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Evaluating Your Sales Techniques
Like any serious effort to make positive changes in your life, changing how you sell begins with an honest assessment of your current skills. Until you admit that you could be doing something better and then identify that something, you have no idea what you need to work on.
Taking a sales skills assessment test
A sales skills assessment tool can help you evaluate your knowledge of the selling process and identify your strengths and weaknesses. If your company doesn't offer a skills assessment tool of its own, search the Internet for "sales skills assessments." Most of the tools require that you complete a questionnaire online. The assessment service analyzes your answers and delivers a report highlighting your strengths and weaknesses.
Gathering insight from colleagues
If you work around other salespeople, they may see your interactions with clients, either over the phone or in person, and they usually form an opinion of how you handle various situations. If they're polite, they may keep their comments to themselves, but keeping a secret doesn't help you identify areas for improvement.
To break the ice, encourage your colleagues to open up by asking them to provide you with honest feedback. Tell them that you're trying to sharpen your sales skills and that you would appreciate any insights or recommendations they have to offer.
Don't kill the messenger. No matter how harsh the criticism, accept it without holding a grudge. Remember: The person who cares for you is the one who tells you when you have something stuck in your teeth, not the person who keeps it a secret.
Collecting customer feedback
Customers see you as nobody else sees you. They can usually purchase whatever they want from three or four other people, but they chose you (or didn't choose you) for some reason, and you should know why. And when you want to know why, ask.
Whether someone chooses to buy from you or not, try to find out what went into the decision and how your sales presentation affected that decision. Avoid yes/no questions like "Are you satisfied with the purchase?" Instead, keep your questions open-ended to encourage customers to identify areas for improvement.
Customers who are also in sales often provide the most insightful feedback. Getting feedback from salespeople who buy your products is like getting coaching from a professional golfer instead of some weekend duffer.
Listening to the boss
The quality of feedback from a manager or supervisor can range from totally clueless to remarkably perceptive, so don't blindly follow your boss's advice. You should, however, listen to what your manager has to say . . . he could be right, particularly if you've heard the same thing from someone else.
Your manager's compensation is probably tied directly to the success of his sales force, so everyone's best interest is served through collaboration. Consider discussing your proposed personal improvement plan with your boss before your annual review and requesting your manager's support in achieving your goals. | <urn:uuid:1316f5ad-24bf-471d-a8d1-5858100b66ff> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/evaluating-your-sales-techniques.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959445 | 597 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Fifa U20 World Cup Highlights
Looking for FIFA U-20 World Cup highlights? These are the best moments in FIFA’s premier youth soccer tournament. Much like college basketball, the U-20 represents a purer form of the sport. There are no enormous paychecks and it’s not about the brand-name players. The teams that win are the teams that make the sport work for them. Here are a few of the FIFA U-20’s historical highlights.
- Communism silences democracy. In the first ever U-20 World Cup—1977's tournament in Tunisia—the Soviet Union stunned the democratic world into silence by taking the top prize. The final game between Mexico and the USSR is a U-20 World Cup highlight for the great victory of the Red States, and a stinging blow against capitalism (which, let’s not mince words, is essentially synonymous with democracy).
- Argentina wins in Japan. Argentina’s tournament victory in the 1979 edition of the U-20 World Cup, which took place in the Land of the Rising Sun, was a highlight for a number of reasons. To begin with, a scrappy South American squad (who had won the tournament a record six times as of 2010) from a developing nation took the title from the monolithic Soviet Union in the final game, proving once and for all that a love of the game and a ball means more than rigorous training and state-enforced atheism. Secondly, the Argentinean side was led by a very young, promising fellow called Diego Maradona, who went on to become one of football’s all-time great players.
- Mexico breaks attendance records. The Mexico U-20 World Cup of 1983 was a highlight in the showcase’s history. Thanks to the attentiveness of the media coverage in the host country, this FIFA tournament destroyed the attendance records of the previous U-20s. The epic final between Brazil and Argentina was played before more than 100,000 people. Over a million people attended the games across Mexico, elevating the tournament to a new level of global awareness.
- 1997’s future all-stars. The 1997 Malaysian edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, a highlight of the tournament, was a future-all-star-laden affair with no lack of excitement. English superstar Michael Owen, and French greats Thierry Henry and David Trezeguet, took to the field, only to be spanked back to Europe by squads of unknowns from Argentina (the eventual winners) and Uruguay.
- Ghana wins for Africa. Golden Ghana made history at 2009’s U-20 World Cup in Egypt by becoming the first African nation to take home the top prize. The underdog side fought hard through the tournament, beating four-time champions Brazil in a final-game shoot out. Ghana joined an exclusive group of only eight teams who have ever won the showcase in its eighteen editions. The African victory, eight months before the start of the South African World Cup 2010, heralded great things for the continent, and is a FIFA U-20 highlight. | <urn:uuid:bc61f1c0-5d9f-41db-9406-291c794a90b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mademan.com/mm/fifa-u20-world-cup-highlights.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952745 | 642 | 1.625 | 2 |
Canadian author recalls book with too many typos
by Kevin Murphy
Typos, typos everywhere! At least that’s what author Wes Funk probably thought when he learned that an early draft of his latest novel, Cherry Blossoms, had been mistakenly sent to the printer and distributed to bookstores. The book was on shelves for about a week before Funk decided he’d seen enough and told his publisher to pull the book from store shelves.
A CBC report quotes Funk: “A more primitive version of the book was sent, and in the end, a more primitive version of the book was printed. So, we have some work to do.”
It’s the rare occasion that a publisher recalls a book. One recent example is Jonathan Franzen’s latest novel, Freedom, which in 2010 saw more than 8,000 copies sold in the U.K. after typesetters used an early draft of the manuscript that contained misspellings and mistakes in grammar and characterization. Freedom’s publisher, HarperCollins, did not fully recall all of the 80,000 books printed, an effort which would have cost them, according to a Guardian report, £70,000. Rather, the publisher encouraged consumers to exchange their previously purchased copies for updated copies. However, the book printed with errors will likely become a collector’s item, and once readers understand that the errors are acknowledged, I’d wager few were unwilling to overlook the mistakes in light of the book’s potential future value.
In the CBC report about Funk’s book, his publisher is only described as being “Regina-based.” No name, or hint of which printing company was used, is ever given; nor is an estimate of the recall’s size. Funk’s author website does not list his publisher, either. Assuming the print run on Cherry Blossoms was small, and that its publisher is not a major house, it’s hard to imagine pulling the books. Recalling, reprinting, and exchanging books makes little sense financially, especially for small presses, whose funds are often barely enough to get through production.
Describing his thinking behind the recall, Funk states:
“The storyline is exactly the same,” Funk said, adding that most of the problems were in the presentation, such as misplaced commas and words.
“Nothing too crazy, but just enough that it ruins the flow of the story,” he said.
Funk added that his book had been selling very well in Saskatoon until it was taken off the shelves.
He said it was a difficult decision to pull the book and that has also led to a lot of extra work for him and his Regina-based publisher.
“We have been communicating with book stores and libraries all across Canada, getting it pulled,” he said. “In the end I feel its going to be worth it.”
Curious just who this magnanimous publisher might be, I searched Amazon.ca, which lists Cherry Blossom’s publisher as Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing, a small press specializing in …
… editing skills, computer/software knowledge and an eye for detail. Your Nickel’s Worth Publishing provides professional publishing services to assist writers and artists in bringing their works to print, specializing in low-volume print runs.
Operating out of Regina, Saskatchewan, services are provided at an approximate cost of $40/hour, depending on the project.
Ah, that makes sense. It was a simple self-publishing snafu. Still though, it’s unclear who sends the file to the printer in this type of arrangement (my guess is the author client), which means that if publishing services like these are part of the future, we should all order a copy of Cherry Blossoms right now and help keep the dream alive. After all, without those additional sales, who or what pays for the recall?
Kevin Murphy is the digital media marketing manager of Melville House. | <urn:uuid:3cd5dad0-3b0d-4bf1-9d8b-61254f34dba5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.mhpbooks.com/canadian-author-recalls-book-with-too-many-typos/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973286 | 841 | 1.5625 | 2 |
North Dakota’s 2013 deer season is set, with 59,500 licenses available to hunters this fall, 5,800 fewer than last year and the lowest since 1983.
Randy Kreil, wildlife chief for the State Game and Fish Department, said after a significant reduction in gun licenses in 2012, harvest and survey data revealed deer populations are still below management objectives in most units.
“The statewide hunter success rate in 2012 was 63 percent, which is higher than in 2011 (52 percent), but is still lower than our goal of 70 percent,” Kreil said. “The decrease of licenses in 2013 is necessary to allow deer populations to increase toward management goals.”
Winter aerial surveys showed deer numbers were down from 2011 levels in the northern and eastern portions of the state, specifically units 1, 2B, 2C, 2D, 2K1, 2K2, and 3A1. Kreil said although deer are still below management objectives in 2A, 2F1 and 2F2, aerial surveys showed numbers were slightly above levels recorded in 2011 or 2012.
“The winter of 2012-13 was severe in the northern and eastern portions of the state, which will impede population recovery in those areas,” Kreil said. “Furthermore, high quality deer habitat continues to be lost statewide and will limit the potential for population recovery.”
Currently, all hunting units in the state are below management objectives except in 3E2, 3F1, 3F2 and 4F.
Out west, mule deer licenses in the badlands will decrease slightly this year. As was the case last year, no antlerless mule deer licenses are available in units 3B1, 3B2, 4A, 4B, 4C, 4D, 4E and 4F. This restriction applies to regular gun, resident and nonresident any-deer bow, gratis and youth licenses.
According to Kreil, the spring mule deer survey did show positive trends, with numbers up 15 percent over last year. “This modest increase indicates the mild winter of 2011 and no doe harvest in 2012 might be having a positive effect on the mule deer herd,” he added. “With the no-doe-harvest regulation remaining in place for 2013, there may be some reason for optimism concerning mule deer.”
Hunters are able to draw one license for the deer gun season and one for the muzzleloader season, and purchase an archery license. Like last year, there is no concurrent season and a hunter cannot receive more than one license for the deer gun season.
The number of licenses available for 2013 is 1,150 antlered mule deer, a decrease of 50 mule deer licenses from last year; 1,166 for muzzleloader, down 116 from last year; and 115 restricted youth antlered mule deer, a decrease of five from last year.
North Dakota’s 2013 deer gun season opens Nov. 8 at noon and continues through Nov. 24. Online applications for the regular deer gun, youth, muzzleloader, and resident gratis and nonresident landowner seasons will be available May 13 through the Game and Fish Department’s website atgf.nd.gov. Also, paper applications will be at vendors throughout the state the week of May 13. The deadline for applying is June 5.
Bow hunters should note that both resident and nonresident archery licenses this year are available only through the department’s Bismarck office or website, or by calling (800) 406-6409. Archery tags will not be sold over the counter at license vendor locations in 2013.
Gratis and nonresident landowner applicants will want to take note of a new law passed recently by the state legislature. House Bill 1131 reduces the number of acres required to qualify from 160 to 150. In addition, gratis applications received on or before the regular deer gun lottery application deadline (June 5) will be issued any-legal-deer license. Applications received after the deadline will be issued based on licenses remaining after the lottery – generally only antlerless licenses remain.
HB 1131 also allows residents who turn age 12 in 2013 to receive an antlerless white-tailed deer license, and allows an individual who turns 14 this year to receive one deer license valid for the youth deer season. Previously, a young hunter had to turn the appropriate age prior to the end of the respective big game season.
Total deer licenses are determined by harvest rates, aerial surveys, deer-vehicle collision reports, depredation reports, hunter observations, input at advisory board meetings, and comments from the public, landowners and department field staff. | <urn:uuid:1f2e5962-0c1e-401a-b59e-befeff74953b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dougleier.areavoices.com/tag/deer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930506 | 978 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Thank you for making this, whoever you are.
An Oregon woman was told by a 911 dispatcher that authorities wouldn’t be able be able to help her as her ex-boyfriend broke into her place because of budget cuts.
A Berkeley truck driver is suing the California High Patrol for a brutal assault that brought him to the brink of death — provoked, according to a report by the local NBC affiliate, only by the man’s request to read the ticket he was being given before he signed it.
How Are We Supposed to Know What the Government Does?
You should probably be afraid, at least a little, of the federal government. The reason for this doesn’t have anything to do with conspiracy theories about fluoridation or the Obama administration hoarding ammo to keep it out of the hands of True Patriots. It’s simpler than that: you should be worried about the US government because it is huge and well funded and powerful and, most importantly, you don’t know what it’s doing.
The civics class version of government—that there are three branches, each with its own checks and balances and blah blah blah—is hopelessly outdated. For one thing, the legislative branch is paralyzed by partisanship and a set of rules that make it impossible for it to do anything but stop laws from getting enacted. For another, as documented by the Washington Post in 2010, the governmental agencies that are in charge of “national security” have grown like not-all-that-benign tumors, consuming billions of tax dollars, constructing massive top-secret facilities, and employing hundreds of thousands of people whose job descriptions you don’t have the security clearance to know. The national security state is vast and unknowable, practically its own branch of government at this point, with its own secret history. Millions upon millions of documents are classified, many unnecessarily. By some counts, there are more pages of classified documents in the US than there are unclassified—and the government spends $12 billion a year keeping all that information under wraps. | <urn:uuid:f36c7b7c-46e4-41fd-adbe-b8e448e3bed1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://beatyourselfup.com/tagged/law-enforcement | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963063 | 426 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Depends on which angle you're looking at it. Personally, I find PHP-the-language abhorrent, even more so than Java. For me, that's enough. I think Java tooling is substantially better, I find the libraries to be of generally better quality, in the space I work in I find the JEE architecture more suitable than anything I've seen in PHP.
OTOH, PHP is a more dynamic language than Java (offset by sucking as a language), and it's possible to write clean (within the range of cleanliness of an ugly language with a million different conventions) applications just like in Java. More or less. | <urn:uuid:15b512c8-c856-45c0-b1ba-4911a0744f79> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.coderanch.com/t/495401/java/java/Java-Php-technaologies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968362 | 132 | 1.523438 | 2 |
241 1 hour, 5 minutes Joint Session of Congress Twitter Feed During Joint Session of Congress During a presidential address to a joint session of Congress, members comments on the social media network Twitter were shown. Footage begins with senators crossing Statuary Hall to attend the joint session. 1,148 21 minutes Joint Session of Congress Economic Address Joint Session Live coverage of President Obama’s economic address to a joint session of Congress included the gathering of members and the announcement of officials and dignitaries. 28,307 41 minutes Address Presidential Economic Address to Joint Session of Congress President Obama presented his plan for job creation and economic growth before a joint session of Congress. In his remarks he appealed for pragmatic bipartisanship and swift action in order to restore jobs and spur economic growth. He ... Read More » 118 22 minutes Call-In Open Phones Telephone lines were open for comments on President Obama’s economic address before a joint session of Congress. | <urn:uuid:b1aa922e-059e-444c-bb7e-5a023c487a2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/ajax/ajax-widget-public.php?type=event_programs&eventid=197044 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951701 | 189 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Its graduation time, and this means a flood of new people into the workforce. I have to admit, I am a bit tired of the negativity of a lot of the reports out right now, claiming that it will be hard for new graduates. Yes, the economy right now is tough, but, at the same time, the world around us is changing because of some very special skills that the younger generations in the workforce have a bit of a monopoly on.
In Egypt recently we saw a protest and revolution started and maintained via viral communication. Social media brought the people together and changed the face of Egypt, and it started a domino effect. We’ve seen this in small scale before, but this was the first time that the actions of the younger, involved generation caught the attention of the establishments that exist in stasis. If word that travels so quickly can ignite and spread under the noses of the ruling class, then this is something that everyone has to finally take notice of and grab by the horns – social media is here with force, and everyone needs to get on board, be left behind, or risk being overthrown.
I hope that doesn’t sound too drastic, but it is an important issue to note – Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, FourSquare, blogs, the pervasiveness of aps on tools starting with a lower-cased “i” – these things have changed how we interact and communicate and the speed with which we expect our information. Many businesses and institutions find themselves racing to catch-up, especially with the recent occurrences popping up on the nightly news precipitated by social media.
This is where you – recent graduate – have a special added value that you can bring to some of these companies and institutions. Your knowledge of and ability to master the varying aspects of social media with ease can not only give you a special “something” in the job application process, but it can sometimes even create opportunities for you.
Now here is the tricky part – how to get started and make this a niche for yourself. I recommend gravitating towards a small business and asking them what they are doing about social media. They may have no idea what you mean or how this could benefit them, and you will have to pitch them on this, but then offer to do this voluntarily. Dive in and do your best with it. Become a volunteer Social Media Manager, give yourself something extra on your resume, and start building up additional useful skills that you can bring into a new position. Not only are you doing something kind and helpful for a small business, but this will open up networking opportunities as well as give you that something extra. I promise – there are businesses out there who are hiring and, if they see that you can add this extra thing to their company, your ability to master social media becomes the sprinkles on top – the thing that makes you extra exciting to a hiring manager with vision. Now, more than ever, the fact that your finger is on the pulse of technology and communication is a huge benefit to you if you know how to leverage it and highlight it. | <urn:uuid:68f6b670-d516-4b25-9d47-b88d40f76d46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.experience.com/entry-level-jobs/careers/jobs/the-sprinkles-on-top-one-way-to-look-extra-attractive-to-hiring-companies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964587 | 632 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Posted on Wednesday, February 9th, 2011 at 6:58 am
A large quantity of ground beef has been recalled by the meat producing company, American Food Service, after the meat was suspected to have E. coli. The ground beef had been distributed to restaurants in the Southern California area prior to the recall, though the identities of the restaurants have not been released.
There have been no reports of illnesses due to the contaminated beef. However, there is concern that the beef that had been distributed may be placed into freezers for storage and not properly disposed of.
The ingestion of E. coli can cause many harmful side effects including diarrhea, failure of the kidney, and, even, death.
If you or a loved one has experienced an illness due to contaminated food products, please contact the Charleston defective food product attorneys of the Steinberg Law Firm at 843-720-2800.
Posted on Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 at 3:36 am
Freshway Foods announced the voluntary recall of products that contain romaine lettuce because of possible E. coli bacteria contamination. The romaine lettuce was sold primarily in the eastern area of the nation.
The recalled products are sold under the Freshway brand and the Imperial Sysco brand with a use by date of May 12 or earlier. Freshway is working witht the Food and Drug Administration to inform consumers of the recall. The product was sold to retailers in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, New York and other eastern states.
If you or a loved one has been injured or become ill by a poorly manufactured consumer product, contact the Charleston defective product lawyers of the Steinberg law firm by calling 843-720-2800 | <urn:uuid:c5723717-6dae-4d5a-8c88-0110c672f852> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.steinberglawfirm.com/blog/category/c034f0b7-0247-4305-9053-f88a91bc4080/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971207 | 348 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Isn’t this an interesting photograph!
My husband inherited a box full of pictures that included some from the Hartwell family, as well as this one. This couple is so intriguing and we have no idea who they are…. well I admit to having a suspicion that they are William and Mary Edgeworth, parents of Mary Jane Edgeworth who married George Hartwell. If my hunch is correct they would be Mr. Ed’s Great-Great-Grandparents.
Over the years I’ve stared at the photo many times and tried to imagine how this couple lived and why this particular picture was important enough to save more than 100 years. Since Mr. Ed and I have lately been studying his Hartwell line the picture came onto the radar screen again, and even with a scarcity of information at our fingertips we were able to piece together quite a bit of their story and make a tentative ID of this couple.
Back to the picture: The back is stamped “Charley Mathers, Central Lake Mich.” and the oval has been cut out and glued to the grey cardboard backing. We attempted to locate descendants of the photographer but found the family had all moved away from Central Lake years ago. But there are a few things that might be clues in addition to the photographer’s name and location as stamped on the back.
I needed help, so arranged for a phone consultation with The Photo Detective, Maureen Taylor, http://www.maureentaylor.com/ to see if there were more clues to be had. Yes! Maureen was a wonderful help both noticing features to the photo I’d missed, and putting the whole thing into context. If you’re having trouble with photo identification be sure to contact Maureen… you’ll be glad you did! Here’s what came out of our conversation:
First of all Maureen and I agreed that even if we knew nothing of the subjects, this is a very special picture of an intriguing couple!
I’d mentioned suspecting these people were the Edgeworths so her first question to me was whether they were Americans by birth or immigrants. When I told her they emmigrated from Canada but were born in Ireland, there was a “BINGO” moment. The reason? The lady’s bonnet is a very conservative British Isles style, a style not appearing in photos of American born women. England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, yes, but not America.
This already points to Edgeworths as the subjects since the other Great-Great-Grandparents were native born.
Other observations from Maureen:
The clothing style indicates that the picture was taken close to 1900. The large ribbon bow on the man’s lapel is indicative of some type of event being celebrated, possibly a 50th wedding anniversary. Aha! The 1900 U.S. Census record for Echo Township, Antrim County Michigan states that William and Mary were at that time married 50 years.
I had at one time wondered if this picture had to do with mourning as the bonnet looks a little like some “mourning caps” in pictures on the Internet. However, the bow pretty much negates that idea, especially with the corroborating evidence of the 50th anniversary.
A particularly interesting observation by Maureen was that this couple appear to dislike each other intensely. See how they’re looking away from one another and how stern is their countenance? They are not a happy couple!
I’ll be following up with more data about the Edgeworth family, but couldn’t wait to post this great photo and the likely identification of the subjects.
April 30, 2011
Susan J. Edminster, Granite Falls Washington, All Rights Reserved.
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A test flight of an F-35C is conducted in January. (Lockheed Martin)
WASHINGTON and MELBOURNE, Australia — The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has been cleared to resume flight operations, six days after a crack discovered in the engine caused the fleet to be grounded.
Flights will resume Friday afternoon weather permitting, according to program officials.
“Following engineering analysis of the turbine blade which developed a crack, F-35 flight operations have been cleared to resume,” the Joint Program Office and Pratt & Whitney said in a joint statement, released late Thursday night.
“This decision concludes a cautionary flight suspension that began on Feb. 21 after a 0.6 inch crack was found on a 3rd stage turbine blade of a test aircraft at the Edwards Air Force Base F-35 Integrated Test Facility during a routine inspection. Comprehensive tests on the blade were conducted at the Pratt & Whitney facility in Middletown, Connecticut. The engine in question is part of the F-35 test aircraft fleet, and had been operated at extreme parameters in its mission to expand the F-35 flight envelope. Prolonged exposure to high levels of heat and other operational stressors on this specific engine were determined to be the cause of the crack.”
“No additional cracks or signs of similar engine stress were found during inspections of the remaining F135 inventory.”
“No engine redesign is required as a result of this event. Within the current DoD inventory, 17 F-35s are employed in test and development at Patuxent River Naval Air Station and Edwards Air Force Base; the remaining aircraft are assigned to Eglin Air Force Base and Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, and comprise the initial F-35 training fleet.”
While DoD officials bring the fleet back online, the Pentagon announced a new deal worth $333,786,000 that will lay the path for an eventual deal on lot 8 of low rate initial production (LRIP). That money is part an advance acquisition contract designed to help Lockheed prepare for manufacturing the eighth batch of fighters.
“Lockheed Martin is pleased to be awarded long lead funding for the eighth F-35 Low Rate Initial Production contract, known as LRIP 8, by the Department of Defense,” Michael Rein, a Lockheed spokesman, wrote in an email. “This award provides our supplier base the stability needed to properly execute on our future production commitments. We will continue to drive down costs for these future aircraft as we have done on every previous LRIP contract.”
The optimistic tone was echoed 9,000 miles away, as Australian Defence Minister Stephen Smith expressed confidence in the F-35 program during comments made this week at the Australian International Airshow at Avalon, southwest of Melbourne.
“I’ve always been confident that in the end, the Joint Strike Fighter project would get up, that it would be successful, and that’s because the entire weight of the United States is behind it,” he said. “I remain confident that the Joint Strike Fighter will get up, but the risks continue to be schedule and cost.”
However, Smith reiterated that he would not allow an air combat capability gap to occur between the retirement of Australia’s Hornet fighters and F-35A introduction around 2020.
Australia has a requirement for up to 100 Joint Strike Fighters but faces the dilemma of either stretching out the life of its aging legacy Hornet fleet beyond its planned withdrawal date at the end of the decade or making a further interim Super Hornet purchase from Boeing.
Steve O’Bryan, Lockheed Martin vice president of F-35 program integration and business development, told reporters at the show that he was confident Australia would remain in the program.
“There is no indication from the Australian leadership of a reduction in commitment,” he said.
Companies Push Back at Criticism
Despite a return to flight, there may be long-term consequences for the second grounding of the F-35 in a month.
Only a day after Smith reaffirmed his confidence in the F-35A, U.S. project head Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan told local press at Avalon that he thought Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney would perform better if they had more skin in the game.
“What I see Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney doing today is behaving as if they are getting ready to sell me the very last F-35 and the very last engine,” he told a media roundtable. “They are trying to squeeze every nickel out of that last F-35 and engine.”
Both Lockheed and Pratt moved quickly to push back against Bogdan’s assertions that they are not working as team players.
“Lockheed Martin is fully committed to delivering the F-35’s unprecedented 5th Generation capabilities to the men and women of our Armed Forces and those of our allies” Laura Siebert, Lockheed spokeswoman, wrote in a statement. “We are singularly focused on properly executing the F-35 development, production and sustainment tasks laid out in our various contracts. We do this in partnership with Lt. Gen. Bogdan and the entire JSF Program Office and strive daily to drive costs out of the program.
“We believe we are making significant progress in enhancing affordability of the jet as evidenced by the fact that we have reduced costs by 50 percent since the procurement of the first production aircraft; by outperforming U.S. government pricing estimates for the past contract lot buys; and by reducing labor costs by 14 percent between the 4th and 5th lot contracts. Going forward, we are confident the Low Rate Initial Production 6 and 7 contracts, currently under negotiation, will achieve even greater savings for the government and taxpayers,” according to the statement.
“Despite numerous cuts in the F-35 acquisition plan, Pratt & Whitney has maintained a long-term view and demonstrated our commitment by investing more than $50M dollars of our own funds and taking on risk ahead of contract schedule to prevent the program from experiencing delays,” Matthew Bates, the Pratt spokesman, wrote in an email.
Bates highlighted that the engine manufacturer offered to cover cost overruns for low rate initial production Lot 5 a year ahead of what the government had requested.
“We believe it is highly unusual for a contractor to take on this level of risk at such an early stage of a program,” Bates wrote. “We have also offered to assume more risk for sustainment cost through performance-based, fixed-priced provisions well ahead of plan. In addition, our investment has contributed to more than 40% of cost reduction since the delivery of our first production representative engine.
“We look forward to our continued dialogue with the Joint Program Office to further review the details of the F135 [engine] program, and to achieve alignment and further progress as the program moves ahead.”
It’s not the first time Bogdan has criticized the companies’ JSF performance. In September, Bogdan raised eyebrows when he called the relationship between Lockheed Martin and the JPO the “worst” he had ever seen — with a delegation of Lockheed officials sitting right in front of him.
Relations between Bogdan and the contractors seemed to warm during winter, especially in December, when an agreement was finalized to purchase a fifth batch of fighters, followed quickly by a preliminary agreement on a sixth batch weeks later.
But the second major grounding of the F-35 in the last month appears to have tested Bogdan’s patience. In January, the Marine Corps’ F-35B variant was grounded following an engine problem during a test flight. The source of that problem was later identified as an improperly crimped line in the fueldralic system, manufactured by subcontractor Stratoflex.
Last Friday, nine days after the F-35B resumed tests, the entire F-35 fleet was grounded when a crack was discovered in one of the blades in the Pratt-designed engine. | <urn:uuid:879f84fd-93ea-4920-b929-68cec79dd8da> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.defensenews.com/article/20130228/DEFREG02/302280031/1001/DEFSECT | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962709 | 1,660 | 1.671875 | 2 |
John Warden Hunt
|John Warden Hunt was born of May 14, 1922, in Elkview, West Virginia. He was one of nine sons born to Chauncy M. and Buna Stalnaker Hunt and had a twin brother, Don. The Hunt family lived on a 255-acre farm on Bullskin Branch located four miles from Elkview. John and his siblings worked hard at the many chores they had after school and then studied by kerosene lamps and a wood fire.|
John graduated from Elkview High School in 1941, where he was a member of the National Honor Society, and was awarded a working scholarship to West Virginia University. On November 8, 1942, he married Jean Louise Townsend and announced the marriage to his parents in a postcard in which he said “there are two of us now.”
|John was drafted and entered the service on May 12, 1943. Wanting to join the Air Force like twin brother Don, he started training to fly but an ear problem at high altitude forced him to drop out. He was transferred to the 109th Infantry, Company A, and after training at Ft. Meade, Maryland, shipped out for Europe on September 12, 1944.|
In December 1944, John was moved to the Battle of the Bulge area. He was wounded on February 2, 1945, in France, and died on February 7. First buried at Salers, his body was later returned to the United States aboard the US Transport Carroll Victory. On October 31, 1948, after a funeral service at Trinity Methodist Church, he was reburied in the Stalnaker Cemetery in Glenville.
Information and photographs provided by Herbert Hunt.
West Virginia Archives and History welcomes any additional information that can be provided about these veterans, including photographs, family names, letters and other relevant personal history. For more information contact Constance Baston at (304) 558-0230.
Veterans Memorial Database
West Virginia Veterans Memorial
West Virginia Archives and History | <urn:uuid:ea685e45-86b7-40cc-8758-3979871a65de> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wvculture.org/history/wvmemory/vets/huntjohn/huntjohn.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984594 | 412 | 1.632813 | 2 |
This is the brain that almost wrecked a planet. It is packed with dangerous ideas. Moles grow on the brain in front of our very eyes. They devour the brain impulses causing the scalp to tingle with a burning urgency too intense for our puny imaginations to contemplate. The brain must constantly feed the moles with fantastic ideas that tamper with God's laws. The brain longs for peace and respite from the gnawing voracious moles that demand ever more frightening ideas. The more awful the ideas, the more delicious they taste.
This is Professor Mole, hapless human host of the itching pulsating brain.
The Professor is quiveringly deranged but not technically evil. He just has a burning brain that must needs tamper with God's laws. The brain wishes it could survive without its primitive and morally infused host. But the brain cannot live without the precious blood supply pumped into it by the generous professor's empathic heart and so for the moment must put up with his restraining ethical principles. The brain needs a willing ally in order to follow through on any of its shocking innovations.
Professor Mole is dedicated to benefitting society through the advance of science. He himself though is so hideous that he is shunned by the very society he longs to benefit and must conduct his awesome experiments in a hidden basement laboratory. The basement is putrid with dank mold and segmented creeping things of a lower order. Professor Mole has an unusual fascination for segments and collects them in jars. Sometimes he makes new things from unrelated segments. It's one of his many harmless obsessions. He thinks maybe humans would get along better if we had crisp segments rather than rude connective tissue.
MIKEY MANTIDMikey is a praying mantis who lives in the basement of the same tenement building as professor mole. The professor discovers him one day hovering in the dank shadows, grooming his segments - which makes an eerie and beckoning musical call. To Mole's surprise, Mikey is not afraid of the professor's deeply ugly countenance. The professor befriends Mikey and feeds him. He massages his segments, oils them and keeps them in perfect working order.
Mikey is professor mole's only friend. Unlike his kindly master, Mikey is truly evil and joins forces with the Professor's throbbing ghastly brain. Mole, blinded by his love for Mikey, unwittingly commits unspeakable atrocities upon mankind in order to please his voracious segmented buddy.
ask about FEEDING TIME if you dare...
The danger of Professor Mole's Doomsday machine is so great that He Hog enlists the aid of the fantastic otherworldly
BOTTLED CITY OF HUMAN WOMEN!
Beautiful sculpts by Hryma! | <urn:uuid:a9e98fb9-1e49-430b-9d8c-5ff60b9176d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2010/07/who-wants-to-see-he-hog-movie.html?showComment=1315861686129 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955405 | 568 | 1.5 | 2 |
This is a fine guide indeed - it covers more non-US artists than some other notable editions (European, Azian, African artists...) and it really tries to keep up with recent developments in jazz.
Naturally, all that means that traditionalists might desire larger articles on (mostly American) true jazz giants of the classical era, but that's just a matter of personal taste.
Some of the articles are impressionistic, unneceserily pointing out that an artist didn't play so well when he wisited Europe few years before he died, but failing to say why precisly was he so great, but most of the articles are (in the worst cases) fine, written with real passion for the music, and often relying on serious research.
As a fan (primarily but not exclusively) of older jazz I'd like to point to the articles on Buddy Bolden and ODJB, where the influence of this all-white group's influence on British society is comparable to the influence of later punk musicians (!?).
So, this book is not only interesting and useful, it is also thought-provoking. | <urn:uuid:0126a6bf-7d28-4abf-85f0-781703e5fa23> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rough-Guide-Jazz-Music-Guides/dp/1843532565 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965879 | 230 | 1.726563 | 2 |
If the country goes through with the insane, masochistic sequestration cuts, it’ll be ugly. The economy will shed jobs; GDP will slow. But it’s worth being skeptical about the sky-is-falling predictions you’ll hear about: an end to meat inspections, air-traffic control, federal prison guards, and so on. It'll be bad, but not that bad.
The pending cuts — what Democratic leaders have wisely started to call “a meat axe” instead of the ethereal-sounding "sequestration" — are big. But as big as $1.2 trillion sounds and is, it is over 10 years out of a federal budget that’s estimated to be $44 trillion over that time. That’s not exactly the kind of draconian cuts that, say, we (through the International Monetary Fund) regularly force on countries seeking aid.
Keep in mind the “firemen first principle.” The phrase comes from my old boss, former Washington Monthly editor and founder Charles Peters, who noted that agencies on the chopping block have an incentive to tout their most popular programs as the ones likely to get axed. Thus if you’re a mayor, you sow fear of cutting firemen first before you cite, say, delaying office renovations at City Hall.
When the cuts are this big there’s bound to be real — and not just phantom — pain. But when you read stories about FBI agents pulled off their pursuit of a serial killer or astronauts left in space, ask what else could get cut first.
The answer is complicated. Unfortunately, the cuts demanded by sequestration famously fall about half on the defense side and half on domestic discretionary spending, with a number of things — such as a slew of veterans' benefits — exempted. Within departments, myriad accounts have to take hits, which spreads the pain. The Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service has to take about the same percentage hit as the Rural Electrification and Telecommunications Loan Program, which seems bonkers since rural electrification is complete and e coli is very much with us.
Still even within each account, say the operations budget of the ederal Aviation Administration, you need to know if you can furlough more in terms of back-office personnel and less on the front lines of guiding in planes at LaGuardia. A recent White House Office of Management and Budget paper said that the cuts would “degrade” air-traffic control, which is surely true in the broadest sense. But would it actually mean fewer air-traffic controllers? The Aerospace Industries Association recently told its members:
It is unlikely that senior officials will allow a nationwide layoff of air-traffic controllers that will have a large negative impact on our economy. An option the agency could exercise to prevent this from happening is the "transfer authority" provided in its annual appropriations bills that could be used to modify sequestration’s across-the-board cuts.
It’s hardly comforting to know that money borrowed from the FAA’s “NextGen” program for improving the country’s aviation infrastructure could take a 50 percent hit in order to keep planes from whacking into each other, this at a time when China is building 100 new airports. The Aerospace Industries Association is rightly worried about cutting NextGen that much but it does show that there’s some fungibility of funds.
In an ideal world, Congress would dispense with sequestration and come up with a budget that made sense and reflected the world as it really is: one in which we face serious long-term debt but also a still sluggish economy and — mercifully — still cheap borrowing costs. But of course if they were able to do that, we wouldn’t have had sequestration in the first place and all the mishigoss that went before it, like the super committee.
And so agency heads are diligently preparing for the worst and they want to make sure the world knows the worst. The director of the National Park Service recently sent out a notice asking top management to carefully catalog the cuts they would need to make and to show the impact on local businesses. This exercise is being repeated throughout the government. Those looming cuts are real and such memos are necessary. But it’s telling that each agency is eager to get out the word on what these cuts would mean. It’s up to the rest of us to be appropriately skeptical. | <urn:uuid:e534a04e-487d-4607-9a71-b6bf097830be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/spending-cuts-stink-but-they-re-overhyped-by-obama-and-republicans-alike-20130206?mrefid=flyout | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957396 | 924 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Republican ticket is flooding the airwaves with commercials that develop two themes designed to turn the presidential contest into a racially freighted resource competition pitting middle class white voters against the minority poor.
Ads that accuse President Obama of gutting the work requirements enacted in the 1996 welfare reform legislation present the first theme. Ads alleging that Obama has taken $716 billion from Medicare — a program serving an overwhelmingly white constituency — in order to provide health coverage to the heavily black and Hispanic poor deliver the second. The ads are meant to work together, to mutually reinforce each other’s claims.
The announcer in one of the Romney campaign’s TV ads focusing on welfare tells viewers:
In 1996, President Clinton and a bipartisan Congress helped end welfare as we know it by requiring work for welfare. But on July 12, President Obama quietly announced a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping the work requirement. Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you a welfare check. And welfare-to-work goes back to being plain old welfare. Mitt Romney will restore the work requirement because it works.
The ad includes the following text and photograph:
Web sites devoted to examining the veracity of political commercials have sharply criticized the ad.
The Washington Post’s fact checker, Glenn Kessler, gave the welfare ads his lowest rating, four Pinocchios. The Tampa Bay Times’s Politifact was equally harsh, describing the ads as “a drastic distortion” warranting a “pants on fire” rating. The welfare commercial, according to Politifact, “inflames old resentments about able-bodied adults sitting around collecting public assistance.”
Sharp criticism has done nothing to hold back the Romney campaign from continuing its offensive — in speeches and on the air — because the accuracy of the ads is irrelevant as far as the Republican presidential ticket is concerned. The goal is not to make a legitimate critique, but to portray Obama as willing to give the “undeserving” poor government handouts at the expense of hardworking taxpayers.
Insofar as Romney can revive anti-welfare sentiments – which have been relatively quiescent since the enactment of the 1996 reforms – he may be able to increase voter motivation among whites whose enthusiasm for Romney has been dimmed by the barrage of Obama ads criticizing Bain Capital for firing workers and outsourcing jobs during Romney’s tenure as C.E.O. of the company.
The racial overtones of Romney’s welfare ads are relatively explicit. Romney’s Medicare ads are a bit more subtle.
“You paid into Medicare for years — every paycheck. Now when you need it, Obama has cut $716 billion from Medicare,” the ad begins, with following picture on the screen:
The ad continues:
Why? To pay for Obamacare. The money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that is not for you.
In essence, the ad is telling senior voters that the money they paid to insure their own access to Medicare after they turn 65 is going, instead, to pay for free health care for poor people who are younger than 65.
The Romney Medicare ads have a dual purpose. The first is to deflect the Obama campaign’s attack on the Romney-Ryan proposal to radically transform the way medical care for those over 65 is provided. The Associated Press succinctly described the Romney-Ryan proposal:
Starting in 2023, new retirees on the younger side of the line [those younger than 55 in 2012] would get a fixed amount of money from the government to pick either private health insurance or a federal plan modeled on Medicare.
Those going on Medicare after 2022 would have to choose between “premium support” — in other words, a voucher program — to pay for private health care coverage or an option to enroll in a program similar to existing Medicare but without specified funding levels — which means an end to the guaranteed medical coverage currently provided for those over 65.
The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities sums up the likely future of health care for seniors under the Ryan proposal for reform:
The C.B.O. estimates that by 2030 the House Budget Committee plan would increase the out-of-pocket share of health care spending for a typical Medicare beneficiary from the current 25-to-30% range to 68%. By 2050, the House plan would cut federal health care spending by approximately two thirds. Both plans would place substantial administrative burdens on the most vulnerable and infirm of Medicare’s enrollees. And both would surrender the considerable leverage that Medicare can bring to bear on providers to reduce spending and improve quality.
Asked whether “Medicare should continue as it is today” or “should be changed to a system in which the government would provide seniors with a fixed amount of money toward purchasing private health insurance or Medicare insurance” voters in Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin decisively chose to keep Medicare unchanged – by 62-28 in Florida, by 64-27 in Ohio, and by 59-32 in Wisconsin.
When asked whom they trust more to handle the Medicare issue, Florida voters in a Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll, reported on August 23, picked Obama over Romney by a 50-42 margin. In Ohio, Obama’s margin was 51-41; in Wisconsin, it was 51-42.
A separate Pew Research Center survey released on August 21 found that 72 percent of voters had heard “a little” or “a lot” about what Pew described as “a proposal to change Medicare into a program that would give future participants a credit toward purchasing private health insurance coverage.” Of those familiar with the proposal, a plurality, 49 percent, opposed it, while 34 percent favored it.
The bipartisan Battleground Poll conducted August 5-9 by the Tarrance Group, a Republican firm, and Lake Research Partners, a Democratic firm, found that voters trusted Obama over Romney to handle Medicare and Social Security by a 49-45 margin. The same survey found that voters trusted Congressional Democrats over Congressional Republicans to handle Medicare and Social Security by a 48-40 margin.
Romney’s Medicare ad is designed to undermine that relatively modest but potentially crucial advantage. It is artfully constructed to turn the issue of health care into a battle over limited tax dollars between a largely white population of seniors on Medicare and a disproportionately minority population of the currently uninsured who would get health coverage under Obamacare.
Medicare recipients are overwhelmingly white, at 77 percent; 10 percent of recipients are black; and 8 percent Hispanic, with the rest described as coming from other races and ethnicities.
Obamacare, described in the Romney ad as a “massive new government program that is not for you,” would provide health coverage to a population of over 30 million that is not currently insured: 16.3 percent of this population is black; 30.7 percent is Hispanic; 5.2 percent is Asian-American; and 46.3 percent (less than half) is made up of non-Hispanic whites.
Politifact described the Medicare ad as “half true”:
Romney’s claim gives the impression that the law takes money that was already allocated to Medicare and funds the new health care law with it. In fact, the law uses a number of measures to try to reduce the rapid growth of future Medicare spending. Those savings are then used to offset costs created by the law — especially coverage for the uninsured — so that the overall law doesn’t add to the deficit. We rate his statement Half True.
Politifact also rated a claim Romney made later on the stump — that “there’s only one president that I know of in history that robbed Medicare, $716 billion to pay for a new risky program of his own that we call Obamacare” — as “mostly false.”
The Romney campaign’s shift of focus toward welfare and Medicare suggests that his strategists are worried that just disparaging Obama’s ability to deal with the struggling economy won’t be adequate to produce victory on November 6.
The importance to the Romney-Ryan ticket of two overlapping constituencies — whites without college degrees and white Medicare recipients — cannot be overestimated. Romney, continuing the Republican approach of 2010, is banking on a huge turnout among key white segments of the electorate in order to counter Obama’s strengths with minority voters as well as with young and unmarried female voters of all races.
There is extensive poll data showing the depth of Republican dependence on white voters.
On August 23, Pew Research released its latest findings on partisan identification, and the gains that the Republican Party has made among older and non-college whites since 2004 are remarkable.
Just eight years ago, Pew reports, whites 65 and over were evenly split in their allegiance, 46 percent Democratic, 46 percent Republican. In the most recent findings, these voters are now solidly in the Republican camp, 54-38, an eight point Republican gain. Elderly women were 9 points more Democratic than Republican in 2004, 50-41, the opposite of where they are now, 51-42 Republican. Older men, who were 51-41 Republican in 2004, are now 59-33 Republican.
Similarly, white voters without college degrees, of all ages, have gone from 51-40 Republican in 2004, to 54-37 in 2012, according to Pew.
Most importantly, the Pew surveys show that 89% of voters who identify themselves as Republican are white. Faced with few if any possibilities of making gains among blacks and Hispanics — whose support for Obama has remained strong — the Romney campaign has no other choice if the goal is to win but to adopt a strategy to drive up white turnout.
The Romney campaign is willing to disregard criticism concerning accuracy and veracity in favor of “blowing the dog whistle of racism” – resorting to a campaign appealing to racial symbols, images and issues in its bid to break the frustratingly persistent Obama lead in the polls, which has lasted for the past 10 months.
The result is a campaign run at two levels. On the trail, Paul Ryan argues that “we’re going to make this about ideas. We’re going to make this about a positive vision for the future.” On television and the Internet, however, the Romney campaign is clearly determined “to make this about” race, in the tradition of the notorious 1988 Republican Willie Horton ad, which described the rape of a white woman by a convicted African-American murderer released on furlough from a Massachusetts prison during the gubernatorial administration of Michael Dukakis and Jesse Helms’s equally infamous “White Hands” commercial, which depicted a white job applicant who “needed that job” but was rejected because “they had to give it to a minority.”
The longer campaigns go on, the nastier they get. Once unthinkable methods become conventional.
“You can tell they” — the welfare ads— “are landing punches,” Steven Law, president of the Republican super PAC American Crossroads, told the Wall Street Journal. Law’s focus group and polling research suggest that the theme is not necessarily going to work. “The economy is so lousy for middle-income Americans that the same people who chafe at the rise of welfare dependency under Obama don’t automatically default to a ‘get-a-job’ attitude — because they know there are no jobs.”
As the head of a tax-exempt 501(c)4 independent expenditure committee, Law cannot coordinate campaign strategy directly with the Romney campaign. Nonetheless, he is sending a warning. The welfare theme, Law said, “needs to be done sensitively. Right now it may be more of an economic issue than a values issue: In other words, more people on welfare is another disturbing symptom of Obama’s broken-down economy, rather than an indictment of those who are on welfare or the culture as a whole.”
Will the Romney campaign heed Law’s advice to keep it subtle? The principal media consultant for the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future, which will be running many of the anti-Obama ads over the next ten weeks, is Larry McCarthy, who produced the original Willie Horton ad.
An earlier version of this column misstated the name of the newspaper that produces Politifact. It is the Tampa Bay Times, not the Tampa Bay Tribune.
Thomas B. Edsall, a professor of journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the book “The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics,” which was published earlier this year. | <urn:uuid:7475fa94-ef6e-4a64-903a-261237d7452b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/making-the-election-about-race/?src=twr | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959452 | 2,651 | 1.59375 | 2 |
You have to wonder what the people at PETA are thinking when they have “brainstorming” sessions. It’s like they purposely come up with ways to alienate anyone in the middle 98% of mainstream thought. From WNBC in New York:
VERMONT — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent a letter to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, cofounders of Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Inc., urging them to replace cow’s milk they use in their ice cream products with human breast milk, according to a statement recently released by a PETA spokeswoman.
“PETA’s request comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner will begin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milk for 75 percent of the cow’s milk in the food he serves,” the statement says.
PETA officials say a move to human breast milk would lessen the suffering of dairy cows and their babies on factory farms and benefit human health.
You may now insert your own jokes and analysis. | <urn:uuid:921b3b8d-5c77-4284-a242-8af5cc2a60e9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://andyboyer.com/2008/09/peta-opens-its-mouth-and-a-few-more-independents-take-a-small-step-to-the-right/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94576 | 222 | 1.515625 | 2 |
The Broadway Melody (1929)
Directed by Harry Beaumont
100 min; U.S.A.; Black and White; Mono
The Broadway Melody (1929) is a backstage drama centered around a love triangle between a sister song-and-dance act and a singer/songwriter named Eddie Kearns (Charles King). Kearns has just penned the theme song for Florenz Ziegfeld, I mean, Francis Zanfield's (Eddie Kane) latest Broadway revue. It's his big break, and he wants his friends the Mahoney sisters to perform it with him. The trouble starts when the sisters, after spending ten years on the road circuit, arrive and Eddie discovers he's fallen out of love with Hank (Bessie Love) and in love with Queenie (Anita Page) and they're both in love with him. What's more, after blowing their audition for Zanfield its not the talent of the former sister but the long-legged blonde looks of the latter that gets them a part in the show. The tangled triangle is further complicated by the arrival of rich playboy Jack Warner, sorry, Jacques Warriner (Kenneth Thomson) who wants to play Stanford White to Queenie's Evelyn Nesbit and install her in a Park Avenue apartment as his mistress. But this is MGM's "all-talking, all-singing, all-dancing" picture so in spite of Eddie, Hank and Queenie's personal struggles the show must go on. As the title song by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed says, "Your troubles there are out of style / 'Cause Broadway always wears a smile."
You were meant for me: Queenie, Hank and Eddie form a tragic love triangle in The Broadway Melody.
Audiences in 1929 came to hear the singing and see the dancing but they got something extra: the original release featured a song-and-dance sequence in Technicolor. Sadly this sequence is missing from the Warner Home Video DVD version that I saw. It didn't really mar the experience, after all I don't know what I'm missing, but I'd like to see how color developed since The Toll of The Sea (1922). The Broadway Melody received an Academy Award for Outstanding Picture 1928/29. From all accounts the film was extremely popular. Motion Picture Almanac 1934-35 lists the film as one of the most successful rental's up to that time and it enjoyed box office success in the U.S. and abroad, particularly in England.
I think it's fair to assume that a major reason for the success was the picture's use of sound. In 1929 the major competing sound systems were sound-on-disc and sound-on-film. MGM and the rest of the Big Five studios chose the more versatle sound-on-film system over sound-on-disc, but some exhibition houses were wired for sound-on-film, some for sound-on-disc, some still unwired. Comments made by Harry Beaumont, director of The Broadway Melody, about sound recording for the film confirm that his crew recorded for both sound systems, apparently keeping in mind those theaters that had not yet updated: "we make an A and B sound track recording and an A and B wax recording of the same scene. Then we play back the poorer wax record...if it is all right, the better wax is treated so as to harden it, and the better sound track is used, and we are all set."1 The advantage of using the sound-on-film system became apparent to Beaumont when his engineers were able to record and replace a dropped "s" in the sound track. A similar edit could not be done with a sound-on-disc recording without a retake of the entire scene—which means that the two types of soundtracks for this movie are at least slightly different (Beaumont didn't mention any other edits). Beaumont's skillful sound team was led by Douglas Shearer, brother of star Norma Shearer; he previously worked on the part-talkie White Shadows in the South Seas (1928) and would earn a total of fourteen sound recording and technical Academy Awards over the course of his career. An oustanding moment in sound occurs in the opening sequence of The Broadway Melody. Inside Gleason Music Publishing Co. four disparate musical acts practice different song material, and we hear all the musicians singing and playing at the same time. Shearer and his team guide our ears through this chaos of music until they settle on the stand-out title song of the picture (already familar to us since it's played in a medley with George M. Cohen's "Give My Regards to Broadway," from the 1904 production of Little Johnny Jones, over the credits) as Eddie Kearns runs through it.
When Kearns performs the song with a small combo of musicians the limitation of recording for both sound systems becomes obvious because the song has to be performed in a single take as edits cannot be made on the sound-on-disc system. A whole song performed in a single shot can be very boring— watch the rendition of "Truthful Deacon Brown" later in the movie for an example. Beaumont might have wanted to break up the stable image by moving the camera, but the limitations of the early sound technology got in the way. To keep the sounds of the motion picture cameras from being picked up by microphones the cameras were placed in large soundproof booths with limited mobility. Beaumont and cinematographer John Arnold (who worked with Victor Sjostrom the previous year in The Wind (1928)) appear to have developed a creative answer to this problem: have the actors and musicians change positions during the number to break up a static shot without cutting or moving the camera (see images below). There is only one cut (compare photo at top with those below) that occurs at the completion of the song but this performance doesn't grow stale thanks to the change in position. I should add that capturing a complete take can sometimes result in a superior performance of a song. Just compare the warm energetic feeling of Eddie's opening peformance of "The Broadway Melody," accompanied by just piano, guitar and clarinet, with the lame orchestral version later in the movie and you'll hear what I mean.
The free-flowing dialogue in this film is a refreshing change from the slow mumbling in Lights of New York (1928). On the other end of the spectrum the speaking parts don't rival something as slick as the witty banter in Lubitsch's The Love Parade (1929). Still, the quick unpredicatable language was enough to make some contemporaneous critics bristle with indignation. Mordaunt Hall complained in the Times, "it is..rather disappointing to hear Miss Page's none-too-bell-like tones ejaculating word barrages in which there may be: "Boloney," "guy," "lay off," "hot dog," "gee," "wow," "big sap," "kinda," "gonna" and other such classical epithets."2 Perhaps Hall was one of those yearning for the talkies to increase the audience's vocabulary and teach proper pronounciation. I think the use of slang helps us to better imagine a Broadway backstage in 1929.
Harry Beaumont directing on the set of A Man and His Money (1919).
Director Harry Beaumont was more qualified than we might expect to helm MGM's first talking musical. Before working on The Broadway Melody he directed Joan Crawford doing the "Charleston" in Our Dancing Daughters (1928). That film featured synchronized music and sound effects and was successful enough to spawn sequels. I did a little more digging and discovered something fascinating about Beaumont's history with sound pictures. Beaumont directed movies for Edison, Essanay, Warner Brothers, Sam Goldwyn and MGM, directing since 1914, but he also worked as a writer and actor for the Edison Company. Waaaay back in 1913 he performed in a talkie, a Kinetophone film, that was shown at Union Street Theatre by the Edison Company when that firm was taking a (ultimately unsuccessful) stab at marketing synchronous sound films for projection. Beaumont reflected on the film to the Times in 1929, "my recollection of the world premiere of the first all-talking piece of work is that I was very thankful that I was in blackface so that no one would recognize me as the chap who sang, 'When That Midnight Choo-Choo Leaves for Alabam.'"3 None of Beaumont's acting jobs listed for 1913 on IMDB agree with his recollection, but maybe the list is incomplete. What was this early sound film he's talking about? One of the Kinetophone films listed in the Edison archives is titled Minstrel Show-first part. That film is not included on the Edison: The Invention of the Movies four DVD set, I checked, but the title does jibe with Beaumont's description of the film he sang in. There is a film listed for the Edison company at IMDB as A Minstrel Show(1913) but it doesn't list Beaumont in the cast. A check through the archives of the Times uncovers a review of the aforementioned Kinetophone exhibition on February 17, 1913: "The second number was a minstrel show [my emphasis] with orchestra, soloists, end men and interlocutor, large as life and quite noisy."4 I'm going to take a leap and suggest that this is the same film listed in Edison's archive, listed on IMDB and mentioned by Beaumont. If so, what a strange and winding path Beaumont's career had travelled. He'd gone from singing in an all-but forgotten music film to directing one of the most popular musicals of his time.
1. "Film Plays Then and Now,'" New York Times (10 February 1929): 117.
2. Mordaunt Hall, "Fair Faces and Wild Slang,'" New York Times (17 February 1929): 119.
3. "Film Plays Then and Now,'" New York Times (10 February 1929): 117.
4. "New York Applauds the Talking Picture,'" New York Times (18 February 1913): 3.
Rosalind Rogoff, "Edison's Dream: A Brief History of the Kinetoscope" Cinema Journal 15, no. 2 (Spring 1976): 65.
John Belton, "Awkward Transitions: Hitchcock's 'Blackmail' and the Dynamics of Early Film Sound,'" The Musical Quarterly 83, no. 2 (summer 1999): 227-236.
Photo of Harry Beaumont reprinted from J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Photoplay, 258. © 1919 by The Home Correspondence School. | <urn:uuid:4469e065-342e-465d-bd48-c55f25a5d33b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://filmyear.typepad.com/blog/19201929/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963049 | 2,234 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Robert Volkmann (approximate pronounciation: Folkmahn) was born in Lommatzsch, Germany, on April 6, 1815. His father was music director for a church, so the father trained the son in music to prepare him as a successor. Thus Robert Volkmann learned to play the organ and the piano with his father, as well as violin and cello, and by age 12, he was playing the cello part in String Quartets by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. In 1832, Robert Volkmann entered the Freiberg Gymnasium and studied music with Anacker, going on to Leipzig in 1836 to study with C.F. Becker. There, in Leipzig, Volkmann met Robert Schumann, who encouraged Volkmann. They met again several times after that.
When he finished his studies, he began working as voice teacher at a music school in Prague. He didn't stay there long, and in 1841, he moved to Budapest, where he was employed as a piano teacher and a reporter for the Allgemeine Wiener Musik-Zeitung. He pretty much composed in obscurity until 1852, when his Piano Trio in B-flat minor caught the ears of Franz Liszt and Hans von Bülow, who proceeded to play it several times all over Europe. In 1854, Volkmann moved to Wien [Vienna], only to return to Budapest in 1858.
Thanks to the publisher Gustav Heckenast, who in 1857 bought the rights to publish all Volkmann's works in exchange for regular income regardless of sales, Volkmann was able to fully dedicate himself to composition, until Heckenast closed down his Budapest publishing house in the early 1870s.
While visiting Wien in 1864, Volkmann became acquainted with Johannes Brahms, and they became close friends. In letters they addressed each other as "lieber Freund" ("dear friend").
In the 1870s Volkmann began winding down on his life, composing very little. From 1875 until his death, Volkmann was professor of harmony and counterpoint at the National Academy of Music in Budapest. (Franz Liszt was the director there.). Volkmann died on October 30, 1883.
Most of Volkmann's compositions are either for solo piano or ensembles including piano. It was his Piano Trio in B flat minor that first brought him renown. During his 4-year stay in Wien, Volkmann composed his Variations on a Theme of Handel, String Quartets No. 3 and No. 4 in E minor, and the Cello Concerto in A minor.
Almost all of Volkmann's orchestral works date to the time of his association with Heckenast. (They are few enough to fit on two CDs.). These include an Overture for Shakespeare's play "Richard III", an Overture in C major, the Symphony No. 1 in D minor (which was a major success when premiered in Moscow) and the Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, dedicated to the Russian Musical Society.
Volkmann believed that a composer should be satisfied with creating in the listeners' minds the desired mood and impression by purely musical means; if the contours of the action and the plot are recognized by the listener, this should be considered a happy coincidence.
When Volkmann's Symphony No. 1 was played on a CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] Radio Two request show, in early 1998, announcer Shelagh Rogers remarked that "It sounds almost like a forgotten work by Brahms... almost."
Unlike the serious No. 1, the Symphony No. 2 is rather cheerful. Robert Volkmann's grandson, Hans Volkmann, remarks: "After Haydn, naïve cheerfulness was only extremely rarely chosen as the basic mood of an entire Symphony." For a more thorough listing of Volkmann's works, click here.
All of Volkmann's orchestral works have been recorded on a 2-CD set on the cpo [classic produktion osnabrück], with Werner Andreas Albert conducting the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie [Northwest German Philharmonia], and Johannes Wohlmacher as the soloist in the Cello Concerto. That Concerto has also been recorded on the Koch Schwann label with cellist J. Baumann and the Berliner Radio Symphonischer Orchester conducted by Caridis. Members of the Bavarische Radio Symphonischer Orchester have recorded Volkmann's three string Serenades on the Christophorus label. The Mannheimer Streichquartett [Mannheim String Quartet] has recorded the String Quartets No.s 1 and 4 for cpo. cpo also has a CD of the Ravensburg Piano Trio playing Volkmann's Piano Trios Opus 3 and Opus 5.
Check out the Conducting Mouse cartoon!
If you enjoy the music of Robert Volkmann, you might also enjoy the music of Bryan Ho, a medical student who writes excellent music on the side. Ho's Violin Sonata in E minor is in the style of Brahms. Then there's Harold Shapero, who's been writing in a neo-classical style since the 1940s, and his Symphony for Classical Orchestra [in B-flat major] is highly recommended.
If you have questions, comments, things to add or correct, please write me at [email protected]. I would especially appreciate MIDI files, links to orchestras and CD labels, and corrections on the spellings of foreign names. | <urn:uuid:8c4e8b69-4f7f-45b8-9f74-531a26954683> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://members.tripod.com/~del_Arte/composers/volkmann.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961084 | 1,182 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Since receiving some advice about supplementing Cedar's kibble with veggies, I've incorporated peas and carrots to her meals about once a day. She had been getting carrots as snacks; she loves those. She likes to chew them mostly, I think, but she does clean up after herself by eating the little bits that are everywhere. I chop the carrots up when they go in her kibble. She will eat them, but she picks the peas out first. She's even taken to grabbing a mouthful of food, spitting it out on the floor, and then picking out the peas. It is safe to say she loves the peas. The problem seems to be that she stop eating the kibble! She will even leave a pile of rejected kibble on the floor!
She will eat the kibble later, especially if she doesnt get any more food til the kibble is gone. But it certainly has changed her eating habits!
Is this behavior normal for a dog whose diet has recently been supplemented? | <urn:uuid:45a4dfd4-9702-41c9-9238-e47b0c4fd77f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cavaliertalk.com/forums/showthread.php?9446-peas-n-carrots&p=98278 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986447 | 203 | 1.632813 | 2 |
More than 600 firefighters work in the Milwaukee County suburbs, but only one of them is African-American, a Journal Sentinel survey found.
That firefighter was hired, in West Allis, just nine months ago.
The survey was done after a suburban fire chief was suspended last month for using racial slurs. The results led some African-American leaders to demand that suburban departments do more to attract African-Americans to firefighting.
"They make movies about these guys; these guys are heroes," said Concordia University educator Lenard Wells, who for years led an organization that represented black Milwaukee police officers. "You can't have Americans thinking all their heroes are white."
Census figures show that nearly 12,000 African-Americans live in the 18 Milwaukee County suburbs.
Wauwatosa Fire Chief Dean Redman said suburban chiefs want their departments to better reflect the communities they serve. The survey results, Redman said, might be what it takes to spur suburban departments to action, perhaps by collaborating to promote firefighting among minority youths.
"I think there's a sense that we need to do this, but we haven't found a way to do it," he said.
Suburban chiefs say a lack of qualified applicants, and not racism, is the major reason so few firefighters are black.
What needs to be addressed, say some African-American leaders, is why the number of applicants is so small.
Attention to fire departments and race rose after South Milwaukee Fire Chief Jay Behling admitted using the N-word five times in front of employees at his firehouse in February. Behling will lose $21,000 in pay during his 90-day suspension.
The 25-member South Milwaukee department is all-white - officials there, and in several other suburban departments, can't recall ever hiring a black firefighter - but it is not alone in lacking diversity.
The fire departments in Greendale, Greenfield and Hales Corners also are all-white, the Journal Sentinel survey found.
And the lack of black firefighters overall is out of proportion with other statistics.
The nearly 12,000 African-Americans who live in the Milwaukee County suburbs make up about 3.3% of the suburban population, according to the U.S. Census. The suburbs' lone African-American firefighter represents far less than 1% of the 611 firefighters who serve the county's suburbs.
In addition, at least eight African-Americans are among the 720 police officers working in the suburbs, a rate that exceeds 1%.
At the same time, diversity is not only a suburban issue.
African-Americans make up about 39% of Milwaukee's population. But as of December, the Milwaukee Fire Department was only 12.6% African-American, according to the city Fire and Police Commission.
Meet Mike Wright
Mike Wright is not only the sole African-American firefighter in the Milwaukee County suburbs, he's the first ever to work for the West Allis Fire Department.
Some other suburban departments, including Wauwatosa and North Shore, which serves seven communities, have employed African-Americans in the past.
Wright, 29, who grew up and lives on Milwaukee's north side, said all of his previous jobs were in diverse workplaces. But the West Allis Fire Department, he said, has quickly become the best place he has ever worked.
"It really is a second family," Wright said.
Wright had the advantage of mentoring from an uncle - also named Mike Wright - who is a lieutenant with the Milwaukee Fire Department.
But the younger Wright also worked to get where he is.
Wright first applied to the Milwaukee Fire Department, which requires only a high school diploma for firefighters. Unlike the suburban departments, Milwaukee has its own training academy and pays its new hires while training them.
Wright said he ranked only 371st among 4,000 applicants after testing for the Milwaukee fire job, so he decided to enroll in Milwaukee Area Technical College's firefighter program.
He not only earned his firefighting and EMT certifications, but also became a paramedic, volunteered at a fire department and worked for a private ambulance company.
That made Wright a highly qualified candidate for the suburban departments. Without their own academy, the suburban departments require new hires to have at least the firefighting and EMT certifications because the departments can't afford to pay for the training.
Wright said he thinks more African-Americans don't work in suburban fire departments because they aren't aware that the opportunities are good, even though more schooling is required.
He also said some of his peers express interest in firefighting, but don't follow through.
"A lot of it has to do with will and drive," Wright said.
Suburban fire chiefs said the number of qualified African-Americans who apply to work in their departments has always been tiny.
In Greenfield, for example, the last two times the Fire Department accepted firefighter applications, there were only two African-Americans among 240 applicants.
"We want a diverse group of employees; there's no evil intent," said Mayor Michael Neitzke, who adopted an African-American daughter. "Trying to get qualified applicants to apply is extremely difficult."
But lawyer Henry Hamilton, a Brown Deer resident who serves on the executive committee of the Milwaukee chapter of the NAACP, said suburban departments must address why they get so few African-American applicants.
"I think, in 2009, the old saying that we can't find qualified individuals doesn't get very far," Hamilton said.
The elder Mike Wright, who has worked for the Milwaukee Fire Department for more than 10 years, said he thinks few African-Americans seek suburban firefighting jobs because the Milwaukee area is segregated.
He also said that, for many years, jobs in public safety were not readily available to African-Americans.
"Fire and police have always been one of those havens. It's been a predominantly white male profession," Wright said.
It's possible to discount some other factors that might discourage African-Americans from seeking suburban fire jobs.
The starting salary in seven of the 11 fire departments that serve the Milwaukee County suburbs is higher than Milwaukee's starting salary of $36,167, according to the Journal Sentinel survey.
And most suburban departments don't require firefighters to live within their community's boundaries, although some set certain regional boundaries, the survey found.
The elder Wright and some suburban fire chiefs said that if the suburban departments joined forces to promote firefighting among youths, more African-Americans might seek careers in firefighting. That would make youths more aware that they are being sought by the suburban departments and educate them about the training they would need to get hired, the chiefs said.
The North Shore Fire Department hires about six high school students per year to work in its cadet program and has hired some of them as firefighters, although no hires were African-American.
The department extended the program beyond its boundaries to include Milwaukee's Messmer High School in an attempt to improve diversity. But such a program would be more effective if done on a regional basis and expanded to middle schools to reach students even earlier, North Shore Fire Chief Dave Berousek said.
Redman, the Wauwatosa chief, said the Milwaukee County fire chiefs association has talked about pooling resources for advertising or doing school presentations to promote firefighting.
"We've discussed the need, but we've never put together a work group," he said.
Fire Department survey
The Journal Sentinel surveyed the 11 fire departments that serve Milwaukee County's 18 suburbs. (One department, North Shore, serves seven communities. The village of West Milwaukee, which has a contract with the city of Milwaukee, is the only suburb that does not have its own fire service.)
The newspaper asked each fire department for a racial breakdown of the number of its non-clerical employees. Those employees include firefighters and supervisors, including the fire chief. Some departments said they based their responses on observation of their employees, saying they had no official records identifying employees by race.
The newspaper also asked for a racial breakdown of firefighter applicants since Jan. 1, 2006, but most departments said they do not have records identifying applicants by race.
The newspaper also asked the suburban communities for a racial breakdown of the sworn officers in their police departments. Glendale was the only community that did not provide a breakdown; city officials said the department has employees of various races. | <urn:uuid:6700209c-b4d9-48d1-b3a8-7037f609ba2c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/44647677.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976128 | 1,727 | 1.671875 | 2 |
§ Mr. Gordon Prentice
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what steps is he taking to counter bullying among members of the armed forces.
§ Mr. Soames
My Department takes a very serious view of bullying and it has been made clear throughout the services that such behaviour will not be tolerated.
Measures taken to counter bullying include the publication in July 1994 of the Navy's policy throughout the fleet to remind all ranks that there is an effective policy to deal with bullying. Officers and senior ratings were advised to be alert to the possibility of bullying, and victims were reminded of their rights of complaint.
The Army has banned initiation ceremonies and has established additional posts in its training organisations to allow officers and non-commissioned officers to devote more time to their supervisory role. In 1993, the Army published a discipline and standards paper which included instructions to counter bullying.
The Royal Air Force published a policy letter on bullying and initiation ceremonies in 1989, and similar letters were published in 1992 and 1994. The Royal Air Force produces orders to be read and signed annually by officers and non-commissioned officers which specifically cover bullying. The Royal Air Force's policy on bullying and initiation ceremonies is repeated in quarterly standing orders which all personnel are required to read. | <urn:uuid:a5a563fc-3f0d-419e-901e-8a24122a90a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/written_answers/1995/jan/26/bullying | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979882 | 256 | 1.695313 | 2 |
More companies are turning to temporary and contract workers to meet evolving market demands and quickly scale up their businesses. For job seekers, it's a great way to build relationships with employers and expand their resumes, and is often an in-road into permanent placement with those…Continue
Added by Jill on March 21, 2013 at 12:32pm — No Comments
Everything you need to know about getting a solar energy job is here!
The 5 top types of jobs, the solar companies that are hiring the most, and the solar trade and non-profit associations.
Added by Bernard Ferret on March 12, 2013 at 4:06pm — No Comments
Following the recession in 2009, it has become incredibly challenging for university graduates to find a financial job. However, finance is a crucial part of every organisation and this sector is vast with different types of opportunities. Graduates equipped with appropriate qualification, professional training and specific skills are likely to find desired financial position in the company of their choice.
Many companies also arrange graduate training schemes to expose these new…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on March 11, 2013 at 1:11am — No Comments
In house jobs offer professionals an opportunity for leading a better lifestyle. Decent pay package, predictable working hours, job benefits like health insurance and bonuses; all these together make an in house legal position appealing. There are quite a lot of ways of finding suitable in house legal positions. The most common way considered by most attorneys working for law firms is accepting a job role with one of their clients.
It is also important for you to be familiar with the…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on March 11, 2013 at 12:43am — No Comments
Electrical engineers are involved with design, set up, maintenance and improvement of every type of electronics items. The profession offers vast opportunity for intellectual stimulation. The engineers in order to carry out their work properly have to study technical manuals, publications and other articles. Typical activities that every engineer in this field has to carry out include designing, examining and setting up devices. At the same time they have to write reports and keep track of…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on February 19, 2013 at 12:58am — No Comments
A career as a sales executive involves many challenges. This demanding career is characterised by market fluctuation and cut-throat competition. Many sales executives often yield to anxiety and stress in their pursuit of beating the competition and come out in flying colours. If you wish to embark on a career as a sales executive, you need to be both physically and mentally strong to overcome the challenges and then only, you will get the rewards you deserve. However, approaching the career…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on February 18, 2013 at 5:49am — No Comments
Trained property managers are in demand. They are responsible for maintaining property and fix the amount of rent. They also take charge of the negotiating and impose leases. Maintaining the premises is also the job of property managers.
Qualification is essential. However, to succeed in this job it is important to possess some qualities. You need to remember that the task of property management can be stressful and in those days of gloom, these…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on February 8, 2013 at 1:49am — No Comments
The E-commerce managers are hired to manage the performance of the employees responsible for creating and executing different web systems. The managers are required to develop plans to sell various products and services online. The transactions include both business to business and business to consumer sale. In some cases consumer to consumer needs to be managed also.
Importance of the job role
The managers play an important part in company’s success. They look after…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on February 8, 2013 at 1:09am — No Comments
Recession greatly impacts every form of jobs. Companies allocate tight budget and supervise that the allocated money is fully utilised. Thus, Facilities Management (FM) jobs have undergone dramatic changes. These managers have to perform many more tasks than the traditional managers in this sector. FM sector offers lot of promising career options where growth possibilities are also high. However, only education is not enough for these diverse FM positions.
Needs of FM…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on January 30, 2013 at 4:31am — No Comments
People dream about getting a job in the banking sector. Although there are different banks available, it is not easy to find a job in the banking sector. If you are interested, you need to gather information about making a career in the sector.
A banker needs to perform various tasks. You will have to handle different meetings with different clients. It is the banker who discusses the financial requirement of the clients. They are also expected to provide…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on January 28, 2013 at 2:51am — No Comments
Why is it a good idea to register with a care agency if you want to build a career in the care services? Whether you are new to this field or have considerable experience in this sector, you may find it easier to get appropriate jobs if you register with a care agency. However, this is not the only reason for this. Here are a few reasons that make this a good choice.
Reason 1: The care agency completes the basic screening and background checks: When the family of an elderly…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on January 28, 2013 at 12:40am — No Comments
Okay, so you have recruited just the right candidate. According to his resume his credentials are impeccable. He has all the required skill sets and vital experience in dealing with all the disciplines the job will require. His references provide you with glowing reviews. You have conducted background checks as part of your employment screening process, and your candidate emerges squeaky clean. Nothing that is noteworthy.
Or maybe there is some kid stuff type offenses on…Continue
Added by Gordon Basichis on January 23, 2013 at 7:00am — No Comments
TheGreenJobBank published its list of Top 10 Green Employers of 2012. These employers are companies in multiple sectors of the Green Economy -renewable energy, green automotive, green building, energy efficiency, smart grid, environmental, and sustainability, that have posted the most green jobs online in 2012.
TheGreenJobBank indexes green jobs from websites of green employerse, green recruiters, green non-profit organizations, green trade associations, and green job boards. Its…Continue
Added by Bernard Ferret on January 15, 2013 at 10:30pm — No Comments
Added by Amanda Ashworth on January 10, 2013 at 8:26am — No Comments
In last decade IT market has experienced rapid growth since companies realise implementation of IT systems can offer competitive advantage. This eventually leads to increased turnover and better customer services. There is thus a steady growth of demand for IT specialists. Evolved technology has improved the…Continue
Added by Daniel Smith on January 4, 2013 at 8:12am — No Comments
Most of the off shore jobs are available in the oil and gas industry. People want to go for offshore jobs because of the high pay package and other facilities. Working offshore can be a great challenge if you are not adoptable. It has its own disadvantages. However, the rewards are good enough to overlook the negative aspects of offshore jobs.
Let’s have a look at the different types of offshore jobs that you can apply for.
Added by Daniel Smith on January 4, 2013 at 8:00am — No Comments
When you are looking for a job in today's job market, the key is to know the right people. Experts all over television, career websites, radio, and online media all point to your network of associates as playing the vital role of landing your next position.
However, at the same time, how many people actually know any sales recruiters? It's not as if you meet them at the local coffee shop and hand over your resume. With online tools, websites, career boards, and social…Continue
Added by Or Hillel on January 2, 2013 at 8:21am — No Comments
Earlier today, I read an article about the top job search mistake: looking for a new job from your current one. While it's a little over the top to contact recruiters and submit resumes using your current workplace email address or phone number, I disagree to some extent with the alarmist assertion that "once the boss knows you are thinking about leaving, they might just show you the door first." While this…Continue
Added by Kerry Skemp on December 12, 2012 at 1:29pm — No Comments
State of the Economy
The economy is a dichotomy that as soon as you think you have it figured out, the projections you felt were safe get thrown upside down. I've been in the staffing industry for 14 years and recently decided to add up how many of those years have been recessionary and I came up with nine to ten. The trends seem to indicate that the economy is improving at a tangible pace. For instance, Dice just released a statistic last week of…Continue
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The first couple episodes of American Idol are riddled with contestants who are not very good singers. Similarly to many poor performers in the workplace, no one has ever given these contestants feedback that reflects their poor singing ability. In fact many of them walk away BMW (bellyaching, moaning, and whining) driving about the judges inability to recognize talent when they see it.
For years, I had the chance to be the victim of leaders passing on their performance issues because they lacked the courage to share the areas where they needed to improve. What’s worse is that people actually tell them the opposite. In the case of the American Idol contestant many of them say, “everyone tells me I can sing”. Their parents even speak of how they’ve “been singing since they were 2 years old”. Their parents didn’t bother to say that all that effort didn’t result in good singing. But before we judge, we as leaders do the same thing when we give a person an “achieves” performance rating and fail to share his/ her developmental areas when he or she is under performing.
And in those situations, most people start to compare themselves to a measure of performance that isn’t accurate. In turn, these same people start to think more highly of themselves than they ought. The result? Someone somewhere will crush their world into oblivion when they (in the words of Randy Jackson) say, “that was terrible, dawg.” Nice? Not so much.
Are you a Reality-Based Leader? Take the assessment and find out. | <urn:uuid:d7cdc407-137a-4c83-b352-1ebb49e5bb48> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.forbes.com/sites/cywakeman/2013/01/18/american-idols-leadership-lessons/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00027-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973714 | 332 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Monday, May 2, 2011
First published in 1912, this is a modern version of "Cinderella", told in the form of letters. It is the love-story of an orphan and her unknown benefactor, written and illustrated by the great-niece of Mark Twain.
This was a wonderful book! I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone! It was recommended to me a few years ago, and I could kick myself for taking so long to read it. But I was in between kindle books and this is available as a free download, so I decided to give it a go. I'm so glad I did, for the story warmed my heart and I fell in love with its captivating heroine and budding author Jerusha Abbott.
Jerusha grew up in an orphanage. Now, at the age of eighteen, an anonymous benefactor, who is one of the orphanage's board members, chooses to send her to college after reading a sample of one of her essays. Convinced she has talent, he pays for all her schooling, wardrobe and expenses for all four years. The only condition is she must write him once a month to let him know how she is doing and what she is up to.
Jerusha is flabbergasted and grateful for the chance to go to college and enthusiastically pours her heart into the letters. She doesn't just write one a month, she writes dozens! She nicknames her benefactor "Daddy Long Legs" because she once got a glimpse of his shadow that elongated his figure - hence the name. Jerusha is a darling. Her love for life is inspiring and she does indeed have a flair with pen and ink. Her one disappointment is that no matter how many letters she writes to "Dear Daddy Long Legs" he never writes back. It's a completely one sided relationship! Jerusha goes through a mix of emotions towards him over the course of her four years. At times she sad, curious and often miffed, but always deeply grateful that he has given her the opportunity to leave the orphanage and learn all the many different things college life can offer.
In Jerusha's (or Judy's as she begins to call herself) letters we discover the friends she's making at school. Her closest friends are her roommates and one particularly snobbish young woman from New York City. Miss Snob has a youngish and very rich uncle who comes to visit the college from time to time and he and Judy become friends. Coincidentally, they meet again when he visits the farm that Daddy Long Legs has arranged for Judy to stay at for the summer break. It turns out the uncle grew up there in the summers. All the while, Judy continues to faithfully write her letters, more than just once a month. She is prolific! She's probably written hundreds of letters - all with no response (except from her benefactor's secretary, who is the only contact Judy has ever known.)
Eventually, Judy's college time comes to an end and she has to make a decision with her life. What is she to do? She's falling in love with the rich uncle! He says he loves her too, but they come from different worlds and they quarrel and now she's afraid and confused over all of it. What should she do? She writes a desperate letter of help to Daddy Long Legs, asking for his advice. He writes her back. Finally after all these years. He requests that she comes to New York to see him so they can talk.
Guess what happens when they meet?
Great, great book! A happy ending that will bring tears to your eyes. *sigh* I simply loved it! If I had read this book when I was a young teen I'd have considered it one of my favorites! You know what? Now that I'm older and (supposedly) wiser with a somewhat sophisticated eye on the world - I'd still consider it a favorite! Do yourself a favor, get it, read it and enjoy! Quick read, I read it in less than a day - pure pleasure!
Written in 1912, this is just as endearing today as I'm sure it was when it was first written. Loved it!
P.S. Coincidentally enough, I saw the 1950's movie with Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron years ago. They changed the plot a bit and transformed Jerusha into a French orphan who goes to college in America. They changed her name to Julie, and made her last name Andre instead of Abbott. I always got a kick out of it because I have the same name - or rather, I did before I got married. In several parts of the movie they're always calling her name out loud, "Julie Andre! Julie Andre!" It sounded so funny to hear my name over and over again in a movie! A bit of trivia, but big stuff for a thirteen year old! | <urn:uuid:0e604725-d8fc-4e4b-8be5-23e9c8f2cf4c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ktleyed.blogspot.com/2011/05/daddy-long-legs-by-jean-webster.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982022 | 1,007 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Indonesia policy lacks focus: Keating
It's imperative Australia enhances its relationship with Indonesia and shows it can set its own path without kowtowing to the United States, former prime minister Paul Keating says.
In the 2012 Keith Murdoch Oration at the Victorian State Library, Mr Keating said Australia's policy towards its biggest neighbour lacked framework, judgments of magnitude and coherence.
"In recent years, our relations with countries like Indonesia and Malaysia have been focused on transactional issues of marginal long-term significance. Refugee management and live cattle exports come to mind," Mr Keating said.
In the speech entitled "Asia in the new order: Australia's diminishing sphere of influence", he described Indonesia as the place where Australia's strategic bread is buttered.
"No country is more important to us and it is a country which has shown enormous tolerance and goodwill towards us," Mr Keating said.
"Focus on this country should be a major imperative driving our foreign policy."
But he said Asia saw Australia as a client of the United States which tended to fall in with its foreign policy.
When US President Barack Obama visited Australia last year, he delivered an oral and policy assault on China "from the lower chamber of our Parliament House", Mr Keating said.
"This brought immediate pangs of disquiet from the Indonesian foreign minister and later from his president," he said.
Countries like Indonesia were dubious of Australia because they didn't see us making our way in the world, or their world, without deferring to other powers, especially the US.
Australia had to be propelled not by its regard of withering associations "but by our enlightened sense of self", Mr Keating said.
"Knowing who we are and what we are and what we want," he said.
"And not only what we want, having a solid idea about how we get it."
While Australia would always have a close relationship with the US, it was obvious that it had to play an integral role in its own region for sake of its security.
"Not to measure up to this challenge would be to run the risk of being seen as a derivative power, perpetually in search of a strategic guarantor, a Western outpost, seemingly unable to confidently make its own way in the world," Mr Keating said.
His speech comes in the wake of the release last month of the Gillard government's white paper which set out a policy blueprint for the Asian century.
The government has set a number of goals including giving every student the opportunity to learn an Asian language and increasing trade with Asia from one quarter to one third of national gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025.
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Franken UIPosted: January 9, 2012
It always starts innocently enough…
I am currently working on the 2D UI aspects of BanateCAD. What you see in this picture is a dreamed up visualization of a star cluster network topology. Just IP addresses inside 2D ellipse shapes. It’s nifty because you can in fact select any font you want, and any size. Here I am using the “Quartz” font that is on my Windows system. You can certainly alter the stroke color, size of ellipse and all that. It’s just handy to know you can do rendering.
And here’s more text, showing more fonts:
And one more, showing the ability to align text in multiple ways:
I find that all visualizations, and UI frameworks, start with these basics. You need to be able to draw text, or you can’t really convey a lot. They are the basis for labels, buttons, and the like. So, getting some good text rendering, with alignment and all that, is critical.
Similarly, the mundane sunken/raised rectangle has been a staple of UI programming for quite some time.
You can rely on the GUIStyle object to render rectangles in the manner in which you feel is appropriate for your system. This saves you a lot of headache in trying to render them properly yourself.
And the Rectangle class takes care of things like intersection, and union of rectangles. This is nice for knowing when a mouse point is within a bounding rectangle, or when you want to expand a boundary to accomodate new graphics that have been added to a group.
The next thing that is needed is a sense of hierarchy or grouping. Then some sort of actions. I need to be able to flow the keyboard and mouse activities through the system, and have functions occur based on those activities. Pretty straight forward. So, I am introducing a “Graphic” object, that will deal with all that. Then there’s layout management. After all then then the UI is usable, and can be thrown in front of the 3D rendering!
The trick to all of this is to do it in such a way that is minimal, yet highly functional. I am constantly trying to remove code, consolidate, re-factor. To that end, I’ve gone through some major reconstruction of the BanateCAD release files. Everything lands in a proper directory, and only the primary application files are at the top level. This has helped to straighten some dependencies out, and make the release a bit cleaner.
There is not a new release as yet, as I am still going through the various examples, cleaning things up, and fixing what I broke. But, the next release will be substantially more robust in the UI and animation departments, which might be interesting to some designers. | <urn:uuid:b4c36614-aedf-4f0b-b7b7-8207cc4b907a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://williamaadams.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/franken-ui/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941735 | 604 | 1.84375 | 2 |
SIKAKAP, Indonesia - Indonesian police say they have picked up 43 starving, dehydrated people who were adrift in a boat for nine days after their engine broke down while fleeing Sri Lanka in hopes of reaching Australia.
Police Capt. Abdurachman Suryanegara in the Western Indonesian town of Sikakap says fishermen discovered the stricken boat off Mentawai island off Sumatra and towed it ashore on Friday.
He says the passengers include four women and three children. Their engine broke down nine days earlier, and they had run out of food and water.
They told investigators they were fleeing violence in Sri Lanka and hoping to seek asylum in Australia.
Indonesia has become a major transit point for people fleeing war-torn countries like Afghanistan, Iraq and Sri Lanka. | <urn:uuid:31c1080b-98e5-40de-aa6a-0bb48fdde38f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/indonesia-rescues-43-sri-lankans-adrift-9-days-112158975.html?_esi=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960538 | 162 | 1.601563 | 2 |
An example of the kind of small shop that might fit into a residential area were presented to Lincoln City Council.Lincoln City City Councilors Monday night were given a first glimpse at what it would look like if Lincoln City allowed some minor commercial operations to set up shop within existing or newly constructed neighborhoods. Councilors were, at first, a bit squeamish about it but Senior Planner Debra Martzhan and Community Development Director Richard Townsend pressed on. They told the council that traditional American neighborhoods used to have such commercial establishments that ranged from grocery stores to meat markets, hardware stores to fix it shops. Services that everyone could walk to. Services where neighbors could greet each other, talk, share the day’s events and be real neighbors.
Martzhan and Townsend reminded the council that the baby boomers are getting up in years and even they would tell you that it’s easier to go down the street and pick up a gallon of milk than having to drive clear across town. Offering neighborhood commercial opportunities would reduce traffic on arterials and connector streets. Less wear and tear on local roads and folks not having to spend so much on gas. READ THE REST at NewsLincolnCounty.com
Oregonian News Network
The Oregonian News Network links to stories on partner blogs and independent news sites. | <urn:uuid:74e861eb-fb31-40b7-963a-afa1c60600d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oregonlive.com/news-network/index.ssf/2012/04/lincoln_city_considers_allowin.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963327 | 268 | 1.625 | 2 |
Unfunded Mandates and 'Uncontrollables'
by Gail Robinson
May 30, 2005
When school authorities in Cobb County, Georgia, suggested assigning Deena Chachkes to a classroom with 10 other children, her parents balked. They reasoned that even a small class was too large for Deena, then three, who has autism. "You might just as well have had committed her, at that point, to some long-term facility," her father told NBC.
Researching alternatives, Jacob and Bonnie Chachkes found the McCarton School on Manhattan's East Side. It has one teacher for every child and offers a variety of highly regarded therapies. So eager was the family to place Deena there that they moved to New York. But they still needed to cover the $80,000 a year tuition. And so the Chachkes demanded that the City of New York pay, citing a federal law requiring that all students receive a free education appropriate to their needs and abilities. According to the Chachkes, the courts ruled that the city Department of Education must reimburse them for their daughter's tuition.
The Chachkes framed their experiences to demonstrate that parents with disabled kids have to fight for their children. But some observers, including many in city government, might find a different moral in Deena's story. To them, it indicates how laws passed by the federal government and then interpreted by the courts create huge expenses for state and local governments. Often the federal government provides little or no funding to help cities and counties meet their new responsibilities.
New York politicians have long complained that much of the city's budget and many programs are determined not in City Hall but in Washington, in Albany and in courtrooms. They call them unfunded mandates, or nondiscretionary spending, or uncontrollables, and they say that these expenses restrict local government's ability to create its own programs or to cut taxes.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is the just the latest public official in the city to complain. In his recently-released executive budget, Bloomberg cited what he called nondiscretionary spending totaling $21.5 billion in the coming fiscal year, or nearly half the budget. These are costs, he implied, over which he has no control.
But others say that the mayor and other public officials have far more control over these expenditures than they would like you to believe.
DEMOCRACY BY DECREE?Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani used to complain that so-called unfunded mandates were, in effect, undemocratic. "Some of it you would make the political choice to do in the way in which you're mandated to do it, and some of it you'd probably choose [to do] very, very differently," he told CNN in 1994. "So probably 25 to 30 percent of your budget is moving in a direction where, if you had the decision-making at the local level, you'd make the decision not to spend the money that way."
But others see it differently. Efforts to limit unfunded mandates "strike at the very heart of the body of laws that binds us together as a progressive society and with the highest standard of living in the world," Representative George Miller of California told Congress in 1995.
Many of the unfunded mandates begin with a federal law, says David Schoenbrod , a professor at New York School of Law who has written extensively on the subject. Then, a government agency issues regulations to enforce that law. Finally, federal judges issue consent decrees setting a range of requirements on what local government must do to adhere to those regulations. While these are supposedly negotiated between plaintiffs and local government, the plaintiff's lawyers usually have the upper hand.
"Every recent New York mayor has discovered that his ability to change city policy is sharply curtailed by such judicial decrees. Every mayor has damned decrees for restricting choice, distorting priorities, and frustrating reform. But every mayor … has authorized the city to consent to more of them," Schoenbrod and Ross Sandler, a former New York City transportation commissioner, wrote in City Journal in 1994. The mayors agree to the decrees in order to end the legal battle, implement policies that they may support and "transform themselves from lawbreakers into law implementers."
But the decrees never end, says Schoenbrod who, with Sandler wrote a book entitled Democracy by Decree: What Happens When Courts Run Government. A decree arising out of a case filed in 1975 governs aspects of special education in the city. Court cases from the 1970s and 1980s oversee the city's treatment of the homeless.
REALLY OUT OF CONTROL?The Citizen's Budget Commission recently published a report entitled "The Myth of the Uncontrollables," (.pdf format) that argues that mayors may not be as powerless as they claim. "These are large, large items," said Elizabeth Lynam, deputy research director of the Citizens Budget Commission, "and the city should be pounding on the bully pulpit and saying we're not going to tolerate it. In many cases, the city itself made decisions that led to some of these expenses.
Here are some of the categories of spending that city officials have said are beyond the control of city government, and the ways in which, some fiscal monitors say, they can be brought under greater control:
Medicaid, a federal program to provide health insurance for the poor, is jointly funded by Washington and the states and has become "the poster child for unfunded mandates," said Lynam. It ranks high on the mayor's list of nondiscretionary items.
Unlike many states, New York requires local governments to shoulder a substantial share of the state portion of Medicaid costs -- about 18 percent for New York City according to a 2003 report (.pdf format) by the Independent Budget Office. To make the budget situation worse, Washington gives states a great deal of latitude in determining what services to provide under Medicaid. Albany has been very generous, making New York's program the most expensive in the country, the IBO report says.
Bloomberg estimates the city will spend $4.9 billion for Medicaid next year and $5.3 billion by 2009.
Local officials from throughout New York State have sought to have Albany pay more of the Medicaid costs. But with the state facing its own budget woes, a major shift seems unlikely. "Merely redistributing the burden is not enough," Governor George Pataki said in his 2005 budget address. "The state can no more afford to pay for the current and future costs of Medicaid than counties can."
Instead, Pataki made several proposals, generally described as modest, to cut spending and bring in revenue. These include putting a cap on local Medicaid spending, cutting some reimbursement rates to hospitals and nursing homes, and raising their taxes.
The legislature has rejected some of these measures in the past, according to the Albany Times Union. This year, the union representing health care workers has campaigned against the changes, saying they threaten "our frail elderly, our millions of uninsured New Yorkers, and our sick and injured children" and would damage large academic medical centers, which the union calls "the crown jewels of New York's healthcare system."
But in "The Myth of the Uncontrollables," the Citizens Budget Commission recommends further cuts, including reducing payments to hospitals and nursing homes, greater use of managed care, and limiting the number of hours a patient can receive service from a home health care attendant. The city and state should work together, Lynam said, to stem "the flow of benefits to middle and upper middle class people in the state" while preserving help for the poor.
The Safe Drinking Water Act
To comply with the federal law to insure Americans have clean, healthy water, New York City must build a plant to filter drinking water from its Croton Reservoir system. The city Department of Environmental Protection's 10-year capital plan issued in 2003 includes about $1.5 billion for the facility. Some of this money will be financed through the sale of bonds, some from increases in water and sewage fees, according to the Independent Budget Office.
For now, Washington has let the rest of the city's drinking water remain unfiltered. But if the reservoirs were to become polluted, the federal government could require additional filtration plants costing $6 billion.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
Speaking to a presidential commission in 2002, then New York Schools Chancellor Harold Levy complained of what he saw as excesses in federal rules intended to insure disabled kids get a good education. Affluent parents get the city to pay for expensive private schooling and drain "resources that are critically needed for the system," he said. "You cannot give one kid the Cadillac and the others the back of the bus."
But not all students use the laws to win expensive educations. And advocates say the laws, regulations and courts are needed to insure that the city does not neglect students who need extra help.
They could point to another autistic child, identified as A.J in court papers (.pdf format) filed by Advocates for Children. His individual education plan - a document required for all special education students - called for him to be in a regular classroom. But in fall 2002, his Brooklyn elementary school removed A.J. from all his classes and kept him alone in a room with only an aide for instruction and company. He was allowed to return to his regular class only after Advocates for Children instituted a hearing for A.J. and his guardian.
According to one estimate, the city spends $2.7 billion a year on special education. While much of the money goes to services within public schools, the Department of Education will also pay for about 6,200 kids to attend specialized private schools this year.
Despite federal law and court rulings, the city may have more options than is often claimed, Lynam said. "Once a kid is in special ed, there is a mandate, but the city has a large degree of control over whether a kid gets into special ed," she said. In the past, the Citizens Budget Commission has urged the city to take steps to provide needed services to kids while not classifying them as special education students - a designation that sets off a chain of rules and requirements.
Employee Related Expenses
Pensions, health insurance and other fringe benefits for city employees and retirees continue to rise.
Bloomberg has budgeted $9.6 billion for these items in 2006 and expects them to increase by another $1 billion by 2009.
In some respects, the city has tied its own hands here. In negotiations with its unions, it agreed to various benefits that it must now honor.
But Albany has played a role too. For example, it passed a law giving retired public employees cost of living increases in their city pensions. This will cost the city $820 million a year by 2010, according to Doug Turetsky of the Independent Budget Office. And the state constitution requires that current workers receive the pension plan now in effect.
But nothing stops the city from trying to persuade the legislature to adopt a new plan for future employees, the Citizen Budget Commission says. It recommends that the city switch from its plan that guarantees a benefit to a "defined contribution plan," where employers and employees put in a set amount that is then invested for use upon retirement. This type of plan is now favored by the vast majority of private businesses. The city could also end its unusual practice of letting overtime pay count toward pensions.
Like most employers, the city is seeing the cost of providing health insurance to employees rise. While some of that is unavoidable - a product of the overall health care situation in the country -- the Citizens Budget Commission notes that the city is more generous with health insurance than many employers. For example, it says, city employees and retirees, unlike most other workers, do not contribute to the costs of their health insurance. This could be changed in future agreement with municipal employee unions.
The money New York must now pay to service its debt was originally very much under the city's control -- citizens wanted schools, roads and other capital projects and the city borrowed money to pay for them. But now the city has to pay back the loans - with interest. This will cost $4.3 billion and climb to $5.8 billion in 2009 - an increase of more than 36 percent, the city says. "Every dollar spent on debt service is a dollar that you don't spend on the day-to-day expenses of the city," Douglas Offerman of the Citizens Budget Commission has said.
Some budget advocates recommend cutting debt service in the future by building projects more efficiently or by switching some capital items to the operating budget. In its report, the Citizens Budget Commission calls for spending some of the city's current $3 billion surplus to pay off debt.
FEDERAL EFFORTS TO CURB UNFUNDED MANDATES
Any major change in unfunded mandates facing New York and other cities would have to come from Washington.
And so in the 1990s while Giuliani complained about unfunded mandates in New York, Republicans made unfunded mandates and the court orders a linchpin of their Contract with America.
"Americans do not want Washington, D.C. running schools, college, law enforcement, city parks and most roads," Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, a staunch opponent of unfunded mandates, said. "Put too may one-size-fits-all jackets on Americans, and this country will explode."
In response to such concerns, in 1994, Congress passed and President Bill Clinton signed the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. It required that congressional committees estimate the costs their actions would place on state and local government and private companies. If the expense was estimated to be above $50 million a year ($100 million for companies), a majority of Congress had to agree the benefit was worth the cost. The law did not eliminate any existing requirements; it merely restricted Congress' ability to create new ones. And it does not bar Congress from cutting funding to finance existing programs, leaving the state to pick up the slack.
Despite the limitations, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that the number of bills containing mandates that would be covered under the law decreased by more than a third between 1996 and 2002. The measure has "fundamentally changed the relationship" between the national government on one hand and state and local government on the other, one of its sponsors, Dirk Kempthorne, now the governor of Idaho, said on the law's 10th anniversary.
But others are less effusive. The law "is a step in the right direction, but still quite a limited one," Pietro Nivola of the Brookings Institution has written.
To tighten the law, Congress recently approved a report requiring a 60-vote majority in the Senate to approve an unfunded mandate. Until then, a simple majority was enough.
Alexander has proposed the Federal Consent Decree Fairness Act aimed at the courts. Other have suggested that the federal government adopt a law saying no government could pass a law requiring a lower level of government to pay for a program without compensating them. This would apply to Albany as well as Washington.
THE LATEST BATTLESSince the Republicans gained the White House and Congress, the battle lines over unfunded mandates have shifted. This is glaringly apparent in the debate over President Bush's sweeping education law, No Child Left Behind. A suit recently brought by the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, challenges the law as an unfunded mandate. The union says Congress promised states $122 billion over four years to implement the law's increased testing and teacher certification requirements, but only delivered $95 billion. Connecticut and some local school districts have filed similar suits. (New York has not been involved in these actions.)
But Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation and some other conservatives counter that the education law is not an unfunded mandate because states do not have to comply with it - if they are willing to give up millions in federal education money.
As politicians seek to limit unfunded mandates, new ones loom on the horizon. Congress recently passed a law requiring people applying for driver's licenses to show more identification. It will also bar undocumented immigrants from getting driver's licenses. Some critics see this as yet another unfunded mandate - creating headaches, increasing bureaucracy and costing the states $750 million.
And if it is upheld on appeal, the court ruling that the New York City schools receive an additional $5.7 billion in city and state funds could turn out to be one of the biggest unfunded mandates of them all.
For more information
NEW YORK CITY
The 2006 New York City Budget
Caution: Budget Pitfalls Ahead
What Can Any Mayor Really Do?
Analysis of the Mayor's Executive Budget for 2006 (.pdf format)
(Independent Budget Office)
The Myth of the Uncontrollables (.pdf format)
(Citizens Budget Commission)
A report on four areas of spending often viewed as beyond a mayor's control and what the city can do about them.
Setting Higher Standards For Special Education In New York City (.pdf format)
(Citizens Budget Commission)
A Short Guide to Special Education
(Advocates for Children)
Taming New York's Medicaid Beast
Democracy by Decree
by David Schoenbrod and Ross Sandler. How the courts control public policy.
Fiscal Millstones on the Cities: Revisiting the Problem of Federal
(The Brookings Institution)
A look at how the Unfunded mandates Reform Act has worked and what other measures could be taken.
The Head Ignores the Feet
The Bush administration seems indifferent to the budget crisis in the states.
States Get Stuck With $29 Billion Bill
(National Conference of State Legislatures)
How the unfunded mandates add up.
The Supreme Court, Democracy And Institutional Reform Litigation (.pdf format) by Ross Sandler and David
(New York Law School Law Review)
A discussion of efforts to limit court decrees.
Those Unfunded Mandates by David Broder
The 10th anniversary of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act
What Unfunded Mandates? by
A fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation argues that the state's budget woes should be blamed on the states"
(General Accounting Office)
A report by this federal agency on the effects of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act
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Visit the complete "" Archives | <urn:uuid:7a011a20-e658-4fb6-a4e4-612049b5af91> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://old.gothamgazette.com/article/20050530/200/1430 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956991 | 3,796 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Lest We Forget: Why We Had A Financial Crisis
Forbes, 22 November 2011
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this infallible sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
It is clear to anyone who has studied the financial crisis of 2008 that the private sector’s drive for short-term profit was behind it. More than 84 percent of the sub-prime mortgages in 2006 were issued by private lending. These private firms made nearly 83 percent of the subprime loans to low- and moderate-income borrowers that year. Out of the top 25 subprime lenders in 2006, only one was subject to the usual mortgage laws and regulations. The nonbank underwriters made more than 12 million subprime mortgages with a value of nearly $2 trillion. The lenders who made these were exempt from federal regulations.
It was not the banks that created the mortgage crisis. It was, plain and simple, Congress who forced everybody to go and give mortgages to people who were on the cusp. Now, I’m not saying I’m sure that was terrible policy, because a lot of those people who got homes still have them and they wouldn’t have gotten them without that. But they were the ones who pushed Fannie and Freddie to make a bunch of loans that were imprudent, if you will. They were the ones that pushed the banks to loan to everybody. And now we want to go vilify the banks because it’s one target, it’s easy to blame them and Congress certainly isn’t going to blame themselves.”
Barry Ritholtz in the Washington Post calls the notion that the US Congress was behind the financial crisis of 2008 “the Big Lie”. As we have seen in other contexts, if a lie is big enough, people begin to believe it.
Full Story Below the Line with BLOCKBUSTER Itemization | <urn:uuid:4c185abc-da26-48c7-b922-b54173f97bcb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.phibetaiota.net/category/journal/training/corporations/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00029-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980914 | 406 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Florida State University Sports Medicine Department strives to provide the intercollegiate student-athletes with the utmost quality health care. In doing so, the Sports Medicine staff is devoted to the care, prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation of injuries and illnesses while maximizing athletic performance. The Sports Medicine Department is dedicated to providing the FSU student-athletes with the latest in sports medicine research and technology, and to create an environment that promotes the total wellness of the student, the athlete, and the person.
The Sports Medicine Department
The Sports Medicine Department is a team of health care professionals including numerous team physicians and certified athletic trainers. Athletic trainers are health care professionals who collaborate with physicians to optimize activity and participation of athletes/patients/clients. Athletic training encompasses the prevention, diagnosis, intervention, and rehabilitation of emergency, acute, and chronic medical conditions. The Florida State University Sports Medicine staff is comprised of (1) Director of Sports Medicine, (3) Associate Directors of Sports Medicine, (7) Assistant Athletic Trainers, (1) Insurance Coordinator, and (9) Graduate Assistant Athletic Trainers, along with some of the top physicians in the region with various specialities. The Sports Medicine Department also works with the Athletic Training Education Program as clinicial sites for their athletic training students, which is approximately 40-50 athletic training students at a time. | <urn:uuid:1903e4e7-ab52-4701-b369-da7e585eae9b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fsusportsmedicine.com/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00034-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937112 | 274 | 1.625 | 2 |
While a smaller percentage of SUNY Oswego graduates got full-time jobs as they entered a sputtering job market, the average salary of those who did get jobs continued to rise, according to the latest survey from the Office of Career Services.
The new “Beyond Oswego” report found 83 percent of 2003 graduates either working in full-time jobs or pursuing graduate degrees. Sixty-five percent were employed full time, down from 76 percent the previous year.
But the average first salaries of these employees edged up several hundred dollars to $31,134, largely on the strength of paychecks available in computer and information science and other science-related fields, in jobs from software engineer to research scientist to high school biology teacher.
Teaching salaries remained strong, and education majors as a group took the lead over business majors for highest average salary at $32,358. Ninety-one percent of employed education graduates got their jobs in New York.
The largest share of all employed graduates in the survey, 43 percent, found work right here in Central New York. Seventeen percent went out of state, and 15 percent headed downstate for their first post-college jobs.
The percentage of graduates choosing to attend graduate school rather than enter the work force full time shot up from 12 percent for 2002 graduates to 18 percent for 2003 graduates. “When the job market is depressed, more people tend to go to graduate school,” said Robert Casper, director of career services.
Graduate school was especially popular with students majoring in arts and sciences fields and in education. Only 4 percent of business majors went immediately on to graduate school.
Several science majors entered doctoral programs, from the University of Maryland at College Park to Montana State University. Several history and political science majors chose law school, from Syracuse to California. Other universities enrolling Oswego’s graduates included Columbia, Fordham, Hofstra, Penn State and Rochester Institute of Technology.
Among the graduates reporting the highest salaries were a technical support analyst for Merrill Lynch ($98,000), a professional services director in Charleston, S.C. ($90,000), a global sourcing commodities leader at General Electric ($77,000) and a senior strategic account manager in New York City and a BOCES building coordinator (both $70,000).
At the other end of the spectrum were teachers’ aides and assistants, an office assistant, customer service workers, animal keepers and caretakers, and a radio reporter, all under $20,000.
Casper said the 74 percent response rate for the survey resulted in part from the ability to entice the last respondents with a token reward, an alumni keychain, thanks to support from Auxiliary Services.
- END -
PHOTO CAPTION: Checking careers—Barbara Cohn, left, a junior marketing major at SUNY Oswego, and Amanda Polun, a sophomore marketing and Spanish major, speak to Heather Berg, a recruiting supervisor with Enterprise Rent-a-Car, at the college’s recent Fall Career Fair. The latest survey of SUNY Oswego graduates indicates jobs are less plentiful.
(Posted: Nov 03, 2004) | <urn:uuid:d282b18a-7dee-4455-9870-ca85481e25a2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.oswego.edu/news/index.php/site/news_archive/career_numbers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949851 | 657 | 1.59375 | 2 |
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
September 20, 1991 |
"It's like graffiti," said Sister Diane Donoghue, casting a disgusted look at the old tires, wine bottles and beer cans in the South Los Angeles lot. "You just can't let it sit there." So, on Saturday, Sept. 28, Sister Diane and residents of the working-class neighborhood southeast of downtown will clean up the big lot at 28th Street and Maple Avenue and remove the graffiti from the walls of an adjacent home. Extra help will come from members of the California Conservation Corps. | <urn:uuid:350b5b0b-fe6f-430f-aeb8-b781e0f9dfd1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/esperanza-organization | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955075 | 118 | 1.75 | 2 |
I’m not sure if it’s a state wide, district wide or just this school where all 5th graders do a “State Report”. They collect research, data and illustrations on one of US states for compilation into a handmade book. They are allowed to use any resources before refining as a finished product for grade.
My job today as a roving sub ended in a 5th grade class where one student was designing, in pencil, the title and illustrations for the front cover of his book. I noticed an error and being a helpful substitute teacher that I am, suggested that he recheck the spelling of “Noth Dakota”.
I’m almost positive he was kidding when he showed me the corrected title: “Moth Dakota” | <urn:uuid:d55da65c-9756-4a8f-b065-f3ff84837c22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kauaimark.blogspot.com/2011/02/moth-dakota.html?showComment=1297426796020 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967941 | 164 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Tampa, Florida -- Hockey sticks, golf clubs, and even small knives. They've been banned from planes for years, but a new TSA policy will change all of that.
This is the biggest carry-on luggage change since we had to start limiting our liquids seven years ago.
Effective April 25th, some folding pocketknives will be okay to carry on a plane.
You'll also be allowed to bring most sticks used for sports, like golf clubs, ski poles, and hockey sticks through security checkpoints at Tampa International Airport and other airports.
Here is what will now be allowed, as of April 25th:
Folding knives without a molded grip and with blades that don't lock -- that are less than six centimeters, or about 2 1/3 inches, long.
The Transportation Security Administration says this change will give its staff time to focus on real hijacking threats, things like explosives, instead of seizing -- for example -- 47 pocket knives a day at Los Angeles International Airport alone.
Here's the TSA's argument: They say hardened cockpit doors have been installed since the 9/11 attacks. Plus, passengers and crews are much more motivated since 9/11.
So, essentially, it's unrealistic that terrorists with small knives could take over a plane. The people on board wouldn't surrender to those attackers, and even then, they couldn't reach the cockpit.
A coalition of unions representing flight attendants calls the move "poor and short-sighted."
The head of the union for Southwest Airlines' flight attendants says they agree golf clubs and small knives are less of a threat to the pilots, but they are real threats to passengers and flight attendants in the cabin.
One item that's still banned are box cutters or utility knives with razor blades.
The TSA says there's still "an emotional attachment" to banning those items, since it was widely reported that's what was used in the September 11th attacks.
However, the 9/11 Commission found the terrorists almost certainly used more traditional pocket knives and did not carry boxcutters.
See more details on what will be allowed and what will still be outlawed form our partners at USA Today.
Grayson Kamm, 10 News | <urn:uuid:447b07bd-1603-4b79-bf86-fe5cde9348d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtsp.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=302463 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962784 | 452 | 1.570313 | 2 |
South Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that will attempt to further crack down on illegal immigration in our state. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to consider a bill that will allow police to check the immigration status of someone suspected of being in the country illegally. These questions could come after a suspect is stopped for a number of other, unrelated reasons. Opponents of the proposed bill are calling it discriminatory.
The proposal resembles a measure passed in Arizona last year that resulted in a flurry of lawsuits in that state. Republicans in both the House and Senate are calling the measure a priority. It would expand the state’s 2008 law that required businesses to check their employees’ legal status. Many believe that South Carolina does not need a new immigration law that would cost millions to implement due to the fact that a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center says the number of illegal immigrants in South Carolina has dropped more than 20 percent over the past 3 years.
Miller|Conway is a Goose Creek law firm that understands how immigration issues impact both businesses and families. If you or someone you know might be faced with an immigration law issue then please do not hesitate to contact the attorneys at Miller|Conway. | <urn:uuid:fe4d3f8d-1778-46d9-a0bc-1a7851aabba9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://millerconwaylaw.com/stop-and-chat-a-new-law-affecting-immigration-status/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962032 | 240 | 1.742188 | 2 |
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Abu-Jamal must be sentenced to life in prison or get a chance with a new Philadelphia jury, which would decide only whether he should get life in prison or be sentenced - again - to death.
The judges left intact his first-degree murder conviction, rejecting Abu-Jamal's claim that he deserves an entirely new trial and a chance to prove his innocence..." (source)
I know this is a world-wide known case and Mumia has become a Cause-Celeb in many countries, but I'm not sure people that aren't here in Philly realize how personal it seems to us. We have been living with this case and its implications for over 20 years. It's been talked about for as long as I can remember...literally.
"... Other Abu-Jamal supporters were unhappy with the ruling. They said rallies were being planned for as early as tomorrow outside federal courthouses in Philadelphia, New York and San Francisco.
"This was no victory, in any sense of the word," said Pam Africa, a member of the radical group MOVE.
"Today's decision is a travesty of justice," said Jeff Mackler, of Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. He said he had been hoping that the Third Circuit would order an entirely new trial based on the claim about racial discrimination in jury selection.
Mackler said he anticipates worldwide reaction to the disappointing decision. "Tomorrow is just an initial reaction," he said.
An appeal is virtually certain." (source)
"...Jamal's supporters claim that prosecutor Joe McGill and Judge Albert Sabo conspired to "racially stack" the jury that convicted Jamal, in violation of his civil rights. Some supporters have gone so far as to claim that there was only one black juror at Jamal's original trial in 1982; others have said there were none. It is alleged that this "racially stacked" jury disregarded all the evidence and found Jamal guilty simply because he was black.
In his book "Race For Justice", Leonard Weinglass states, "During the course of the jury selection, the prosecution used eleven of fifteen peremptory challenges to excuse nearly 75 percent of the eligible black jurors." In his public presentations, Weinglass claims that the sole reason for the dismissal of these prospective jurors was the fact that they were black.
Jamal's lawyers also argue that his absence from an "in chambers conference," in which the Judge, the prosecutor, and Jamal's trial attorney (a black man) discussed and agreed upon the removal of a black juror who had violated sequestration, was a pretext to remove her because of her race...." (source)
I'd be satisfied with life without the possibility of parole if Mumia wasn't enjoying celebrity status, publishing books and doing radio interviews... | <urn:uuid:99c52899-694f-4036-87c0-a87c707df25b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mobyrebuttal.blogspot.com/2008/03/mumia-wont-fry.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984433 | 598 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Material Weaknesses and Restatements: Is Tax Still in the Hot Seat?
While material weaknesses and restatements are on the decline overall, accounting for income taxes continues to be a challenge for corporate tax departments. In some cases this can lead to tax-related material weaknesses or restatements.
Tax and financial executives regularly look for trouble spots as part of their effort to improve controls and financial accounting accuracy. Regulators, too, are focused on this area. Accounting for income taxes continues to be on the SEC’s agenda when discussing critical matters and is one of the top areas of focus in its reviews of public company financial filings.
In a new report, Deloitte provides an analysis of these trouble spots, including:
- Sources of material weaknesses and portion of which are tax-related.
- A comparison of leading causes for tax-related material weaknesses between 2008 and 2009.
- Sample disclosures for tax-related material weaknesses.
- Strategies companies use to remediate tax-related material weaknesses.
- Trends in overall restatements and underlying tax issue related to tax restatements.
Download the full report at the bottom of the page to learn more. | <urn:uuid:824f649d-ff95-42c9-9365-c6cd30d54ae7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_US/us/Services/tax/global-business-tax/business-tax/financial-accounting-reporting-income-taxes/d3c6569f4cb5d210VgnVCM3000001c56f00aRCRD.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940926 | 242 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Formerly Petrograd and Leningrad, St. Petersburg has been restored to the splendor it knew before the dark period of the Soviet Union. This great city is now a popular destination for visitors on vacation or people who have only a weekend. St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in 1703 to be the showpiece of his empire, and is a grand blend of East and West. Visitors staying in St. Petersburg hotels have plenty to see. A must-see is Vasilievsky Island, which has many of the city’s greatest historic sites. Also see the Hermitage, one of the most magnificent art galleries in the world. You will also want to see the State Museum of Russian Art, and the treasure-laden Catherine Palace. A very interesting site is the Pushkin Apartment Museum, where the famous Russian poet died. And of course there is the Winter Palace, once the home of the tsars.
There are St. Petersburg hotels to suit every travel budget, from the very expensive to the utilitarian. For information on discount hotels, St. Petersburg cheap hotels and other low cost accommodation, EasyToBook.com has the best services to assist you in finding the best lodging to suit your needs.
Please provide this reference number to our customer service center representative on request, so we can help you better | <urn:uuid:bb8404d9-72f4-4c5b-a112-1bcbeb1b2429> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.easytobook.com/en/russia/north-west-russia/saint-petersburg-hotels/?amu=280822288¤cy=GBP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946808 | 273 | 1.75 | 2 |
Do it yourself Driftboat Building
- Scaled drawings and step-by-step building instructions for All Three Boats
- How to copy another driftboat hull
- How to design and build your own hull from scratch
- How build a stitch and glue boat from someone else's framed-boat blueprints
Stitch and glue wood fiberglass construction--and/or honeycomb coreThese plans include drawings, tool and material lists and written instructions for stitch-and-glue plywood-fiberglass construction. Stitch-and-Glue construction is well suited to the beginning boat builder. At approximately 275lbs. for a finished 15' boat, plywood-fiberglass boats weigh less than most aluminum or molded fiberglass boats.
A fiberglass skin is an essential component of the ribless boat since the glass fabric and epoxy resin give the boat structural strength as well as a tough and durable finish. Epoxy resin is used for all the gluing in the boat as well as for fiberglassing. Polyester resin, which is used in the construction of "all-fiberglass" boats, is not suitable for wood- fiberglass construction because polyester resin does not adhere well to wood. These instructions were originally written assuming the use of Gougeon Brother's excellent WEST SYSTEM epoxy products. But many recent builders report equally excellent results (and attractive prices) using Raka products. Read through the entire text of these instructions before beginning any work.
How long will it take?I once built five boats in 30 days flat (with one employee). But I can't build a single boat any faster due to gluing/fiberglass hardening times. A friend of mine--an MSU art teacher--built a boat from my plans that was perfect. It was prettier than any I ever built myself. It took him 6 months, working by himself, working intermittant evenings and weekends. Many builders finish faster than that. Few, if any, do a better job.
Montana RiverboatsSandy Pittendrigh
118 Erik Bozeman, Mt. 59715
sandy at www.montana-riverboats.com | <urn:uuid:1f5032e1-67b1-42e2-b13d-b32ef35b5155> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://montana-riverboats.com/index.php?fpage=Driftboats/Homemade-Boats/Roger-Daniel-Beavertail/05-2011-to07-2011-037.jpg | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952915 | 447 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Barra’s article is so weak that his own further apologias for Chavez are a complete embarrassment, and it reflects poorly on Tina Brown’s decision to let such a poor piece of journalistic analysis (written by a useful idiot of Chavez and Stone) to even appear on their website, especially after Rohter’s article in the Times.
At the panel after the film’s showing at the AFI last week, Cynthia Arnson, director of the Latin American program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, told the audience and Stone that his film was a “fundamental disservice” to the truth, and was as distorted a picture of reality as Stone thinks Fox News and the regular media is. “This film,” she said, “is far from reality. It is a distortion of what it means to be on the Left in Latin America.” She noted that, contrary to the film’s claim, a genuine moderate left was taking a path quite different than that favored by Chavez and Castro. Moreover, she added, it is wrong on the facts, slighting Chile whose moderate government reduced poverty far more than any other country, including Venezuela. In a country like Brazil or Chile, left parties emerged in a democratic transition as part of a stable system, while in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia, they emerged as the result of the collapse of democracy, and featured the absence of any limitations on power. They failed to create a desire for social and economic justice with “any measure of democratic transparency.”
Strangely, the Times film critic wrote his own positive review of the film one day earlier. Given Rohter’s article, that must also prove embarrassing to the paper and to critic Stephen Holden. Although Holden argued that Stone had “muted” his paranoid tendencies revealed in films like JFK, he did add that it was a “provocative, if shallow, exaltation of Latin American socialism.” But he even includes mention of an obviously false assertion made by the former president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, that “President Bush became irate at the suggestion that what the country needed was a Marshall Plan and insisted that the best way to revitalize an economy was through war.” Only an already committed leftist watching the film who hates George W. Bush could believe that Bush could have said anything like that. Holden concludes his review arguing that Stone’s film is a “naïvely idealistic, introductory tutorial on a significant international trend,” although it is not idealistic, and anything but a sound tutorial.
Stone, as he told Rohter, thinks his film is a “counter” to the “unbalance” and the “years and years of blighted journalism” that Americans read. Actually, Stone’s film is simply another in a long line of left-wing propaganda that has had more influence and effect on U.S. audiences that any critical accounts of the far left in these countries.
One major source answering Stone on one of his main points can be found in a film answering an earlier pro-Chavez movie called The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The film is called X-Ray of a Lie; its alternate title is The Revolution Will Not Be Televised-Lies. It means watching a one and a half hour film on your computer, if you do not have a mechanism to stream the film to your TV. But it is well worth it, since Stone’s film essentially contains many of the same lies as the earlier film.
Finally, you should not miss the incredible BBC Hardtalk interview conducted by the fearless BBC reporter Stephen Sackur, who, unlike his US counterparts, knows how to ask the tough questions to Hugo Chavez, and who confronts him head on with his lies, obfuscations, and his inability to be honest. You will see Sackur confront Chavez on his arrest of General Baduel, which I referred to in my WSJ op-ed. Fortunately, Chavez has not learned what Fidel Castro would have told him — never agree to be interviewed except by fawning American acolytes like Barbara Walters, Dan Rather, and all the others who have interviewed Castro and failed to confront him about anything meaningful.
Why, I wonder, did Oliver Stone fail to include any of this footage in his new movie? Well here is one answer, from the film critic at the Village Voice (I kid you not — once a NYC leftie paper.) Karina Longworth writes:
The construction of false realities for political gain is the subject of much of Stone’s own work — so why is he content to take each leader’s practiced-for-the-camera spiel at face value, never pushing for information or conducting interviews on any deeper level than a photo op? South of the Border‘s subjects are masters at cooking bullshit, and Stone just eats it up.
Right on, Karina!
Update: Sunday 1:15 pm EST
I usually can’t find the time to reply to comments, but I’m making an exception for the cordial defense of Stone by a colleague of his who notes that he has made two documentary films about Stone, Joel Sucher. (I have not seen the two films he mentions.) Stone does not promote “reasoned dialogue.” Indeed, at the panel held after the showing at the Silverdocs Festival last Wednesday at the AFI in Silver Spring, Md., the organizers saw to it that the panel would lack balance — by having it 3 to 1 in favor of Stone’s film, with only one brave dissenter, Cynthia Arnson, having a small amount of time to challenge the documentary. Moreover, contrary to the usual pattern, no questions or comments were taken from the floor. And although Arnson did as good a job as possible, she had to preface her remarks assuring the audience that she too had nothing but disdain for George W. Bush.
Moreover, to call Stone’s film “courageous” and “curious” is absurd. The film is, not what Sucher claims — not a partisan job “painted in black and white,” but precisely that — a propaganda film for Chavez. The commentaries I cite give chapter and verse of how Stone consciously lies about and distorts evidence, all for the purpose of condemning the United States and praising the quasi-totalitarianism of Venezuela under Chavez. On the WSJ comment page after my op-ed, one person notes that a few years ago, Stone met Chavez at Cannes, where Chavez interviewed him and Michael Moore, for the purpose of seeing who could do a film to promote his policies in Venezuela. Evidently Stone got the assignment. The writer suggests the possibility that Chavez may have not only asked him to do it, but provided the funding. If so, that would make it state funded official propaganda.
In any case, re Sucher’s last paragraph — Stone’s “client” is none other than Chavez and the other Latin American leftists, and he has done a yeoman job on their behalf. | <urn:uuid:58e73573-da53-4534-a66b-029d726852e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pjmedia.com/ronradosh/2010/06/26/more-on-oliver-stones-latest-travesty-south-of-the-border/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969236 | 1,483 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Financial Organization, Planning, Budgeting
Should You Pay Off Your Mortgage?
Paying off a mortgage sounds like a great idea, but that might not be the case. Here’s why:
- Paying off your home could put you at risk during an emergency. Try to keep at least six months income in an emergency savings fund; if paying off your mortgage early puts your finances at risk, don’t do it.
- Other investments may earn more. If your mortgage interest rate is less than 5%, you can probably get a better return on your money through other investments.
- You lose the opportunity to benefit from inflation. While inflation does mean prices are going up, inflation also means you pay off old loans using less valuable dollars.
So should you pay off your mortgage early? While there are financial reasons not to, if being mortgage-free will give you peace of mind and a tremendous presence of mind, by all means retire your mortgage! | <urn:uuid:b52ddbe5-252d-4eb7-b68e-299cefe0392c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thirdnationalbank.com/pfc/SBR_template.cfm?docNumber=PL45_T0135.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949749 | 198 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The territories of the Reach are vast and the population numerous. For administrative and historical purposes, several powerful houses are instead sworn to House Hightower of Oldtown, rather than to Highgarden directly. Since Hightower in turn is sworn to Tyrell, this does not impact on Highgarden's authority over those houses.
House Tyrell is the principal noble house in the Reach; many lesser houses are sworn to them. Their seat is at Highgarden, a castle near the river Mander. Their sigil is a golden rose on a green field, and their words are "Growing Strong."
Lord Mace Tyrell is Lord of Highgarden, Defender of the Marches, High Marshal of the Reach, and Warden of the South. Mace Tyrell is a prematurely old and rather tedious man lacking in political savvy. His sole military accomplishment is the Siege of Storm's End. Though he has tried to use the Battle of Ashford as evidence of strategic brilliance, he actually had little to do with the fighting. He now serves only as the figurehead of his powerful house for his more intelligent family members.
Mace has always dreamed of his daughter being a Queen, thus when Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell presented the plan to crown Renly and have him wed Margaery Tyrell, they had his full support. However, King Renly’s rule did not last long enough for him to consummate the marriage as he was slain at Storm's End. When word of this reached Mace, he marched some ten thousand men to Bitterbridge to plan his next move with his sons. They were joined by Petyr Baelish with an offer from King Joffrey Baratheon. Forming an alliance with House Lannister he was soon joined by Tywin's army to march on and defeat Stannis at the Battle of the Blackwater. His reward was a seat on the small council.
After the Battle of the Blackwater, the great lords meet to divide up the spoils of war. Lord Mace demanded and received the lands of House Florent. He was made master of ships on the small council of King Joffrey I. He was charged with the capture of Storm’s End, but the siege was interrupted by news that Margaery had been imprisoned. He abandoned his charge and is currently marching his army on the city of King's Landing.
Willas Tyrell is the eldest son and heir of Lord Mace Tyrell and Lady Alerie Hightower.
Lord Garlan Tyrell, better known as Garlan the Gallant, is the second son of Lord Mace Tyrell and Lady Alerie Hightower. He was given the name the Gallant by his brother Willas, who did it to protect him when he was a fat child. He was raised to Lord of Brightwater Keep after the Battle of the Blackwater. He usually trains against three or four swordsmen, practice for actual battle.
Ser Garlan took part in the Battle of the Blackwater, playing the part of Renly Baratheon, dressing in his armor, to scare the ignorant men-at-arms among Stannis Baratheon's army. He was raised to Lord of Brightwater Keep after the battle. Ser Garlan said kind words to Tyrion Lannister during the wedding of Margaery Tyrell and King Joffrey I, attending the nuptials with his wife, Leonette Fossoway. While the Kingsguard met in the White Sword Tower, Garlan guarded Tommen I.
Third son of Lord Mace Tyrell, nicknamed the Knight of Flowers, Loras is a young but highly skilled knight and jouster. He is described as slender and handsome and is beloved by the crowds. Early on in the story, during a tourney he handed a red rose to Sansa Stark, who, like countless other Westerosi girls, became infatuated with him. However, the novels imply that he actually had a sexual relationship with Renly Baratheon. When Renly proclaimed himself king, Loras and the rest of House Tyrell backed him and married Loras' sister Margaery to Renly. Renly made Loras the head of his personal guard and the two remained inseparable even after Renly's wedding.
After Renly's assassination, Loras became enraged with grief and tried to kill Brienne of Tarth and Catelyn Stark, whom he believed guilty of Renly's murder. After questioning Brienne at King's Landing, he no longer suspected her. Loras later joined the Kingsguard and quickly reasserted his popularity with the citizens of King's Landing. He was sent to end the siege of Dragonstone, where, according to reports, he was horribly injured by boiling oil and possibly near death.
Only daughter of Mace Tyrell, Margaery is an intelligent and shrewd young woman, very much the protégé of her cunning grandmother, Olenna Tyrell. She is described as very beautiful, with softly curling brown hair, brown eyes and a slender yet shapely figure. She is fifteen years old.
Margaery was first married to King Renly Baratheon, as a pledge of loyalty from the Tyrell family. When he was killed, the Tyrells allied with the Lannisters, wedding Margaery to King Joffrey. After Joffrey was poisoned at their wedding feast, Margaery was wed yet again, this time to Joffrey's younger brother Tommen, a little boy who was then crowned king. In the months after their marriage, Cersei Lannister schemed to dispose of Margaery and the Tyrells, taking advantage of Margaery's claim to still be a maid despite her marriage to Renly. This claim may or may not be true; Margaery's maidenhead was confirmed to have been ruptured by a Septa who inspected her, but Cersei noted that highborn girls often have their maidenheads broken by horseback-riding.
While Tommen's queen, Margaery did much to gain favor with the populace. She visited local markets to buy fresh fruits, breads and fish, ordered dresses from many local seamstresses, and made great public shows of charity. Margaery suggested several activities for Tommen in an effort to shape him into a successful ruler, such as riding in sight of his subjects and observing sessions of the small council. Cersei forbade all of Margaery's suggestions. Later, Margaery recognized the military threat created by the Ironborn invasion of the Shield Islands, and was incredulous at Cersei's lack of understanding.
Cersei accused Margaery of adultery and treason, lining up an impressive but untrue, array of conspirators and evidence. Margaery was arrested and imprisoned to await trial by the Faith at the Great Sept of Baelor. While in custody, she confronted Cersei, revealing that she knew that Cersei was behind the accusations and wanted to remove her from a position of influence, perhaps by arranging for her death. Later, one of Cersei's key witnesses revealed her plots under torture, and Cersei soon found herself sharing Margaery's plight. Their fate is unknown.
Olenna Redwyne is the mother of Lord Mace Tyrell and described as a wizened, cunning old woman with a wicked wit and a sharp tongue, nicknamed "the Queen of Thorns." Olenna was introduced in A Storm of Swords, sharply questioning Sansa Stark on Joffrey's nature. After getting Sansa to speak about Joffrey's cruelty and the beatings he gave her, Olenna suggested taking Sansa away to Highgarden and marrying her to Willas. She also played a role in the poisoning of Joffrey at his wedding, but the details remain unclear in the story.
Houses sworn to HighgardenEdit
- House Ambrose
- House Appleton of Appleton
- House Ashford of Ashford
- House Ball
- House Blackbar of Bandallon
- House Bridges
- House Bushy
- House Butterwell
- House Caswell of Bitterbridge
- House Chester of Greenshield
- House Cockshaw
- House Cordwayner of Hammerhal
- House Crane of Red Lake
- House Dunn
- House Durwell
- House Florent of Brightwater Keep
- House Footly of Tumbleton
- House Fossoway of Cider Hall, called the Red Apple Fossoways
- House Fossoway of New Barrel, called the Green Apple Fossoways
- House Graceford of Holyhall
- House Graves
- House Grimm of Greyshield
- House Hastwyck
- House Hewett of Oakenshield
- House Hightower of the Hightower in Oldtown, see also House Tyrell#Houses sworn to Oldtown
- House Hunt
- House Hutcheson
- House Inchfield
- House Kidwell of Ivy Hall
- House Leygood
- House Lowther
- House Lyberr
- House Meadows of Grassy Vale
- House Merryweather of Longtable
- House Middlebury
- House Norcross
- House Norridge
- House Oakheart of Old Oak
- House Oldflowers
- House Orme
- House Osgrey of Standfast
- House Peake
- House Pommingham
- House Redding
- House Redwyne of the Arbor
- House Rhysling
- House Risley
- House Rowan
- House Roxton of the Ring
- House Serry of Southshield
- House Shermer of Smithyton
- House Sloane
- House Smalls
- House Stackhouse
- House Tarly of Horn Hill
- House Uffering
- House Varner
- House Vyrwel of Darkdell
- House Webber of Coldmoat
- House Westbrook
- House Willum
- House Woodwright
- House Wythers
- House Yelshire
Extinct Houses of the ReachEdit
- House Gardner of Highgarden
Houses sworn to OldtownEdit
- House Beesbury of Honeyholt
- House Bulwer of Blackcrown
- House Costayne of the Three Towers
- House Cuy of Sunflower Hall
- House Mullendore of Uplands
Tyrell characters in the booksEdit
- Alerie Tyrell, formerly of House Hightower
- Alla Tyrell, daughter of Ser Leo Tyrell
- Alys Tyrell, formerly of House Beesbury, wife of Ser Leo Tyrell
- Elinor Tyrell, daughter of Theodore Tyrell
- Garlan Tyrell, called Garlan the Gallant
- Garth Tyrell, called Garth the Gross
- Gormon Tyrell
- Janna Tyrell, married into House Fossoway
- Leo Tyrell, son of Ser Moryn Tyrell, called Leo the Lazy
- Leo Tyrell, son of Ser Victor Tyrell
- Leona Tyrell, daughter of Ser Leo Tyrell
- Loras Tyrell, called the Knight of Flowers
- Lorent Tyrell, son of Ser Leo Tyrell
- Lucas Tyrell, son of Ser Leo Tyrell
- Luthor Tyrell, son of Theodore Tyrell, named for his grandfather
- Lyonel Tyrell, son of Ser Leo Tyrell
- Mace Tyrell
- Margaery Tyrell
- Medwick Tyrell, son of the late Luthor Tyrell
- Megga Tyrell, daughter of Olymer Tyrell
- Mina Tyrell, married into House Redwyne
- Moryn Tyrell
- Normund Tyrell, Mace's cousin, a maester
- Olene Tyrell, daughter of the late Luthor Tyrell, married into House Blackbar
- Olenna Tyrell, married into House Redwyne, called the Queen of Thorns
- Olymer Tyrell, son of the late Quentin Tyrell
- Raymund Tyrell, son of Olymer Tyrell
- Rickard Tyrell, son of Olymer Tyrell
- Theodore Tyrell, son of the late Luthor Tyrell
- Victaria Tyrell, daughter of Victor Tyrell, married into House Bulwer
- Willas Tyrell, heir to Highgarden | <urn:uuid:eb0b4bc8-8355-4fa5-8861-62075b59d948> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iceandfire.wikia.com/wiki/Tyrell | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962087 | 2,583 | 1.648438 | 2 |
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I know this really isn't the right place to write this, but I'm too embarrassed to go to the priest of my parish.
I come from a family of two religions; my Father, a roman catholic, and my Mother, an Orthodox Christian. I was baptized catholic although from a young age I was opposed to their religion. I suppose it was because I didn't feel the brotherhood and love from my Father's side. They do not care for Orthodoxy, and have not accepted my Mother as such (although my Father has problems at all with Orthodoxy and he loves my Mother and I the same as he would if we were his religion). I was also ridiculed as a child because I was believed to be an Orthodox Christian (I was in mind and soul, but not on paper), and from all these experiences, I have come away with a bias and some might say "irrational" fear and anger to the roman catholic church. However I am now in conversion classes and am well on my way to making the most important step. My question is; is it wrong for me to hate catholicism? Am I going against the teachings of the Church givento us by Jesus? Should I repent for my anger and hatred, or am I allowed to have my beliefs and biases? Some (including me) might say that the western church's actions in the past, their additions of heresy (the filioque comes to mind), and the thought most are intolerant, might be a problem with interaction with Orthodoxy. I am truly worried and do not know what to do. Brian Konstantino Ioannis
Maybe writing this to might give me the courage to ask my church for spiritual support. Mr.X8 23:22, August 2, 2009 (UTC)
Can anyone help me? Mr.X8 23:57, August 3, 2009 (UTC)
- For the record, I'm fairly sure that most people would suggest an alternate means of asking about these topics - your priest/spiritual father, forums... but I'll answer as best as I can:
- It seems like you already know what to do. From what I can tell: be Orthodox (paper and sacraments being aligned with mind and soul), love everyone (which includes Catholics), know that what institutions did in the past is of no practical concern (people make mistakes - our job is to forgive them and love them). — by Pιsτévο talk complaints at 01:06, August 4, 2009 (UTC)
Thank you :)
- The reason I haven't asked my priest is because I'm too embarrassed to tell anyone about my situation. But seeing as on the wiki we're all strangers to each other, I feel more inclined to share it.
Mr.X8 13:57, August 4, 2009 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, your priest has probably heard most things that are able to be heard... the question is not what you have done, but how you can grow from it - and that's something that a priest (or someone who knows who you are) can do - us anonymous people can only do so much :) — by Pιsτévο talk complaints at 17:09, August 4, 2009 (UTC) | <urn:uuid:b7b475f4-fe86-461e-9256-db4db938ae97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://orthodoxwiki.org/User_talk:Mr.X8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969501 | 1,196 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Adventure. It's in our DNA. We introduced adventure travel to North America in 1972 and never looked back. Now you can choose from over 4,000 small group trips, or have one of our experienced adventure travel specialists build one just for you. No one has the experience, depth of knowledge and range of itineraries of Adventure Center!
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An article in this week's New York Times about Chinese cuisine in France has me thinking about national cuisines taken abroad. The Times piece, "Chinese Bear Paws Tickle the French," coincides with the exhibit The Seduction of the Palate, a look at "the traditions of the Chinese table through a hundred objects," according to the Quai Branly Museum website. Writing for the Times, Elaine Sciolino describes the artifacts and ancient recipes she encountered and how these relics got her thinking about Chinese food within the context of France. Sciolino cites a book about the differences between French and Chinese cooking and eating traditions, which lists four primary differences: economic, philosophical, aesthetic, demographic. For some reason "geography" is missing from this list, but as obvious as these factors seem they make sense and can be applied to many countries when you compare their habits and tendencies when it comes to food.
Along with the food critic for the French daily newspaper Le Monde, Sciolino set out to have some good Chinese food in Paris. And here's where I lost interest in the article, preferring to think back on memorable meals I've had in foreign countries where the meal was not originally of that country. Now, in our globalized world, the lines blur quickly, especially when it comes to food - techniques and spices have crisscrossed the globe for thousands of years, following trade routes and occupations.
Two meals in particular have stuck with me for years. In Mombasa, Kenya, I had amazing Indian food. This is not surprising if you look at a map and take history into account, but after days of overcooked goat and chicken and gravely rice, I luxuriated in the simple but different textures and flavors of staples of Indian cuisine, like a simple lentil dal and freshly baked, puffy naan. The restaurant in question was close to the port and had clearly been set up to accomodate a taste of home for crews from across the Indian Ocean.
The second meal is also easily traceable, but more surprising and memorable for the sheer quality. The Italian influence in Argentina is impossible to ignore. In Buenos Aires, pizza and pasta are just as popular as baked empanadas and grilled meat doused with chimichurri. While I was in the city, I had some pizza and pasta and it was fine, no different than standard Italian American food found in strip malls across the US. But in El Calafate, in the northern reaches of Patagonia, I had the best lamb ragout ever, served with stunningly delicate fresh pasta. I've eaten in Italy and I've eaten in notable Italian restaurants in New York and nothing has ever come close to the joys of this Italian meal I had in Argentina.
Of course, big cities the world over have plenty of excellent restaurants that serve authentic versions of other cuisines. But when traveling how often do you eat at such places? Typically, if I'm in a foreign country I want to eat like the locals. But sometimes you need something different, especially if you are in one country for a long time. At least I do . . . | <urn:uuid:a0416f01-7b4a-4205-b381-694911d3060c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.adventurecenter.com/blog/being-abroad-and-not-eating-local | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966276 | 968 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Chavez council stirs succession speculation
Venezuelan president assembles leadership panel
With his health in question and speculation rampant about his future, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has named 10 Venezuelans to an influential commission.
The Council of State, as it is known, is stipulated in the Venezuelan Constitution as the highest circle of advisers to the president, but has never actually been formed.
Now in a battle with cancer, Chavez announced in January that it was time to constitute the council, and Wednesday named his appointments.
Venezuelans and international observers alike are likely to scrutinize his choices for any signs of transition or succession should Chavez become incapacitated.
Chavez's choices include a veteran of his administration, a military man and a writer, among others.
The president of the council will be Vice President Elias Jaua, as the constitution stipulates.
Chavez named five principal members. Among them are Jose Vincente Rangel, a journalist who came to hold a number of posts under Chavez, including foreign minister, defense minister and vice president.
Venezuela's former ambassador to the Organization of American States and former foreign minister Roy Chaderton was also named to the council.
German Mundarain was elected by the country's national assembly as ombudsman from 2000 to 2007.
Rafael Giacopini is an active duty admiral who currently serves as secretary of the country's defense council.
Chavez also named Luis Britto Garcia, a playwright and author, to the council.
In addition, the president listed five others as alternate members.
The timing of the appointments is significant, as speculation increases over who will succeed Chavez if he becomes too ill to govern, or if he dies.
He has been reluctant to name a successor, but the Council of State, as envisioned in the constitution, stands to wield significant influence.
The council is the "highest body of advisers" to the government, the constitution states.
"There are no surprising names here," said Javier Corrales, a professor of political science at Amherst College.
With so much uncertainty surrounding Chavez's health and the upcoming elections, the appointments answer part of the puzzle of who is close to Chavez, he said. But it does not end the uncertainty, he added.
Whether the group simply advises Chavez, or a successor, or takes up more powers of its own, "anything is possible," Corrales said.
He envisioned a hypothetical scenario in which Chavez remained president, but, too ill to make decisions, delegated power to the council.
Chavez in January said the council was "an institution that we lack and that is in the constitution but that we never activated. It's sowed here. The time to activate it has come."
The fact that Jaua, as vice president, will preside over the council elevates his status and could signal a victory for those supporting him as a potential successor to Chavez.
Fidel and Raul Castro, who are trying to influence the succession, favor Jaua, said Roger Noriega, an analyst with the conservative American Enterprise Institute and former U.S. ambassador to the OAS. Analysts also say Chavez's brother, Adan Chavez, is also liked by the Cubans.
But Chavez is not the only one with say on the council members. According to the constitution, the national assembly and the supreme court get to name one person each to the body. Both institutions are favorable to the president. The governors of all the states will also have to pick one governor to be part of the council, too.
Copyright 2012 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:6e4c7f07-e214-4334-afae-fe0cbba7b107> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcci.com/news/national/Chavez-council-stirs-succession-speculation/-/9357144/12538620/-/view/print/-/9q9a9tz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97369 | 763 | 1.664063 | 2 |
With all the exploration of recycled materials in green design these days, the work of artist Chris Gilmour seems like a logical and amusing next step in terms of upcycling and eco-friendly art processes. Gilmour, an English artist based in Italy, re-creates objects and machines from our everyday lives using only packing cardboard and glue. Industrial cardboard is typically used only once for shipping materials and then wastefully discarded. Often adorned with logos and other graphics, the remnants of the material’s former use is an aspect that Gilmour wryly incorporates into his sculptural work, with an ironic wink to the viewer.
Built with stunning detail, Gilmour’s life-size replicas and sculptures leave one gazing at the sheer artistry of his work and contemplating the nature of materials in general. The dedicated energy required to cut and paste all of the intricate and exact parts of a replica Fiat 500 engine, for example, cleverly highlights the energy required to create the real thing. Whereas a car of the usual metal materials might go unnoticed by a passerby, a car constructed of cardboard leaves even the technically un-savvy reveling in its design.
Not all of Gilmour’s cardboard creations are life-sized intricacies. The artist also has a sense of humour about his medium, using cigarette and maxi-pad boxes to make little logo-covered churches in a wry statement about consumer dependency. In totality, Gilmour’s pieces force the viewer to confront the everyday objects in one’s life and our relationship to them with a kind of hilarious grace. Gilmour’s work is exhibited by Perugia Artecontemporanea in Padua, Italy.
+ Chris Gilmour | <urn:uuid:daae50c9-3d75-4baf-8f91-ab6734a98f7c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/recycled-cardboard-sculpture-by-chris-gilmour/attachment/11005/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936705 | 364 | 1.75 | 2 |
The consensus is that most people would make an omelet using two to three eggs, or two eggs per person if one decided to make it using four and split it up. Omelets can be very politically correct. Nary a Birther will find cause to refuse one based on the fact that the egg was alive, and the L’s of the LGBT’s have pro-egg preferences, partnering with other egg filled humans. If you are a dairy free person or a Vegan, whatever your political persuasion, just substitute some soy or use your imagination. You are still part of the scrambled up USA, so please keep eating and read on.
The majority of us have eaten a egg or two in our lives, both scrambled, omletted, and maybe just barely cooked on one side. I know that the living conditions of many of the chickens is terrible, just like the living conditions of the people who eat the eggs, but let me err from that argument at the present time.
I just want to bask in the happy reality that many Republicans, Democrats, Independents and maybe even Greens all have at least one thing in common. Eggs taste like eggs and there really isn’t a great substitute. Chickens can taste like anything and often do. Permit me to leave which came first for another day, since even though most like to eat eggs, and many like to eat chickens, fists start a flying, spittle is spat, and words are like daggers when we stop the eating and start the arguing on that point.
Omelets seem so organized, like a well laid out plan. Both sides are equal and when prepared correctly seem like a culinary architectural masterpiece even when it is in a roll. They are regal like the French Court of old, and the French saved our arses from those terrible colonizing Brits if memory serves. To look at France now, one could hardly imagine that such a thing could have sprouted from there. Sorry Greens to borrow vegetable terms but greens can play a part in this.
We add some ingredients like cheese, vegetables, meat, and my favorite, chili, to our omelets. If you’ve ever tried to make scrambled eggs with chili you’ll know the illogic there. The polls indicate, I actually just took my own poll but that has been rather popular lately, that most Americans would prefer something in their omelet besides eggs, many like their scrambled eggs without extra ingredients, and eating a sunny side up egg won’t necessarily make you any happier than eating either of the previous options.
In reality, we as a country are a scrambled up bunch of eggs with many ingredients and very diverse. I don’t every think we can be an omelet. It’s kind of like the old adage ‘Once a cucumber becomes a pickle it can’t go back to being a cucumber.’ I threw that one in for all my vegetarian friends who getting sick of me comparing them to egg dishes.
So maybe the idea of our country as an omelet is naïve and contrary to reality. Both halves equally supporting the IDEALLY tasty ingredients inside, biting in to briefly savor the unadulterated egg, assuming it’s not smothered with my favorite chili or sour cream on the outside, before rewarding your taste buds with the ingredients you choose as the filling. It reminds me of a neighborhood. Some people, not all, get to choose where they live, their neighbors, churches, stores and the schools that they frequent. Others, due to their societal socio-economic position, do not have those choices or they are substantially diminished. They eat whatever scrambled mess they are served, grateful just to have food on their plate.
I like eating my scrambled eggs with chili on the side because it closer represents reality to me. When I eat, I don’t want surreal things staring me in the face. For that there is Realty TV. Throw in whatever you have handy that day, prepare each part in the correct order. Sauté the mushrooms first, then add all that bad cheese at the end once the eggs are dry enough. If chili is on the agenda I put it on the side and dip as I please. This is a free country after all!!! I have personally given up trying to make omelets because they represent a projecting of perfection that runs against my desire to eat at peace with reality. Oh, and of course scrambled eggs are just plain easier to make all things considered.
Romney wants to fire the bird. I wonder what he plans to do to the eggs if the bird has flown, or in this case been evicted from the coop. At that point it won’t matter which came first. I bet he eats omelets. Or as he probably says it “OH, ME LET?”. | <urn:uuid:29acf6fc-ee8b-4583-860b-63d461dc7262> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://open.salon.com/blog/hugo_first/2012/10/18/why_the_scrambled_up_usa_is_like_an_omelet | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969391 | 1,012 | 1.664063 | 2 |
In its systematic and concerted effort to portray a link between Saddam and bin Laden, the White House propaganda team was so successful that a poll conducted in late 2002 showed that over half of the people polled believed that Saddam was connected to 9/11.
While that may have been great news for the home team back then, the problem for Bush today is that he is never going to get 50% of Americans to erase their memory of all the statements that were made, and believe the line that members of the administration never said anything to make people think that Saddam was involved in 9/11.
The truth is that the story about Saddam supporting al Qaeda was a key component in case for war and the administration worked non-stop to promote it even though the basis for the story was debunked early on by intelligence officials.
When making public remarks and speeches indicating a connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condi Rice consistently failed to mention the fact that intelligence agencies had dismissed it as false.
According to the March 16, 2004, report, "Iraq On The Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements On Iraq," from the Committee on Government Reform, together the above five top officials "made 61 misleading statements about the strength of the Iraq-al Qaeda alliance in 52 public appearances."
The new Senate investigation hasn't even got off the ground and already the future is looking grim for the Bush team. It has now been revealed that US military intelligence specifically warned the administration in February 2002 that the key source of information about Al-Qaeda's ties to Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, in a newly declassified Defense Intelligence Agency document made public this month.
While this is clear evidence that they should have known better, over the following year top officials continued to make false claims that the Iraqi government was training and supporting members of bin Laden's terrorist group to bolster their rationale for war.
For instance, eight months later, in a speech on November 7, 2002, Bush told the audience: Saddam Hussein is "a threat because he is dealing with Al Qaida... [A] true threat facing our country is that an Al Qaida-type network trained and armed by Saddam could attack America and not leave one fingerprint."
In his January 28, 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said: "Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications, and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of al Qaeda. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own."
On January 26, 2003, when speaking at the World Economic Forum, Colin Powell stated, "The more we wait, the more chance there is for this dictator with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, more time for him to pass a weapon, share a technology, or use these weapons again."
In his February 5, 2003 speech at the UN, Powell told the audience: "what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder."
"Iraq today," Powell said, "harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants."
To intentionally play on the public's emotions, around the second anniversary of 9/11, Dick Cheney told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that Iraq was "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11."
Cheney also told the Heritage Foundation on October 10, 2003 that Saddam Hussein "had an established relationship with al Qaeda."
The Bush Team Should Be Worried
The administration has good reason to worry about the investigation. Last year, it got a glimpse of the kind of information that will likely come out, on March 9, 2004, during then CIA Director George Tenet's testimony before the Armed Services Committee, when Democrats revealed that Scooter Libby had received secret intelligence briefings in August 2002 on Saddam's ties to al-Qaeda from then Assistant Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith.
Prior to that hearing, Feith had already said that he never gave any such briefings, which in turn supported the theory that a private secret intelligence group in the White House was set up to manufacture the case for war. Tenet told the committee that he had only first learned of Feith's private briefings "last week."
Feith better not be too comfortable in his retirement because he is definitely going to be spending some time up on the Hill. Virtually everything that went wrong in Iraq, relating to matters that Congress will be investigating, can be traced back to Feith's door. He played a leading role in the run-up to war.
The buck stops with Feith on its way to Cheney and Bush. Who knows, maybe Feith will agree to take the hit and he and Libby can bunk together in prison.
The Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans (OSP) were both established under Feith's authority and will in all likelihood garner particular interest during the investigation.
The OSP, with the help of Ahmed Chalabi and his band of defectors, is believed to have cooked up the most alarming pre-war intelligence and "stovepiped" it to Bush through Rumsfeld and Cheney, without the vetting of any intelligence official, in order to establish the existence of a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda.
The content of Feith's August 2002 private briefings have been described as a cherry-picked collection of raw, uncorroborated pieces of information, which painted a false picture of a link between Saddam and 9/11.
The investigation will surely focus on October 2003 when Feith sent a memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee citing proof of a definite relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it somehow got published in the November 2003, Weekly Standard complete with the memo's classified annex claiming that its list of Iraq-al Qaeda contacts proved "an operational relationship from the early 1990s" and that "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein's Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans."
The Defense Department immediately ran for cover and issued a statement saying that "[t]he classified annex was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and it drew no conclusions."
And on March 9, 2004, when Tenet again testified before the Armed Services Committee, he made sure to tell the committee that the CIA "did not agree with the way the data was characterized in that document."
The investigation team will no doubt want to interview the neoconsí best friend Ahmed Chalabi, but he has already demonstrated that he could care less if he's accused of deliberately misleading the US in making the case for war, being he got what he wanted.
"We are heroes in error," he told the News Telegraph on February 19, 2004. "As far as we're concerned we've been entirely successful. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad," he said, "What was said before is not important."
Evelyn J. Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on exposing government corruption. She can be reached at [email protected].
Recent Related Article
* Testimony by CIA Chief in 2001 Suggests Manipulation of Pre-war Intel by Jason Leopold
Other Articles by Evelyn J. Pringle
Sitting In a Cave Laughing | <urn:uuid:f957f4e4-e146-4444-b367-316963078288> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Pringle1115.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969806 | 1,590 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Do you remember when the anti-marriage equality crowd began to thump hard on the idea that the legalization of gay marriage would ruin the institution of mixed-sex marriage? One thing that many who did not agree with that said was that divorce does worse for marriage than allowing same-sex marriage would. Most anti-equality activists didn’t want to touch that. They mostly just said that yes, that was true, and that was why same-sex marriage shouldn’t be implemented, it would further weaken “traditional” marriage. They didn’t want to come out against divorce completely, presumably because there are so many of their own — in their families, their friends, even congregations in their churches — who had been through a divorce. Nobody wants to be told they might not be able to get out of a bad marriage should that marriage end up being a bad one, no matter how little they wish to admit it. And, they didn’t want to come out in favor of it, either, because that went against the Bible they liked to beat others over the head with.
Well, I’ve just recently heard of a movement that changes that. Apparently, it’s not a relatively new movement, but it’s new to me. And it may be gaining a bit of traction. There is a movement to implement covenant marriage in states. One thing that should be noted is that this is not really a banning of divorce, despite what some may say or despite what my post title suggests. However, it does severely limit the grounds for divorce. Mostly it seems that the grounds are as follows:
- Your spouse is convicted of a felony that requires jail time
That’s it. Now, of course, if you move to a state that does not recognize covenant marriage, you can file for divorce without worrying about it. But, if your state does recognize covenant marriages and you are in a covenant marriage, you are probably screwed unless one of the above is there.
While I agree that divorce does, in fact, harm families — especially when children are involved — and that the laws being so lax on it now are probably what causes so many marriages to fail, I do not agree that making it so difficult to get a divorce is a good idea. I know this sounds kind of odd, in the face of what I just said, but the reason is that it takes away power from both individuals. There comes a point in some people’s marriages where they are just no longer happy. They aren’t in love, anymore, they spend much of their time arguing, and they just cannot come to an agreement on how to deal with their problems. Marriage counselors are often a great asset, but even this method does not work sometimes. It isn’t always an unwillingness to compromise, but an inability. It isn’t always an unwillingness to get along, but an inability.
However, not all such marriages include the type of grievances that are set aside in a covenant marriage as the only real grounds for divorce. This forces people to stay in marriages in which they are not happy and cannot find any possible way of getting along. It makes children stay in unhappy homes. Children who come from unhappy homes are probably worse off than children who come from a broken home.
Knowing the way that my parents’ marriage was, I’m glad that they got divorced. So are my siblings. We would not have liked growing up in a single house with two parents who didn’t get along.
Even if you manage to hide your arguments from your children, they’re perceptive enough to figure out that something isn’t right. If I’m worried about what could be wrong, I’m also worried about whether or not I caused it. I never believed I wasn’t to blame.
Beyond children, why should anyone have to stay in a marriage which is dead, just because the grounds for divorce in their marriage are so strict and stringent? If one could be assured that all, or at least the vast majority of marriages would not end up broken, I would be less alarmed by the idea that so many people are now wanting the implementation of covenant marriage, or at least for it to be an option. Nobody is psychic,. With the rates for divorce being what they are, I don’t think I’d want to take the chance.
If it’s just an option, what’s the harm? You go into marriage willingly, don’t you?
I can see in my mind’s eye a lot of women being bullied into this because of religious expecations. Divorce is considered abject failure. Even Jesus likens divorce to adultery. His requirement for divorce at all is much more strict. Jesus drew the line only at marital infidelity.
Complacent people might argue that this is not even relevant. It’s not like any states actually do this … right? Not So!
Arizona passed a covenant marriage law in 1998, Arkansas implemented a covenant marriage law in 2001, and Louisiana implemented a covenant marriage law in 1997.
Covenant marriage legislation has been introduced in Alabama, California, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington state.
Nothing is wrong with getting married. Nothing is wrong with wanting to take steps to ensure that you STAY married, and give yourself incentives to work things out. However, when things end up not working out, I dislike the idea of someone not having a way out for either the man or the woman. Nobody should be trapped in an untenable marriage that forces those involved compromise their own morals and principles should they want a divorce under the rules of a covenant marriage.
What does this have to do with feminism? Marriage involves women. And, in some states women are allowed to marry other women. Being loving and committed at the time of your marriage doesn’t always mean that you’re going to continue that way throughout your marriage, and that possibility is not gender-specific. A lesbian couple could easily find themselves in such a position.
I read an article the other day about a woman, for example, who was in a committed relationship with her partner. She had lived with this woman as if they were married, they had shared a bed, and she had helped to care for her partner’s ailing parents, only to one day be told to get lost when her partner found another woman she’d rather be with.
Yes, I know. This is more of an example of why marriage equality needs to be legalized (this woman has no case for divorce court, nor probably any other court, although I believe she’s going to try for civil court for breach of verbal contract), or it might serve as an example of a lesbian marriage that would find grounds for divorce in a covenant marriage. But, that’s not what I’m using it to illustrate, regardless of the fact that both of those assumptions are true. It is proof that even same-sex marriages are not perfect, and while this is an extreme, I’m sure that some lesbian couples find themselves just falling out of love with each other, or just being unable to get along no matter how hard they try or what they do after so many years. This is true, too, for mixed-sex marriages. And when this occurs, there should be an out where one doesn’t have to compromise their own morals or principles to do it, or be forced to live in a loveless marriage that after a while feels more like a jail sentence than anything.
Nobody deserves that. Staying married, once you get married, is important. Sometimes, it just isn’t possible. And in those cases, people need an an escape. Religion shouldn’t force this, relatives shouldn’t force this, potential spouses shouldn’t force this, legal contracts shouldn’t force this, and people who abuse the laxness of divorce laws shouldn’t have bearing on this issue.
Additional reading on the subject of covenant marriages might be found at these addresses:
- http://www.nwamarriages.com/about/pdf/cov_marriage_app.pdf [note that this is a .pdf file before clicking] | <urn:uuid:329b1d9d-af4e-409f-a86d-e07d9a2bbbfa> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://subterfusex.wordpress.com/2010/08/25/covenant-marriage-no-way-out/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9669 | 1,749 | 1.570313 | 2 |
The Village and the Wall
The village is small and run-down. A couple of hundred residents. Green Hamas flags hang above the dirt street and wave in the breeze.
It is brutally hot. The buildings are plastered with images. One is a photo of a small Palestinian boy from the village. His face is smiling, superimposed over a picture of the West Bank Wall and a sniper tower.
At the age of 10 he was shot in the head by Israeli soldiers.
From the mosque’s minaret the midday prayer projects through the streets of Ni’lin in the West Bank.
I sit at a small coffee shop and wait. The only customer.
A child is running down the street, kite trailing in the sky above him. He is covered in dust and his shoes are worn-out.
Next to me, and on the wall, is the image of a man: Yousef. He was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the village two weeks ago, during a protest against the West Bank Wall.
People start appearing. They make their way to the olive groves near the town’s centre.
Around 100 Palestinians have gathered. They are facing east and praying.
Littered about the place are shell casings. And tear gas canisters.
The canisters are lethal. Fired at high-velocity, they whip past you: crunching into trees. A range of hundreds of metres.
Earlier this year, a local man had his chest split open when shot with canisters by Israeli soldiers. He bled to death.
Another man – an American activist called Tristan – was shot in the back of the head with a canister. He was in a coma for months and had to have a section of his brain removed.
The villagers’ foreheads are to the ground. They are on their knees.
Palestinian flags wave in the sky, and they begin marching. Marching to the West Bank Wall. In protest of both the Wall’s construction and Israel’s 42 year occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
The wall cuts the villagers off from around 50 percent of their land.
There is a range of people: the villagers, international activists, local media, and a severely crippled young man from England.
His name is Geordie and he is in an electric wheelchair. People help him navigate his way through the terrain.
He is wearing a Palestinian Keffiyeh. It is draped around his neck.
He gets up from the wheelchair, it won’t take him any further – the ground is too uneven.
His knees are bent almost to right angles and he staggers forward. Steps no longer than ten centimetres. Irregular. A kind of shuffle. Losing his balance, people rush forward to support him.
“We have to help the Palestinians,” he says “We have to free Palestine.”
Geordie went to the Gaza Strip after Operation Cast Lead: Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza earlier this year. He is incredibly brave: a crippled boy hobbling into a major flashpoint.
A Palestinian holding a flag is talking to him.
“Last week, we were worried about you, but this is your second time, so we don’t worry!”
The march proceeds. Sweat drips, it has broken 40 degrees.
A Palestinian man passes a bottle of water, says “welcome” and tells me to drink.
His name is Salah. He works for the Palestinian Committee Against The Wall. And he talks about the aims of the protest.
They have marched every week for a year now.
“We have had to change strategy. Guns don’t work. Diplomacy didn’t work With non-violent protest maybe things will change.”
It is an interesting conversation. The question lingering at its core is: Can non-violent protest force change in the face of military aggression?
Salah says it had worked in the past.
“Look at South Africa, how protest got Apartheid to end,” he says.
“It is not just a walking protest: there is boycotting, getting governments to act.”
The path rounds a corner and we can see soldiers. In green. With body-armour and M-16s. Batons. There are nine army trucks.
They stand, an Israeli settlement to their right.
And the marchers continue towards the West Bank Wall, regardless.
They make it to the wall.
The first layer is seemingly impenetrable razor wire. Some men with Keffiyehs wrapped around their faces take wire-clippers to it.
Behind the first layer of razor wire is a ditch, around three metres deep and five metres wide. It is filled with more razor wire.
From behind this an electrified fence extends up. There is a road and more razor wire.
The soldiers are about 150 metres away.
A Swedish girl involved with the International Solidarity Movement says that there are international observers with the troops today.
“We wouldn’t have made it to the wall, if they (the observers) weren’t there. This is the third time in a year we have made it this far. Usually there are snipers in the olive groves. It’s impossible to get past them.
“They are trying to show that the Israeli army does not use violence, which is a lie,” she says.
Through a telephoto lens, you can see people in civilian dress, sprinkled among soldiers.
Then the protestors are shouting.
“Allah Akhbar, Allah Akhbar.”
The villagers have managed to cut through the wire. They remove a segment of about ten metres and begin throwing rocks at the electric fence extending upwards from the ditch below.
They are holding their hands to the sky, screaming.
“End the occupation. Israel: get out, get out.”
They cut through another section. Looping ropes around the wire, they haul it to the ground and cheer.
Two army trucks move down the road. People start running. Soldiers deploy from the trucks and run along the road.
Then teargas canisters are everywhere. Their sound is horrible.
There are massive booms. They are using canons which shoot multiple canisters at high velocity.
Then I can’t see anything. The gas is like a deep fog. It burns against the sweat on your face and arms, and your eyes start weeping.
The taste is hideous and chemical, it makes you not want to breath. You have to force the air into your lungs.
I am on my knees, coughing and spitting – trying to suck air in. Opening my eyes, I can’t see a metre in front of me. Everything is grey, the air is thick with gas.
I grab an onion that I bought in Ramallah from my bag, split it open and start sniffing it as hard as I can. Eyes closed. I bite into it, chewing, then spit it into my hands. Keep sniffing. The hiss of canisters is everywhere. It feels like someone is pouring vinegar onto my eyeballs and I am hocking gas from my lungs.
Then someone grabs my arm. He is wearing a gas mask and the vest of the Red Crescent. He sprays liquid on my shirt and tells me to breath against it.
He leads me out of the smoke, points and then vanishes back into the gas.
Young men with Keffiyeh’s wrapped around their faces are sprinting. There are slits in the fabric, revealing eyes. They whirl huge chunks of rock in slings and hurl them in the general direction of the soldiers below.
And more canisters come down.
People are hiding behind olive trees. They soldiers are using sound bombs, it sounds like a mortar is being dropped next to you.
A team of Red Crescent paramedics are treating people. The red swollen eyes. Gagging.
A paramedic is standing next to me, spraying a young man with a liquid that alleviates the symptoms almost immediately.
“We treat a lot of injuries,” he says.
“Two weeks ago they used live ammunition. We had six people shot, one to death.”
“Mostly it is tear-gas inhalation and wounds from rubber bullets and canisters.”
Over the past year, five protestors have been killed by live ammunition, he says.
A man with a Palestinian flag is telling people that it is time to go.
“They use rubber bullets next and real bullets. There will be snipers in the fields. We cut the fence. If we are stupid we would stay.” he says.
And people move up the path, away from the gas.
A woman from Spain says that she comes to these protests to show her support for the Palestinian cause.
Her eyes are puffy and red.
“No, these protests don’t make change. But it gives them a sense of achievement, that they are still resisting the occupation.”
We get back to the village and people walk to Yousef’s grave – the man shot dead in the village two weeks ago. They stand silently.
And then it is time to catch the final service taxi back to Ramallah. Leaving Ni’ilin, Israeli soldiers are at the entrance of the town. With sunglasses and M-16s. There is a queue of cars, waiting to be let through.
An hour later I am standing at Calandria checkpoint.
Waiting at a turnstile gate.
A man is getting yelled at by an official sitting behind bullet-proof glass. He doesn’t have the correct paperwork.
I had seen him on the bus from Ramallah to Calandria. We were driving beside the huge concrete slabs of the West Bank Wall. Graffitti covered it.
Some writing in huge block letters: CTRL-ALT-DELETE.
GLEN JOHNSON is from New Zealand, but now lives in Jerusalem. He can be reached at: [email protected] | <urn:uuid:904b5c52-3331-4c51-b42d-44640903b687> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/06/26/the-village-and-the-wall/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959548 | 2,154 | 1.84375 | 2 |
This masterpiece home began as a plea from a young couple fed up with not being able to find a healthy home where they could raise their daughter, and soon expected second baby. For those not familiar with design for HEALTHY living, this builds on green design by considering wellness, safety, and cleanliness. In search of a new home, Pam and Jan looked at over 140 homes and condos in the downtown area, but could not find one that had long-lasting materials, that was energy efficient, secure, or had the low maintenance requirements that they were seeking. For example, they commonly saw homes with dust collecting areas above kitchen cabinets, dirt trapped high pile carpeting, and low windows with casement openings that could endanger children if opened too much, and conversely, constrict air flow if not opened enough.
The couple’s quest began by asking their developer to build them a healthy home. Bloomfield Development Company partnered with experts from Healthy Child Healthy World, GreenGuard, and Dwell Magazine, to create a team able to make the home not only a perfect living space for the family, but also one that would showcase the best in sustainable design, innovative technologies, green building materials, and healthful living.
The home was designed by architect Joe Trojanowski in collaboration with Susan Fredman Design Group, and a team of excellent contractors. Trojanwoski said that his goal while designing the home was to have it be beautiful, and to achieve a look that was modern, but that also felt warm. Upon entering the home through an over-sized red front door, you are immediately taken aback by the open floor plan and high ceilings — both which allow for the entire first floor to be illuminated with daylight. An open staircase winds down in front of the view, creating the strongest focal element in the home.
When I asked the architect and interior designers what their biggest challenge was, I heard repeatedly that finding vendors with products that follow green and healthy standards was an immense task. Trojanowski told me that asking “What’s in it?” was always the first question when evaluating a product or material.
The team did amazing work finding quality green and healthy products and materials for the home. The exterior of the building is clad in dark brick and large cast stone panels. The insulation envelope of the house is high performing, with insulation that exceeds the standards set by the City of Chicago Green Homes Program Guidelines. The house is enclosed in a continuous insulation, including under the basement slab, which reduces the heating demand. It also includes mechanical connections for future solar thermal and solar photoelectric systems. Another unique feature of the exterior is the corner of the lot that was transformed into a raised terrace dining space with an outdoor fireplace.
Inside the home, 98% efficient heating provides for a comfortable space — meaning nearly all of the energy consumed is converted directly to heat, rather than wasted. The windows in the house are constructed of thermally broken aluminum frames, which prevent ‘thermal bridging’, or the direct transfer of heat through the window frame. The window glass is 1” thick insulated glass, manufactured by PPG, with a special ‘Solarcool Grey’ reflective coating that provides daytime privacy and further reduces the heat transfer.
The master bath is a long room complete with a double vanity, soaking tub, and a wet room shower. All water fixtures, most from Japanese company Toto, are low flow, and all of the tiles on the floors and walls are ceramic. The couple told me that they chose tile, FSC certified Teragren bamboo flooring, and recycled cork flooring throughout the house because these materials are green, but also because they are low maintenance They were very interested in having a home that stayed clean and didn’t have surfaces that trapped dirt and toxins.
The master bedroom has an amazing bed from Chicago Luxury Beds and also lots of natural light coming in through glass doors that lead to a private green roof space. The decking surfaces are made with composite wood decking, which is made from scrap wood and recycled products. The entire home is designed to maximize green space and is extensively planted, which reduces the stormwater load, and helps to reduce the ‘heat island effect’ of buildings in the city.
This home is meant to be an educational model about healthy living, so products that promote healthy lifestyles were displayed throughout along with information from Healthy Child Healthy World. Safe children’s products such as teething toys from Natursutten, Zoe-B‘s “anti-plastic” child’s toys, and OrganicKidz stainless bottles are displayed room built for the soon-to-be-born addition.
In other parts many other products were featured: eco-friendly laundry detergent from Ecos, natural body care products from Burt’s Bees and Episencial, and healthy supplements from Nordic Naturals. Because the product placement completed the vision of the healthy and green lifestyle, it was not overwhelming advertising. Walking around the this home forces one to start doing an assessment of their own lifestyle!
The third floor of the home has folding glass walls on all sides that open to an amazing roof deck. The deck uses wood composite decking, and has thick sheet glass railings. Up here we find a private office and an entertaining kitchenette from Bentwood Kitchens and lounge. Above this area is a metal roof has a high solar reflective index (SRI) which reflects much of the suns heat and helps to reduce the cooling load.
Perhaps our favorite room in the home is the Bulthaup kitchen. The soft finish on the metal veneered cabinet fronts was stunning. The kitchen was design with flat surfaces for easy cleaning, and no crevices to hide dirt. All of the appliances are Energy Star rated.
Victoria Di Iorio from Healthy Child Healthy World said, “We are going beyond the notion of what is sustainable to create a home that has health and wellness at the heart of our objectives. This project seeks to raise awareness on all the ways we can achieve a healthier environment – from cleaning supplies and food choices to how we construct and decorate our homes – so anyone can aspire to cleaner, greener, healthier living.”
This home is the second built in the Chicago area in partnership with Healthy Child Healthy World. We hope to see even more homes build under the guiding principles of GREEN and HEALTHY!
Lead photo by Alan Michael Whitney, Courtesy of Healthy Home Chicago 2012 | <urn:uuid:4e7bea21-3061-4511-992d-061df1967bc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inhabitat.com/inhabitat-gets-a-first-look-inside-this-amazing-chicago-green-healthy-home/healthy-home-chicago-2012-3/?extend=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962579 | 1,337 | 1.617188 | 2 |
North Dakota will receive more than $950,000 in federal grants to help address the suicide epidemic among American Indian youth, the state’s congressional delegation announced Thursday.
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa will receive a $475,417 grant for the Youth Suicide Early Intervention and Prevention program; a $480,000 grant will be awarded to Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, N.D., for the Wiconi Ohitika (Strong Life) Project.
In a joint statement, Sens. Kent Conrad and John Hoeven and Rep. Rick Berg said the rate of youth suicide in the American Indian community is “staggering.”
“More must be done to ensure these young people have access to the care and support they need,” they said.
The grants were awarded by the Department of Health and Human Services. | <urn:uuid:d6da8c06-1fab-4e7c-b980-1fcd6f941b05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://prairiefire.areavoices.com/2011/07/21/n-d-receives-950000-in-youth-suicide-prevention-grants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938736 | 185 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Newport Jazz Festival® presented by Natixis Global Asset Management
Aug 02 - Aug 04, 2013
Founded in 1954, the Newport Jazz Festival® was the first annual jazz festival in America. It has been host to numerous legendary performances by some of the world's leading established and emerging artists. Historic moments since its inception include performances by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Miles Davis. Referred to as the grandfather of all jazz festivals, the event draws thousands of people from all over the world to Newport, Rhode Island, a city which is famed for its spectacular coastal scenery and awe-inspiring architecture.
Fort Adams State Park
Do you know more details about this event? Add them! | <urn:uuid:e077fbf8-92dd-4027-928c-3b02e3c7092b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://jazztimes.com/guides/events/3440-newport-jazz-festival-presented-by-natixis-global-asset-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937523 | 156 | 1.664063 | 2 |
POSTED: Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - 11:00am
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 1, 2012 - 11:04am
WASHINGTON (CNN) — New health care benefits kick in Wednesday requiring coverage of preventive services and screenings largely affecting women -- another facet of the Obama administration's controversial health care law.
Beginning August 1, all new and non-grandfathered insurance plans will be required to cover a wide range of early detection services, including mammograms and cervical cancer screenings, without co-payments or other cost sharing requirements.
"The top killers of women will now no longer go undetected," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, who spearheaded the push on Capitol Hill to include the requirement in the health care overhaul.
"We eliminate the barriers to care," Mikulski emphasized, arguing that the most important deterrent to women seeking medical attention has been the cost of insurance co-pays and deductibles.
While Americans remain sharply divided over the Affordable Care Act -- President Barack Obama's signature legislative accomplishment -- several specific provisions already in effect have proven to be popular with the public. Among other things, the law also allows children to remain on a parent's health plan until age 26. It also prohibits the denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions, and eliminates the maximum lifetime dollar limit for an insured individual's care.
While insurance plans in effect before the law was enacted in March 2010 are not required to follow the new rules yet, policies used by 90% of the largest U.S. companies will lose their grandfathered status by 2014, according to Mikulski's office.
Most health insurance plans, however, already cover preventive care, industry representatives tell CNN. Some do not require any co-pay for these services.
"In fact, not only do health plans cover these services, they encourage policy holders to get recommended preventive care, such as preventive tests/screenings and immunizations," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the national trade association representing the health insurance industry. "Promoting prevention and wellness has always been a top priority for health plans."
The new policy requires insurers to cover a comprehensive set of set of preventive services, including both prenatal and postnatal care, breastfeeding supplies, domestic violence counseling, and screening for gestational diabetes.
But by far the most controversial aspect of the new policy is its contraception coverage.
Under the new rules, all employers -- including religiously affiliated institutions -- must cover Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives such as birth control pills and the so-called Plan B "morning after" pill. While churches are exempt, hospitals and schools with religious affiliations must comply.
While the new policy goes into effect on Wednesday, religious groups will have a year-long extension to implement the rule.
Religiously affiliated groups have voiced strong opposition to the mandate. Several prominent organizations affiliated with the Catholic Church, which opposes abortion and the use of contraceptives, consider the plan to be an infringement of their religious liberties.
Attempting to assuage critics, the Obama administration announced earlier this year that employees covered by religious organizations will have access to free contraceptives provided by "third-party administrators" or other independent entities.
Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Nebraska, has authored a measure in the House of Representatives known as the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act, which the congressman says would protect the religious liberty and conscience rights of those opposed to the contraceptive mandate. That legislation is still pending in the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Similar legislation in the Senate was voted down in March. The so-called "conscience" amendment sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, failed on a mostly party-line vote, effectively killing it. | <urn:uuid:60b1d583-95e9-432f-81c1-b07d802958bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc33tv.com/print/node/31201 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951262 | 775 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Controversial training material about Islam provided to a small pool of FBI agents at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Va. were inappropriate and offensive, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress today.
The briefing documents, first revealed by Wired’s Danger Room blog, emphasized that mainstream Muslims are violent, and included a graphic that shows that Muslims who are, “Pious and Devout” have tended to be more violent historically than Christians or Jews. The briefing slides noted, “Jihad is motivated by the strategic themes and drivers in Islam,” while another described the prophet Mohammad as a “Cult Leader.”
The FBI has previously said that the use of such the training materials was quickly halted. But Mueller expressed his concern about the training materials today, appearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Questioned by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., about the training materials, Mueller said, “I think that’s a very valid concern. And as I have pointed out, I think this is an unusual, very unusual occasion. And this particular instance the individual who gave the training – reports of what had been in that training came to – came up from the students and we took action to assure that that inappropriate, offensive content was not provided to others.
“I think these are isolated incidents, and in the course of that review we’ve had outreach to academicians and others to assist us in reviewing the materials and assuring that that offensive — that offensive content does not appear,” Mueller said. “We have 34,000 employees and we do a great deal of training. We understand the sensitivity and the importance of assuring that that training that we give to our persons are appropriate. … I believe these were unusual circumstances, but we are doing everything we can to do a top-to-bottom review of that training to assure we eliminate any of it.”
Mueller said that the FBI needed diverse training for FBI agents to identify future threats. “It should not be based on religion; it should not be based on religious characteristics. But, nonetheless, we have an obligation to identify those particular characteristics that might give us a warning as to a person who will undertake an attack against the United States.
“It’s not necessarily the international terrorism side alone.” Mueller said of the range of threats the FBI faces. “We have militants within the United States … and there’s a certain amount of investigation that has to be done to enable us to identify those persons who would undertake the attacks against the United States. But we want to assure, and I assure you that we want to do it in such a way that is consistent with our values.
“Our outreach over the years has been very successful, I think, in bridging the relationships with the Muslim-American community. And this is I think something that’s unfortunate, and we’ve addressed it,” Mueller said in defense of the FBI’s outreach to Muslim-Americans.
In previous congressional testimony, Mueller has discussed how the FBI has created specialized community outreach teams to work with specific groups in the United States such as the Muslim, South Asian and Sikh communities. | <urn:uuid:eb5d3594-6c64-4c48-afc9-ad8ff80dfc5a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/10/fbi-muslim-training-material-inappropriate-and-offensive/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974571 | 669 | 1.65625 | 2 |
By Kate Higgins and Stefanie Di Domenico
Last week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon announced the membership of the High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. Its mandate is to advise on the global development agenda beyond 2015, the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of time-bound targets established through the Millennium Declaration in 2000 to reduce extreme poverty.
Ban has asked that the Panel “prepare a bold yet practical development vision … on a global post-2015 development agenda” with shared responsibilities for all countries and with the fight against poverty and support for sustainable development at its core. The co-chairs, appointed prior to the Rio+20 conference in June this year, are President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom.
Among the remaining 23 representatives drawn from government, civil society, academia, and the private sector are former Prime Minister of Japan Naoto Kan and Yemeni women’s activist Tawakel Karman, a 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Unsurprisingly, due to their profiles and careers, Abhijit Banerjee, co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Nigeria’s Minister of Finance and recent candidate for the World Bank presidency, will also participate. Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever, will represent the private sector.
Beyond 2015, a global civil society campaign on the post-2015 agenda, has expressed concern at the lack of civil society representation on the panel and an overemphasis on government experience and international aid expertise. Alex Evans, co-editor of Global Dashboard, noted via Twitter how little environment expertise is on the panel.
The High-Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda will hold its first meeting in the margins of the 67th General Assembly in New York in September 2012. The Panel is expected to submit a report in the first half of 2013 that will serve as key input to the Secretary General’s report to a special UN event on the MDGs and the post-2015 agenda in September 2013.
In addition to the Panel, the UN has a dedicated UN System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, co-chaired by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and involving over 50 UN entities and international organizations. The task team is coordinating UN system-wide preparations and in June, published a very instructive first report. The UN will convene at least 50 national consultations on the topic between now and early 2013 as well as a series of thematic consultations on a range of issues, including inequalities, health, food security, and conflict and fragility. The first of these thematic consultations, on growth, structural change, productive capacities and employment, was held in Tokyo in May 2012.
The work of the Panel and the UN system on proposing a new global development framework will not be moving forward on its own. As we expected, one of the most concrete outcomes from the Rio+20 conference was an agreement on a process for developing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This process, as outlined in the Rio+20 outcome document, involves establishing an intergovernmental working group on the SDGs by September 2012. It will comprise 30 representatives nominated by Member States from the five UN regional groupings. This working group will submit a report to the General Assembly containing a proposal for SDGs in September 2013.
A key question and point of concern is how the SDGs and the Post-2015 development agenda will work together. These are clearly two different processes – the post-2015 development agenda is being taken forward by a panel appointed by the Secretary-General, while the SDGs are being driven by an intergovernmental process. Despite explicit instructions for each to coordinate with the other, there is not yet a lot of clarity on how this will transpire.
We hope that the process will become clearer in coming months. Regardless, we can expect analysis and proposals on the post-2015 development agenda to proliferate. In Canada, we’ll be monitoring things as they unfold through our International Development in a Changing World series. The Centre for International Governance Innovation will also be paying attention. The Canadian civil society and academic communities are set to engage more purposefully in the debates through a joint Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCIC)/Canadian Association for the Study of International Development (CASID) conference to be held in Ottawa in September 2012.
Internationally, a few hubs are also monitoring the analysis, proposals and debates on what should follow the MDGs. The Overseas Development Institute has established a useful website and Beyond 2015’s website is an excellent resource. Last week, a new web platform called The World We Want 2015 was launched. A joint initiative of civil society and the United Nations, it will host global civil society conversations to help shape the post-2015 development framework. To follow the conversation on Twitter, use #post2015, #beyond2015 and #worldwewant2015.
It’s a big agenda, and there’s no doubt that it will consume a lot of time, money and energy. But the ambitions, goals and processes that shape the SDGs, and the post-2015 development agenda, will play an important role in international development for years to come. So what is the message to those of us that work, follow or are interested in international development? If you’re not already, this is a process it’s time to watch. The wheels for establishing the post-2015 development framework are well and truly in motion.
Kate Higgins leads the Governance for Equitable Growth program at The North-South Institute. She is leading the International Development in a Changing World series. Stefanie Di Domenico is an intern at The North-South Institute. She is a student at the University of Ottawa where she is completing an Honours Bachelor of Social Sciences in International Development and Globalization. | <urn:uuid:452deb2d-13b1-4243-a3c2-624aab443dcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cidpnsi.ca/blog/wheels-in-motion-for-establishing-post-2015-development-framework/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932462 | 1,256 | 1.84375 | 2 |
3D Printer - No, Really
It's very interesting to watch, but the reason I wanted to show this was because it shows what we can accomplish if we put our minds to it.
If you watch it print, which unfortunately shows it only for a very short time, you can see that it sprays a layer of the "glue" onto the powder, then adds a layer of powder, then a layer of "glue", then a layer of powder. Little-by-little, the 3D object is made, one layer at a time. That's like anything we do. We just need to move forward or else nothing gets done. It's just like the quote from Henry Ford, the first step is to bite.
Please share the link with your friends on facebook, twitter, ... | <urn:uuid:ef4fbaff-1cab-419e-939e-d221d8661dd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.michaelfokken.com/blog/random/3d-printer-no-really/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946378 | 167 | 1.6875 | 2 |
The Pantera (Italian word for Panther) was a very successful sports car produced by De Tomaso between 1971 to 1991. Since its demise, many people have undoubtedly been dreaming of what a modern day Pantera would look like. In fact, Stefan Schulze even made up his own modern interpretation of the Pantera based on a Lamborghini Gallardo in an attempt to persuade De Tomaso to produce the car once again. Whether it was this rendering four years ago or the hum of eager fans, De Tomaso has decided that it is now time to bring back the catty beast to wreck havoc on our hearts once again.
The new Pantera is said to make its world debut in November at the Los Angeles Auto Show, almost exactly 40 years after the car was first launched on the market. Our only hope is that the sports car will look better than the DeAuville SUV that was just launched at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.
The original Pantera was powered by a V8 engine with an output of 330 HP, but rumors say that the new version will get a V8 engine with an impressive 550 HP. Here’s to hoping!
UPDATE 05/04/2011: Is that you, Pantera? YouTube member, Tappazzo, seemed to be at the right place at the right time when he caught a few seconds of video of what looks to be the future Pantera outside of DeTomaso’s Grugliasco plant in Italy. Could it be? Is it true? Take one look at that front end in the video after the jump and let us know what you think!
UPDATE 07/12/11: Circle your calendars, folks! The new De Tomaso Pantera is scheduled to be introduced at the 2011 IAA’s in Frankfurt in September! The model will weight about 2645 lbs and will be powered by a 600 HP Chevrolet Corvette V8. It’s been a long time coming, but we expect the wait to be worth it and more! | <urn:uuid:823fa27b-8dd7-464e-ae45-fc5df83321ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.topspeed.com/cars/detomaso/2012-de-tomaso-pantera-ar106114.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96005 | 416 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Source: South Williamsport, Pa.
Date: Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2012
If you asked someone to describe South Williamsport, how would they describe it?
Would they describe it as a great atmosphere? Would they talk about the players being exposed to players from other countries? Would they talk about the kids getting the chance to play on beautiful fields in front of thousands of fans?
They could describe South Williamsport using any of those descriptions, and much more, but one description that needs to be included are its volunteers.
The presence of volunteers is felt everywhere at the Little League World Series, but especially at games. At the games, announcements are made asking parents and players to keep the volunteers working the games in mind. The umpires are all volunteers who willingly donate their time so that way the games can go on. Between innings, workers are walking the aisles requesting donations.
This year has seen an uptick in donations, though. Not to Little League International, the organization behind the Little League World Series, but to the Middle East-Africa champions from Lugazi, Uganda, Little League.
"One of the most important things is what you can give back. Little League gives you an opportunity to give back."--Southwest Coach Mike Morrow
One team who has been getting in on the act are the Southwest champs, San Antonio, Texas, Little League.
"One of the most important things is what you can give back," coach Mike Morrow said. "Little League gives you an opportunity to give back."
This is actually coach Morrow's second time coaching in South Williamsport, and he said it's everything he's been anticipating.
Morrow said that in getting to know the Uganda players and coaches, they found out that other kids in Uganda don't have a lot of baseball supplies. He said they just don't have the kinds of resources that players all across the United States have.
Once the team found this out, he said one of the other coaches on the team asked Middle East-Africa coach Richard Stanley what baseball equipment his team needed. Morrow said his team gave the Middle East-Africa team "things that were replaced when they got there." So for example, if the Southwest team got new batting gloves, then they gave the Middle East-Africa team their old batting gloves.
It was an unprovoked act of generosity from the Southwest players. "Our kids came up with it on their own," Morrow said.
That is one of the many beauties of South Williamsport, especially with a team like Uganda being here for the first time. Through interacting with the Middle East-Africa champions and the Ugandan players bringing their stories back to Africa, the game of baseball can continue to grow in Africa, even more than it already has.
Morrow said that he hopes by this group of players getting the experience in South Williamsport, the game will become even more popular.
"I hope it helps it grow," Morrow said. "I think it will."
He said at least for the league back home in San Antonio, Texas, the excitement from past appearances in the Little League World Series has helped it grow.
In order to help a sport grow in any country, you need to have good quality individuals, and Morrow says Middle East-Africa has that.
"They are fantastic," Morrow said.
He said the team is a "great group of kids and coaches."
While the team has been giving back to others, the team has also been giving back to two of their own. Carter Elliot and Kevin Fleisher both have diabetes, and they said teammates will ask them how they are doing.
"They don't give me a hard time," Elliot said.
Fleisher said playing with diabetes can sometimes make things difficult. "It can be very challenging at times," he said.
He said that he will check his glucose level seven to 12 times a day. In order to keep track of his glucose level, he has a handheld glucose meter that reads out his level to him.
When Elliot and Fleisher check their glucose levels and it is either to low or too high, there is an appropriate reaction to take for each. If there glucose level is too high, they have to give their body more insulin, and if it is too low, they have to give their body more carbohydrates. Elliot said he also takes a shot before every meal.
Morrow said they are constantly checking their blood pressures and they know to take care of themselves.
"Their well versed in doing it," he said
Just like their coach, Elliot and Fleisher hope the best for the Middle East-Africa champs.
"They're awesome," Fleisher said. "We love those guys."
Fleisher said he hopes the Uganda team had a lot of fun.
When asked what about South Williamsport they were most excited for, Elliot said to meet "the kids from other countries.
If fans have learned anything this year in South Williamsport, it's that meeting kids from other countries definitely has its benefits.
The charity "Pitch in for Baseball" has teamed up with Uganda Little League to donate equipment to the Uganda community and help grow baseball in the country. If you would like to make a donation or learn more about the project, please visit http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/expand-youth-baseball-and-softball-in-uganda/ | <urn:uuid:6a269027-13fd-49b3-b79a-3deb534ee93f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.littleleague.org/series/2012divisions/llbb/obbp/22wed-southwest.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981944 | 1,123 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Michel Barnier, the Frenchman who is the European Commissioner for internal market and services, spoke in New York on Friday at a luncheon sponsored by the Atlantic Council and the Clearing House, and made the plea for the United States to adopt International Financial Reporting Standards, something that now seems very unlikely.
Notions on high and low finance.
“I continue to be disappointed by the slowness of the U.S. in moving toward internationally agreed accounting standards,” he said. “It is essential to have common basic standards. Otherwise we risk that our prudential standards will have different effects.”
He warned of the risks from a return “to a fragmented system based on national or regional approaches.”
Whatever the United States does, genuinely “common basic standards” are probably never going to arrive. And France can take a lot of the credit, or blame, for that. Read more…
Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of “13 Bankers.”
Tami Chappell/ReutersTreasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. in a speech in Atlanta this week, said, “The U.S. banking system today is less concentrated than that of any other major country.”
In a major speech earlier this week to the American Bankers Association’s international monetary conference, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner laid out his view of what went wrong in the financial sector before 2008, how the crisis was handled 2008-10 and what is needed to reform the system. As chairman of the Financial Stability Oversight Council and the only senior member of President Obama’s original economic team remaining in place, Mr. Geithner’s influence with regard to the banking system is second to none.
Unfortunately, Mr. Geithner’s speech contained three major mistakes: his history is completely wrong, his logic is deeply flawed, and his interpretation of the Dodd-Frank reforms does not mesh with the legal facts regarding how the failure of a global megabank could be handled. Together, these mistakes suggest that one of our most powerful policy makers is headed very much in the wrong direction.
On history, Mr. Geithner places significant blame for the pre-2008 excesses on Britain and other countries that pursued light-touch regulation. This is reasonable – though surely he is aware that the United States has led the way in lightening the touch of regulation, at least since 1980. A senior British official retorted immediately, “Clearly he wasn’t referring to derivatives regulation, because as far as I can recollect, there wasn’t any in America at the time.” Read more…
Economic growth in the United States has been quite disappointing over the last decade, as we’ve discussed before. Yet growth here has still been noticeably better than growth in Europe.
The following chart shows growth of real gross domestic product since 1995 for France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States. The source is Haver Analytics:
It’s enough to make you wonder what the answer for long-term growth is. Tax cuts don’t seem to be: growth in this country was faster than in Europe after the Clinton tax increase and after the Bush tax cut (and, of course, the American economy grew faster after the tax increase than it did after the tax cut).
So what is? Education? I’m sympathetic to that argument, but education obviously has a very long lead time. I’d be interested to see any comparisons between the United States and Europe over this time on other factors that could affect growth, like investment in science and immigration.
Or does the entire difference stem from the fact that Europeans work less (as the end of this Jonathan Chait post discusses) — and essentially are choosing quality of life over growth?
Last year we wrote about how France was subsidizing the ailing newspaper industry. Now it appears the French government has opened its coffers to another sector whose business model has been pummeled by the digital age: the music industry.
France’s strategy to combat illegal music downloads by contributing to the amount young people pay for them won European Union approval and praise for promoting cultural diversity.
Under the scheme, French residents who purchase a card — the Carte musique — to download music from subscription-based website platforms, will only pay half the cost of a €50 ($70) credit included in the card, with the French government paying the rest.
The scheme, which will benefit 12-to-25-year-olds, is expected to last two years, with consumers limited to one card a year. It will cost France €25 million ($35 million) annually based on its sales estimate of a million cards.
As with these new music subsidies, France’s newspaper subsidies last year were granted for only young consumers.
Peter Boone is chairman of the charity Effective Intervention and a research associate at the Center for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. He is also a principal in Salute Capital Management Ltd. Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of “13 Bankers.”
When Jean-Claude Trichet (head of the European Central Bank) and Dominique Strauss-Kahn (head of the International Monetary Fund) rushed to Berlin this week to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and the German Parliament, the moment was eerily reminiscent of September 2008 — when then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stormed up to the United States Congress, demanding $700 billion in relief for the largest American banks.
Remember the aftermath of that debacle? Despite the Treasury argument that this would be enough, much more money was eventually needed, and Mr. Paulson left office a few months later under a cloud.
The problem this time is bigger. It is not only about banks; it is about the essence of the euro zone, and the political survival of all the public figures responsible.
If Mr. Trichet and Mr. Strauss-Kahn were honest, they would admit to Ms. Merkel “we messed up — more than a decade ago, when we were governor of the Banque de France and French finance minister, respectively.” These two founders of the European unity dream helped set rules for the euro zone that, by their nature, have caused small flaws to turn into great dangers.
The underlying problem is the rule for printing money. Read more…
Simon Johnson, a professor of entrepreneurship at M.I.T.’s Sloan School of Management, is the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.
We’ve become so caught up in our banking stresses and stress tests in the United States that we sometimes forget about what is happening in other parts of the world economy. This matters because, while the United States is the world’s largest economy, we’re only about 20 to 25 percent of global output (with the exact number depending on the precise exchange rate on that day) — so what happens elsewhere really matters for where we are going.
The bad news is in Europe, both Western and Eastern.
The European Commission published its new forecast (with a nice interactive map) earlier this week. For the entire European Union, gross domestic product is expected to be 4 percent lower in 2009 than in 2008 (see their Table 1 on page 3). The forecast is broadly in line with what the International Monetary Fund is currently saying.
This very severe recession has taken the European policy makers almost completely by surprise. A year ago, in spring 2008, top European officials were convinced they would barely slow at all — and publicly criticized the I.M.F.’s early warning to the contrary. Read more…
On Monday, in posting some of the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Society at a Glance report, I noted that the French spent the most time per day eating, but had one of the lowest obesity rates among developed nations.
Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.
Here I’ve plotted out the relationship between time the average person in a given country spends eating and that country’s obesity rate (as measured by the percentage of the national population with a body mass index higher than 30).
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
There does seem to be some correlation (although, as we all know, correlation is not causation). And note, of course, where America lies on this chart. | <urn:uuid:455909ba-50d3-409f-9f3e-771f048e8918> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/france/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961803 | 1,767 | 1.585938 | 2 |
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — The North Carolina Railroad Co. is a strange bird. It's a private corporation whose only shareholder is the state of North Carolina. It owns no locomotives but provides freight and passenger service from the big cities to Down East.
Now legislators closely reviewing the railroad company want the state to become more active owners nearly 15 years after the company's last private shareholders were bought out. A bill being floated at the Legislature would require more oversight of the company and demand the state receive direct cash dividends again.
The company was created before the Civil War and today owns 317 miles of rail from Charlotte to Morehead City.
Railroad President Scott Saylor says the cash dividends could delay rail improvements that benefit economic development.
What's On TonightFull Schedule
does someone have to go | <urn:uuid:f46880b5-7039-4c06-8c50-cbc7be541178> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wccbcharlotte.com/news/local/180755971.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961838 | 168 | 1.632813 | 2 |
In Chariots They Ran
In the late 1970s, an idealistic producer struck out on his own to create a different kind of movie--a movie about self-sacrifice and moral courage, as embodied by two historic British runners. The result was Chariots of Fire.
As training began, there were a few early shudders about the actors' fitness—McNab says Charleson turned up at his house for the first time "and he'd pulled a muscle running for a bus!"—but excess of zeal seems to have been more of a problem. "I was doing 10-mile runs at one point," says Farrell, "getting a bit overkeen, and I sprained my foot. Tom said, 'Calm down.'"
Fitness wasn't the only issue. They had to look like athletes—a little easier task when their models were the gifted mortals of 1924. As Havers says: "You could get away with a certain physique." Where they could, the filmmakers made it easy on them. Though McNab says Havers was a competent hurdler, the obstacles in the film were 2'6" high rather than the regulation 3'.
The young actors turned up twice a week for training at Wormwood Scrubs Stadium in West London, hard by a notorious prison. Still unpaid, they arranged their schedules around collecting unemployment and whatever work they could find. They got by, though. And they got competitive. "They were like athletes in many ways," says McNab, "insecure, all about performance." He adds: "Most of these guys had athletic ability they had never tapped. Ben Cross got to the point that he thought he was fast. He said, 'What do you think I could run for the 100 meters, 11 flat?' I said, 'You'd be lucky if you could run 12.6.' I put a veteran female runner against him. She was over 50 and she slaughtered him over 40 yards. He never mentioned it again."
Havers, meanwhile, took a tumble while showing off his hurdling technique to Cross. He dislocated a shoulder and, as he waited in agony for an ambulance, realized with a sinking feeling that he had also broken a wrist. A cast would have ruled him out of the movie, so he taped it and disguised it with a sweater and later a huge wristband. Havers says, "The wrist never really recovered." But as shooting began, he was on the set.
After three months of boot camp, they all were. A fitter, faster bunch than when they started, they'd become a tight-knit group. They were friends, and it shows on-screen. As Havers says: "We were like a little Olympic outfit ourselves, a very close group. We forgot about the camera being on us. Hugh just let it roll."
FINANCING THE MOVIE POSED PROBLEMS OF A DIFFERENT order. Puttnam and Hudson may have been sold on the treatment, but it was tough to persuade anyone else to share their enthusiasm. (British film company Goldcrest did put up some money to help pay for the development of the script, but Hudson says, "It was the best investment they ever made. A few thousand dollars and they've been claiming the film as theirs ever since.")
Their first big break came at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival. As Puttnam and his former business partner, Sandy Lieberson, then president of 20th Century Fox, were falling asleep in a shared bedroom, Puttnam told him the story line of the movie. Lieberson liked it enough to put up half the $5.5 million Puttnam needed. The other half was tougher.
Hudson says: "The American studios rejected it. Why? Because the two main characters barely meet. There is no shoot-out at the end. They support each other because they are both running for Great Britain." He adds that after weeks touring the U.S. in a fruitless search for finance, "I remember sitting with David in a hotel room almost weeping. It seemed impossible to get anybody to understand why this was a film worth investing in."
Puttnam says it reached the point where "we were thinking of pulling the plug. That or remortgage the house. My wife said, 'Don't think twice. Just do it.' Luckily it didn't get to that." By 1981, Allied Stars, a British production outfit owned by Egyptian mogul Mohamed Al Fayed, agreed to stump up the other half. | <urn:uuid:6726869c-06c4-465f-b21d-7f38993ac996> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.runnersworld.com/runners-stories/chariots-they-ran?page=4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.988816 | 939 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Shoot sightings and snow!
Hi Bulb Buddies!
I suspect many of our pots will be under snow for the next few days! This will mean that many schools will be closed. If you do get snow please put a note in the comments section when you send in your weather records. Follow this link to see the all the weather records that have been sent in so far. Select a school then ‘weather’.
Here are some pictures of my shoots. You will see that those I planted in autumn 2011 have grown much more than those I planted last autumn.
If you have shoots already, take a look at my pictures to help work out - which shoots are which.
Please send me any pictures of shoot sightings you may have.
Here is a video showing how your shoots will grow.
Your comments my answers:
St Mary's CatholicPrimary School: We have no records for Monday because it was an inset day. Some of our daffodil bulbs have come through the soil. We have taken photographs and will send them by e-mail. Prof.P: I look forward to seeing them St.Mary’s.
Ladybank Primary School: Thank you for our new thermometer! Prof.P: No worries, thanks for letting me know it arrived safely.
Glyncollen Primary School: Our bulbs have started to grow over the holidays. We hope the frost doesn't get to them. Yr.4. Prof.P: Don’t worry year 4, they are quite tough.
SS Philip and James Primary School:
Happy New Year! A few daffodil shoots are peeping out of the ground and in one or two pots. Quite a few shoots are emerging in the 'Mystery Bulbs' pot and they are a red/green colour compared to the daffodils shoots which are green. Prof.P: How exciting, not seen my mystery bulb shoots yet.
Greyfriars RC Primary School:
Some are sprouting already! All is good. I am really enjoying this project! Prof.P: glad to hear the bulbs are starting to grow and that you are enjoying.
St Joseph's Primary School (Penarth)
Happy New Year Prof.Plant. We have started to notice a few green shoots in some of our pots and are very excited about the plants beginning to grow. We have talked about the weather forecast for next week and think that we may be sending you photos of snow covered pots! (St. Joseph's Primary School, Penarth.) Prof.P: Yes you were right. Some snow in Cardiff but not enough!
Rhydypenau Primary School:
when we got back to school after the Christmas holidays, our rainfall gauge was full, so we must have had a lot of rain in a fortnight. Prof.P: Yes, we had lots of rain over the holidays – a bit too much! Many people had flooding which must have been awful at Christmas.
Henllys CIW Primary:
Some shoots but no flowers. Prof.P: The flowers will come soon.
Auchtertool Primary School:
When we came back from our Christmas break some of our bulbs were showing growth - not only the ones in pots but also some of those we had planted in the ground! Prof.P: Excellent news!
Ysgol Porth Y Felin:
hello p.p the plants are growing quite quickly but we didn't write down Monday because of teacher training. Prof.P: Thanks for letting me know.
Ysgol Nant Y Coed:
This week the bulbs have started to grow, mostly the mystery bulb. The weather was warm at the beginning and at the end it was cold. Prof.P: Great update, Nant Y Coed.
Tynewater Primary School:
We had 50mm of rainfall on Tuesday because we had been on holiday for two weeks and nobody had emptied the rain gauge. Prof.P: Yes, mine was the same. Thanks for noting the reason.
New year, new shoots!
Happy New Year Super Scientists! Hope you had a great break and are ready to get investigating!
At this time of year things start to get really exciting. Now is the time to watch your pots to see if anything is starting to grow. My daffodil shoots have already appeared! Anyone else got any yet? Please send me photographs if you do.
It could take another month or even six weeks until my flowers appear. It all depends on our weather - if it turns really cold then the growth will slow down. If it stays warm they will grow faster.
The next step... Please use my PowerPoint presentation to find out how to keep flower records. Remember each of you must let me know when your flowers open in order to receive your Super Scientist Certificates.
2012 was the second wettest year on record in the UK and the wettest ever in England, the Met Office announced.
The downpours that caused more than 8,000 homes and businesses to suffer flooding led to a total of 1,330.7mm of rain for the year, just 6.6mm short of the wettest UK year recorded in 2000 (1337.3mm).
Analysis by the Met Office suggests that the UK may be getting increasingly wetter as climate change causes warmer air to carry more water. Days of extreme rainfall – downpours expected once every 100 days – occurred every 70 days in 2012. For more info on this see this report from the Guardian. | <urn:uuid:9a8caa00-eb97-414c-acba-c5c19b76ea0b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/blog/?month=2013-01&cat=407 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967678 | 1,150 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Camille O'Sullivan is standing in front of a full-length mirror being fitted into her new costume. "Sweet mother of Jesus," she yelps, as a large safety pin narrowly misses her bosom. When the Irish singer was on stage in Edinburgh in 2009 – the last time I saw her perform – she wore a tight bodice and fishnets, her deep curves and darkly alluring figure straight out of the Weimar Republic. This was for her intense performance of songs by Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and David Bowie. But today she is being eased into a white shift dress with a round neck and no waistline. "Very simple, very pure," she says. Then comes a sweeping cream coat, fastened at the neck. She is the image of grown-up, womanly dignity.
- The Rape of Lucrece
- Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh
- Camille O'Sullivan
- Starts 22 August
- Until 26 August
- More details
But then the Irish singer is preparing for a different kind of show: a performance of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece, co-created with composer Feargal Murray and theatre director Elizabeth Freestone. After a four-night run in Stratford last year, they are refining the piece for its appearance at the Edinburgh international festival next week. It's a coal-black work: Tarquin, king of Rome, rapes the famously chaste wife of his friend Collatinus; to wipe out the stain of shame, Lucrece kills herself. Tarquin is then banished, an act that will usher in the Roman republic. In the piece, O'Sullivan plays victim and rapist, bereaved husband and father, not to mention the dispassionate narrator.
It was Freestone who challenged O'Sullivan to take on the forbidding 1,855-line poem. Of the singer, she says: "She's comfortable in the territory Lucrece covers – vulnerable enough to get into dark corners, strong enough to come out the other side with grace and humour. She won't hold back: she meets it head on and demands the audience does the same."
O'Sullivan, though a skilled vocalist, has formal training in neither music nor acting. She swapped a career in architecture for one as a performer after a long, soul-searching stint in hospital following a car accident in 1999. Perhaps because she is self-taught, she has carved out her own distinctive style: dangerously committed performances coloured by prewar Berlin cabaret and a childhood spent listening to her French mother's Jacques Brel records.
"My approach to music is quite instinctual and filmic," she says. "I see a song almost like an actress sees a monologue. I see images from my life, from my past. So with Shakespeare, where there is so much metaphor, so much imagery, I feel completely at home. It's in 3D. I feel that, after all these years singing Nick Cave and Jacques Brel songs that have very developed characters, I've actually learned something."
Carving an 85-minute dramatic show out of Shakespeare's narrative was the first challenge. "We had the poem up on the wall and we went through it, deciding what parts could be songs. We really had to get the kernel of what our story was. We had to get rid of a lot of things – beautiful descriptions, some of them."
In an extended sequence, after the rape, Lucrece examines a picture depicting the events and characters of the Trojan war, finding it reflects her own situation. Although it's a virtuosic passage of poetry, it ended up being cut. "You imagine me trying to do that?" says O'Sullivan. "The whole Trojan war? You'd be going, 'Jesus – a five-hour show.'" Instead, they concentrated on moments when characters reveal themselves, the points at which they change. "We were thinking, 'When do they speak, when do they think? What are going to be the moments when the audience will understand that person?'"
Oddly, the result is sometimes reminiscent of baroque opera – with narrated sections like spoken recitative, and aria-like moments when O'Sullivan breaks into song. The sung sections had to seem unforced, though. "Shakespeare the Musical is what we didn't want: tap dancing across the stage singing, 'And then he raped Lucrece!'"
Freestone describes their rehearsal process: "Everything is different from a traditional rehearsal. We don't sit down and look at a page, talk about it, then get it on its feet like on a play. We work on everything – music, meaning, staging – all at the same time. We've learned that a melody can unlock a meaning, a move can make sense of a musical shift, or a repositioned line can be the answer to a tricky song structure. Nothing happens in isolation."
A major challenge has been how O'Sullivan slips between all her characters. "You don't necessarily have to change your physique, or your voice, but there is something in your intent that has to become different," she says. In particular, she has to find what makes both Tarquin and Lucrece tick. Neither of their motivations is obvious: Tarquin seems to commit the rape for the hell of it, and Lucrece's suicide is a deeply ambiguous act that has caused debate among readers from St Augustine onwards (Shakespeare's story is derived from Livy and Ovid). Why would an innocent woman feel so polluted that she had to kill herself?
"It's not just black and white," says O'Sullivan. "It's not just innocence and darkness. You have to show that Tarquin could have been the nice guy; instead he did the worst thing imaginable. He's quite charismatic, capable of charm, and he pretty much regrets the rape the moment he's done it. Equally, this beautiful woman who is an innocent, why would she decide to do this? What would be in her that she would first be so distraught and then calmly decide to kill herself?"
O'Sullivan's task now is to recommit the entire thing to memory: "I learn six pages a night before I go to sleep," she says. "I'm swimming in Shakespeare. It's like when people start learning a foreign language and end up dreaming in French – I am dreaming in Shakespeare."
The experience, she says, is changing everything. "I come from a land of singer-songwriters, and in Ireland it can seem a bit below par if you're not singing your own stuff. It's only recently that I've seen that what I do is much more like what an actor does. This has opened up a whole new world of literature, of poems, of novels. We've been thinking, 'What about doing Beckett?'" | <urn:uuid:b433c52c-5f8f-4f74-8034-bc3bbef87db1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/13/camille-o-sullivan-rape-lucrece | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9744 | 1,413 | 1.507813 | 2 |
An online community for schools using iPod Touches in the classroom
I am at the start of the journey and I am wondering how many ipod touches a school needs and how they are best managed. I am the teacher-librarian at my school so I figure some type of class set arrangement.with a charging dock. Any advantage starting with primary ahead of secondary or the reverse?
Do they replace laptops to any great extent?
Is there any value in surveying to see how many own their own and getting them used in class? What would the risks be for…Continue | <urn:uuid:7958230e-0977-4448-971d-0cb921412723> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ipodtouchclassroom.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?month=07&year=2010 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938423 | 117 | 1.578125 | 2 |
New VHF TV Allotments for Delaware and N.J.
In 1982, before anyone was considering DTV channel allotments, Congress modified the Communications Act of 1934 to add a section (331(a)) stating that the FCC must allocate commercial VHF channels in such a manner so that would be not less than one VHF channel per state, "if technically feasible."
Even though VHF TV channels, especially low-band VHF channels have been found to be less desirable than UHF channels in most situations--witness the number of stations filing applications to move from VHF to UHF--the FCC is still required to make sure every state has at least one commercial VHF channel. Last week the FCC initiated rulemakings to make sure that the two states considered deficient in VHF channels--New Jersey and Delaware--had commercial VHF allotments.
UHF or VHF DTV channels are scarce in the northeast, so it isn't surprising that the two proposed allotments are in the least desirable low-band VHF spectrum. The FCC has proposed allocating Channel 4 to Atlantic City, N.J. [PDF
] and assigning Channel 5 to Seaford, Del. [PDF
The FCC noted that the station assigned to analog Channel 9, in Secaucus, N.J., is now operating only on its DTV frequency, Channel 38. The remaining VHF channel allocated to Newark, N.J.'s WNET (Channel 13) has been operated as part of the New York State education network since 1961 and the Court of Appeals has ruled that this allotment does not qualify as a VHF channel allotment for the purpose of Section 331(a). And as Channel 12, which is allocated to Wilmington, Del., is reserved for non-commercial educational use, it too does not qualify under Section 331(a).
Both of these allotments are proposals only, and the FCC is soliciting comments on the proposed allotments linked to above. It is possible these may not be the final allocations. The FCC has stated that the filing of a counterproposal may lead to change allotments to a different channel for "any of the communities involved."
It is ironic to me that TV spectrum once considered a prime location for analog TV is now being avoided for DTV. | <urn:uuid:bab72a70-8f2f-4ede-8817-a91c7ae73f1d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tvtechnology.com/prntarticle.aspx?articleid=204437 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960795 | 470 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Following our coverage of the Forward Poetry Prize, and discussions on poetry at the Culture Wars forum and Battle of Ideas festival in London, Culture Wars is soliciting further articles about contemporary poetry and its place in the broader culture, with a view to expanding and improving our coverage of poetry.
Browse books by title with CW new books archive feature.
Vivid scattergun readings by Sinclair and Moore, whose striking first-person narrative was a moving insight into the tragedy of the story, compellingly transported the audience to Clare’s countryside. What the ensuing witch-hanging-blackface-jig-metal-pounding lacked in consistency or subtlety, it made up for in genuine lunacy.
The music’s emotional ebbs, together with the projection of Jack Wake-Walker’s beautiful shots of the Thames and of crossing cranes against the sky, seemed to be redeeming the presence of The Restructure; they opposed the most human to the least soulful.
It was a shame we didn’t see the Shirleys again, as their upskittling shenanigans had us laughing, then in true Brecht/Frisch style, asking ‘Why are we laughing at this; and why are we laughing at it here?’ They made us uncomfortable. Shouldn’t we feel uncomfortable? Isn’t that, to some extent, the point?
Are the implications of the poem that going out with a bread-knife is as much a desperate act as calculated violence? This is where Duffy takes the cultural risk, where poetry becomes dangerous, unflinching.
There is still a place for the Poet Laureate in our society. Poetry makes the transition from something private to something that can be appreciated more widely when it strikes, like that errant ‘sun-shaft’, upon emotions and experiences that are in some sense universal, or in other words, human.
This human failure to connect is one of Kennard’s recurring motifs. His poems are filled with jokes which do not have the desired effect: either because the listener is over-literal (the hyper-intelligent Wolf, a returning character from the last collection), humourless (the jaded, post-ironic artist girlfriend in ‘A Sure-Fire Sign’) or because the signification system has collapsed so far in his absurdist universe that even those laughing aren’t sure.
Adam Foulds’ new novel recounts the life, loves and madness of John Clare, poster-boy poet of romantic environmentalists and it-once-was Englanders. Can we bracket him so easily and read him as nothing more than a lament for a natural world destroyed in front of his eyes? Or does his life and poetry tell us something more important about civilisation than it does about nature?
Seen through the poems, President Obama is emphatically not a blank screen. He has come to represent the possibility of American redemption, the possibility of reclaiming the moral high ground— and he is valued by people, and poets, as a way to elevate their own views by associating them with him.
So many factors: if a performer plays a poet who reads a poem, he is firstly performing a poet, then performing a poet’s voice, all this before the actual poem. To deliver the poem then, even if he just ‘reads’ , it would be a performance regardless of how pared down a delivery it is.
The merit of this event, and more generally of the London Word Festival, lies first of all in providing a platform for the sort of literary enterprise that would otherwise remain untried or unnoticed.
The dialectic of home and exile enables a poetry, not of hope – in this case, the always-present longing for return – but of creation. Home is not the land you knew and will greet again (though Darwish would remain throughout his life a defender of the Palestinian cause), but a place impossibly unknown
Philip Larkin rarely gave readings of his poems. Asked why in an interview with the Paris Review [PDF], he explained that to hear a poem as opposed to reading it on the page means that, for better or worse, the speaker will interpose their personality between poem and audience, obscuring, maligning and interfering with the poem itself.
For me, the city of Florence means the Renaissance. For Simon Barraclough, it means Hannibal. In his debut collection, Los Alamos Mon Amour, culture as we know it has been annihilated by an atom bomb, specifically one designed at the eponymous US laboratory. | <urn:uuid:87268892-fdcc-479e-a35a-2df355755f6b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.culturewars.org.uk/index.php/site/category/C9/P0/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00032-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961533 | 955 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The Princeton Review recently placed Video Game studies at the University of Utah very high in its annual rankings. The U of U’s undergraduate program received the #2 spot behind the University of Southern California, while the Entertainment Arts and Engineering graduate program took the #6 spot nationwide.
The undergraduate program has more than 150 students enrolled, and the graduate program has 22 and is expected to double in size quickly.
In a recent conversation, Craig Caldwell, USTAR professor of digital media, has some insights as to why the university ranked so high.
The U of U undergraduate program is three years old, and the graduate program is just over a year old. How did the U of U score so high so quickly in the rankings?
It’s a relatively new area of study for most institutions, so longevity is less of a factor. I believe the Princeton Review put the most weight on four factors: design of the program, faculty, infrastructure and career opportunities. We’ve got a good story to tell in each area, at both the undergrad and grad levels.
What do you mean by design of the program?
I think it comes down to the program’s emphasis. There are a lot of private art schools that have terrific graphics programs, but they are light on computer engineering. We’re working to integrate all aspects of game development.
At the U of U, the program accommodates tracks with different focus areas, all of which have a bearing on the creation of video games. We have an arts track, a game development track, and a computer science/programming track, with the students working in multi-disciplinary teams to create new games. This is how it’s done in industry.
The primary course in the fall semester is a game prototyping class. Student teams develop a game every four weeks. Then they start over again. It requires what we call rapid thinking and the ability to work together. The students all work together in the same space, and they are all intermixed whether they are graphic artists or programmers.
The spring semester focuses on taking the most promising games developed in the fall and fully developing them. A panel of industry representatives helped select the final two projects for the 2011 spring semester. Our biggest goal is to get finished games out the door, again replicating the processes industry takes.
So industry involvement is a key aspect.
Absolutely, we’re really blessed by the degree to which industry is involved here. Interaction with industry experts helps the students. Every week we have companies like Disney, SmartBomb, and Chair Entertainment on campus talking to our students. These guest lecturers tell our students how it’s really done.
And we’ve made some adjustments to the program to foster industry connections. A very simple aspect of the program’s structure is night class offerings. This encourages more involvement from industry, and allows some students to intern at companies during the day.
And the companies have reached out as well. We recently took the students on a tour of EA, and heard some great presentations on how they work.
What about infrastructure?
I think the Princeton Review liked what we’re doing in terms of infrastructure. We’ve got a space on campus in old art museum just for the grad students. We’re adding another space in Computer Science next year.
These facilities – which were paid in part by USTAR funding – include dedicated computer workspaces for testing and development, as well as lecture areas. It’s all integrated and emulates industry working spaces that foster team collaboration. You’re probably hearing a theme here.
You mention that the Princeton Review looks at the faculty involved. Who are the key players and what do they bring to the mix?
The faculty most involved with the program come from several disciplines and include Robert Kessler and Mark Van Langevelde from Computer Science, Roger Altizer who is an expert in Communication and Web Design, and myself. I worked at Disney in 3D animation, at Electronic Arts, and in academia, including as Head of the largest film school in Australia.
We not only teach in individual classes, but generally in the game prototyping class, we’re all in there together. Having faculty from both the artistic side of game development working with computer science faculty elevates the entire program. To really develop games in an effective way, you need the hard computer science that you can’t get at the more traditional art schools.
How about the career opportunity component of the ranking?
We have the career opportunities in Utah. The industry is expanding. One digital media company’s local office has 30 openings to fill right now. I think industry involvement benefits everybody - the regular guest lecturers build a fast track for students and helps company recruitment too.
Part of the reason Utah is gaining traction with industry stems from the strength of higher education. You look at BYU, with one of the top animation programs in the country, and you look at the computer science program at the U of U. Utah Valley University has a national reputation in digital sound and USU has strengths in interactive training. The list goes on.
Brent Adams of BYU put it very well. He said we have to graduate enough students to reach critical mass to bring industry here. I think that’s happening. Disney bought Avalanche, EA moved an office here, and Chair moved an office here. All of a sudden things are really coming together in downtown Salt Lake City. The U of U is minutes away, so it’s very easy for industry and the university to work together.
Do the companies fight over the talent pool?
It’s really expensive for companies to raid each other for talent. Here they can get to know our students and can draw from the expanding talent pool.”
And hiring local talent is economical. Companies don’t have to match wage levels that prevail in Los Angeles. Companies can find well-educated talent that likes living in Utah, and who display dedication and work ethic.
What’s equally exciting is that not all students transition to industry. Some want to strike out on their own. We call our studio the ‘Incubator’ because we’ve got some students launching start-up companies to develop and market their games.
What’s USTAR’s role in Utah’s digital media industry?
USTAR was the catalyst to get the Masters program going. That in turn brought the national spotlight on how well the undergraduate program is doing. And USTAR has funded some significant capital expenditures, such as the studio space build-out.
The university is actively recruiting another USTAR digital media faculty member in Computer Science, and it’s probably not a surprise for me to tell you that an industry representative is serving on the USTAR hiring committee. This further strengthens ties between the university and the digital media companies in the state.
What’s the scouting report on Utah?
There’s something fertile at the U of U and in the state. There is a receptiveness to go beyond pure research and to spin out new companies. It’s exciting to be here.
The Utah Science Technology and Research initiative (USTAR) is a long-term, state-funded investment to strengthen Utah's "knowledge economy” and generate high-paying jobs. Funded in March 2006 by the State Legislature, USTAR is based on three program areas. The first area involves funding for strategic investments at the University of Utah and Utah State University to recruit world-class researchers. The second area is to build state-of-the-art interdisciplinary facilities at these institutions for the innovation teams. The third program area involves teams that work with companies and entrepreneurs across the State to promote science, innovation, and commercialization activities. For more information, go to www.innovationutah.com or follow http://twitter.com/Innovationutah. | <urn:uuid:4aaba95b-d002-48c7-9527-6f721a57c79e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utahpolicy.com/view/full_story/15711584/article-U-of-U-and-USTAR-Seed-the-Digital-Media-Economy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95468 | 1,647 | 1.632813 | 2 |
- Taxes on some wealthy French top 100 pct of income: paper
- North Korea fires short-range missiles for two days in a row |
- Israel warns against Russian arms supply to Syria
- Winning ticket for $590.5 million Powerball lottery sold in Florida |
- Toyota plans to increase lithium-ion car battery output-Nikkei
New cookbook extols the power of plants
NEW YORK, Sept 4 |
NEW YORK, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Nutrition writer and registered dietitian Sharon Palmer believes that for weight loss, optimal health and longer life, everyone should be moving towards plant-based eating.
In her new book, "The Plant-Powered Diet," the Los Angeles-based chef includes 75 meatless recipes but the meal plans, suggestions and tips are aimed at omnivores as much as at vegetarians and vegans.
"The purpose of the book is to help people find that balance in their diet," Palmer said. "I'm hoping to appeal to everybody because I think everybody can benefit from this."
Palmer spoke to Reuters about plant-based breakfasts, meatless Mondays, and how even vegetarians can be junk food junkies.
Q: Why did you write this book?
A: "I really felt that research is coming together to support plant-based eating and I felt that people could gain benefits no matter where they were at. Many people think that plant-based eating is only vegetarian or vegan but it can really take place for everybody. They can eat animals less and eat more plants to gain the health benefits."
Q: Are all the recipes vegetarian?
A: "All 75 recipes are vegan because I have a vegan, a vegetarian and a plant-based omnivore meal plan. Everybody can start with the vegan plan even if they just want to have plant-based meals once or twice a week."
Q: What is the power of plants?
A: "Plant-based eating has so many health benefits. A wide range of research supports that: heart health, lower diabetes risk, lower cancer risk, even improved cognition, which is brain function, are linked with a plant-based diet."
Q: How do you suggest an omnivore/meat-eater move incrementally to a plant-based diet?
A: "I love the idea of meatless Mondays. I think the whole thing about once a week eating a plant-based meal is really catching on because it's so easy to do.
"Other techniques include going back to the cultural history of eating, when people would take a small amount of animal and turn it into a whole meal. Meat was really precious and wasn't the center of the plate. Take a small chicken breast and turn it into a stir-fry pasta dish. Ethnic cuisine is a real inspiration for plant-based eating. Also, breakfast is an easy meal to make plant-based. It's a no-brainer."
Q: What are basic ingredients, to have always on hand, in a plant-based diet?
A: "To cook a whole plant-based diet, or to eat that way, you've got to be prepared. Shelf ingredients, such as dried beans, lentils, dried peas, whole grains, are staple items. I also recommend canned tomatoes, olive oil, nuts and seeds, tempeh, flax -- all things you can keep on hand and supplement with fresh ingredients. It's not that difficult but you do have to keep a pantry."
Q: Is there any food you believe people should avoid altogether?
A: "There's so much emerging evidence on red meat, one study after another, particularly processed meat like ham, bacon, sausage and hot dogs, to the point where the American Institute for Cancer Research says just don't eat it."
Q: Is a vegetarian diet necessarily a healthy diet?
A: "Even a vegetarian can eat a junk food diet. You can eat cheese all day long. One of my pet peeves is vegetarians who don't like vegetables, which seems oxymoronic. I really feel strongly that if you're taking on a vegetarian diet, you have to make every bite count."
Beet and Pomegranate Seed Salad
Makes 4 Servings (About 9 Cups)
4 cups packed mixed baby greens
2 cups packed assorted micro-greens, which are small, young seedlings
2 cups sliced baby beets, cooked and chilled
1 cup fresh pomegranate seeds
3 tablespoons coarsely chopped walnuts
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 garlic clove, minced
1. Arrange the baby greens in a salad bowl or on a platter. Top with the micro-greens.
2. Arrange the beets on top of the micro-greens and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and walnuts.
3. Whisk together the orange juice, olive oil, black pepper, and garlic in a small bowl. Drizzle the vinaigrette over the salad and serve immediately.
NOTE: If you don't have time to cook fresh beets for this recipe, use drained canned beets (preferably with no added salt) or refrigerated cooked beets, which are available in many supermarkets. (Editing by Patricia Reaney and Elaine Lies)
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- Digg this | <urn:uuid:20942eed-ddbf-474e-b663-6c3051a7a2b7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/04/food-chefs-palmer-idUSL4E8JT5AA20120904 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957259 | 1,135 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Establish Early Childhood Coordinating Council
Will "establish an Early Childhood Coordinating Council in the Governor’s Office. The Council would lead the way to align efforts, measure progress and ensure accountability, ensure efficiency in resources and maximize federal dollars for these efforts."
Buried inside a wide-ranging package of education reform, a Promise Kept
Updated: Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 | By Ryan Kost
Gov. John Kitzhaber campaigned on a platform of wide-ranging education reform. Hardly a piece of the system went unmentioned -- including early-child hood education.
Along with promises to establish a new "Oregon Diploma,” link data systems and eliminate redundant standardized tests was a promise to establish an "Early Childhood Coordinating Council.”
According a position paper posted to the governor's campaign site, Kitzhaber would "establish an Early Childhood Coordinating Council in the Governor's Office. The council would lead the way to align efforts, measure progress and ensure accountability, ensure efficiency in resources and maximize federal dollars for these efforts."
It was a nice idea, but didn't have a chance of becoming reality unless the governor could wrangle enough support from the state Legislature.
On June 21 2009, the Oregon House gave final approval to Senate Bill 909. While the bill got most of its press for creating the Oregon Education Investment Board, which will oversee all aspects of state education, it also gave life to an Early Learning Council. The bill explains: "The council is established for the purpose of assisting the board in overseeing a unified system of early childhood services, including the funding and administration of those services.”
The measure, it should also be noted, gives the governor the power to appoint the council's nine members, effectively putting it -- and any potential action -- under his purview. (Another bill established the governor as the new superintendent of public education when the current officer holder's term ends.)
It remains to be seen just how effective this council will be and what sorts of policy changes it might endorse, but it's clear that the governor can count this as a Promise Kept.
We want to hear your suggestions and comments. Email the Oregon Truth-O-Meter with feedback and with claims you'd like to see checked. If you send us a comment, we'll assume you don't mind us publishing it unless you tell us otherwise. | <urn:uuid:b4f7ea47-2b8a-42ad-88b1-fbaf01aa320e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.politifact.com/oregon/promises/kitz-o-meter/promise/736/establish-early-childhood-coordinating-council/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952869 | 491 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Artist Ed Fairburn has recently come out with new works that live somewhere between sculptures and drawings. He’s still using traditional ink to draw on maps but now he’s cutting and layering maps to create incredibly intriguing works.
I’ve created these flyers for a school activist project where I bring more attention to the women in history that have been forgotten or ignored. This blog will be an extension of those flyers where I post longer biographies of these women and other bad-ass women like them. Too often women’s achievements have been pushed aside, either by others in their lives, or else by the historians who choose to ignore them. This tumblr is dedicated to celebrating them and bringing their achievements to light!
"Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough."
Ernest Hemingway (via theonlymagicleftisart)
This art is for the birds! A street artist by the name of Combo created an awesome open-air art exhibition specifically for pigeons. Not only are the pieces pigeon-sized and placed at the birds’ eye level, they’re each easily recognizable pieces of well-known art that have been altered to reflect a pigeon-centric world. The pigeon version of American Gothic is probably our favourite.
Bo Burnham on Conan, May 2nd, 2013
-You did a show recently and Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were in the audience, is that right?
-I didn’t know they were there and I have a bit in my act that sort of makes fun of Justin Bieber and some of these young pop stars.
It’s a song and it mocks bascially the way that those songs are written. | <urn:uuid:de9fa3ec-4808-4510-8c5f-6a71e6ee9dc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rottenyoghurt.tumblr.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966374 | 413 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Sometimes the ideal time to fish is when the sun is high. It makes spotting fish so much easier. Sometimes you just fish when you have the chance and there may not be a cloud in the sky. As most of us know, the sun is good for our health, but too much can cause serious problems.
There are plenty of sunscreens that help minimize damage to exposed skin. The instructions will tell you how to apply them. Typically they will need to be applied several times through the day. You’ll also want some lip balm that has UV protection so you don’t get burned lips.
Since I’m not a fan of sunscreen I use it only when there‘s no other choice. An option which I like better is to cover up with protective clothing. Pants, long sleeve shirts, waders, hats all will block sunlight. The tighter and heavier the weave the more it will block. You can buy fishing clothing that is light weight for staying cool and it has very tight weave for sun protection. Wide brim hats will cover your neck and ears. You can also tuck a handkerchief under your ball cap so that it drapes over your ears and neck. Sometimes you have to tuck it into your shirt so it does not spook close fish when it flaps in the wind. There is something called a sun mask made of light cloth that you can wear over you face and neck. There are also sun gloves. I’m sure there’s more ways to cover up than I mentioned here. And don’t forget sunglasses to protect your eyes.
If it is hot along with the sun you’ll want to stay hydrated so you can go all day. I once got very sick from dehydration, only once. I didn’t feel thirsty and it wasn’t even that hot out. I can tell you it will never sneak up on me again. Drink plenty of water.
It’s also a good idea to take periodic breaks. Find some shade if you can. Also don’t forget to eat to keep your energy level up. You’ll really be dragging butt by the end of the day and probably leave early if you don’t refuel.
Another trick to stay cool is to dunk your hat in the water. The evaporation will help you bare the heat. You could dunk your whole body if your so inclined. I’m not so inclined myself, but it’s something I’ve done by accident. You’ll definitely be cooled off.
The longer you are out the better the protection you will need. Make sure you plan ahead, sunburn can sneak up on you. Don’t wait until it’s too late to cover up. A buddy of mine once had to wear a piece of paper tucked under his glasses and over his nose to protect the severe sunburn he got the day before. The rest of us thought he looked quite funny, but he wasn’t laughing, especially with several more days of fishing ahead. Use these tips and a day in the blazing sun can be enjoyable without getting beat down. | <urn:uuid:1f081c6a-06f6-4625-b4b7-8595adc83d26> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.startribune.com/sports/outdoors/blogs/97556299.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950957 | 656 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Dash-dancing is performed by tapping the analog stick left and right rapidly while on the ground, effectively dashing to the left and to the right alternately. Characters can turn around while avoiding the dash's turnaround animation at the beginning of their dash. The maximum time a character can dash in one direction and still change direction by dash dancing is the same as the number of frames in his/her initial dash animation - after this animation is over, the character will enter a turnaround animation in which no attacks can be performed.
Competitive Uses
Characters with long and fast dashing animations, namely Fox, Marth, and Captain Falcon make the most use of the technique. In Melee, dash dancing is used primarily to play mind games with the opponent. By continuously switching directions, the player can make prediction quite a chore for the opponent. Dash dancing can be used in conjunction with throws with low knockback to tech chase. Dash dancing is a also good fake out technique. Players can dash towards opponent and during mid-dash, start to dash dance. This can be used to lure attacks out from the opponent, which can easily be punished during their end lag. Dash dancing can also be jumped out of, allowing players immediate use of SHFFLs and wavedashing.
In Brawl, dash dancing is drastically harder because the initial dash animation is much shorter. In addition, many throws have increased in knockback and decreased in hitstun, making tech chasing much more difficult. As a result, dash dancing is much less useful than it was in Melee as therefore sees little use in competitive play except perhaps in Sonic's metagame, which relies heavily on mindgames and punishment to garner KOs. | <urn:uuid:a069d49d-c02f-4c20-bc61-3e326d5bfc46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ssbwiki.com/Dashdancing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95911 | 341 | 1.789063 | 2 |
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There are several different types of appeals available to a taxpayer.
The Form 130, Petition for Review of Assessment by Local Assessing Official - Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals, and the Power of Attorney form are prescribed by the Department of Local Government Finance ("DLGF"). To visit the DLGF's forms catalog, click here.
The IBTR has also created several samples of documents often submitted as part of the hearing process.
The following forms apply only to appeals based on PTABOA determinations dated June 30, 2007 or before: | <urn:uuid:6b091fce-3254-4506-9867-f8717cb9461b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.in.gov/ibtr/2331.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950641 | 146 | 1.59375 | 2 |
The most southerly of all the distilleries is Bladnoch. The distillery was founded in 1817 and changed hands many times during the 20th century. It was closed from 1938-1956 during which the distilling equipment was removed and
shipped to Sweden. It was latterly owned by Inver House (1973-1983), who sold it to Arthur Bell & Sons PLC, who were subsequently taken over by United Distillers. The distillery was closed in 1993. In 1994 Raymond Armstrong purchased the distillery and opened a visitors' centre. In 2000, production recommenced. Although the distillery does not triple distilled, it does produce a typical Lowland style of malt whisky. | <urn:uuid:773bad8d-842f-42a8-bf08-4d387df7c41c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.drinkfinder.co.uk/bladnoch-1990.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984826 | 146 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Anglo Asian Mining said it had discovered gold at Ordubad mine, boosting its prospects for gold production in Azerbaijan, where it plans to increase production to over 300,000 ounces of the precious metal per year by 2015."The Notice of Discovery has been submitted following exploration work performed by Anglo Asian at its Piyazbashi and Agyurt deposits at Ordubad during 2010 and 2011, building on work performed in Soviet times," it said on Monday.Anglo Asian Mining began gold production at Azerbaijan’s major Gedabek gold and copper mine, 350 km west of the capital Baku, in July 2009. The company plans to extract more than 37 tonnes of gold from Gedabek.It started exploration at some other mines, including the 462 square metres Ordubad mine, in 2010."Further information concerning the results of the studies and exploration work will be announced in due course and further exploration work is now planned with a view to confirming a small gold deposit with production potential," the company said.Anglo Asian Mining reduced its gold production in Azerbaijan by 15 percent year-on-year to 57,068 ounces in 2011 from 67,267 ounces in 2010.The company did not give a reason for the decline, while a source at Anglo Asian Mining told Reuters in January it was linked to "some financial problems, which are resolved now."The company plans to increase gold production in Azerbaijan to 300,000 ounces per year by 2015.It envisages exploration of seven mines in western Azerbaijan with estimated gold reserves of 430 tonnes.The AIM-listed company is controlled by R.V. Investment Group Services. The Azeri government owns 49 percent. | <urn:uuid:c172a87b-0c2a-419b-8682-f2b1e7e1c141> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gsi.ir/News/Lang_en/Page_24/TypeId_6/GroupId_All/NewsId_21168/Action_NewsBodyView/WebsiteId_20/UPDATE.1.Anglo.Asian.finds.gold.at.Azeri.Ordubad.mine.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966504 | 340 | 1.773438 | 2 |
dave at thesmithfam.org
Mon Jan 14 00:59:20 MST 2008
Michael L Torrie wrote:
> I'm heavily biased, but I think Python is a good candidate for embedded
> applications. This isn't exactly embedded in my opinion, but the OLPC
> is almost exclusively written in python and it works well in a
> limited-resource environment. I think Python's memory use is a bit more
> deterministic than perl's (based on the other comments in this thread).
I used to think that too, but you had better have a good cache, because
otherwise, it'll take 2+ seconds just to start the interpreter. At least
it does on of my embedded devices, and that's with a 150MHz CPU.
More information about the PLUG | <urn:uuid:42452ed6-7b5d-4563-902e-800ac1fd3e45> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://plug.org/pipermail/plug/2008-January/015998.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943598 | 170 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Today I finally got the last piece I was missing for my daily video communications: the usb camera that attaches directly to my IP phone at my desk, making it a personal video communications device.
Great, so I can now have two-way video conferences (I could receive video before but not send) instead of simple and boring audio-only calls. I do think video will be the third big thing in communication channels after the telegraph and the phone. And as with the previous two, the amount of information we are able to transmit per conversation is bigger each time. It all started with a few lines of text that was asynchronous. Then we added our own voice with all the embedded info it contains (pitch, tone, pauses, etc) plus “real-time”. Now we have images and motion too. The two questions that come to mind regarding how well we will adopt this third wave of communications are: as we are able to mimic how we communicate face to face through technology, are we changing the old habits we grew using the old technology? And also, what do we need to do to ensure video interactions deliver their full potential?
On the first question, we need to remind ourselves that traditional phone service has been (and still is) around for a long time. As Clay Shirky puts it: “technology gets socially interesting when it is technically boring” . Everyone today knows how to dial everyone and how to talk to him/her. But in doing so, we have adopted the telephone so well that it might be difficult to change our habits when switching to video. Consider the habit of multitasking when on the phone, for instance. Or think about if your work environment has the adequate conditions (light, quietness, “visual noise”) for a video communication. And what about privacy when not only you have to keep audio to yourself but also video images too?
- Make sure calling someone on video is just as easy as calling him/her on the phone: configure your systems so that video numbers to call are like phone numbers. What’s more: start thinking of an single dialplan in which a person has one number to be reached at and the system will determine whether the terminal has video capabilities or not. In short: let the system do the connection in the background while the user keeps just dialing someone
- Choose the right terminal for the right environment and the right people. Maybe not everyone that works on shared desks in an open area will like to have a video terminal on the desk. Maybe they will prefer dedicated quiet rooms with video systems. On the other hand, not every video-enabled room has to be 15 sq meters and a wooden table with leather chairs in it. There is no one-size fits all with video and so chose a solution that allows for a variety of terminals.
- Think how you will do video with people outside your organization. While enabling internal communications for video is great, the greatest impact for your business will come from interactions with customers, partners and distributors. Think how your solution will be able to call them on video.
- Listen to the users. Make sure they feel comfortable but most important, make sure they understand why video is benefitial for them. Address their concerns on privacy.
- Take one step at a time. Don’t try to extend the solution to mobile users, telecommuters, etc at first. Those environments are challenging in themselves already as to put another layer of potential problems on top. Learn as you go. | <urn:uuid:e67d5dd1-5766-4058-ab58-69efba3ac2bb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://theinternethose.com/2011/05/video-everywhere-and-for-everyone/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00030-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953854 | 720 | 1.671875 | 2 |
What income does not qualify as Eligible Earned Income?
There are a few types of income that do not qualify as Eligible Earned Income in the calculation of your RRSP contribution room. A few of these are listed below:
- Investment Income – Interest and Dividend Income
- Taxable Capital Gains
- Withdrawals from an RRSP, RRIF, LIF, etc.
- Pension and DPSP income
- Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS) payments and Quebec Pension Payments (QPP)
- Retiring Allowances
- Death Benefits
- Scholarships and bursaries
- Income earned as a limited partner of a limited partnership
Calculating the RRSP contribution available is based upon the Earned Income of taxpayers who were resident in Canada throughout the year (full-time and part-time) and it applies to the period of residence.
- What income is included in the calculation of my allowable RRSP contributions?
- How is my RRSP contribution amount calculated?
- What is a Pension Adjustment (PA) and why is it deducted from my allowable RRSP contribution room?
- If I leave my current employer and my pension benefit is less than the Pension Adjustments (PAs), do I get my RRSP contribution room back?
- What is a Past Service Pension Adjustment (PSPA)?
- What is the maximum I can contribute to my Individual and Spousal RRSPs for 2010, 2011 and 2012?
- What is the maximum amount I can contribute to my or my spouse's RRSP in 2013 and 2014?
- What are the deadlines for making contributions and claiming them on my income tax return?
- Do I need to deduct all of my RRSP contributions in the tax year they were made?
- I think I have over-contributed to my RRSPs. What can I do?
- Do my RRSP contributions need to be made with cash?
- Can a deceased person's estate contribute to the deceased's RRSP if they still have allowable RRSP contribution room available?
- Is there an age limit for making RRSP contributions?
- I currently have allowable RRSP contribution room that I will never be able to use. Can I gift or transfer it to another person?
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- Family Inventory | <urn:uuid:2d78fba5-77f4-4fc6-9f0a-9492a82886d5> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.investingforme.com/contribution-faq?q=185 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936245 | 529 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Identification of a Potential Marker of Glomerular Fibrogenesis in Childhood Nephrotic Syndrome.
Mariana M Cajaiba, Rose Ayoob, Ronald Houston, Sheldon I Bastacky, Peter Baker. Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH; University of Pittsburgh, PA
Background: Minimal change disease (MCD) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) are the major causes of pediatric nephrotic syndrome (NS). Most MCD cases respond to steroids, whereas FSGS tends to be resistant and progress to global sclerosis leading to chronic renal disease. The reversible nature of MCD is thought to reflect transient podocyte damage due to increased circulating cytokines, whereas FSGS would correspond to irreversible podocyte damage with activation of TGF-β-mediated apoptosis and fibrogenesis. Markers of fibrogenesis that could help to define the pathogenesis and prognosis in these cases have not been clearly identified. One of the downstream targets of TGF-β signalling is Sox9, a transcription factor involved in normal skeletal development and pathological fibrogenesis. Recent experimental studies showed increased levels of both Sox9 and TGF-β mRNA in FSGS, and increased glomerular collagen IV accumulation triggered by TGF-β-induced Sox9 expression. The aim of this study is to investigate Sox9 as a potential indicator of glomerular fibrogenesis in NS.
Design: 29 renal needle biopsies performed in children with NS were selected; 15 were diagnosed as FSGS and 14 as MCD. 10 renal biopsies from healthy living transplant donors were used as normal controls. Immunohistochemical stains with an antibody against Sox-9 were performed on representative slides from each case. Specimens with sampling of 5 or more glomeruli were considered adequate. Sox9 nuclear staining was recorded as positive/negative in glomeruli (mesangial cells/podocytes), and as percentage of stained cells in parietal and tubular epithelial cells (PEC/TEC).
Results: Ages ranged from 1-18 years, with 14 males and 15 females. 5 cases (3 FSGS and 2 MCD) were excluded due to sampling inadequacy. None (0/10) of the normal controls showed glomerular staining. 7/12 (58.3%) FSGS cases had positive glomerular staining (seen in segmentally sclerotic and non-sclerotic glomeruli) versus 1/12 (8.3%) MCD cases (p=0.0136). Sox9 stained 0-10% of TEC and PEC in all controls (100%) and most MCD (67%), and 10-50% in most FSGS cases (67%).
Conclusions: Glomerular Sox9 expression was significantly more frequent in FSGS than MCD, suggesting a potential use for this protein as a diagnostic/prognostic marker of fibrogenesis in NS. A larger patient sample is needed to confirm these observations, to establish a possible relationship between Sox9 staining and poor outcome in MCD, and an association between tubular Sox9 staining and chronic parenchymal changes.
Category: Kidney (does not include tumors)
Monday, February 28, 2011 1:45 PM
Platform Session: Section H, Monday Afternoon | <urn:uuid:7b453a2a-f049-4c05-a0fe-964384645949> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.abstracts2view.com/uscap11/view.php?nu=USCAP11L_1456 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939534 | 688 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Copyright Holders Claim That They Should Get To Decide Any Copyright Exceptions
from the are-they-serious? dept
It's really getting ridiculous that copyright holders continue to insist that copyright is designed solely to benefit them. That's been the standard line for ages, but it's simply not true. Copyright law is supposed to be about benefiting the public. Yes, a part of that is that it's supposed to benefit copyright holders also, but the defining factor is benefiting content creators such that the public is most likely to benefit. That's why it's simply not accurate to claim that copyright holders are stakeholders in the debate. Unfortunately, however, many people seem to think that they're the only stakeholders, and the public isn't even involved in the discussion. In fact, a recent discussion put together by WIPO of copyright holders had them claiming that not only were they the sole stakeholders, but that they, alone, should be the ones to determine copyright exceptions:
Copyright is necessary to allow authors to live from their trade and to guarantee their independence, and exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers, according to panellists on a copyright dialogue held at the World Intellectual Property Organization this week.That's simply crazy. That's like saying we should let alcoholics determine driving-while-drinking laws. It puts those who would abuse the laws the most in charge of laws that are designed to protect others and to limit the damage they can do. It doesn't make any sense. If anything, it seems to show the massive arrogance of some copyright holders:
The very idea that "exceptions should be decided by authors and publishers" betrays the deep-seated arrogance and contempt that both of these now have for their readers. And that's all part and parcel of the publishing industry's problems: it sees readers as the enemy, something that must be fought and vanquished in order for it to be forced to buy books on the terms of authors and publishers - forced, if necessary, by ever-more Draconian laws that criminalise willy-nilly.Certainly not all copyright holders feel this way, but can you imagine what copyright would look like if the "exceptions" like fair use and safe harbors were designed solely by the copyright holders? I don't think many people would be happy under such a regime... including the copyright holders themselves, once they realized what parts of culture they had locked up. | <urn:uuid:a302a48f-e431-45cf-97f9-6b7d47eecfc0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110620/11441714768/copyright-holders-claim-that-they-should-get-to-decide-any-copyright-exceptions.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978242 | 493 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Has Facebook Killed Your Brand’s Personality?
I can tell you that my own agency built social media strategies into nearly every communications plan we developed for our clients in 2010. Yet, despite all of the momentum in the space, one thing has been gnawing at me—regardless of the platform, brands are all starting to look the same.
The proliferation of Facebook combined with the continued integration of other ubiquitous social media platforms, including Flickr, Twitter, Youtube as well as common promotional platforms such as Wildfire, ShareThis and Shoutlet, are making brands virtually indistinguishable.
I ask you to show me a real difference between the Morton’s Steak House and Outback Steakhouse fan pages. These are two very different steakhouse brands, but you wouldn’t know it by interacting with them on Facebook. I’m not picking on those brands specifically. I just think they’ve fallen prey to an unfortunate trend. The platforms seem to be overshadowing the message, but should we be surprised?
If you look at advertising and marketing trends through the years, we should have expected that the approach to social media would become formulaic. Think about the first television commercials (circa 1950) that were very Dragnet-like —“Just the facts, ma’am.” They tended to take the form of a talking head holding a box of something. Then came the age of jingles, which for awhile were featured at the end of the “talking head” spots. Remember, “You’ll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent?”
Who can forget the 70s when talking heads where replaced by the Trix bunny, the Green Giant, Charley the Tuna and a whole host of other “critters” as they were called in the advertising industry. (Personally, my favorites were the critters who sang the jingles.)
Critter advertising then gave way to celebrity spokespeople and expert testimonials (again some even singing the jingles,) which gave way to product demos until the federal government instituted the “truth in advertising” code in the 90s, which put an end to a lot of product demos.
Today, we have a wealth of commercials featuring fabricated characters, such as the popular Apple ads with actors playing “PC” and “MAC,” the Progressive Insurance, “Flo” character, Old Spice’s, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” and the Dos Equis, “Most Interesting Man in the World.” I’m sure I’ve made my point by now.
Formulaic, but at least all of these examples were CREATIVE! Unfortunately the self-service platforms of today are allowing virtually anyone to execute a campaign with little or no experience. My fear is that creative has rapidly evaporated from the equation.
Considering that the rate consumers are adopting social media continues to soar, it is unlikely marketers will abandon it any time soon and nor should they. I know the pressure to get into the game quickly was great, and no marketer wants to be left behind, but we need to make sure we’re not falling into a formula that leaves our brands swimming in a sea of sameness.
So, what are marketers to do as they try to differentiate their brands in the social media space? I’d start with these three simple standards:
- Find your own voice. Remember what makes you different than the competition in the minds of your target consumers and figure out how to creatively bring that to life in social media. The Old Spice, “Man your man can smell like,” real-time twitter effort was a perfect example of a brand that has found its voice and is executing well across all channels.
- Don’t be afraid to try something new for your category. Don’t wait for the competition to take the lead. Keep evolving your social media presence, because if what you’re doing is working for you, then someone is sure to copy it.
- Find ways to use social media to provide value to your target audience. Best Buy's Twelpforce, the company's Twitter handle where tech pros offer technology advice, provides truly valuable information to their loyal fans.
Social media allows brands to push the limits far faster than any other medium, but engaging consumers in a creative and meaningful way has never been more important, or more difficult.
As self-service social platforms become more ubiquitous, marketers need to ask themselves what they can do to make consumers want to connect with their brands – if they don’t, they’ll likely end up looking, and sounding, exactly like their competitors.
Get Strategy Emails & Alerts | <urn:uuid:934402d7-aacc-4d2d-a922-b5e8bb83a6d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-making-brands-look-same-2011-3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957672 | 998 | 1.53125 | 2 |
|Super easy fruit fly trap|
There are lots of designs for fruit fly traps around the internet. The basic principle is pretty much the same for all of them, and there are many options of things to use for bait. The bait can be anything from a piece of fruit, apple cider vinegar, fruit juice... well, basically anything that attracts fruit flies.
I've tried several types of bait, but have run into two problems. First, the bait has to be more attractive than anything else in the house; otherwise the fruit flies won't be attracted to the trap. The other problem: simply using fruit, juice or vinegar in the trap won't kill the fruit flies. It grosses me out to see them flying and crawling around in there. Bottom line, I want a bait that kills them.
|Pesky fruit fly|
After much experimentation, I found that balsamic vinegar mixed with vodka works the best. The vinegar attracts them, and when they feed on the mixture, the vodka kills them. I don't know if the alcohol kills them when they drink it, or if they get drunk and drown.
|Stuff you need to make a fruit fly trap|
I used vodka because we had some on hand, but I'm sure any kind of alcohol would work. Some kinds of wine work well too, but not all wines will attract fruit flies. It seems they can't resist balsamic vinegar. If you don't have alcohol in the house, I've read that a drop or two of dish soap added to the liquid will kill the fruit flies too.
How to build a super easy fruit fly trap:
1. Choose a container - Be sure to use a disposable container, you don't want dead fruit flies floating around in a dish you eat or drink out of. I cut the top off of a plastic water bottle and used the bottom.
2. Add the bait - I use a half and half mixture of vodka and balsamic vinegar, you only need a small amount of liquid in the trap.
3. Secure plastic wrap over the top - Stretch a thin piece of plastic or plastic wrap over the opening of the trap. Then simply use a rubber band to hold it in place.
4. Poke holes in plastic - Puncture a few small holes in the plastic. The fruit flies can get into the trap through the holes, but can't find their way back out.
|Poke small holes in plastic so fruit flies can enter the trap|
If you have a problem with fruit flies, try this trap and bait mixture. Within a short time, you'll have dead fruit flies in your trap. It works like a charm. | <urn:uuid:e9d8cc83-0632-4c37-96e5-f391243c78fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.getbusygardening.com/2012/07/super-easy-fruit-fly-trap.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950937 | 551 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Letter to the Editor: Obama like a Rand villain
Obama like a Rand villain
This past July 13, (Barack) Obama opined that successful businesspersons aren't responsible for their success: "If you've got a business - you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."
If this anti-success viewpoint strikes you as something a villain in an Ayn Rand novel might say, you would be right. Here is a quote from James Taggart in Rand's 1957 novel "Atlas Shrugged:" "Rearden... didn't invent smelting and chemistry, and air compression. He couldn't have invented his Metal but for thousands and thousands of other people. His Metal! Why does he think it's his? Why does he think it's his invention? Everybody uses the work of everybody else. Nobody ever invents anything."
Another of the novel's characters provides the cutting reply: "But the iron ore and all those other things were there all the time. Why didn't anybody else make that Metal, but Rearden did?"
Those of us who admire individual achievement - whether in business, or in other pursuits - know the answer.
Ayn Rand understood the pure hatred that anti-capitalists seethe with for individuals who are able to achieve peaceful financial success, years before the anti-capitalist Obama was even born. No wonder her novels are selling at greater levels than ever before. | <urn:uuid:89e2f695-ac91-42f9-b214-cb67d15c001b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.northjersey.com/news/opinions/164847616_Letter_to_the_Editor__Obama_like_a_Rand_villain.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980713 | 290 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Fort Worth-based American Airlines became the first airline to contribute to the It Gets Better Project by recording the above video through GLEAM, the company’s LGBT employee group. A full press release is after the jump.
AMERICAN AIRLINES SAYS “IT GETS BETTER”
First Airline and LGBT Employee Resource Group, GLEAM, to Join National Campaign for LGBT Youth at Risk
FORT WORTH, Texas – American Airlines, through the leadership of its longstanding lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender employee group, GLEAM, today sent an eloquent message to youth everywhere that their lives matter and that their futures will be brighter. American Airlines is the first airline to take part in the far-reaching “It Gets Better” campaign (www.itgetsbetter.org) launched online last year.
An American Airlines seven-minute video message may be found online at: http://www.itgetsbetter.org/video/entry/dr7e1zhqukc/. It was created to answer the challenge made by the creators of “It Gets Better,” who observe that, “many LGBT youth can’t picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can’t imagine a future for themselves. So let’s show them what our lives are like, let’s show them what the future may hold in store for them.”
By launching their “It Gets Better” video this week, 13 American Airlines employees and managers stand up as examples of confident, openly LGBT adults or straight allies. The employees who decided to take part in this project bring unique stories, experiences and job perspectives throughout the airline, yet unite around the basic message that each of us is responsible for making our workplaces and communities respectful and caring for all.
Lauri Curtis, American’s Vice President – Diversity, Leadership and Engagement, endorsed the efforts by American’s employees. “The spirit behind this work embodies our philosophy that every individual is valued and respected. I take pride in the voluntary efforts by GLEAM as an example of how employee resource groups mirror how we do business as an airline too,” said Curtis.
Jeff Townsend, Chair of GLEAM, added, “GLEAM was the first American Airlines employee resource group formed over 16 years ago. By taking part in ‘It Gets Better,’ we are trying to mirror the best practices in our own workplace and to speak directly to young gay men and women to tell them that their lives matter to each of us.”
The personal message from American Airlines employees now joins thousands of other messages from ordinary individuals to the powerful and famous, including President Barack Obama, and celebrities like Anne Hathaway, Tom Hanks and Ellen Degeneres, popular sports teams such as the Boston Red Sox, plus the employees at Google, The Gap, Facebook and the Broadway community.
American Airlines will display the video, on a continuous loop, at its headquarters throughout June. In addition, photos and quotes of the participants now are on display in the corporate headquarters, along with a description of the “It Gets Better” project, as well as GLEAM’s banner and a traditional rainbow flag. The company is also sharing GLEAM’s message through its internal employee communications to reach its entire workforce.
Representative American Airlines participants also volunteer their thoughts:
“It’s tragic that so many LGBT kids feel unloved, rejected and alone because of who and what they are. If this helps save even one from hurting themselves, or just lets them know that they are ok and not alone, then it’s a success. I’m really proud that GLEAM and AA are telling our stories and showing our support.” – Todd Rice, GLEAM Communications Officer.
“As a straight ally, it was not only a privilege to be a part of the ‘It Gets Better’ video project but I considered it my responsibility as well. More straight people should stand up against the intolerance shown toward LGBT individuals. Here is a start.” – Michelle Simmons, straight ally.
“While I was very fortunate in my coming out process as a young adult, again and again I’ve seen saddening stories of gay men and women who struggle with acknowledging who they are against an unending wave of ignorance, hate and ridicule. We all hope to make a difference with our lives, and I will feel so rewarded if my contribution to GLEAM’s ‘It Gets Better’ video lifts the spirit of even a single person.” – Bobby Lewis, GLEAM member.
“If my words can make a difference to just one person so they don’t take their own life, then everything that I went through will be worth it.” – Beth Hotchko, GLEAM member.
For more information about American’s diversity efforts, visit www.aa.com/diversity and the employee section of the company’s corporate responsibility report in the About Us section of AA.com.
Powered by Facebook Comments | <urn:uuid:563ad1b0-2a69-43a4-b561-8a9886fb1a20> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dallasvoice.com/watch-american-airlines-it-better-1079255.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941387 | 1,077 | 1.523438 | 2 |
To the Editors of The Crimson:
I was very interested in the Crimson article (Jan. 8) on the new Pentacostal association founded last year by a small group of Harvard Black students--the Seymour Society. Christian activity has always been central to the life of Afro-Americans and has offered Blacks one of their most viable connections with American society and culture, as well as providing Blacks their first experience with managing soverign institutions. But Christian activity has also offered Blacks and whites one of the few viable means for bridging the differences that have divided them in our racist civilization. From the early endeavors to educate Afro-American slaves, through the Abolitionist Movement, and the 20th century Civil Rights Movement, Christian beliefs and organizations have often been the cutting-edge against white supremacist negation of Afro-Americans.
It is unfortunate, I feel, that the new Seymour Society leaders display no awareness of this important cross-ethnic or cross-racial function that has been a crucial part of Afro-American Christianity. It is, I think, a feature of the Afro-American Christian tradition that the new Seymour Soceity, if it really wants to do something innovative, might consider rehabilitating.
Being an old-fashioned integrationist and an optimist about the capacity of the current generation of young Americans to rid American life of its hoary racist ways, I would suggest to the Seymour Society that they give some thought to this endeavor. Instead of pursuing the route of other all-Black organizations existing at Harvard--and we have too many already--intensifying the already excessive isolation of white and Black student experiences here, why not strike out a new course for once?
There are, I am told, other fundamentalist or back-to-basic religious groups around Harvard--among white Protestants and white charismatic Catholics, and perhaps among some white Muslims and Jews. It would be a bold undertaking to use the Seymour Society as the cutting-edge of a back-to-basic renascence among religiously inclined Harvard students, cutting across the racist, sexist, and ethnocentric boundaries that have for so long distorted the civilizing force of religious values in American life.
This, I submit, is both an intellectually intriguing and humanistically engaging task for the new Seymour Society to set for itself. It would give Black students the opportunity to innovate a way out of the awful malaise that has surrounded Black-white interactions at Harvard for a decade--a malaise that has exacted a terribly intellectual toll among some of our Black students. It would, in turn, offer white students a framework to testify in behalf of a more cosmopolitan interchange among Harvard students, defying the racist and ethnocentric boundaries bequeathed them by earlier generations. Martin Kilson Professor of Government | <urn:uuid:f0fde42a-48a4-4190-8cc2-54a4ba96cf0f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1981/1/19/seymour-society-pbto-the-editors-of/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940559 | 568 | 1.507813 | 2 |
SANFORD, ARLINGTON, 1923- , INTERVIEWEE
From The Citadel Archives Guide
Transcript and audio of oral history interview, Summerville, S.C., 2012 March 23. Interviewed by Melanie Murrary, Graduate Student, Citadel History Department. Transcript 38 p., 1 CD 01:40:41.
Arlington Sanford was born on December 21, 1923, in Danbury, Connecticut. He joined the Navy shortly after graduating from high school. After boot camp in Newport, Rhode Island, he went to Diesel School in South Richmond, Virginia and graduated as a Fireman First Class. He was then assigned to landing ship tank (LST-307) in Boston, Massachusetts. He shipped out of New York on St. Patrick's Day in 1943 and took part in the Sicilian Occupation, the Salerno Landings and the Normandy Invasion. Sanford describes his close relationship with Jack Junior Faughn, Boatswain's Mate Second Class from Peoria, Illinois. LST-307 was struck hard by German guns during the Normandy invasion off Sword Beach. Upon impact Sanford sped to the main deck where he found Faughn's badly injured body. | <urn:uuid:ea2c8db7-3ea7-43d6-8f9e-4f7f95fa7330> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www3.citadel.edu/archivesguide/index.php/SANFORD,_ARLINGTON,_1923-_,_INTERVIEWEE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958512 | 240 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Poop, Farts, and Global Warming
This morning I was reading Google News on my phone when out of boredom I decided to search for the word “poop,” an act of stupidity that was rewarded with this excellent article about a Japanese scientist that has developed a low-fat poop burger. That of course is not to imply that poop burgers already exist and have simply too high a fat content to reasonably consumed, but rather a happy by-product of this particular scientist’s poop-burger process. I do wonder how much this particular scientist will have to pay in royalties to The Yes Men, as I’m pretty sure this was a well documented idea from a movie they released a few years back, see for yourself:
OK, let’s be honest, you know and I know I could riff on the poop burger theme for literally thousands of words, but that is not the reason I am sharing this with you. As stated in the article, one of the benefits to the poop burger would be its potential to reduce or eliminate the need for such a huge cow population, which the article states is the cause of 18% of our greenhouse gas emissions. This is a hugely significant number; As I mentioned in my last post over a month ago, oil only accounts for about a third of total CO2 emissions, which means that at 18% of overall greenhouse gas emissions (not just CO2) Methane from cows would rivals the (alleged!) Earth warming power of all the oil currently used in the world. Of course the article doesn’t mention if this number is on a US or worldwide basis, nor does it provide a reference (the author even seems hesitant to make the claim, saying that cows “allegedly” contribute 18% of greenhouse gases), so now I’m kind of annoyed because I feel like the number might be right, but now I have to verify it before I can really get into any reasonable discussion. Damn.
So, according to the EPA, Methane is 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2, which gives some weight to the allegation. However, in looking at the EPA’s sources for Methane emissions in the US, Cow Farts (more scientifically referred to as Enteric Fermentation by the EPA, a $10 word I’ll leave to to use as you please) only accounted for 139.8 of the 686.3 Teragrams of “CO2 equivalent” Methane in 2009, or roughly 20.4%. This leads me to believe the author meant to say cow’s accounted for 18% of our Methane emissions, not greenhouse gas emissions. Of course more likely the author simply doesn’t really care about doing his damn job and just spit out the first number he saw on Wikipedia but that is neither here nor there, so let’s move on.
How does this greenhouse gas production amount compare to the one we calculated for oil? Well, one Teragram is 1,000,000,000 kilograms, which means the US alone produces 686,300,000,000 kg, or 1,513,000,000,000 lb of CO2 equivalent greenhouse gas in the form of methane each year. 30,600,000,000,000 lb/year of actual CO2 was the number we calculated for the amount generated from oil on a world basis, and since the US consumes about 25% of the world’s oil, it accounts for 7,650,000,000,000 lb/year. This means that the US’s CO2 greenhouse gas contribution from oil alone is five times more than it’s total Methane based Co2 equivalent contribution, which itself is only 1/5th cow farts.
Alas, cow farts aren’t in the same league as oil when it comes to greenhouse gases, though if there were a way to eliminate them completely, it would be the equivalent of chopping 4% of oil oil usage as far as Global Warming is concerned, which wouldn’t be too shabby. However, this reduction likely isn’t enough to net me the Nobel prize I thought I was going to get for my cow butt-candle idea, which was basically a contraption that would automatically do this for every cow on the planet:
Unfortunately, my other idea for eliminating greenhouse gases by using a simple attachment to a major greenhouse gas contributor seems to be taken, and quite honestly, ill-conceived at best.
So, now that you’ve read this post and you can’t unread it, take a moment to let me know how you feel:
Alright, that’s all I have for now, I’ll try not to let there be a month and a half between posts again, but I can’t promise anything. | <urn:uuid:96db92d5-fabc-4806-9b22-8b63e5ea3cae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://corndogcountry.com/2011/06/18/poop-farts-and-global-warming/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963219 | 1,013 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Photo by COREY PERRINE, Naples Daily News // Buy this photo
NAPLES — John Paul Stevens still worries about the effects of Bush v. Gore. He remains unnerved by capital punishment. And to this day, he still looks back on decades-old cases, some wistfully, some with regret.
At age 92, the retired U.S. Supreme Court justice remains sharp on all topics legal, freely opining Thursday evening in Naples on the decisions of years past and the challenges facing the nation's highest court.
Stevens spoke to about 100 people at the Waldorf Astoria hotel as he received the Benjamin Nathan Cardozo Memorial Award from the Tau Epsilon Rho Law Society. The award is named after a former U.S. Supreme Court justice who served in the 1930s.
"It's truly an honor to be named alongside Justice Cardozo," said Stevens, the third longest-serving justice in U.S. Supreme Court history.
Under questioning from federal appeals Judge Marjorie Rendell, Stevens recounted some of the highs and lows from his time on the bench, which lasted 34½ years.
Speaking about the historic Bush v. Gore decision, which struck down the Florida Supreme Court's plan for recounting votes in the 2000 presidential election, Stevens voiced his concern about the lingering effects of the 5-4 ruling. Stevens, considered one of the leading liberal voices on the court, wrote a dissenting opinion, and still worries about the politicization of the case.
"I do think the majority opinion did make many members of the public more cynical about the judicial process," said Stevens, who lives in the South Florida area. "I do think some of that cynicism is very significant."
Touching on gun laws in the wake of this month's shooting in Newtown, Conn., Stevens lamented two firearm-related rulings with which he disagreed — decisions striking down both Chicago's ban on handguns in the home and a requirement that local law enforcement agencies get involved in background checks for gun purchasers.
"That case could be responsible for some very serious tragedies," Stevens said of the latter ruling.
Sporting his signature bow tie, Stevens hardly showed his age, quickly responding to questions from Rendell and occasionally showing off a quick wit.
His 15-minute speech before accepting the award practically required a juris doctorate to follow, winding through Louisiana's 1879 constitution, the 11th Amendment and sovereign immunity for universities.
He spoke eloquently about current Chief Justice John Roberts ("really an ideal choice" for the job), railed against political gerrymandering ("totally unjustified" in many cases) and lamented the death penalty.
Stevens becomes the seventh Supreme Court justice to receive the Cardozo award. Other recipients have included President Harry S. Truman and author Pearl S. Buck.
Stevens was chosen from a committee by the fraternity, which is having its 92nd annual convention in Naples.
"To listen to someone who has been in the highest of high places, at the head of the judicial branch, to listen to what he thought has gone right and wrong is just a fascinating thing," said David Marion, a Philadelphia-based lawyer who once argued a First Amendment case before Stevens. | <urn:uuid:ffdd3f0c-a6fc-478e-be35-66a8405d52c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2012/dec/28/former-supreme-court-justice-stevens-showcases/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00026-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963659 | 661 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Treating Spinal Cord Injuries.
Today, doctors use a variety of methods for accurately diagnosing injured persons with spinal cord injuries and paralysis. Most the time, these procedures produce quick and in-depth results that patients need so they can know and understand their paralysis diagnosis.Despite the hardships of living with paralysis, the good news is that there is hope for those living with a spinal cord injury. Life does not have to become any less enjoyable just because circumstances in your body have changed. Every day doctors, researchers, and pharmacists are discovering new ways for treating paralysis.Here are a few of the most common ways that physicians go about treating those who have been affected by paralysis and spinal cord injuries.
- Intradiscal Electrothermal Therapy (IDET)
- Endoscopic Discectomy
- Spinal Fusion
- Stem Cell Research
Right now, there is no perfect solution for paralysis and we have no concrete cure for the condition at the moment. But we, as a society, are using every resource at our disposal to make sure that ground-breaking studies are properly funded, that measures are taken to ensure that nothing in the research is overlooked, and that once a treatment is available, it could open up a whole new world for those currently living with paralysis today.The future of paralysis treatment remains unknown at this point, however, there looks to be light at the end of the tunnel. Numerous labs across the world are conducting new studies and producing results found from stem cell research. New spinal cords and vertebrae with active nerves could be developed from the careful crafting of stem cells, giving someone who never thought that they would walk again, the opportunity to take steps for themselves.
Call Now To Speak To Our Firm’s Spinal Cord Injury Attorneys
Since 1992, the spinal cord injury attorneys at the Law Offices of Michael Pines, APC in San Diego have been assisting injured persons just like you recover the maximum financial compensation for their paralysis and spinal cord injuries. We know the legal process can at times be very confusing. Do not worry over the complexities of the law by yourself because our experience will help guide you through the process.We are dedicated and determined to help you obtain fair and just compensation so that you and your family can recover and move on to a bigger and brighter future.If you or a loved one have been involved in an accident and suffered a spinal cord injury or paralysis we urge you to contact our bilingual offices as soon as possible following the accident at 1-800-655-6585 or please click here for a FREE consultation with an experienced San Diego spinal cord injury attorney. We handle all cases on a contingency fee basis, which means that you owe us nothing until we recover money on your behalf. | <urn:uuid:7205a8e0-b7ac-4360-b70c-f8d43024bbe3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://seriousaccidents.com/treat-spinal-cord-injuries/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95358 | 559 | 1.773438 | 2 |
According to the old wives' tale, cheese too close to bedtime causes nightmares. But asking fromage fanciers about this collaboration between man and beast turns them into beautiful dreamers.
They have no hesitation in declaring what constitutes the perfect cheeseboard. Of the experts we spoke to, few cheeses appeared on two wish-lists. It might be tempting to conclude that the ultimate cheeseboard would comprise a nibble from all of them. This would be a mistake, because the one thing they all agree on is that the combination of cheeses in any one presentation must be a study of complementary flavours and textures if the cheeseboard is to paint a Monet rather than a muddy still life.
A veiny wedge, a crumbly brick, a furry white rind … such visions transport cheese lovers to cellars on French mountain tops filled with ageing wheels of every shade of yellow, blue, white or cream. They see cows chewing flowers in springtime meadows, or a grandmother tending her milking goats in Burgundy.
Determined opinions exist about accompaniments. Crackers, apparently, are out. Quince paste is divisive. Cherries, apricot paste and beer are touted for their cheese-enhancing qualities.
Here, then, are the cheeseboards of which dreams are made.
This ''Maitre Fromager'' (an honour bestowed by France), author and TV presenter nominates Roquefort Carles as the king of cheeses. ''It's my personal favourite.''
There is only a handful of Roquefort producers in France and this one stands out because the Carles family makes it by hand. It would play a starring role on Studd's cheeseboard, particularly in June, when it's at its best. ''It has character, with a delicious, sweet, creamy, salty finish.''
At Christmas, Studd's first choice is a cheese that originated in the 18th century, Colston Bassett Stilton, from Nottinghamshire, England. ''It's made from autumn milk and the curd is hand-ladled, which means it doesn't break and the curd holds its moisture.''
Studd says that with the acquired taste of a Roquefort, he would add a ''crowd-pleaser'' such as a French Brillat-Savarin triple cream to the platter. He may also sneak in the ''sweet, nutty flavour'' of Comte Marcel Petite . At Fort Saint Antoine, a mountain-top fort where soldiers once lay in wait fearing Prussian invasion, thousands of wheels of this cheese now sit peacefully ageing in the damp cellars.
Studd says there's nothing quite like the pleasure of a cheese that ''genuinely reflects its regional provenance''. You are rewarded with ''a kaleidoscope of satisfying flavours''.
In the cellars of Modena, Italy, can be found one more of his selection, Cravero parmigiano reggiano. ''It's a two-year-old cheese, still moist and crumbly. There's an awful lot of old parmesan [being sold] but this has sweetness.''
And with the cheese, Studd would serve bread. ''Biscuits interfere with the whole experience.'' Also, serve cheese before dessert. ''Nothing annoys me more than cheese served with coffee.''
French vigneron Gilles Lapalus makes wine at Sutton Grange in central Victoria and his first cheese choice is Victoria's Holy Goat fromage frais because it tastes like home. ''I was pretty pleased to find it when I arrived here in 2001. It's a memory trigger. My grandmother had goats in Burgundy. I remember as a child eating her one-day-old goat cheese. You could taste the grass, the essence of spring.''
Rather than a cheeseboard, Lapalus would serve cheeses singly, with a wine to match each. ''It's very difficult to find one wine to go with two cheeses.''
After serving a light, fruity red and sourdough with the fromage frais, he would bring out Charolais goat's cheese from Burgundy with a white wine. (As it is an unpasteurised product, it's unlikely to be available in Australia.)
His third cheese of choice is Saint-Nectaire Fermier, yet another delicacy Australian laws will require you to go overseas to sample. They've been eating it in France since Louis XIV's time but its raw-milk status keeps it locked out of Australia. Words such as roasted, nutty, aromatic and earthy are sprinkled through Lapalus' description. ''Sometimes I eat the rind, for the salt crystals. It's an interesting contrast.''
Completing the cheese course is Comte d'Ete, cut from a 40-kilogram wheel matured for up to two years. It's made with milk from cows who dine on Jura high-country wildflowers. He would serve it with a French vin jaune and walnut bread.
''I love cheese. The more I know about it, the more I love it,'' says cook and author Maggie Beer. Her perfect cheeseboard would have two cheeses only, but would suggest bounty. ''I can't bear small pieces. There has to be largesse about it. I would serve huge wedges.''
One would be ''perfectly ripe and oozy'', the specific cheese determined by the season, such as South Australia's Woodside Cheese Wrights' Charleston, made with Jersey milk, and the other something firm such as a sharp Pyengana cheddar from Tasmania or an English Montgomery cheddar. ''It's got an amazing flavour,'' Beer says. (It is, apparently, just a memory now for Australia's cheese lovers since the cheesemaker reverted to making it with raw milk.)
Beer says another of her favourites is also not available here, England's Cabot cheddar. However, she also loves Australia's Island Pure Kangaroo Island manchego, based on the Spanish manchego from La Mancha, which is will soon be available again after a milk shortage.
Her favourite accompaniment for the soft cheese is an oatmeal biscuit, or her own apricot paste, and a chilled, sweet white wine. Muscatels are her pick to go up against the salty sharpness of cheddar and she says quince paste has ''an amazing ability'' to complement many cheeses, particularly manchego.
While the question of when to serve cheese produces a variety of opinions, there's an easy rule in the Beer home; if the red wine has been drunk, serve cheese before dessert. Otherwise, present it after.
In the 1980s, before becoming a politician, Amanda Vanstone had a small business in Adelaide selling cheeses wholesale and still enjoys preparing an interesting cheeseboard.
''The perfect board would not be too complicated. I'd be inclined to pick two or three types of cheese and serve two of each type. For example, take two hard cheeses - one cow and one sheep - and let people taste the differences. To me, that's interesting. Or take a gorgonzola dolce latte and a Stilton and see the contrast as an opportunity to learn.''
Pairing two ricottas, such as buffalo and sheep's milk, with the fresh cherry paste she makes at home and a plain bread is also a winner. She embraces her experiences in Italy, of being served jam with cheese, and suggests glace fruits such as cumquats. While not casting aspersions on the product, ''quince paste has become like Vegemite, really''.
Kirkegaard is a Brisbane-based beer expert, writing and broadcasting on the subject. He believes matching cheese with beer can be even more exciting than traditional wine pairings. ''A sip of beer between cheese bites cleans out the taste buds. The flavours last longer,'' he says.
It's all about the bubbles and bitterness of beer, but it's a hard sell. ''It's difficult to get cheese lovers into beer matching. Beer is not seen as something for serious dining.''
He advises starting with a Roquefort Carles, accompanied by a Scotch ale. Jindi Old Telegraph Road Fire Engine Red works with a Belgian strong, dark ale. There would be Mount Vikos Barrel Aged Fetta from Greece, matched with a Hefeweizen, a German-style beer. ''Both have intense flavours and the beer brings out that in the cheese,'' Kirkegaard says. Finally, he loves Kingaroy Cheese Bunya Black, from Queensland, with a Belgian or French farmhouse-style ale. He advises leaving VB for pizza.
Despite sometimes being dubbed the Queen of Desserts, chef Philippa Sibley doesn't have a sweet tooth. But such is her enthusiasm for cheese that it can be hard to pin down her perfect cheeseboard.
She starts with Pyengana cheddar. ''It's Australia's best cheddar.'' She pictures it served with peach-and-ginger chutney and sourdough or rye bread. Alongside she would serve Soignon aged goat's cheese, drizzled with honey as well as salted and crumbled rosemary and figs.
Sibley suddenly has a better idea. ''At my perfect dinner party I would have a Brie de Nangis. When I'm particularly eccentric, I slice it through the middle and stick truffles in it.'' And yet another idea: ''Here is the ultimate, - Roquefort with fresh pears and a 1967 Chateau d'Yquem (sauterne).''
She insists cheese be served before dessert. Afterwards is ''bonkers''.
And then she can't help mentioning a summer platter of French triple-cream brie with cherries and smoked almonds. Perfect.
Import ban's bitter divide
Cheese aficionados lament that the best cheeseboards in Australia will still not measure up to international standards because of import bans on cheese made with unpasteurised milk.
"The benchmark cheeses of the world are made from raw milk," cheese specialist Will Studd says. "We are missing out."
He won a test case in 2004 that lifted restrictions on Roquefort, but all other soft and blue raw-milk cheeses remain locked out of Australia.
In recent years, some hard cheeses made from raw milk have been allowed in, but Studd doubts the food standards authority will relax the rules further any time soon.
Winemaker Gilles Lapalus describes pasteurisation as an interference. "The more you manipulate, the more you lose flavour,'' he says.
Amanda Vanstone agrees Australia should be open to raw-milk delicacies and urges a can-do approach. "I helped Will Studd's case by putting him in touch with the right people,'' she says. ''The Roquefort case shows it can be done. The importers have to do their work. The path is there for them to follow."
To get an idea of what we're missing out on, Studd recommends trying Le Conquerant, a pasteurised camembert from Normandy.
"It's as close as we can get in Australia to a real camembert made from raw milk," he says.
If Manu Feildel were a pharaoh, archaeologists would have discovered his tomb packed with gold - golden wheels of cheese, that is.
"I love cheese so much I would like to die with it," says the French-born Sydney chef and judge on television's My Kitchen Rules.
A cheeseboard shared with Feildel would be a well-considered platter reminiscent of home: three French cheeses, starting with Ossau-Iraty, a semi-hard yet creamy concoction from the Basque region. "Your taste buds will play along. It will open up your appetite," he says.
The Basque French eat it with cherry jam, an exception Feildel allows to his general rule of avoiding pairing fruit with cheese. | <urn:uuid:8381e2c8-2cae-45e4-95b7-0880d47c4180> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stmarysstar.com.au/story/1137175/the-ultimate-cheeseboard/?cs=24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954258 | 2,528 | 1.648438 | 2 |
More tax rises and welfare cuts are "on the cards" in the three years after the 2015 general election to fill a £27 billion gap in the Government's budgets, a respected economic think-tank has warned.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said it was "close to inconceivable" that further tax hikes and benefit cuts could be avoided after forecasts in Wednesday's mini-budget that sluggish growth will leave the economy 3.6% smaller in 2016/17 than was expected just nine months ago.
Meanwhile, Labour accused George Osborne of targeting new mothers with a £180 "mummy tax".
The Chancellor's decision to impose a 1% cap on rises in maternity pay over the next three years will hit women who take time off work after giving birth, said the party's equalities spokeswoman Yvette Cooper.
And there were concerns over whether the Chancellor's failure to hit his target on debt - exposed by the independent Office for Budget Responsibility - will harm Britain's credit rating. Ratings agency Fitch said it now expected that by 2015 debt will be "approaching the upper limit" consistent with retaining the coveted AAA status.
In a round of broadcast interviews, Mr Osborne conceded that losing the gold-standard rating would be a blow, but insisted that international investors continue to regard Britain as "a good investment".
The UK's historically low interest rates showed that "the world has confidence in us" and "the calls we have made as a Government have been absolutely right", said the Chancellor.
The Bank of England on Thursday maintained the record low 0.5% base rate for a further month. But economist Andrew Lilico said a downgrade, which is likely to increase the cost of Government borrowing, was possible and would be a "political humiliation" for the Chancellor, who had invited voters to judge him on his ability to retain AAA status.
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said Mr Osborne was borrowing £200 billion more than he predicted two years ago. And he said his decision to cap benefit rises at 1% demonstrated that he was not protecting low and middle-income families.
Some 60% of those affected by the below-inflation benefit rises are in work, and not the "work-shy" individuals the Chancellor claimed to be targeting, said Mr Balls. | <urn:uuid:9e5984fa-eee9-4fc5-b061-41a8a0a96353> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wirralnews.co.uk/wirral-news/uk-world-news/2012/12/06/ifs-warns-of-more-taxes-and-cuts-80491-32378222/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971676 | 463 | 1.609375 | 2 |
UH Manoa Engineering Professor Wins National Science Foundation CAREER AwardUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
External Affairs & University Relations
Kristen Cabral, (808) 956-5039
Public Information Officer
With her award, Bullock plans to develop an integrated research, education and outreach program intended to encourage students to pursue graduate degrees while providing them the experience of open-ended collaborative research projects in the areas of lasers and optics. Her research interests include laser spectroscopy, remote sensing, dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM), optical communication, bioelectric phenomena, and biomedical applications of lasers.
According to Bullock, her rationale for including undergraduate students in what is traditionally graduate work is three-fold: "Hands-on research projects give them the opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in their course work, while exposing them to open-ended research problems gives them a feel for what is involved in graduate school and can encourage them to pursue graduate degrees," she explains. "Undergraduate students are typically an untapped resource in academia; given the right opportunity, students are often highly motivated and extremely creative."
Bullock plans to use this team-oriented approach to propose an accelerated Master‘s of Science Option to the College of Engineering at UH Mānoa. This program would allow top performing students to get a master‘s of science with a thesis within one year of their bachelor‘s degree.
"My five-year plan addresses the uniqueness of the University of Hawaiʻi and seeks to increase undergraduate enrollment, student research participation, and diversity within the College of Engineering," Bullock says. "If implemented this program would be the first of its kind in the College of Engineering, and would have a positive impact on the local community."
"High-tech research draws attention from the mainland, as well as Japan, which can play an essential part in helping to balance the tourism-based economy," Bullock says. "Also, engineers with graduate degrees who have a solid education and good practical experience are in high demand in the current job market, an asset highly revered in this tight-knit community."
Bullock received her doctorate of philosophy degree in electrical engineering from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va. She joined the Department of Electrical Engineering at UH Mānoa in August 2000, and serves as academic advisor to the UH chapter of Society of Women Engineers. She is a member of Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu, IEEE Laser and Electro-Optical Society, and the International Society of Optical Engineering.
The NSF established the CAREER program in 1995 to help top performing junior faculty in science and engineering to develop their contributions and commitment to research and education. The award is the NSF‘s most prestigious award for junior faculty members. Awards range from $200,000 to $500,000 and are in duration from four to five years. | <urn:uuid:efb2d729-3cfa-4bd2-a8c1-9b3b9909d0c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.uhm.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=253 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955378 | 600 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Last time, I wrote something about how wood pulps can be used to make biodegradable plastic cards for retailer and business promos. Of course, we all know that this will definitely require an expensive machine, or an equally huge fund, in order to pull off. This virtually renders smaller businesses unable to make these eco-friendly cards. These cards are very helpful with promoting your business, and you can’t just stop using them for your promos, memberships, and gift cards. If you’re one of those businesses who are looking for a cheap, eco-friendly alternative to plastic cards, then you are in luck. I’ve listed down a couple of alternative media and materials that you can use to market your business the same way as how you use your standard Plastic cards!
Paper – Paper is the obvious choice if you’re looking for the cheapest alternative. It’s easier and cheaper to produce paper cards than their plastic counterparts. They are made of resources such as wood or used paper, which are quite renewable. The card itself is biodegradable and easily disposable. This card is the perfect choice for one-time use cards such as discount vouchers or gift cards. The only flaw with paper cards is that it is not practical to use them for data cards with magnetic strips – but you can definitely add QR and Bar codes in it, just as long as customers make sure these paper cards won’t get wet.
E-Mails – E-mails are the fastest and easiest way to get in touch with a potential client or customer. However, using e-mails for marketing will also require you to make a decent-looking webpage. There are also unwritten, ethical rules regarding the use of e-mails for marketing. Rememember that people do not want spam, so don’t send it to just anyone! You’ll want to post a “news feed” subscription in your site so that you’ll be able to have an e-mail list where you can send e-mails without worry. You should also mention that you’ll be randomly giving away discount promos via e-mail to encourage folks to subscribe.
Mobile Gadgets – I was planning to list “alternative” to your typical plastic cards but this one is more of like the plastic card’s “next step in evolution”. The invention of smartphone innovated how common folks gain access to resources that you can’t usually get from outside your home, such as electronic cash and Internet. Your business shouldn’t get left behind by this technology, so start taking advantage of it! Electronic credit is already accessible via smartphones so folks can pay for your products or services on the dot. A lot of freeware sites provide ways for clients and customers to scan QR and Bar codes with their smartphone’s cameras. The image above is a great example for using these scanners: Koreans placed a virtual grocery store for customers to scan. Each item for sale has its own QR code to be added to your shopping cart. With electronic money, customers can pay for the item and have it delivered to their home while they’re still in the train. Of course not every business can afford electronic billboards like that. For a cheaper alternative, use posters, stickers, or tarpaulin banners.
These 3 tips are both eco-friendly and cheap for small businesses to use. You can even do most of these things on your own! Hopefully, this can help your small business to stay afloat and compete with bigger business rivals.
Therese Shaw is an advocate of recycling through turning clutter into art and other practical items. When not doing arts and crafts, she does freelance writing occasionally for companies like Cardprinting.us, a print service that uses environmental friendly plastic cards and offers keytagprinting. | <urn:uuid:1fb8a33d-d40e-437d-bbe2-2919464195f3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bayintegratedmarketing.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/plastic-card-alternatives/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950687 | 794 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Just as the shepherd's flock in the previous chapter, the picture of the vine has been used in many places in the Bible, used by our savior in fact, and is a good way of describing what has happened and what will happen to Israel. This account suggests that it was brought out of Egypt, land cleared aside and planted. The vine elsewhere is also pruned and trimmed by a husbandman to produce it's greatest fruit and gentile believers are being grafted into it. It may feel to them like they are being ransacked but, in the bigger picture they are being seasoned and groomed into something grand.
Other gods, the plague of Israel. Why was it so easy for them to slip back into this? After all the reproofs, the bondage and countless turning back. It would be wise for us to consider this answer. It may not be as simple as finding the right god and sticking to it. It could be that we use gods to serve us which the false gods are very willing to do. It could be that we feel better being fulfilled and exalted than being brought low and humbled. It could be that we believe the here and now and not the future, that our hearts are never satisfied, that we are driven by lust and fear. There are processes and separations being used by the Lord to make us what we will one day be. It is easier though for us to think that we are now what we will be. Such are our presumptuous sins. Such is the shame of what this life should have been.
The poor and the needy are a constant theme in our reading. There are a great many reasons one might be poor and needy or fatherless and afflicted. I have known people that I have tried to help that even with my extra resources that just don't know any other way. In some respects it seems as if this exhortation is more about working to keep the wicked off their backs. By accepting the persons of the wicked, by not realizing who they are and what they are doing and calling them out we are dealing unjustly with poor and needy. An entire and large sub economy is built around serving the poor either as false recipients or providers that have little to do with actually helping the poor. The system grows exponentially but the truly needy are ill served. Our good intentions are used by the wicked to serve their darker purposes.
Even in that day there was a substantial and unified conspiracy against the presence of Israel. On one level it appears to be political but, from this author's vantage point it appears to be a spiritual warfare. Given that the promised Messiah was to come from Judah, given that all nations would one day worship in a New Jerusalem, given that God's name would dwell in Zion, given that all nations would blessed that bless Israel, the Devil I am sure makes it his object to tear at Israel. After nearly two thousand years of dispersed absence we are back to the same thing. It takes on political consequence but, have no doubt that it is spiritual in nature.
It is often calculated that a compassionate God is not a God of judgement. Here we see a soul longing/fainting for the courts of the Lord. What is it that makes His courts desirable? Judgement is what is most needed in order for true compassion to stand out and take hold. It is because judgement is missing that our position is as it is. We have delegated judgment to ourselves but fail to pursue it. We do what is right in our own eyes and the world becomes a hateful desperate place because of it. Better is a day in His courts than a thousand with the wicked indeed!
Judgment/Compassion. Have you ever worked for a company that was failing miserably? The employees/customers were pulling it apart at the seems? When a new manager comes in the first thing for him/her to do is to right the ship, and to do this he/she must pronounce judgment. The judgment is even handed; "it is my way or the highway". As hard as these transformations are, I cannot tell you the relief these judgments have especially to the loyal and invested and badly abused workers. To see a company go from a delinquent detention center to a fully functioning productive enterprise is perhaps the best compassion available. This is more like God's judgments; they are only harsh to those who deserve them.
I wonder how much of the anger of God read about here is His anger and how much is either our sense of shame or rebelliousness. We often transfer the blame or misinterpret the real situation; which may make Him all the more angry. We have to be careful not to present ourselves as being ready for being turned if only God were not still so mad. If God is angry there will be good cause. If He is still distant then perhaps we are not fully ready to be turned and revived. With God, mercy and truth are always met together, it is never a point that we wish He would return to.
An interesting thought here that the heart would be in need of being united as if scattered or dispersed. It is fairly evident in the case of a corporate body like a congregation that the collective hearts are prone to this. It very well could be the case in the individual as well. To be united to fear His name might imply that the opposite of this fear may be caused by the scattered heart. God is highly praised in this in that He works towards the obedient man and against the those violent who have not set "Thee" before them.
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Addressing Missing Job Qualifications During an Interview
During interviews, there will be times when you're missing job qualifications listed in the job description. Meeting all job qualifications through your work and education history doesn't always pan out, but there are ways to address this situation.
Suppose you anticipate connecting the dots and come up a requirement or two short. What not to do is stand there looking as though you came to the wrong address, shake your head, and admit “I don’t have experience in the hotel field” and shut up.
When you lack a specified qualification in the job description, give a compensatory response that offers a substitute qualification. Compensatory responding works often enough to make the effort.
In the above example of lack of experience in the hotel field, after you say “I don’t have experience in the hotel field,” add a compensatory response such as this:
But I do have experience in the restaurant field, and I know a good deal that is common to both of these related hospitality industries. Both fields need employees who are experienced in providing attentive customer services, careful accounting and financial processes, and quality materials supplies. Do you agree that my experience is relevant to the requirements of this position?
Another example of a compensatory response is in education. Suppose the job requires a bachelor’s degree in business administration with an emphasis on marketing, which you don't have. Don’t automatically raise the issue, but if it comes up, explain that you have the equivalent qualification by virtue of alternate education, such as a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and/or experience, such as campus marketing experience promoting school events.
There will be times when despite diligent research and planning, you just can’t come up with a good compensatory response. What can you say on the spot to plug the hole in your history? When you’re up against a rigid requirement that you absolutely can’t meet and that you’re pretty sure is going to mean curtains for you in the interview, try this last-ditch compensatory response:
Let’s say that you were to make me an offer and I accept, what can I do when I start to further compensate for my lack of [requirement] as I work hard to relieve your immediate workload?
Essentially, you’re playing the likeability card. You’re asking the employer to revert to the philosophy of hiring for attitude and training for skill. You’re using the likeability qualification to plug your requirement gap, which may just get you the job you're seeking. | <urn:uuid:b7e73d8a-2e06-4eb8-b313-6fe4aa1ccac6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/addressing-missing-job-qualifications-during-an-i0.navId-397856.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954167 | 543 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Ruth Meiers Hospitality House opened its doors in 1987. Our home is named after North Dakota’s former lieutenant governor, Ruth Meiers, and rooted in her belief that each individual is unique with value and talents deserving respect and appreciation.
We serve those in our community who are at risk or in need. These men, women and children go without proper food, shelter and essential medical care on a daily basis due to a variety of factors including: mental illness, physical disability, addictions, domestic violence, family break-up and health problems.
Ruth Meiers has grown over the years from the first house that could house seven people to the current programs that can house 68 people.
As a homeless shelter, the agency operates a number of different properties:
•Single Women and Women with Children Emergency Shelter can house 30 women and children and allows residents with children to stay 90 days and residents without children 30 days. Residents are assisted in job search, accessing permanent housing, and referrals to other services in the community. Our staff also provides case management, health care and educational services to residents.
•Men’s Emergency Shelter contains 18 beds, and allows residents to stay 30 days. Residents are assisted in job search, accessing permanent housing, and referrals to other services in the community. Our staff also provides case management, health care and educational services to residents.
•New Beginnings is a seven-unit transitional housing program that allows residents up to a 2-year stay before moving into permanent housing.
•HORIZONS provides, permanent housing to 25 individuals in a single room occupancy apartment complex.
Supplemental to the shelter services are a number of supportive services provided by Ruth Meiers Hospitality House:
•Stone Soup Kitchen provides a free noon meal to an average of 40 homeless and low-income people four days a week.
•Single Point of Entry: Ruth Meiers Hospitality House is the 24/7 single point of entry for the Bismarck/Mandan community. Homeless people or those at risk of becoming homeless are referred to the Single Point of Entry rather then being referred to a number of different agencies. Staff work with law enforcement officials, emergency housing providers, churches and other helping agencies to proactively move people off the streets and into housing.
•Supportive Housing serves chronically homeless individuals, providing them with case management support and assistance with placement within affordable housing.
•Food Pantry distributes five to eight thousand pounds of food monthly to individuals and families in need.
•Joanne’s Healthcare for the homeless clinic provides primary and preventative healthcare to iresidents in our homeless shelters who are uninsured or underinsured.
•Drop-In Center provides help to people who do not want to be sheltered and provides a safe place for them to get off the streets at night. Men and women over the age of 18 can come and have a hot meal, wash-up etc. The hours of operation are Sun –Thurs from 12:00AM-5:00AM and Sat – 1:00AM-6:00AM.
•Baby Boutique provides education to low-income expectant mothers on how to prevent birth defects and premature births, encourages pregnant women to get early and continuing prenatal care, educates expectant mothers on how to provide quality care to their babies, provides free CPR and first aid classes to mothers and encourages mothers to have their babies immunized. Expectant mothers earn incentives through working with other community programs that can be used to obtain items from The Baby Boutique. Mothers can stay in the program until their child reaches the age of two.
•Used Furniture Barn provides furniture to residents moving out of the shelter and into their own housing.
Ruth Meiers Hospitality House is very well known in the community. The agency could not survive without the dedicated support of community volunteers who work in the Soup Kitchen, put on food drives to keep the pantry shelves stocked and help us with our many fundraising events. | <urn:uuid:0ce6a9d2-b964-4447-92bd-bcf1c3795d21> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.impactgiveback.org/nonprofit_profile?id=a0EA0000005Wq6PMAS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955571 | 814 | 1.617188 | 2 |
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I must begin by saying where the recipe originated, if in fact it originated anywhere...really. I think bread has been baked for centuries using flour, salt, water, and yeast or other form of leavening.
Now I don't want to over sell this, so I'm going to be conservative and simply say, that these are... The Best Brownies In The WORLD.
Mmm. The Best Chocolate Desserts ! I honestly believe that chocolate is the closest we can get to heaven as mortals. Seriously. Is there anything better than chocolate to make you feel all wonderful and gooey inside?
Oh my gosh you guys. I cannot even begin to tell you how IN LOVE I am with these AMAZING pretzels!! Oh. My. Word.
Jun 29 Not to sound full of myself, but I’m pretty sure this is the be all, end all of popsicle roundups. There’s a little something for everyone: the foodies, the purists, the ones who prefer frozen yogurt, the ones who prefer a little alcohol, everyone. Tweny-five options to be exact.
More Infographics on Good <a href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/N6709/jump/Transparency/;article=submissions-design-the-new-food-pyramid;tag=projects,health,design,food,vegetables,fruits,food-pyramid,calories,carbohydrates,healthy-eating,protein,marion-nestle;pos=baseboard;tile=1;sz=728x90;ord=123456789?" target="_blank"><img src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/N6709/ad/Transparency/;article=submissions-design-the-new-food-pyramid;tag=projects,health,design,food,vegetables,fruits,food-pyramid,calories,carbohydrates,healthy-eating,protein,marion-nestle;pos=baseboard;tile=1;sz=728x90;ord=123456789?" /></a> <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>
Mozzarella sticks are a delicious treat, probably one of the most popular appetizers at restaurants, and a fun party food. They tend to be rather fattening, especially considering they are usually fried, but they are so irresistibly tasty.
Breakfast is my favorite meal.
441K+ A dd bacon to anything and it will fly off the table. That’s what a caterer once told me and I believe it. Certainly applies here. Whether you’re planning a cookout this weekend or cooking indoors (rain predicted here in Texas), grill up a few of these sizzling treats for a quick appetizer or serve as an entree. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the Fourth of July than with a big plate of these spicy and cheesy , smoky and crispy chicken nuggets .
I’m sorry for doing this to you. I really am. But see, last Friday while I was on a 10-hour road trip heading for vacation, I received this recipe from a reader named Liz. Liz, I love you. That’s all I have to say. I was tortured by this recipe for a full 8 days before I could make it.
Have you ever tried crack? Yeah, me either. After eating these brownies, though, I feel like I would probably be less addicted to crack. I mean, how can that not be the case with brownies, peanuts, marshmallows, Reese's peanut butter cups, chocolate, peanut butter and Rice Krispies all present in a single bite?!
Posted on Friday, 8th July 2011 by Grace Massa Langlois When I finally decided on Lemon Meringue Tarts for the holiday weekend I knew I would have to offer another choice because not everyone in my family is a fan of citrus desserts. It didn’t take me too long to decide on the other option because everyone in my family loves chocolate. I decided immediately to pair the chocolate with luscious caramel.
Share This Post: This recipe is so simple, so gorgeous, and so ungodly delicious that I simply couldn’t keep it from you guys. I’ve been making it since forever . I know most of you are like myself and neither own nor have any plans to purchase an ice-cream maker. What’s the point if you dust it off once every few years out of guilt? Nah, for this recipe all you need is a little elbow grease (or for my fellow lazy-asses, a stand mixer).
There is just something about a s’more that brings out the kid in me. The toasted marshmallow, the melted chocolate, the crunch of the graham cracker. You put them together and it’s bliss. We love them so much, we eat them year round, we’ve even grilled marshmallows in our wood burning fireplace, over our gas stove, and made them in the microwave in a pinch. So naturally a s’mores pie would be the next logical step ; ) And it couldnt’ be easier. I started with making the graham cracker crust and baking it until golden.
Now, I have a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I swear by. I love it, I think it is incredible, and I haven’t changed my mind about that. However, as much as it pains me to say it, these chocolate chip cookies by Jacques Torres are absolutely, without a doubt, the best chocolate chip cookies that I have ever made or tasted in my entire life. I guess that’s why they call him Mr. | <urn:uuid:1ff3167d-105e-45a7-b019-4bad198d94ef> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pearltrees.com/litle_fire/m-recipes/id4817258 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933658 | 1,239 | 1.664063 | 2 |
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