history. He did so by subverting his ego. Perhaps nowhere was this more striking than in his commitment to listening to and learning from people who had opposed and even mocked him on the campaign trail. Most of us, if we're honest, would have kept those rivals at a distance or retaliated against them after winning the presidency. Lincoln instead reached out to them--and even put some of them in his cabinet--because he believed the country needed their knowledge and skills. The historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who explored Lincoln's unorthodox cabinet in her book Team of Rivals, said this: "When something went well, Lincoln always shared the credit. When something went wrong, he shouldered his share of the blame. When he himself made a mistake, he acknowledged it immediately. He made time for each of his cabinet members, so that they all felt they had access to him. He treated them all respectfully and fairly"--even if they didn't show him the same courtesy.
A third and closely related key to an enduring legacy: getting outside of our comfort zone. Arrogance takes root when we start congratulating ourselves on how much we know or how skilled we are at a particular art, whether it's predicting stock prices, designing new gadgets or putting a ball in a hoop. But here's the truth: Our zone of expertise is usually very narrow. No matter how good we are at one thing, there's an enormous range of things that we don't know and we'll never be proficient at. Sometimes it's good to start over at the bottom.
That's what Cory Booker did. Now the mayor of Newark, N.J., Booker has earned widespread recognition for his successful efforts to lower crime and increase business investment in a city that has struggled for decades. A Rhodes Scholar with degrees from Stanford and Yale Law School, Booker could have tried to fix Newark by parachuting in as a high-priced consultant. Or he simply could have enjoyed a gilded corporate career somewhere. Instead, his climb to political clout in the city started very humbly. Although a product of the New Jersey suburbs, he moved into one of Newark's worst public housing communities. He lived there for eight years. Slowly he started building a network of supporters, and then he won a seat on the city council. He lost a heated race for mayor in 2002. He tried again and won in 2006. When President Obama offered him a chance to run the new White House Office of Urban Affairs Policy, Booker declined, citing his commitment to Newark. He has made a career of going outside his comfort zone. How many of us can say the same?
There's a fourth and final key, in my experience, to securing a legacy that makes us and our families proud: focusing on our mission instead of ourselves. Marian Wright Edelman, one of the world's foremost advocates for children as head of the Children's Defense Fund, has been breaking down barriers her whole life. In 1965 she became the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi bar. She also helped lead Martin Luther King's Poor People's Campaign. In its level of achievement and service, Edelman's career cannot be matched by most of us. And yet she doesn't take excessive pride in it. "I never thought I was breaking a glass ceiling. I just had to do what I had to do, and it never occurred to me not to," she told U.S. News & World Report. "My father always said that if you follow the need, you'll never lack for a useful purpose." You also won't lack for humility and perspective--because what you are trying to accomplish will always be bigger than you are. If we want to leave an inspiring legacy, there's no better way to be.
John Ryan is president of the Center for Creative Leadership, a global provider of leadership education and research. He previously served as chancellor of the State University of New York and superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Md. He was a pilot during a 35-year career in the Navy, retiring as a vice-admiral.
For more articles from the Center for Creative Leadership on Forbes.com, click here.
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| 0.983491 | 1,438 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Not sure what to eat before a big race? This energy-packed granola is just the job...
Oats - yep, we all know they are the wonder-food that can keep your energy levels on track. But if you're looking for a breakfast with added oomph, then FUEL could be just the morning jolt your body needs.
It's an energy cereal that has been created specifically to meet the needs of sports and fitness enthusiasts.
Three reasons to eat oats
FUEL has been developed for people (yes, that's you, Zesties!) who take part in sports such as triathlons, marathons and long distance road cycling to help sustain them through punishing training regimes and during the race itself.
It comes in two flavours - Real Fruit, and Chocolate Chunks. We're not really fans of chocolatey breakfast cereal here at Zest HQ, so we tried the Real Fruit version - and it is delicious. Mixed in with fruit compote and yoghurt it really does taste like the food of champions. Crunchy, wholesome - and packed with large clusters of toasted oats.
Containing only natural ingredients, FUEL is rich in Vitamin B and E, high in fibre and contains guarana extract, offering a blend of slow- and fast-release energy.
It was created by Barry Mauleverer, a veteran of extreme sporting challenges including the gruelling Marathon des Sables, the Himalayan Marathon and, most recently, the Jungle Marathon in the Amazon.
He says, 'We have created FUEL because we were bored with what was on offer in the cereals category and specifically to meet the needs of today’s active people taking part in marathons, triathlons, mountain climbing as well as more traditional pastimes such as rugby, tennis and squash. An energy-packed cereal like FUEL will help give you the edge.'
Find FUEL in Tesco and Sainsbury stores, RRP £3.29 for a 400g pack.
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| 0.953833 | 445 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The final year is spent primarily learning the role of ED supervisor and teacher, as well as learning to lead the trauma team caring for critically ill trauma patients. During blocks of adult emergency medicine, the resident functions as a supervisor in the emergency department and is expected to oversee the care of all the patients in their section of the ED. The senior resident receives case presentations from junior residents and oversees all interventions, procedures and dispositions. Concurrently, the resident is expected to provide education to the junior residents about the pathology that is seen. Emphasis is placed on the coordination of care, direction of trauma and medical resuscitations, and emergency department management. The fourth-year resident is responsible for directing all full (first tier) trauma responses during the day as well as overseeing junior residents who direct modified trauma responses during the day and night. Pediatric ED shifts are integrated throughout the year for continued exposure to pediatric emergency medicine. Four weeks of the senior year are spent learning emergency department administration, which includes day-to-day operations, quality improvement, and joint work groups. The administrative block includes teaching all junior residents and students during morning conference, as well as a significant involvement in simulation medicine for medical students and residents. So that each resident may pursue research or other areas of interest, eight to twelve weeks of elective study time is allotted. Eight of these weeks can be spent outside of Yale.
|Yale Emergency Medicine (Adult and Pediatric)||24-28 weeks|
|Bridgeport Emergency Medicine* (Adult and Pediatric)||8 weeks|
|Administrative Emergency Medicine||4 weeks|
* denotes rotation at Bridgeport Hospital.
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http://medicine.yale.edu/emergencymed/residency/curriculum/fourth.aspx
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| 0.956715 | 333 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Are you, like yours truly and thousands of others, participating in NaNoWriMo right now? Are you thinking these thirty days are taking foooreeeverrr? Consider this:
Margaret Mitchell wrote and published Gone with the Wind in 10 years.
Audrey Niffenegger began writing The Time Traveler’s Wife in 1997. She finished in 2001, but it took another two years of searching for an agent and publisher before the finished product was in her hands. From idea to publication: 7 years.
Helen Hooven Santmyer spent nearly 10 years writing ...And Ladies of the Club, which was published when she was 88 years old!
Anna Lee Waldo spent 10 years researching and writing Sacajawea.
Pat O’Shea spent 13 years writing her first novel, The Hounds of the Mórrígan.
Jane Yolen took 19 years to write Stone Silenus. It took her 20 years to write Dragon’s Heart. Despite this, she has written over 200 books! She works on more than one manuscript at a time. On her website, Jane Yolen claims she has unfinished manuscripts that’ll probably take even longer to complete than the two mentioned above. Yeesh. She is one patient writer!
Michael Crichton spent 8 years researching and writing Jurassic Park. And it took him 20 years to write and publish Sphere. He liked “cooking” ideas in his head before he began writing.
Alistair Macleod took 10 years to write and publish his first collection of short stories, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, and another 10 years to write his second collection, As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories. Then he wrote his first novel, No Great Mischief, in 13 years.
Larry McMurtry began developing an epic western tale for a feature film in 1972. When that project fell through, he decided to write the screenplay as a novel instead. Lonesome Dove was published 13 years later.
After The Hobbit was published, J.R.R. Tolkien spent nearly 16 years working on the sequel. He began writing parts of The Lord of the Rings in 1936 and spent over 10 years writing just the primary narrative and appendices. He finished the novel in 1952, and it was published in three volumes: The Fellowship of the Ring (July 1954), The Two Towers (December 1954), and The Return of the King (October 1955).
Perhaps busting our writerly butts for a first draft in only thirty days isn’t so bad after all! ;) We're more than halfway through!!!
Happy weekend and happy writing! What are your writing plans this weekend? Any fun non-writing plans?
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| 0.973593 | 563 | 1.625 | 2 |
Get to Uncle Sam Fast By Electronic Filing
The IRS is evaluating different ways to eliminate paper
`IF you want to get up at 2 o'clock in the morning and file your [tax] return," says Johnell Hunter. "Go ahead!"Skip to next paragraph
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
The Internal Revenue Service spokeswoman is quite serious. TELEFILE, a new IRS program being piloted in Ohio, enables taxpayers to dial an IRS computer on their phone.
At the prompting of a computer-generated voice, they punch in their wages and withholding taxes and are told instantly how much they owe or will be refunded. No long-winded calculations, no forms to fill out, and an IRS check is in the mail within two weeks (if it's a refund).
Still at a test stage, TELEFILE is restricted to taxpayers who are single, earn under $50,000, and would usually file a 1040EZ form.
Last year 126,000 people filed completely by phone. This year, 1.1 million 1040EZ packages for TELEFILE were sent out to Ohio residents. The level of response, however, will determine if the IRS expands the program nationwide.
Filing by computer, first introduced in 1986, is pulling in converts by the millions. Lured by the promise of quick refunds, more than 15 million taxpayers will likely file their federal tax returns electronically this year - cutting the usual eight to 10 week wait back to a mere two to three.
That's the projection of the IRS, which saw the number of electronic filers jump 44 percent between 1991 and 1992.
Electronic filing has its price. Tax preparers generally charge $20 to $40, although some agents offer free filing to old clients. The IRS has no control over the fee, it says, but requests agents not to charge by percentage of refund or type of return.
So why not skip the middle man and file from home? Two barriers stand in the way. The cost of the equipment - tax preparation software, special computer modems, and printers - would be prohibitive. And the IRS could not handle the millions of phone calls that would come in from all over the country at all times of day and night.
"We don't have enough telephone lines," Ms. Hunter says.
Instead, 48,000 IRS-approved tax preparers batch together their returns and each file once a day, often overnight to save costs.
Many tax preparers say resistance and confusion among clients about electronic filing is still common. Elizabeth Clarke, owner of Clearbrook Tax Service in Newton, Mass., says as many as 20 percent of her clients refuse to file electronically, "even after I've gone through my whole spiel."
Even with the added incentive of offering the service free, Ms. Clarke says clients have three main concerns that actually aren't so: A greater chance of being audited; having to pay their tax right away; not seeing a copy of the return.
A small number of filers will have to file on paper because the IRS won't accept certain forms electronically. Although Jackson Hewitt, an electronic tax service, predicts 100 million people will file via computer by the year 2000, the IRS is more circumspect and is shooting for 20 percent of filers or about 30 million.
The appeal for the IRS is savings in time and money. Computers obviate the need for handling piles of paper. No forms need typing and accuracy is assured, since tax preparers' software flags returns that don't add up.
When returns reach the IRS computer, the social security number and name are automatically checked against current data.
If they match completely, the return drops into the number-crunching system. If there is a discrepancy, it is then sent back to the tax preparer.
Once in the system, each return is screened against mathematical formula to determine if the things you claim on your tax return are commonly claimed by people of the same class.
For filers wanting to do more than fill out paper forms, but uncertain of electronic filing, there is the 1040 PC option. A relatively new package of IRS-approved software, it enables tax payers to fill out their own forms on computer, print them and then mail them off. This is as close as you get to filing from home. The benefit: only the lines you need are printed on the return, producing a shorter form than the usual 1040. And you can store your tax data on a disk.
But for Hunter, even working for the IRS has not given her the confidence to file electronically. "For years and years I've had a paper return," she says. "I'm not going to start with make-believe tax returns now."
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<urn:uuid:39e1d4f1-6761-48b8-b9f2-9eff25456e41>
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http://www.csmonitor.com/1993/0304/04091.html
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| 0.95909 | 977 | 1.546875 | 2 |
1934 Morris Isis Saloon Coachwork by Mulliner (see text) Registration no. AOE 809 Chassis no. 34/1/7329 Engine no. JK 17122
Morris Sixes were around in small numbers in the early 1920s but the company's first serious effort did not materialise until 1927, with the appearance of the 'Light Six'. Based on that of the Wolseley 16/45, the latter's JA-type engine was a 2,468cc overhead-camshaft unit with an RAC rating of 17.7hp. Early in 1928 the model was renamed 'Morris Six', a designation dropped in July 1929 with the arrival of the Isis, which retained the 17.7hp engine but otherwise was almost entirely different, featuring a new chassis, all-steel Budd body (hence the American styling) and Lockheed hydraulic brakes.
For 1932 there was a new Isis, which returned to traditional ash-framed coachwork and was less American in appearance. Beneath the skin the car remained much as before apart from a new four-speed gearbox, which replaced the old-three-speed unit. A cross-braced chassis was introduced on the 1934 model, a new radiator and Bendix automatic clutch/freewheel arriving at the same time.
Repainted but otherwise un-restored, this rare coachbuilt Isis is believed to be the only survivor of six bodied by Mulliner, though at time of cataloguing it had not been possible to determine which of the three companies of that name was responsible. 'AOE 809' is described by the vendor as in generally good condition, with very good chassis and transmission, and fair bodywork and paint. The car is offered with old-style continuation logbook (issued 1956), two old MoT certificates (most recent expired July 2011) and Swansea V5C.
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http://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20147/lot/510/
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| 0.969013 | 387 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Inhibitory action of toxic compounds present in lignocellulosic hydrolysates on xylose to xylitol bioconversion by Candida guilliermondii.
ABSTRACT The inhibitory action of acetic acid, ferulic acid, and syringaldehyde on metabolism of Candida guilliermondii yeast during xylose to xylitol bioconversion was evaluated. Assays were performed in buffered and nonbuffered semidefined medium containing xylose as main sugar (80.0 g/l), supplemented or not with acetic acid (0.8-2.6 g/l), ferulic acid (0.2-0.6 g/l), and/or syringaldehyde (0.3-0.8 g/l), according to a 2(3) full factorial design. Since only individual effects of the variables were observed, assays were performed in a next step in semidefined medium containing different concentrations of each toxic compound individually, for better understanding of their maximum concentration that can be present in the fermentation medium without affecting yeast metabolism. It was concluded that acetic acid, ferulic acid, and syringaldehyde are compounds that may affect Candida guilliermondii metabolism (mainly cell growth) during bioconversion of xylose to xylitol. Such results are of interest and reveal that complete removal of toxic compounds from the fermentation medium is not necessary to obtain efficient conversion of xylose to xylitol by Candida guilliermondii. Fermentation in buffered medium was also considered as an alternative to overcome the inhibition caused by these toxic compounds, mainly by acetic acid.
[show abstract] [hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: A heat-labile phenolic acid decarboxylase from Candida guilliermondii (an anamorph of Pichia guilliermondii) was purified to homogeneity by simple successive column chromatography within 3 days. The molecular mass was 20 kDa by sodium dodecyl sulfate–polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis and 36 kDa by gel-filtration chromatography, suggesting that the purified enzyme is a homodimer. The optimal pH and temperature were approximately 6.0 and 25�C. Characteristically, more than 50% of the optimal activity was observed at 0�C, suggesting that this enzyme is cold-adapted. The enzyme converted p-coumaric acid, ferulic acid, and caffeic acid to corresponding products with high specific activities of approximately 600, 530, and 46 U/mg, respectively. The activity was stimulated by Mg2? ions, whereas it was completely inhibited by Fe2?, Ni2 ?, Cu2?, Hg2?, 4-chloromericuribenzoate, N-bromosuccinimide, and diethyl pyrocarbonate. The enzyme was inducible and expressed inside the cells moderately by ferulic acid and p-coumaric acid and significantly by non-metabolizable 6-hydroxy-2- naphthoic acid.Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology 01/2012; 39:55–62. · 2.73 Impact Factor
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Well, here's how it all started.
I made this offhand remark in my post about Pie Pirates the other day:
"I firmly believed that cartoonists should write cartoons and had convinced Nickelodeon of it. Not every cartoonist can write of course, but only cartoonists should write cartoons - just as only dancers can "write" (choreograph) dances, musicians can write music and sculptors can "write" sculptures."
I had hoped I could sneak this axiom under everyone's noses, but alas Ted caught me.
Outraged that I thought cartoonists should make cartoons and musicians should make music, he decided to teach me a lesson and refute me in the comments. When I saw the comment I was paralyzed with fear. Caught!
I thought to myself, ""Wait! Ha hah! I have comment moderation on! I just won't publish the comment and no one will see how weak my theory was."
But then came this ominous threat:
At 7:11 AM, Ted said...
You don't really explain why you think only cartoonists should write cartoons. You just say you are convinced of it (and that you convinced Nickelodeon of it; are you going to say if someone can convince Nick something is the case, then it must be the case?)and make analogies that are not so clear cut (the church, government and private clients generally wrote what classical and renaissance sculpture or paintings would be, often to the point of saying "make it like this other Madonna" or similar, and dance is often written storywise by non-dance sources; see, for example, The Lion King, or Cats). The artists executed the final product through their own artistic lens, and added incalculably to the work, but it's wrong to say they were the sole writers.
You also don't address other, more similar artforms, where it is not the case; live action films and television are almost certainly the most analagous artform to cartoons in terms of story structure, and yet people are not up in arms when a movie isn't written by a cinematographer, set dresser, or director.
So, why is a cartoonist the only person equipped to create (or lift) a story structure? Why is a cartoonist the only person who can write a line of dialogue like "cling tenaciously to my buttocks"? Or a line like "You're next! Meeester Doggie Treeeeat !"? If cartoonists are so important to the process, why are the two specific examples of cartoonist added content lines of dialogue? Why are cartoonists uniquely qualified to take someone else's story and swap in new wackier elements? Why are cartoonists uniquely qualified to watch old cartoons, glean what works about the story structure, and regurgitate it in new and interesting ways?
There's a big difference between saying "some cartoonists can write great cartoons or add great story or dialogue bits to cartoons", which your comments support, and "only cartoonists should write cartoons". A cartoonist might have all the technical skills to be able to make a cartoon from story to embellished drawings by herself and a non-cartoonist cannot make a cartoon by herself because by that definition they are lacking the technical drawing skill sets of the cartoonist. How is your assertion that a non cartoonist cannot have the technical skill to write a cartoon story structure or dialogue any different from the assertion of a broken studio system that says cartoonists cannot have the technical skill to write a cartoon?
So now I knew I had to do something. Knowing that I couldn't possibly defend myself against Ted''s razor sharp deductions with my own meager wits, I decided to ask my old buddy Walt in Heaven to give us a few words to defend the honor of cartoonists everywhere. Please Walt! Make them give us our business back again! We wanna do it the way you and everyone else did it back when cartoons were creative!
Walt seems to be saying, "Ted, are you serious?"They are the "writers" who don't use typewriters.
Here's what a "script" looks like for a cartoon picture.
Hey Ted, thanks for the really good questions. I'm just havin' fun with ya! I knew somebody would want to know what the difference between classic cartoons and modern ones are, so your post was a good excuse for me to show everyone! ...soon I will have to prove that musicians used to write music too. Remember when there were tunes you could hum after you heard a song? The same guys who "write" modern cartoons must be writing rap songs now!
Now, if you don't believe Walt Disney, maybe you'll listen to Walter Lantz:
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The ACLU’s Christian View of War
By: Robert E. Meyer
In the Monday, September 18th addition of the USA today, a Tennessee minister named Oliver Thomas wrote an op-ed column entitled “A Christian view of war.” While Thomas expressed many sentiments worthy of consideration, he made a fundamental theological error in his analysis, which tends to be one of the integral components in delineating the ideology of the religious left from the religious right.
Thomas chided Christians in America for forgetting Jesus’ teachings from the Sermon on the Mount. Chief among them are “Blessed are the peacemakers,” “Turn the other cheek,” and “Pray for your enemies.” Now, I don’t fault Thomas for reminding individual Christians of their spiritual duties at a time when it’s easy to get “whipped up” in the spirit of vengeance, but he proceeds to apply the aforementioned Beatitudes to the conduct of state. This is a misapplication you will find in nearly every liberal (though Thomas never claims to be a liberal) criticism of George W. Bush.
In the internet forum commentary beneath the article, a respondent identified as Jim D., caught this error and articulated a rebuttal at least as well as I could have…
“…I have to disagree with his application of the Sermon on the Mount. This is how individuals are to behave, not nations, or leaders of nations. One of the primary purposes of government is to protect its citizens. If the government “turned the other cheek” when it was attacked, it would be abdicating its responsibility. When you are in leadership, the higher moral imperative is to protect, not submit. It would be akin to a police officer not arresting a rapist because the police office was personally a Christian. His civic duty trumps his personal duty…”
I have discussed this principle many times, most notably in a piece entitled “Beware of secularists quoting scripture.” I stated in the piece that Bush is condemned as a theocrat for injecting his personal faith into the cultural milieu, but then chastised for not being like Mahatma Ghandi in conducting the war on terrorism.
Whenever I come across this sort of thinking, I have to wonder how these folks exegetically contend with Romans Chapter 13. The beginning of the chapter discusses the role of the state in a just society, and proscribes that the state wields the sword of wrath against the evil doer. The representative of the state acts as the derivative avenger of justice in the present, while the ultimate day of reckoning by God is held in abeyance.
Liberals frequently bring up the issue of “church and state separation,” that is, “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s,” but have no clue when it comes to applying this concept. I recall a taped debate at Wheaton College a few years back, between Dr. Tony Campolo and Gary Bauer. Campolo basically said that there was no real distinction in the Christian responsibilities of the church and of the state. He was scripturally mistaken.
Hopefully I have distilled the concept they espouse correctly. It seems to me that liberal Christians believe that the state has the same duty to provide compassion and charity as the church, but when it comes to cultural morality and law, the church should have no input or influence in shaping the culture. This is a schizophrenic dichotomy if I ever heard one. Liberals opt for an ideological separation of church and state, whereas conservatives cleave to the historically normative functional and jurisdictional understanding of such separation.
Thomas follows this liberal template in his piece also. At one point he tells us that the Constitution never mentions God, thus it is a secular document, and, therefore, America is a secular nation (though if not mentioning a word is the criteria, we must note that the word “secular” never appears in the Constitution either). Such logic is easily refuted, but I won’t run down that rabbit trail in this piece. At another point he relates with distain that “slapping up copies of the Ten Commandments on government buildings threaten to turn us into the very sort of society we are fighting against in this new war.” Just how would that happen, I wonder — shades of Rosie O’Donnel it seems? Interestingly enough, I thought the issue with the Ten Commandments was that secularists were trying to take them off of government property, not that Christians were putting new copies up.
Intertwined within that admonition, Thomas turns around and reminds us that we must encourage our government to observe Christian ideals, which more than anything else, sound like a litany of innuendo. For example, he says we should repudiate any leader who says we have a special claim to God’s blessing and purpose (God is on our side). Isn’t this rather preemptive? What American leader has ever said these things? Bush has been accused of this, and so was Ronald Reagan, but when you read their quotes, you discover their detractors read with mischief in between the lines.
Thomas also says that we ought to address the root of terrorism; poverty and hopeless conditions, particularly of displaced Palestinians. Never mind that their leaders have bilked the people out of money appropriated for them, and that the U.N. has done little to serve the purpose for which it was founded. I also think the Islamic schools play formidable role in promoting a terrorist culture by indoctrination of Islamic youths. One can only wonder why wealthy Arabs can sympathize with the Palestinians by organizing terrorist attacks, but can’t offer them any charitable sustenance from their vast riches.
I believe people would be happy to give sacrificially if they didn’t find out later that their gifts enriched dictators, terrorists or war lords. We also must exercise stewardship over our charity, rather than just throw “pearls before swine” (a biblical principle also).
Thomas has good intentions; I’m sure, but at times struggles not to retreat into a “blame America” diatribe. He must remember, as Jim D. stated above, the primary purpose of government is the defense of the people under its sovereignty, not unconditional capitulation.
As I conclude this column, there is one more thing you should know that I have just discovered. Thomas co-authored a book with the “Rev.” Barry Lynn. Thomas was allegedly quoted as saying “The American Civil Liberties Union has done more for religious liberty than many denominations.” Maybe that tells us everything.
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PLANK JANUARY 2, 2013
People in New York and New Jersey are up in arms about House leaders' decision to adjourn late Tuesday night after the big "fiscal cliff" vote without also voting on the $60 billion relief package for Hurricane Sandy. The Daily News' cover headline, under a picture of John Boehner and Eric Cantor, reads: "FISCAL STIFFS: D.C. dolts finally pass stopgap deal, but stick it to Sandy vics by axing aid vote." GOP House leaders are being excoriated not only by Democrats from New York and New Jersey but by House Republicans from the two states. Rep. Michael Grimm, a Staten Island Republican, called it a "betrayal." Rep. Peter King, of Long Island, went furthest, declaring on CNN: “I’m saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to Congressional Republicans is out of their minds. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It was an absolute disgrace.”
What's behind House Republicans' resistance to the package? The official line is that they are worried, as with any other big spending, about its cost. They want it to be offset by other cuts and pared back (the bill had been larded up with non-Sandy items, including relief for other regions for past events). “Sometimes when you ask for too much, you don’t get anything,” Sen. Roy Blount, of Missouri, told CNN. It's not hard to wonder, though, whether stiffing New York and New Jersey has to do with the states' political coloring—both blue, one is governed by a high-profile Democrat and possible presidential aspirant, the other by a Republican whom many in his party blame for helping Barack Obama win reelection, who today in characteristically no-holds-barred fashion declared the House's punting on the vote "disappointing and disgusting to watch." Is holding off on the relief bill payback by a party that has an ever-dwindling hold in the Northeast?
If so, there's a sad irony at play for those in the most affected areas: Republicans are, perhaps more than they realize, stiffing their own voters. The fact is, the parts of New York and New Jersey hit hardest by Sandy tended to be far more Republican-leaning than the states as a whole. Obama won New Jersey by nearly 18 percentage points, but he lost the two big coastal counties, Ocean and Monmouth, with only 41 and 47 percent of the vote, respectively. He won New York City with a whopping 81 percent of the vote. But among the few pockets of the city that Mitt Romney carried were the precincts hit hardest by Sandy, including southern Staten Island and Belle Harbor in the Rockaways.
What are we to make of this? Well, for one thing, that as our political landscape becomes more starkly sorted between red and blue, it is important to keep in mind that the clustering often happens at a more local level than we realize—there are very red islands in blue seas, and vice versa. Also, that gerrymandering can come at a real cost to citizens in need of serious help. The more that seats are carved into reliably Republican or Democratic enclaves and the less that members need to worry about winning reelection, the less incentive there is for party leaders to keep them in fine fettle with their constituents, whether through routine earmarks or through emergency aid after a disaster. In New Jersey, for instance, the 2010 redistricting made the two districts that represent much of coastal New Jersey safer territory for the Republican incumbents: Jon Runyan, who won his formerly swing district by 9 points, and Chris Smith, who won his by 18 points. A House leader looking ahead to 2014 would see little reason to worry about those members' prospects.
One exception to this might be Grimm, whose district encompassing Staten Island and southern Brooklyn is relatively coherently drawn, and is also relatively competitive—he won reelection in November by 6.6 percentage points, against a lackluster challenger. Grimm, as it happens, is also under ongoing federal investigation for possible campaign finance violations. If he is now lashing out at his own party's leaders, it's surely in part because he realizes that they, in stiffing New York, could end up infuriating just enough of his constituents to flip a red district to blue, and thus bring it into harmony with a broader Northeastern region that national Republican leaders see ever less reason to give a damn about.
Follow me on Twitter @AlecMacGillis
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RISMEDIA, October 15, 2010—The light bulb. Bubble wrap. The Post-It. The iPod. The Snuggie. Facebook. Twitter. These inventions, products, and businesses all started with an idea. An idea that to anyone other than its creator(s) may have seemed like an insane thing to invest much time, money, or effort in bringing to fruition. But for the masterminds behind these great ideas, the risk paid off and so too can your next great idea.
“Great ideas are like gold,” says Jim Kukral, author of Attention! This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue. “Everybody hopes to find them buried under the floorboards in their house. But just like finding gold, you often need a treasure map. In fiscally constrained times such as these, ideas are what matter most. Businesses live and die from the ideas they come up with. Great ideas get attention and bring people through the doors. The tricky part is figuring out how to find them.”
In Attention! Kukral teaches readers how to unlock their brains and start generating amazing ideas that will skyrocket sales, load businesses with leads, and create a powder keg of publicity.
Here, Kukral offers the some simple suggestions to help you generate killer ideas and jump-start your venture.
Carry a notebook. The only thing worse than not being able to come up with an idea is thinking of an amazing idea, not writing it down, and then forgetting it.
Eavesdrop. Listen to people talking on the bus, at the coffee shop, or in the elevator at work. “You’ll get a good feel for what people care about: their concerns, wishes, and interests,” explains Kukral. “And you may also hear a great idea or two in the mix.”
Do something new. Sign up for a class, take up a new hobby, listen to a different kind of music, or do anything that is new to you. Not only will it get new parts of your brain humming, you’ll meet and connect with new people—which is a great way to find new ideas.
Hold a grudge. What annoys you? When you think about the list of things you wish were different, the chances are those things also annoy other people. Keep a running list of all the things that bug you and find solutions that will make them better.
Find the peanut butter to your jelly. Take two ideas and put them together to make one new idea. “After all, what is a Snuggie but the mutation of a blanket and a robe?” asks Kukral. “Think beyond the obvious connections to come up with something truly innovative.”
Get physical. Movement increases the flow of endorphins, as well as sending more blood to your brain.
Get an outsider’s opinion. There are times when you are so close to a project that it creates a mental block for idea generation. Bringing in a fresh perspective can make all the difference.
Just listen. It may sound obvious, but really listen when customers talk to you. When you do, you will hear ideas for new products and services, ways to improve customer service, and uses you never considered for your products that can open up new markets for you.
Change your routine. New surroundings and new experiences can help your brain shift gears and get you to think differently. Drive a new route to the office, try a new restaurant for lunch, start work a little earlier (or a little later), work in a different place, or anything that busts you out of your rut.
Listen to music. You may find that a little Mozart awakens your creativity, or you may respond better to a little Metallica. Whatever works for you, fire up your iPod, get into the groove, and let your mind work.
Take a shower, walk the dog, do the laundry. How many great ideas do you get in the shower? It’s not a coincidence that great thinking happens in the shower. “Other mindless activities are great for brainstorming too. Wash the dishes, walk the dog, or fold the laundry. If you give your mind the chance to wander, you’ll free yourself to come up with a brilliant idea.”
Make a list. This is a tried-and-true method proven to work wonders. “Get out a notepad, or fire up your computer, and write down everything you can think of related to your issue,” suggests Kukral. “For example, if you need a new slogan for a product, write down every feature and benefit you can think of, the types of people who need the product, the problems it solves, and so on. Pull out a thesaurus and start looking up synonyms. When you are done, you will not only have your slogan, you will have a library of words and phrases you can use in your marketing and publicity campaigns.”
Wear a silly hat. Use a prop when it is time to be creative. It could be anything (such as wearing a silly hat) that signals to your brain that it is time to go into idea-generating mode.
Be a bookworm. Read everything you can get your hands on: business books, novels, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and everything else. The more raw materials you take in, the more you learn, and the more you know, the better you will become at putting together seemingly unrelated concepts to create something new.
Sleep on it. Just before going to bed, think about the ideas you want to generate. Be specific: “I will come up with great ways to promote our new widget. Tell yourself you will come up with a solution while you sleep,” advises Kukral. “Keep a pad and pen or a recorder next to your bed so you can capture the ideas as soon as you wake up.”
Ask the almighty Google. When you are stuck on an idea, try entering a few words related to what you are looking for. “Google will try to automatically complete your query, and may come up with just what you need,” says Kukral. “Then look at some of the search results to see what inspires you.”
Doodle. Make random doodles on a white board or piece of paper. Draw, jot words, make circles, or whatever you do when you doodle. As you loosen up, ideas may start to form on the page.
Forget everything you know. Too often, we let our biases creep in and influence our thinking. Start fresh, without preconceived notions of what you must do or what is impossible. Be open to anything and everything.
Borrow an idea. Everyone thinks that their business is not like anyone else’s. The truth is that all of our businesses are more alike than they are different. “Look at what others are doing in other industries and see how you can apply their ideas to your own business,” says Kukral.
Hire a professional. If you’re really and truly stuck on something, or if a deadline is rapidly approaching, there’s no shame in hiring a little outside help. “Hiring a consultant can be a great investment,” says Kukral. “Often times, they don’t even have to come up with the ideas for you. They simply ask the right questions that will lead you to the great idea that’s buried in your brain.”
Copyright© 2013 RISMedia, The Leader in Real Estate Information Systems and Real Estate News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be republished without permission from RISMedia.
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Hong Kong's public hospital chiefs say the number of mainlanders taking advantage of superior medical care and generous benefits in the former British colony has leapt by 108 per cent year-on-year.
Last month, under pressure maternity staff assisted 179 mainland women who "rushed to casualty departments for emergency labour", the figures reveal.
In comparison, in January 2011, 89 women gave birth under "emergency" circumstances, according to the Hong Kong Hospital Authority.
In total, babies born to mainland mothers in Hong Kong totalled 32,000 in 2010, accounting for about 40 per cent of all births.
The influx of pregnant Chinese mothers – who by giving birth claim automatic rights for themselves and their newborns – is the main source of the rising resentment among Hong Kongers towards their compatriot neighbours.
The Hong Kong administration announced last month it is to limit the number of the so-called birth tourists, setting a quota of 3,400 births for non-local women per year, down from 10,000 last year.
But mainlanders are flouting the rules by arriving at emergency wards in the late stages of labour.
As well as better medical treatment, newborns receive automatic residency and are entitled to 12 years free education.
The unwanted baby boom is putting a strain on resources as well as causing public anger.
A recent media advert in a Hong Kong newspaper described mainlanders as "locusts", sparking outrage among Chinese.
Earlier this week, Chinese family planning officials warned mainland parents they remain subjected to China's one-child policy if they give birth to a second child in Hong Kong and face punishment if they flout the rules.
Tighter boarder controls have also been implemented to weed out pregnant women at immigration.
But labour wards continue to assist mainlanders, most of whom pay agents in China to take them across the border to stay in illegal shelters in Hong Kong while they wait to go into labour.
"As long as Hong Kong provides better medical care or more benefits for pregnant mainland women, it is impossible for the Hong Kong administration to completely eradicate the problem," said professor Feng Yujun from the Renmin University in Beijing.
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US Hails New Cooperation Agreements Between Sudan, South Sudan
The United States of America today welcomed the meeting between the presidents of Sudan and South Sudan for the countries' recommitment to the unconditional implementation of the September 27, 2012 agreements.
Reports say Sudan and South Sudan signed cooperation agreements on security and economic matters at Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa.
The deals also includes that two countries would continue to work together to resolve the outstanding issues including Abyei and the call for a demilitarized zone along the border.
al-Bashir at the 12th African Union summit in February 2009. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
"The parties now have agreement on a plan and a timetable for implementing the Safe Demilitarized Border Zone." - Ms. Rice
She says the agreement between the parties to instruct the Abyei Joint Oversight Committee to urgently constitute the Abyei Area administration, council, and police service.
Resolution of Abyei's final status is critical to promoting sustainable peace, she added.
The US shares the assessment of the African Union Peace and Security Council that the AU High-Level Implementation Panel's September 21 proposal for Abyei still provides a fair, equitable, and workable solution.
Ms. Rice underlines that this proposal provides for Abyei's continuing special status as a bridge between the two countries with guaranteed political and economic rights for both the Ngok Dinka peoples and the Misseriya, whatever the outcome of the referendum.
However, Ms. Rice pointed out that the US remains deeply concerned by the continued deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile, and we received a briefing about that.
"We're also deeply concerned about the ongoing aerial bombardments by the Sudanese Armed Forces, including in civilian areas." - Ms. Rice
She emphasizes that the Security Council must work collectively now to press for immediate and unfettered humanitarian access.
In addition, the US urges the two parties to conduct urgent talks on humanitarian access, a ceasefire, and a political resolution of their conflict.
In Semptember 2012, agreements were reached between Sudan and South Sudan on security, oil, financial, nationality, and trade issues.
The leaders of both countries signed a cooperation agreement after talks in the Ethiopian capital that began on Sunday
The agreements include an oil deal last month ensuring the resumption of oil exports.
In addition, both parties also agreed on a demilitarised border buffer zone where troops must withdraw 10 kilometres from the de facto line of control along the disputed frontier.
Earlier in August 2012, Sudan and South Sudan have finally struck a deal on how to share their oil wealth.
Reports say the parties have agreed on all of the financial arrangements regarding oil.
The two countries were given August 2 deadline by the United Nations to solve disputes from border security to oil payments.
The oil impasse between two countrieshas lasted more than six months.
In addition rEarlier of June 2012, Sudan and South Sudan have made significant progress to end hostilities.
The forces of South Sudan have completely pulled out of Abyei, that the forces of Khartoum, the SAF forces are also now out of Abyei.
In addition, South Sudan has recently completed withdrawal processes of its police forces from the disputed Abyei to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing roadmap of the Africa Union Peace and Security Commission.
South Sudan reportedly complied with all aspects of resolution 2046, which calls on both sides to resume negotiations on post-partition issues and signed pact with three months.
The United States of America also welcomed the redeployment of all Republic of South Sudan Police Services out of the Abyei Area.
The US said the withdrawal of police forces in Abyei is an important step toward ending the border dispute with Sudan.
The United States has commended the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei for its strong support to this process.
The United States renewed call upon the Government of Sudan to honor its acceptance of UNSCR 2046 and the AUPSC communique, including by redeploying all of its armed forces from Abyei and by immediately ending aerial bombardments in South Sudan, which are a clear violation of Resolution 2046.
Amid the continous call from the United Nations and the United States to cease the hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan, violence and tensions continue to escalate in the region earlier this year.
South Sudan's military was involved in the attack on and seizure of Heglig, home to Sudan's largest remaining source of oil following the South's secession.
Late of March this year, military clashes have erupted in the border region of Sudan and South Sudan.
Media reports say South Sudan accused Sudan of sending warplanes to bomb two border areas.
Meanwhile, Sudan accused the southern army of attacking the oil-producing Heglig region wherein parts of which are claimed by both warring nations.
The military clashes prompted Sudan's President Omar Al-Bashir to suspend plans to attend a meeting with his South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir on 3 April.
In July 2011, South Sudan, Africa's 54th nation was born. Millions of people celebrated a new national identity and new national promise. For more than two decades, Sudan has been riven by intense fighting over land and resources.
However, the security situation in the disputed area of Abyei remains fragile, with both South Sudan and Sudan failing to withdraw their armed forces as agreed under a demilitarization pact reached in June 2011.
South Sudan became independent from Sudan on 9 July. A referendum on the status of the Abyei area on the border was to have been held in January this year, but never took place amid disagreement on voter eligibility.
Dozens of people have been killed this year as a result of clashes in Abyei and surrounding areas and tens of thousands of have been forced to flee their homes.
Mina Fabulous follows the news, especially what is going on in the US State Department. Mina turns State Department waffle into plain english. Read more stories by Mina Fabulous. Contact Mina through NewsBlaze.
Related World News News
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Mrs Megan Robinson,
Dip. Teach, B.Ed. NPQH
Welcome to Crondall Primary School, a Hampshire County Council maintained school for children aged from four to eleven.
Happy children learn best, and visitors always comment on what a happy place our school is. We aim to provide children with a high standard of education and equip them with skills they need for the future, as well as helping them to identify their strengths and talents. The children are encouraged and challenged to do their very best, to strive to reach their potential, and to celebrate their successes. Being part of a village community is very special, and we enjoy taking part in village events. We also aim to help children to understand their role as a member of society, and to appreciate and celebrate diversity in this country and the world.
We find that children settle very quickly into our school, no matter which year group they join, or whatever time of the year. We have a brilliant staff team who work together well and help to support and encourage all children. Children are encouraged to ‘treat others as you would like to be treated’ and we are proud to be a ‘Rights Respecting School’, dedicated to the promotion of the ‘United Nations Charter for the Rights of the Child’.
Our school is also dedicated to helping children to have an understanding and interest in food – how it is grown and how we can cook with it. As a Flagship Food For Life school, we are committed to providing opportunities for every child to plant and grow produce, visit farms and take part in cookery sessions.
Please call us to arrange a visit if you would like to find out more about our school. We look forward to seeing you!
EXCITING NEWS! WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF DESIGNING A NEW WEBSITE SO PLEASE BEAR WITH US AS NOT ALL INFORMATION ON THIS SITE MAY BE UP TO DATE.
Year 2 Cake Sale
Parent Work Viewing from 2:30pm
HALF TERM - 18TH FEB - 22ND FEB
Monday 25th February - Wednesday 27th February
Year 5 Residential to Stubbington
Thursday 28th February
Tag Rugby Tournament
Friday 1st March
Year 1 Cake Sale
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By Jon Miller | Post Date: June 1, 2008 3:14 AM | Comments: 6
That's what I paid recently to fill up the tank of a rental car in Europe. I look forward to the day when we will have $8 per gallon gasoline in the U.S.A. Howls of protest from people who are struggling with the rise of prices on basic goods aside, in the mid and long term there are some massive benefits we can realize from sustained a sustained high level of gas prices.
1. Revolution of awareness. If you Google "saving energy" there are many articles and ideas these days. For example the Oregon Catalyst offers ten tips for saving gas . This sort of grass roots level and common sense knowledge of how to save energy is being elevated to the mass consciousness and this is a great thing. The parallels of educating everyone about lean, the elimination of the 7 wastes and involving everyone in kaizen should be obvious. The U.S. Air Force is finding the high oil prices hard to bear, and they are an organization with the clout to raise awareness and bring about change in policies at the highest level of government for investing in alternative fuels. According to a May 21, 2008 Wall Street Journal article:
The problems are particularly acute for the Air Force, which uses about 2.6 billion gallons of jet fuel a year, or 10% of the entire domestic market in aviation fuel. The Air Force's fuel costs neared $6 billion last year, up from $2 billion in 2003, even as its consumption fell by more than 10% over the same period because of energy-savings measures, including a campaign to shut off lights and lower thermostats at bases.
At a more personal level, it has been great to have clients listen when we talk about energy as another type of loss that can be recovered through kaizen activities. We promote energy audits where the focus is not on the people or material flow but the energy flow through the equipment, physical infrastructure and facilities. It's amazing the amount of energy wasted in light, heat, inefficient motors, equipment left running and many more reasons. The awareness that was lacking in the past is there now, and more companies are finding ways to measure these losses.
2. Alternative energy. For a long time alternative energy was seen as a poor substitute to "the real thing" as "alternative" implies. But it is just a matter of technology and time to make wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and other energy sources practical and affordable. History has shown repeatedly that what was hard to imagine decades ago is taken for granted when technology catches up with the idea. Take cold fusion for example, which may be an outrageously great alternative energy, if recent experiments prove out. Alternative energy should be re-branded as "renewable energy", "clean energy" or even "next energy". If we wanted a name that implies safety, better quality, availability and lower cost we could even try "lean energy".
3. Investment in mass transit infrastructure. The U.S. is the world's #1 economy with the worst rail, bus and subway infrastructure in the world. We can make excuses about geography and history, or we can use this opportunity get the job done. Let's build railways and rail cars. Beyond the benefits of access and convenience, economic stimulus, and reduced environmental impact, good mass transit offers another benefit: learning and personal improvement. When commuting alone in a car for 1 or 2 hours per day, your choices for personal development and learning are limited to radio (no help there) and books on tape. The Japanese publish and read twice as much for a population half of the size of the U.S. A major contributor to this is the time available to read on trains or buses. Imagine the resulting improvement in our education level if adults or youth of driving age spent 20 minutes each day reading on mass transit.
Just like the second oil shock in 1973 brought the Toyota Production System to light when the Japanese government became aware that Toyota alone was turning a profit regardless of record prices of imported raw materials, I have hope that this latest oil shock will raise the awareness of how we can kaizen our energy use. It took more than 25 years after the first oil shock for lean to become mainstream. We don't have 25 more years to figure this out so let's get to work.Comments are moderated to filter spam and inappropriate content. There may be a delay before your comment is published.
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