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Who doesn’t want or need an expansive contemporary extended sans that has a sense of style and swagger… what if it had a lowercase, small caps and various numeral options… how could you say no? This was the foundational argument I made for myself when I drew the initial alphabet on my birthday last year (something I do each year, draw a new font, kind of a fun OCD thing). I wanted to see a wide, utilitarian sans that had more to it than just a basic character set and didn’t resemble standard geometric models. As I continued sketching, the letterforms were being influenced more by my ‘lettering tendencies’ than the normal mechanical trappings of drawing flat, wide letters. The letters have retained aspects of letters created by hand — stresses, modulation, naturally ending terminals. Truncation and quick clipping of strokes became antithetical to the letterforms I drew, so I continued this once I brought the design into the computer. I kept it precise and dependable, but made every attempt to keep a conscientiously crafted typeface and not let it devolve into a grid-based drone. As such, it works just as well looking back in time as much as it does assuming a lead role in a sci-fi movie.
Halogen does deliver and opts not to take a short cut and provide an anemic offering of glyphs — a modern typeface offered today must provide more than just the basics and this one does — lowercase, smallcaps, old style numerals, tabular forms, stylistic and titling alternates, fractions, case-sensitive features, and even an alternate uppercase ordinal set is included. So go make cool print and digital things with it, now.
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Nearly two years into our so-called economic recovery, it's clear that frugality is still the prevailing financial trend. Saving money is not only necessary, it's almost patriotic. Here are 20 ways you can do your bit for the savings cause. They work for me. I hope they work for you. Check off the ones that apply to you and then actually take action.
[Bookmark the U.S. News Retirement site for more planning ideas and advice.]
1) Shop for new Medicare coverage. It is a mistake to assume that last year's Medicare coverage is still the best deal for you. Health reform has accelerated changes that were already affecting Medicare policies and prices. Coverage details for 2011 will be posted at the Medicare site in early October.
2) Try one shopping trip a week. This will limit impulse purchases, force you to do better meal planning, and also cut down on car expenses.
3) Bargain for lower interest rates. Why should everyone benefit from lower rates but you? If you have any debt outstanding, now is the time to seek a better deal.
4) Refinance your mortgage. With home loan rates at 50-year lows, you should take a careful look at refinancing. How much will it cost you? Divide this by the number of years you expect to stay in your home. Then look at how much your monthly payments would decline with a lower mortgage rate. How many years will it take you to come out ahead? If it's only a few years, get yourself into a bank or other mortgage lender now.
5) Pay annually if you can. Insurance and other annual services will let you pay the bill in smaller monthly installment payments. But while these monthly payments are not considered a loan, that is exactly what they are. You wind up paying the equivalent of interest in the form of higher payments.
6) Buddy up on groceries. Built a shopping list for that weekly supermarket trip with a neighbor or other friend. You'll get some good social time and save some money by buying larger sizes and splitting them.
7) Buddy up on travel, too. Every time you find yourself going on an errand by yourself, ask if there might have been a friend you could have taken along. And for vacations, it's often possible to lower the per-person costs when traveling with friends.
8) Brew it yourself. OK. Every list needs something you can ignore. Go get that venti latte!
9) Don't buy movies and books. The library remains a great way to save a buck on books and movies. If you're comfortable with eBooks and streaming videos, check to see if your library has started offering digital lending. Many have.
10) Never pay a late fee. Make a list of when all your payments are due. If you use online bill payments, and are not worried about overdrafts on your bank account, set your recurring payments for automatic payment and save time along with those late fees.
11) Unplug unused devices. I tried this and the results showed up right away in next month's power bill. Most electronic devices use a bit of power even when you're not using them. Make it a habit to only plug things in when you're using them. Maybe your family room won't be lit up like Bourbon Street anymore with all those little lights.
12) Turn off heat to unused rooms. OK. I know this is a no-brainer but it's surprising how many obvious things we don't do. If you use hot-water radiators, make sure you bleed off any air pockets that have built up in them since last winter.
13) Use programmable thermostats. Why heat up (or cool down) your home when no one is there? It's one thing to turn down thermostats during the winter but it's even better to program your home's temperatures to turn off the heat (without risking pipe damage) when you're not there or at night when you're sleeping.
14) Merge your home phone and cellular services. It become official over the summer. Americans have more cell phone numbers than land lines. Do you really need both?
15) Generic is good. Look for generic store brands and give them a try. And when it comes to prescriptions, there is even less reason to stick with branded drugs if identical generic versions are available.
16) Flaunt your age for discounts. If there is one virtue of old age that is worth exploiting, it is senior discounts. Look for them. Use them.
17) Make your own birthday and other event cards. The mark-up on greetings cards must be enough to make the folks at Exxon jealous. By crafting your own messages you will save some money. Even more, that personal touch will probably make a very favorable impact on the recipient.
18) Drink water, not soda. And I don't mean bottled water. Changing this single habit will help your wallet gain weight while the rest of you slims down.
19) No partial loads. Do not waste energy, water, and detergent by doing partial loads of dishes or laundry.
20) Barter. I truly believe the Internet was created to let us swap stuff. So, before you go out and buy a new appliance or hardware tool, see if you can find someone online willing to trade it for something you have. For example, I've saved my sons' stuffed animal collections and would be willing to consider giving them a new home. Don't you need an antique Snuffleupagus? Whaddaya got to trade?
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“The news is not great,” Niemi told the more than 500 people who came to the Cobb Performing Arts Centre on Tuesday to hear his economic forecast. The annual breakfast event, now in its 20th year, is conducted by the Bank of North Georgia.
“It is unprecedented how sluggish this recovery has been,” Niemi said. He predicts that growth in gross domestic product will slip from 2 to 1.9 percent in 2013, far from the 4 percent number it should be at this point of the recovery based on historical economic trends.
Niemi also believes the unemployment rate will fall from this year’s average of 8.2 to 7.9 percent next year. He said that while the unemployment rate is currently 7.9 percent, the true rate is just below 15 percent when accounting for the underemployed.
He warned that if the “Bush tax cuts” expire, it would be “a job killer” and will “hammer the middle class.”
“The biggest thing holding this economy back is uncertainty,” Niemi said.
He said changes to health care laws, which will not be fully implemented until 2014, are adding to the uncertainty.
“A lot of businesses are holding back until they know the costs,” he said.
The former University of Georgia professor did impart a small degree of optimism for Georgia.
Niemi predicts most of the nation’s growth will occur in the Sun Belt and that metro Atlanta will fare far better than the rest of the nation because of its accessibility and quality of life.
He said the keys to job creation remain constant: low taxes; low land, labor and energy costs; non-union markets; location advantages; a business-friendly environment and a favorable quality of life. He highlighted Georgia’s population growth from 2004 to 2010, which ranked it the third highest in the country.
Niemi also explained why the nation’s shift from manufacturing to retail and hospitality has lowered its position globally and has affected many states in particular, including Georgia.
“No state in the nation’s manufacturing was more tied to the residential housing market than Georgia,” he said.
He said that while the new housing starts are rising annually again, the number of homes being built is dramatically below those of every year between the end of World War II and the beginning of the recession.
Retired banker Rod Knowles has attended nine of Niemi’s annual forecasts.
“It’s not a rosy picture,” Knowles said. “We’ve got a lot of systemic weaknesses that have to be addressed, and Washington has got to take the lead.”
But David Connell, president of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, said there was good news for Cobb County.
“The facts are discouraging, but you have to do what you can do with what you have today,” said Connell. Citing that Cobb County’s attributes directly mirror Niemi’s keys to job creation, he said “We are positioned in Cobb in a fairly unique way.”
Lisa A. Rossbacher, president of Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, said she was particularly listening for implications for higher education.
“I was glad to hear the positive projections about new housing starts, even if the rate is not as high as it was before 2008, because the residential housing market directly affects job opportunities for many of our graduates, including those in construction management, architecture, and civil engineering technology.”
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Balfour. Born: 24 August 1936, Died: 30 May
1965. A Professional Hockey Player. A native of Regina,
Saskatchewan. He played on the outdoor rinks and in the Local
League program. Murray then played
Junior Hockey for the Regina Pats in 1952-53 to 1955-56
as a Defenceman in the old Western Junior Hockey League (WJHL).
In his last year with the Pats in the Western
Semi-Final play-offs in Flin Flon, in the last game of the
series, (Thursday, March 29, at Flin Flon) Coach Murray Armstrong,
had Murray become a forward and that is how he became a Right
Winger. Regina was trailing 4-1 in the second period and Regina
roared back to pump home 8 goals, starting with Murray's goals at
13:50. Photo to the right: HHOF # 000095930 (Registered)
taken from Ron C. Johnston's – Regina Pats Alumni Web Site.
played for teams in the Quebec hockey League (QHL), National
hockey League (NHL), Eastern Ontario Hockey League (EOHL), and the
American Hockey League (AHL). At 5'9”, 178 pounds, Murray
played for the Ottawa Junior Canadiens from 1956 to 1957, Montreal
Canadiens from 1956 to 1958, Ottawa-Hull Canadiens from 1956 to
1957, Montreal Royals from 1957 to 1958, Rochester Americans from
1958 to 1959, Chicago Blackhawks from 1959 to 1964 (playing on the
famous “Million Dollar Line” with Bobby Hull and
ex-Regina Pats Red Hay), Hershey Bears from 1964 to 1965, and the
Boston Bruins from 1964 to 1965.
Murray Balfour died from an inoperable tumour that was found on
this lung on May 30, 1965, at the age of 28. A few days later over
900 people including Bobby Hull attended his funeral at Regina's
Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery.
became the 11th Regina Pat to be inducted into the Saskatchewan
Sports Hall of Fame on June 12, 2004. In 1975 the City of Regina
honoured him by naming a rink on Massey Road in the
Hillsdale/Whitmore Park after him.
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The smart phone has generated a rising wave of technological innovation, and Hoboken, home to Stevens Institute of Technology and a community of tech savvy residents, is well-positioned to ride that wave.
That was the message that came from a conference last week hosted by Stevens and attended by public officials and technology industry figures to announce new initiatives to capitalize locally on the growing “Apps Economy.”
Since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, the openness of its operating system has allowed developers to create thousands of new applications for the device. The popular Apple phone and similar smart phones are believed to have generated $4 billion in sales in 2011, according to a report from TechNet.
Officials at the conference on Tuesday included U.S. Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Mayor Dawn Zimmer, and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
“I think Hoboken is really well-positioned to be a tech hub given the community we have here.” – Mayor Dawn Zimmer
During the conference, officials announced that the city will build work spaces, or “incubators,” to provide guidance to help startup companies and entrepreneurs compete in the market. The hope is that the hubs will also attract investors and lead to job growth.
Zimmer said after the meeting that plans for the “tech hub” include physical space, office and technology resources, and access to mentors and venture capital financing.
A city spokesperson said that there are currently incubators located in the Hoboken Business Center at 50 Harrison St., and plans for additional spaces are currently in the works.
“Hubs will help to build a support network between growing startup companies,” said Farvardin, “and to provide mentorship and guidance on how to compete in the technology market, assist with operating costs, and ultimately create sustainable job growth in the local community.”
“We would like to see Hoboken and its surrounding communities become a kind of technology nexus,” Farvardin continued.
Zimmer said after the event that Hoboken is an ideal location for technological innovation.
“We want to create more of that environment to help those startup companies,” said Zimmer. “I think Hoboken is really well-positioned to be a tech hub given the community we have here. We have a lot of young, innovative people in Hoboken, and with Stevens here, a lot of technical capabilities.”
Dr. Michael Mandel, Chief Economic Strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, stressed the importance of staying ahead of the curve in the mobile applications industry.
“The U.S. has entered the early stages of a communications boom,” said Mandel. “Today, growth is measured in apps downloaded and gigabytes used, rather than cars sold or homes constructed.”
“This is an entirely new economic ecosystem coming into being, one that has only upside,” continued Mandel, who added that New Jersey is fifth among states for app economy jobs as a share of total employment.
Officials also announced two additional initiatives: an app-creation challenge, as well as a proposed bill to spur technological innovation.
Genachowski announced the launching of the “New Jersey Apps Challenge,” an app-creation competition among local students and alumni designed to spur continued growth in the mobile apps economy.
“This competition is a chance for students and recent alumni affiliated with NJIT [New Jersey Institute of Technology], Rutgers, or Stevens Institute of Technology to design an innovative market-ready app,” said Genachowski. “I really do think it will help generate some great new ideas and highlight New Jersey’s potential as a job creation engine in the digital economy.”
Genachowski said that the new, faster 4G mobile networks are expected to add $150 billion in GDP growth over the next years, creating an estimated 770,000 new jobs.
Students and alumni can enter their applications through December 31. A panel of judges will evaluate entries based on several metrics, including overall utility and potential commercial success. Winners will be selected from each university to meet with the university presidents, and one overall winner will pitch their idea to Dennis Crowley, CEO of “foursquare,” a social networking mobile application.
“New Jersey’s students and entrepreneurs are on the cutting edge, and the apps challenge will showcase this next generation of New Jersey innovators,” said Senator Lautenberg, who later added, “By bringing the brightest minds in business and academia together, we can help ensure that New Jersey continues to build on its rich tradition of innovation.”
Lautenberg also announced his plan to introduce new legislation intended to help concretize inventions and ideas. The bill is intended to spur the growth of high tech jobs and train scientists to turn discoveries into new products.
Titled the “American Innovates Act,” the bill seeks to establish an “American Innovation Bank” to provide universities, researchers, and private companies with the funding for their inventions, discoveries, or products.
It will also seek to provide graduate science students with more curricula and training within the technological industry.
Stephen LaMarca may be reached at [email protected].
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Obey traffic signs
Greetings to all in the beautiful Town of Mancos.
My office would like our readers to know that we are doing our best to communicate with the general public about what we are doing and what direction we are going.
We have heard several comments about the police cars and how much money it must have cost us to get new cars. I would like to clarify that the new “used cars” were practically given to us for a very minimal amount ($2,500) from the department I retired from in Indiana.
It is my belief that the Mancos Marshal’s Office has become a “Professional Department” and is continuing to strive to make it better every day. I believe that part of this process is uniformity and consistency. This includes everything from uniforms to law enforcement to vehicles. When I arrived we had four different police cars of four different makes, models and colors. Some said “Police” some said “Marshal” all with different graphics on them. These cars worked for awhile but were past their retirement time. We need vehicles to respond to the needs of our citizens and we need vehicles that we know can get us where we need to go. We now have four vehicles — three Crown Victorias and one Dodge Charger. All of our vehicles now are the same color, they are all marked the same with the same decals and stars and same equipment. They are vehicles you can be proud of when you see them on the street and used by deputies who are equally as proud to drive them and serve our community.
Now, speaking of vehicles on the street. Let’s talk about enforcement of speed limits and signs. I think it’s important that our citizens know just how some of the laws work. Let’s start with STOP signs. If you come to a STOP sign, you must come to a “COMPLETE STOP”. The stop signs do not mean slow down and check for other cars or slow down enough to coast through because you don’t see another vehicle. It means you MUST come to a complete stop. All four tires must come to rest and the entire vehicle must not be in motion. Anything short of that means that you may be issued a citation for failure to obey a traffic control device. This is an expensive moving violation and will not only cost you in fines, court cost and points on your driver’s license, but will most likely cause an increase in your insurance premiums. So please, obey these signs.
The other thing I want to inform you of is speeding. We see a lot of speeding vehicles in town and we do our best to try to enforce all the laws fairly. But one area that we will not consider giving a break to the motoring public is speeding in the school zone. For most of us, we know what it’s like to have kids in school and just how important it is for that area to be safe. This is especially true for a school that has an open campus where kids could be coming and going at anytime during the day. So I feel it’s important that the motoring public know ahead of time what the penalties are for speeding in a school zone. Here is a breakdown of the fines and charges: 5-9 miles per hour over the posted limit is a $224 fine; 10-19 over the speed limit is a $432 fine; and 20-24 over the speed limit is an $864 fine. These fines do NOT include court costs, points or increases your insurance company may apply.
Our goal at this office is to have a safe, quality of life for all persons who live in Mancos and who visit our community. We wish everyone a safe and fun holiday season.
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3:20 pm Oct. 12, 20124
“We’re gonna have all of our cabs be hybrid.”
So said Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Matt Lauer on the “Today” show in 2007, as they stood in front of a hybrid yellow cab donated by Yahoo! and emblazoned with its logo.
The mayor gestured toward a thin man in glasses to his left: “And most importantly, this is City Councilman David Yassky, who has been leading the environmental fight here in the city.”
Today, Yassky is Bloomberg’s taxi commissioner. And 2012, the year by which the taxi’s fleet was to go hybrid, has come and nearly gone.
In the meantime, not only has the city’s powerful taxi lobby defeated the mayor’s hybrid-cab plan in federal court, but the city is now taking steps that will actually reduce the number of hybrids on city streets.
“We were really hoping New York could be a leader,” said Johanna Dyer, an attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s kind of a shame that it seems like we’re falling back a little bit."
Paul Gillespie, former president of the taxi commission in San Francisco, where most of the cabs are now green, said, “It’s just so disappointing to me now, because Commissioner Yassky and Mayor Bloomberg were early champions of hybrid vehicles.”
Bloomberg, who’s made public health a principal cause in both public and private life, was a big hybrid booster.
Regular cabs, he told Lauer on “Today,” “just sit there in traffic sometimes belching fumes.”
Hybrids, on the other hand, work most efficiently at the same low speeds at which cabs tend to operate on congested city streets, drawing on their battery power, rather than on gas.
“In an urban environment like Manhattan, when taxis are often sitting in traffic, that’s when hybrid engines are actually putting out the least amount of pollution,” said Michael Seilback, a spokesman for the American Lung Association of the Northeast.
As Bloomberg put it to Lauer, thanks to the city’s hybrid cab initiative, “Our kids will breathe a lot better air.”
IN 2005, THEN-COUNCILMEN YASSKY AND JOHN Liu introduced legislation that would require the Taxi and Limousine Commission to allow taxi owners to purchase hybrids.
Thanks in good part to City Council pressure, that same year, the Taxi and Limousine Commission approved six hybrid models for use as taxis.
“I'm determined that in five years, every cab on the streets of New York will be a hybrid," Yassky told the Daily News.
At the time, most cabs were Ford Crown Victorias, which get between 12 and 14 miles per gallon in city driving, according to the Taxi and Limousine Commission.
On Earth Day in 2007, about a month before his "Today" appearance, the mayor delivered a large-gauge policy speech at the American Museum of Natural History, enumerating 127 initiatives to make the city more sustainable by 2030, by which point, the city estimates, New York's population will have grown by a million. He called his program, of which lower-emission taxis were an element, PlaNYC.
"PlaNYC initially called for converting the fleet within 10 years," noted the Times, that May. "But Mr. Bloomberg said City Councilman David Yassky, a longtime advocate of a greener taxi fleet, had persuaded him to cut that time in half."
The administration’s plan did not require taxi owners to switch to hybrids, explicitly. Rather, it mandated that when owners retired their cars after the requisite three-to-five years, they replace it with a vehicle that gets at least 25 miles per gallon starting in 2008, and 30 miles per gallon in 2009. Those sorts of efficiencies simply wouldn't be achievable with the old cabs.
Administration officials, according to that same article, “said the mayor’s plan was believed to be the most extensive of any major city.”
By October 2007, there were more than 500 hybrid cabs on the road. Thomas L. Friedman wrote a laudatory column about the effort in which the mayor is quoted as saying, “When it comes to health and safety and environmental issues, government should be setting standards.”
In 2008, Bloomberg announced that black limousines would also have to meet new fuel efficiency standards.
But then, in what would ultimately prove the initiative’s death knell, a powerful taxi lobby called the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade filed suit in federal court.
Its argument was two-fold: first, that only the federal government can impose fuel efficiency standards, and second, that hybrids weren’t safe.
By that time, 1,400 of the city’s 13,237 cabs had been converted to hybrids.
The accelerated conversion plan, according to Board of Trade spokesman Michael Woloz, would have forced medallion owners to buy “too-small passenger hybrids that were never intended to be used as 24/7 taxicabs and in fact automakers like Toyota had expressly warned against using their hybrids as taxicabs including the Prius, the Camry and the Highlander.”
(A spokesman for Toyota was quoted by the Times saying, “Our engineers are nervous about it because they were not designed for commercial use.")
On Halloween, just a day before the new rules were to go into effect, a federal judge issued an injunction barring the city from moving forward.
The mayor responded by accusing his opponents of "trying to kill our kids," and issuing a new set of incentives that would penalize owners for using gas-devouring Crown Victorias and reward them for buying hybrids. The taxi lobby protested that too, and again, a federal judge ruled in the industry's favor.
By 2011, the year the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by the city, quite a lot had changed. Though the mayor has supported a bill in Congress that would give cities the right to set fuel economy and emissions standards, he had more or less given up the fight at home.
The administration moved forward on a separate program, called the Taxi of Tomorrow, which will have the effect of decreasing the number of hybrid taxis on the city's streets.
The idea was this. The city would leverage its market power by offering one manufacturer an exclusive decade-long deal, estimated at $1 billion, to manufacture one tailor-made vehicle for New York. The vehicle would be designed to handle the wear and tear of the city's pothole-ridden streets and offer both drivers and passengers a more comfortable ride than current cab models do.
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Google has reached an agreement with the Association of American Publishers in a copyright infringement lawsuit over the digitisation of books and journals for Google’s Library Project, the company has said.
Under the out-of-court settlement, US publishers will be able to decide whether or not to allow their books, articles, and other content to be made available on the Web. Publishers will also be able to request the removal of texts that have already been scanned to the online library.
“We are pleased that this settlement addresses the issues that led to the litigation,” said Tom Allen, chief executive officer of the publisher’s group.
“It shows that digital services can provide innovative means to discover content while still respecting the rights of copyright-holders,” Allen added.
The plan to build a digital library of books on shelves in public and academic libraries was announced in 2004, but was met with much resistance from the publishing world. The Association of American Publishers filed its infringement case against the search giant in 2005, with the Authors Guild, independent publishers and individual authors, photographers and graphic artists following suit with litigation of their own.
The agreement does not apply to an ongoing class action lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild, which alleges that Google scanned books and articles without permission from copyright holders.
Earlier this year, Google said it had scanned more than 20 million books as a part of its digitisation effort, with more than four million English language excerpts available to the public.
In June, the company reached an agreement with French publishers to make out-of-print books available as a part of the Google Library Project.
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GenoMar – value chain in tilapia farming
GenoMar’s philosophy is to be involved throughout the value chain for tilapia production and distribution. GenoMar started as a life science company, mainly involved in research and breeding, but has gradually become involved in later stages in the value chain.
In a simplified way, the value chain in tilapia may be illustrated as follows:
GenoMar’s Tilapia Strategy
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Adobe products are designed to deliver the highest quality brand experience to our customers. This begins by considering the range of business and environmental interests that impact our product packaging design options. Adobe Supply Chain Operations is always seeking new ways to increase the sustainability of product packaging in terms of design, size, weight, use of recycled content, and post-consumer ease of recycling.
Let’s take an INSIDE LOOK to see what it takes to get Adobe products into the hands of its customers:
In accordance with EC Regulation 1907/2006, Adobe conducts a comprehensive review of all packaging to help ensure that no lead or hazardous materials are contained in any of the components.
We strive to reduce the packaging form factor and the amount of paper material used to produce each unit to its smaller format. Environmental sustainability for product packaging focuses as much on materials reduction as it does with recycling of materials, reducing energy needed to create and transport both raw materials and finished goods. Compared to the average Creative Suite 5 packaging, the average Creative Suite 6 packaging is produced with 40 percent less paper per unit.
We strive to increase the use of environmentally friendly packaging materials, as well as to reduce or remove unnecessary materials that contribute to our waste. To increase the recyclability of our packaging, we are working towards removing 95 percent of the plastic in our DVD cases and replacing it with paper. We are shifting toward packaging that requires no plastic.
Because of these measures, 90% of the components of an Adobe product package are curbside recyclable. All paper components can be recycled, while others, such as the DVDs, are market dependent.
Adobe Supply Chain is responsible for the procurement of various components of packaged products, including CDs and printed materials, and the assembly of packages for retail and other application products. We outsource all of our order fulfillment activities to third parties in three distinct regions: North America, Europe, and Asia.
A regional-based supply chain makes logistical business sense and environmental sense. Under this model, the Asia turnkey will receive components from multiple printer and replicator partners from the Asia supply chain region. Components from our print and replicator suppliers are primarily shipped for assembly at the turnkeys using consolidated ground shipments, ensuring minimal transportation costs and environmental impact.
Adobe’s overall scrap rate is less than 1% of total packaged product revenue, well below the industry norm. Adobe Supply Chain ensures that excess waste is significantly reduced through effective management of component and finished-goods inventory levels.
For the remainder of the scrap waste, Adobe has worked with suppliers to establish recycling programs in all geographic locations in which recycling infrastructures are accessible. Products and components are separated into individual material types, such as paper, corrugate, and plastics, and are then recycled in an environmentally and security-sensitive manner.
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Syracuse, NY -- Maparo Ramadhan was 12 when he escaped civil war in his native African country of Burundi. Police officers dragged his parents from their home and killed them, he said.
He fled to Rwanda. In 1994, a campaign of genocide chased him to a refugee camp in Tanzania for 14 years.
Political persecution, torture and murderous officers. He survived them all. It was only in a jail in Syracuse 18 months ago that he came to harm.
His upper arm broke when he resisted jailers at the Onondaga County Justice Center who tried to take him to court. The bone was sticking out of the skin. They asked a nurse to look at it.
"Yeah, it’s swollen and bruised,” the nurse told them in an exchange captured on videotape.
She put a bandage on the bleeding wound. As he moaned in agony and cried out in his native language, jailers wrapped him in a shirt and continued to wheel him to court.
The December 2008 episode left Ramadhan’s arm disabled. He’s suing the county in federal court, claiming his civil rights were violated by the county’s failure to provide competent medical care, and by the failure to provide a language interpreter. He speaks Kirundi, and jail officials contacted a Swahili interpreter.
When they act like Apes, why are these retarded niggers surprised to get their asses beaten by the cops?
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10 Oct 2012
The Taxation (Livestock Valuation, Assets Expenditure, and Remedial Matters) Bill (Bill), introduced to Parliament on 13 September, contains a number of proposed, business-friendly, GST changes, which we welcome. We discuss the two major proposals below. We also look at a significant recent Australian court decision on the meaning of "supply" for GST purposes, and assess its potential ramifications for New Zealand businesses.
Allowing foreign businesses to GST register
Under current rules, non-resident businesses are generally unable to register for New Zealand GST purposes, because they do not make taxable supplies in this country. This is problematic for a non-resident business that does not operate in New Zealand, but purchases services here which cannot be zero-rated by the local supplier.
The issue is demonstrated by way of an example in the IRD commentary to the Bill:
Air Africa is a passenger airline operating out of Cape Town. It flies domestically within South Africa and internationally. It sends some trainee pilots to New Zealand for specialised training and incurs GST on those training costs.
While some services provided to non-residents can be zero-rated for GST purposes, the flight training services in the example cannot. This is because the physical performance of the services is received in New Zealand by an employee of the airline (the trainee pilot). The New Zealand flight training school must therefore charge GST at the standard rate (15%). However, as Air Africa does not itself make taxable supplies in New Zealand, and cannot register for GST, it cannot recover the GST incurred as input tax.
Given that GST is, as a matter of policy, intended to be a tax on final consumers, rather than on businesses, the IRD has acknowledged that this result is inappropriate.
The Bill proposes to address the issue by introducing an enhanced GST registration system, allowing non-resident businesses to register for GST without making taxable supplies in New Zealand, if either:
- they are registered for GST (or a similar consumption tax) in their home jurisdiction; or
- where their home jurisdiction does not have a GST (or similar consumption tax), they carry on a taxable activity outside New Zealand with turnover exceeding NZ$60,000.
On the basis that the South African airline is either registered in South Africa for the purposes of a local consumption tax, or meets the turnover threshold, it would be able to register for New Zealand GST and recover as input tax the GST charged by the flight training school.
This change will benefit New Zealand businesses supplying "exported" services of the nature targeted. Anecdotally such businesses currently come under pricing pressure from their offshore customers due to the irrecoverable GST component in their fees.
There will, of course, be exceptions to the ability of non-residents to register:
- First, there will be a de minimis exception, preventing registration where the amount of input tax claimed in the first taxable period after registration is unlikely to exceed NZ$500.
- Second, and more significantly, registration will not be permitted where the non-resident business itself carries on a taxable activity involving a supply of services received in New Zealand by a non-registered person. This will, for example, prevent a non-resident package tour operator from registering and recovering GST charged on a block booking for tickets to a New Zealand tourist attraction, where the non-resident then "on-sells" a ticket to a customer as part of a package tour of New Zealand. Here, the underlying service will ultimately be privately "consumed" in New Zealand by the customer, such that there should be a net collection of GST by IRD.
Finally, it is noted that non-resident businesses will only be permitted to GST register on a "payments" (rather than "invoice") basis. This will mean they can only make a GST input tax claim once they have paid the New Zealand supplier for the relevant service, not merely after being invoiced. Also, the permitted timeframe for IRD to process and refund input tax claims will be significantly longer than for ordinary registered persons.
Ability to opt-out of the principal-agent GST rules
Under current GST rules, if an agent makes a taxable supply of goods or services on behalf of a principal, a single supply is deemed to have been made by the principal to the end-recipient of the supply. The agent is entitled to issue the tax invoice in respect of the supply, provided the principal does not do so too.
This single supply, and single tax invoice, requirement, has resulted in problems for businesses whose computerised accounting systems automatically generate invoices. In some cases, for example, the principal's accounting system will automatically issue an invoice to the agent, with the agent also issuing an invoice to the recipient of the supply. This is a technical breach of the GST legislation, albeit one that will typically be revenue neutral.
The Bill proposes to rectify this problem by giving affected parties the option of recognising two supplies, and issuing an invoice for each of those supplies, for GST purposes ie one from the principal to the agent, and one from the agent to the recipient. Revenue protection measures will be introduced to buttress the new approach, including:
- a requirement that the agent and principal agree in writing that the new rule applies to their situation;
- a requirement that the principal, even if registered on a "payments" basis, accounts for GST on an "invoice" basis in respect of the supply to the agent; and
- a prohibition on the principal claiming a GST bad debt deduction in respect of the supply to the agent, if the agent has received payment for its supply to the recipient.
A flight of fancy? Australian developments on the meaning of "supply" for GST purposes
A recent decision of the High Court of Australia (Qantas Airways Limited v Federal Commissioner of Taxation) explores the scope of the meaning of "supply" for Australian GST purposes and, in particular, whether a "supply" is made when the customer does not acquire or use the goods or services that are the subject of the underlying contract.
The Qantas decision
The Qantas case concerned just over A$34m of GST that Qantas and its subsidiaries had collected on fares from customers who did not, for one reason or another, show up for their flights, or claim refunds on their tickets (where that was possible). The collected GST was only payable to the Commissioner if it was found that Qantas had made a "supply" to those absentee passengers for the purposes of the A New Tax System (Goods and Services Tax) Act 1999 (Cth) (the Australian Act).In a majority decision, the High Court (Australia's highest court) found that Qantas had in fact made a supply within the meaning of s 9-10 of the Australian Act, by making promises, in consideration for the money collected, to its would-be passengers, to "use best endeavours to carry those passengers and their baggage, having regard to the circumstances of the airline's business operations". The majority relied upon the Australian Act's extended meaning of "supply", which includes the creation of any right, and/or entry into an obligation "to do anything".
Federal Commissioner of Taxation v Reliance Carpet Co Pty Limited
The High Court referred to and followed its earlier decision, Federal Commissioner of Taxation v Reliance Carpet Co Pty Limited. The issue in this case was whether a forfeited deposit in a cancelled land sale contract attracted GST in the hands of the vendor.
The Federal Court had held that the contract was for a supply of land which did not occur, meaning that no supply was made and the vendor therefore did not have to account for GST on the forfeited deposit.
The High Court disagreed in a unanimous decision. It held that although no land was supplied, the entry by the vendor into obligations to maintain the property and bear the inherent risks and overheads until settlement, constituted a "supply" for GST purposes, in consideration for the deposit.
Interestingly, Heydon J, who was one of the High Court judges in Reliance, was the dissenting judge in the Qantas decision, holding that Reliance was distinguishable and of no assistance to either party in Qantas.
What about refunds?
The facts in Qantas only concerned cases where either no refund was available, or none was sought by the person who had bought the ticket. The majority did not explain what, if any, GST would have been payable by Qantas if a refund had been paid. On the majority's logic, however, it would seem that the GST component of the fare should not be refunded, since a "supply" had been made, even if not the one the passenger thought he or she was paying for!
Will Qantas impact on New Zealand taxpayers?
In a nutshell, we do not think so. New Zealand's GST law is more sensible and commercially "real".
It is settled in New Zealand that where a land sale contract has been cancelled, GST is not chargeable on a deposit retained by the vendor, nor is the purchaser entitled to an input tax credit on that deposited amount. This is the view of the IRD for three reasons.
First, the IRD considers that the deposit is prima facie part-payment of the purchase price for the land. If the land is not ultimately transferred, no relevant supply takes place. In particular, the IRD's view is that there is no supply of legal rights for which the deposit is consideration.
Second, as the deposit is forfeited because of a purchaser default, following cancellation it becomes a pre-determined sum of compensation for the purchaser's breach, which is not consideration for a supply of "services" by the vendor.
Third, the statutory definition of "supply" for New Zealand GST purposes does not include the "catch-all" terminology of the Australian provision ie the creation of any right, and entry into an obligation "to do anything". This legislative divide is another reason why Qantas and Reliance should not impact on the New Zealand position.
Another point to note is that the New Zealand courts and IRD, unlike the Australian High Court, accept that GST is a tax on consumption. Accordingly, consistent with the position on forfeited deposits, in determining the New Zealand GST consequences of fact scenarios similar to those in Qantas, we believe the focus will be on the "real world" transaction ie. payment for a flight on the Qantas facts. Where the passenger does not fly, nothing is "consumed", even if the passenger does not seek a refund. That gives a meaning to "supply" that matches the description of the transaction the parties would agree on. This was the view of the dissenting judge in the High Court in Qantas and of the Federal Court.
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12/07/07 - News section
We must be tough with Private Putin
by EDWARD LUCAS
How they must be trembling in the Kremlin. Britain is talking tough: a "withdrawal of cooperation" in education, social affairs or trade. Probably the first public expulsion of Russian diplomats since 1996.
Officials will dress this up as a strong response. But in truth it is preposterously feeble.
We have seen nuclear terrorism on the streets of London. The assassins used polonium-210, a rare radioactive isotope produced in a Russian government research institute.
They killed a UK citizen and endangered dozens more. Now Russia is brazenly refusing to extradite the prime suspect.
It is clear that Britain now officially accepts what many have been saying for months: that the FSB, the secret-police heirs to the KGB, connived in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
If the skull and crossbones were flying over the Kremlin, it could hardly be clearer: Russia under Vladimir Putin is a pirate state that unashamedly flaunts its contempt for the law.
It is no exaggeration to say that the FSB runs Russia: its former chief, Mr Putin, is the president. Its ruthless and greedy tentacles stretch across all corners of that vast land, high finance to the depths of organised crime.
It has throttled Russian democracy. It is gobbling up business. Now it is hunting down the Kremlin's foes abroad.
We should be responding to this outrage with a series of tough measures that will hit the Kremlin and its cronies hard.
Britain's first step should be the expulsion of not just a symbolic few, but every one of the dozens of FSB operatives here.
They range from a handful who are "declared", working openly at Russia's embassy and Edinburgh consulate as liaison with British counterparts.
The more sinister ones pretend to be cooks and drivers there.
At the Aeroflot check-in back to Moscow they can meet their deep-cover colleagues: those pretending to be businessmen and students.
Some expulsions may, indeed, have already happened. Sources say they were kept quiet in order not to escalate the row with Russia.
If so, that was typical official spinelessness: we should be trumpeting our fury from the rooftops of Whitehall, not sparing the Kremlin's blushes. We should stop giving Russia's rulers visas to come here.
They enjoy the spoils of power at home while they invest in Britain, their wives shop here, and their children go to our finest private schools. They must realise that welcome is cancelled for accomplices in murder.
British banks and businesses must realise the risks of gobbling Russian bait. The heads of Britain's biggest companies recently paid grotesque homage to Mr Putin at an economic forum in St Petersburg in June.
They included BP and Shell, seemingly undeterred by having had their best assets in Russia snatched by the Kremlin's business allies.
Tony Blair had just warned British firms about the political risks of Russia. Yet scandalously, our captains of industry toed the Kremlin line, that Mr Blair's warning was the "emotional outburst of an ex-prime minister".
Not since British trades unionists went to the Kremlin in the 1980s to praise the peace-loving Soviet leadership and denounce the "war-mongers" Thatcher and Reagan have I felt more ashamed. The bleak truth is that we again have a fifth column in this country.
During the last Cold War it was the communist trade unionists, who with their "peace movement" allies used the Kremlin's secret funding to undermine our democracy and our defences.
Now the fifth column wear pinstripes, not overalls. The 30 silver roubles that fuels their treachery is not smuggled, but highlighted in the top line of their annual report and accounts.
Selling lorryloads of stolen goods in the streets of the City of London would be stopped even by our paperwork-swamped
No compromises: Vladimir Putin police. Yet Russian companies that have looted their rivals and defrauded their shareholders are allowed to raise money on the London Stock Exchange.
Our American allies now deny visas to dodgy tycoons and have toughened the rules for Russian companies wanting to list their shares in New York. But London's financial markets have become a colossal car boot sale for the crony capitalists of the Kremlin.
The grim pattern is repeated across Europe. Our influence on Russia is swamped by the Kremlin's clout inside the West.
Its energy companies' investments create a formidable bridgehead. Germany's gutsy Chancellor, Angela Merkel, longs to be tough with Mr Putin, a man she loathes. But her own party's influential business backers are holding her back.
We must stop Gazprom and other statebacked Russian energy companies buying our companies until Russia abides by the rule of law. That day is a long way off.
Russia's increasingly menacing nuclear posturing gives the lie to any idea that a replacement for Trident is no longer necessary.
We need to upgrade our electronic security: the cyber-assault on Estonia in May was a grim warning of what awaits those who annoy the Kremlin.
Networks of thousands of computers - known as "botnets" - hijacked by organised criminals crashed many of that brave little country's most crucial websites, cutting off the outside world.
American and Nato specialists have been working intensively to learn the lessons of that attack. We risk being dangerously complacent.
The BBC must urgently investigate the scandalous pusillanimity of the Russian service, once an emblem of British liberty and now unwilling to interview Cold War heroes such as Oleg Gordievsky on the Litvinenko case for fear of losing their transmitters in Russia.
It is worrying that Gordon Brown's close advisers include no one with real knowledge of Russia, now the world's largest rogue state.
Britain has the chance to lead Europe in resolute resistance to the Kremlin's xenophobic and authoritarian regime. Let us hope our new prime minister does not flinch from the challenge.
Edward Lucas is the author of a forthcoming book, The New Cold War And How To Win It
©2007 Associated New Media
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Intel Announces Xeon Phi Family of Co-Processors – MIC Goes Retailby Ryan Smith on June 19, 2012 1:00 AM EST
As conference season is in full swing, this week’s big technical conference is the 2012 International Supercomputing Conference (ISC) taking place over in Hamburg, Germany. ISC is one of the traditional venues for major supercomputing and high performance computing (HPC) announcements and this year is no exception. Several companies will be showing off their wares, but perhaps the biggest announcement of the week is from Intel. After having worked on the project for over half a decade in some form or another they’re finally ready to take a stab at the parallel computing market by bringing their first Many Integrated Core (MIC) product to market. Knights Corner, the codename for the first such product, will be the launch product for a brand new family of Intel co-processors, which the company is introducing as the Xeon Phi family.
As a bit of background on the subject, as many of our regular readers are aware Intel has been working for a while now on various high performance highly parallel CPU and GPU designs based on their x86 architecture. Initially intended to fill a gap in the High Performance Computing space where users have workloads that are highly parallel (as opposed to highly serial), these designs would be able to quickly tear through highly parallel workloads by using a large collection of small, simple x86 cores that would be far better suited to the task than the large, complex x86 cores that are necessary for a modern CPU.
The first and still most famous of these projects was Larrabee, which initially unveiled in 2008 was Intel’s first attempt at building such an HPC processor in the form of a graphics capable CPU. Larrabee was to be Intel’s answer to practically NVIDIA’s entire desktop GPU lineup, with Larrabee intended to confront GeForce on the graphics side and the then-fledgling Tesla on the HPC side, both served by a single processor similar to how NVIDIA uses the same GPUs in both Tesla and GeForce products. Larrabee of course never came to fruition, and in 2010 Intel canceled it while continuing their research into parallel processing.
Larrabee’s successor was named shortly thereafter under a new architecture called Many Integrated Core (MIC), which in many ways was a direct continuation from where Larrabee left off. MIC kept the concept of multiple simple X86 cores, but threw away any pretense of graphics in favor of focusing solely on HPC computing. Even at more than 2 years out from launch Intel already had a plan for MIC, announcing the codename of the first processor – Knights Corner – which would have 50+ cores and be manufactured on Intel’s 22nm process.
This brings us to the present and Intel’s latest announcement. With Intel’s 22nm process in full production Intel is adhering to their previously announced plans and is getting ready to bring MIC to the market. So with ISC 2012 as the logical backdrop for such a product, Intel is announcing that Knights Corner will be launching into retail as the Xeon Phi family of co-processors.
At this point we don’t have the full technical details of the Xeon Phi family – Intel is still holding their cards close to their chest at this time – but with this announcement we do finally have some additional details on the hardware and how Intel intends to market it. The first generation of Xeon Phi products will be composed of an unknown number of products in the form of PCIe cards. Intel hasn’t nailed down the specific number of cores, keeping it at a nebulous 50+, but we do know that Intel is sticking to the goal of offering 1TFLOP of real world double-precision (FP64) performance; for comparison Tesla M2090 and Radeon HD 7970 have a theoretical FP64 throughput of 665GFLOPs and 947GFLOPs respectively. As for memory, Xeon Phi boards will come with at least 8GB of GDDR5, which marks the first time Intel has ever paired up a CPU with what’s otherwise graphics memory. Meanwhile the fact that it’s 8GB means we’re looking at either a 256-bit or 512-bit memory bus.
Intel isn’t using the Xeon Phi announcement to bring a great deal of attention to the underlying architecture, but all indications are that it’s closely related to what we first saw with Larrabee, with Intel confirming that it is indeed using an enhanced Pentium 1 (P54C) core with the addition of vector and FP64 hardware. Intel has also confirmed that Xeon Phi will offer 512-bit SIMD operations, which means we’re almost certainly looking at a 16-wide vector ALU in each core, the same kind of vector unit that Larrabee was detailed to have.
High Level Overview Of Larrabee's Vector ALU
We also don’t have any deep details about its fabrication – all indications are that Knights Corner is going to be large for an Intel processor – but Intel has reiterated that it’s being built on their 22nm process. Traditionally Intel has reserved their leading edge process for their higher margin mainstream products such as Core and Xeon processors, with Atom, Itanium, and other low-margin/niche products being a node (or more behind). Xeon Phi will be the first niche product to be built on Intel’s 22nm process with Atom following it up in the future.
Meanwhile on the software side of things in an interesting move Intel is going to be equipping Xeon Phi co-processors with their own OS, in effect making them stand-alone computers (despite the co-processor designation) and significantly deviating from what we’ve seen on similar products (i.e. Tesla). Xeon Phis will be independently running an embedded form of Linux, which Intel has said will be of particular benefit for cluster users. Drivers of course will still be necessary for a host device to interface with the co-processor, with the implication being that these drivers will be fairly thin and simple since the co-processor itself is already running a full OS.
All of this of course is designed to further build upon x86. The fundamental purpose of the Xeon Phi family is to bring highly threaded processing to x86, allowing x86 developers to quickly integrate the co-processor into their existing workloads and code as opposed to having to target another ISA and any idiosyncrasies it may bring. With that said it’s interesting to note that while Xeon Phi co-processors can either be used as a proper co-processor alongside a traditional Xeon processor or as a standalone device, Intel’s marketing group is focusing on the latter to differentiate themselves from NVIDIA’s Tesla products. So while it’s possible to use both Xeon and Xeon Phi processors together on a single project it’s not clear just how common that’s going to be. Intel looks to be largely exploiting x86 for the familiarity of the ISA as opposed for the ability for code to run on either kind of Xeon.
Last but not least, Intel hasn’t put any hard date on availability but they have said they expect Xeon Phi co-processors to go into full production later this year, and in the meantime Intel has already produced enough co-processors to build a MIC based supercomputer that’s ranked #150 on the new TOP 500 list. Given the typical gap between volume production and when a product is available for purchase it’s likely that Xeon Phi co-processors won’t be available until the end of the year – if not next year – but regardless the timing is such that Intel will be going up against NVIDIA’s GK110-based Tesla K20, which is similarly expected by the end of the year. Meanwhile given AMD’s HPC ambitions with GCN we’re also not ready to rule them out, so all 3 parties may have major compute products out by the start of 2013.
Wrapping things up, as always we’ll be keeping on top of the Xeon Phi family and should have more details later this year once Intel nails down final specifications and pricing. So until then stay tuned.
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I have always thought that OOP was the natural evolution of procedural programming, but I wondered if OOP is that perfect. After reading some articles on the web and some questions here, I found that many people don't agree with this, and some say even that OOP is a bad option.
But still, I can't think of any scenario where OOP is not an option, or where other paradigms fits better. The only thing I can think of is that sometimes programming with OOP is really boring and slow, like having to declare a class, import some other classes and declaring a method, specifying its parameters, return type and name just to show "Hello, World!" on the console screen. But still, for real-life programs, it seems like something that compensates its cost.
In what scenarios does other paradigms fits better than OOP? What are its advantages over OOP and were does OOP makes things worse instead of helping? Especially, what are the advantages and in what scenarios do excel procedural and functional programming?
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— COLUMBIANA, Ala. (AP) — Gov. Robert Bentley is creating a task force aimed at helping students better prepare for successful careers.
The governor signed an executive order Tuesday in Columbiana forming the College and Career Ready Task Force. He says it will bring together representatives of K-12 schools, two-year and four-year colleges and the business community to help the state offer a more coordinated approach to workforce development.
State Superintendent of Education Tommy Bice says the task force is another step toward making sure Alabama students have the knowledge and skills necessary to move seamlessly from high school to college or the workforce.
Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey, House Speaker Mike Hubbard, Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh and state Secretary of Commerce Greg Canfield are co-chairs of the task force.
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British Prime Minister David Cameron made a surprise visit to the troops in Afghanistan Thursday, a day after he announced a significant drawdown of UK forces there.
"Thank you for what you've done. You make our country proud," Cameron told the troops, according to the official Twitter account for his office at No. 10 Downing Street.
Cameron said Wednesday that UK troop numbers will decrease to about 5,200 by the end of 2013. The country currently has around 9,500 military personnel in Afghanistan, 500 of which will be leaving by the end of this year.
The accelerated withdrawal is due to progress in the southern province of Helmand, where Afghan forces are now taking a lead security role, British officials say.
"We came to Afghanistan to help this country stop being a haven of terror, but we've always wanted this country to be able to police itself, with its own army and its own police force," Cameron said during his visit. "We're successfully training them up so we're able to bring our troops back home."
Cameron said the withdrawal is "based on success, not based on failure."
France pulled its last combat units from Afghanistan over the weekend. About 1,500 French troops will remain the country through next year to remove equipment and help train Afghan forces, a French Defense Ministry spokesman said.
Britain is the second-largest contributor of troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, with the majority of its personnel operating in Helmand.
Since Operation Enduring Freedom began in 2001, Britain has lost 438 troops, the highest of any coalition member behind the United States.
The United States, whose troops make up the bulk of the force, has lost 2,162 troops in the NATO mission. Some 68,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan.
Coalition forces are working to get Afghan security forces ready to take charge of security after the NATO mission in Afghanistan concludes at the end of 2014.
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I am “network literate,” and thus, I am far less limited as a learner. I am not limited by my personal knowledge and skills, nor my personal affordances of time and or money. I am at the shifting center of an ever-changing, loosely-tied hub of humans and their products. Humans with varied backgrounds, interests, and perspectives.
I cannot know everything. I cannot even hope to know most things. The flow of human technical knowledge is said to double now every few days. And yet, our schools and our curricula are too often set up to rely on the teacher to be just that: the expert. Statistically-speaking, likely hundreds of books were published during your read of this blog post. If connecting to others has always been a human need, then what, if anything, has changed for the positive in the rather recent past? I suggest that it is a relatively dry tipping point in the construction of digital communication frameworks, tools and their subsequent adoption. The sheer speed and efficacy of digital communication turns this seemingly uninteresting milestone into a communications environment none of us were prepared for. It seems that the old adage “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” has finally found teeth in something other than a political sense.
Tree huggers in the most literal sense grab the critter by the trunk and hold on. And yet, the most interesting work is being done around the periphery, in the luminous green leaves at the tips of its existence. Each one stretching itself closer to the sun. I could go on and on with this rather imperfect yet interesting metaphor, but I have recently sworn to smaller posts. So let’s cut to the chase…
You are likely a node in my network in one or more ways. I read differently because of you. I think differently because of you I likely even act differently because of you. Perhaps network literate is now merely a subset of literate in today’s world. Does that discount being able to digest rigorous text and ideas? Nope. Does that discount being able to craft a cogent argument? Nope. Does that discount the sense of knowing when to say what? Nope. Does it mean that all of this now happens at an exponentially fast pace in the real world? Yep. At what pace does real human discourse happen in our public schools? Has the process of how our students make meaning of the world changed? Should it have?
I am network literate. At least I think I am. Maybe not. Perhaps I’m overstating the magnitude of this shift. Thoughts?
Are you “network literate?” Does it matter?
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As I said at the beginning of this series, this book has had a great impact on me. I think it does an exceptional job of getting to the core of what mission is and what it means to be the Church. Here are a few of the things that I appreciated most about the book.
Stevens wrote that ministry is service rendered in the employ of another. Ministry is not a list of duties. Ministry is anything we do in response to God. Ministry can be teaching a Sunday school class or helping out at a homeless shelter. But ministry to God can also be balancing debits and credits or operating a cash register. Ministry is defined by who we are doing for, not by what we do.
I found the breakdown of vocation into personal, Christian, and human vocations to be very helpful. Our occupation is not our vocation but it can be an expression of our vocation. Vocation is the call of God upon our lives in some very personal ways and in some very corporate ways.
Trinitarian view of ministry
At the top of the list of things I appreciated from this book is the Trinitarian view of ministry. There is the call of the Father to creation stewardship; the call of the Son to Kingdom service; and the call of the Spirit to exercise gifts. The delineation of these combined with a perichoretic understanding of their interrelatedness is powerful. It makes it difficult to see any aspect of life as outside God’s call to ministry.
Ekklesia and diaspora
Conceptualizing the church as the gathered and as the dispersed is absolutely essential to getting a grip on the mission of the Church. Only then does it become clear that the primary locus of the mission is as the saints dispersed throughout the world during the week, not in the four walls of a “sacred” building.
Prophet, Priest and King
I appreciated Stevens recovery of the munus triplex concept, the three offices held by Christ. Seeing ourselves individually and in community as the incarnation of Christ in these functions is powerful stuff.
I hope you have found this in depth review helpful but I would strongly encourage you to go beyond my summaries and get the book. I have only skimmed the major themes. The book expands and explicates many of these topics in rich ways that are well beyond these posts.
An index to my posts is in the following post.
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If you are new to the world of vehicle buying and selling, you might be asking yourself, how do I refinance my car? Is it easier to go through a large bank or some other lender like a credit union?
The answer to this question really depends on the individual institution that you're talking about, but some common differences do apply between banks and credit unions. For example, a bank car loan is going to include some significant requirements for documentation and items to lower the lender's risk. Lots of banks don't even handle personal loans or loans anymore, because they would prefer to invest in a sure thing, which generally means larger commercial or municipal debts.
Getting Refinancing through Banks
The major benefit of getting refinancing from a bank is that, because of their large pools of capital, they may be able to refinance your existing loan for a lower interest rate. However, if you are focused on what's easiest, a credit union might be your better bet.
Getting Refinancing through Credit Unions
Lots of your financial transactions are going to be easier at your local credit union than at a local branch of a large bank. That's because the credit union is set up to provide services to a core group of people. Your employer might have a credit union, if they're big enough. Otherwise, your credit union probably has some other affiliation with a region or institution. With that in mind, members are often able to get a credit unions refinance loan more easily because they have already built some of the trust that is critical between a lender and a borrower.
Think about the above next time you're casting around for a lender to refinance your car purchase.
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Narrative and Ontology is also discussing worldview. I thought I would repost this old post in case its any use to anyone doing work on worldview.
I started a paper a few months back which sought to offer a worldview reading of Galatians. Here is the first part of if. I have added the rest of it as a PDF file. See the link at the bottom of the page.
It still needs a conclusion….
It essentially takes N.T. Wright’s worldview model and seeks to read Galatians in a way so that the Pauline worlview can be sketched out.
Galatians and the Pauline Worldview
Historiography, Hermeneutics and Worldview
Interpreting Galatians, like any other ancient text, is far from simple for the chasm which stands between the interpreter and the original author is immense—this immensity being created by the differences to be found in historical location, culture, language and rhetorical conventions between the Pauline interpreter and Paul himself.
This hermeneutical challenge, which exists in all forms of communication, is in one sense minimised or bypassed by the ‘naïve’/modernist reader who think that simply by a close reading of the text the intended meaning of the author simply appears when the tools of realism, objectivity and empiricism are vigorously and methodologically applied.1
On the other hand the post-modern Pauline adventurer may simply see the chasm as being insurmountable as the historical tools of modernism are viewed as the worthless and arrogant product of an enlightenment epistemology. A post-modern adventure for Pauline studies may be described as a move from asking‘What did Paul mean?’ to ‘What does the text do and mean for my community?’, thus resulting in a shift away from ‘objectivity’ to the ‘subjective’ approach of multiple possible meanings.2
In contrast to both a modern and post-modern historiography I intend to sketch out and use a ‘Worldview Hermeneutic’ as a methodology to interpret Galatians and begin to construct ‘a’ Pauline theology. This worldview hermeneutic, as discussed in a previous essay3, relies heavily on the methodology of N.T Wright but seeks to apply this to one book within the Pauline Corpus. Before setting out on a worldview approach to Galatians it is necessary to sketch out, in broad strokes, the basic structure of a worldview.
In recent decades there has been a steady rise in the use of worldview (Weltanschauung) which is seen not only across the academic community at large but also within the church, at both a popular and academic level, in its development of evangelism, mission, bible translation, ethical theory. The use of worldviews is so pervasive owing to the fact that it seeks not to offer a theoretical construct aimed at one area of life, instead it provides a interpretative framework which can be applied to all fields and spheres of human interpretation and existence.
A worldview (or vision of life) is a framework or set of fundamental beliefs through which we view the world and our calling and future in it. This vision need not be fully articulated….this vision is a channel for the ultimate beliefs which give direction and meaning to life. It is the integrative and interpretative framework by which order and disorder are judged; it is the standard by which reality is managed and pursued; it is the set of hinges on which all our everyday thinking and doing turns.4
Any worldview, whether ancient or modern , according to N.T. Wright, contains four basic interrelated components5;
1) Stories: Worldviews ‘provide the stories [grand narratives] through which human beings view reality’.
2) Questions: These grand narratives provide answers to the basic worldview questions. Who are we? Where are we? What is wrong? What is the solution?6
3) Symbols: Stories express themselves in cultural symbols, whether that be the symbol of the ‘credit card’ expressing the consumerist meta-narrative, or the ‘eagle’ expressing the grand narrative of Roman imperialism.
4) Praxis: Stories, Symbols and the answers to basic worldview questions provide a ‘way-of-being-in-the-world’, the stories which people indwell and the symbols which they cherish provide a call to action, whether that be the praxis of a terrorist ideology or the outworking of a nihilist mindset.
I intend in this essay to explore, within Galatians the role of story, symbol and praxis within the Pauline worldview.
Worldview Shift and the Damascus Road
“And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles,…” Galatians 1:14-16
The events on the Damascus road undoubtedly had a major significance for the Apostle Paul. Once he was ‘advancing in ιουδαισμω Judaism ’ (1:14) but now he sees himself, in some sense, as separate from Judaism (1:13)7. The events of Damascus road have been variously described as conversion—from one religion to another—or by others as calling or commissioning8 which reflect his call to preach the gospel to the gentiles.
I propose that the Damascus event is best seen as a ‘Worldview Shift’. By using the word ‘worldview’ I intend to highlight that this is not simply a ‘religious event’ as the word ‘conversion’ in popular usage suggests, nor does the notion of ‘commissioning’ do full justice to the change in the entire outlook of Paul, a change that, as we shall see, provides an alternative to the story, symbol and praxis of Saul the Pharisee. I use the word ‘shift’ as opposed to ‘change’ to highlight, an obvious although important point, that Paul’s post Damascus worldview is still essentially Judaic through and through, but a modified form.9 By using the word ‘shift’ I mean that Paul’s worldview after Damascus has not changed completely but has shifted from what it once was, the worldview, in my opinion, has been modified.
1 For further discussion see Wright, The New Testament and the People of God Chapter 2-3
2 The phrase ‘Postmodern adventure’ I have taken from the influential essay by Clines A Postmodern Adventure in Biblical Studies: The Pyramid and the Net:
4 As cited in Naugle Worldview 349, likewise N.T. Wright “Worldviews are thus the basic stuff of human existence, the lens through which the world is seen, the blueprint of how one should live in it, and above all the sense of identity and place which enables human beings to be what they are. To ignore worldviews, either our own or those of the culture we are studying, would result in extraordinary shallowness.” New Testament and the People of God 124
5 For a full discussion see Wright New Testament and the People of God esp pp 122-126
7 Ἰουδαΐσμός is used within Maccabees to differentiate between the way of life of Seleucid Hellenism and the Jewish religion (2 Macc 2:21, 8:1, 14:38, 4 Macc 4:26) becoming a term of honour amongst the Jews. See Longenecker Galatians
8 As with Stendahl “There is not—as we usually think—first a conversion, and then a call to apostleship; there is only the call to the work among the Gentiles” Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West
9 N.T Wright helpfully shows the similarities and differences between the Judaic and Pauline worldview in his frequent refrain of triad of covenant, monotheism and election. See Fresh Perspectives Wright
The full draft text is available by usign the following link.
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Boxing gloves are cushioned to defend the athlete against the increasingly heavier focuses of striking other punching bags,these are the gloves most recommended by trainers for all boxing training, especially for non-sparrers. Sparring gloves are designed to guard both athletes during practice bouts. Professional fight gloves are also designed to protect both fighters, but are generally less padded. Sparring gloves may range from 14 oz to 20 oz, while bag gloves, amateur and professional fight gloves range from 8 to 10 ounces.Small, padded boxing gloves used when hitting a speed bag or heavy bag. The speed bag version usually does not contain padding.
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‘This Is Responsive’: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Responsive Design
Sure, you’ve heard of responsive design. You probably even know the basics — fluid layouts, flexible images and media queries — but actually building responsive sites can be challenging. Not only are there the technical hurdles of defining breakpoints, managing different layouts, resizing images and so on, but just keeping up with the latest and best ideas on how to do those things is a full-time job.
That’s part of why responsive design guru Brad Frost has created This Is Responsive, a one-stop shop of continually updated responsive design patterns, resources and news. The site is the most comprehensive collection of best practices, tips and tricks for responsive design that we’ve seen — definitely bookmark it.
But the best part about This Is Responsive is that it’s on GitHub, which means everyone can contribute.
Head on over and dig through the responsive patterns for site layouts, tables, how to handle menus and navigation, forms, images and loads more. Also be sure to throw the blog’s RSS feed in your feed reader.
For some background on the project, as well as instructions on how you can contribute, check out Frost’s blog post.
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Bret Bicoy had long ago set forth a professional goal of leading one of the nation's large foundations.
Everything in his career was heading in that direction and Bret couldn't wait to get there.
Then in 2007, a tragedy struck, causing the Bicoy family to completely rethink their life. While embarrassed to admit that it took such an event to open their eyes to what was most important, it would be even more tragic if they didn't learn the lesson they had been given. Bret and Cari longed to raise their children surrounded by family in a place that values community.
Thus in 2007, Bret resigned from his position as President of the Nevada Community Foundation so he, along with his wife and their six children, could return home to Northeast Wisconsin.
Prior to Bret's arrival at the Nevada Community Foundation, it was a dramatically underperforming organization. Bret viewed it as a challenge and opportunity to rebuild it almost entirely from scratch. He completely revamped the development strategy and hired their first fundraising staff. Bret brought a level of professionalism and enthusiasm which inspired donors to give at unprecedented levels for Nevada.
Before Bret arrived, the Nevada Community Foundation's total assets were less than $19 million. During four years of his leadership, the foundation received $49 million in new contributions. Bret also implemented a comprehensive planned giving program which generated known estate commitments of $71 million - and far more that will only be known when the estate gifts are realized many years from now.
Perhaps even more exciting, however, were some of the programmatic initiatives that were launched during Bret's tenure in Nevada. Under his leadership the foundation assumed a more public role, actively bringing together businesses, charities, donors and government to address issues such as foster care, hunger and community building. The foundation also established a highly regarded experimental granting program focused on civic engagement, involving average citizens as an integral part of the planning process.
During his tenure in Nevada, Bret was recognized as a person of influence in the In Business Las Vegas annual "Influence" issue as one of the "men and women who make things happen" in Nevada.
Bret was named a Fellow of the Council on Foundations in Washington, D.C. for his work promoting philanthropy in diverse communities. He also served on the Council's Committee on Inclusiveness, the premiere voice for diversity issues in the philanthropic world.
He was honored in 2006 with the Young Alumni Achievement Award from Tufts University as one "whose distinguished accomplishments bring credit to his community, his profession, and Tufts University."
Bret enjoyed similar success (albeit on a more modest scale) when living previously in Appalachian Ohio and Northeast Wisconsin.
While in Ohio, Bret served as President & CEO of the Marietta Community Foundation. The Marietta Chamber of Commerce once named him the Telesis Community Leader of the Year as "a believer in impossible things, whose vision, enthusiasm and dedication have unquestionably made their mark on our community."
In Green Bay, Bret previously served as the Senior Foundation Officer at the Green Bay Community Foundation. He worked as a Project Coordinator and community organizer in Green Bay's neighborhoods for the University of Wisconsin Extension and former Mayor Paul Jadin's Neighborhood Resource Board. He is a graduate of Leadership Green Bay.
Bret served one term on the Brown County Board of Supervisors and was twice elected to the Green Bay City Council.
He is the proud father of Alyssa, David, Bret Jr., Kekoa, Nalani and Malia. Born and raised in Aiea, Hawaii (the only city in America spelled only with vowels), Bret still loves to surf but has yet to find any really good waves in Wisconsin.
Bret continues to serve the community primarily through his efforts as the President & CEO of the Door County Community Foundation, a modest but vibrant foundation based in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. However, his flexible schedule and the relatively small population of Door County allows Bret to accept consulting projects based on the needs of the client (and how much fun he thinks everyone will have working together!).
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So much for "free" checking. Faced with new regulations and a slow economy, many large banks are jacking up fees on these accounts -- or are introducing new ones -- to boost revenue. But analysts say some little banks and online firms are still offering up decent deals.
Today, only 39% of checking accounts that pay no interest are free, down from 45% last year and a peak of 76% in 2009, according to research released Monday by data provider Bankrate.com. Many firms are adding monthly service fees for members who don't meet minimum balance requirements or who don't make enough regular direct deposits. Wells Fargo, for instance, will soon get rid of its last free checking account, charging a monthly fee of $7 for account holders that don't have at least $1,500 in their checking accounts or make $500 in direct deposits each month, according to a report Monday in the Wall Street Journal. Some banks are also raising overdraft fees and charging more for using a competitor's automated teller machines.
Many consumers, of course, can avoid these charges by meeting the new rules tied to their accounts. But those clients who carry smaller balances -- and don't make regular direct deposits -- may want to consider moving to a credit union or online checking account where fees (and requirements) tend to be lower than at the bigger institutions, says Alex Matjanec, co-founder of bank comparison site MyBankTracker.com.
To be sure, many credit unions and small banks are also raising fees and tightening requirements to increase revenue. Of the 50 largest credit unions surveyed by Bankrate.com in July, for example, 72% offered free checking accounts without a minimum account balance -- down from 76% a year earlier. And customers at these institutions and online banks are still likely to face some usage requirements.
Those still interested in shifting to an online bank account or credit union should pick an FDIC-insured institution and stay within the coverage limits of up to $250,000 for deposit accounts. These four firms are currently offering sweet deals:
Ally Bank, an online bank with $87 billion in assets, charges no ATM fees for checking account holders and reimburses fees charged by other ATMs. Clients can also write checks and get a free debit card, but balances must be at or above $15,000 to earn the most attractive interest annual yield of 0.75%; balances below that level earn 0.4%. The switch to online banking also means consumers lose access to physical bank branches, a negative for those who prefer face-time with bank tellers, says Matjanec.
Unlike many other large banks, ING Direct doesn't charge an overdraft fee for customers in its Electric Orange Checking account; they will, however, have to pay daily 0.03% interest on the amount used. For instance, interest charges would be 3 cents a day on an overdraft of $100. Acquired earlier this year by Capital One, which has $297 billion in assets, ING offers a minimum annual percentage yield of 0.2%. For large account balances of $100,000 or more, that increases to 0.9% or more than four times the national average for interest checking accounts.
As with all credit unions, Alliant Credit Union, based in Chicago, is limited to members and those individuals who work at a qualifying organization or live in one of several Chicago-area neighborhoods. Others can join by becoming a member of Foster Care to Success, a nonprofit organization that works with college-bound foster youth, which requires a donation of $10 or more. The $7-billion-in-assets credit union offers a checking account with no monthly service fee and no minimum-balance requirement. Customers who opt out of paper statements and have at least one monthly electronic deposit can qualify for an annual percentage yield on check account balances of 0.75%.
Virtual Wallet, an online banking account offered by PNC Bank, combines a free checking, short-term savings and an interest-bearing account in one product. PNC, which has $109 billion in assets, requires no minimum balance or monthly service charge. And customers can transfer funds between accounts without penalty. Virtual Wallet customers have unlimited check-writing but only get three free checks a month. Additional checks cost 50 cents each.
Corrections & Amplifications
An earlier version of this story misstated the annual percentage yield on the ING Direct Electric Orange Checking account. For balances of $100,000 or more, the APY is 0.9%, not 0.85%.
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|Re: Switching 32SII to ALG|
Message #3 Posted by bill platt on 3 May 2005, 10:19 a.m.,
in response to message #1 by Axel
You can use an algebraic method in the 32sii---just use the equation list. You will get a true equation entry with a solver. There are a few quirks though regarding precedence--look carefully at the manual--the "unary minus" takes precedence over exponentiation--but it works strangely and has an inconsistency when the unary minus it the very 1st entry in an equation. If you give me an email address, I can send you a write-up about that.
Also as part of this issue, you should look cloesly at the use of the "+/-" key versus the "-" key during equation entry. It is covered in the manual. By the way, you *must* get the 32sii (not the 33s) manual in order to properly understand this stuff. It is also available electronically, if not at www.hp.com/go/calculators, then I can send it to you.
The 33s is actually better with its equation editor, and it has an "interesting" infix/postfix algebraic system as well, though I think it is better to use either the RPN or the equation list, as these systems are more consistent.
Beware of the 17bii "algebraic" mode as it is not "algebraic"--rather, it is 1st-come-1st-serve (no precedence). You have to use parenthesis on it to separate multiplication from addition rather than the other way around.
The best part of the 17bii is the solver--that is the most excellent fully algebraic equation entry around (on a non-graphing hp--but the some of the Sharps are even better), even allows named variables (not single letter registers).
The fact is that as much as we like to believe that all HP machines were as perfect as possible, there were actually some outstanding cases of bad design---the 32sii has a number of imperfections, though if you understand them you can of course produce correct results.
Only the 11c & 15c are perfect :^)
my first name at plattdesign dot net is my email
Edited: 3 May 2005, 10:22 a.m.
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Learn how to start an Alzheimer’s Cafe
Sunday, February 17, 2013
DOVER — The Children’s Museum of NH launched its Alzheimer’s Café program in October of 2011 and soon began attracting the attention of organizations and individuals seeking to do something similar. People from as far away as Pennsylvania have visited the Museum’s Alzheimer’s Café to learn more about it, and now the Museum is hosting a program to help others get a café started in their community.
“We saw a need in the community and thought The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire would be an ideal place for an Alzheimer’s Café,” explained Paula Rais, the Museum’s Director of Community Engagement. “Intergenerational experiences are beneficial for all ages, and the people who attend the café respond very positively to our surroundings. Some enjoy the opportunity to be around vibrant youngsters, while others just enjoy the colorful, non-clinical setting. We have witnessed new friendships being formed and coping strategies being shared. We could not be more pleased with how the community has responded.”
Alzheimer’s Café programs are established in a number of European countries and Canada’s first program was launched in Nova Scotia this past February. In the United States, there are now programs open in New Mexico, California, Oregon and Washington. These programs are held in a variety of settings, including theatres, historic buildings and restaurants.
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This is a special advertising section
YWCA Metro St. Louis is dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.
YWCA’s beginnings can be traced to housing and job training for rural women who came here to work at the 1904 World’s Fair. In 1905, it was incorporated as an autonomous, accredited affiliate of YWCA USA. Since its local founding, programs and services have evolved, yet its commitment has never waver in the quest to empower women and girls in a racially just society.
YWCA Metro St. Louis is dedicated to empowering women, developing children and youth and eliminating racism. It focuses on finding solutions to race equity issues and offers housing stability, economic upward mobility, counseling, and personal, child and youth development.
Volunteers support our Sexual Assault Center and Transitional Housing Program and are offered long- or short-term mentoring opportunities through YW-Teens, School-Age Services and Head Start. Volunteers also serve in leadership roles on our board of directors and for our fundraising events. To volunteer, call 314.531.1115, ext. 230.
YWCA Metro St. Louis Memberships:
Circle of Women Society
Circle of Women Society members are multi-year contributors of $1,000 or more who help sustain YWCA programs and services throughout the year.
The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of American City Business Journals.
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Shobana Chandrakumar Pillai is an exponent of the Bharatanatyam dance and a leading actress of South Indian motion pictures. She was born into a Malayalam speaking family from Kerala, India. Shobana is the niece of the Travancore sisters Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini, all of whom were renowned for their skill in classical Indian dance. She has acted in over 150 movies in 5 languages.
Shobana acted for the first time in a leading role in the Malayalam motion picture "April 18" in 1984, directed by Balachandra Menon. She also acted alongside the Malayalam actor Mammootty in the film Kanamarayathu (1984). Shobana won her first National Film Award for Best Actress from the government of India in 1994 for her performance in Fazil's movie Manichitrathazhu, starring Mohanlal and Suresh Gopi. She bagged a second National award for best actress in the year 2002 for her role in an English language film Mitr, My Friend, directed by Revathi. Revathi is her very close friend, philosopher and guide.
Shobhana is an accomplished dancer of Bharatanatyam. She did her dance training at the Chidambaram academy in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Her gurus include legendary Bharatanatyam dancers Chitra Visweswaran and Padma Subramanyam. Shobhana is famed for her Abhinaya, a pivotal element in Bharatanatyam. She performed in Kuala Lumpur before the King and Queen of Malaysia. Shobhana's skilled execution of dance movements and her extraordinary beauty has led many people to consider her as the most beautiful South Indian actress from the 1980s through the 1990s. She is often equaled to the curvaceous beauty of Indian sculptures.Shobhana has founded a school for classical Bharatanatyam dance in Chennai. She was also a part of Mani Ratnam's stage show, Netru, Indru, Naalai. In 1994, Shobana founded Kalarpana. The aim of Kalarpana is to organize annual festivals throughout India. This will include performances of nationally and globally known artistes to help raise funds that will be ploughed back into training talented artistes who are financially insecure. Under its umbrella, Kalarpana extend its support to the handicapped and the environmental movement.
In 2006 January, the Indian government honored Shobana with Padma Shri title for her significant contributions to cinema and Bharatanatyam.
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In keeping with this month's Acthung Baby theme, we take a look at a few articles from that time.
A Little More Larry, Propaganda
There is an absence of obvious magic in the recording studio as U2 create songs for their new record, certainly not as much magic as plain hard work. What magic there is in the mundane magic of art in process. And, while it is clear that these are definitely "artists at work," it feels like a struggle, if one in which everybody is confident of a creative breakthrough every now and then.
Bringing Up Baby, Rolling Stone
If you know you're probably going to sell several million albums on the strength of your track record, should you remain consistent to that track record? Are you deceiving people by moving off in new directions? Do people value you for your consistency or your surprises? U2's state of mind going into this record was: ready for something bigger, rebelling against its own stereotypes. When you listen to the result, it all makes sense.
Shooting the Fly, Propaganda
Bono is having a whale of a time sauntering up Picadilly like he owns the city. At a souvenir stall he buys a model London bus and races out into the moving traffic to plant it under the path of a life-size moving version of the same vehicle -- about to run him down... He begins to hassle people, trying to get them to look at the headlines in the newspaper he is holding -- "Another Bum" reads the invisible think bubbles above their heads.
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Back in August, Arizona Dream Act Coalition staff members, other advocacy group representatives and young immigrants lined up for guidance about Deferred Action, an Obama administration program that lets young illegal immigrants avoid deportation for two years. / Ross D. Franklin, AP
The Obama administration has granted 4,591 young illegal immigrants a two-year deportation reprieve under a new program created two months ago, according to statistics released by the Department of Homeland Security on Friday.
The administration began receiving applications for the "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals" program in August, and they have since taken in 179,794 applications, according to the Department of Homeland Security. They have scheduled 158,408 of those for biometric appointments, where officials will take applicants' fingerprints to conduct criminal background checks.
Up to 1.7 million young illegal immigrants could qualify for the program, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.
No applicants have been officially denied yet. But DHS has sent 1,825 applicants that don't appear to qualify a "Notice of Intent to Deny" form, which gives them 30 days to provide more evidence or correct mistakes, or a "Request for Evidence," which gives them 84 days to fill in gaps in their application.
Under the program, illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. before their 16th birthday, who are currently in school, have graduated high school or have served in the military, and have a clean criminal record can receive a two-year deferment of their deportation. They can also apply for a work permit during that period. After the two years, they can reapply for another two-year deferment.
The program has been criticized by some, including House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, for inviting fraud by moving too quickly, for its timing -- starting just three months before the November elections -- and for granting work permits to illegal immigrants when unemployment remains high in the USA.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told the Denver Post earlier this month he would honor any deferments approved by the Obama administration, but would then push for a comprehensive immigration law that would address all illegal immigrants living in the country.
President Obama has called the program "the right thing to do." The president has pushed Congress to pass the Dream Act, which would grant legal status to young illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. When that failed, Obama used his executive authority to start the deferred deportation program for that population of young illegal immigrants, known as DREAMers.
DHS spokesman Peter Boogaard said wait times for people applying for the program will now be about four to six months.
For the past two years, Jose Quintero has been volunteering at a Chicago-area church, helping immigrants fill out complicated work authorization forms and citizenship applications. He did that even though he could apply for neither himself.
Quintero was six when he crossed the brutal Arizona desert on foot with his aunt. He later reunited with his mother in Chicago, where he's lived ever since, graduating from Benito Juarez Community Academy High School, and earning an associate's degree in science from Harold Washington College.
Given that long road, the 25-year-old was speechless when he learned last week he was approved for the deferred action program.
"It still doesn't seem real," he said.
Now Quintero is preparing to apply for his dream job at architectural firms. After spending so much time helping others find work, he can finally do it himself.
"I know a lot of people are scared to fill it out, but they shouldn't," Quintero said. "They're protected now."
Copyright 2013 USATODAY.com
Read the original story: 4,591 young illegal immigrants get deportation reprieve
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By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com
This is the second article in this series, investigating why staying technical is important on the path to promotion – either as an executive or an eventual board member. Don’t forget to register for our upcoming panel discussion and networking event for women in technology on July 8th at 5.30pm.
According to the Anita Borg Institute report Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success [PDF] by Dr. Caroline Simard, the numbers of senior women on the technical path vs. the management path don’t really correspond with the numbers of men in similar positions.
“We find that senior technical women are significantly more likely to be in a manager position (36.9%) than are men (19%); conversely, men at the high level are significantly more likely to be in an individual contributor position (IC) (80.6%) than are women (63.1%).”
What’s the reason for this disparity, and is it cause for alarm? At first glance, this data seems encouraging as women are making headway as managers in the technology space. Further investigation would reveal, however, that “management” means project management – not executive management. The Anita Borg Institute discovered that women are being led away from being technical innovators and instead are being heavily encouraged to manage people and processes instead of continuing to code and program – despite their degree training. The report explains:
“Interestingly, more women in the IC track (26.8%) reported having a non-STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) degree than women within the management track (12.5%) – which shows that women in the management track have a high level of technical expertise.”
This same report states “60.2% of senior men describe themselves as an ‘innovator,’ versus just 38.1 percent of senior women.” There was a perception by the respondents of innovation as a masculine quality. On the other hand, while the majority of senior women felt they were not innovators, more than half did see themselves as risk-takers – about the same amount as senior men.
I think that there are three clear factors why women drop off the technical path.
- Cultural messaging of what is “means” to be a techie.
- The perception of the isolation of coding as a full time job.
- The lack of support from most companies to keep women technical.
The messaging of what it means to be a techie
Women comprise less than 1% of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs. Yet they earn more than 50% of all bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and nearly 50% of all U.S. doctorates. The companies they start are more capital-efficient, produce higher revenue, and have lower failure rates than those led by men.
In fact, only 18 percent of college students graduating with computer science degrees in 2008 were women, down from 37 percent in 1985, according to the National Center for Women and Information Technology.
Vivek Wadhwa (a man, may I add), points out in a recent piece that messaging starts early in life, with your parent’s attitude of what you can and should do as a job having much impact. Perhaps girls are not getting the encouragement at home to go into these fields. Another reason, as reported in a recent NY Times article is that engineering has a serious image problem.
“There’s a really strong image of what a computer scientist is — male, skinny, no social life, eats junk food, plays video games, likes science fiction,” says Sapna Cheryan, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Washington who has researched why few women choose computer-science careers. “It makes it hard for people who don’t fit that image to think of it as an option for them.”
It’s easy to assume we’re making progress. For example, note Mattel’s recently launched Computer Engineer Barbie – complete with pink laptop! More seriously, the Obama administration has approached its STEM initiative in earnest, and recently appointed Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox and the only black female CEO in the Fortune 500, as a committee member of its STEM Board.
However Carol Bartz, President and CEO of Yahoo sums up just how far we still need to go. “As you look around the entry-level management positions, even just the ranks of engineers or product people, there just aren’t many women.” She continued, “So therefore, mathematically, it tells you it’s impossible for them to move up and run something.”
Dealing with Perceived Isolation
Feeling isolated as an individual contributor is definitely a problem accentuated by a lack of visible role models in technical roles.
In the NCWIT report Women in IT: The Facts, Dr. Catherine Ashcraft and Sarah Blithe bring up factors like isolation and lack of mentors as a cause for female attrition from the tech field. The report says:
“In The Athena Factor… 40 percent of technical women reported lacking role models, while nearly half reported lacking mentors, and 84 percent reported lacking sponsors or someone who would help make their accomplishments visible throughout the organization.”
“In fact, women who are isolated are not only less committed, but are 13 percent more likely than women who do not report isolation to also report being unsatisfied with their job.”
According to the Anita Borg Institute’s study Breaking Barriers to Technical Change in Corporations [PDF], one of the factors causing women to leave technical careers is the culture of “hero behavior,” which favors and rewards work marathons and all-nighters around project deadlines.
“…technical women are significantly more likely to be in dual-career couples than are technical men; therefore, they are more negatively impacted by this ‘hero culture.’ At the highest levels of the technical ladder, this ‘Hero,’ sacrificing mindset is sending the message that those who have family responsibilities need not apply.”
What are some ways women in technical roles can balance work/life issues, and overcome the hero-culture that maybe causing them to miss out on bonuses, promotions, or interesting projects? What structural changes can companies make to help women facing these issues? Dr. Sylvia Ann Hewlett has done some interesting work in this area also.
Fortunately, there are many positive roles models – many of whom theglasshammer.com has interviewed recently – who have provided their personal advice to rising stars in the field. It’s a matter of making those women visible. Also, there are fortunately some firms out there which are making an big effort to address keeping women technical and supporting women in their career planning and development.
Celebrating Women of Vision
Finally, to end on an inspirational note this week, I wanted to mention the women who were honored this year at The Anita Borg Women of Vision awards took place this month, with awards being bestowed to Kathleen McKeown for Innovation, Lila Ibrahim for Social Impact, and Kristina M. Johnson for Leadership.
There is nothing more inspirational than hearing the passion that these woman have for their careers and the honesty that is conveyed about their journey. Nothing in life may be easy, but we must share with younger technical women that some things are not only possible, but very worthwhile.
Leadership award winner Kristina Johnson was recognized for her leadership in academia and industry and her appointment as the Under Secretary of Energy with the Obama administration. “I could not refuse the opportunity to apply my engineering skills in service to others,” she said in her speech. Responsible for a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 83 percent by 2050, Johnson continued that, “Change is a challenge – together we can make a big difference. I am optimistic because we, as a nation, have always risen to the challenge and provided global leadership in the darkest of times.”
Kathleen McKeown, who received the innovation award, commented that, “Not taking ‘no’ as an answer has been part of my life from the beginning. I heard ‘no’ many times but saw that it didn’t always have to happen that way. It was good training for the realities of research.” McKeown acknowledged that she’s aware she serves as a role model now for young women studying computer science, saying that “I want them to see through my example that it is possible to be a woman and succeed in academics.” McKeown is a Henry and Gertrude Rothschild Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University.
Social Impact award winner Lila Ibrahim, spoke about the need to persevere when “pioneering (to change the world) can be lonely and frustrating.” She continued that, “It’s not just about developing the greatest technology. It’s about getting the right technology into the right hands with the right training. That’s the best guarantee that you can make a difference. But when you’re truly passionate about something and really care, wonderful things can be accomplished.” Ibrahim is General Manager of the Emerging Markets Platform Group at Intel Corporation.
Sharing the successful stories of women like these is one part of the solution to breaking down the myths and changing stereotypes about the field, and keeping women in the path to technical leadership.
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HERMON, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Rain, snow, birthdays, holidays... Dairy cows don't take a day off, so neither do Ed and Suzanne Moreshead. They run Siberia Farms in Hermon, where they spend each morning and night milking their Jersey dairy cows in order to provide fresh milk to their customers.
Being a dairy farmer in Maine hasn't been easy lately. Just in the last few months, Garelick Farms has closed its milk production facility in Bangor, and funding to the Maine Milk Pool that provides support to Maine dairy farmers is also expected to be cut. Siberia Farm hopes to stay in business by lowering expenses, and by carving out a niche market: door to door milk delivery.
"We decided that maybe that would be a unique way to introduce our products to people in the greater Bangor area.," said Ed Moreshead. "There's a lot of nostalgia involved, there's a lot of convenience."
And the convenience is something their customers love. Siberia Farms delivers one day a week as of now, but are thinking of expanding to two days a week because of high demand.
To find out if Siberia Farms delivers in your area, visit their website at www.siberiafarms.com.
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I was quite saddened yesterday when I found out (who we now allegedly know as) Harvey Updyke from Dadeville (here on Facebook) had deliberately poisoned the Toomer’s Oaks in Auburn with a Dow Agroscience called Spike 80 DF (PDF of what this chemical is and does) “in retaliation for a 1983 event when Auburn students rolled the trees to celebrate the death of Alabama coaching legend Paul “Bear” Bryant.”
According to the Paul Finebaum show, (audio of caller is here) he had deliberately poisoned the Toomer’s Live Oaks in Auburn some time prior to the January 27th phone call. The OANews is now reporting on Updyke’s arrest, but the reaction across the Internet from Facebook and Twitter has been almost incalculable (see 16,000+ Toomer’s Tree Hug Saturday Ralley on Facebook for starters).
At the time I heard about this I couldn’t think of a more senseless and baseless act of vandalism that could never be punished to the extent of the damaged caused, especially when you count the hundreds of thousands of Auburn fans that love the Toomer’s Live Oaks. But, once again we can see this is nothing new under the sun. This very same thing happened to the University of Texas in Austin to their Treaty Oak in 1989. While I can’t say it’s the same, it makes me wonder if we at Auburn were destined to repeat this history?
I have a special tree here on my property I sit under and read during the summer, and have blogged about over and over again. If someone purposely had killed that tree it would have been quite upsetting. But for Auburn fans, how do you process something like this, the killing of something so special, something that has such key symbolic significance to Auburn itself? Auburn released a statement yesterday, where the president addressed this question.
We will take every step we can to save the Toomer’s oaks, which have been the home of countless celebrations and a symbol of the Auburn spirit for generations of Auburn students, fans, alumni and the community,” said University President Jay Gogue.
Gogue asked members of the Auburn Family to “continue to be ‘All In’ in upholding its reputation for class” and not allow anger to be expressed inappropriately or undeservedly.
“It is understandable to feel outrage in reaction to a malicious act of vandalism,” Gogue said. “However, we should live up to the example we set in becoming national champions and the beliefs expressed in our Auburn Creed. Individuals act alone, not on behalf of anyone or any place, and all universities are vulnerable to and condemn such reprehensible acts.
I know some crazy fan somewhere is not going to take that to heart but the example, rooted in Auburn’s Creed from 1945 says many great things about class and dignity of fellow people. Of course it doesn’t directly address the issue of forgiveness, (mainly because this is a creed for a secular, publicly funded university, not a religious organization) which is really what is needed here. This could be a huge, long, drawn out, post on the sinful nature of man, how we go about showing forgiveness, and why someone would do such a thing, but in the end, we as Christians are called to love one another as Christ loved the church, and this includes Harvey Updyke of Dadeville.
That means forgiving, without malice in our hearts, knowing all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God, not just one man but all of us. We are now given the opportunity to show how a forgiving heart acts and reacts when hurt, even if Updyke is not remorseful or repentant himself.
I assume that now here in Auburn anyway, we can move away from the who done it aspect of the trees and focus more on the preservation or the Toomer’s Oaks or what to do if and when they do die. Here are some photos below I took of the Toomer’s Oaks as they sit today, bathed in bright February sunshine, on a gorgeous day in the south.
I will say that these are just trees. Very special trees When I went down to Toomer’s Corner today it was a zoo. The perspective on what happened in some respect has been totally lost. These are beloved trees that symbolize much of what is great about Auburn, but if we could channel this money, effort, and energy into something productive it would be amazing. Just a thought.
Additional current information related to the post above.
- Harvey Updyke’s Facebook Page in PDF
- Screenshot of Harvey Updyke’s Facebook Page
- List of his Facebook Friends in PDF
- Mug shot as listed on OANews
A Few News Reports on the Topic
- Toomer’s Corner tree poisoning a ‘new low’ in rivalry, national media say
- Toomer’s Corner trees poisoning: Auburn working against odds to save 130-year-old live oaks
- Arrest made in Toomer’s Corner poisoning
- Toomer’s Corner trees poisoning: An arrest reported, a sports world appalled at vandalism
- Despite rivalry, many Bama fans sickened by news of Toomer’s Corner poisoned trees
- Toomers Corner explodes in ecstacy with Auburn national championship win
- Toomer’s Corner rolling celebrates victory (in photos)
- The complete Toomer’s Corner files
- Man arrested for poisoning Toomer’s Corner oaks
- Is This The Alleged Toomer’s Corner Tree Poisoner?
- Man arrested in poisoning of oaks at Toomer’s Corner
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There’s an Oscar for pretty much every aspect of filmmaking, except one: the title sequences. Titles, though, have always played a significant part in motion pictures. They may have started out as simple black-and-white cards. But in the days before sound, they already did more than identify key players: they communicated dialogue and advanced plot. And as filmmaking evolved, so did title design. Titles have become wonderful bridges from reality into the cinematic world and back out again. At their very best, they are themselves innovative, emotional experiences, microcosms of their movies. Go to nytimes.com to view more title sequences.
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OGDEN -- Alberta Benitez has made it a priority to attend the Women's Health Connection for the past several years because she believes it's important for all women to take good care of their health.
The Ogden resident was one of hundreds of women seen Monday at Midtown Community Health Center, 2240 Adams Ave. The clinic includes a dental exam, Pap smear, breast exam, and screening for depression and sexually transmitted diseases.
The Health Connection will continue today, with still a few openings for walk-ins. Only uninsured women will be seen.
"I think it's very important to be here," Benitez said through translator Karla Maquin. "I recommend it for all women. They need to come and get checked out."
During her exam, doctors discovered two breast lumps, Benitez said. She was given a voucher for a mammogram so doctors could make an official diagnosis of her condition.
The Women's Health Connection is now in its eighth year, said Lisa Nichols, executive director at Midtown Community Health Center.
The Junior League of Ogden, McKay-Dee Hospital and Midtown sponsor the event for low-income women.
In the first two hours, more than 100 women had checked in to be examined, said Sally Jones, community projects coordinator at McKay-Dee Hospital.
"We've had some breast lumps, tons and tons of dental issues, and one woman who will need a biopsy on the inside of her mouth so far," Jones said.
"Our goal is to see 500 women during the two-day event, and we make sure we follow up with all of the women."
Dr. Robert Bingham, a dentist at Midtown Community Health Center, said he had seen quite a few cavities and sore spots inside the mouth.
"We've mainly done a lot of cleanings today," he said. "There have been women here who have never had a cleaning or have had very few during their lives."
Bingham said it's important to have a dental checkup every six months. Bacteria from the mouth can travel to other parts of the body and cause many other health problems, including heart disease and stroke.
Dr. Laura Knudson, a family physician at the clinic, said she had seen some patients she suspects are depressed.
"It's really important for women to have a regular health exam, and if they are under 30, they need a Pap smear every two years. Over 30, they need one every three years," she said.
At the age of 40, women should begin getting an annual mammogram, Knudson said.
"This is a very good thing they are doing for us," Maria Hernandez said through translator Christopher Shenefelt. "We need to take care of ourselves as much as we can."
Knudson said the clinic is very valuable to both the community and the clinic.
"I feel like it's a very valuable gift to them as well as to us," she said.
"It gives us a chance to give back to the community and take care of these women who don't have a lot of resources out there."
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Page: Profile: Poetry
||Total Views: 9,575,043
VxPoem ID: 42602
Posted: May 31st. 2012 3:27:02 PM
Perplexities and Lessons of Death
Age Group: Adult
Perplexities of Death.
Death is a great teacher. Teaching us to take stock of what we have and its importance to us. Showing us what is of value and what are just vain minor unessecities that pointlessly obstruct our goals and shade us in a blanket of egotistical despair of which it holds no purpose or no hope. No reason and no real valued outcome. It merely takes our time. Our precious time we savour every last moment of when we lose a close one to us. How we saviour each moment, word, meeting we had and shared with a dear one we will now longer get to do again in this life. How we often wish for a moment given back to change something, some word we said or didn't say. How we wish we could take back the time we said 'no' when really it should have been 'yes.'
Death gives us the gift of value and of worth. We learn what goes when someone passes. Friendship, love, family, intimacy, a person to share with, a person to 'spend time' with, a soul, a spirit. One that has shared freely and by their choice, a part of themselves with you. A gift, a free gift, but one of the highest value.
Loss. The overwhelming sense of loss. Knowing that it has gone and gone, so gone. Never again. Gone.
Regret. A wish to have changed and done something differently. The 'what ifs' start to crop up in ones mind. But you lose power for the inevibility to change. You become powless. Stripped of ones power and control. And this is a very tough realisation. Then your defenses break down, as you realise your walls are no longer made of strong iron but only now of tears. And down a river of emotion they flow.
Guilt, anguish, guilt, anguish, you feel bad. You didn't do right, you should have done this, you did this wrong, how selfish, why didn't you do something? Why didn't you say something? Why? Why? Why?
The realisation that you only did what you felt at the time and hindsight is another rock on the path distracting you. It means nothing. You cannot change what 'has' happened. Only what will happen from this moment on.
We feel alone. Cold, trapped in our own world and shut out from everyone else..... Yet isn't it death which teaches us that we need to talk, to share, to be, to give, to take, to share, to share. To let down our guards, as they are only of emotion anyway. Death is a constant promise. A consistent fate which we all share and all experience in so many different ways within our lives. It is something we all know, and will know.
It's up to ourselves to learn and translate the letters on our page. For me it's to make the most of our experiences. And it's often the hardest and most bitter and painful that bring us the brightest lessons. Then I realise to share and help and hope to ensure there aren't regrets any further.
Realisation your time is precious. Your gifts are precious. You life is precious as are all. Our highest values are held within the safehouses of another and those around you.
The lessons of death.
Author's Location: sheffield, England
More Poems: Aine has posted 29 additional poems- View them?
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In many ways, it had been an exemplary few days for the NCAA and its signature basketball tournament—a weekend that put the madness back in March.
On Friday, Michigan and star guard Trey Burke completed an epic comeback over Kansas. On Saturday, Cinderella team Wichita State crashed the Final Four.
But for many people watching the Louisville-Duke game unfold, a disturbing injury to Louisville guard Kevin Ware illustrated a different sort of madness: the continued lack of compensation for the players who make the tournament so special.
“Pray for [Ware],” columnist Dave Zirin tweeted. “There is no safety-net for the injured NCAA athlete.”
Injury worst seen on TV
Ware’s broken leg—”about the most gruesome injury I’ve seen in a basketball game,” bemoaned analyst Seth Davis—came on a routine play, as he landed awkwardly after trying to block a shot by Duke’s Tyler Thornton.
Continue reading “Think NCAA Athletes Shouldn’t be Paid? What the Kevin Ware Story Says About the Risks of College Sports”
Filed Under: OP-ED, THCB, The Business of Health Care
Tagged: athletes, Dan Diamond, Insurance, Kevin Ware, NCAA, sports medicine
Apr 5, 2013
For a large and growing number of us with meager or no coverage, health care is the ultimate “gotcha.” Events conspire, we receive care and then are on the hook for a car- or house-sized bill. There are few alternatives except going without or going broke.
Steven Brill’s recent Time cover story clearly detailed the predatory health care pricing that has been ruinous for many rank-and-file Americans. In Brill’s report, a key mechanism, the hospital chargemaster, with pricing “devoid of any calculation related to cost,” facilitated US health care’s rise to become the nation’s largest and wealthiest industry. His recommendations, like Medicare for all with price controls, seem sensible and compelling.But efforts to implement Brill’s ideas, on their own, would likely fail, just as many others have, because he does not fully acknowledge the deeper roots of health care’s power.
Continue reading “Why Only Business Can Save America From Health Care”
Filed Under: THCB, The Business of Health Care
Tagged: Affordable Care Act, bitter pill, Brian Klepper, Business of Health Care, Costs, Insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, Rand
Mar 25, 2013
There’s been a lot of discussion of transparency in health care recently, e.g., a USA Today op-ed and a counterpoint by Paul Ginsburg. The appeal of transparency is obvious. As movingly documented by Steven Brill in Time, prices are high and often differ quite substantially, even across close by providers. However, we don’t know the prices for the health care that we consume, and it’s extremely difficult to find out what these things cost (e.g., this recent study in JAMA).
While the appeal of transparency is obvious, it’s important to realize that buying health care is not like buying milk at the grocery store. A key factor is health insurance. Health insurance is very important — people need to be insured against the catastrophic expenses that can occur with serious illness. Thus people with high health care expenses won’t be exposed to most of those expenses (and shouldn’t) and therefore will have no reason to respond to information about health care prices.
Continue reading “Can Health Care Transparency Make A Difference?”
Filed Under: OP-ED, THCB
Tagged: bitter pill, Costs, Insurance, JAMA, Martin Gaynor, National Institute of Health Care Management, Paul Ginsburg, Transparency
Mar 9, 2013
It has always been my assumption that my new practice will be as “digital” as possible. No, I am not going into urology, I am talking about computers. [Waiting for the chuckles to subside]
For at least ten years, I’ve used a digital EKG and spirometer that integrated with our medical record system, taking the data and storing it as meaningful numbers, not just pictures of squiggly lines (which is how EKG’s and spirometry reports appear to most folks). Since this has been obvious from the early EMR days, the interfaces between medical devices and EMR systems has been a given. I never considered any other way of doing these studies, and never considered using them without a robust interface.
Imagine my surprise when I was informed that my EMR manufacturer would charge me $750 to allow it’s system to interface with a device from their list of “approved devices.” Now, they do “discount” the second interface to $500, and then take a measly $250 for each additional device I want to integrate, so I guess I shouldn’t complain. Yet I couldn’t walk away from this news without feeling like I had been gouged.
Gouging is the practice of charging extra for someone for something they have no choice but to get. I need a lab interface, and the EMR vendor (not just mine, all of the major EMR vendors do it) charges an interface fee to the lab company, despite the fact that the interface has been done thousands of times and undoubtedly has a very well-worn implementation path. This one doesn’t hurt me personally, as it is the lab company (that faceless corporate entity) that must dole out the cash to a third-party to do business with me.
Doing construction in my office, I constantly worry about being gouged. When the original estimate of the cost of construction is again superseded because of an unforeseen problem with the ductwork, I am at the mercy of the builder. Fortunately, I think I found a construction company with integrity. Perhaps I am too ignorant to know I am being overcharged, but I would rather assume better of my builders (who I’ve grown to like).
Yet thinking about gouging ultimately brings me back to the whole purpose of what I am doing with my new practice, and what drove me away from the health care system everyone is so fond of. If there is anywhere in life where people get gouged or are in constant fear of gouging, it is in health care. Continue reading “Rob’s New Economics of Practice Management”
Filed Under: Physicians, THCB
Tagged: EHR vendors, gouging, Insurance, Pharma, Physician business models, Physicians, practice management, primary care, private practice, Rob Lamberts, Subscription model
Jan 27, 2013
In a world where health care costs are rising and consumers are taking on a growing share, it is critical they have easy access to understandable information about the quality and cost of their care. While we have made decent strides in making quality data available, consumers still have little to no information about health care prices, making it difficult if not impossible for them to seek higher-value care. Numerous studies and articles have explored this problem, such as a recent UCSF study, highlighted in JAMA, which found routine appendectomies can cost as little as $1,529 or as much as $183,000. As PBGH Medical Director Dr. Arnie Milstein so eloquently stated in the Wall Street Journal, “Fantasy baseball managers have more information evaluating players for their teams than patients and referring physicians have in matters of life and death.”
Now Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), an independent, non-profit corporation working on behalf of large employers and other health care purchasers to catalyze improvements in how we pay for health services, has just released a suite of tools to catalyze price transparency. The suite includes a first-of-its-kind Statement by CPR Purchasers on Quality and Price Transparency in Health Care, endorsed by several partner organizations, that takes plans and providers to task: give us price data by January 2014.
Continue reading “Health Care Purchasers, Consumers Need Price Data if We Are Ever Going to Get to a System of Value-Based Care”
Filed Under: THCB, The Business of Health Care
Tagged: all-payer claims databases, Arnie Milstein, California, Catalyst for Payment Reform, Costs, Health 2.0, Healthcare business, Insurance, JAMA, PBGH, SB 1196, SB 751, Susan Delbanco, Transparency, UCSF, Wired Magazine, WSJ
Nov 2, 2012
Gregg Masters reports on a recent Kaiser Health News article: Hospitals Look to Become Insurers, As Well as Providers of Care”.
This is the dumbest idea I’ve heard since “I’m going to invest all my money in Facebook’s IPO and get rich!”
Here are six reasons why:
1) You’re too late. Health insurance was an attractive and profitable business in the 00s, but after passage of the Accountable Care Act it’s been commoditized.
First, the health plan business model of the past decade is dead. That model was — “Avoid and shed risk” — or more simply, avoid insuring people who are already sick (preexisting conditions) and get rid of people who become sick (rescissions). Under the ACA, health insurers must take all comers and they can rescind policies only for fraud or intentional misrepresentation.
Second, the ACA institutes medical loss ratio restrictions on health insurers. Depending the the type of plan, insurers now must spend at least 80-85% of premium dollars on paying medical claims; if they spend less, they must return these “excess profits” as rebates to customers. As a result, health insurance has become a highly regulated quasi public utility.
This is why you see health plan CEOs like Mark Bertolini of Aetna declaring “Health insurers face extinction”. The old health insurance model is on a burning platform, and health plans are reformulating themselves as companies involved in health IT, analytics, data mining, etc.
2) You have bigger fish to fry. Focus on developing accountable care capabilities. The AHA estimated that hospitals will need to spend $11-25 million to develop an ACO. Get going.
Continue reading “Hospitals…Thinking About Getting Into Health Insurance? 6 Reasons To Lie Down Until the Urge Goes Away.”
Filed Under: Hospitals
Tagged: Aetna, Gregg Masters, Health Plans, Hospitals, Insurance, MLR, Vince Kuraitis
Aug 28, 2012
Most people are getting their health insurance through their employer. That has been changing slowly, but with healthcare reform, many more people will be left to select their own plans without the pre-selection and help from their employer. What used to be a choice among 3-5 plans is soon to become a selection from dozens of health insurance companies each offering a dozen plans to choose from. And selecting an insurance plan is not like getting car insurance; family makeup, prior health issues, future healthcare needs, and affordability – they all matter. In other words, it’s very personal.
As in other insurance industries, there will be a number of options to help consumers, such as agents and brokers. Cost is one of the most important criteria, but the problem of predicting the impact of plan choices on out-of-pocket costs is much harder, since selecting a plan is such a personal choice. Our needs and therefore expenses also change over time, as we go through different life stages.
As in many industries, there is a lot of data one can harness to help with these decisions. One benefit we see emerging is the availability of personal power tools (similar to financial planning tools) that allow for detailed modeling of an individual or family’s situation. These tools predict likely health care needs and allow one to compare the detailed expenses given different insurance plans. Starting a family? Entering your fifties, with its slew of clinically advised exams? Dealing with the ups and downs of a chronic condition? Those factors can all be taken into account to provide detailed plan options and price comparisons to help choose the optimal health plan.
Continue reading “Health Care Power Tools for Consumers”
Filed Under: Pharma
Tagged: Insurance, Markus Fromherz, Pharma
Jun 30, 2011
The following article, forthcoming in U. Penn. L. Rev., pinpoints the strongest arguments for and against federal power under the Commerce Clause to mandate the purchase of health insurance: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1747189
Among the key points I make in defense of this federal law are:
1. The “commerce” in question is simply health insurance, and not the non-purchase of insurance as challengers have framed it. Because “regulate” clearly allows both prohibitions and mandates of behavior, mandating purchase is lexically just as valid an application of the clause as is prohibiting purchase or mandating the sale of insurance.
2. Although existing precedent might allow a line to be drawn between economic activity and inactivity, there is no reason in principle or theory why such a line should be drawn in order to preserve state sovereignty. Purchase mandates, after all, are as rare under state law as under federal law.
Continue reading “Commerce Clause Challenges to Health Care Reform”
Filed Under: OP-ED
Tagged: Affordable Care Act, Commerce Clause, Individual mandate, Insurance
Jan 27, 2011
The OIG released an advisory opinion at the end of last month OK’ing a hospital’s proposal to provide insurance pre-authorization srevices free of charge to patients and physicians. This is an issue that has long vexed folks in the imaging world. Clearly, this is a free service provided to referral sources (to the extent they are obligated by contract with third party payors to obtain the pre-authorization before referring a patient for an MRI, for example), so why is the OIG OK with it? In the opinion, the OIG blesses the arrangement for four reasons:
- The arrangement doesn’t target specific referring docs, so the pre-authorization service will be provided for patients of docs who are contractually bound to handle it themselves, as well as for patients of those who aren’t, and thus the risk of using the arrangement to reward referrals is low
- The hospital will not pay the docs under the arrangement and will not guarantee to docs that the pre-authorizations will be forthcoming (the OIG also notes — not sure why — that the hospital will collect and pass on only such personal health information as may be necessary to secure a finding of medical necessity for the pre-authorization)
- The hospital staff will be transparent with payors and referring docs, and will have little influence on steering volume, because they get involved only after the hospital has been selected (other situations are distinguished, e.g., where referral seekers provide referral sources with staff like discharge planners)
- The hospital has an interest in being paid for its services, and thus in ensuring that the pre-authorization process is conducted properly, thus “lower[ing] the risk that the … [a]rrangement is a stalking horse for illicit payments to [the hospital's] referral sources”
Well, the reasoning here doesn’t really cut it, as far as I’m concerned. Referring docs and their staffs hate having to deal with the pre-authorization process, and if a hospital takes on that headache, that’s a real benefit (remuneration, in the language of the anti-kickback statute). If there are two hospitals in town, and — all other things being equal — one provides pre-authorization services and the other doesn’t, guess where all the docs will refer their patients? It doesn’t really matter that the service is provided to all docs, for all payors. It is still clearly an inducement. If, on the other hand, all hospitals take on this added cost of doing business, then nobody gains a competitive advantage. Finally, to the e xtent physician networks are more and more tightly tied to particular hospital systems (whether through employment or other relationships, post health reform), the potential for steering volume is negligible at best.
Bottom line: I agree with the outcome, but not the reasoning.
David Harlow writes at HealthBlawg:David Harlow’s Health Care Law Blog, a nationally-recognized health care law and policy blog. He is an attorney and lectures extensively on health law topics to attorneys and to health care providers. Prior to entering private practice, he served as Deputy General Counsel of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
Filed Under: Uncategorized
Tagged: David Harlow, Imaging, Insurance, Pre-authorization
Sep 8, 2010
This is the first in a series of posts that will try to pierce the myths and reveal the facts about the reform legislation. This first post focuses on the impact that reform will have on the private insurance industry–and on the industry’s customers.
MYTH # 1: Health Care Reform represents a “boon” for private insurers.
FACT It is true that, beginning in 2014, virtually all Americans will be required to buy insurance, or pay a fine. But while insurers will pick up a boatload of new customers, many will be refugees who have been battered by a health care system that rationed care according to ability to pay. Think of the boat as a life raft. These could be very expensive customers.
Moreover, between now and 2014, insurers will face some serious financial hits. These new rules will make our health care system fairer and more affordable But the rules also suggest that for-profit health insurance may not be a viable business unless insurers learn far more about what is best for patients. Continue reading “Myths and Facts About Health Reform”
Filed Under: Maggie Mahar
Tagged: Insurance, Insurers, Maggie Mahar, The Insider's Guide To Health Care
Apr 6, 2010
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I warn you, this poem is very poncey. So poncey in fact, that I'm going to include an explanation afterwards :P I'm happy with it though.
Like the chasm yawning in our bed
I awakened on a lonely precipice.
She made tea and we sipped at the table
silently, each behind a newsprint wall.
That day at work a raven
landed on my shoulder, standing
stock still as if oblivious
to my presence, just as those
around me were to his.
Back at home I found a man
wrapped in my bed sheet
who claimed he was my Jesus.
He took us swimming.
Slipping naked together into liquid crystal
we laughed as if sharing a lung,
revelling in the long forgotten sound.
The raven waited upon the shore.
I asked Jesus how to be rid of it and
he said to me, ‘revival.’
That night he built a bed of straw
and climbed atop my wife.
I found a spade in the shed
and brought it down upon his head.
He shattered into ragged pieces of mirrored glass
that fell into the bed, healing its divide.
The raven fled into the dark
and I crawled into our nest beside my wife,
rejuvenation hungrily pawing our flesh.
And now for the explanation :P :
It’s about a man who’s stuck in a loveless marriage. Every day he wakes up next to a woman who he feels he hardly knows, hence the chasm in the bed, the wall of newspaper over breakfast and the fact that he barely acknowledges her in the first stanza. This dullness is reflected in the strict form of the first two stanzas. He goes to work everyday, but today is a little different as a raven lands on his shoulder, but one that no one can see. The raven represents adultery, basically while he’s at work everyday his wife is cheating on him because she’s also bored in the marriage. The man returns home to find a man who claims he is a personal Jesus, the mans saviour if you will. He takes them swimming, trying to get them back to nature and show them that they can still have a good time together. This letting loose is shown in the switch to a more free verse style. They return home, the more familiar surrounding shown in the change of style to a more traditional verse, but still more relaxed than the first two stanzas. At home, Jesus has to provoke a reaction from the guy, to show both him and his wife that they still have passion for each other. He does this by trying to have sex with her. He gets his reaction (a spade round the head). Jesus breaks into mirrored glass, the idea being Jesus was actually another side of the man, his wilder, more passionate side. Jesus has sacrificed himself for the marriage. This act heals the rift in the marriage, hence the bed healing up, the raven buggers off, and they settle down together in their nest. The nest is supposed to represent new life, the revival of the marriage being the resurrection, like Jesus. Yes, it’s very pretentious. No, I don’t care.
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Last week at Christie’s, an anonymous bidder picked up Andy Warhol’s Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I) for $71.7 million—more than four times the highest sum previously commanded by a Warhol painting at auction. Whoever the mystery buyer was, he seems to have come down with the latest case of Warhol fever, which broke out earlier this year—the 20th anniversary of the artist’s death—with Factory Girl, a throng of new books like Andy Warhol “Giant” Size, and even clothing and jewelry lines inspired by the mop-topped Prince of Pop.
Now it’s spread to MoMA. In early June, from the second to the ninth, Warhol’s most worshipped film, The Chelsea Girls, will be screened several times as part of To Save and Project—the museum’s fifth annual International Festival of Film Preservation. A collaboration among MoMA, the International Federation of Film Archives and major studios and distributors, this year’s festival celebrates 50 feature-length and short films that range from Giovanni Pastrone’s 1914 silent war-themed drama, Cabiria, to Lionel Rogosin’s 1957 whiskey-breathed quasi-documentary On the Bowery.
Co-directed by erstwhile Warhol acolyte and filmmaker Paul Morrissey, The Chelsea Girls isn’t shown often—and for good reason. The film is a technological handful, comprised of 12 33-minute reels of 16-millimeter film that are, at varying times, fed through two side-by-side projectors. Copies of the film always travel with dense instructions that outline the projection process in minute detail. “After [reel] #11 ends, turn projector lamp off on #12 but continue sound as exit music,” one instruction reads.
Its complicatedness, however, only makes the film more treasured. Josh Siegel, an assistant curator in the film department at MoMA, argued that The Chelsea Girls is every bit as valuable to our collective cultural heritage as “a painting by Picasso.” But more than anything else, Mr. Siegel believes that the film “has a freshness today that was true in 1966 …. And because it is screened so rarely, we have a mission to show this work to new generations of filmgoers.” (Though beware: One Observer contributor and Warhol fan who screened the film in college described the three-hour-plus experience as “a war of attrition” for viewers.)
“It’s like a performance by the projectionist, and it’s very avant-garde in that respect,” explained Callie Angell, curator of the Andy Warhol Film Project since 1991 and the author of last year’s critically acclaimed Andy Warhol Screen Tests. “It’s different every time I see it, so I’m fascinated by the interrelationship of the images on the double screen,” Ms. Angell continued, “There’s absolutely no editing at all …. It’s put together without one single splice in it, anywhere.”
As the film’s title might suggest, its unorthodox plot line is mostly acted out within different rooms at the now-infamous Chelsea Hotel, where a number of Mr. Warhol’s fringe-dwelling contemporaries congregated to make art, wax philosophic, have sex and, of course, party. During one particularly memorable scene, Ondine (Robert Olivo), the actor and poet widely known at the time as the Pope of Greenwich Village for his talent of taking confessions in a booth at a downtown coffee shop, fills his veins with speed before slapping a certain Rona Page—a member of a pseudo-Christian cult from Boston, whose titanium piety snaps after meeting the drug-addled heretic. It becomes unquestionably clear that this explosive moment was unscripted when the two bolt out of the frame to a place where Ms. Page’s sobbing is audible but unseen by the camera.
The Chelsea Girls is an anthropological artifact too, as it displays a veritable color wheel of subcultural personae; almost every person in the movie was part of the city’s thriving avant-garde art world during the 1960’s, orbiting around Mr. Warhol and his Factory, where parts of the film were also shot. Various Warhol “superstars” make appearances in The Chelsea Girls. Brigid Berlin recites a monologue while shooting up; Eric Emerson recites another monologue before performing ballet; and the model/musician Nico, who is filmed in black and white, shows up as well with her son, Ari. (Recently resurrected cultural icon Edie Sedgwick was reportedly also in the film at one point, but her sequence was later removed by Mr. Warhol for a reason that remains contentious.)
And let’s not forget the Velvet Underground. The Chelsea Girls’ soundtrack is in total communion with the images on the screen. The two sensual elements interact in a kind of organic harmony that is, as Mr. Siegel put it, “not arbitrary.”
“I think that especially in our age of gossip magazines and a preoccupation with stardom, it’s amazing to realize the kind of tragic costs of that dream,” Mr. Siegel surmised. “We live in a world of spectacle, in a world of images, and any chance we have to see the world in a new way is a cause for celebration.”
Follow David Foxley via RSS.
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Relocating to your home country
If I am a British citizen relocating overseas, will my unborn child also be British?
If you are a British citizen and are planning to return to your country of origin, it is important to understand the implications for your unborn children. In particular, children born to you overseas may be able to also claim British citizenship under certain circumstances.
There are numerous ways that persons can become British citizens and this legislation is controlled mainly by the British Nationality Act 1981. Whether you can pass your British citizenship to a further generation will depend on which section of the law conferred British citizenship to you.
If you are British other than by descent (including by birth or naturalisation in theUK), it is probable that your children would become British. Indeed, steps can be taken now and before you leave theUKby those who are also British by descent already (and thereby unable to transmit the nationality to the next generation in the usual way), to ensure that future children also benefit.
Sable offers an assessment of your nationality status and the rights of your children. Through our partnership with Philip Gamble & Partners, we can advise you further and assist with any applications for British nationality.
For more information phone Sable on 0845 3048708 or 020 7759 5350.
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Holder: Sequester may have 'profound' impact
Attorney General Eric Holder told senators Wednesday morning that the broad budget cuts known as the sequester are "already having a significant negative impact" Justice Department operations and could have a "profound" effect on the public if not halted soon.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Holder said the department's progress made over the last four years "will be severely hampered unless Congress adopts a balanced deficit reduction plan and ends the untenable reductions that last week set in motion a move to cut over $1.6 billion, that's 9 percent, of the department's budget in just seven months' time."
"As we speak, these cuts are already having a significant negative impact not ust on Department employees, but on programs that could directly impact the safety of Americans across the country....Our capacity—to respond to crimes, investigate wrongdoing, and hold criminals accountable has been reduced. And, despite our best efforts to limit the impact of sequestration, unless Congress quickly passes a balanced deficit reduction plan, the effect of these cuts-on our entire justice system and on the American people—may be profound," Holder said.
"So, I urge Congressional leaders to act swiftly to restore the funding that the department needs to fulfill its critical mission to keep our citizens safe," Holder added.
Holder's prepared text distributed to reporters by the committee minutes before the hearing contained the statement: "Important law enforcement and litigation programs are being disrupted." However, the attorney general omitted that line when delivering his actual remarks.
The Senate Judiciary hearings is one of few committee events taking place in the Capitol Wednesday as much of official Washington has shut down or is shutting down due to snow.
UPDATE (Wednesday, 10:14 A.M.): This post has been updated with Holder's actual remarks.
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Ferrari has named the winners of its 2011 World Design Contest, a competition that challenged 50 universities around the world to imagine what the Italian automaker’s cars will look like in the future. Claiming top honors were the students from Seoul’s Hongik University with their Eterinitá concept. The Korean team of designers finished ahead of the two other finalist teams from Turin-based university IED and London’s Royal College of Arts, which placed second and third respectively.
Ferrari says the students from Hongik University best interpreted the contest’s design brief for a thoroughbred hypercar, incorporating next-gen technologies and materials throughout their design. As part of the requirements, the entrants drafted an initial 2D design, followed by a 3D rendering using the program specified by the contest’s partner, Autodesk. Finally, the students had to build a detailed 1:4 scale model of their concept, requiring them to pay special attention to interior polish and technical functionality of certain features.
As one of the contest’s fundamental design criteria, alternative propulsion methods had to be considered by the competitors, with each team tasked to dream up their own solution for reducing fuel consumption. Hybrid systems were most prevalent, as Ferrari is already looking to utilize hybrid technology in its future lineup. Many of the concepts also proposed reduced weight as a solution for better efficiency, with the intended bonus of also increasing driving pleasure.
“I saw at first hand the many genuinely innovative ideas that these talented youngsters sent us and could feel the enormous passion and commitment that had gone into them,” said Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo. “I am certain that some of these suggestions will come to light in the Ferraris of the future.”
Ferrari World Design Finalists
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Nicholas Milano speaks with Valentina Rodriguez inside of his office at Niko Services for Immigrants Wednesday in Fort Payne, Ala. Milano meets with local Hispanics who are concerned or affected about the immigration law and offers advice or legal council. Rodriguez, who is in the country illegally, is trying to change the last name of her child, but is unsure if she is going to be able to do so to do so because of new law bars state courts from enforcing contracts involving illegal immigrants.
Photo by Jenna Walker /Chattanooga Times Free Press .
published Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
Stories this photo appears in:
The full provisions of Alabama's new immigration law have yet to be implemented, but already its impact in the immigrant community -- including fear -- is considered much larger than in other states with similar get-tough measures.
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With protests ongoing against Syrian president President Bashar al-Assad that have resulted in more than 9,000 civilian deaths and another 3,000 from security forces, there has been increasing pressure for Syria to be banned from the London Olympics. Addad has agreed to a cease fire that would take place on April 10, but Britain is still being urged to ban the country because of the turmoil. Former Syria international goalkeeper Abdelbasset Saroot claims Syria’s athletes would rather not compete in the Olympics but are doing so out of fear.
“They don’t want to play for a flag that they have no pride or faith in,” the 20-year-old told ITV News Tuesday according to Reuters. “I personally know the majority of the athletes don’t want to take part and they are only going (out of) fear (for) their families – the regime repercussions if they don’t comply.
“My message as a footballer, athlete and activist first of all is that we are seeing a real massacre here and the world isn’t speaking except of numbers and death tolls. These are real people, this is a massacre because people are being butchered, people in the world have forgotten about the humanitarian crisis – houses are being demolished.”
General Mowaffak Joumaa, the president of Syria’s National Olympic Committee, responded with the following: “There is no question about it — we are taking part.”
One of the main issues raised by Saroot is that the Olympic athletes will have to participate without being informed of what is happening at home. He insists the authorizes continuously shield them from reality so they focus on competing.
“They don’t know the extent of the shelling … they don’t know that a shell could be hitting their mother, father or a relative at any moment in Baba Amr (neighborhood of Homs),” Saroof explained. “There is no Baba Amr now anyway … it’s all demolished. It’s just stones and soil.
“They don’t know that a fellow Syrian footballer Ahmed Al Shedan, may he rest in peace, was martyred here in Homs. He was a star. They don’t know that other athletes’ families have been killed and massacred.”
The situation in Syria is obviously one that is far bigger than Olympic competition, and something should be done about it if the athletes are truly being kept in the dark about their families at home. If athletes are in London out of fear for their safety and don’t even know if their families are in danger, something needs to be done.Google+
Tagged with: London Olympics
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Both sides knew it would be a showdown. And it was.
Advocates for and against gun control clashed in Hartford Monday at a public hearing for the Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children's Safety, set up in response to the tragic shooting that took the lives of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December.
Both sides knew the atmosphere would be tense, and that the Legislative Office Building in Hartford would be packed. Anticipating a huge crowd, police put additional security measures in place, including metal detectors.
And it was tense -- and packed. More than 1,300 people signed up to speak, according to ABC News, with wait times as long as two hours.
One of those speakers was Neil Heslin, father of 6-year-old Jessie Heslin, a shooting victim. Heslin was one of three parents of children lost on Dec. 14 to speak at the hearing, along with Veronique Pozner and Mark Mattioli. He went head-to-head with gun control advocates, according to Fox News, saying he couldn't see a reason for any civilian to own a high-powered assault rifle like an AR-15 or an AK-47.
"The sole purpose of those ... is put a lot of lead out on the battlefield quickly. And that's what they do. And that's what they did at Sandy Hook Elementary on the 14th," said Heslin.
A handful of crowd members shouted back about Second Amendment rights.
Pozner and Mattioli took the discussion deeper, asking questions about civility in today's society and the problem of evil. Pozner, who described her son as a "young philosopher," said she didn't always have the answers to his thoughtful questions, according to ABC.
She said Noah used to ask, "If there are bad guys out there, why can't they just all wake up one day and decide to be good?"
"The problem is a lack of civility," said Mattioli, who also called for stricter enforcement of existing laws, according to the Hartford Courant. "I believe in a few simple gun laws. I think we have more than enough on the books ... We should hold people individually accountable for their actions."
Response from pro-gun advocates was spurred by groups like Newtown-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, one of the largest gun advocacy groups in the U.S. The group was thrown into the spotlight shortly after the December shooting when news organizations like the Huffington Post noticed its coincidental presence in Newtown.
Representatives from the NSSF joined Connecticut-based gun manufacturers, including Colt and Mossberg & Sons, in a press conference in Hartford Monday prior to the start of the hearing.
"We’re here to listen to what the legislature has to say and to work with the legislature, to be at the table to craft a solution," said NSSF Vice President Lawrence Keene at the conference, according to a release from the group's web site.
An widely distributed online action alert encouraging supporters to attend the hearing and sign up to speak bore stronger language, calling potential gun control measures "draconian" and "knee-jerk reaction legislation" that would make Connecticut gun owners "instant criminals."
"Legislators in Hartford are in the process of destroying your Second Amendment rights by exploiting recent tragedies," said the release.
Monday's hearing was the second of four the Task Force is holding. On Wednesday, the legislature will travel to Newtown for the final hearing at Newtown High School.
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Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili gave a qualified welcome Tuesday to the news that Russia had agreed to pull its troops from all of Georgia except two separatist regions.
Saakashvili insisted that any long-term solution to the conflict had to respect his country's territorial integrity -- including the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Earlier, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had pledged to pull back from Georgia apart from the two breakaway regions, after talks Monday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who led a European Union delegation.
But Moscow's recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia was "irrevocable", said Medvedev.
"We made a choice for ourselves," Medvedev said. "This choice is final and irrevocable."
During the talks in Russia, Sarkozy handed Medvedev a letter from Saakashvili promising not to use force again.
"Russia received a guarantee from the European Union and from France as representative of the European Union on non-use of force by the Georgian side," said Medvedev.
There would be a "complete withdrawal of Russian peacekeeping forces" from zones adjacent to South Ossetia and Abkhazia 10 days after the deployment of the EU observers, he added.
Under the deal brokered by Sarkozy, Medvedev agreed to the deployment of at least 200 European Union observers in Georgia by October 1 to monitor the pull-out.
Sarkozy, the current EU president, said negotiations on a new EU-Russia partnership agreement -- put on hold over the crisis -- could resume "as early as October" if Moscow fulfilled the agreed measures.
But speaking later in Georgia he warned that if Russia failed to meet its commitment to a troop withdrawal, the EU would draw its own conclusions.
Saakashvili, speaking to reporters in Tblisi after meeting the EU delegation led by Sarkozy, said that Russia's agreement to pull back its troops was only the beginning of a solution.
"We are simply at the very beginning of this major task and there is still a lot to be done," he said.
"We must continue to implement the European solution to reach a definitive solution respecting Georgia's territorial integrity and the principle of justice for our country and for our region," he added.
He announced that a summit, largely focused on reconstruction, would be held in Tbilisi next month with the participation of Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and representatives of international financial organisations.
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, another member of the EU delegation, expressed the European Union's continuing "solidarity" with Georgia at a press conference in Tblisi.
"Georgia can count on the solidarity and the engagement of the European Union in these difficult hours. The EU is ready to deepen its political and economic relations with Georgia," he said.
Washington stuck to its firm line, with US President George W. Bush taking a long-awaited decision to freeze a landmark civilian nuclear agreement with Russia in protest at Moscow's military moves in Georgia.
"The president intends to notify Congress that he has today rescinded his prior determination regarding the US-Russia agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation," a statement said.
An official at the Russian foreign ministry described the US move as "regrettable" and "out of keeping with bilateral relations."
Russian tanks and troops surged into Georgia on August 8 to rebuff a Georgian offensive to retake South Ossetia.
Moscow argued that it repelled Georgian troops last month to protect thousands of people to whom it had granted Russian citizenship since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Hundreds of people on both sides are estimated to have been killed in the conflict, which wrought extensive destruction on the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali. Tens of thousands fled their homes.
The conflict sent relations between Russia and the West to their lowest point since the Cold War.
Georgia, whose army was routed by the Russians after its ill-fated assault to regain control of South Ossetia, says Russia has almost 1,500 soldiers still in Georgia proper which it regards as an occupying force.
In another development Monday, Georgia accused Russia before the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague of conducting a long-running campaign of "ethnic cleansing" in Georgian territory.
Russia has not responded publicly to the Georgian application, but alleges that Georgia committed "genocide" with its assault on Tskhinvali.
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Drag the shutter speed and zoom in while pressing the shutter release all the way down.
Friday, February 25, 2011
The local fruit stall owners usually write the price of fruits on a small piece of carton board. The Chinese way of writing the price per item is in reverse order compared to the English. Those of them who are keen on making the price known to the perspective English-speaking customers sometimes write in English using the Chinese order. Therefore, they may write 10 (dollars) for 5 (oranges, for example) when they actually mean 5 for $10. Do watch out.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
In this shot of the old neighbourhood which is rather movie like, the delivery man and the unique bike as the foreground are as crucial as the background in giving a quality of oldness to the image. This foreground-and-background perspective is a frequently used composition technique of the author in hopefully telling as much a story as possible with an image.
The long stretch of the street to the vanishing point on the horizon also relates to the foreground elements by suggesting the direction of movement of the delivery man, providing cohesion for the composition as a whole.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
The thick fog makes it best in a year for walking along the trail on the Peak on Hong Kong Island. Flanking the trail are the heavily grown bushes and trees which, joining the fog, hide the view and passage ahead from your eyes. If you are in town, go up there to enjoy the dream-like scene.
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in the bible says people would eat each other and the dead will rise so its possible to have a zombie apocalypse then in bc there was this psych that his prediction about 9-11 and others came true and his last prediction says that zombie will rise
The zombies we think of are dead people (classic definition, without regarding the 'infected' right now) who get up and begin walking again. They are still dead, though. Their body is rotting, they have no real personality. They are machines, almost, powered by their brains that for some reason or another, is back to life.
Jesus and Lazarus were not zombies. They were resurrected from the dead in their bodily form after death. Alive. That is also what the Bible is talking about when it talks about the End Times. There is no mention of zombies.
That being said, there might be a small remote chance that one of the plagues mentioned concerning the Pale horseman of the apocalypse (Death with Hades following) might include an infection or something similar to zombism. Stranger things in the Bible have happened - like talking donkeys and in the future (according to Revelation), certain kinds of gigantic locusts that will sting you, but without killing you (no one will be able to die during that particular judgment).
The only other thing I could think of is that a certain "Pastor Harry" who has a site called "Satan's Rapture" used the Bible Code to predict that the H1N1 virus would "become as rabies" and infect millions of people.
But it must be noted that I, nor most Christians take him seriously (if any have even heard of him) because he seems rather apostate to mainstream Christianity and the Bible Code has not been accepted as legitimate.
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Breaking the Code: A Father's Secret, A Daughter's Journey and the Question That Changed Everything by Karen Fisher-Alaniz is a non-fiction book which tells about the author's research into her father's service in World War II.
The publisher is giving away one print copy US address or one eCopy any e-mail address, enter using the Rafflecopter at the end of the post.
- 336 pages
- Publisher: Sourcebooks
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1402261128
My rating for Breaking the Code — 4
As followers of this blog Know, I love reading about World War II and especially memoirs of the "Greatest Generation" who, unfortunately is leaving us by the thousands each week. Many of those dying have amazing stories which will forever be untold, projects like Speilberg's "Survivors of the Shoah Visual History " are extremely important not only for for the children of the "Greatest Generation" but also for future historians and for a better world. Which is why, when I was offered to join the tour for Breaking the Code by Karen Fisher-Alaniz (website | Facebook) I jumped at the opportunity - I was not disappointed.
The book is much more than a memoir, it is a heartfelt tribute to a man who has been struggling with demons his whole life, yet became a productive member of society, bringing up proud future generations by setting example of an exemplary life. Ms. Fisher-Alaniz discusses in the book how she never listened to her father's stories growing up, something I believe we are all guilty of. When she received the letters he wrote his parents, the basis of this book, she regretted blowing off those stories, but a teenager's mind is still a mystery to science and humanity.
Mr. Fisher, the author's father, was a codebreaker and under constant surveillance with a threat of death hanging over his head if he talked too much. The pressure and responsibility were huge for the young man. Other events (which I will not spoil) caused Mr. Fisher to come back with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), a trauma which has been recorded for centuries but only recently has been acknowledged and studied. A product of a by-gone era, Mr. Fisher's reluctance to get help only hurt him and with the revelation of the letters and his daughter's investigation his past came back to haunt him.
A Father's Secret is a fast read, some of the multitude of letters Mr. Fisher wrote during World War II from Hawaii, Okinawan, Iwo Jima and more are in the book. Each chapter includes a letter with the author's story intertwinded within.
I have read many memoirs and family stories, Breaking the Code stands out from the rest due mainly to the story it's telling. Many of the books are written for family members — and that's great — but for those of us who didn't know the subject they do not stand on their own. This book however, does. There is an engaging story, likable characters, a timeline, good editing, and background which makes this book personal and touching to everyone who reads it.
On his 81st birthday Murray Fisher gave his daughter the letters he wrote his parents while serving in the US Navy in World War II. When sorting through the letters his daughter, Karen Fisher-Alaniz the author, uncovered her father's past while learning about the lingering trauma that bugged the man who brought her up.
Giveaway ends: December 17, 2012
US Shipping Addresses Only For Printed Copy
No PO Boxes
Winners will have 24 hours to write back with their address, otherwise an alternate winner will be picked
Zohar — Man of la Book
Disclaimer: I got this book for free.
*Amazon links point to an affiliate account
BOOK BLOGGERS — Have you read Breaking the Code? If so link up your review below:
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SEOUL (AP) North Korea faced stern warnings from its neighbors Wednesday against carrying out an unprecedented nuclear test, but insisted such a move wouldn't be meant as a provocation. A top South Korean security official said there was no sign a test was imminent.
China, Japan and South Korea announced a series of summits among their leaders, ratcheting up diplomacy over tensions caused by the North's announcement Tuesday that it intends to detonate a bomb.
Such a test would confirm the North's claim that it has atomic capabilities, and would severely undermine efforts to prevent an Asian nuclear arms race by getting Pyongyang to disarm.
South Korea's top official on dealings with the North, Unification Minister Lee Jong-seok, said Wednesday that there were no definite signs that the test is imminent.
However, Lee also told lawmakers there was "a high possibility" it would eventually take place if "efforts to resume the six-party talks fail," Yonhap news agency reported.
North Korea has boycotted six-nation nuclear talks with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the U.S. for nearly a year, angered by American financial restrictions imposed over the North's alleged illegal activities such as money laundering and counterfeiting.
An official at the North's embassy in Australia, Pak Myong-guk, who described himself as a minister, said that Pyongyang's planned nuclear test "is not provocative."
"It is just the corresponding measure for defense, for us to defend ourselves," Pak told The Associated Press. "It is the really essential process for nuclear deterrent."
The North often insists it needs nuclear weapons to deter a U.S. attack.
South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun called for a "cool-headed and stern" response to the North's announcement, while South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman Choo Kyu-ho said a nuclear test by North Korea could cause a change in its engagement policy toward the communist regime.
"If North Korea pushes ahead with a nuclear test, North Korea should take full responsibility for all consequences," Choo said after an emergency meeting of South Korean security ministers.
Asked to elaborate on what the consequences would be, Choo said a North Korean nuclear test could bring about a "shift" in Seoul's engagement policy toward the North, but also stressed that doesn't mean abandoning that policy altogether.
South Korea has consistently pursued dialogue with North Korea since their leaders first met in a historic summit in 2000. That approach has caused a rift with Washington, which favors a harder line toward the communist regime.
Seoul is one of the main aid providers to the impoverished North, but it suspended regular relief shipments after Pyongyang carried out missile tests on July 5. However, the South later agreed to send emergency aid to help the North cope with the effects of massive floods that struck the country in mid-July.
After the missile launches, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution banning all U.N. members from missile or missile-related dealings with the North.
South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said the Security Council is expected to take stronger action against Pyongyang if it tests a nuclear weapon.
North Korea "will face a strong and united response from the international community" if it conducts a test, Yu told a regular news briefing.
China — North Korea's ally and key benefactor — appealed to North Korea for calm and restraint. Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said all sides in the six-nation disarmament talks should avoid "actions that intensify tensions."
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said "we simply could not accept" a nuclear test by the North.
The leaders of all three countries plan meetings in the coming days. Abe will head to China on Sunday and to Seoul on Monday, and Roh will travel to Beijing on Oct. 13.
In Australia, North Korean Ambassador Chon Jae-hong was summoned to meet senior officials on Wednesday and "was warned in the strongest possible terms of the severe consequences should North Korea conduct a nuclear test," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said in a statement.
"A nuclear test would be completely unacceptable to the international community, and would provoke a very strong international response," Downer said.
The news sent the South Korean stock market tumbling. The market closed down 1.6% Wednesday after recovering from deeper lows earlier in the day.
Pyongyang has not conducted any known test to prove its claim that it has nuclear weapons. Some experts believe the North has enough fissile material to build a half-dozen or more nuclear bombs, though there are doubts about whether it could deliver them accurately on a warhead.
A North Korean nuclear test could prompt Japan to seek its own nuclear deterrent, intensifying long-standing tensions with China and South Korea, both of which suffered under Japanese colonial rule in the early 20th century.
Although North Korea is dotted with underground military installations, media reports in South Korea have identified North Hamkyong province on the North's northeast coast as a likely site for a nuclear test.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Kaplan confuses the HEEZY outta me!!!!Register Today!
This is a discussion on Kaplan confuses the HEEZY outta me!!!! in NCLEX Discussion Forum, part of Nursing Student ... lol ok guys, I'm doing Kaplan online and with AAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL these strategies and rules...by shescoolie Jul 13, '11lol ok guys, I'm doing Kaplan online and with AAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLL these strategies and rules and tricks I'm just like what the heck and I supposed to do for what and when!!!! My head is spinning and I want to scream!! There are just tooo many ways to look at all of these questions! I am always so confused and feeling uneasy at the end of every class. Was anybody else feeling like this or felt like this when they took it? My classmate said these strategies take time to understand and develop.
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- Jul 13, '11 by keldelyes but just practice practice practice doing questions and you will get it...most important thing is read the rationales...really puts it all together! you will get it! make sure you practice alternate questions bc TONS on nclex....i means tons (select all that apply, priority, etc.)
- Jul 13, '11 by AKA_Glamour_PearlThis is my thinking. I know that they taught us the decision tree, but no one in my class had EVER heard about a decision tree until our final semester. I did fairly well in nursing school, mostly B's. That being said, when they taught us the decision tree and the tricks to help answer the question, it was confusing to me and I didn't want to memorize one more thing. I was bombarded with enough information and I was trying to absorb it all. If you've done well in school and you test well, then just answer your questions as you've always had. For the most part you probably already do steps to the decision tree, but not in that sequence and you don't have a trademarked name for your tactics. A few of my friends who don't test well, memorized the decision tree and felt like it helped them. I didn't use it and a few of my classmates who do well on exams already didn't use it either and passed without using it. I hope that helps you in making a decision as to whether you should use it or not.
- Jul 13, '11 by AKA_Glamour_PearlKaplan is actually a GREAT program and using it as designed, meaning doing most or all of the questions, remediating when necessary and doing the Kaplan Trainers pretty much guarantee success on the NCLEX-RN. Of course, don't just answer the questions, makes sure you understand the rationale for the questions that you answered incorrectly, as well as correctly.
Oh, and I must add that your classmates are right. It does take time to learn the decision tree and tactics, but if you're scoring well without it, then you're doing some form of it already. Don't bother trying to remember steps unless you're not scoring well and you need to learn the steps. Hope that helps!
- Jul 13, '11 by Iammblessed2011I am in the same boat as you. I am using the kaplan stragegies 2011-2012 and i must say IT SO CONFUSING! however hang in there. Like everyone has been saying practice! practice! practice! and i think we will get it
Good Luck to us
- Jul 15, '11 by caliotter3If it is too much for you, scale back. Adopt one, two, three, or however many strategies work for you and leave the others. Manage your stress. Good luck.
- Jul 17, '11 by BrittersRNThe only strategy I took from Kaplan was always assume the worst...which now that I think about it, I cant remember if that was Kaplan or HURST. And always assess first...I KNOW that one is a Kaplan strategy. When I went to sit for the test, the only thing I was trying to do was hold back my tears because I was so nervous. SO my advice to you is choose three strategies that you can apply. Good luck!
- Jul 17, '11 by srna28Find which strategies work for you the best and which ones don't. I didn't use every strategy they taught, but I did find some things they taught very useful. as everyone else has said: practice a lot. That's what helps the most. Good luck!
- Jul 17, '11 by DolceVitaAt first I thought the same thing. Part of my problem is I speed through the questions. With practice I got better.
Still I think Kaplan ensured my recent NCLEX pass.
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Last week in this space the conversation turned to the National Federation of Independent Business, and just whom it represents. At the end of the post, The Agenda promised to take up the question of whether the N.F.I.B. represents its members’ interests or its passions. When there’s a distinction to be made, often, one suspects, passion trumps interest.
One of the things I learned in my recent reporting about the N.F.I.B. that surprised me most — and which has gotten very little press attention — is that the N.F.I.B. has suffered a steep decline in membership in the last few years. As recently as 2006, the N.F.I.B. publicly claimed that it represented 600,000 members. Today, the figure is 350,000.
That is a trend that mirrors, even surpasses, the decline in Republican Party membership, but N.F.I.B.’s president, Dan Danner, does not blame his organization’s policy positions. Instead, he attributes most of the decline to a recent decision to make a more honest accounting of who actually is a member. “We used to count members a lot of months, frankly, after their dues expired. We used to count prospects in our overall list; we used to count temporary members,” he told me. Now, people who don’t pay up “are quickly off the rolls.”
But Mr. Danner also acknowledged losing paying members in the last three or four years. “Our traditional members are Main Street storefront, mom-and-pop businesses,” he said. But while the number of small firms continues to grow, “there are not as many Main Street businesses. They have been diminished by the big-box stores, and, frankly, the Internet.”
It’s hard to say which of these two admissions is more remarkable, but the second is particularly telling because the N.F.I.B. has never made halting the big-box expansion — or curbing the many tax policies that local activists say give national retailers an unfair advantage over independent small competitors — one of its battle cries. For instance, the N.F.I.B. has not taken a position on an Internet sales tax, which would level the playing field for stores that pay such taxes locally. “We have both types of businesses, and we’ve gotten a mixed response from our members on the issue,” explained an N.F.I.B. spokeswoman, Stephanie Cathcart.
Meanwhile, some state N.F.I.B. chapters — which act individually but consult with the national organization — have actually lobbied against other small businesses and so-called “combined reporting” laws. These laws would ban practices that allow national retailers to shelter much of their local income in out-of-state, tax-free subsidiaries. “For an independent business with only one outlet in Maryland or any of the other 20-some states that have this loophole, the upshot is that you end up shouldering a larger tax burden than your biggest competitors,” contended Stacy Mitchell, senior researcher for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
In Pennsylvania, the combined reporting requirement had been paired with a broad corporate income tax cut. “Tens of thousands of independent businesses would see their taxes go down,” said Ms. Mitchell, “and yet the N.F.I.B. has stood in lockstep with big-business interests.” The N.F.I.B.’s Pennsylvania director, Kevin Shivers, however, makes no apologies for opposing combined reporting. “Our members have told us — they’ve been very specific — that we are not about the business of telling government to tax one sector of the economy in favor of another,” he said. “Our message to lawmakers today is get your fiscal house in order.”
Most trade associations pursue on behalf of their members an agenda of pure economic self-interest, unencumbered by ideology or principles. Not the N.F.I.B. The N.F.I.B. “is a combination of a traditional trade association that’s trying to bring home the bacon for its members and a public interest group that has a very defined view of the public interest, which it’s pursuing,” offered Bert Carp, a veteran Democratic lobbyist.
This goes a long way to explain why the organization has traditionally found it so difficult to yield on Capitol Hill. “Most of the time, a businessman, if you convince him that you can’t stop something, will say, ‘O.K., let’s try to make it somewhat better from our point of view,’ ” Mr. Carp continued. “That is not the reaction that a public interest group has. A public interest group often says, ‘If something’s too bad, we can’t be for it — we have to preserve the flame here.’ ”
Workplace issues are a case in point. Two decades ago, the N.F.I.B. fought relentlessly against the Family and Medical Leave Act as an intrusive and expensive mandate even though early on the bill included an exemption that would have spared virtually all N.F.I.B. members. Today, the organization promises no surrender on an F.M.L.A. expansion that’s under consideration, as well the Employee Free Choice Act, even though Democrats withdrew the most contentious provision, which would have allowed workers who collect enough signatures to form a union automatically and impose arbitration when management can’t come to terms with a new union. The modified bill remains one of organized labor’s highest priorities; killing it is one of the top priorities for organized business, no less so for the N.F.I.B.
All of which makes the N.F.I.B’s long-stated willingness to stick around at the health care negotiating table exceptional (as I, ahem, point out in an article I wrote for Fortune Small Business). The question, of course, is whether the N.F.I.B. really means it. This summer, it has come out swinging against the only reform legislation that has so far been written, the bill currently under consideration in the House. At the moment, it looks as if the N.F.I.B once more is unwilling to compromise.
Small business is a powerful enough icon in Washington that sometimes N.F.I.B. members get what they want in a bill even without N.F.I.B. participation. (See, for instance, the original F.M.L.A., or, more recently, House Democrats’ unilateral willingness to increase the employer mandate threshold in their health care overhaul bill.)
Still, it’s a risky strategy — N.F.I.B. members could end up with a worse bill if their lobbyists are there only to oppose, not to negotiate.
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Another year has come and gone, and man, what a year it was.
We got the right to legally wed in California, and then saw it taken away again by voters. And in the wake of that vote, we saw our community come together in a way that hasn’t happened in years as people across the country reacted to the California ballot amendment with anger, outrage and hope. And then, at least locally, we saw that new spirit of activism challenged almost immediately as we began to fight among ourselves on the best way to rally or protest or boycott or whatever.
We saw the election of the nation’s first non-white president, a man who had, throughout his campaign, responded to the LGBT community in unprecedented ways. He talked about our community and our right to equality everywhere, including speeches at churches, in accepting the Democratic nomination and in claiming victory on election night. We celebrated that victory, and then, within two months, we were decrying his “betrayal” when he tapped an evangelical preacher to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.
We saw Dallas County’s lesbian sheriff win re-election, and LGBT and LGBT-friendly candidates elected to office all across the country. But we also saw elected officials like Sally Kern, the Oklahoma state representative who said homosexuality is a bigger threat to our country than terrorism, easily win re-election, too.
Mainstream religious denominations continued to fight over the issue of homosexuality — with conservative Episcopal congregations and even whole dioceses voting to leave the Episcopal Church USA to align themselves with much more conservative Anglican ministers in Africa. In Fort Worth, Broadway Baptist Church members fought each other over whether and how to include their same-sex couple members in the church’s 125th anniversary directory.
In the year that we marked the 10th anniversary of the hate crime murders of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., anti-gay hate crimes were on the rise again, including the brutal beating of Jimmy Lee Dean as he left a gay nightclub in Oak Lawn.
And while the LGBT community celebrated its growing inclusion in mainstream progressive politics, the debate over inclusion within our own community continued, when protests started outside the Crews Inn bar over the bar owner’s decision to exclude drag queens and transgenders on certain nights.
There was more. So much more. Where will it all go from here as we head into 2009? Will President Obama deliver on the promise of Candidate Obama? Will the California courts overturn a discriminatory popular vote on gay marriage? Will someone find a way to stem the rising tide of violence? Will the churches remember Christ’s admonishments about love and not judging? Will we even come to some agreement on divisive issues within our community?
I hope the answers to all those questions are yes. But even if that happens, it won come easily. So stay tuned, and we will do our best to keep you informed as this new year unfolds.
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Provigo's distribution megacentre is the result of consolidating five Quebec City warehouses, enabling the company to streamline its distribution system in Eastern Quebec.
With a total surface area of 54,000-m2 and the equivalent height of nearly four storeys, the building houses all types of foods under one roof, which is a first in Quebec. The building is equipped with 142 shipping and receiving doors and is divided into three separate sectors. The 23,235-m² eastern sector is dedicated to the storage of dry goods and the 25,000-m² western sector is used for refrigerated and frozen foods. The central sector has two two-storey towers that house the administrative offices, with the cafeteria on the ground floor. Two mechanical penthouses were built to supply the refrigerated sector and to facilitate equipment maintenance. The centre was built in compliance with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency standards.
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Crime and Punishment (1935 USA 88 mins)
Source: NLA/ACMI Prod Co: Columbia Prod: B. P. Schulberg Dir: Josef von Sternberg Scr: Joseph Anthony, S. K. Lauren, from the novel by Feodor Dostoyevsky Phot: Lucien Ballard Ed: Richard Cahoon Art Dir: Stephen Goosson Mus: Arthur Honegger
Cast: Peter Lorre, Edward Arnold, Marian Marsh, Tala Birell, Elisabeth Risdon, Robert Allan, Gene Lockhart, Charles Waldron
Film lovers who are loyal to the notion of auteurism will automatically think of Crime and Punishment as belonging to Josef von Sternberg, but they would be mistaken. This version of the Dostoyevsky classic is Peter Lorre’s, a vehicle for the actor’s particular talents. After the box-office failure of The Scarlet Empress (1934) and the political suppression (due to complaints by the Spanish government) of The Devil is a Woman (1935), Sternberg was banished from Paramount. As David A. Cook reports: “This was the end for the director. Destroyed by his refusal to compromise with the studio system and by his own profligate style, his contract was cancelled” (1). Crime and Punishment, for him, was just an assignment (2), but for Lorre, born to play Raskolnikov, it was a cherished project. In fairness to both artists, I think that is how the film should be viewed – a Peter Lorre tour-de-force ably assisted by Josef von Sternberg. In that light, it certainly deserves more credit than it has received – dismissed as “limp” in Cook’s A History of Narrative Film (3) and virtually ignored on the Internet. Faithful to the spirit and not the letter of Dostoyevsky (in my view, a requirement for a good screen adaptation), Lorre and Sternberg – with the able assistance of character actor Edward Arnold as Inspector Porfiry – created a Kafkaesque fable, presented to us in the timeless landscape of a disturbing dream.
According to Hal Erikson of Allmovie.com, the villain and rising star of Lang’s M and Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much had his secretary type up a synopsis of the novel in words of one syllable and presented it to Columbia’s chieftain Harry Cohn (4). Allegedly, Cohn loved the idea and asked, “Tell me – has this book got a publisher?” Be that as it may, Lorre is showcased to great effect, using his villainous and creepy demeanour to create an anti-hero who is genuinely complex – disturbing and sympathetic at the same time, an obvious goal of Dostoyevsky’s source novel.
Lorre’s nuanced performance allows the film to capture the author’s key concerns which are essentially religious in nature. Eastern Orthodox values, as Russians tend to interpret them, can be strange and even incomprehensible to Westerners. However, perhaps their living connection with Eastern Europe helped Lorre and Sternberg to understand and accurately depict these values. Secret humility and repentance coupled with a redemptive view of suffering, in Dostoyevsky’s mind, result in the merciful championing of the most abased characters. St. John of Kronstadt (a contemporary of Dostoyevsky and priest to Czar Alexander) writes, “Humble yourself inwardly before everybody, counting yourself lower than he or she” (5), and Dostoyevsky’s treasured St. Isaac the Syrian says, “When he sees all men as good and none appears to him to be unclean and defiled, then in very truth his heart is pure” (6). Dostoyevsky himself writes in his journal regarding Crime and Punishment,
The Idea of the Novel
1. Orthodox View. What Orthodoxy is.
2. There is no happiness in comfort. Happiness is purchased by suffering. (7)
The film is filled with moments that are difficult to understand unless one is familiar with these basic underpinnings and motivations. For example, Raskolnikov gives away money he doesn’t really have and refuses to explain to the Inspector his sudden good fortune. Raskolnikov is not only motivated by misguided Nietzschean/Napoleonic arrogance, he is also motivated by love twisted with despair.
The novel is so much more than just a guilt trip, and Lorre’s supple face and body language brilliantly capture these complex themes, shifting from elation to despair and from paranoia to bravado in a way that indicates a deep understanding of the Russian spirit as embodied in Raskolnikov. The brilliant performance of Edward Arnold as the Inspector and the subtle cat-and-mouse game portrayed by him and Lorre can only be properly understood in all its layers in this Russian context. The Inspector truly loves Raskolnikov and is seeking to redeem him rather than merely apprehend him. Between them are moments of black comic brilliance, and the interaction between the two is one of the greatest performances by a duo in the history of cinema.
As for Sternberg, he may have been down, but he was certainly not out. This third outing in Russia doesn’t offer the baroque visual thrills of The Scarlet Empress but, in its own way, its lean austerity is a mythopoeic “painting with light” (8). Erikson claims that “the story is subtly updated, though any distinctly ‘contemporary’ touches such as automobiles, telephones and current slang are studiously avoided” in order to “make the film even more accessible to a mass audience” (9). This may have been the original intent, but I see it as an effective decontextualisation in order to place the story into the realm of universal myth and recurring nightmare, giving it a timeless, placeless quality that makes us all Raskolnikov and its images perpetually relevant. Lorre is dwarfed by the shadows on his staircase, and time and again he steps malevolently out of darkness into light. In the closing scene the shadow of an imperial eagle/cross falls onto his chest creating an effective symbol of judgement and mercy. A favourite moment of mine has a slouching Lorre rising and stepping aside to reveal a portrait of a slouching Napoleon who looks suspiciously like Peter Lorre.
We watch Crime and Punishment with the luxury of having both artists’ complete work available to us. Peter Lorre and Josef von Sternberg carry an artistic resonance with them that through juxtaposition adds rich levels of meaning and aesthetic pleasure to this little seen film. For us, all of Lorre’s character’s, from M‘s Franz Becker to Mr. Moto to Joel Cairo and Ugarte, can be layered onto Raskolnikov to great effect, and, for me at least, it is impossible to watch this film without remembering the angry visual critique of Czarist Russian decadence found elsewhere in Sternberg’s work. There is a larger-than-life grandeur and lyricism that may not be entirely in the film itself but washes in from the rest of Sternberg’s oeuvre, and his grim world-view also informs our viewing. Their personalities and talents combine beautifully here to give us a neglected classic.
- David A. Cook, A History of Narrative Film, 4th ed., W.W. Norton, New York and London, 2004, p. 258.
- Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Devil Made It: Conversations with Legendary Filmmakers, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1997, p. 241.
- Cook, p. 258.
- Hal Erikson, All-Movie Guide Database.
- John Kronstadt, My Life In Christ. Part II, trans. E.E. Goulaeff, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, 1977, p. 28.
- Isaac the Syrian, The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Jordanville, 1984, p. 177.
- Feodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment, ed. George Gibian, trans. Jessie Coulson, W.W. Norton, New York, 1964, p. 536.
- Cook, p. 259.
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Welcome to the Episcopal Diocese of California
Since 1849, we have been a diocese filled with passionate, talented, committed people — seekers, innovators, and people who serve. In our past 160 years, Diocese of California Episcopalians have founded a hospital, hosted the first Head Start program in the country, provided more supportive housing for the homeless in San Francisco than any others, birthed Interfaith Power and Light, pioneered the return of the Peace in the Eucharistic service, re-introduced the Great Vigil of Easter into central liturgies of the Episcopal worship, and more recently brought forth the modern Labyrinth Movement, and the practices of the Open Table and Ashes to Go.
A Christian community of some 27,000 Episcopalians covering most of the San Francisco Bay Area and a large part of Silicon Valley, our diocese is focused on becoming and being the Beloved Community, an evocative and mystery-filled phrase popularized by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. For over five years we have put a strong focus on revitalizing the Church, and living into the values we associate with the Beloved Community, such as embodied justice and rooted spirituality. To learn more about the Beloved Community vision and Area Ministry, click here.
— The Rt. Rev. Marc Handley Andrus
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News & Events
February 7, 2013
NEI: Interview with T. Michael Redmond, Ph.D.
National Eye Institute (NEI) Scientist Dr. Redmond talks about the combination of luck and persistence that drives the scientific process and ultimately leads to medical advances. He describes a hand-me-down project from another NEI group that led his team to discover a crucial protein involved in vision, which served as the basis of groundbreaking gene therapy trial for a blinding eye conditions.
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Apple’s New iCloud Service Could Change Your Life
To say that Apple has changed your life on more than one occasion wouldn’t be an overstatement. Think about it: Just a decade ago, the company that Steve Jobs built was getting ready to release its first-generation iPod to the world. That iPod has become the standard in MP3 players across the world—and has changed the way you buy and listen to all of your music.
Then came the iPhone. Though it took years of development and thousands of rumors for you to finally get your hands on one, the iPhone changed the way you communicate with your friends and family. Not only did it allow you to combine the bulky cell phone and iPod that you were carrying around everywhere, it also allowed you to download apps from Apple’s App Store and, eventually, became the go-to device for things like Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media.
Most recently, the iPad came into existence and, while it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it’ll be remembered for most at this point, it’s a device that changed the ways millions of schools, businesses, and regular people live their lives. In five years, expect everyone to have some sort of tablet computer in their back pocket at almost all times—which will be a direct reflection of how useful the iPad has become in today’s society.
And now, Apple is getting ready to release information about their latest invention called iCloud—and it might just be the latest Apple product to change the way you do things in your life.
Details are still limited—this is Apple after all all, a company that’s notoriously stingy with details—but come next week at the Worldwide Developer Conference, Jobs will announce iCloud officially and reveal exactly what it is in detail. But as of right now, all signs point to iCloud being used to help you virtually store your music collection. And thanks to deals that Apple has already struck with Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, and EMI—as well as a pending deal with Universal Music Group—plus a brand-new, state-of-the-art $1 billion data center in North Carolina, you should expect this to be a big deal.
So, how exactly will it work? Well, for starters, it sounds like iCloud will be a subscription service, meaning you’ll have to add one more recurring payment to your credit card every month. However, this won’t be like all those other subscriptions that you never use. Instead, iCloud will (hopefully!) allow you to access all of the music files that you have on any Mac OS X or iOS device. That means if you’ve got a Mac, an iPhone, an iPod Touch, and an iPad, you can stream your music through any of the four devices over an active WiFi or mobile network connection—without having to be on the device that you downloaded the the music on.
Essentially, it’ll put your entire music collection right at your fingertips no matter where you are and it’ll eliminate the need to sync your music to your iPhone, iPod, and iPad every time you get a new song—seamlessly. So you can empty that drawer full of USB cords you’ve got laying around directly into the trash now.
Of course, this is all speculation right now. As we said, Apple is notoriously stingy with details, so there could be way more to this than we think. In fact, we fully expect the cloud to handle more than just music. Apple also has to prove that they can keep this cloud service affordable enough to make it worth the price to the average consumer. But if we know Apple like we think we do, we fully expect next week’s announcement to be a big deal. And we expect it to change our lives.
Hey, they’ve done it over and over and over again in the past. So, why not dream big? Here’s to hoping that iCloud sends us directly to Cloud 9.
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The Prince's Foundation for Building Community
The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment (formerly The Prince of Wales's Institute of Architecture until 2001) is an educational charity established in 1986 by HRH The Prince of Wales to teach and demonstrate in practice those principles of traditional urban design and architecture which put people and the communities of which they are part at the centre of the design process.
The Prince's Foundation for Building Community (Formerly The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment) is part of The Prince's Charities, a group of not-for-profit organizations of which The Prince of Wales is President: 17 of the 19 charities were founded personally by The Prince. In 2007 the charity received a donation of £332,408 from The Prince's Charities Foundation.
Design and theory principles
PFBE practices through teaching six major principles about sustainable urbanism. They are as follows:
- Engender Social Interaction
- Make Places
- Allow Movement Logically and Legibly
- Sustain Land Value
- Design Using Natural Harmonics
- Build Beautifully
Perspectives on Architecture magazine was funded by the Institute of Architecture and published from April 1994 until March 1998. It reflected the aims of the Institute but was editorially independent, with the editor for the first five issues being Dan Cruickshank, followed by Giles Worsley. The first Premier issue was launched on 15 March 1994 with a cover date of April 1994 and a print run of 75,000 although later that year sales were well below the breakeven target of 35,000 a month. The magazine was published jointly by Peter Murray's Wordsearch Ltd and Perfect Harmony Ltd, the later being a company bought and established in 1993 as the publishing arm of the Institute of Architecture. The magazine was issued monthly (excluding December) until March 1996, when it became bi-monthly, starting with the April/May issue. It ceased publication in 1998 after four years and 33 issues, with its February/March issue being the last, because the Prince wished to have a less controversial public profile after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales six months earlier.
In his first editorial, Cruickshank wrote that 'Perspectives is concerned with the care and conservation of the best aspects of our built history and the countryside, and with the protection of the landscape, but it is also committed to the evolution of a new architecture which combines temporary technology with the inspirational ideas offered by traditional buildings ... The reconciliation of the old and the new, united with a concern for relating new buildings to their settings, will restore delight to our view of the world. Perspectives will campaign for beauty and inspiration and a recovery of that spiritual sense of the numinous that only great architecture or great works of art can offer.'
Future role
After the Government announced in 2010 that it would withdraw funding for CABE (successor body to the Royal Fine Arts Commission, est. 1924), the Prince offered that PFBE could take over its role as arbiter of design in major planning applications. Modernist architects expressed dismay at the suggestion.
- Jonathan Glancey, Prince finds the common ground on architecture, The Independent, 16 March 1994, page 17
- Sandra Barwick, Cracks in the harmony thingy, The Independent, 13 August 1994
- The Sesquipedalist on Perspectives, 27 January 2009; also in the Architects Journal, 27 November 2008.
- Robert Booth, Prince Charles offers to take on key architectural planning role, Guardian, 28 October 2010
Video clips
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This book is for both the established musicians who wants to develop a greater understanding of what sampling can do to help them make music, as well as for the musician who is taking his or her first steps in sampling.
The book focuses on:
- How to sample.
- How to use samples you have created, how to use commercially available samples, and how to manage your sample library.
- How to get the best results from your gear.
Sample This! contains hundreds (literally) of tips from professional musicians with years of experience of sampling and creating large sample libraries. It is a resource you will want to return to again, and again.
Free synthesizer and sample content
In addition to the book, all purchasers will receive TSW-X, a PC VSTi sample-based synthesizer, together with a wide range of sample material. Both are being made available as a download by Back in Time Records (after returning the coupon inside the book as proof of purchase).
If you want a preview of the book:
- Click here if you want to have a look inside the book.
- Alternatively, follow one of the Amazon links at the bottom of the page and then search inside the book.
- You can also click here to download the table of contents.
Where to get the book
Sample This! is available from leading book retailers including Amazon:
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For many Americans, Christmas time calls for remembering Jesus' birth, giving gifts, spending time with family, and almost inevitably, stress. Megachurches in the U.S. are no different, with many of them preparing an array of Christmas performances and services for attendees, the organization for which begins as early as summer.
Willow Creek Community Church of South Barrington, Ill., one of the largest churches in the U.S, is a prime example, with hundreds of faith-filled volunteers dedicating their free time to the production of 28 Christmas services, including 12 at the central campus in South Barrington, with 11 identical services in English and one conducted entirely in Spanish, and an additional 16 services at the church's five regional campuses.
So how does Willow Creek even begin to orchestrate the manpower needed for such an arduous project?
The church boasts an attendance of 70,000 and 80,000 people for the 12 services at South Barrington alone, with an additional attendance of 16,000-18,000 at the regional campuses.
There are 4,000 total volunteer opportunities at the South Barrington campus alone, and another 1,200 at the regional campuses.
According to Rhianna Godfrey, the producer of Willow Creek's Christmas services, although the season proves stressful, it is also a very gratifying experience.
"The most gratifying aspect of working at a megachurch during Christmas for me is having the opportunity to share the beautiful story of Jesus' birth with thousands of people. For many, I know this is not something they grew up hearing about, and I love the challenge of telling the story in a way that touches the hearts of those who don't know God as well as those who do," Godfrey told The Christian Post.
Susan DeLay, spokeswoman for Willow Creek, recently gave The Christian Post a "behind the scenes" look at what it takes to organize the Christmas season at a megachurch such as Willow Creek.
According to DeLay, the production season for Willow Creek Christmas, which begins in the summer, can be summed up as a high energy, cheerful "work family" bonding time of late nights and last-minute changes, all while each volunteer's normal life of work, children, and Christmas shopping continues.
"It's very high energy. People are more cheerful. Almost everyone is smiling, even those who are experiencing struggles in their lives," DeLay told CP.
"Even though everyone has long to-do lists, it seems people are finding time to greet others before and after services and have conversations that don't feel rushed. The story of Christmas is the one of the best messages in the world and people are reminded of that every time they're on campus."
She added, "Everyone is putting in long hours, experiencing late nights and some sleep deprivation as we find ourselves sacrificing time when we would otherwise engage in traditional holiday activities [cookie baking, shopping, putting up decorations, etc.], but we're all in this together and that strengthens an already strong bond.
"The volunteers at the Christmas services come to church, often after a long day at their place of employment, and they joyfully dive into serving and helping, often for long hours. Overall, everyone is aligned behind the same hope of sharing Christ."
As DeLay explains, preparing for a megachurch Christmas is a spiritually-fulfilling experience, with the programming and production cast and crew gathering together before every service to pray and worship.
Naturally, the holiday season isn't all work and no play. The ministry's volunteer crew also has its fair share of laughs, too.
One such example is the creation of the short film which tells the story of Mary and Joseph, from the time Mary learns she will become the mother of Jesus to the birth.
The short film is played for every Christmas service the church holds.
"When they shot one of the scenes with the shepherds, the little shepherd girl was terrified of the live sheep and she climbed onto the back of an older shepherd boy and wouldn't get off, so he carried her and held onto her for several hours," DeLay told CP.
While each Willow Creek campus has its own unique holiday service, the main campus in South Barrington provides a service which includes a time of worship, Christmas carols, a narrated retelling of the Christmas story using live people on stage as well as in film, contemporary dance, and a message from Senior Pastor Bill Hybels.
The service concludes traditionally every year with all congregants standing to sing "Silent Night."
Willow Creek is a nondenominational evangelical church, and boasts a weekly attendance of 20,000 at one of its six locations, making it the third largest church in the U.S.
Watch Willow Chreek's Christmas 2012 Trailer:
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Sometimes it seems as if everybody and everything passes you by. You get confronted with the formidable advances of old friends by finding their images on the Net illustrating their fame and fortune; you look at your current friends who also seem to be involved in projects that will ultimately drive them away from you; and you wonder where you may have dropped the ball. You may start questioning yourself about the choices you made leading you to the here and now, and why you made them in the first place. If your current circumstances are not as rosy as you'd like them to be, these thoughts can escalate into quite depressing ones, and can really get you down -- if you let them.
But you don't have to let them, of course. Confrontations like these, with sparkling names and faces from past and present, do serve a purpose, just like anything else in your life. However, what purpose they serve and how you will use that purpose in your future directions is entirely up to you. The first thing you should realize is that everyone has a different destiny, and that no one is less than another, even if some people become famous, others infamous, and yet others not known at all. You should also realize that the ultimate gratification is not expressed in the achievements of a person, but rather in the way he or she feels about those achievements. Remember that worn out story that many wealthy people are just as restless and unhappy as those who don't have much of anything? It's not just a pacifying consolation to the less fortunate ones. It's actually true! And the reasoning behind it makes just as much sense as the statement itself: every stage brings its own joys and challenges, and it is up to us to savor the joys and reshape the challenges into opportunities. Well, in every environment you'll find some that are better at doing so than others!
Paces, directions and circumstances are things you can alter. But you should alter them in accordance with your own ideals and based on your own visions and talents. If, therefore, your old or current friends seem to have reached the top of the world, don't be bitter. Be happy for them and wish them well. Use their progress as an incentive for your own, but don't try to meander the same path that they traveled, because you are not them, and times have changed anyway. You can rest assured that what worked when they were on their way to making it in their field doesn't work anymore today. Besides, how happy would you be to walk in someone else's shoes?
The power of liberation begins with defining your own destiny by developing your own vision, laying out a strategy toward reaching that vision, and doing so in your own shoes, at your own pace, through your own paths. You may not become as notable (or notorious) as others in the eyes of society, but that is not what ultimately matters. The beautiful moments of life are not after your graduation, when your kids have grown up, when you have landed that new job, when you've bought that new house, or even next weekend when you're off from work. The beautiful moment is here and now. Life is a sequence of beautiful moments, but we let them get lost when we focus too much on past, future, or others. Others are there to be supported when they need us, and to possibly support us when we need them, but not to determine our direction, pace, or outcomes in life.
When, therefore, these memorable moments of confrontation with alternatives that you allowed to forego occur, it may be best to turn inward and examine your own motives. Then, revive yourself, and realize that you are here and now: that everything, every moment, every act, is a blessing, and that you are now where you need to be. But you can determine where you want to be tomorrow. Make it a rewarding place.
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Excitement in the Open Graphics community is quite high as it approaches its first production run of the FPGA-based "Open Graphics Development" board, known as "OGD1". It will be available for pre-sale this month with the first units expected to ship soon thereafter. The board is targeted at hardware developers, with the specific goal of supporting development and testing of designs for a fully-documented consumer Open Hardware Graphics Card to be implemented using an ASIC (thus resolving one of the biggest obstacles to free software on the desktop).
A general purpose Open Hardware tool for testing Open Hardware designs, the OGD1 is as important a step in promoting the Open Hardware movement as
glibc was to promoting free software. It also represents one of the first self-consciously community-produced pieces of Open Hardware design to actually make it to the marketplace. An ambitious design, with a ten layer PCB based on surface mount technology, high-speed input/output channels, and one of the largest Field Programmable Gate Arrays on the market, the OGD1 is no garage project!
As an insider in this group, I had a unique opportunity to interview several of its members, including: Timothy Miller (TM), the experienced hardware engineer who first started the project (as well as the company, Traversal Technology, which will produce and sell OGP designs), and Patrick McNamara (PM), an interested amateur tinkerer who founded the Open Hardware Foundation.
"The relatively sad state of FLOSS support from graphics vendors irked me"
Joseph Black (JB) is another amateur who assists the project primarily by maintaining its documentation. Dieter (DX) is an active contributor with specific technical interests. Attila Kinali (AK) is a recently graduated hardware engineer while Lourens Veen (LV) is primarily a software developer, but both have spent a lot of time promoting the project and are founding members of the Open Hardware Foundation.
In the first part of the interview I wanted to explore the motivations behind the project and what makes developers contribute to Open Hardware...
Q: Why did you start the Open Graphics Project?
TM: I had trouble finding a graphics card that was fully supported by free software. I did find one, but the relatively sad state of FLOSS support from graphics vendors irked me. At that time, I had about eight years of experience with graphics driver development and about four with graphics chip design, so I figured if I got enough other experts together, designing a completely open graphics solution would be feasible.
Q: What specifically made you want to found the Open Hardware Foundation, and how do you see its scope compared to the OGP? What about relationships to earlier open hardware projects and organizations?
PM: The need for such an organization had come up as a topic both on the Open Graphics mailing list and off, and I found myself as a rather vocal proponent. Nobody else stepped forward or really showed interest in pursuing it. In the end, it was "put up or shut up", and I found myself as the president of a non-profit corporation.
We still haven't really engaged with any other community organizations, such as OpenCores.org. First of all, we aren't really sure what the relationship would be, and we certainly don't want to come off as the new kid on the block trying to take the spotlight. We also don't really have much to offer yet. We are really just getting our feet under us. Finally, we really are trying to keep focused on making the Open Graphics Project a success. One of our key goals is to see the production of the OGC1. Until the OGP is much further along, I have been trying to keep our focus purely on it.
Q: What's the strongest personal reason for you to help the Open Graphics Project?
DX: It used to be possible to maintain your own electronics. If the TV broke, just take the tubes out and take them to the hardware store and plug them into the tube tester. Buy a replacement for whichever tube was bad and plug them back in. There was a schematic stapled to the cabinet, along with a diagram showing which model tube went in which socket. Today of course, semiconductors are far more reliable than tubes were. But manufacturers no longer include schematics. In many cases you can't even obtain the information necessary to use the product, much less maintain it or modify it.
LV: What keeps me coming back to the OGP today is the feeling that we are changing the world. Free and open source software is well-established now, but Open Hardware is relatively new. To me the Open Graphics Project represents a fresh look upon the ways in which our everyday environment is designed and manufactured.
"The Open Graphics Project represents a fresh look upon the ways in which our everyday environment is designed and manufactured"
JB: Previously the poor student could not do software design in his home—he could not afford the compilers. Open source broke down these barriers. Today, hardware is locked up in the same way. For example, I wondered if I could do anything with PCI. But I found out that I couldn't even legally download the specifications without paying what would be a huge amount for a student to join a group which appeared to me to be designed to lock out PCI from the reach of the lone inventor who likes to tinker.
I realized I could never get into the PCI club. Yet, if I could do all this interesting stuff on my FPGA board, what about all the other guys in similar positions around the world?
We now have working PCI code in subversion under an open source license. We may look back and see we have already reached a small but important breakthrough moment in hardware. It's a start.
The Open Graphics Project
OGP: The "Open Graphics Project" is a community of developers working on replacing proprietary 3D graphics acceleration cards (a major obstacle to free software operating systems on the desktop) with community-designed open-hardware boards which will be free-licensed from the hardware definition language for the chip through the printed circuit board layouts—and of course to the drivers.
OGA: The "Open Graphics Architecture" is the gate-logic design of the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) being developed to run on the OGD1 and later on the OGC1 cards.
OGD1: The first "Open Graphics Development" card is designed to allow testing of the OGA in an FPGA device onto which new hardware designs can be loaded by special software. This is the card which is going into production now.
OGC1: The first "Open Graphics Card" will be an ASIC-based, consumer-targeted graphics card that will be developed using the OGD1 as a testbed.
TRV10: The ASIC chip that will be created for the OGC1 and also sold for embedded uses by Traversal Technology.
Traversal Technology: A company founded by Timothy Miller, Andy Fong, and Howard Parkin, which will actually design, manufacture, and sell Open Graphics cards.
OHF: The "Open Hardware Foundation" is a non-profit organization founded to aid OGP (and eventually other projects) in handling community funding for prototyping and manufacturing costs as well as other activities to promote Open Hardware
Q: Why now? What has changed to make Open Hardware so active today?
LV: Open Hardware has existed for quite a while just like free software, but with the advent of the internet as an accessible communication platform, it is now both growing and becoming more visible. Additionally, there seems to be a general cultural trend towards openness and sharing, which is probably affecting the Open Hardware movement as well.
Q: Do you think that many users will care about the openness of the Open Graphics hardware? Or is it really only the openness of the specs that will matter to most? Will customers pay more for openness of the hardware?
PM: What they will care about is the benefits that openness provides. If I as an end user can't make use of all the features that make a less expensive graphics card faster than an Open Graphics based card then the cheaper card really isn't faster. The openness brings full support. Full feature support is something that is worth paying for.
AK: Open Graphics cards will as such have a greater impact on the market as an example of how to acquire more customers who care about openness in borderline situations.
The whole question becomes different in the embedded market. There customers will gladly pay two times the money for a card where they are able to confirm and probably fix bugs themselves. A supplier for whom you do not know how he will react on a bug report is a very high risk, especially if it is a critical component.
Q: What if ATI or nVidia (or another proprietary graphics vendor) suddenly decided to release their entire hardware design under a free license? Could they do that? What would happen to OGP?
TM: ATI and nVidia likely license a lot of their internal chip designs from other companies. For instance, they probably didn't design their VGA cores, so they don't have rights to release that. Also, ATI and nVidia are probably violating each other's patents; they could never afford the legal fallout of revealing their infringements.
If an existing hardware vendor were to open their designs, as Sun did with the Niagara CPU design, they would simply be joining this community.
"I would estimate the chance of a full Open Hardware release by ATI or nVidia as being similar to the chance of Microsoft publishing the Windows source under the GPL"
PM: There are two directions that could be pursued. One would be to take the newly opened designs and focus the project's efforts around improving it and getting drivers written. The other would be to study what they had done and incorporate the good stuff into Open Graphics, effectively jump starting its development. I can only wish for OGP to have to make that decision.
LV: All hypothetically speaking of course—I would estimate the chance of a full Open Hardware release by ATI or nVidia as being similar to the chance of Microsoft publishing the Windows source under the GPL.
Alphabet Soup for Hardware Hackers
FPGA: A "Field Programmable Gate Array" is a reprogrammable logic gate chip whose internal gate connections can be altered by downloading a bitstream to the card with a special program written for that purpose.
ASIC: An "Application Specific Integrated Circuit" is similar to an FPGA, but fixed at the factory, and much cheaper to produce in quantity.
Verilog/HDL: A "Hardware Description Language" is a textual representation of logic gates and registers. It differs from a programming language mainly in that it describes a parallel structure in space rather than a sequence of actions in time. Verilog is one of the most popular HDLs and resembles C or C++ in its syntax.
CPU: A "Central Processing Unit" is the part of a computer that actually does the computing: all math and memory operations are performed by a CPU.
GPU: A "Graphics Processing Unit" is a kind of specialized CPU designed for graphics processing.
PCI: The "Peripheral Component Interconnect" is the most popular expansion card bus used in most modern desktop computers.
VLSI: "Very Large Scale Integration" refers to chips with many thousands of logic gates or transistors.
SSI: "Small Scale Integration" refers to chips with only a few logic gates or transistors, such as the popular, standardized 7400-series chips that were introduced in the 1960s.
PCB: A "Printed Circuit Board" is a plastic board with etched metal "traces" produced by a printing process. Many thin boards can be bonded together to form a multi-layer board.
Q: Let's repeat "the world's most annoying question", but for hardware: How can hardware engineers get paid for their work if they open up their designs for free?
LV: Just like the advent of free software did not remove the demand for people who are able to create new software, Open Hardware will not destroy the market for hardware design services. What will become harder, just like it is in the software world now, is to make money by doing the exact same thing over and over again. If you try to do that, you will be out-competed by someone who just uses the existing, and freely available, design, or by someone who actually innovates. Some of the less skilled and less innovative hardware designers might be forced to improve their skills and ingenuity to be able to compete. But that is how a market is supposed to work.
Q: I have recently been told by a progressive computer manufacturer that they would "love" to use Open Hardware for their project, but don't believe any manufacturer would be willing to develop such hardware and share its source and design documents. Any comment?
LV: I think that they are conflating design and manufacturing, very much as is done in the proprietary software world. Microsoft designs Windows and then manufactures CDs containing Windows that they sell. Red Hat does some design on the software they sell, but their core business is manufacturing CDs, boxes, and additional services. Most of the design is done by the rest of the community.
Any computer integrator could do the same: hire someone to create a hardware design which is openly published, and then put out a request for quotes for manufacturing it.
Q: If someone reading this decides they are interested in helping OGP, what sort of things would you be looking for in terms of contributions?
AK: OGP, like any FLOSS project, is constantly looking for big and small contributions, including (but not limited to) HDL/Verilog, kernel drivers, X11 drivers, and application development.
The people we are lacking the most are capable hardware engineers with an understanding of VLSI design.
JB: Soon we will need bug tracking and bug reporting and those with triage skills to support the developers. People who have skills with marketing are welcome.
A big problem is that for now companies such as Xilinx, Alterra, and Lattice Semiconductor provide their no-cost software only for Windows, and their full versions for Linux are very expensive. However, their no-cost versions can occasionally succeed on Wine. We need developers to keep this working under Wine, reporting bugs and helping out with testing. It will only help us if Xilinx and Lattice Semi see significant numbers of developers using the no-cost version on Linux.
[Interviewers note: As far as I know, it would be extremely difficult to create a free software replacement for the Xilinx software that programs their FPGA. We don't know of the existence of an Open Hardware or even open specification FPGA which might be used for a project like this. Obviously that would be a future goal for Open Hardware].
A big problem is that for now companies such as Xilinx, Alterra, and Lattice Semiconductor provide their no-cost software only for Windows, and their full versions for Linux are very expensive
LV: We obviously need hardware designers, but we also need driver writers, firmware developers, and documentation authors. Additionally, we need software developers who can help build the infrastructure we need: free tools and open standards for interchange file formats.
TM: We don't have the documentation quite handled, and frankly, we can't have too much good publicity. We want to facilitate cooperation between Open Hardware communities, and to do that, we have to make people aware of each other. Besides the obvious things, you can contribute by just being involved in multiple FLOSS projects and helping to cross-pollinate. Join the OGP and tell us what others need and them what we need.
To be continued...
In the next issue I'll explore the Open Graphics community's culture and development process.
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We thought we wanted a baby. A tiny fist wrapped around our fingers. The smell of talcum powder. A coo, a cry, a cuddle.
But after trying, unsuccessfully, to conceive -- including an attempt at in vitro fertilization -- my husband, Kevin, and I decided to explore adoption.
Overwhelmed by the prospects of international adoption and the costs and risks of independent domestic adoption, Kevin and I decided to sign up to be foster parents. We could help a child, we reasoned, while trying to decide the best way to get one of our own. We imagined a toddler, delivered to our door, longing to be loved and nurtured.
That's not what happened.Special Needs
In Louisiana (where we lived), couples who want to become certified foster or adoptive parents first take a nine-week course, to learn about parenting and about the children who need homes.
The faces of waiting children look much the same in every state. They are six and 10 and 12. They are children with difficult histories. They are not infants or toddlers. They are not blank slates. Some have emotional problems and learning disabilities and even serious health concerns. But like all children, they need permanent families. A place to call home, a place of safety and guidance today, a place to bring the grandkids for Christmas tomorrow.
Kevin and I looked through photos of Louisiana's waiting children. The faces haunted us. They were smiling for the camera, like puppies in a pet store window wagging for a home. We were overwhelmed with sorrow and regret. Regret that we couldn't adopt them all. The question of whether to adopt one of the children in these photos became, "How do we adopt one?"
A social worker helped narrow our search. Would we consider a sibling group? We had two extra bedrooms, Kevin pointed out. With bunk beds, we could easily take three.
Special needs? Here we hesitated. Older children in the foster care system would likely have emotional problems, we reasoned. Could we handle learning disabilities, as well? Medical conditions?
We decided that we could handle "moderate" disabilities, but that, as first-time parents, we did not have the skills or confidence to handle severe problems.
And so we continued with our classes and waited for a call. It didn't take long for our children to find us. A friend was the temporary foster mother of a sister and brother, 8 and 10, who were on their sixth foster placement. They were not yet available for adoption, but were expected to be shortly. We saw their pictures, talked to their foster mother, and arranged for a visit. Three weeks later, our family grew by two.
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CANTON A smoking ban on St. Lawrence County property is on track to become law despite the reluctance of some legislators to tell people they cannot light up a cigarette in their cars.
What you do in your privately owned car is your business, Legislator Kevin D. Acres, R-Madrid, said.
The boards Finance Committee on Tuesday voted 9-4, with two legislators absent, to send the proposed local law on to the full board, which meets Monday.
The purpose of the law is to make a healthier environment for everybody, Legislator Gregory M. Paquin, D-Massena, said.
Under the provisions of the law, the use of tobacco products on all property owned or leased by the county, including county buildings, beach and shoreline areas, playing fields, parks, picnic areas, hiking trails and other recreational areas, would be prohibited. The law would prohibit people from smoking in their vehicles on county property but it would exempt smoking in a privately owned motor vehicle that was entering or leaving county property.
It also would exempt county roads and forests, except for multiuse trails.
The countys cost for health care is more than $20 million annually. It also pays a share of Medicaid costs for residents who contract diseases connected to smoking.
The county can at least control what happens on its own property, Legislator Alex A. MacKinnon, R-Fowler, said.
Im tired of paying for somebody elses health care problems, he said.
Some legislators objected to the law as being unenforceable, but others said they expected an honor system to prevail.
Realistically, there is going to be no enforcement, Legislator Joseph R. Lightfoot, R-Ogdensburg, said. Its a voluntary thing. Thats what you rely on.
The Public Health Department has been working on a smoking cessation program it can offer to employees. If people do not want to quit, the program might also include ways people can get through the day, said Benjamin R. Todd, program coordinator of the county Tobacco Free Community Partnership,
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The Afghan Taliban have announced the suspension of all negotiations with the United States, talks that had been seeking an end to the decade-long war in Afghanistan.
"The Islamic Emirate has decided to suspend all talks with Americans taking place in Qatar from today onwards until the Americans clarify their stance on the issues concerned and until they show willingness in carrying out their promises instead of wasting time," the armed group said in a statement on Thursday.
The statement said the US had continued to change the terms of the negotiations and had presented a "list of conditions" in their latest meeting that was in contradiction to earlier arrangements.
Also on Thursday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded foreign troops pull out of villages, another blow to the US military presence in the country.
Karzai's demand came days after a US soldier’s pre-dawn shooting spree in southern Kandahar province left 16 civilians dead.
The soldier, an army staff sergeant, was flown out out of Afghanistan to Kuwait on Wednesday.
"Our demand is that this process should be executed sharply and the responsibility should be handed over to Afghans," Karzai said in a statement after meeting with Leon Panetta, the US secretary of defence.
Karzai added that both sides "should work towards completing the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2013, and not the announced date of 2014".
A US defence official told Reuters news agency the US does not believe Karzai is seeking immediate pull out from villages.
"There is a schedule for security transition...and President Karzai did not ask for any change in the current schedule (at the meeting)," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to reporters traveling with Panetta.
Oana Lungescu, a NATO spokesperson, said "NATO remains committed to enabling the Afghan security forces to take full responsibility for security as soon as practically possible."
According to reports, the Taliban's pre-condition that five of their high-ranking officials be released from US detention in Guantanamo Bay seems to have halted any progress in peace talks.
"I think from the US perspective, you have to see things going from bad to worse in their Afghan policy. All recent events point to a spiraling downward, including the Quran burning incident and then the killings of the 16 villagers, now Karzai is asking the US remove troops.Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting from Kabul, said the Taliban had expected the release of the high-ranking prisoners by now and it seems that they have given up on that happening.
"There is sense that the US [policy] is heading to some sort of disarray at the moment.”
The Taliban announced the opening of a political office in Qatar in January, what was considered a major step in reaching a compromise agreement to end the 10 year war.
Karzai showed little support for the announcement, but eventually endorsed the move.
"The Americans initially agreed upon taking practical steps regarding the exchange of prisoners and to not oppose our political office but with the passage of time, they turned their backs on their promises," the Taliban statement said.
"An American representative presented a list of conditions in his latest meeting with the Islamic Emirate which were not only unacceptable but also in contradiction with the earlier agreed upon points."
Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington DC, said the situation has certainly raised concerns for US officials.
“One thing the officials will be looking at is whether this is a critical blow to the overall peace process about working a reconciliation deal," she said.
"Is this just political posturing on the part of the Taliban, or whether there are deeper problems in the initial stages of confidence building.”
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|Olbia was inhabited by Greeks and Phoenicians in the 8th century. The word Olbia means ΅happyΆ and thus it is also referred to as ΅Happy City.Ά The city was destroyed and reconstructed many times throughout its history. Olbia is full of cultural destinations and has many archaeological sites; itΆs also a place brimming with fun, fashion, shopping and entertainment. The nightlife scene in Olbia is enthusiastic and creates several opportunities for tourists to rub shoulders with the friendly locals.
Olbia is also commonly known as the Gateway to Sardinia. The nightlife here is not monotonous and offers an array of options each day, so itΆs very difficult to keep yourself aloof from the hustle and bustle of the city. Many hotels and restaurants have happy hours, which usually go on from 4 pm to 8 pm. Clubbing is very common here, and many quaint bars and pubs are open till the wee hours of morning.
A2Btransfers shuttle transfers offers you reliable and affordable transfers in Olbia.
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Back over to the Radio Transcriptions of Radio France this week. A radio studio recording circa 1957 (no exact dates on the labels, I'm sorry to say) by The Parrenin String Quartet playing the music of 20th century composer Jean-Louis Martinet.
His Variations For String Quartet written in 1946. The Parrenin Quartet were one of the pioneering performing ensembles in France in the 1950's and 1960's. I am not sure they recorded this work commercially and I highly doubt this broadcast recording has been available in any form.
Like a lot of contemporary music from this period, it can take some getting used to. Not helped is the fact the original discs were damaged in spots with some pretty nasty scratches to contend with, and I'm not certain if this piece has gotten much in the way of exposure since it's 1946 premier. Suffice to say Martinet was a prolific composer who only died two years ago (at the age of 98) and had been active for a very long time and made a substantial contribution to the music world.
Not all listening is easy the first time around, but if you stick it out, the benefits can be substantial.
And so ends the weekend.
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Senator Calls On Facebook, Twitter, Others To Up Security
(Reuters) - Sen. Charles Schumer on Sunday called on major U.S. web site operators such as Amazon and Twitter to switch to a more secure protocol to prevent identify theft and other security breaches in places like coffee shops.
The New York Democrat told a news conference held at a Manhattan coffee shop that growing WiFi access at such shops, restaurants and other businesses was helping hackers gain user information like credit card numbers and account passwords.
"The number of people who use WiFi to access the Internet in coffee shops, bookstores and beyond is growing by leaps and bounds," Schumer said.
Unsuspecting patrons using their computers in such public venues had made them easy prey for hackers and identity thieves, he said.
"The quickest and easiest way to shut down this one-stop shop for identity theft is for major Web sites to switch to secure HTTPS web addresses instead of the less secure HTTP protocol," Schumer said.
He called the HTTP protocol "a welcome mat for would-be hackers."
Schumer said simple programs such as Firesheep had made accessing someone else's computer and private information through the unsecured HTTP extension relatively easy.
Schumer said many major Web site operators have been slow to address the HTTP security flaw, which he said has been well recognized since at least 2007.
He also released a letter to major Web site operators, none of which he said use HTTPS protocol as the default, asking them make the change.
(Reporting by Chris Michaud. Editing by Peter Bohan)
Copyright 2010 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.
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The power of NICE
The piece by Jessica Pryce-Jones in The Times on 20th July 2011 is a welcome endorsement of a civilised approach to doing business, and is reflective of those who have steered businesses to success by dint of their approach to others as much as their own business acumen. Our own work is focused on the attributes and behaviours that managers should acquire and demonstrate which are based on the concept of reciprocity – give to someone else what meets their self interest and they will supply what you need in return. The key behaviours of attentiveness, encouragement, demonstrating intellectual flexibility, reliability and the ability to resolve conflicts are all attributes and behaviours that promote commitment and trust that leads to social engagement. They are, also, key behaviours that reduce the risks of psychological distress in others, thereby providing the context that promotes high performance in others.
The winner of The Apprentice this year has done much to elevate decent behaviour into the public arena, at a time when we are all sceptical of the behaviour of some of our foundation organisations such as the media, the police, the banks and our elected representatives.
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Theme: This paper looks at the prospects for triangulation between China, Spain and Latin America in the wake of the Sinopec-Repsol deal in Brazil.
Summary: The recent Sinopec-Repsol agreement in Brazil’s energy sector is the result of China’s massive ‘going out’ strategy and of Spain’s increased role as a ‘bridge’. This paper looks at the results and prospects of the China-Spain-Latin America triangulation, highlighting the challenges ahead for this promising instance of international cooperation.
Keywords: China, Spain, Latin America, Sinopec, Repsol, Brazil, triangulation, China’s outward investment.
Analysis: On 1 October 2010 it was announced that Sinopec, one of China’s largest energy companies, would invest US$7.1 billion in Repsol YPF Brasil, taking a 40% stake. The Brazilian company, which represents the interests of its Spanish parent, Repsol, in the Brazilian market, produces, exploits, transports and distributes crude and gas derivatives throughout Brazil. Its main products are gasoline, alcohol, biodiesel, NGV, diesel, fluids and motor lubricants.
A Treble-win Scenario
Sinopec’s cooperation with Repsol creates a treble-win scenario. For Sinopec, the investment can strengthen its foothold in Latin America’s energy sector. It believes that this transaction will further enable it to achieve its strategic objective of building a stronger presence and operations in the region, accelerating its international growth strategy as well as optimising its offshore oil and gas asset portfolio.
For Repsol, the deal will enable it to acquire enough funds to develop its deposits in Brazil, one of the world’s most important exploration markets since the discovery of massive pre-salt oil reserves off the Brazilian coast.
According to Reuters, on the day the deal was sealed, Repsol’s shares rose 5.6% to a 2-year high of €20.00 while the construction firm Sacyr-Vallehermoso, which holds a stake of around 20% in Repsol, jumped 12.7%. Repsol’s Chairman Antonio Brufau said in a statement: ‘We are delighted to share the development of the Brazilian projects with a partner with recognised prestige in the sector like Sinopec’.
The Sinopec-Repsol deal is also positive for Brazil, which has been looking for foreign capital to open up its resources. Before his visit to China in May 2009, President Lula said that Brazil would welcome Chinese investment in its infrastructure and energy sectors. He believed that China would become an important partner for Brazil when it attempts to tap its enormous pre-salt oil reserves.
On 4 January 2011, Sinopec’s Chairman Su Shulin, who was accompanying the Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang during his visit to Spain, met Repsol Chairman Antonio Brufau in Madrid and they presided over the first joint meeting at the top corporate level between both companies following the agreements reached in Brazil. They agreed to create working groups to analyse new business opportunities world-wide. Antonio Brufau said, ‘There are significant synergies between Repsol and Sinopec, and the relationship between both companies is ideal to continue reinforcing our alliance worldwide in new business areas’. Su Shulin also expressed satisfaction over their cooperation. He said, ‘The successful co-operation between Sinopec and Repsol reflects the shared desire of both companies to start a long-term and extensive partnership. We are committed to making every effort to consolidate and develop this relationship with Repsol in the future’.
Cooperation between Sinopec and Repsol has attracted world-wide attention. The Financial Times believes that ‘China and its big companies are eager to invest in natural resources in emerging markets such as Africa and Latin America. Repsol’s assets in former Spanish and Portuguese colonies are a particularly tempting target’. According to the Wall Street Journal: ‘The transaction gives China a piece of one of Latin America's largest foreign-controlled energy ventures. It is the latest sign of the country's growing prominence in the international energy sector as it expands both access to and ownership of raw materials needed to fuel the country’s economic expansion’.
China’s “Going-out Strategy”
The significance of the deal between Sinopec and Repsol is two-fold. First, it allows China to gain further influence in the global energy market. Secondly, efforts to push forward a China-Spain-Latin America triangulation have paid off.
Since China implemented the reform and open-door policies in 1978, its economy has been growing rapidly, creating a huge demand for resources, including energy. China itself has abundant resources, but in per capita terms it is quite poor. That is why China needs, on the one hand, to rely on external sources to sustain its economic growth and, on the other, to adjust its development model by reducing waste and raising its resource-utilisation efficiency.
In the late 1990s the Chinese government implemented its so-called ‘going out strategy’. Its aim was to encourage Chinese enterprises to make more direct investments abroad so as to integrate China’s economy more closely with the rest of the world, to secure the availability of external resources and to reduce the production overcapacity of some of the sectors of its economy.
According to official statistics, in 2009 China produced 189 million tons of crude oil, but net imports totalled 199 million tons, causing its dependence ratio –ie, its oil imports as percentage of total oil consumption– to exceed 50% for the first time, reaching 51.29%. Some Chinese economists predict that the dependence ratio, whose ‘critical line’ is believed to be below 50%, might reach 65% by 2015 and over 70% by 2020.
Spain’s Role as a ‘Bridge’
Bilateral relations between China and Latin America have been developing steadily since the early 2000s. Apart from frequent exchanges of high-level visits, trade and investment have also been growing rapidly. Even strategic partnerships have been established between China and several Latin American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Peru.
China’s presence in Latin America has aroused great concern and anxiety in the US Administration, the media and even the public. In fact, China’s interest in Latin America is not to challenge the US dominance in the region, its ‘back-yard’, but to promote South-South cooperation in the economic sphere. Naturally, as a region with a large market and an abundance of resources, Latin America is highly complementary economically with China.
Unlike the US, Spain has been right to suggest that it can offer a helping hand to China to develop its relations with Latin America. It is important that, as early as the start of the new millennium, the Spanish government decided that the Spain-Latin America-Asia-Pacific triangulation was one of the priorities in its ‘Asia-Pacific Framework Plan 2000-2002’. In July 2005 the visiting Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, said to his Chinese hosts in Beijing that Spain would be ready to serve as a ‘bridge’ for China to develop its relations with Latin America. When President Hu Jintao visited Spain in November 2005, China and Spain issued a joint communiqué in which they expressed their willingness to cooperate around the globe, particularly in Latin America.
Speaking to the Chinese press in 2009, the Spanish Ambassador to Beijing, Carlos Blasco Villa, said that Spain would be happy to see China proceed with its investments in Latin America. When he was asked whether the interests of China and Spain were in competition, since China’s relations with Latin America were moving closer, Blasco said, ‘Just the opposite. I think closer relations between China and Latin America would contribute to the cooperation between them in making investments in Latin America’. The Ambassador also said that ‘Spain would suggest that Latin America should not rely on the US so much, nor should it rely on EU’. He even offered an example of triangular cooperation: ‘Huawei and Zhongxin have sold equipment to Spanish companies, which use the Chinese products to build telecom towers in Latin America’.
Spain is certainly in the right place to act as a ‘bridge’ between China and Latin America. Its affinity with the region in history, language and culture makes it have more common ground than China does. Since the 1990s, with the deepening of Latin America’s economic reforms, including privatisation and tariff reductions, Spain has consolidated its economic relations with the region. Through the Ibero-American Summit, Spain’s political relations with the region are also on very good terms.
China’s first policy paper on Latin America, published in November 2008, might is a milestone in its relations with the region. The paper not only makes China’s diplomatic goals there more transparent, but also fills a gap in the country’s foreign policy. It expresses for the first time the Chinese government’s wishes to ‘view its relations with Latin America and the Caribbean from a strategic height’.
The policy paper emphasises the importance of promoting bilateral trade and economic relationships and also confirms cooperation in 35 fields, including international affairs, judicial and police affairs, science and technology, education, medicine, climate change, disaster relief and exchanges between the military, legislatures, local governments, political parties and high-level officials.
If Spain intends to help China further develop its relations with Latin America, efforts need to be directed towards these 35 areas. Apparently, China hardly needs Spain’s help in the political field. But in the economic sphere, Spain can make great contributions. Indeed, cooperation between Sinopec and Repsol is a very promising gesture towards this end.
Much of the Latin American countries’ mineral reserves are located in remote areas or high mountains where infrastructures are nowhere to be found. So China and Spain can join hands to pool more funds to build infrastructures for the purpose of increasing access to the minerals.
According to China’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15) for economic and social development, the Chinese government will have a greater focus on transforming the country’s economic development model. To facilitate the process, the government has vowed to boost domestic demand, promote scientific and technological innovations and take further measures to preserve resources and protect the environment.
Stimulating domestic demand, however, does not mean reducing the country’s exports to the world market, including Latin America. Spain has well-established marketing networks in the region. Therefore, it can help China to expand its market share in the region.
China has increasingly recognised the importance of developing renewable energy. Spain, Brazil, Mexico and some other Latin American countries have a relatively advanced technology in the field, so there should be many opportunities for cooperation.
Language and cultural barriers pose challenges for China to expand its presence in Latin America. Although dozens of universities in China have Spanish-language courses and hundreds of students graduate each year, there is still a lack of professionals with fluent Spanish. Spain can offer assistance in this regard. The Instituto Cervantes de Pekín, founded in 1991, has done an excellent job by offering Spanish-language training courses. Furthermore, it also organises cultural activities in Beijing so as to enrich the Chinese people’s understanding of the cultures of the Spanish-speaking nations.
Apart from technological cooperation between China and Spain in the Latin American market, such as with Huawei and Telefónica, triangulation has recently started to develop in other areas. In early 2010, for instance, Uría y Menéndez, a very prestigious Spanish law firm, opened an office in Beijing. It offers advice to Chinese clients on their investments in Latin America, where Uría has five offices and extensive experience advising foreign investors in the region. Undoubtedly, Uría y Menéndez’s service will help Chinese investors to enter Latin America, a region where both political and legal uncertainties, along with cultural differences and geographical distance, are seen to be formidable barriers.
So far Uria y Menéndez has participated in two of the most important Chinese investment transactions in Latin America announced in 2010: the acquisition of seven transmission lines by China’s State Grid and the investment by the East China Mineral Exploration & Development Bureau in a mining project.
Financial services is another promising area where China and Spain can cooperate in Latin America, and the first steps seem to be quite fruitful.
In recent years, the social security system has finally come to the centre stage of China’s reform programmes and it is believed that in this field China is modelling itself on Chile and other Latin American countries. In November 2010 China’s CITIC Bank and BBVA signed a Co-operation Framework Agreement in the Pension Business to jointly advise on the structure of China’s pension schemes. The agreement, valid for a period of 12 months, includes collaborative consultation on the structure of China’s pension schemes, product design and customer services. Once the 12-month period comes to an end, both parties will evaluate the results of their collaboration and consider continuing co-operation further.
In January 2011 the China Development Bank (CDB), the country’s largest banks by assets, signed an agreement with BBVA to foster cooperation between the two banks in business ventures outside China, mainly Latin America, in areas such as project and trade finance, commercial services, derivatives, corporate banking and bonds.
Weak Points to Overcome
There are more examples of successful triangulation between China, Spain and Latin America. On the Chinese side, pushing for triangulation is economically possible as it has accumulated huge reserves of foreign exchanges. In a strategic perspective, China would also wish to consolidate its presence in Latin America with Spain’s help.
Spain has recognised the fact that the rise of Asia is a historically significant trend that will become the defining event of modern times. According to Spain’s Foreign Ministry, as the eighth-largest economy in the world, Spain cannot afford to ignore the growing importance of this region on the international scene. In the age of globalisation, the political, economic, security and cultural interests of Spain are also dependent on Asia.
Prominent Spanish scholars, like Pablo Bustelo and Javier Santiso, along with Repsol and Uria y Menéndez, are among the pioneers in pushing for China-Spain-Latin American triangulation and initial progress has been achieved over a short period of time.
However, although both China and Spain have expressed their willingness to cooperate in Latin America, it seems that triangulation is not at the top of the agenda of their bilateral relations. For instance, when the Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero visitied China in August 2010 he and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao did not mention a word about their cooperation in Latin America. Wen only said that China and Spain should take more measures to promote trade and investment and jointly maintain the stability of the EU and world financial markets. He expressed the hope that China and Spain will closely coordinate and cooperate in the G20, stand firmly against protectionism and jointly push forward the reform of the international financial system. Rodríguez Zapatero only said that Spain would also like to see deeper bilateral cooperation in trade, investment, culture and tourism and would be ready to further promote strategic cooperation between the EU and China by pushing for an early resolution to the major problems in EU-China relations.
In his article titled ‘Trabajemos de la mano’ published in the Spanish daily El Pais (3/I/2011), Li Keqiang examined the ways and means of promoting bilateral cooperation, but he said nothing about China’s cooperation with Spain in Latin America.
Consequently, if we want to see further development of the triangulation, the Chinese and Spanish governments should make bolder efforts to include it in their priority agendas for bilateral relations.
Another weak point is that most of China’s public or private small- and medium-sized enterprises are not yet aware of the existence of the important role of Spain as a ‘bridge’ over which they might enter the Latin American market. Consequently, so far, only the giant state-owned companies have taken advantage of Spain’s position. Both the Chinese and Spanish governments need to redouble their efforts to publicise triangulation.
There is one more weak point on the Latin America side. It seems that Latin America’s reaction to triangulation is lukewarm and passive. The region is just waiting to be found by China and Spain in the triangulation game, though it cannot be denied that every country there endeavours to attract more foreign investment. Since triangulation involves three parties, active and spontaneous participation on the Latin American side would be extremely productive.
Finally, it must be understood that triangulation sometimes incurs third-party transaction costs. If a Chinese enterprise can find its partner in Latin America and vice versa, why use the Spanish ‘bridge’?
Conclusion: The triangulation concept is used to indicate the interaction between three regional players, either a regional bloc of nations or individual nations. Even though they may compete in some cases and cooperate in others, the essential feature is the existence of shared interests and current or potential relations among them.
In recent years China’s relations with Latin America have been proceeding rapidly. Unlike the US, Spain would be ready to help China develop its relations with the region. This should be interpreted as a very positive and benign offer.
In the political field of the China-Spain-Latin America triangulation, Spain’s role as a ‘bridge’ is quite limited. In other areas, particularly investment and trade, the possibility of cooperation between China and Spain in Latin America is enormous and a very fruitful start has been made.
In order to achieve more progress, the Chinese and Spanish governments should make bolder efforts to include it into the priority agenda for their bilateral relations. Furthermore, efforts must be made to publicise Spain’s unique position as a ‘bridge’ between China and Latin America so as to attract more and more Chinese public or private small- and medium-sized enterprises. At the same time, Latin America needs to be encouraged to take a more active and spontaneous attitudes towards triangulation.
The China-Spain-Latin American triangulation is part of the North-South and South-South issue. As cooperation and inter-dependence has become all the more important in the age of globalisation, the future of this new hybrid type of international relationship should be very promising.
Professor and Deputy Director, Institute of European Studies, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Vice President, Chinese Association of Latin American Studies
Pablo Bustelo (2002), ‘Prospects for Spain-Latin America-Asia-Pacific Triangulation’, ARI nr 123/2002, Elcano Royal Institute, 20/XII/2002.
China published its first policy paper on the EU in October 2003, followed by an African policy paper in January 2006.
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Life insurance can play a significant role in your estate plan as it provides a solution to a wide range of potential objectives. In general, life insurance serves one of two purposes: either to create an estate for your heirs or to preserve your existing estate. Generally, life insurance premiums are not tax deductible but the benefit paid to the estate (probate may apply) or a beneficiary (probate would not apply) is also not subject to income tax.
(For explanations of the insurance solutions discussed on this page, please see our section on Understanding Insurance.)
Some common reasons you may wish to use life insurance include:
While term life insurance can be used to fund a short-term estate need such as paying off an outstanding mortgage or protecting the estate against an immediate shortfall, universal or whole life insurance is the preferred option when the insurance is for estate purposes.
Examples include having a life insurance policy that would cover estate taxes on death (capital gains generated due to the deemed disposition rules) or the ability to leave bequests without the advent of taxes payable.
As with all insurance products that are used for estate planning purposes, a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed in order to assess the appropriateness of the strategy.
The amount of coverage you require will depend on your estate objectives and current financial status. As you age, you may find that the level of coverage you require declines or perhaps changes from short-term to permanent coverage. Determining exactly how much and what type of insurance is most suitable for your situation can be best assessed through the preparation of a financial plan and the aid of a life-licensed advisor.
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Three days after he was killed, CNN found a journal belonging to late U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens. The journal was found on the floor of the largely unsecured consulate compound where he was fatally wounded.
CNN notified Stevens' family about the journal within hours after it was discovered and at the family's request provided it to them via a third party.
The journal consists of just seven pages of handwriting in a hard-bound book.
For CNN, the ambassador's writings served as tips about the situation in Libya, and in Benghazi in particular. CNN took the newsworthy tips and corroborated them with other sources.
A source familiar with Stevens' thinking told CNN earlier this week that, in the months leading up to his death, the late ambassador worried about what he called the security threats in Benghazi and a rise in Islamic extremism.
Stevens died on September 11, along with three other Americans, when the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi came under attack amid a large protest about a U.S.-made film that mocked the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
The California-born Stevens joined the Peace Corps and attended law school before joining the Foreign Service, the career diplomatic corps, in 1991, according to his State Department biography.
He spent most of his career in the Middle East and North Africa, including postings to Israel, Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, in addition to serving as the deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Libya from 2007 to 2009, during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi, according to the State Department.
In May, one year after arriving aboard a cargo ship to work with those involved in the upstart rebellion, Stevens was appointed U.S. ambassador to Libya.
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Now is the time to take your first step toward a career in health science! Did you know that job opportunities for medical assistants will grow 35% between now and 2016?
Nearly 60% of the current health workforce is comprised of allied health professionals, who are neither physicians nor nurses, but hold expertise in select types of diagnostics, medical technology, therapy and patient care. With choices offered in HCC’s Health Science programs and courses, you can begin a career in the medical field with as little as 15 hours of certification, challenge yourself with a 180-hour certification to become an EMT, or even become a registered nurse!
Allied Health Flyers
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One of the foundations of any business is ensuring the customer is always pleased with their service. The customer must perceive value from the transaction. In global manufacturing that policy must be at the front of everything the company does. Investors, clients and their customers must all see value to experience success.
Streamlining the Value
How do we get the value faster? With online Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems it can be a total transformation of business practices. Online ERP software allows businesses to streamline their production and increase their value to their customers.
- Efficient manufacturing planning and execution: ERP makes the manufacturing process streamlined for efficiency. It incorporates best practices and enables efficient coordination throughout the stages of production.
- Faster response time: With online ERP, information can be easily updated because it is well organized and easily accessible from anywhere in the world.
- Increase customer satisfaction: With instant access to planning and production timelines, plans and more. Manufacturing companies can communicate with their customers much faster and more efficiently keeping them on top of their customer’s demands. Making them more valuable to the customer.
- Drive performance: Through ERP managers and executives can easily track performance. They can set production goals and track actual production in relation to their goals. With those test results they can adjust goals and production to maximize performance.
Many manufacturing companies see more than just a local demand for their products, but often the demands expand globally. With high expectations from customers, the efficiency moves past the production lines of manufacturing companies. Every department must operate cohesively to achieve customer satisfaction.
Customers want their products and they want them now: ERP keeps everyone on track.
With so many moving parts throughout the world it’s easy for miscommunication and data to be confused. Online ERP can keep track of it all no matter where employees are located throughout the world. It’s easy to monitor production from afar, keep track of accounting, marketing, customer relations, new sales, production plans and more. It’s all available on the cloud for the company to easily see and communicate to other employees. Because everything is readily available, production runs smoothly.
The online ERP investment
What about the bottom line? Any major transition and software system upgrade can be a headache. But when it improves lines of communication and production, it’s worth the investment. The more production that manufacturing companies put out, the more value the customers will see possibly turning them into repeat customers or even long-term customers – turning initial investment into long term ROI for the company.
This is a guest post by Sandra Bellow on behalf of QAD. QAD provides Online ERP Software created exclusively for manufacturing companies. QAD On Demand alleviates IT burden, risk and the variables associated with on premise deployments.
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US Navy’s movements in Persian Gulf for propaganda: Iran cmdr.
File photo shows USS Ponce transiting the Persian Gulf on July 4, 2012.
Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy says repositioning of the US warships in the Persian Gulf is for propaganda purposes and incited by their fear of Iran.
“Enemy’s fear of the Islamic Republic of Iran's threat is the main cause of such movements,” Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said on Wednesday.
He made the comments following the arrival of the USS Ponce
in the Persian Gulf to join the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain earlier this month.
“Members of IRGC Navy are monitoring all enemy’s movements in the region,” the Iranian commander added.
He stated that the IRGC Navy has gained great experiences in the past years and promoted its readiness.
The United States has added five warships to its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain over the past months in an attempt to bolster its military presence in the Persian Gulf.
Last month, Iran's Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari said the Islamic Republic’s naval forces will firmly counter any threat and deal with insecurity in the Persian Gulf single-handedly.
Iran has made important breakthroughs in its defense sector and attained self-sufficiency in producing important military equipment and systems in the past years.
Tehran has repeatedly clarified that its military might is merely based on the nation's defense doctrine of deterrence and poses no threat to other countries.
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Licmophora flabellata syn Exilaria flabellata
This cell was collected from a whole water sample taken at station 1A in the Rhode River in November 2002. Licmophora is not a common diatom in the river, but the high salinity this year has increased its number. The cells average 108u long by 15u at its widest point. The average total volume is 7290 cubic microns.
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Friday, February 22, 2013
"Is religion special?" comes to NPR
My friend and mentor John Witte and I did a bit yesterday, on "Talk of the Nation", about religious exemptions -- their history, rationale(s), importance, and frequency. If you are interested, check it out. If there was a consistent theme in the callers' questions, it was "is religion special?" (Cf., e.g., Micah Schwartzman, "What if religion isn't special?") In response, John and I both suggested that the answer is (still) "yes."
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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference "Is religion special?" comes to NPR:
I take a shower every morning religiously. I believe it leaves me cleaner, fresher, better smelling and more awake. Is showering a religious ritual?
This is not frivolous. Most folks, especially those from a Protestant background, think that religion always and mostly involves belief. This is not so: it was not so for the Romans and isn't for Budhists and many others.
Is humanism a religion? Is atheism a religion? Is libertarianism a religion? The modern answer is yes!
The lack of paid Wiccan and humanist chaplains in the military, hospitals and prisons is a disgrace.
Posted by: Jimbino | Feb 23, 2013 9:09:26 AM
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As the growing season continues, so does the growing season for weeds.
At their peak now, in Minnesota at least, are edible weeds #3 and #4: Purslane and Stinging Nettle. I have to admit, aside from snacking on Purslane I haven’t “really” eaten these yet, as in a meal, but will in a matter of hours.
As I’ve mentioned before, my son has a garden at the Arboretum. It’s through him that edible weed #3 was brought to my attention – Purslane. He came home from his garden day with a huge harvest of a spreading succulent called Purslane. My first thought was “Okay, what are we going to do with this?” His response? “Eat it!” Since then he’s been spotting it throughout our garden, yard, containers, pretty much everywhere we go. After doing a little investigation and having a few samplings, I’ve determined we’re most likely going to have it in a salad or on sandwiches (or both since he’s harvested so much of it). You can also stir fry it, steam it, put it in soups… the list goes on. It is, of course, loaded with nutrients too, so while you weed your garden, you can harvest your next dose of vitamins and minerals. Two birds, one stone.
Edible weed #5: Stinging Nettle. Yikes! Anyone who has inadvertently run into stinging nettle can attest to the fact that well, it stings! I’ve done it more than a couple of times in my life and sadly, yes, I’ve felt the pain each time. (You’d think I’d learn, wouldn’t you?) Most of the time when this happens I’m irritated with myself and while running cool water on my hands, arms, etc. I think “Why? Why do we have this plant? What is the point?” The point is… again… they’re good for you and from what I understand, quite tasty. How to harvest these without pain? The first step is to wear gloves! Next go down to about the 3rd set of leaves, then clip the stem. Throw them in a paper bag for safe transportation and if drying, you can leave them right in the bag. Otherwise, nettle can be blanched (boiled briefly then dropped into ice water) and used in a variety of ways.
Funny isn’t it? The more you know about a weed, the less “weedy” they become. It’s all about perspective…
Weeds. Get to know ‘em.
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Peter Brooks of Barclays Wealth discusses how entrepreneurs tend to approach financial decision-making, and therefore what wealth managers can do to help these types of clients in practice.
Date: Jun 2011
Entrepreneurs also displayed an attitude that wealth is easy to generate, he added, meaning they are likely to take higher risks.
However, this means they perhaps also stress more, and feel responsible for that decision making, said Brooks.
The findings also showed that the willingness of respondents to delegate control to somebody else is much lower in Asia than for the global average. In Singapore, for example, around 7% of respondents said they are willing to delegate the control of their finances to somebody else.
Yet for entrepreneurs who are running their own businesses, Brooks said one of the best things they can do is to buy themselves more time by having a professional manage their finances.
Comparing approaches to personal and business assets
Using the Barclays Wealth financial personality assessment as a guide, Brooks said entrepreneurs are typically very high risk tolerance, as would be expected, so are risk-takers in every aspect of their business. But they control risks, he added, which suggests they understand what the risks are and therefore controlling risk and taking risk is a trade they are willing to accept.
It’s also not unusual to find they particularly low composure, he added, so they stress about a lot of financial-related decisions they make and they feel very responsible for those decisions.
The assessment also shows that typically there is not much cross-over in terms of risk-taking into the financial market, said Brooks. So if the entrepreneurial activity is completely outside of the financial markets, there is no reason to suggest the individual will be comfortable buying equities or bonds.
Entrepreneurs who sell their business, meanwhile, are often not sure what to do with their liquidity, he added. They know they want to get invested, but aren’t sure exactly how to do so. It is therefore important to help get them over the hurdle to get invested.
Advising entrepreneurial clients
According to Brooks, in advising entrepreneurial clients about how to best manage their portfolios, it is about convincing them about the value of investment management and passing off some of the control in order to buy time.
For those individuals who are very trading focused but feel they trade too much, perhaps splitting the portfolio into two parts might be effective, he explained. One part can be discretionary, managed by investment professionals, with second part more trading oriented.
This satellite-type approach can enable the relationship manager and the client to take more active positions in the market and therefore develop that part of the relationship based on frequent activity and one that satisfies the client’s need and desire to act tactically.
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Resolution FAQ - (Stacia Naquin)
Updated: 05/14/2013 - I'm still focused on meeting my goal of doing a pull-up. And I'm almost there! But I'm always getting this question:
International troops should leave Afghanistan in 2013, a year ahead of schedule, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a meeting Thursday.
Karzai cited a massacre allegedly by a rogue American soldier as a prime reason for NATO forces to leave the country early, saying transfer of authority to Afghan troops would help prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.
The Afghan president also called for troops to leave rural areas and villages, and return to the main bases.
The American soldier accused of killing 16 Afghan civilians has been moved to Kuwait amid increasing violence in Afghanistan in retaliation for the attacks.
The level of violence has not, however, reached the crescendo it did last month following the revelation that a number of Qurans had been burned as trash on a U.S. base.
Afghan lawmakers have expressed outrage at the transfer, demanding that the suspect be brought to justice in Afghanistan.
The U.S. says the suspect is still entitled to fair and proper judicial proceedings, which the move to Kuwait will allow, but did not rule out the possibility of ultimately trying the case in Afghanistan.
The suspect will be held in a detention center that has held other prominent U.S. troops, most recently Army PFC Bradley Manning, held for his alleged role in the WikiLeaks case.
Afghan lawmakers say moving the soldier will only further damage the increasingly fraying relationship between the two countries.
"If the trial was in Afghanistan, the people would see that America doesn't like this soldier and wants to punish him," said Kandahar lawmaker Abdul Khaliq Balakarzai. "But unfortunately America ignored our demand."
The U.S. has assured Afghans that anyone found responsible for the shootings will be held accountable.
The Afghan Taliban announced Thursday ahead of Panetta's meeting that the militant group is suspending talks with the U.S, issuing a statement that Americans "turned their backs on promises" after agreeing on "practical steps regarding the exchange of prisoners and to not oppose our political office."
The talks were part of an attempt by the U.S. to negotiate peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government.
The Taliban closed a diplomatic office in Qatar that had been opened "for the purposes of reaching an understanding with the international community and for addressing some specific issues with the American invaders."
The group said it would not reverse its decision until "Americans clarify their stance on issues concerned, and until they show willingness in carrying out their promises instead of wasting time."
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Updated: 04/17/2013 - Crossing the finish line is such an awesome moment. It's hard to imagine what it has been like for the runners in Boston.
Updated: 04/09/2013 - Admittedly, there are days that I just don’t feel like working out. But then I met Viola. And if she can make working out a priority at 99, then none of us have any excuses! Here's how she's living a FIT LIFE:
Updated: 04/05/2013 - A look back at that amazing Rockies home opener, 20 years ago! Were you there?
Updated: 04/02/2013 - I love my high heels. But sometimes you've gotta put on the sneaks. This is definitely one of those times!
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Raymond Thayer Birge (March 13, 1887 – March 22, 1980) was a physicist. Born in Brooklyn, New York, into an academic scientific family, Birge obtained his Doctor's Degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1913. In the same year he married Irene A. Walsh. The Birges had two children, Carolyn Elizabeth (Mrs. E.D. Yocky) and Robert Walsh, Associate Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1973-1981. After five years as an instructor at Syracuse University, he became a member of the physics department at University of California, Berkeley where he remained until he retired, as chairman, in 1955.
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BHOPAL: The Lake Princess, the only cruise in Upper Lake is likely to be shifted to Kerwa Dam or the Lower Lake after the corporators at the Bhopal Municipal Corporation (BMC) general body meeting on Saturday passed a proposal for setting up a committee to decide whether the cruise can be shifted to the other water body in the city.
Citing Madhya Pradesh Municipal Corporation Act, 1956, which does not allow any commercial activity in the water body used for drinking purpose, Congress corporators said the cruise is causing pollution in the lake and should be shifted to the Lower Lake or Kerwa dam.
"Tourists throw leftover food from the cruise into the lake polluting the water. I have seen women throwing used pampers of kids in the water. The Upper Lake water is used for drinking purpose and any harmful activity would only affect its health," said Mahira Sallmuddin, Congress corporator.
Leader of Opposition Muhommad Sageer and Congress corporator Raihan Ahmed also alleged that alcohol was also served in the cruise against the ethics of BMC council.
"In 2005, when Sunil Sood was the mayor, the council had not passed the proposal to run the cruise in the city lifeline. Then, the state government had pressurised us," Sageer said.
"We have all required NOCs from the state pollution control department," BJP corporator Pankaj Chouksey said. "We also have permission from the excise department for serving liquor. We have licences from 2005," he contended.
BMC standing committee chairperson Kailash Mishra said, "Considering the seriousness of the issue, it is necessary that a committee looks into the issue and seek an advice from the state government and shift the Lake Princess to Kerwa dam or the Lower Lake. We expect report by next BMC council meet."
Cruising on Upper Lake for a yr
The Lake Princess is operational in Upper Lake since 2011. The cruise takes a tourist for a ride for 40 minutes on charge of Rs 150 per head. It can take 40 persons at a time.
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Rushden Echo, Friday, August 15th, 1919, transcribed by Kay Collins
The Monthly Meeting
Co-operative Society and Conscientious Objectors
The monthly meeting of the Rushden and District Trades and Labour Council was held last night at the Trade Union Club, Rushden. Mr. W. H. Marriott (chairman) presided, supported by the secretary (Mr. J. Jackson), and there was a good attendance of members.
Arising out of the minutes. Mr. G. Hunt protested against the Council making the grant of 10s. to conscientious objectors. The funds of the Council, he said, came from many different societies, and if any members wished to make a grant a collection should have been made amongst them.
Mr. E. Coleman objected to certain people in the town being allowed to buy large quantities of coal while most poor people were without and could not get any. He gave an instance of where a Rushden boot manufacturer had bought several tons and had distributed it amongst his employees.
The Secretary read a letter from the Fuel Overseer stating that the Committee Lad no statutory power to use up stocks of coal on hand.
Mr. Bazeley said there was a great idea of muddling in enforcing regulations. The Rushden Urban Council had done their utmost to get supplies. A large quantity was promised to the town, and when it arrived he suggested that the authorities call a parade headed by the band to welcome the coal. (Laughter)
Mr. W. W. Rial said it was unexplained why Rushden had suffered so much more than neighbouring towns. He was certain that Higham Ferrers had not sufferecd so badly as Rushden.
Mr. J. Mould corroborated, and said that as far as he knew no one in Higham had suffered to any great extent through shortage of coal.
The Chairman said that as the local authorities were doing all they could in the matter he thought nothing could be done by the Trades Council.
Mr. C. Lingard introduced the subject of the proposed Cottage Hospital as a war memorial for Rushden, and moved that the Council support the scheme.
Mr. L. Baxter seconded.
The Chairman said he was sorry the matter had cropped up. He did not think it advisable for them to tie their hands a there was such a volume of detail on both the Cottage Hospital and alternative schemes. The town would have to find the money and consequently all the residents of Rushden were entitled to have voice in stating what the memorial should be. It would be quite possible for supporters of either scheme to fill any hall in and carry their own particular scheme. Therefore, the Council would not be helping matters a great deal by voting on one scheme until the whole facts of alternative schemes are known.
Mr. Hunt moved as an amendment that the matter be adjourned.
Mr. Rial seconded.
By seven votes to six it was resolved to support the hospital scheme.
With reference to Mr. A. F. Weale's notice of motion at a recent meeting of the Rushden Co-operative Society, to the effect that the Society sever its connection with the Trades Council on account of the latter making a grant to conscientious objectors, it was decided to have a full discussion at the next meeting of the Council.
The Northants Federation of Trades and Labour Councils wrote enclosing a resolution protesting against the Government compelling unemployed people to go away from home for employment when local work could be given to them.
The Council unanimously supported the resolution.
The Land Nationalisation Society asked for the support of the Council in the Society's propaganda in advocating the Nationalisation of Land.It was decided to ask the Society to send down a speaker to address a meeting at Rushden.
The question of amalgamation with the local Labour Party was left for discussion by a joint meeting of the committees of the Rushden and Higham Labour Parties and the Trades Council.
A resolution protesting against the inequalities of payment of school teachers in the county was passed, and the Secretary was instructed to forward a copy of the same, to the Education Authority asking that equal pay for equal work be given, irrespective of the date of appointment.
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'Tis the season to shop until you drop. Or is it?
You don't want to waste your money, bust your budget or even carelessly let down your guard for thieves to steal your credit cards -- and even your identity -- while you're shopping for door-busters.
Thieves prowl in parking lots and stores during the holiday season when many South Floridians may be frazzled, distracted or even careless, said Fort Lauderdale Dectective DeAnna Garcia.
“It’s a shame but the theft can be over in a matter of seconds,” she said.
So here are seven “Don'ts” to assure you have a memorable -- and safe -- holiday season without going over your budget.
Don't bring your credit cards with you during Black Friday or any other sale where you may be tempted to spend more than you have budgeted. "People spend up to a third more when paying with credit instead of cash," said Howard Dvorkin, founder of the nonprofit Consolidated Credit Counseling Services that is based in Fort Lauderdale. But keep your debit card and cash on you. A purse in a shopping cart is an open invitation to thieves, Detective Garcia said.
Don't deviate from a holiday spending plan you make in advance. "Without a doubt consumers are seduced by huge discounts and enticing ads," Dvorkin said, adding not "to be brainwashed by all the hype and how much money you can save." Be on guard for misleading ads. In fact, study the ads in advance before you shop, Dvorkin recommended.
Don't give out sensitive information, such as credit card numbers or your Social Security number to telemarketers calling you with "special" holiday deals. Make sure if you buy something online that it is a legitimate company -- and not set up to steal your identity.
Don't throw away receipts: Keep them in case of a potential dispute, recommends Scambook.com, a website set up to prevent fraud and help victims.
Don't forget to regularly check your online/mobile banking applications to make sure no one has attempted to charge anything or take money from your accounts.
Don't go online to order merchandise while eating at a restaurant or when you are in other unprotected public places where thieves can steal your identity.
Don't ignore your surroundings -- and the people around you -- as you shop for bargains. Thieves have prowled parking lots and even followed shoppers to break into their cars for merchandise as the shoppers take a break at a café or other rest area, Detective Garcia said. If you buy something expensive, take it home first and then go back to shopping, she said. Immediately alert police if you see suspicious activity.
The Hollywood Police Department, for example, will be patrolling busy shopping areas, such as Hollywood Mall, Oakwood Plaza, Sheridan Plaza and Taft Street Shopping Center. Dubbed Operation Reindeer, Hollywood officers -- including undercover ones -- will be guarding shoppers from Thanksgiving to New Year's Day.
dgehrke@tribune or Twitter @donnagehrke
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After the release of a disappointing ADP jobs report, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 2.22 percent on Wednesday, the market's worst day since August. Analysts had projected an increase of 175,000 jobs from April to May; ADP reported a gain of just 38,000.
The Dow closed down 279.42 points.
Brett Ryan, an economist at Deutsche Bank, doesn’t expect a prolonged downturn.
“We think this is a temporary slowdown that will begin to reverse itself at some point over the summer as energy prices level off and as a lot of these supply disruptions correct themselves,” he said, calling the current economic slowdown a “soft patch.”
The ADP is not always a good predictor of the official jobs numbers, which will be released by the Labor Department on Friday.
“It can miss,” Ryan said of ADP. “It can underestimate or overestimate payrolls on occasion because they incorporate the jobless claims data.”
Still, it’s been a bad week for economic news. On Tuesday came the revelation that home prices fell 4.2 percent and hit a new low in the first quarter of 2011, according to data released by Standard & Poor's and Case-Shiller. The National Association of Realtors’ pending home sales index fell 11.6 percent on last Friday, shocking economists who had predicted a 1 percent decline.
U.S. manufacturing growth also slowed substantially in May, as the ISM index fell to 53.5, its lowest level since September 2009. New orders, production, and export measures all plunged.
Katy O'Donnell contributed
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Jan 22, 2013 No Comments ›› Infidel
Excerpted from Politico: Turns out turnout wasn’t just lower on the Mall. Gallup finds fewer Americans watched President Obama’s inauguration yesterday than did so in 2009.
Only 38 percent of Americans surveyed said they watched yesterday’s presidential inauguration as it happened, while another 27 percent saw, read, or heard news coverage of the events, according to Gallup’s new survey. In 2009, 60 percent said they watched the ceremonies live, while 20 percent saw news coverage later. That means about two-thirds of Americans saw some coverage of the second inauguration, while four our of every five saw coverage of the first.
Viewership was even lower than President George W. Bush’s second inauguration in 2005, when 40 percent watched live and an additional 33 percent saw news coverage later, according to Gallup’s survey.
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When a tractor-trailer truck flipped over at 10 p.m. on a weeknight last month, it unleashed a river of gasoline onto Route 128. And that gas leak and clean-up meant that 69 guests at the Hampton Inn had to be placed in the city's emergency shelter overnight.
The city offers shelter to residents in need during major incidents and states of emergency.
But this Thursday, residents will be able to visit the city's shelter and learn more about Woburn's emergency preparedness.
Woburn Police and the Board of Health, with the cooperation of Woburn's Medical Reserve Corps, is hosting an open tour and information session Thursday, Aug. 2 from 5 to 6 p.m. at the city's emergency shelter—Woburn Memorial High School.
"During this tour, residents can see how Woburn's emergency shelter will be set up in the event of an unexpected disaster," said Sgt. Paul Tenney in a statement.
"There will also be emergency preparedness information available for you to take home," added Sgt. Tenney.
The info session is sponsored by the Massachusetts Region 4A Medical Reserve Corps.
The open house comes in time for September, which is National Preparedness Month.
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Mae West was born on August 17, 1893, and in the 119 years since then, she’s played a lot of roles – a symbol of all things bawdy and titillating, a blatant lawbreaker, even a feminist icon. By the standards of today, more than three decades after her death on November 22, 1980, West may seem a little quaint – tame even – when compared with the displays of female sexuality we are accustomed to seeing in magazines, movies and on television.
But “tame” couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to Mae West. Her career was built on pushing the envelope and challenging boundaries, from her early performances as a teenager working in burlesque shows to her final film, Sextette, in which she dared to portray a sensual woman at the age of 84. She worked in an era that wouldn’t let her do all the same things today’s envelope-pushers do, but that didn’t stop her from trying.
Determined to be a performer, as a teenager she bounced from vaudeville to its less-respectable cousin burlesque and back, without apparently worrying too hard about which side of propriety she came down on. On the burlesque stage, West delighted audiences with her dancing – including a fan dance in which a large fan covered a very small (maybe nonexistent) outfit. She also specialized in the hootchy-kootchy, a popular – and none too modest – burlesque dance with its roots in belly dancing. And she prided herself on introducing a wider audience to the shimmy, a shoulder-shaking move that had previously only been seen in black nightclubs.
Even in vaudeville, which brought entertainment to folks who generally wouldn’t be caught dead at a burlesque show, Mae West kept it risqué, doing the hootchy-kootchy while wearing a costume with a daring breakaway shoulder strap. Reviewers didn’t always love her work, proclaiming her coarse and vulgar, but that didn’t stop audiences from flocking to see her.
While West’s dancing brought raves from her burlesque and vaudeville audiences, it wasn’t all she had to offer. She was clever, too – queen of the double-entendre and an adept comedian. Onstage, she sang, acted, riffed and joked. Some of her one-liners are legendary even today:
"When I'm good, I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better."
"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough."
"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
"I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure."
"It is better to be looked over than overlooked."
"I used to be Snow White, but I drifted."
After several years of working in burlesque and vaudeville reviews, improvising some classic lines and jokes, she tried her hand at writing…with explosive results. Her first play, written in 1926, seems to have been conceived and written specifically to shock. It was called Sex. Its main character – played by West herself when the play opened on Broadway – was a prostitute. The results were unsurprising; audiences adored it and the authorities were outraged.
In fact, the authorities were so outraged that they raided the theater…but not until the play had been running for a full year. And not until after quite a few police officers, judges and prominent attorneys got a chance to see it. Eventually they must have decided they were scandalized enough (or all the officers who wanted to see it had gotten their chance), and the raid was on. West was arrested and brought up on obscenity charges. She ended up serving 10 days, with a fine of $500, and probably couldn’t have been happier about it. What’s a few days in the workhouse and a medium-sized fine compared to the massive publicity boost West’s arrest brought her? She was now in the national spotlight for being immodest, and that was just the way she liked it.
West continued to write plays – and they continued to generate controversy. Then she burst onto the movie scene by substantially rewriting her part in her first film, 1932’s Night After Night – giving herself another classic quote (and the title of the autobiography she’d later write). When told, “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds,” West’s character replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.” The classic West one-liner and scene-stealer prompted a costar to muse, “She stole everything but the cameras.”
Although West continued to write her own parts, within a couple years of her movie debut, the motion picture industry tightened up its self-censorship guidelines under the Production Code, and her writing began to be heavily edited. When she started working in radio a few years later, she met yet more censorship. Her double-entendres and blunt sexual references enraged the FCC, and she didn’t last long as a radio star. NBC went so far as to ban her – and all mention of her name – from their radio stations.
Censorship and criticism never seemed to bother West. It was the story of her life. As long as audiences kept coming back for more, who cared what the reviewers thought? She just kept offering up her unmistakable brand of envelope-pushing humor and sexuality, even in her 80s, as she wrote and starred in 1978’s bawdy Sextette. Unsurprisingly, critics panned it, but a new generation of young fans loved it.
The time may be ripe for another Mae West revival. Indeed, burlesque is back on stages across the country, offering up sexy shimmies and bawdy one-liners 100 years after its first heyday. Today’s burlesque audiences might take a moment to thank Mae West for challenging all those boundaries so many years ago…and then take another moment to watch her doing what she did so well: making music and tossing off a clever one-liner.
Written by Linnea Crowther. Originally published November 2010.
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Matt Yglesias makes some good consequentialist arguments for bringing back corporal punishment. I imagine that lots of the resistance to this idea comes from the different attitudes people have to doing harms (for example, by flogging a criminal) and allowing harms (for example, by putting a criminal in prison where other prisoners keep raping him). Even if it isn't me personally doing the flogging but the government acting as my representative, corporal punishment trips the 'doing' intuition. On the other hand, the harms done to the criminal by other prisoners count as things I've allowed but not as things that I've done. Doing harms is usually taken much more seriously than allowing them.
It's interesting how imprisonment -- the currency of punishment today -- allows us to do so little harm but allow so much.
Stereotype threat: scaling up the interventions
7 hours ago
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Snow removal system works for Vermillion South Dakota is known for its unpredictable weather. With an average snowfall of 35 inches during the fall, spring and winter months, daily activities, whether special or routine, can be changed at a moment's notice when severe weather strikes.
But when snow falls in Vermillion, the plan is always the same.
With 42 miles of streets to clean, the City of Vermillion takes a serious approach to the problems related to snow and ice removal. City crews with snow removal equipment are ready as soon as snow is forecast.
The city has two motorgraders, two one-way plows, two wheel loaders, one sander, four dump trucks, and a trained operation crew to keep Vermillion's streets passable.
The city's priority in removing snow is:
Emergency snow routes
Emergency snow routes are kept clean for police, fire and ambulance vehicles in case of emergency travel during snowstorms. After two inches of snow has fallen, city plows begin to clear snow routes for such travel. They are kept clear until the snow ends.
Priority emergency routes in Vermillion are Stanford, High, Dakota, University, Plum (between Main and Cherry), Crawford Road (from Crestview to Cherry), Cherry and Main (with the exception of the downtown business district).
Any vehicle parked on a snow route after two inches has fallen will be ticketed and towed.
If snow continues to fall after the first clearing and cars begin to park along the snow route, they will also be ticketed and towed before the second plowing is done and so on. Snow routes are to be kept clear of vehicles until snow stops falling and the final clearing is completed. All vehicles are towed at the owner's expense.
No parking 2 to 6 a.m.
These streets are cleared between the hours of 2 and 6 a.m. Any vehicles parked on the street at that time will be towed at the owner's expense.
The second priority streets include Ratingen, Plum (north of Cherry), National and Clark.
The downtown area is also a no parking zone from 2 to 6 a.m. For snow removal in the downtown area, city crews windrow snow to the center of the street. Merchants push the snow from in front of their businesses into the street. City crews then move the sidewalk snow to the center windrow as well and then remove the center windrow strips.
In residential areas, snow removal is conducted by a two-plow system. First, city motorgraders plow the center of the street. A one-way plow follows behind the motorgrader and plows the remaining snow to the curb line. Both plows turn around at the end of the street and plow the other side of the street.
The advantage of the two-plow system is that it reduces plugging driveways from two times to once and increases the efficiency of snow removal.
Vermillion's network of streets will be kept open and maintained except in the case of unusual weather conditions. If heavy snow with high winds
is forecast, snow removal will not begin until the snow stops. Plowing during high winds is unsafe because visibility is minimal. During these conditions, only the emergency routes will be kept passable.
Emergency snow conditions
When weather conditions are severe enough to make most travel impossible, the city may declare an emergency ban on travel. Factors such as temperature, wind, wind chill and current and projected snow accumulations influence the decision.
If a ban is issued, an announcement will be made on local radio stations KVHT and KOSZ. Residents are urged to listen to the radio during heavy snowstorms to keep informed if any ban on travel has been issued.
Anyone driving during an emergency ban on travel is subject to a $10 fine. All vehicles on emergency snow routes will be towed at the owner's expense. Residents are asked to observe the emergency ban on travel and to move vehicles off emergency snow routes as soon as snow begins to accumulate.
Snow can be very beautiful, but it can also create hazards. When local residents fail to clear their public sidewalks, the result can be a treacherous ice patch. Removal of the snow helps protect pedestrians from possible injury.
Residents are required by city ordinance to clear sidewalks (including those crossing alleys and driveways) within 24 hours after any fall of snow or freezing rain. Snow should be piled in the resident's yard, not out in the street. If freezing rain has fallen and sidewalks are icy, city ordinance charges the resident to place a suitable material (sand or salt) to keep sidewalks safe for pedestrian travel.
If snow or ice has not been cleared from the sidewalk, the city's code enforcement office will notify the resident of the problem with a notice hung on their door. If the sidewalk has not been cleared within 24 hours of the notice, the city will have the snow or ice removal done by other means and charge the cost to the property owner. To report a hazardous sidewalk, call the code enforcement office at 677-7089.
Citizens are also reminded that residents are liable for injuries pedestrians may suffer on their sidewalk if the sidewalk has not been cleared within 24 hours after snow stops falling.
For more information, call the City of Vermillion Street Department at 677-7050.
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The city of Berlin has had a disproportionately large effect on Europe's history and has been the location of more than its fair share of meaningful events. This looming history is evident everywhere you look, from the Brandenburg Gate to the Sanssouci Palace. But these days Berlin also has a reputation for having more than its fair share of cool – nurturing some of the world's most interesting artists and creative DJs. On the outside Berlin is serious and even austere, but once you're inside there's that famous hedonism that's lain underneath, proving that this place knows how to adapt and survive. Berlin's a survivor. And an energetic, opinionated, yet open, one at that.
We know a total of 51 attractions in Berlin. See all Berlin attractions.
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Shooting from the lip/Aug. 13th edition
Looking back at a weekend of televised sports ...
So the Olympics are over, and there was an interesting dichotomy when it came to NBC's coverage. NBC's television numbers were through the roof, yet the network was roundly criticized for its choices of what it showed and when it showed it. Viewers complaining about television coverage has become almost as much of an Olympic tradition as lighting the torch. Here are the two major problems with most Olympics when it comes to television in the United States:
1. There are dozens of events going on simultaneously.
2. The Olympics are often held on the other side of the world, meaning they take place several hours before prime time in the United States.
So, a U.S. network has a choice: show as much as it can live during the day and risk losing millions upon millions of prime-time viewers, or show the big events on tape delay in prime time.
The problem with the former is that networks spend so much money on acquiring the rights for the Olympics (NBC, for example, paid $1.81 billion for the London Games) that they want to recoup their money by charging extraordinary advertising rates. The only way to do that is to draw in as many viewers as it can.
The problem with the latter is that it's nearly impossible these days to go hours without learning the results of a big athletic competition. Because of the Internet, smart phones, tickers across the bottom of TV screens, as well as social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter, you cannot avoid learning the outcome of a major race or game that happened five, six, seven hours earlier.
NBC thought it had gone a long way toward solving the problem by streaming every event live on its website. That's fine if you really want to see something, but most people would rather watch a sporting event on their high-definition TV, not on a computer monitor or hand-held device that can have streaming issues. Even with a slew of networks at its disposal, including NBC Sports Network and MSNBC and so forth, NBC still could not show every event live on television. But the error NBC tended to make was purposely not showing marquee events live and saving them for prime time, such as the 100-meter final and the women’s beach volleyball gold-medal match.
No matter how NBC covered these Games, there was going to be criticism. Going forward, the network's best philosophy should be this: When in doubt, show it live. And if it's a big enough event, show it again in prime time.
The biggest moment of this Rays season so far was Evan Longoria's return Tuesday after a three-month absence. After 85 games, fans finally had a chance to hear that violin blast of Longoria's walkup song by Tantric. Just the first few notes gives fans goose bumps. Those in person and on TV couldn't wait to hear it for the first time in a while.
Too bad Sun Sports dropped the ball and was in commercial when that moment happened. Here's what happened: Longoria was batting cleanup and the Rays went down in order in the bottom of the first, so he led off the bottom of the second. Sun Sports went to a commercial break after the top of the second and didn't rejoin the broadcast from commercial break until Longoria was already in the batter's box. We missed the walkup song and the ovation.
Someone at Sun Sports had to realize that Longoria leading off the second was a real possibility and the decision had to be made earlier in the day to make sure that moment wasn't missed, even if it meant not going to commercial after the top of the second.
Sometimes networks lose touch and forget what is important to the viewers. This was one of those moments.
Tough weekend for CBS as a triple whammy sabotaged its weekend coverage of the PGA Championship.
For starters, bad weather cut short a good portion of Saturday's third round, but not before Tiger Woods, who bogeyed three of the first seven holes in the round to fall off the pace, a trend that continued into Sunday's fourth round.
Finally, on Sunday, Rory McIlroy ran away from the pack and cruised to an easy victory. I'm not a fan of CBS’s overly sappy and cheerleading golf coverage, but the network was dealt a rotten hand at the PGA Championship.
Most prophetic comment
I'm a big fan of HBO's reality sport shows and the pioneer is Hard Knocks, which kicked off its eighth season last week by following the Dolphins. The first episode was the usual stuff: players getting ready for camp, a contract negotiation, someone getting cut and a few R-rated words.
This season's debut episode was nothing special. Maybe it's because the Dolphins aren't very dynamic. Joe Philbin seems like a nice enough guy, and he could turn out to be a superb coach, but he isn't quite as charismatic as past Hard Knocks coaches, such as Rex Ryan and Herm Edwards.
Having said that, the show still is highly watchable. The most interesting, and what turned out to be the most prophetic, comment came when Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson, who was clearly going out of his way to be the show’s star, joked as he headed out the door on an off day, "I promise I'm getting arrested while we’re off.''
Johnson was arrested Saturday after being accused of head-butting his wife. The team released him Sunday.
Did you hear that a couple of co-eds running the steps at Missouri's Faurot Field were asked to leave during a football practice because the players were too distracted?
As Graham Watson wrote on Yahoo's college football blog: "If the Missouri coaching staff thinks those two girls are going to be a distraction, they have no idea what their team is in for when they visit an SEC stadium.''
Legendary Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan is retiring from his everyday job after 44 years. Ryan announced earlier this year that he was stepping down after the Olympics. Ryan will still write occasionally for the Globe , and he is still expected to appear on ESPN.
In his final regular column on Sunday, Ryan wrote, "So why now? It’s time; that's all. … I am fulfilled. But there is something else. I occasionally come across some things I wrote years ago, and I say to myself, 'I did that?' And I know in my heart I really couldn't match that effort today. That's all a writer needs to know.''
Biggest mistaken identity
During the men's gold medal basketball game Sunday, NBC cameras showed actor Jesse Eisenberg, who is best known for playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the movie The Social Network. Apparently NBC didn't know the difference. The NBC broadcast team said it was going to put "pictures on Facebook'' and talked about all the major corporate leaders who were in attendance.
Three things that popped into my head
1. Another year without Tiger Woods winning a golf major. He will win another someday, maybe two. But he's not going to win the five it's going to take to pass Jack Nicklaus' record of 18.
2. Biggest reason why the Rays have won six in a row? Their lousy competition. But you know what? Pounding weaklings is how most teams make the playoffs.
3. Final thought on the Olympics. They were a blast, but I'm glad they’re over.
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Erma Martin Yost presents “Felted Fields,” hand-felted stitched constructions, as pictorial and poetic metaphors. Using felt as her canvas and thread as her paintbrush the magical mesh of fibers creates a language of symbolic images and archetypal forms. Some fields lie dormant where shadowy shapes shift mysteriously. Other fields burst with brilliant color and fertile life. In all of Yost’s work a strong sense of place and personal poetry emerge as she fuses her natural and inner worlds.
Felt, an ancient textile form, predates spinning and weaving by several thousand years. Nomadic peoples discovered felt when subjecting wool to heat and moisture, pounding it until it matted into a strong cohesive structure. They formed these densely packed fibers into durable objects ranging from the utilitarian to the religious, even constructing sturdy waterproof tents. Today felt is a favored medium for fiber artists and the commercial textile industry as wool is a versatile renewable resource.
This is Yost’s 19th solo exhibition at Noho Gallery. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Art and Design and was included in their “New Acquisitions” exhibit in 1995. In 2009 and 2012 Yost’s work was included in “Art of the State” at The State Museum of Pennsylvania. Also in 2009 Yost soloed at the Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters. Yost received New Jersey Council on the Arts fellowships in 1991 and 1999. Through the New Jersey Art Annual: Crafts exhibitions, her work has been exhibited in the Jersey City Museum, the Newark Museum, the New Jersey State Museum, the Hunterdon Museum, and the Morris Museum. Her work is included in twenty-one books, including “The Art Quilt Book” by Robert Shaw and “Object Lessons” published by GUILD, Inc. and juried by Michael Monroe, former curator of the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery. View Yost’s work at ermamartinyost.com
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Before I begin I just want to warn you of my Nikon bias. Although I’ve previously owned Sony’s and used a number of Canon’s my preferred choice is now Nikon. To be honest it’s not because I think Nikon’s are better, it’s more to do with the choice of lenses, and lens compatibility with different models in the Nikon range. Being a wedding photographer I’ve found that I can save so much money by reusing my lenses on the newer Nikon models.
“Keep It Simple Stupid”. I heard this phrase many years ago during a “How to communicate” training session whilst working at a major telco in the UK (I’ll not mention names for fear of reprisals – I joke of course). At the time I remember thinking what an absurd statement. After years working in a training environment I realised the biggest gripe from trainees and potential learners was how complicated people made things. I soon realised that I didn’t need to use long-winded fancy words and sentences to demonstrate things so I went about changing my training & writing styles.
I know there are oodles of articles out there on camera settings. The one thing that most of them have in common is the complex language used to describe what each of the settings do. When I was starting in photography I came across the same barriers as you – a mass of complexity with no clear, simple guidance. All I wanted was some basic guidance on what the settings meant and what each one did. I also wanted to know how each of the settings impacted on the other settings of my camera.
By reaching this article I’ll assume that you want to really get to know your camera. So, what I won’t do is go through the “amateur” settings, such as the scene modes and the (green camera) Auto setting. Although these settings are really good when you have ideal photo conditions I’m sure by now you’ll have realised that you want to use your camera to its fullest potential.
Moving swiftly on, I’ll now take you through the main settings on your DSLR camera.
P (Program Mode)
If you’ve only ever used your camera’s Auto mode you’ll find that the P mode is one step up. Although your camera will still intelligently control the majority of the settings you’ll now have full control over your flash, ISO (sensitivity to light) and white balance.
- Flash – Exactly what it says on the tin. You’ll be able to switch the flash on or off, and also increase or decrease the flash output. If the lighting conditions are too dark you’ll be able to increase the flash output to get better exposed shots. On the flip-side you’ll be able to decrease the flash output when the lighting conditions are a bit better.
- ISO – When you don’t have much available light to work with or you don’t want to use the flash for fear of over exposing your shot (or your subject is some distance away) you can modify your ISO settings. By increasing your ISO you tell your camera to “boost” the available light, in a similar to how a phone signal repeater boosts your phone signal.
- White balance – White balance comes in really handy when shooting indoors, especially when you have weird lighting. The white balance setting allows you to select from a pre-set list to compensate for the weird lighting. You can select from different settings such as cloudy etc. If you’re feeling really adventurous you can go for manual white balance which lets you tell the camera what white really is e.g. by using a white card. As this is quite an advance setting I won’t go in to it in this article.
S (Shutter Priority)
What is the shutter? The easiest way to describe the shutter is to think of it as your eyes. Imagine that your closed eye is the camera’s sensor. Now if you wanted to let a lot of light in to your eye (the camera’s sensor) you would open your eyes for 5 seconds, for example, and this would let enough light in to your eyes to expose your image. If however you wanted less light you would open them for only 1 second. Your camera’s shutter works in a similar way. Your camera’s shutter speed (how long your eyes are open for) is measured in fractions of a second. If you’re trying to take a photo in low light conditions you’ll need to decrease the shutter speed (open your eyes for longer) which means that it will stay open as long as possible to properly expose your shot.
The Shutter Priority setting allows you to control the shutter speed and lets your camera control the other settings (apart from flash, ISO and white balance of course).
A (Aperture Priority)
Aperture works hand in hand with your camera’s Shutter setting. Using the same analogy, if you open your eyes fully they let in the maximum amount of light possible and as you start to close them they take in less and less light. By controlling the Aperture setting you can control how much light gets to the sensor to help you properly expose your shot.
The Manual mode is the most advanced setting on your camera. It gives you full control of your camera settings. When you have mastered the other settings then the only thing left is to master this one.
What this setting allows you to do is mess about with the Aperture, Shutter, ISO and all the other settings independently to give you truly professional results, if you know how to use them of course. A word of warning though, you’d better really make sure you know all your camera settings before you try this. It took me many years to master.
About the Author:
Mo Azam is a professional photographer (http://www.iamfoto.co.uk/) based in the UK.
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Writers, whether born in Chicago or drawn to it, have been inspired to pick up their pens by everything from the muted beauty of the South Side to the grisly meat-packing district to the "raw-potato odor" of Lake Michigan, as Saul Bellow once wrote. If you're looking for a shot of literary inspiration, the city is full of it. From houses to hangouts, here's where to look.
Check out Hyde Park, Saul Bellow-style
A Chicago resident for more than 60 years, Bellow attended and later taught at the University of Chicago. A large section of Harper Memorial Library's north reading room is devoted to books by and about the author, with sprawl-worthy chairs and plenty of sunlight just begging you to curl up with a good book. Head to the Social Sciences Tea Room in the building next door; long before penning The Adventures of Augie March, Bellow would hang out here and discuss literature with friends. Despite the name, there's no tea to be had, so head to the nearby Divinity School Coffee Shop where, as the slogan goes, even God drinks coffee.
Grab a burger in Mike Royko's memory
A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the Trib, Chicago native Mike Royko was just one of the many journalists that made the Billy Goat Tavern into an unofficial watering hole for writers, including Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times writers Dave Condon, Bill Granger and Irv Kupcinet. Grab a table amidst the blown-up newspaper clippings adorning the walls and sink your teeth into one of the famous "cheezborgers." Even today you're likely to overhear snatches of writers talking as they nosh on burgers and beers. Walk off your meal with a stroll past Royko's old workplace, the Tribune Tower, located just across the street.
Wander Wicker Park while channeling Nelson Algren
Famous for both his realistic writing about Chicago, including Chicago, City on the Make, and his torrid, Chicago-based love affair with Simone de Beauvoir, Nelson Algren was a Chicago man through and through. If you want to channel some gritty Algren energy, head no further than the elaborate fountain named in his honor at the intersection of Ashland, Milwaukee and Division. Algren's old apartment is nearby, at 1958 W. Evergreen Ave., with a sign next to the first floor window letting you know you're in the right spot. If hitting a few landmarks leaves you parched, head north to Algren's favorite bar, Lottie's Pub.
Learn the history of Ernest Hemingway in Oak Park
The man that brought us The Old Man and the Sea was just a boy when he lived in Oak Park, but that hasn't stopped this area from memorializing all things Hemingway. Born in a second-floor bedroom with his father's help, Hemingway lived in the house until the age of six and you can tour Hemingway's birthplace to take in more nitty-gritty details of his childhood; get your fill of Hemingway artifacts and stories at the Ernest Hemingway Museum. If all that time indoors leaves you antsy, head to Scoville Park, at Lake Street and Oak Park Avenue, where little Ernie would go sledding with his sister when they were kids.
Retrace Carl Sandburg's love affair with the city
Carl Sandburg fell in love with Chicago's broad shoulders after moving from Milwaukee to a second-floor apartment on the North Side at 4046 N. Hermitage Ave., but you'll have to head south to scout out Sandburg's haunts. Many of his favorites are long gone, including the Dill Pickle Club, where Sandburg would play guitar, read poetry and hang out big shots like Sinclair Lewis and Robert Frost, and the former site of the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, where, in an upstairs room, Sandburg worked on his epic ode to Abe. Live kinda like Sandburg with a stop at the Abraham Lincoln Book Shop's current 357 W. Chicago Ave. location.
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Okay, this is a pet peeve of mine.
I run along similar streets and paths nearly every day. I see lots of the same people several times per week — people I’ve been seeing for years. 95% of them acknowledge my friendly wave, head nod or spoken “hi”.
But there’s a small minority who don’t engage in any way whatsoever. After a few tries, I finally gave up, and when I pass them, I return their stony, robotic silence, since saying hello seems pointless.
I have admiration for anyone who laces up a pair of shoes and goes out walking or running and, as such, I’ve always felt there’s a natural camaraderie amongst us all. Besides, it’s generally accepted that you acknowledge people you see constantly, no matter how tangential or insignificant the relationship.
One pattern I’ve noticed (or maybe it’s just a coincidence) is that a lot of the “don’t say hello” people look like serious runners. They have special wraparound sunglasses on, 4% body fat, impressive running gear. So maybe their attitude is that they’re so busy concentrating on their run, they can’t be bothered saying hello. I can sort of understand that. When you’re doing something like intervals, where you need to focus on speed and distance, you can’t worry about socializing. But I always see these people when they’re just running along, doing what looks like an easy or tempo run — something that doesn’t require a tremendous amount of concentration.
So, I’ve concluded that the people who don’t say hello are one of these:
- Extremely shy
- Miserable gits
Filed under: everyday life
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Chongqing Travel Guide
Women / Tours / → All Tags
Who would've thought that China would be the place to create the ideal village for women travelers? The central Chinese municipality of Chongqing is converting the Shuangqiao district into "Woman Town," where women will make all the decisions and men who don't follow the rules will be punished (by having to kneel on an uneven board or wash the dishes).
The local tourism board says the 1.5 mile square Woman Town area will be especially attractive to female tourists:
In any tour group entering this town, female members would play the deciding role, concerning shopping and other items of the itinerary.
Great! No more boring war museums or staring at valuable cars. We can just shop, eat and let the men wash the dishes. Now that's what traveling should be about.
[Photo: anna banana]
· Chinese Girls Set To Rule [The Sun]
· 100 Places for the Ladies [Jaunted]
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In various recent interviews over the past week, President Obama has slammed Republicans for refusing to cooperate with Democrats on passing either the DREAM Act or comprehensive immigration reform. “Under the pressures of partisanship and election year politics, most of the 11 Republican senators who voted for that [immigration] reform just four years ago have backed far away from that vote today,” said Obama during a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. “Without the kind of bipartisan effort we had just a few short years ago, we can’t get these reforms across the finish line.”
If the GOP’s “Pledge to America” is any indication, it doesn’t appear a bipartisan effort is going to happen any time soon. The 48-page pre-election document styled after 1994′s Contract with America ambiguously discusses immigration in its section on national security. Yet, despite being a hot-button issue this election season, none of the vaguely worded immigration bullet points reference immigration reform itself. In fact, during today’s press conference, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) evaded a question regarding the absence of an immigration reform platform:
REPORTER: What is the proposal on what to do about the 12 million, 12.5 million undocumented immigrants in this country?
BOEHNER: You’re asking about something that’s not in the document?
REPORTER: Yes, I think that a lot of Americans are debating comprehensive immigration reform and I’m wondering what the position is and frankly why it’s not in the document.
BOEHNER: Well I think it’s pretty clear in the document that the first steps for real immigration reform are to secure our borders and enforce our laws — two things that are in our Pledge to America.
The reporter tried to ask a follow-up question but was immediately cut off by Boehner who wanted to move on to the next question.
The “Pledge” does propose an enforcement-only approach to immigration and appears to endorse and promote Arizona-like immigration policies:
Work with State and Local Officials to Enforce Our Immigration Laws
The problem of illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels engaged in an increasingly violent conflict means we need all hands on deck to address this challenge. We will reaffirm the authority of state and local law enforcement to assist in the enforcement of all federal immigration laws.
Lumped in with proposals on Iran sanctions, missile defense, and terrorism, the “Pledge” also vows to “take actions to secure our borders, and that action starts with enforcing our laws.” The GOP apparently thinks it will accomplish this goal by simply giving border patrol the tools they need and prohibiting the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture “from interfering with Border Patrol enforcement activities on federal lands.”
The document also indirectly references the defense reauthorization bill which Republicans blocked this week in part because it included the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act as an amendment. Republicans argued that adding a provision that would have the potential effect of boosting U.S. military ranks to a defense bill was “extraneous.” The “Pledge” reaffirms the GOP’s commitment to blocking similar legislative action in the future by calling for “no more troop funding bills held up by unrelated policy changes, or extraneous domestic spending and pork-barrel projects.”
Given that 54% of all Americans regard the immigration issue as “very important” and that a majority of voters — across party lines — support immigration reform it’s surprising the GOP didn’t provide more details. It’s an especially big hole considering that Republicans have not hesitated to politicize the issue this election season.
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